We come now to Mark chapter 6 in our wonderful
trip through the gospel, the story of the Lord's life from Mark, from his perspective
and we arrive at verse 14 in chapter 6. And we're going to be looking at verses 14
to 29 which is a fascinating incident. It is the account of the execution of John
the Baptist, the forerunner to the Messiah and the last Old Testament prophet and the
man of whom Jesus said, "He was the greatest man who ever lived up until his time." The greatest man...the greatest prophet of
all before Christ. This is the story of His execution. And by the way, it is the only account in
the gospel of Mark that is not about Jesus. Every other account is about our Lord Himself. This alone, an account of someone else, not
just anyone, but John the Baptist, not only the forerunner of our Lord but His cousin. The story is a riveting story, to put it mildly. Before we look at the story, just a little
bit of background. If you go through the Old Testament and look
at the history of Israel, come in to the New Testament and continue to follow the history
of Israel and then bring it up to the very hour in which we live, you would realize that
this is the most privileged people in human history. Why? Because they were chosen by God to be the
recipients of divine revelation. To them what was given the Scripture, the
Covenants, they were adopted as God's special people, to them were sent the prophets, to
them the gospel was first preached. It is the Jews whom God used to write the
Old Testament and to write the New Testament. This is a great privilege. What they did with this privilege, of course,
is the tragedy of all tragedies, the ultimate tragedy of any people, to have such immense
privilege and to turn against the very God who gave them that privilege. The story of Israel is the story of the most
highly privileged people who ever lived and therefore the most highly responsible people
who ever lived and a people who wasted their responsibility. Worst than that, turned against the very God
who gave them that privilege to such a severe degree that not only did they reject what
the prophets said as they spoke to them for God, they killed the prophets. And they started killing the prophets very
early in their history and they kept killing the prophets until finally they killed the
last of the Old Testament prophets, Zechariah, son of Berechiah, and they killed him somewhere
near the temple itself, Jesus said. It was 500 years later that the very final
prophet and the greatest prophet, John the Baptist, showed up and they stood by while
he also was viciously murdered. Now that all was just a preview to what they
would do to the prophet above all prophets, the very Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. The most heinous, devastating behavior imaginable
is to be the nation chosen by God to receive His revelation, all His promises and covenants
and to reject that revelation and then regularly kill the messengers who brought that revelation. That is what they did. Before we look at Mark, I want you to listen
to me as I read the words of our Lord Jesus which He spoke in the final week of His life
to the leaders of Israel. He said this, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites," Matthew 23:29, "for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments
of the righteous and you say, 'If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would
not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." The Jewish leaders and people in Jesus' day
were well aware that their ancestors had murdered the prophets, the messengers of God, and they
claimed that we would never have done that, we're better than they. "So you testify against yourselves that you
are indeed the sons of those who murdered the prophets." And why does He say that? Because He knows they are at that moment bringing
to fruition the plot to kill Him. "Fill up then the measure of the guilt of
your fathers. Go ahead and fill it up, you serpents, you
brood of snakes, how will you escape the sentence of hell?" And then our Lord, having looked back, looks
forward. "I am sending you prophets and wise men and
scribes," those would be the New Testament preachers. "Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues
and persecute from city to city so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous
blood shed on earth." And then this pensive conclusion, "Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. Behold, your house is left to you desolate." This is the most amazing, astounding, shocking
indictment ever to be rendered on a people in human history. You, the chosen people, have systematically
and consistently through your entire history, refused to obey the revelation of God and
you have killed the messengers who brought that revelation. Now, he says, you'll keep doing it. You'll do it to the Apostles and the prophets
and those that come after them to preach the gospel. The culmination of the killing of the prophets
of the Old Testament era is given to us in this text as it records for us the execution
of John the Baptist. The Jews rejected Jesus, we know that, and
eventually, of course, they cried for His blood and said, "Crucify Him, crucify Him,
we'd rather have Barabbas released to us," a common criminal. They rejected Jesus. But they also rejected John the Baptist. In fact, that's a package deal. If you reject Jesus, then it's clear that
you have rejected John because John the Baptist was the prophet who pointed to Jesus and said,
"Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." It was John the Baptist who said, "I must
decrease and He must increase." It was John the Baptist who said, "He is far
greater than I, I'm not even worthy to loose the strings on His sandals." So, if you reject Jesus, you have rejected
John. If you reject John, you've rejected Jesus. If they had received John the Baptist as a
true prophet, if they had received his message as God's true Word, of necessity they would
have had to receive Jesus Christ of whom John spoke. You receive them both, or you reject them
both. Well, they rejected them both and both were
murdered. Before us in the text of Mark 6, is a monumental
account of the murder of John the Baptist. It is a preview of the murder of Jesus Christ. And though the Jews didn't actually kill John
the Baptist with their own hands, Herod did. And though the Jews didn't actually kill Jesus
with their own hands, the Romans did. Still, the Jews stood by while the murders
occurred. The story of John the Baptist's murder is
drama. It is as dramatic as any story in the New
Testament, perhaps only exceeded by the story of the crucifixion of our Lord Himself. It is, at the same time, an unbelievable soap
opera of intrigue, iniquity, rebellion. Now by the time you get to chapter 6, John
the Baptist is already in prison. Mark 1:14 says that John the Baptist had been
arrested and put into prison. Compared to Luke 3:19 and 20, this would indicate
that it was soon after the temptation and baptism of Christ that John was arrested. He is then a prisoner and he's been a prisoner
for a long time, certainly over a year in prison. That's where he's been sitting under the incarcerating
power of Herod. In this text, we're going to read the account
of his execution. Before we do that, we need to understand what
triggers this text and this record itself. Let me read it to you, starting in verse 14. "And King Herod heard of it." We'll stop right there. Heard of what? What just was recorded. Verse 7, "He summoned the Twelve, began to
send them out in pairs, gave them authority over the unclean spirits." Verse 12, "They went out and they preached
that men should repent and they were casting out many demons and anointing with oil many
sick people and healing them." And we know that they were also able to raise
the dead. Remember last time we talked about the fact
that our Lord had done everything Himself, all the miracles, and all the preaching. But in the final sweep through Galilee for
the third and last time, visiting all the towns and villages, He multiplied the messengers
and multiplied the power by Twelve...sending out the Twelve Apostles. He delegated His power to them, power over
demons, disease and death, and He gave them the message, "The Kingdom of God, preach repentance
and entrance into the Kingdom of God by faith in Me, the Messiah." And they went. And it was a blitz. It set loose a greater influence for the gospel
of Jesus Christ than had occurred prior in the ministry of our Lord, when He was doing
it all Himself. Miracles were happening everywhere they went,
dead people coming back to life, people with diseases healed, demons being cast out and
the gospel being preached. There's never been anything like this explosion
of miracles, the explosion of gospel preaching, and it led to an expanded buzz all through
Galilee. The buzz finally reaches Herod. Herod lives in the lap of lust and luxury
and laziness. Maybe prior to this he was away, or maybe
he was just indifferent because Tiberius was a place Jesus never visited and that's where
he lived. Tiberius was a place where the Jews didn't
go because it had been built by Herod on top of a cemetery and they thought it was desecrated
ground and wouldn't set foot in it. So whatever second-hand reports may have come
to Herod, if he was, in fact, in that city would have been just that, second-hand reports. But now when the impact of Jesus has been
multiplied by a dozen times, it cannot escape traveling back to him. And so, it says in verse 14, "He heard of
it...he heard of it, for His name had become well-known." What does that tell you? That everything the disciples were doing,
all the preaching, all the healing, all the deliverance was being done in the name of
Jesus Christ, okay? Christ, of course, was the source of power. And I think the Twelve made it crystal clear
that the power was not theirs, after all, everybody in Galilee would have been familiar
with these men and their families. They had lived their whole lives there. It was a small area. They had never had this kind of power before. Even when they were with Jesus they hadn't
had it before, they made sure that everyone knew this was a delegated power and it came
from Christ and what they did they did in His name. You can see an illustration of it, Peter and
John, two of them, they go into the temple in the third chapter of Acts, they find a
lame man and they tell him to get up and walk in the name of Jesus. So it comes back to Herod that this name has
mighty, mighty power and he is concentrating on it maybe for the very first time. Now what is happening, this explosion of power
has created a buzz that is essentially saying, "This is not just another prophet." Early the word was that He's a great prophet,
that's what it says in Luke 7:16. But they were getting beyond that. While prophets in the past had been known
to do a miracle, even a resurrection in the case of Elijah and Elisha, no prophet ever
had released this kind of explosive power where everywhere He went everyone was healed
