The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - The Message to the Magistrate ｜ Matthew 14_1-12

00:00:00.000 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform.

00:00:03.940 I get it. It's annoying. Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.

00:00:07.660 When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm

00:00:12.040 so that our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.

00:00:16.280 You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.

00:00:21.860 We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.

00:00:26.800 As Pastor Joel said, our passage this morning will be in the gospel according to Matthew chapter 14.

00:00:33.440 So if you'll either get your Bibles out or you can look in your notes and if you'll stand together with me for the reading of God's word, please.

00:00:41.640 Again, that's Matthew chapter 14.

00:00:44.580 We're going to be reading verses 1 through 12.

00:00:52.060 This is God's word.

00:00:53.200 at that time Herod the Tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus and he said to his servants

00:01:00.140 this is John the Baptist he has been raised from the dead that is why these miraculous powers are

00:01:06.220 at work in him for Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake

00:01:11.940 of Herodias his brother Philip's wife because John had been saying to him it is not lawful for you to

00:01:18.820 have her. And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people because they held him to be

00:01:24.500 a prophet. But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company

00:01:30.300 and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.

00:01:36.320 Prompted by her mother, she said, give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.

00:01:42.100 and the king was sorry because of his oaths and his guests but because of his oaths and his guests

00:01:48.340 he commanded it to be given he sent and had john beheaded beheaded in the prison and his head was

00:01:55.460 brought on a platter and given to the girl and she brought it to her mother and his disciples came

00:02:01.740 and took the body and buried it and they went and told jesus this is the word of the lord

00:02:07.080 you may be seated

00:02:09.540 well our passage today recounts the death of john the baptist and before we move into the passage

00:02:32.160 at all, I want to give us a quick reminder of what John's primary mission was. That is, it was

00:02:40.460 to prepare the way for the new king, the king that was coming. Remember, John preached the gospel

00:02:46.420 of the kingdom. That is, the good news that the true king had come and that this king welcomes

00:02:53.760 all who repent and believe. But we need to remember here at the beginning that John, his whole

00:03:01.300 ministry, his whole mission was that he was rolling out the red carpet for the arrival of the king

00:03:07.700 that could ascend and take the rightful throne. And in doing this, as John was rolling out this

00:03:14.620 welcome for the true king, this threatened the rule of all other earthly kings. And so we need

00:03:21.960 to remember today, because this passage seems strangely placed, but Matthew's goal in the book

00:03:27.140 of Matthew is to make the case that Christ is, in fact, the true king, the king of the Jews and

00:03:33.320 the king of all. And so that's what Matthew is doing here today. He's contrasting Herod, a wicked

00:03:40.000 king, with Jesus, the true king. He's contrasting Jesus' authority, kindness, and righteousness

00:03:47.400 with Herod's tyranny, cruelty, and cravenness. And it would be easy to think that John the Baptist 0.87

00:03:55.640 his comments that get him in trouble, his comments about divorce, were somehow an anomaly, separate

00:04:01.580 from his main mission, not essential to our Christian mission as well. It would be tempting

00:04:07.460 to think, John, if you would have just stayed in your lane, prepared the way for the Messiah,

00:04:12.340 don't get involved with all that extra stuff like whether or not divorce was legal or not.

00:04:18.260 You could have just kept ministering. You would have been great. You would have prepared the way

00:04:22.220 better for Jesus. As we will see today, though, that any time Christians proclaim that King Jesus 1.00

00:04:31.500 has come, we must push the authority of Jesus to all areas of life and society. We do not leave

00:04:38.840 any part of society or any person outside of Christ's authority. And so, as we see with John

00:04:45.720 the Baptist, sometimes that means in our effort to promote and teach the authority of Christ,

00:04:51.440 we will endure severe consequences. By God's grace I hope to encourage us in two ways to be bold

00:04:59.060 to yes proclaim the kingship of Christ but to be resolute and prepared when there's blowback

00:05:05.300 and consequence. Our nation is in a mess and I think of the lines from that famous children's

