If you'll turn with me now to
Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6, beginning with
verse 14. And King Herod heard of Him,
that is, Jesus of Nazareth, for His name was spread abroad. And
he said that John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and
therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in this man
called Jesus, in him. Others said it is Elias, Elijah. And others said he's a prophet, the prophet of whom Moses spoke
of, or a prophet. But when Herod heard thereof,
he said, it's John. He heard about the miracles.
He heard about this man's fame spreading abroad, the healing
of the sick, and all these things. And he said, this is John. This
is John, whom I beheaded. He is risen from the dead. For Herod himself had sent forth
and laid hold upon John and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake,
his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her. For John
had said unto Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's
wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel
against him and would have killed him, but she could not. She didn't
have the authority to do it. For Herod feared John, knowing
that he was a just man and holy, and observed him. And when he
heard him, he did many things and heard him gladly. When a convenient day was come,
that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords and high
captains and chief estates of Galilee, When the daughter of
said Herodias came in and danced and pleased Herod and them that
sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, ask what you will of me, whatsoever
thou wilt, and I'll give it to you. And he sware unto her, whatsoever
thou shalt ask of me, I'll give it thee unto half of my kingdom. And she went forth and said unto
her mother, what shall I ask? And she said, the head of John
the Baptist. And she came in straightway with
haste unto the king and asked, saying, I will that thou give
me by and by on a charger the head of John the Baptist. And
the king was exceeding sorry. Yet for his oath's sake and for
their sakes, which sat with him, he would not reject her. And
immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded his
head to be brought, and went and beheaded him in the prison,
and brought his head on a charger, and gave it to the damsel, and
the damsel gave it to her mother. Now our lesson here this morning
in Mark chapter 6 and these verses I just read is the account of
a very influential man who heard and liked and often listened
to one of God's most faithful servants. Our Lord said of John,
of all those born of woman, there's none greater than John the Baptist. None greater than him. This man
who Listen to John Herod. He was a king. He held the highest station in
the land. He was the king. He was powerful. He was influential. He was a
public figure. But King Herod, on a certain
day, it was his birthday. Now John had already been thrown
into prison. For whatever reason, Herod had
asked him to come and speak. He did that often, that's what
our text says. And our text is looking back
on the things that had already happened. And they had invited
him at some point to come and preach at their court, to which
John the Baptist agreed. And when he came in, he saw Herod
sitting with his brother's wife Herodias, and of course, No doubt
that was the talk. It'd just be like if our president
came in one day and had his brother's wife with him and called her
his wife. Might not say anything to him,
but they gonna tell it everywhere, you know. And so when John the
Baptist came in and saw her, he said to Herod in front of
his court, embarrassed him raw. Said, it's not lawful for you
to have your brother's wife. And he had to do something. A
king can't be slandered in his own court, so he put John in
prison. But in Herod's mind, I can read
through this text and see that at some point in Herod's mind,
he was gonna release John. He wanted John to suffer for
what he'd said, for his wife's sake, and for his court's sake,
and for his name's sake. He was gonna let him suffer a
little bit in prison, but down the road somewhere, he was gonna
let him go, because he liked John. John wasn't like those
hypocrites. John was straightforward. John
told the truth. John could take the Bible and
make it connect, and the rest of them were just spitballing
about stuff. And so in the back of Herod's
mind, this is a done deal. He done figured it out. I'm gonna
wait a little while when things calm down and everybody's temper
comes back down and everything, I'm gonna let old John go. Let him get back out here and
start ministering again. And so his birthday rolled around. And so he decides he's gonna
throw a big party for all the bigwigs. And everybody that was
anybody was invited. Governors and captains and high
officials, they were all there. And at this birthday party, this
palace was filled with people. These were dignitaries, especially
sitting around his table. These were dignitaries. These
were governors. his admirals and captains and very influential
people. And everybody was having a great
time. The feast had been prepared. There's lots of drinking and
lots of entertainment going on. And they were having what my
friends used to tell me was just harmless fun. It's just harmless
fun. It's a birthday party. Drink
up. Just harmless fun. And then his wife Herodias, she
knew that John had a weak, or that Herod had a weakness for
women. That's why he had his brother's
wife. Most men do, but they won't admit
it. So during the festivities, this
Herodias hated John. She swore to kill him. She'd
have killed him instantly when he said what he said, but she
didn't have the power and authority to do it. But she's still thinking
about it. She's still planning to do it.
