Love? Or Grudge?

Text: Mark 6:14-29
Focus: Bold preaching
Function: To help people see that bold preaching is for their sake of their souls, not the ego of the preacher.
Form: Contrast the personalities of John and Herodias.

Intro:

This morning we are going to examine a contrast of people. We will examine a contrast of light and darkness. We will examine a contrast of God’s Kingdom and Satan’s kingdom.

We will look at the contrast between the heart of John the prophet and Herodias, the wife of Herod.

John is motivated by both love for God and tough love for his fellow man. He is willing to risk everything to tell Herod the truth about his situation.

Herodias is captivated by her desire for temporary wealth and power and she is willing to sacrifice eternity for the temporary fulfillment that she thinks this sin will bring her. She is motivated by revenge. She holds a grudge.

Verse 19 speaks of this grudge: As a matter of fact, the literal translation of verse 19 is a slang phrase we still use today, “she had it in for him.”

She refused to repent, therefore she refused to forgive.

(SHOW) Unrepentant attitudes lead people into the bondage of unforgiveness.

Herodias is much like Herod; they both were more concerned with their power than they were with eternity and their relationship with God.

Dan Trego, our guide in Tijuana, and I were talking about the poverty in Tijuana, and the genuine joy on the faces and in the hearts of some of the Christians we meet there.

They experience the comfort, joy and peace given by the Holy Spirit even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

We, who have so much to be thankful for can look at that and say to ourselves, well they don’t have much in this world to be happy about, so Christianity works for them because it focuses their hope on eternity.

But that isn’t correct. They are walking by faith and experiencing God who is carrying them through the circumstances, and raising them up and out of it.

When they come to know Christ and start following His plan for their lives their circumstances change: They aren’t bound by alcohol, they aren’t bound by tobacco. They join a community of Christians who take the time to care for each other in tragedy and in joyful times.

And God is improving their circumstances.

God lifts them up when they obey Him.

(SHOW) God lifts people up when they obey Him.

And Dan said, it may be easier to be a Christian in Mexico than at home in the United States of America because here, we have too much that we want to protect and preserve for ourselves.

This is the problem Herodias faces. Herodias merely wanted her position of power and prestige.

Herod, on the other hand is torn. Herod was torn between his spiritual life and his material, wealthy life.

He loved hearing John the Baptist preach, but he wasn’t willing to place God over his position and power.

Jesus gave the warning somewhere else; you cannot serve God and money.

Herodias sees Herod’s attraction to John the Baptist’s message and is threatened by it so she does everything in her power to silence the voice of the man of God. This voice is convicting her husband and she wants nothing to do with God.

She goes to desperate extremes.

I remember the shock I felt in Bible College, when my New Testament professor was breaking down this story for us and told us of the research he had done in some of the historical documents of the time.

He told us that this dance was a form of belly-dance that ended up with the seduction by the daughter of her step-father/uncle. I was shocked, but I was shocked even more so when he explained how Herodias put her own daughter up to it.

This woman nursed a grudge and would stop at nothing, even the chastity of her own daughter, to get her revenge.

This woman’s plan exposes the base nature of Herod’s character. He chooses luxury of this life in exchange for the loss of eternal life.

Herod listened to John until he told him that his marriage to his brother’s wife was all wrong.

Matthew Henry: Herod listened to John preach, until John touched on his favorite sin, the adulterous relationship with his wife.

When John preached that, Herod had John locked up into prison.

If it were not for his desire for power he could have let John go and if it were not for his desire for a woman he could have repented as John called him to. And the end of his story would be of a ruler who accepted Christ.

Now look at John the Baptist.

He loves God and Herod.

His love for God is expressed in a passion for preaching the heart of God.

He preaches how God wants marriage to be held in honor by all men.

He preaches how evil it was for Herod to steal his brother’s wife away from his brother.

He preaches about how people want to claim to know God, and follow God, but continue to live by their own desires instead of God’s plan.