00:05:13.880 book we're going on a bear hunt. This mess that we're in we can't go over it, we can't go under

00:05:20.800 it. We have to go through it. By God's grace, we will, and we will carry, like John the Baptist,

00:05:28.140 the flag of Christ each step of the way. In your notes, I wrote a brief intro. I'm not going to

00:05:35.460 read that. It's there as a placeholder, because before we dive into the passage itself, I actually

00:05:39.840 want to take an extended time giving some background here, okay? So those are kind of a

00:05:46.040 summary of what I'm about to say now. And I think it's necessary to do this background on the

00:05:51.760 situation in that time, because it really, really will make the passage come to life. So get ready

00:05:57.880 for some names and some locations. Okay, track with me. But just keep in mind that the three

00:06:03.080 main names, I'm doing all of this to try to explain the three names that are in our text.

00:06:08.800 Herod, Philip, and Herodias. Okay, those are the three that you really have to keep track of.

00:06:13.720 there's something that's been going on in the background of the book of Matthew and that is

00:06:20.340 as authority whether religious or political has seen has just kind of bumped into and encountered

00:06:26.380 the true authority of Jesus it has seen Jesus as a threat we saw this originally with Herod the

00:06:33.180 Great and the prophecies and the magi came and he thought immediately uh-oh this is no good

00:06:38.380 and so when he bumped into the authority of Jesus even as a baby he sought to destroy him

00:06:43.520 and mary and joseph had to flee and then of course there were many years about 30 years of silence

00:06:49.860 but then as jesus begins to emerge already we see the religious and the political authorities

00:06:55.740 bumping into him and immediately saying not here is the king we should listen from him we should

00:07:01.220 submit to him but uh-oh this guy's trouble we need to get rid of him

00:07:05.020 so in order for understand what was going on with this game of cat and mouse we do need to

00:07:12.980 know a little bit of history here okay so you're probably familiar with alexander the great

00:07:20.340 after his reign ended the area of israel and judaea fell under greek control still but

00:07:27.500 particularly it was the greek seleucids and when the seleucid king antiochus the fourth

00:07:32.940 came into power in this region in the region of israel he tried to completely wipe out all temple

00:07:39.840 worship and in fact even to use the temple of the jews for pagan worship and this led to what we

00:07:47.060 know as the maccabean revolt and the jewish priest mattathias and his sons they were the maccabees

00:07:53.700 they led a revolt against this greek uh king this was 167 to 160 bc and amazingly even though they

00:08:01.540 were an inferior number they won and they cleaned the temple out from all the pagan implements of 0.69

00:08:07.800 worship and they restored Jewish law and Jewish worship and so for about 80 to 100 years from then 0.90

00:08:15.200 on Israel enjoyed actual independence under the the family that came out of this ended up ruling

00:08:22.040 was called the Hasmoneans and so it's referred to as the Hasmonean dynasty they were genuine Jews

00:08:28.100 they were from the tribe of Levi and they ended up ruling for the next hundred or so years

00:08:33.200 but they made a critical misstep and it was this they were of the tribe of levi so by right and by

00:08:40.540 old testament law they had the right to carry on the priesthood but they also took the kingship

00:08:46.380 as well which should have gone to the line of judah the line of david and this created an

00:08:53.920 internal instability within the country that all through this dynasty was always a conflict

00:09:00.320 And eventually, towards the end of it, two Hasmonean brothers fought over this throne,

00:09:05.520 the Jewish throne, and they couldn't resolve it. 0.82

00:09:10.380 And so what they did was they said, let's invite the new global power, Rome, to come 0.82

00:09:15.380 in and mediate.

00:09:16.680 Let's let them decide who's going to get the land.

00:09:19.500 So Rome said, thank you very much.

00:09:20.960 We would be glad to move an army into your region.

00:09:23.320 And then they never moved out. 0.99

00:09:25.100 And they occupied Israel from that point on. 0.80

00:09:30.400 The Hasmoneans remained to some degree in power, but they were largely figureheads at that point.

00:09:35.340 And as that dynasty weakened further, Rome stepped in and they appointed a foreign leader as king of the Jews.