And when this time comes up and everybody's kind of let down
their guard and they're out here having harmless fun, She puts a plan into action. She has her daughter come, and
I'm putting this as mildly as I know how to put it, had her
do a very sensual dance. I ain't gonna guard it. She did
a striptease dance around his table. That's exactly what she
did. And what the When the king's
passions began to get hot and all the people around the table
and they began to look at what this young maiden was doing and
they were all commenting about it, commenting how pretty she
was and what a great dancer she was and what she had done was
just unlike anything they'd ever seen. And old Herod, he caught
up in the moment. Now they didn't go in there and
sip a little wine. This was a birthday party. They
was all pretty much, what do you say, two sheets in
the wind. They'd all had a little too much.
And Herod, he's going to outdo the rest of these captains and
admirals and all this kind of stuff. And he said, I'm the king. He said, you ask of me, honey,
whatever you will, and I'll give it to you up to half my kingdom.
He made a drunken boast, which is exactly what Herodias knew
he would do. And the daughter came over and
said, what do I ask? She said, the head of John the
Baptist. So here was a party, and it started
out as harmless fun, but when it ended up, The head of one
of God's most faithful preachers was on a charger in the lap of
this young maiden. Now I have five things I want
you to see in this confrontation of the king. And all of these
things concerning the conscience of men. Now that's what this
whole story is about. It's about Herod's conscience. And the first thing I want you
to take note of is a very plain display of humanity. This is humanity. God allows
our old nature to be viewed from time to time more so than it
is when it's guarded against. And this is what I want you to
see, what any one man or woman can do. You can do. I can do. Anybody can do. Because we all have the same
nature. Man is depraved. What's that
mean? He's depraved. It means that
there's none righteous, There's none good. There's none
who truly understands, and there's none who are seeking after God. They may talk about seeking after
God, but the Bible says there's none that's doing it. They're
seeking after their God. They're seeking to quiet a guilty
conscience, but they're not seeking after the living God. He's to
pray. Out of the heart of man, Christ
said, proceed evil thoughts, murders. Now, he didn't say the
heart of some men. He said out of the heart of man.
That includes you and I. You don't believe that, but you
can look at David. He was a man after God's own
heart. What'd he do? He plotted the
murder of his best friend. He committed adultery with that
man's wife. He lied about it. This is the
king. Out of the heart of man proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft, false witness,
blasphemies, and on and on and on the list goes. All of these
things, he said, come forth from the heart and they defile the
man. In Ephesians 2, 3, we're told
that before our begatting of God, we were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. And much of man's depravity is
restrained by God through various means, through the means of law. Now, if law didn't forbid murder,
the paper would be full of murder. It would. Every time somebody
got mad, they'd just do like they did in the old west. They'd
walk out in the street, draw the gun, shoot him down. But
it's forbidden by law. So God restrains men from being
as evil as they could be. He restrains men through law.
