Matthew 14, as you know, God's
Word was not written in chapters and verses. They were added by
the translators for ease of reference and memory. So let's go back. Verse 1 says, At that time Herod
heard of the fame of Jesus. Before that, Wednesday night,
we looked in chapter 13 how our Lord came to Nazareth. Verse 57 says they were offended
in Him. It was not His works that offended
them, feeding them and healing them even, nor are men offended
by that today. They are all in favor of a Jesus
who helped them out. They were offended in Him. They
were offended in His claims, His person, His sovereignty,
His Word. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me. And that offended them. He denounced
them. He denounced their religion,
their hypocrisy. He exposed them. Our Lord said,
If I had not come, now that I've come, He said, you have no covering
for your sin, self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Everything our
Lord said was absolute truth. Everything out of His mouth was
the truth. And men don't want the truth.
Natural man hates the truth. Isaiah 59 says, None pleadeth
for truth. None calleth for justice. It's the same today. Many claim
to love and admire and believe Jesus, but they don't believe
He is God. They don't believe what He said,
that it is absolute truth. In fact, they don't even say
what He said. They leave off most of what He
said and only tell what they like. Nothing has changed. So that's why it says, at that
time. At that time, as men were hating
him and they were running him out or wanting him to leave. They couldn't run him out, could
they? Wanting him to leave Nazareth.
At that time, Herod was persecuting and killing another prophet,
John. This story is about the death
of John the Baptist. It's a horrible story. It's a
sad story. But it's a wonderful story. Many emotions went through looking
at this. Horror. As I said, sadness. A little bit of confusion. Why? Conviction. Being ashamed of
my cowardice when a man like John would stand up bold Barnard
one time preached a message entitled, Preaching That Will Get Your
Head Cut Off. He wasn't trying to be clever. It was just true. That if you state the truth,
and our Lord said that. Our Lord said, they hated me.
He said, and they'll hate you if you just say what I said. If you stand up for the truth,
me, my sovereign rights and claim, God's right to be God. His Word,
His absolute dogma or Word or truth. You will be hated too.
He said, don't marvel if they hate you. Service not above his
Lord. If they hated me, they'll hate
you. Herod was a Roman ruler, and he probably became ruler
by corrupt means. He probably became ruler by money,
by influence, by bribery. In corrupt times, at this time,
the world was so corrupt. Israel was corrupt. Religion
was corrupt. That's why the world was corrupt.
That's why Israel was corrupt, because religion was corrupt.
The Roman government was corrupt from top to bottom. In corrupt
times, only corrupt men reigned and ruled. Only corrupt men will
be voted into office. And evil and corrupt men are
the judgment of God upon the corrupt society. Evil and corrupt
men are the judgment of God upon a corrupt society. And as I said,
this corruption begins in the pulpit in religion. That's where
it begins. If there are no men preaching
an absolute, holy and sovereign and just God, there is no fear
of God. And then so anything goes. And
the last verse in Judges says, Because there was no king in
Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. So if there is no sovereign God
being proclaimed, this is what society will come to. That's
what it will come to. There's no holy God, there are
no holy laws, no holy word. We call this, well, it is the
holy Bible, the holy word of God. But if there's no holy God,
then there is no really holy Bible, no holy word. If there's
no God, there's no judge, there's no right, there's no wrong, anything
good. Does that sound like today? Nothing
has changed. And it's that way in America
today and in the world today. Herod was a cowardly man, a weak
man. He was full of superstition and
so forth. He feared the people. He feared
John. He feared his wife. He feared
everyone. It's easy to sound bold and courageous
when you're standing up in front of those who admire you. But
he secretly feared everyone. Two, he said unto his servant,
This is John the Baptist. When he heard of our Lord, he
said, This is John the Baptist risen from the dead, and therefore
mighty works do show forth themselves in him. Now, he's just talking
because if he really believed it was John risen from the dead,
it would have struck fear in him, wouldn't it? Because he had him put to death.