00:09:43.840 And this was Herod the Great. 0.79

00:09:46.080 He was not Jewish. 0.63

00:09:47.300 He was an Edomite, specifically called an Edomian. 0.68

00:09:50.420 So this was an Edomite who converted to Judaism, at least in name only, for political advantage.

00:09:57.260 and he was called King of the Jews, and this was 40 BC.

00:10:01.300 So we have to understand that when Jesus was here,

00:10:05.140 this arrangement had only been going on for 40 years, right?

00:10:08.740 It was pretty new.

00:10:11.800 So by the time of the Gospels, the throne of Israel 0.93

00:10:14.380 was occupied by a Roman-installed foreigner,

00:10:16.940 not someone from the line of David.

00:10:19.580 And this is Matthew's point from the whole beginning of the book.

00:10:22.260 the true king has come and all false kings feel threatened by him. So Herod the Great is the one 0.76

00:10:30.740 who was in charge when Jesus was born, but he died shortly after Jesus was born. And again,

00:10:36.520 it's important to know what happened in the wake of his death. When he died, remember he had the

00:10:43.080 whole kingdom, basically all of Israel was under his rulership. But Rome decided when he died that

00:10:50.440 they no longer wanted one kingdom in that area. It had been too unstable, too volatile. There had

00:10:56.080 been rebellions. And so they split that whole area into four pieces, four districts, as it were.

00:11:02.940 These were called tetrarchies. If you think of the game Tetris, there's a reason why all the

00:11:08.280 little pieces in Tetris have four cubes. Tetra means four, okay? So for our purposes today,

00:11:15.540 we need to know a couple of these names. Herod the Great had many children with different

00:11:20.580 wives, and his grandchildren, two of them, were Herod in the story, who's called Herod Antipas.

00:11:29.120 So saying Herod is like the family name. Herod, from Herod, and his name was Antipas.

00:11:34.740 And then Herod the Great also had another grandson named Herod Philip. Okay, Herod Philip. And

00:11:41.540 Philip in the story and Herod in the story, Herod Antipas and Herod Philip, were brothers. They had

00:11:47.900 the same father, but different mothers. Herod Antipas controlled two regions of the Judea

00:11:59.240 area. Herod Philip actually did not control any land. He was a wealthy man. He had estates,

00:12:04.900 but he was not a ruler. This is a little bit confusing because in Luke, it does talk about

00:12:09.400 Philip the Tetrarch. There was a separate Philip who was a governor in this area, and he was actually

00:12:14.860 a pretty good governor. He was very restrained and a very good governor. That's not the Philip

00:12:19.700 that's here in Matthew 14. This Philip is the half-brother of Herod, Herod Antipas.

00:12:28.780 Now, Philip married Herod the Great's granddaughter. Her name was Herodias, and this is the same one

00:12:39.180 that's in our passage, Herodias. Now, if you do the family tree, you come to the conclusion that

00:12:44.720 Philip married his niece. Not great. Not great. Okay. She was the granddaughter of Herod the Great

00:12:53.080 and Herod Antipas, the Harris in this story, he, in order to get political power, he had his eyes

00:13:00.820 set on conquering all of Israel. So his kingdom was down in the Southeast and he wanted to conquer

00:13:08.040 all of the rest of Israel and he had a neighbor to his southeast who was an Arabian king and to

00:13:14.360 protect that border so that he could focus northward he married that Arabian king's daughter

00:13:19.140 and that sealed that shored up his southern border he didn't have to worry about attack 0.71

00:13:24.300 or invasion from there but because of Herod and Herodias's ambition they decided it would be better

00:13:35.300 more politically advantageous if they both divorced their current spouse and married each other.