and delivered. There was no real human explanation. So word began to circulate that maybe this
was someone who had come back from the dead with supernatural power. The people were saying, according to verse
14, "John the Baptist has risen from the dead." That's one explanation. They know that John is dead, by now, Herod
has executed him by this point, they know that. And maybe he's come back from the dead and
that's why these miraculous powers are at work in Him. He is really a resurrected, this Jesus is
a resurrected John the Baptist. Well, Herod doesn't like to hear that, not
at all. According to Luke 9:7, "Herod the Tetrarch
heard of all that was happening, was greatly perplexed because it was said by some that
John had risen from the dead and by some that Elijah had appeared and by others that one
of the prophets of old had risen again. Herod said, "I myself had John beheaded. But who is this man about whom I hear such
things?" And he kept trying to see Him. I mean, the worst possible scenario for Herod
was to have the man he beheaded back from the grave. So he has reason to be concerned. Some of the people are saying John the Baptist
has risen from the dead, verse 15. Others are saying he is Elijah because you
remember, before the arrival of Messiah, Elijah was to come, according to the book of Malachi,
the last book we have in our Old Testament. The prophet said that Elijah was to come before
the great and terrible day of the Lord, before the Lord arrives, and maybe this is that Elijah
who's come, or one of the other prophets. But when Herod heard of it, he kept saying,
"John whom I've beheaded has arisen." Well why does he say that? This, my dear friends, is a projection of
his deepest anxiety, his greatest terror, his greatest fear. He knows John, he knows him well. He kept him incarcerated in his own palace
fort prison for over a year. He knew him face-to-face. He will give testimony that he was a righteous
and godly man. He also knows that he had him executed in
a bizarre, lecherous, wicked party to satisfy his own pride and the vengeance of his own
wife. And so he projects his worse fear. This must be John back from the dead. Now, that's why he wanted to see him. He knew John. He looked into his face many times. He wanted to check and see if in fact it was
John. Now that brings us to the point of why did
he arrest him and why did he execute him? A little bit of background about Herod. Herod is called in Luke 3:1 a tetrarch...a
tetrarch. That means a ruler of a fourth of a region,
ruler of a fourth of a region. Israel had come under Roman power many, many
years before. But wherever Rome exercised its power, it
had regional rulers who were really serfs under Caesar, who did Caesar's bidding. Whatever power they had was minimal and one
false move, and they would be replaced, if not exiled, executed. So they held their little petty territories
with a very light hand, although they wielded a heavy hand on top of the residents in the
areas where they ruled. They were low-ranking rulers who took the
term king because it tended to elevate them and it was very popular in the east. The father of this Herod, who really is known
as Herod Antipas, the father of this Herod, and there are many Herods in the scriptures,
the father is Herod the Great. Herod the Great compounded your difficulty
and understanding what Herod you're talking about in the New Testament because he had
ten wives. So there were a lot of little Herods running
all over the place who ended up in all kinds of situations. Herod the Great was not a Jew, he was a descendant
of Esau. So he's outside the Covenant that God made
with Jacob. But he had attached himself to the Jewish
people and on the surface was a proselyte to Judaism, Herod the Great was. He was given the rule of the whole land of
Israel which he held under Rome for 36 years. He was an evil man, a lustful man, a vicious
man, a murderous man. He made a will and requested that when he
died, Rome would divide the Kingdom into four parts and give a part to each of four of his
sons. That's what happened. He died in 4 B.C. if you calculate the calendar,
and when he died it was a very notable moment when he died because it was when he died,
remember, that Joseph and Mary brought Jesus back from Egypt because they were fearful
of Herod because he slaughtered all the male infants because he heard there was a king
from the wise man. So when Herod the Great died, Joseph, Mary
and Jesus came back to Nazareth, but the political scene changed. He had been a ruler of a unified Israel and
now it was split into those four parts. Herod the Great had indulged every evil desire
one could imagine. He was the worst of men. The temple that stood in the time of Jesus
was a product of his building, much to his own ego rather than to the honor of God. He was not impressive and his death is described
by Josephus who loved, I think, to write this about 50 or 60 years later, he died of ulcerated
entrails, putrefied and maggot-filled organs, constant convulsions and foul breath...I would
think. Just prior to his death, Herod the Great had
murdered all the people he thought might be a threat to his throne and he murdered his
own son, Antipater, five days before his own death. He killed all the Sanhedrin, the 70 ruling
elders of Israel. After his death, the Kingdom was divided. The first one was Archelaus, one of his sons
who received the rule over Judea, Samaria and Idumaea. He only lasted a few years. In 6 A.D. was deposed and Rome replaced him