And this underscores what our Lord said. And in the parable
or the story of the rich man and Lazarus who said, Go warn
my brothers. Our Lord said, They have Moses
and the prophets. And the rich man said, No, but
if one rose from the dead, they'd believe that. They won't believe that one rose
from the dead. And Herod didn't. He didn't. So here's what happened. In verse 4, Well, verse 3, Herod
had laid hold on John and bound him and put him in prison for
Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. Evidently, his brother
Philip divorced Herodias, and then Herod took her as his wife,
which is expressly forbidden in Scripture. So John spoke out. John spoke up against it. It's
not the only thing he spoke against, though. to Herod's face. In Luke's gospel it says, John
reproved Herod for the adulterous relationship and for all the
evils which Herod had done. So John stood in the face of
this king who had, as it were, his life in his hands. But he
wasn't afraid. John wasn't afraid. Like Moses
who feared not the wrath of Pharaoh. Remember, Moses went in before
Pharaoh and said, Thus saith the Lord, let my people go. Remember
that? Well, John stood up and spoke
against all the evils that this corrupt man had been doing in
his country amongst his people whom he loved. and the truth
of which he loved and defended. Now, this gave me some comfort
in regards to a verse of Scripture that has bothered me, and it
should. There's a verse of Scripture
in Exodus 22, but Paul quoted this verse in Acts 23 when he
stood before the Jewish leaders and the high priest and all.
And remember, Paul was preaching boldly, and the high priest said something,
and Paul called him a whited wall. Remember that? He said,
you whited wall? God was going to strike you down. And somebody slapped Paul. Struck
him. And they said, Do you revile
the high priest? And Paul said, No, I didn't know. He said, I didn't know he was
a high priest. You see, because Scripture says, Thou shalt not
speak evil of the ruler of thy people. That's what Scripture said. And
Scripture even tells us to pray for. Paul wrote to young Timothy
and said, Pray for. Kings for all in authority, for
God will have all men to be saved, all types of men, high and low. Kings. God saves kings. Thank God. Manasseh wasn't a saved man,
but the story of Manasseh has it that in the end, the Lord
convicted him somewhat And he repented and turned from a great
deal of his evil. God can do that. That's what
we need to pray for him. Not that God will kill an evil
man, but God will save him. Imagine the good that would come
if the Lord would save our president or our congressman. But the Lord dealt with Manasseh,
Saul of Tarsus, I thought of him. Saul of Tarsus. Do you reckon
anybody in the church was praying for Saul of Tarsus? Huh? He was persecuting them. He stood
there when Stephen was killed, and it says he breathed threatenings
and slaughters and wrought havoc in the church. He was hailing
men and women to prison. Do you reckon there's anybody
praying for Saul of Tarsus? Lord, save him. Have mercy upon
him. I just feel sure they were praying, Lord, would you kill
this man? David in Psalm 94 said, Lord, how long? How long? It's
time to do something. Show yourself. But maybe somebody was, maybe
Barnabas, maybe Simon Peter, maybe James, John, maybe these
fellows were praying for Saul of Tarsus. What happened? The
best thing that could have possibly happened, Lord saved Saul. Their
chief enemy, their worst enemy. The man wreaking havoc, now he's
going to be the means of saving many. The one who was the means
of having many killed and put in prison is now going to be
the means of getting them out of prison. What mercy, what grace. So that
convicted me. And we're not supposed to speak
evil of our ruler, that is, not wish him evil, wish evil upon
him, or speak in an evil way about him, say things that are
untrue. But this does not keep us from
speaking out and up against corruption. This should not keep us from
saying that this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. Like John. Someone needs to.
Someone needs to reprove and rebuke today. And part of our
problem here, and I jotted these things down just a few minutes
ago, we have trouble speaking out against sin because of our
own feelings of sin. Because we feel like such hypocrites. We are hesitant to say, no, this
is wrong. Why? Because we've got a problem
with that. But it shouldn't stop us from saying, God says this
is wrong. This is sin. I'm a sinner. You're
a sinner. But God says, repent. We feel so inadequate. We feel
so helpless. And we're afraid of people. We're
afraid of men. This is easy. What I'm doing
right here, that is not taking God's Word and preaching
it. That's not easy. Standing up in front of people
who love me and believe what I'm saying. I'm not facing an
enemy. I'm facing friends. But now to
get out there in the world and face people that hate what you're
saying, that's hard. It's easy to wax bold and courageous
in the face in front of people that love and believe what you're
saying. To go out there in the face of someone and stand to
lose a great deal by saying what you're going to say, that's where
you need courage. And I'm ashamed. Isaac Watts wrote this hymn. We're going to sing it today. Shall we lie on flowery beds
of ease while others fought to win the prize and sailed through
bloody seas? So while this is greatly convicting,
though, it's comforting to me. It's comforting. You're going
to see this. It's greatly comforting. It should give us courage, too.
