Matthew 14:6-12 Mark 6:21-29
God’s ways are often hard for us to understand. In our minds, an all-powerful and loving God should
always prevent injustice. It is
difficult for us to understand how God could allow His faithful servant, John
the Baptist, to be killed at the whim of pretty girl and a vindictive
woman. Even though we may not
understand, it is important that we realize that God will allow very bad things
to happen to very good people. We might
not like this truth or be able to explain this truth but we had better get used
to this truth. It is repeatedly taught
throughout Scripture and has been repeatedly experienced throughout
history. God is always on mission. His mission is to bring glory to Himself by
having disciples that worship Him in every nation. There are times when the suffering of
faithful people contributes to the accomplishment of that mission. God does not need to explain Himself to us. We must simply learn to trust Him and
recognize that He has information that is not available to us. John’s death demonstrates the sinfulness of
man as well as the suffering sin brings to God’s people. John’s sinful head on a platter should not
surprise us as much as the sinless Son of God’s body on a cross. We can be assured of the truth that John’s
death in this way brought glory to God, contributes to the mission to this day
and is a source of eternal rejoicing and reward for John the Baptist.
HEROD’S PLEASURE: Herod decided to have a birthday party and
as a part of the celebrations he had his niece/step-daughter come out and dance
for him and his guests. This dance was
very pleasing to him and his guests who were military generals and other
officials. We don’t know what kind of
dance this was, but we can presume that it was sensual in nature. It is very doubtful that they were admiring
her gracefulness as she performed a waltz or ballet. It may be a stretch to say that it was a striptease;
but it was likely sensual in nature. The
exploitation of a woman’s body is not something that is new to our
culture. This is very displeasing to God
and very dangerous for men. Birthdays,
holidays and vacations are especially dangerous days. These are days that we tend to let down our
guard and become vulnerable to the sinful pleasures that are so attractive our
hearts. Any time we start to think that
we “deserve” some sort of pleasure we are at risk. We are to separate days of rest where we
dedicate ourselves to refreshment, reflection and communion with and rejoicing
in the Lord; but never days where we relax our standards of holiness. Pornography is a blight on our society that
is placing the hearts of men and our very society in great danger. We must be vigilant to not become slaves of
our pleasures.
HEROD’S PROMISE: One of the problems with giving into our
pleasures is that it causes us to make promises that end up enslaving us. When we give ourselves over to the pleasures
of our hearts and do the things that we want to do we will often find ourselves
making and having to keep promises to do the things that we don’t want to do. Herod makes a foolish promise to give this
young lady whatever she wants up to half of his kingdom. Men may exploit the bodies of women for their
own pleasure; but women understand how to expose their bodies in order to gain
power. Herod makes a promise like this
because of his pride and desire to impress not only the young lady, but the
other leaders and officials that were there.
Herodias recognizes her daughters “gifts” and also understands her
husband’s weaknesses so she takes advantage of the situation to get what she
wants. We need to be very careful with
the promises we make. We should never
make a promise in order to satisfy sinful pleasures. Herod was willing to give up half of his
kingdom in hopes of having the pleasure of watching a dancing girl again. What are the compromising promises we are
being tempted to make so we can pursue our own pleasures?
HEROD’S PLATTER:
Herod respected and feared John the Baptist. He didn’t like his message but he recognized
that he spoke with authority and he didn’t want to hurt John or stir up riots
in the people by hurting John. He put John
in prison in order to satisfy his illegitimate wife but she was not satisfied
with that. Herod’s promise to her
daughter gave her the opportunity she was looking for and she took advantage of
it. She asked for John the Baptist’s
head on a platter. She clearly had a
deep hatred of him which is to be expected.
Sinful people will hate godly preachers.
When Herod receives this request, He has no desire to do it but feels
obligated to honor his promise because of all of the officials who had seen him
make it. He made the promise because of
His pleasure and pride so now he had to keep it because of his pride even though
it brought him no pleasure. His assassination
of John the Baptists haunted him for the rest of his life. He thought that Jesus was John’s ghost coming
back to haunt him. It may have been John’s
head on that platter, but it may as well have been Herod’s. When we give ourselves over to pleasure that
leads us to make foolish promises we are placing our own heads on a
platter.
APPLICATION: Be careful not to rationalize that we deserve
pleasure after great victories or busy periods of life. Take days off to rest regularly and celebrate
special occasions by rejoicing in the Lord and reflecting on His glory. Don’t allow pride and lust for pleasure to
dictate the promises we make. Count the
cost of living for pleasure. Prepare to
suffer for doing what is right but rejoice in the rewards that are associated
with suffering for righteousness sake.
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