He restrains men through marriage. He restrains men through providence. He just takes away the opportunity
for it. Say, I just can't believe what
that guy did. You'd have done the same thing
under the same circumstances, and so would I. God just, in
his providence, took away the circumstances. We're also restrained
by society. Society sets down certain moral restrictions,
and they teach that to the children, and the children grow up looking
at it. It's a restraint to it. And men often mistake the restraining
hand of God for personal righteousness. But here's a public display of
at least some of the potential of humanity right here and here. Secondly, we also have here an
example of human conscience. There is in every one of us what
God calls a conscience. Turn with me to Romans chapter
1. The conscience is subject to
our depraved nature, but we have a conscience. And it's still used of God to
warn and convict men of wrongdoing. Here in Romans 1 verse 18 it
said, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and
unrighteousness." And you say, now wait a minute, preacher. That old heathen Hotentot over
in deep as dark as Africa, he don't know anything about the
law of God. He never heard the law of God. He never read the
law of God. So what do you mean he's holding
the truth in unrighteousness? And that's who this chapter one
is talking about, talking about Gentiles. How does he do that? Well, God
showed it to him in his conscience. They hold the truth in unrighteousness,
verse 19, because that which may be known of God is manifest
in them, for God hath showed it unto them." Now, the conscience can't recite
chapter and verse, but it knows that it's wrong to kill. It knows
that it's wrong to commit adultery. It knows it's wrong to steal
and to lie. It knows that. Look over one page over to chapter
2. Now he's talking to the Jew,
but he's gonna refer back to the Gentiles again. And he says
down in verse 14, he said, for when the Gentiles, which have
not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law,
these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which
show the work of God written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness. and their thoughts the meanwhile
accusing or else excusing one another. And that just shows
that the conscience is influenced by our depravity. Because you can sear that conscience,
Paul said, like with a hot iron. You can dream up stuff of your
own invention and soothe that conscience for a little while. God works in the consciences
of men, and sometimes to a great length. Old Herod feared John
the Baptist. Felix trembled as he listened
to Paul preach the gospel, and Agrippa was almost persuaded
to be a disciple of Christ. Now the conscience can be temporarily
quietened, but it can't be purged completely. And if it is purged
completely, it must be purged the same way the law is, by perfect
sacrifice. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. So first we have an example of
depraved humanity, and then secondly, we have here the active conscience
troubling a guilty sinner. And then thirdly, I want you
to see a faithful servant of God. Right in the middle of all
this is John the Baptist. He was a faithful minister of
the gospel. And of all those born of woman,
none were greater than John. And Herod respected him for that.
He respected John because he wasn't like these other hypocrites.
He said, thus saith the Lord. He'd show you chapter and verse
if you needed to see it. He didn't just spitball. He didn't
just throw things out there. He didn't give his theory and
his opinion and first one thing, then another. He'll show you
in the Word of God where it says that. And Herod liked him for
that. John openly and publicly reproved
the king and embarrassed him. Told him it wasn't lawful to
have his brother's wife and was thrown into prison for saying
it. And a faithful servant of Christ must, when necessary,
condemn and openly denounce things to men and women that are overlooked,
tolerated, and sometimes even acceptable by the world. Sometimes we have to publicly
condemn things that we know is a danger to our children, homosexuality,
such things. We condemn those things. We don't
beat around the bush about it. We don't hide it in words of
man's wisdom. And that's what I see in our
day. I see a society leaning toward lesbianism and homosexuality
and adultery and fornication and on and on and on the list
goes. It's becoming more and more acceptable. Just live with a woman for a
while. See if you're going to get along. Down the road somewhere,
you can get married. You reckon God's gonna tolerate
that? No, sir. No, sir. And a faithful servant
of God's gonna tell you that. God's not gonna tolerate that. Paul says in Ephesians 5, 6,
let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things
cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Don't take part in it, that's what Paul's telling them. I know
you're saved by grace. I know your righteousness is
Christ. I know all those things. Now,
but you know this, you know these things here? This is why the
wrath of God coming upon men, and he ain't gonna tolerate it
in you. Be ye not partakers with them. That's what Paul said. Actually, there's a greater evil
than any of those things that I just mentioned, and that's
antichrist religion. It's worse than any of those
things. It's worse than lesbianism. It's worse than homosexuality. It's worse than adultery. Antichrist
religion. And any and all religion that
denies the person and work of Christ as God has testified of
him is anti-Christ. John didn't single old Herod
out. He didn't get a banner and march out on the street uninvited. He was invited into the palace
to preach. You don't want to know the truth?
Don't ask. Once John was invited, he didn't
smooth over what he had to say. He didn't soften his language,
he didn't hide his message with enticing words of man's wisdom.