It should give us courage. Herodias plotted John's death.
Listen to the wickedness that goes on. This sort of thing,
all of this goes on in a wholesale manner right now. She plotted
John's death and she had her daughter, her own daughter, dance
provocatively in front of Herod. And for all these people to accomplish
her corrupt plotting or plan, Imagine that. Sin knows no bounds,
doesn't it? And our society has come to the
point where it's amoral. It's going beyond the bounds
of morality. There is none. Anything else. This is very common in this present
evil world. John has been put in prison,
and Herodias, had her daughter dance before
her husband in such a way that he was just smitten and just
said, I'll give you the half of my kingdom, anything you ask.
See what a weak man he was. And she said, Herodias' daughter,
from her mother's suggestion or request, she said, I want
the head of John the Baptist. I want you to cut his head off
and bring it to me on a plate. So then in verse 10, Herod sent
an executioner down, went in to John, and went in and got
him out and took him out. Bound his hands behind his back
and laid his head on a block and took a sword and chopped
his head off. Now this really happened. We
lose sight of this. These things just don't affect
us. We just unmoved. It's a story. John, people portray John as
a wild man with a beard, you know, standing and screaming
and yelling. Oh, no, no. John had the Holy Spirit from
his mother's womb. John is a meek man, though bold. You can be meek and still be
bold. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness
is submission to God's will, submission to God's Word. It's
not weakness at all. Weakness is not weakness. John
was bold as a lion, but the harmless is done. John is a truthful man,
true, and a man of integrity and honesty. You can believe
what he said. An unworldly man, not materialistic. It's obvious
he's not in this ministry for the money. He didn't have anything.
He didn't want anything. He refused everything. He's not
in it for his name, is he? He won't even tell them his name.
He's not interested in his honor and glory. He's interested in
telling the truth. You can believe this man. John was a merciful
man. To have the Holy Spirit is to
have the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, gentleness, goodness,
meekness, faith, temperance, and all these things. John is
a sweet man. John is a kind man. John is a
loving man. John is a good man. John is like
his Lord. And we have men like John. There
was a John just here, wasn't there? A fine man, a sweet man,
a meek man, a gentle man, a Christ-like man, an old man. Now, this really
happened. Just try to imagine, people,
that if that was John Chapman. Just try to imagine us today. We're here, we meet here, and
we hear that the authorities went in. And this happened all
the time. This happened from the very beginning
on up to a few hundred years ago. And we have lived in just comfort
and ease and safety. Thank the Lord. Thank God He
sheltered us. But thank the Lord His head is
just about. I'm thankful for that. That's all the more reason
for us to be more courageous than we are. We don't have anything
to fear. We don't fear getting our heads
cut off. I'm talking to myself here. This was both convicting
and yet encouraging to me and comforting to me. You'll get
the comfort here in a minute, OK? But imagine this happening. If Marvin, we love him. Is there
a sweeter man, is there a dearer man to us than Marvin? The man's
telling the truth, isn't it? If they came and got him, Marvin,
Todd, or Greg, and took him, and cut his head off. Are you with me? That's the most
horrible thing you can imagine. How gruesome. What brutality,
huh? How can this happen? Why would the Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who made the earth, who had everything in His hands,
is over somewhere else allowing this to happen? Why would He
let this happen? Huh? In this way, such brutality,
desecrate His body. Why? How can anything good come
out of this? I won't tell you, okay? The Lord's
ways are not our ways. Who did this? Who did this? Herodias? Herod? This is awful. This is the worst
thing that could have happened, isn't it? No, it's not. Something far worse, seemingly,
happened. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
They took him and brutally tortured him and hung his precious, sinless
body on a tree and scoffed at him and spit on him and plucked
his beard and punched him in the face. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the beautiful, altogether lovely Son of God. Why? Who did this? God did this. God did this. You believe that? If you don't,
you don't have any peace. You don't have any hope. We better
run to the hills. No, what we'll do is lift up
our eyes unto the hills from which cometh our help. God took
John's life, and it happened exactly the way the Lord purposed
it to happen. Are you hearing me? God says, I kill and I make a
light. He in another place said, men
are my sword. Men are my sword. The Philistines
and all the enemies of Israel, God sent them. They were God's
sword. Herod was the king's heart is in the hands of the Lord as
the rivers of water, he turneth it with us whoever he will. What
makes the world mad, and what confuses the world, and what
the world does not believe because they can't understand it? How
can God, whom they think is all love, nothing but love, how can
God, who is nothing but love, allow things like this to happen?