00:13:43.560 And so Herodias divorced Philip to marry the Herod in the story, Herod Antipas,

00:13:50.560 while both of the men were still alive. This was an incestuous, adulterous, politically calculated

00:13:56.660 marriage, and it violated clearly Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20. And Herod Antipas, the Herod in the

00:14:04.480 story, divorced that princess of the Arabian king to marry his niece, Herodias. And all of this was

00:14:13.180 with an eye that they thought that they could gain some sort of political power and take over

00:14:18.560 the entire region. And into this corruption stepped John the Baptist, who in preparing the

00:14:28.380 way for the true king confronted Herod Antipas with fearless prophetic clarity. In Mark 6 18 we

00:14:35.960 read this, he said, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And Herod feared this

00:14:43.800 because John spoke the truth and he spoke it publicly to the people. And Herodias, his niece 0.76

00:14:50.560 wife, supposedly, hated John, knowing that what he said threatened her power.

00:14:58.580 Now, why do I point all of this out?

00:15:02.440 Because we actually have a situation in our time, which is very similar to what we're

00:15:08.560 reading about here in the Gospel of Matthew.

00:15:11.820 In Israel at the time, the religious landscape had split in two.

00:15:16.960 There were two sides.

00:15:18.740 The Sadducees, who were the religious establishment,

00:15:22.740 they were the high priests, and they lived mostly in Jerusalem,

00:15:26.720 they were extremely liberal, extremely liberal.

00:15:30.060 They denied the possibility of miracles.

00:15:32.560 They denied the resurrection.

00:15:34.660 In short, they were denying any sort of miraculous interpretation of the Old Testament.

00:15:39.980 And they were moving away both from the Old Testament

00:15:42.120 and from the traditions that had been built up by the various rabbis over the centuries.

00:15:47.800 On the other hand, there were the Pharisees, and these were the religiously conservative group.

00:15:53.320 They did not have as much power, but what they did have was more grassroots.

00:15:57.620 They focused on the synagogues all through the country.

00:16:02.560 And because of that, because they were more involved with the synagogues and the local level,

00:16:06.820 they were bumping up against Jesus a lot earlier than the Sadducees, who were mainly in Jerusalem.

00:16:12.200 the pharisees absolutely despised roman occupation of israel

00:16:18.460 so the country was split religiously a conservative group a liberal group the liberal

00:16:25.680 group had most of the establishment power and there was a third group in the mix which is a

00:16:30.700 political faction called the herodians the herodians were primarily political but because

00:16:37.300 they were governing in Judea, most of Herod the Great's family that descended from him had

00:16:43.300 quote-unquote converted to Judaism, but of course their alignment was with the very liberal form.

00:16:49.600 They were much more aligned with the Sadducees in their religious practice and belief.

00:16:56.440 We think this because when we compare, there are two parallel passages, Matthew 16, 6, which says, 0.72

00:17:02.600 Jesus said to them, watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,

00:17:07.300 And the same account in Mark 8, 15 says, he cautioned them, saying, watch out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. 0.85

00:17:16.660 So it's likely that the Sadducees and the Herodians were very much in cahoots.

00:17:24.680 So the people who were loyal to Herod were only performatively religious.

00:17:29.960 Their religion was all about the new.

00:17:32.580 It was very liberal in the most liberal way possible. 0.89

00:17:36.020 and yet this is what's so interesting so you've got the pharisees who hate the sadducees and by

00:17:42.200 extension they hate the herodians when the pharisees in the regional areas in the synagogues

00:17:47.680 began bumping up against jesus not liking what he was saying they immediately realized this guy's a

00:17:54.840 problem and mark 3 6 says this this is early in the gospel of mark the pharisees went out and

00:18:01.300 immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Jesus on how to destroy him. And so what

00:18:08.720 we see is these three massive political bodies who are at odds and control the entire discourse in

00:18:15.820 the country, in the region, as soon as the Pharisees bump up against Jesus, they're like,

00:18:21.200 those guys aren't so bad, actually. Let's go partner with them for a little while and get rid

00:18:26.620 of this Jesus guy. And all of this comes to a head, as it were, in the political intrigue of the royal 0.92

00:18:33.840 houses. As I said before, Herod Antipas was politically ambitious. He wanted to reunite

00:18:42.260 the whole region under one kingdom. And his brother Philip was not a ruler.

