Matthew 14:1-4 Mark 6:14-20 Luke 9:7-9
The miracles and teachings of Jesus were intended to
convince the people that Jesus was Messiah.
However, the simplicity, poverty and lack of political involvement made
it impossible for them to even consider this as a possibility. Jesus had claimed to be Messiah. John the Baptist had proclaimed that He was
Messiah. The people could not believe
that Messiah would be anything like Jesus, but they were curious as to who He
might be and they talked about their various opinions. The general consensus was that Jesus was some
sort of special prophet. Some thought He
was Elijah returning to speak to them, perhaps because he had been translated
to heaven and had not died so they thought maybe Elijah had come back to resume
his ministry. Others thought Jesus might
be a more recent prophet, John the Baptist raised from the dead. This discussion along with the fame of Jesus
reached the ears of Herod who desperately wanted to meet Jesus. The news of Herod’s desire to meet Jesus is significant
to the Gospel writers and causes them to go back in time and explain why Herod
was so interested which leads them to record the context of John the Baptist’s imprisonment
and eventual death.
THE SPECULATION OF HEROD: A guilty conscience can do some
very strange things in our minds. The
miracles and the teachings of Jesus caused many people to consider many
different options as to the identity of Jesus.
Some people thought He might be Elijah while others thought that He
might be John the Baptist raised from the dead.
This last option struck fear into the guilty conscience of Herod. John was a greatly respected man in
Israel. His bold teaching and dynamic personality
brought him great respect in the eyes of the people and in Herod’s eyes. However, Herod imprisoned and eventually had
him killed because of John’s fearless confrontation of Herod’s marriage to his
brother’s wife. Herod’s conscience was
very sensitive to this subject because he knew that he had been wrong when he
ordered John’s execution. This guilt led
him to speculate, along with others, that Jesus was, in fact, the ghost of John
the Baptist. Guilt is a gift from God
designed to draw us into a right relationship with God through repentance and
faith in Christ. However, when we refuse
to repent, guilt can lead to a paranoia that can lead to all kinds of strange
thinking such as Jesus being John the Baptist raised from the dead.
THE SPITE OF HERODIAS: The reason that John was in prison
was due to the vengeful spite of Herodias.
She had been the spouse of Philip, Herod’s brother. As sister-in-law to the king, she had absolutely
no power or influence. Apparently, she
had a great desire to “move up”, so she ends up seducing Herod, divorcing
Philip and getting married to Herod. Now
she was in a position of power and prestige the brought her many privileges
that she enjoyed greatly. However, John
the Baptist had the audacity to confront her and Herod as adulterers. This bold confrontation did not go over very
well with the power-hungry Herodias so she insists that John be imprisoned and
executed. Her guilt leads her down a
very violent path to a very dark place.
She fears Herod might repent and she might lose her clout and be
publicly disgraced so she desperately wants the mouth of John the Baptist
closed permanently. This is the perfect
picture of a hard heart. She knows that
she is wrong. Her heart is full of
guilt. She refuses to repent and decides
to add murder to the adultery she was already living with. We should be alerted to the dangers of a hard
heart. God wants us to be sensitive to
our sinfulness and respond to the guilt we feel when we sin by repenting and
turning to Him instead of digging deeper into our sin.
THE SPARING OF JOHN: Herod, apparently, had a greater fear
of the Lord and respect for John the Baptist, so instead of giving in to his vengeful
wife, he kept John safe in prison. Herod
recognized John as a righteous man and he feared John as well as the
consequences that any action he might take against John could cause by stirring
up the people. John was not the kind of
man to go around being tactful or politically correct. It seems like Herod would go visit John or
have him brought before him because he wanted to hear what he had to say. John’s teachings and accusations were offensive
to Herod and yet he recognized them as truth.
The text says that he heard John gladly even though John was confronting
his sin. This speaks volumes as to the
boldness of John’s teachings as well as the impact that the truth has on those
who hear it. Herod spared John’s life
for a long time because he recognized the truth of his message. We must never allow our fears about the consequences
of our preaching to intimidate us into not speaking the truth. John’s boldness ended up being his protection
and had a profound impact on the highest political power in the land. The greatest impact we can have is through
boldly proclaiming the truth.
APPLICATION: Respond to the guilt we feel when we sin by
repenting and turning to Christ. Be
careful not to harden our hearts in the face of guilt or we will only find ourselves
diving deeper and deeper into sin.
Boldly proclaim the truth of God’s Word to everyone regardless of their
power or position.
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