with a series of governors, one of them being Pilate from 26 to 36 who was critical in the
role of execution of our Lord. The second area of Israel, Ituraea, Trachonitis,
which is north and east of Galilee. It was given to Philip, one of the Philips,
there are two of them. We'll meet the other one in a moment. He didn't last very long and he was succeeded
by Herod Agrippa. He didn't last very long, in Acts 12 he got
eaten by worms. The third area was northwest of Galilee called...that
third area under the rule of Lasanius, and the fourth one was Galilee itself all the
way down Peraea down the east side of the Sea of Galilee, all the way down almost to
the Dead Sea, that area went to Herod Antipas and that's who this man is. Now all four of these men had their little
piece of Israel under the rule of Tiberius Caesar, a wretched, wretched man who succeeded
Caesar Augustus. Tiberius was a pedophile of the rankest kind. To describe his life would...would be a wrong
thing to do, just the discussion itself would be sinful. Well Herod Antipas was put under Tiberius
in this position and while the others didn't last very long, he lasted 42 years...42 years,
through the entire life of our Lord Jesus. This man was the petty ruler for Rome over
the realm of Galilee. He is the one then who has the most to lose
if a power movement starts, if a populace movement rises. And like the rest of the Herods, they're all
paranoid about their power. And if indeed this is John the Baptist risen
from the dead, and he has the power to conquer death, then Herod is in some serious trouble....serious
trouble. And that's what he is convinced has happened. Verse 16, "He kept saying, 'John, whom I've
beheaded has risen.'" And the ego, the I in the Greek is emphatic. John whom I beheaded. And as I said in Luke 9:9, kept trying to
see Jesus thinking He was a risen John the Baptist. His intentions were not good. Some Pharisees came to Jesus in Luke 13 one
day and said to Him, "Herod wants to see You because He wants to kill You." Kill him once, I'll kill him again. Jesus said, "He'll never be able to do that,
you tell that fox that I will do My ministry today, tomorrow and the third day until I
reach My goal." A kind of Jewish expression to say I'm invincible
until I've accomplished My purpose...today, tomorrow, and all future days. He's not going to take Me like he killed John
until My work is done. Where does this fear come from? Why is...why is he so afraid? Well because he had him beheaded. That's what he says in verse 16 and verse
17 you have a flashback. And the first question is, "Well how did that
happen, right? He had him beheaded, how did that take place?" And so the Holy Spirit inspires Mark to tell
us the story. Two points I want to give you: Herod's fear
and Herod's folly. His fear is a real fear. It's a panic. It's terror, a resurrected man that he beheaded
is alive and he must be coming after me. I want to see him. I want to see if in fact he is John the Baptist. And you can believe that if he was going to
allow...if that was going to be allowed to happen, he would have created an environment
in which he would have had his greatest forces on display to do again to John the Baptist
what he had done before. It was not John the Baptist back from the
dead, and our Lord never let him have that opportunity until at the very end of his life. Here's the flashback in verse 17 that raised
the fear. Herod himself had sent...the point of "Herod
himself" is to say this was a personal act on Herod's part. This wasn't participated by any movement among
the people. This wasn't asked for by Rome. Herod himself had sent and had John arrested
and bound in prison. Where was John? According to John's gospel, chapter 3 verses
22 to 24, he was down at Aenon near Salim baptizing by the River Jordan in the River
Jordan. Herod must have sent some men down there and
in the middle of the ministry of John the Baptist, a ministry of calling the Jews to
repentance and pointing to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and saying I'm not worthy
to loose His shoe laces, He's greater than I, turn to Him....they arrest John the Baptist
and they throw Him in prison. This prison is very likely at a place called
Machaerus near the northeastern shore of the Dead Sea, all the way down in the southern
tip of Peraea. There Herod had built this massive stone fortress
palace prison, it served all those three purposes. John was there, as I said, over a year. We don't know exactly how long but His disciples,
according to Luke 7:18 where allowed to visit him, to see him there. He had many who had followed him, who had
listened to him, for whom he was their preacher and their teacher and they were allowed to
visit and talk to him. The question is...Why did he do this? Why did Herod arrest him in the first place
and then behead him? Well, here's the rest of the story. Why did he put him in prison? On account of Herodias, the wife of his brother
Philip, because he had married her. Now we're in to the soap opera. And if you can follow this, the first time,
you're better than most. It is so convoluted. Please notice, Herodias is not called his
wife, but called the wife of his brother Philip. He married her but the technicality is it
was an illegitimate marriage because she should have remained the wife of his brother Philip. He literally seduced and stole her from his
brother. She is not then designated as his wife, though
they were married. She is legitimately still the wife of his