Babies die, and horrible things die. And so they reject the God
like that, the sovereign God. Don't they? The God who reigns and rules
over everything, even evil. The God who had made all things
for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil, that's the
God of the Bible. That's the God who is God. That's
my God. That's your God. That's my God.
And that is my hope, my peace, my comfort, is that no matter
what happens, God did it. I don't understand it. I wouldn't
have done it that way. I didn't want that to happen,
but it wouldn't have happened had not God purposed it. Whatever
it is, no matter how awful it may be. They took his head. Listen to it. They took his head.
They did not take his soul. They took his head, they severed
his head from his body, but they cannot sever the body of Christ
from him who is our head. You hear me? Cannot! Our Lord
said, don't fear them that kill the body, and after that, there's
no more that they can do. Fear Him, who after He killed
the body, cast body and soul into hell. Who did this? God
did this. And they took John's head, but
they didn't take his soul. That's the worst thing that can
happen. They took his physical life,
but you know what they did by taking his physical life? They
ushered him into eternal life. We fear death, don't we? Why? To be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord. We were talking about your death
the other day. He was lying in bed, hoping,
wishing, wanting it to come. And we were talking about it,
and later on we were talking about it some more, and he said,
isn't it wonderful that you can talk about death without dread,
without fear, as if it's something you look forward to. Yes! Who
can do that? Only God's people. They took his physical life,
but by doing so, they ushered him into eternal life. God gave
him eternal life before this, and he said, you'll never die.
You'll never die. Whatever happens to you, whatever
happens to you, whatever happens to you, your children, your home,
your family, whatever it is, God says, I did it. Take courage. What are you afraid of? Who are
you afraid of? I'm talking to myself. I'm talking to myself. No matter how traumatic the death
may be, listen to this. No matter how traumatic the death
may be, we may go through something traumatic, an illness, a severe
illness. We've watched our brethren and
sisters suffer greatly, and it tears our hearts out right now. God knows. He did it. He's not going to inflict more
on us than we're able to bear. He promised that. But here's
the fact of the matter. No matter how traumatic our death
is, our entrance into life is going to be abundant grace. No matter how terrible that death
may be. You think John was somewhat fearful
and that man came in with a big sword and grabbed him? Come on,
you're going to die. You think so? He's a man. Of
course he is. Peter, James, all of them, they're
men. You can't help but be afraid
in the face of that. But as traumatic as it was, His
entrance into eternal life, if you could just peel away, peel
away this vapor that separates us. Heaven's erupting! Joy unspeakable, full of glory.
All of heaven is shouting and singing, and John, in one moment
of pain, eternity of... And he's forgotten it all, just
like it didn't happen, it's like a print, like a pinprick, and
there's just... little bit of pain and eternity
of joy. Little bit of suffering, just
a moment of suffering, and then an eternity of happiness and
joy unspeakable, full of glory, an abundant end. That's how good
our God is, you see? You ladies that went through
childbirth, you thought, I'm going to die, I'm going to die. But this is what our Lord said.
As soon as that child, that son is born, you forget it all. Would
you go through it again? Did you go through it again?
Oh, sure you would. Who was it? One of the old Puritans
said, I only regret I could not give my life many lives. In Hebrews 11 are written these
stories of horrible, torturous deaths suffered by so many. John is not alone. He has a great
cloud of witnesses. It says things like this, they
stopped the mouths of lions. Can you imagine throwing one
of our brethren in a den of lions, lions, hungry lions, throwing
him down in a fiery furnace? Oh, my. It says they escaped
the edge of the sword or some were tortured, women even, tortured,
not accepting deliverance to obtain a better resurrection.