He loves Herod enough to tell him the truth.

Matthew Henry again, “John was a faithful preacher.”

(SHOW) People, for the most part love faithful preaching.

They love it because it is good to know that God cares. God cares enough to set boundaries in people’s lives. These boundaries protect us from harmful actions.
I remember the few years in my youth when I rebelled against God and tried to find my own way. I kept philosophizing about all I had been taught by my godly parents. I concluded this; the 10 commandments were probably a good idea, because they protected us from being evil and from being hurt.

People need good preaching.

But then, Matthew Henry goes on to say: “People love faithful preaching until they get their toes stepped on. Then they get upset.”

A few times I have experienced that. The congregation says, “Step on our toes, preacher,” but what really meant is: “step on someone else’s toes.”

The world needs bold preaching, not because the preacher wants a following, or has something to prove to others, but because God is serious and because the preacher cares for the soul of his listener.

John Cared for Herod.

Here is the unfortunate thing for Herod, he never repented of this sin.

And his sins finally caught up with him. We read in Acts 12 where he tried to make himself out to look like the Messiah and God struck him down in front a whole coliseum filled with people.

Matthew Henry goes on to speak about John’s love for the man, and his willingness to speak to him and says: (SHOW) “But, better that sinners persecute preachers now for their faithfulness than curse them eternally for unfaithfulness.”

I preach grace, but that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about sin.

I am convinced that God is the one who sets people free, not me.

Remember how this passage starts: Apparently they are in the court chambers of King Herod and the reports of Jesus are coming in.

Some are saying he is a prophet, some are saying he was like one of the prophets, but Herod’s own guilty conscience is revealed when he proclaims that Jesus is really John the Baptist risen from the dead.

Apparently, his rash vow to Salome, the daughter of Herodias that caused him to put John the Baptist to death has been haunting him.

(SHOW) Unrepentant sin keeps us awake at night!

The best thing to do is to confess, set yourselves at the mercy of God and get free.

Herod is convinced that Jesus is John raised from the dead.

Now Jesus is different than John. Jesus is performing all kinds of miracles.

John never performed any miracles. The strength of his ministry was not the signs and wonders that Jesus, and later, Peter, John and Paul used. No, the strength of his ministry was the passion and conviction.

Apparently, Herod’s speculation was that since John died and rose again, he was now given miraculous power.

But what did John preach about?

He preached about the coming of Jesus.

He preached about the Kingdom of God coming to mankind.

God’s Kingdom is indeed a Kingdom.

That means, it has a King. It has a ruler. To be a part of God’s Kingdom means that we accept the rule of Christ in our lives.

We live under Him, listening to and obeying His rule.

John was excited about the rule of Jesus in the lives of people.

We see why in the ministry of Christ Jesus.

He cared for the broken hearted.

His Kingdom was one where the poor were given a fair chance.

His Kingdom was one where sinners found strength to be free instead of the condemnation of shame that kept them down and in fear.

John was offering Herod a chance to be free from his guilt and shame.

He was offering Herod a chance to come clean with his own brother.

Just as we mentioned earlier: (SHOW) When we let God reign in our lives, He lifts us up.

His rule is just and fair and it gives us something positive to do.

But John the Baptist faced a terrible reality about human nature, the power of Satan that rules the world and mankind’s appetite for sin.

Sin exists. Satan does not want the light of the good news to shine upon sin and expose its corrupt destructive power.

It was so corrupt that Herodias hatched an evil plot, exploiting even her own daughter in order to enjoy the temporary pleasure of sin.

Apparently it is so powerful that people will close their eyes to their own eternal damnation in order to serve the gods of this world.

(SHOW) Sin is so powerful that people will shut their eyes to their eternal destiny in order to keep on being held captive by its destructive power.

So the choice is clear to us.

Herod had the choice of life and death and he chose death.

(SHOW) Will you chose life and come to Christ?