brother Philip. Scripture in that sense doesn't recognize
her marriage to Herod because of its evil nature. Now there are some women that you just want
to stay away from. There's...read Proverbs 6 and 7 and you'll
meet the style of that kind of woman. Herod was already married and he was married
to a very prominent girl whose father was the king of Nabatean Arabia, another area
to the east. His name was Aretas. And the kings made the alliances, these marriages,
you're well aware of that even from any form of ancient history. So Herod was married to the daughter of the
King of Nabatean Arabia, a man named Aretas. Herod had a brother, one of the many sons
born of the ten wives of Herod the Great. This brother was also named Philip, but a
different Philip than the one who had been given a portion of Israel to rule over. This Herod Philip lived in Rome. He stayed in Rome as a private citizen. He was disinherited. We don't know all of the story behind the
story, but any way, he had been disinherited by the Herod family so he stayed in Rome as
a private citizen and lived without the benefits of whatever the royal line would have brought
to him. He had a wife and her name was Herodias. She was the daughter of another son of Herod
the Great. He was a son of Herod the Great, she was a
daughter of one of the his half-brothers. So she married her uncle, her father's half-brother. Philip then is in an incestuous relationship
with her. Philip is one generation from the loins of
Herod the Great, she is two generations from the loins of Herod the great. Her brother, by the way, was Herod Agrippa,
the one who was eaten by worms. The whole family is caught up in incest. So Herod goes to Rome, Herod Antipas, and
he's going to visit his brother. He visits his brother and he is attracted
or she seduces him. And so they plan to divorce their spouses. She will divorce his brother, Philip. Herod will divorce his wife, the daughter
of the King Aretas and they will get together. This doesn't sit well with Aretas, it happens. They did it. Aretas gets mad, amasses an army and comes
and wins a great victory over Herod, who also has an army and Herod is only saved when the
Roman army comes to his rescue. So blood is shed, lots of blood is shed over
this marriage. When Caligula came to the throne in Rome as
the Caesar, the Philip who had been Tetrarch over Trachonitis and Ituraea had died and
Caligula gave it to another Herod, Herod Agrippa, whom we mentioned. Herodias was angry about this, she thought
it should have been added to the territory of her husband Herod. So she forced Herod to go to Rome and to seek
the title, to have a bigger kingdom so she could be a bigger queen. He didn't want to do it, but he had long since
lost the battle to her. So he set sail for Rome. Agrippa beat him to Caligula and when Agrippa
got to Caligula, in order to seal the deal for him to get the kingdom, he bad-mouthed
Herod. And by the time Herod arrived, starting to
make his case, Caligula had been convinced that he was a treacherous and dangerous man
to Caligula's power and so both he and Herodias were exiled and died in exile. It was a bad day when Herod met Herodias...a
bad day. Now you know the background. Well, how did John the Baptist play into this? Oh, verse 18, "John had been saying to Herod,
'It's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.'" That's what we call the direct approach. "'It is not lawful for you to have your brother's
wife.'" And he is saying this all over the place. I mean the language here, he had been saying,
this is one translation, "he kept saying." Everywhere he would preach he would say, "You
know, Herod shouldn't be having Herodias as his wife, that woman belongs to his brother,
Philip, this is wrong, this is incest." He probably quoted Leviticus 18:16, Leviticus
20:21 which describes the iniquity of this kind of incestuous relationship. He was saying it publicly and publicly and
also after he was arrested for saying this publicly, he must have been saying it privately
because it says, "John had been saying to Herod, 'It's not lawful for you to have your
brother's wife.'" And believe me, it wasn't a once-sentence
sermon. That again is the cryptic approach. I'm sure it had three points and a poem, I'm
sure he piled it on. I'm sure he explicated all the biblical reasons
why this was wrong and called down the judgment of God on his head and on her head. Truly he is a powerful confrontive prophet
and part of the mark of his greatness is his fearlessness to confront the sins of people,
even the highest leaders, even those who hold his life in their hands, whatever the consequences. As a result of this, Herodias is really angry
and so it's become a settled grudge, verse 19, against him. She wanted to put him to death, couldn't do
so. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, of
course. She wants him dead. He keeps saying this, he keeps saying it,
he preached it publicly, it's the buzz. He says it every time he is seen by Herod. It reminds him of how horrible it is. He probably tells the guards at the prison
about it. She's tired of it. She wants him silenced. She wants to put him to death. She can't do it. Why? "Because her husband is restraining her, for
Herod was afraid of John knowing that he was a righteous and holy man. And he kept him safe." Safe from whom? From her. I can imagine what he told the people at the
prison. If Herodias tells you anything to do with
John the Baptist, don't do it, protect him from her. I think Herod would have wanted John dead. I don't think he liked this. I think he despised it. I don't think he wanted the reiteration of