You can do that, you can preach and hide the truth. You're done,
they don't know what you said, and that's what you wanted them. Preaching while it's designed
to call out God's elect is also a warning and a rebuke and a
reproval. He that believeth not the scripture
said shall be damned. I don't ever want you to think
that When I preach Christ, as clear as I can preach Him, and
you suppress that, and you won't receive that, and you walk out
that door, I don't want you to walk out that door thinking you're
in limbo. You're not in limbo. You're gonna
be held accountable for what you hear and what you do. Well, God's sovereign, that's
exactly why you're accountable. I'm not accountable to people
who have no authority over me, I'm accountable to those who
do. And God is the supreme authority. Listen to this, because they
received not the love of the truth that they might be saved,
he sent them strong delusion to believe a lie and be damned
for believing it. John faithfully rebuked the king
and he was thrown into prison. How often gospel truth causes
the loss of a supporter, maybe even quite a few members of a
church, valued members, out the door. Why? Over the truth. And then fourthly, I see the
sad account of King Herod as an example of God meeting a man
at the point of his rebellion. That's where God, God knows your
point of rebellion. He knows that one thing, that
you're not gonna give up. That one thing that you're not
gonna surrender. He knows it. And whatever that
point is, that's where he's gonna meet you. That's where he's gonna
meet you. Old Naaman, he came over there,
and in his mind, he had all this carryover from his country and
his religion, and what he imagined was when he got there, because
of his station, that God's prophet was going to run out to greet
him and probably have an entourage behind him, and they're going
to have a big celebration, and then he was going to do some
magic, he was going to wave his hands and do some things. That's
what he had in his head. Elijah sent his servant out with
the message. I don't know if you've ever thought
about it, but that's a picture of gospel preachers. We're servants. People want to say, well, God
spoke to me personally. Did he? He said he didn't. Let God be true in every man
a liar. God speaks to his preachers. In this age, he speaks to men
through his preachers. You gonna hear from God, that's
how you gonna hear from him. And he sent his servant out to
tell Naaman what he had to do. He had to go down and dip in
that muddy Jordan. Man, he didn't wanna do it. He
didn't wanna do it. You reckon God would've cleansed
that leper if he didn't go down into Jordan? He done went home
a leper. Well, you don't have to be baptized
in muddy Jordan to be saved. He did. He did. That was his point of rebellion.
And this was Herod's point of rebellion. It was his station. It was his pride. It was all
the people gathered around him. He couldn't lose face. He had
to do what he said he was going to do. And that point of rebellion's
different with every sinner. We had a large family tended
back at the old church for quite a while. Seemed to have an appetite
to hear, at least at the beginning. One day I was talking about free
will works religion being antichrist, and that those who stayed in
it and practiced it, supported it, took part in it, were antichrist. And out the door they went and
never come back. Never came back. That was his
point of rebellion. With Demas, it was the world.
Couldn't give it up. Couldn't give it up. Demas hath forsaken me, Paul
said, having loved this present world. And then fifthly, there's
a practical lesson here for our young men and women. Herod had smoothed things over
in his conscience about John, probably thinking about releasing
him somewhere down the road. But at any rate, he wasn't thinking
about John anymore. This was his birthday. And he
invited everybody to come to it. and really put on the feast,
and no doubt at the king's table sat all his generals and captains
and high estates. But there was something else
brewing. This was just harmless fun to him. He didn't plan on
all this stuff coming to a confrontation. He didn't plan on any of that.
He was having a birthday party, going to eat cake and have the
feast and sing and celebrate, and everybody was going to go
home happy. Harmless fun, that's all it was.
But something else was brewing that he didn't know anything
about. Something was going on that he
wasn't privy to. His wife was setting him up. Many of you young people get
angry with your parents because you want to go to this or that
or something else, and your parents say, no, not this time. It's just a party. Just harmless
fun. Well, let me tell you what your
parents know that you don't know. Something's brewing underneath
that you ain't aware of. You go have that harmless fun,
and the next thing you know, something's happened really bad. So at least give them the benefit
of the doubt and say, they've already been here, and they know
what they're talking about. So I'll submit to you. I'll submit
to you. I don't understand why I can't
go, but I'm gonna submit, because you know more than I do. Boy,
that's hard to do, ain't it? It is when you're a kid. It's
the hardest thing in the world. But you see what would have happened
here if this harmless fun hadn't taken place. There was something
brewing that the king knew nothing about, and it come back to haunt
him. And now he's hearing about Jesus,
And his head don't think anything about Jesus. It's not thinking
about the Lord Jesus Christ or his coming or any of those things.
He takes what he's hearing about this man and he said, John's
risen from the dead. He's coming back, he's coming
back. And I'm gonna be held accountable
for what I've done. May the Lord give you some understanding
of what I said here today, thank you.