00:18:48.960 and so the niece Herodias who was probably even more power hungry than Herod himself

00:18:57.140 she and Herod and Antipas decide that they're going to unite and as the story goes Herod Antipas

00:19:06.000 was traveling and he spent some time at his half-brother Philip's estates and while he was

00:19:11.040 there he and Herodias either fell in love or hatched a plan one of the two and they decided

00:19:18.000 to divorce their spouses and marry for political power. Now, as I said, they were both married

00:19:24.840 already. And when Herod Antipas divorced the Arabian princess, the king of Arabia to his 0.54

00:19:34.400 south, not all of Arabia, the Arab kingdom to his south, took it personally. And he mustered

00:19:41.220 an army and invaded Herod Antipas. And he actually won. And the emperor Tiberius actually 0.80

00:19:47.440 had to get involved and he was going to send in an army but he died and the army never happened

00:19:52.660 and basically even though Herod Antipas stayed in power it was pretty obvious to all that he was

00:19:59.200 weak and ineffective this was after Jesus died many of the Jews of that time interpreted that

00:20:07.000 defeat as God's judgment the same judgment that John the Baptist had warned Herod about and

00:20:13.700 Herodias, the niece-wife of Philip, when she initiated the divorce with Philip, this was

00:20:20.180 quite a scandal because for Jews, it was not permissible for a woman to initiate a divorce

00:20:26.780 according to the Old Testament law. It was allowed under Roman law, though, and so what's happening

00:20:34.740 is, she is appealing to Roman law to justify her sin at the expense of Old Testament Jewish law.

00:20:48.340 And there's one last thing to note here. In order to maintain stability in the region, what the 0.66

00:20:55.400 emperor did was he didn't give these rulers big pieces of land to govern. He cut them even smaller

00:21:02.120 and said, okay, Herod, you get the region around the Galilee, which is to the north, and you get

00:21:07.420 the southeast. And they were separated. And this kept them from consolidating power. And so Herod,

00:21:13.580 the Herod in this story, he controlled the region around the Galilee where Jesus was, but his base

00:21:21.360 of operations was in the southeast, exactly where John the Baptist had been preaching. When it says

00:21:28.420 in the gospels that people went out of jerusalem to where john was this is judea beyond the jordan

00:21:34.160 that was about 20 25 miles and that distance took them out of samaria and into this herod's

00:21:42.000 region and near there was his main castle he had a huge castle called macarius macarius sorry

00:21:50.180 now why does this matter because Herod Antipas and Herodias the woman their divorces would have

00:22:01.480 been permitted under Roman law but during his public ministry John the Baptist went out of his

00:22:07.960 way to confront Herod publicly about their marriage practices and their divorces in Luke 3 we read

00:22:16.080 this 318 so with many other exhortations John preached good news to the people but Herod the

00:22:23.020 tetrarch who had been reproved by him for Herodias his brother's wife and for all the evil things

00:22:29.980 that Herod had done added this to them all and he locked John in prison in fact the marriage

00:22:38.280 actually the divorce really that Herod the Tetrarch and the niece wife Herodias had done

00:22:45.600 was such a public issue that there was a massive public debate going on throughout the whole nation

00:22:52.920 of Israel there were two prominent schools led by the two most prominent rabbis and one of them said

00:23:00.160 Herod was justified the Old Testament allows divorce for any reason and the other camp said

00:23:07.260 no, no, no, the Old Testament only allows divorce for unfaithfulness, immorality.

00:23:13.760 But this debate extended beyond just the synagogues, and it was really capturing the entire country.

00:23:22.320 And this went on not just for a little while, but even for multiple years.

00:23:26.600 This was the topic of debate and conversation at the time.