his evil iniquitous life. I don't think he wanted to hear it all the
time. I think he was reminded by John of the consequences
of this kind of behavior before God. I think John would be a judgment preacher. I think he must have said to Herod something
like he said to the Pharisees and scribes, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to
come, you snakes." He was sort of like Pilate though he really
didn't want to go to the degree of killing him because he knew he was a righteous and
good man and he didn't want to compound his situation before God. He would be like Pilate, right? Pilate just said, "Beat Him up, maybe that
will satisfy the mob." But that was not going to satisfy Herodias. Interestingly enough, when he heard him, which
he must have done on perhaps numerous occasions, he was very perplexed. He couldn't understand the message of John
the Baptist. He couldn't figure out what he was saying
about the Messiah, about judgment. But he used to enjoy listening to him. It was kind of a curiosity. I mean, he was a very...he was a very great
preacher. He must have been at the lowest level at least
amazingly entertaining. And he enjoyed listening to him. So the combination of the novelty of John
and the fear of even greater consequences to come against him in the judgment of God,
if he did anything to this obviously righteous and godly man, restrained him from taking
his life. But he lived in fear of the man. Fear, first of all, to kill him, and then
after he did kill him, fear that he'd come back from the dead. Now that leads us to the second scene here
in the flashback. We go from Herod's fear to Herod's folly. A strategic day came, it became strategic
because it was Herod's birthday. Herod on his birthday gave a banquet. Birthday celebration, the Jews hated pagan
celebrations, basically ignored birthdays in their culture, but the Romans made a huge
issue out of birthdays. They were excuses for lecherous, lewd revelry. Some say Herod's birthday celebrations were
more wicked than any so that the phrase, Herodus Daeus, meaning Herod's birthday became a proverb
for a wicked, excessive celebration. That was this. And everyone, I suppose, had to top the last
one. So he invites to this banquet his lords and
military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. This is important. His lords meaning nobles, the social elite
in Galilee and Peraea, the area over which he had some jurisdiction. These would be the powerful persons. These would be the upper level tax collectors,
the officials under him. They would include Jews, Jews who had bought
the tax franchises, Jews who had risen in the establishment economically, the business
community, Jews who thought they could gain by having some kind of an alliance with this
non-Jewish ruler. It would include those who are identified
in Mark 3:6 as Herodians, people who wanted to be associated with Herod. You remember the Herodians and the Pharisees
got together in chapter 3 verse 6 and were plotting the death of Jesus. They also included military commanders, kiliarchs,
that would be a man who was command over a thousand. So he had multiple commanders over a thousand,
so he had an army in the thousands. These would be typically Romans. He had leading men of Galilee. Well that again would be the Jews who were
part of the Herodian party. It's very important to understand that this
is...this is an event that's going to be attended by Jewish people, those people who are in
the upper echelons, those people who were power brokers, people who had alliances with
Rome and with Herod. These Jews then become guilty by complicity
in the execution of this prophet as their forefathers had the prophets of the past as
their nation would, the prophet of all prophets, the prophet...over-all prophets, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Since John the Baptist was in prison in Machaerus,
that must be where the party was held. The Jews would likely have shunned having
a party at Tiberius because it had been built on a cemetery. This is a male event, by the way. This is a men's event. This is the worst that a men's event could
possibly get. This is gluttony, drunkenness, lasciviousness
at its rankest level. This is conversation and laughter unmitigated,
unrestrained, untempered by female presence. And the low point comes at the high point,
from their perspective. Verse 22, "When the daughter of Herodias herself
came in and danced." Herod had no concern for the purity of his
own daughter. Purity was not an issue in that wretched family. It hadn't been for generations. It really never would be. As the adoptive father of this, his niece,
the daughter of his brother Philip, he had no desire to protect her in any sense. For a young girl aged 15 or 16 as she probably
was to dance like this was a shame, for a princess to dance like this was a double shame,
for a mother to let her daughter dance like this is a triple shame. But shame doesn't exist in the vocabulary
of the family of Herod. So she comes in to dance her evil dance when
the leering men have reached the right proportion of satiation both with food and alcoholic
drink, in she comes...immoral, suggestive, shameless dancing. That's what happens. And she pleased Herod in the basest way and
his dinner guests. And so he's going to throw his braggadocio
around a little bit. He's looped, as you would say. He's inebriated. He's feeling his petty power. And being excited by this girl's dance, he