Others had trial of cruel mockings. and scourging, beating bonds
and impressed stone, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with a sword,
wandering about. Oh, my. They're not wandering
now. They're not tortured now. There's
not any pain. They don't have any tears. They
don't have any sorrow. They don't have any fears. My,
my. God did this. God does these
things to show that His grace is sufficient. It is sufficient. Now, you know, these things are
more difficult on those that are left behind. John's disciples
were distraught. Our Lord's disciples were distraught. They came to Him and told Him
what had happened. But they were distraught, they
were upset, and these things that happened to our loved ones,
they're more difficult on us even. The Lord gives His people,
His beloved, sleep. The end of that man is peace,
rest. We've seen them go through, our
loved ones go through suffering, and we've marked the grace of
our Lord, haven't we? We've seen His grace is sufficient. And it's sufficient for us, those
that are left behind. And what they did to obtain this
grace in time of need? They came to the Lord. Look at
it. Verse 12. The disciples came and took up
the body and buried it and went and told Jesus. We sing an old
song. Take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there. They went and told Him. That's
why trouble is good for us. We'll go to the Lord. Go to Him. Oh, my. Seek answers. Seek help. Seek peace. Seek comfort. Seek courage to find grace to
help in this terrible time of need. Oh, Lord, why did you?
Do you reckon they were asking, Lord, why did you let this happen?
You could have stopped it. That's what Mary said, Lord,
if you'd been here, my brother hadn't died. Well, he waited
on purpose that Lazarus would die. He was there. He's everywhere. But she didn't
understand. And we don't either. But we will. Soon enough. We will. We will. And then we're going
to... We're not going to berate ourselves,
but if we could, we would. Why was I so unbelieving? Why was I so worried? Why was
I so fearful? Why did I not trust Him? Why
was I so afraid? Why? We don't have to believe
our God. We don't have to trust our God. Look at this. This is wonderful.
God's grace is sufficient under the worst ordeal we could possibly
suffer. The disciples came, took up the
body, and what did they do? What did they do? They didn't
quit. They didn't say, well, God wouldn't let this happen,
so I don't believe a God like that. I'm leaving. I'm out of
here. They didn't say that. They didn't
say, there just is no God. If something like this could
happen, there is no God. I'm through with this religion.
What'd they do? They came to the Lord. They came to the Lord. In the
face of their greatest terror and grief and sorrow, they came
to Him. We don't understand. And we're
hurt bad. And we're scared. The Lord helped
us. And He did. And I'll tell you
why. I'll tell you why this happened.
John's course was finished. It's over. It's finished. He's the forerunner of Christ.
We don't need him anymore. It's over. It didn't really matter
how he died. It's over. His life's finished. Now eternally he's entered into
his rest forever. And John's death brought great
things. in a much smaller way than our
Lord Himself. But John's death brought great
courage and resolve to others who would later be called to
suffer the same things. Every single one of the apostles
was martyred in a horrible way. I've got a book downstairs that
tells how they were killed. Horrible. Horrible. Except John
the Apostle. They were all going to go through
these, going to suffer. Terrible. So don't you know they
took courage from this? They remember. Or Stephen being
stoned, don't you know they took courage? Can you imagine that? Watching your brother having
his brains beaten out with rock? Can you imagine that? And they
watched this. Well, they took courage. They
saw Stephen. They said, Stephen, And Stephen
stood up and said, I see Him standing at the right hand of
God. And Stephen, while he's dying, bloody and beaten, laying
on the ground, he said, Father, lay not this sin on Your charge.
And he fell asleep. He didn't die screaming. He fell
asleep. And all the brethren saw this.
And later when they're called to do this, when they're called, And I thought about this. I really
did. I thought, Lord, I'd like to die like this. I would. I've been such a coward
and denied Him for so long. Let me die like this. Let it
come to that point. I know it's easy for me to stand
up and say this right now. But it may come to the point
of some great persecution in our society. Let me die like
this. Wouldn't that be wonderful? In
your dying breath, stand up and boldly proclaim you are God.
Except for my family. Except for my family. My daughter
and wife watching this happen. Tough on them. Terrible for them. Boy, I'd like to do that. Maybe be called on to it. Thank God He reigns. Thank God for His Word that convicts
us. We needn't be convicted. His
Word that reproves, rebukes, corrects. His Word that comforts
us. His Word that encourages us, emboldens us. His Word, His
grace, is sufficient to bring us through the toughest, most
terrible thing that can happen. Thank God for his truth.