says, "Ask me for whatever you want and I'll give it to you." The truth of the matter is, he didn't have
anything to give. He held what he held only because Rome let
him hold it. One false step and he was done. And I already told you that happened when
he tried to overstep his bounds one time. He couldn't take any more territory, when
he did he was exiled. He couldn't give up any territory, it didn't
belong to him, this was just sheer braggadocio. "I'll give you half my kingdom" And then he
swore to her. This now is an oath in verse 23, "Whatever
you ask of me, I'll give it to you, up to half my kingdom." This is folly. This is over the top braggadocio and he takes
an oath, binds himself. His perverted lust mixed with his foolish
pride has led him to a promise that is going to be very costly. Well, what did she do when she heard this? She was a pawn in her mother's hands, so was
he. Everybody in the family must have been. So she went to where she had to go. She went out and said to her mother, "What
shall I ask for?" Right on the top of the list of priorities
for this woman was John the Baptist's death. So she said, "The head of John the Baptist." Of all the things that maybe he could have
given to the girl, maybe you could have rearranged some things, maybe within the framework of
what he possessed he could have given her some kind of paper ownership of something. Maybe he could have let her have some responsibility
over some aspect of life in that little realm. Maybe he could have given her a few more horses
or a few more jewels or a few more dresses or a few more men to consider. But her mother was after none of this. She wanted the prophet who had maligned her...dead. That's what she says. "The head of John the Baptist." The daughter goes back in a hurry. Immediately...Mark loves that word...Immediately,
she came in a hurry to the king and asked, saying, "I want you to give me at once the
head of John the Baptist on a platter." Wow! On a platter, that's a presentation fit for
cannibals. What kind of people are we dealing with here? And although the king was very sorry in verse
26, "Yet because of his oaths," and again it's all about his pride, instead of saying
I was wrong, I said a horrible thing, I wasn't thinking...he will maintain his petty pride..."And
because of the dinner guests, he was unwilling to refuse her. Immediately the king sent an executioner and
commanded him to bring back his head. And he went and had him beheaded in the prison
and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl and the girl gave it to her
mother." Broadus writes, "When the dish was brought
with the bleeding head on it, no doubt she took it daintily in her hands, lest a drop
of blood should stain her gala dress, and tripped away to mother, as if bearing her
some choice dish of food from the king's table. It was not uncommon to bring the head of one
who had been slain to the person who ordered it as a sure proof that the command had been
obeyed. For example, when the head of Cicero was brought
to Fulvia, the wife of Mark Antony, she spat on it and drawing out the tongue that had
so eloquently opposed and condemned Antony, she pierced it with her hairpin with bitter
ridicule. Jerome refers to this incident and says that
Herodias did likewise with the head of John. We know not his authority for this assertion,
but the desire of the Herod family seems to have been to ape the worst follies and cruelties
of the Roman nobility. So after an imprisonment for over a year,
John is dead. His work is done. And the one of who it is said, "There has
not risen a greater than John the Baptist, went into his glorious eternal home, received
his full reward for faithful, uncompromising service to his blessed God. And the Jews who were at the party never protested
at all. John was incidental to them. John was nothing to them. They had rejected the Messiah. The Herodian party had already been in commiseration
with the Pharisees to kill Jesus, reject Jesus. John doesn't matter. Anything for entertainment. And so they kill the last of the prophets
and the best of the prophets. Verse 29 closes out Mark's account. "When his disciples," that is the disciples
of John the Baptist, he had many followers who came to the Jordan, who came repeatedly,
who listened to him preach about repentance and righteousness and the Kingdom. He had many disciples, "When they heard that
he had been beheaded, they came and took away his body and laid it in a tomb." His disciples. It must have been a sad day for them. It must have been a day when they began to
wonder because he had been telling them, "Messiah is coming, the Kingdom is coming." It all seemed to come to a screeching halt,
the prophet is beheaded. That's not the end of the story. There's one final scene. Turn in your Bible to Matthew 14...Matthew
14, verse 12. This is Matthew's parallel account without
as much detail as Mark gives us. "After his head was brought on a platter...verse
11...and given to the girl and brought to the mother, his disciples, John's, came, took
the body...just as Mark said...and buried it." And then this, "And they went and reported
to Jesus." They knew Jesus. It was John who said, "Behold the Lamb of
God that takes away the sin of the world." It was John who said, "I'm not worthy to unloose
His sandals." It was John who said, "He's greater than I,
I must decrease, He must increase." They knew who Jesus was. They...and they knew Jesus was John's cousin,
His forerunner was now dead. Jesus would need to know. This had to be...this had to be important
to Jesus. So they tell Him. And then you look at verse 13, "Now when Jesus
heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself." Why? It's a big event. This is a crushing event because it's the
most dramatic preview yet of what is going to happen to Him. This grips the heart of the incarnate Son
of God. It calls for silence. It calls for seclusion. The murder of John, the attitude of Herod,
the complicity of all the elite Jews of Galilee, this is a blow that makes the cross soon to
come very, very vivid. Is He afraid of Herod? No. He sent a message, "Tell that fox he can't
touch Me till My goal is reached." He's not afraid of Herod, but He needs time. He needs some solitude to contemplate what
this means. Herod wanted to see Him. He won't see Him, not now, at least. He did see Him finally. Turn to Luke 23. "Pilate...verse 6...sent Jesus to Herod...verse
7...who happened to be visiting Jerusalem." So Pilate thought, "You know, I don't find
any guilt in this man...verse 4...I'm going to have to pass this judicial decision on
to somebody else. Herod's in town, let him make it." So he sent Jesus to Herod. Verse 8, "Now Herod is very glad when he saw
Jesus." Why would he be very glad? Because now for the first time looking into
the face of Jesus he would know that He wasn't John the Baptist back from the dead. He had wanted to see Him for a long time cause
he had been hearing about Him, was hoping to see some sign performed by Him. Here again is this superficial curiosity that
so marked so many. "And he questioned Him at some length. But Jesus answered him nothing." Jesus treated him as if he had no authority,
no power, as in fact he did not. "But the chief priests and the scribes were
standing there accusing Him vehemently. And Herod with his soldiers after treating
Him with contempt and mocking Him, dressed Him in a gorgeous robe and sent Him back to
Pilate. Now Herod and Pilate became friends with one
another that very day for before that, they had been enemies with each other." They hated each other but they finally found
something they could agree on, their common rejection of Jesus. Herod got to see Him. But once he realized that it was John the
Baptist back from the dead, Jesus became a novelty and a curiosity. He's a tragic superficial sad man, the worst
of the worst, the lowest of the low, lost forever to hell. For fear of a woman, fear of losing his throne,
foolish pride, he damned his own soul. And sadly, the words of Jesus come back, "Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you that stoned the prophets, kill those sent to you, your house is left to you
desolate." Hours after that meeting with Herod, they
screamed for the blood of Jesus and asked the Romans to do the dirty work. And they executed Him. The nation received the greatest prophet up
to his day, the greatest man up to his day, and the very prophet above all prophets, the
Son of God, rejected them both, executed them both. As I said, the Jews didn't kill either one
of them, Herod killed John, and the Romans killed Jesus, but the nation had rejected
both. It's a horrible tragedy when such privilege
is given and privilege is spurned. They went on to chase the prophets and the
preachers of the gospel until eleven of the twelve Apostles were martyred. And the persecution even went on after that. The rejection of the true gospel is so tragic. You say, "I would never do that." You might want to join the speech of those
in Matthew 23 who say, "We're not like those people, we would never do that. We would never do that." Look, if you reject Jesus Christ, you stand
with the executioners. There's no escaping it. You either embrace Him as Lord and Savior,
or you reject Him. And if you reject Him, you put Him to shame
by that rejection. You stand in agreement with the rejecters
and the crucifiers. But Jesus welcomes your repentance, and welcomes
you into His Kingdom if you turn from your sin of rejecting Him, confess your sin, acknowledge
Him as Lord and Savior and receive His forgiveness. You go from death to life, from darkness to
light, from blindness to sight, from hell to heaven, from tragedy to bliss, this is
the gospel. Yes they put Him on a cross in rejection but
in that very act of dying on the cross, He paid the penalty for all the sins of all who
would ever believe. And if you believe, then you're part of that
all. The point of application here is just make
sure that you're on the right side of how Jesus can be treated, rejected, or received. To as many as receive Him, He gives the power
to become sons of God. What a promise. Father, thank You for again the wonderful
insights that the Word of God has. Yet when we read this, it's not a happy text,
it's a heart-breaking grievous, agonizing reality that the whole nation would be complicit
in the execution of the greatest of men and even in the execution in the Son of God. How can anyone turn against the prophets who
spoke for You, how can anyone turn against Your own Son, and yet it happens all the time. Lord, I pray that You'll deliver those who
even in our midst today in the hearing of this message have been guilty of a rejection
of Christ who stand with the crucifiers, the executioners, in rejecting the only hope of
a salvation, forgiveness, escape from judgment and eternal joy in heaven. Do Your work in hearts, Lord, we pray, Lord. Make the gospel live. Make Christ alive. Make...make the dead come to life by Your
power, we pray in Your Son's name. Amen.