00:23:30.440 and behind thee is the debate is the marriage justified or the divorce justified was the

00:23:37.460 question were Herodias and Herod in sin for doing this it was not just a theoretical religious

00:23:44.540 debate the political consequences of it were severe and because of this it became a very

00:23:50.880 hot political topic because the Jews that said theologically Herod and Herodias were wrong to

00:23:59.580 divorce were implying he is an illegitimate king she is illegitimate

00:24:06.780 and the remarkable thing is that in preparing the way for the true king for christ john the

00:24:16.120 baptist walked right into that controversy over herod's marriage this was not a secondary issue

00:24:21.880 to him because john's job was to prepare the way for the true king and to do that he had to point

00:24:29.120 out the false one. And so John is preaching that Herod's marriage is not legitimate, and the

00:24:38.980 implication is that he is or is not a legitimate king. And there was a fear that this crowd that

00:24:45.620 disagreed with Herod's divorce would agitate and either overthrow Herod or cause such a ruckus in

00:24:52.060 the region that rome would have to send in more troops and occupy even further sides developed

00:24:58.740 around this question high stakes were involved and depending on how you answered that question

00:25:04.860 determined what side you were on both religiously and politically there was no middle ground

00:25:11.300 and i hope you see that even though the times we live in are new to us

00:25:19.320 they're not unprecedented this is in fact a very similar time to what jesus himself

00:25:28.200 walked into in his public ministry hot political topics based in religious interpretations

00:25:35.740 based on religious schisms rulers who are appealing to the masses with a fake or false

00:25:42.240 conversion in order to maintain legitimacy and no one willing to call out the wickedness

00:25:49.160 no our times are not unprecedented they're not the lord has led his people

00:25:57.820 and his plan and the gospel and the church through times like ours before

00:26:03.060 and because john waded into this he was arrested possibly for many months

00:26:11.900 possibly some of the verses seem to indicate that he would have conversation with herod

00:26:18.860 that was likely private and we know that on occasion his disciples were allowed to see him

00:26:24.120 but he was completely removed from public life for months or even up to a year

00:26:28.400 so with all that in mind let's quickly go through the text now to see what it has to say

00:26:37.580 from jesus time and what that means for hours so this is point number two it's really the first

00:26:44.180 point but it's point number two in the outline god's law is absolute and applies absolutely this

00:26:50.320 is the first thing that we're to learn from this interaction between john the baptist and herod so

00:26:55.720 there's kind of an aside here what actually happens is herod hears about jesus fame in the galilee

00:27:02.320 region herod had not too recently murdered john the baptist and so when he hears of this new figure

00:27:12.340 that he had never heard of, rising in prominence, doing miracles, teaching with authority, he

00:27:18.500 comes to the conclusion, this is John the Baptist back from the dead to condemn and judge me.

00:27:27.140 Now, we don't know what prompted John to criticize Herod originally. We don't know if Herod went out

00:27:33.060 to see him. We don't know whether John was simply preaching to the crowds and they asked about it,

00:27:38.720 or we don't know if Herod himself started it, knowing the political situation.

00:27:43.420 But either way, we clearly see in this passage that John brought God's law to bear on the

00:27:50.360 situation. Look at what the text says in verse 4. Verse 4 refers to Herodias as his brother

00:27:58.700 Philip's wife. Well, at that point, according to Roman law, he was married to Herod. He was Herod's

00:28:05.180 wife. But the text goes out of its way to say, no, no, no, no. She was Philip's wife. And we see what

00:28:12.500 John said to Herod in verse 6. John was saying to him, it is unlawful for you to have her. It is

00:28:19.340 unlawful for you to have her. Remember, the law of the Romans would have permitted Herod's divorce 0.79

00:28:23.920 and Herodias' divorce, for that matter. But John the Baptist applied God's standard, not Rome's.

00:28:31.820 He didn't say to Herod, it's not legal for you to divorce your wife.

00:28:37.440 He said it's not lawful.

00:28:40.000 God does not permit it.

00:28:42.800 Meaning that even for these two, Herod and Herodias, 1.00

00:28:46.900 who conveniently want to call themselves Jews, 0.88

00:28:50.640 conveniently want to apply Roman law, 0.79

00:28:52.700 will do anything it takes to gain political power,

00:28:56.760 God is not pleased.

00:28:58.840 And you cannot violate God's principles.

00:29:01.820 They are not simply allowed. This is John's message. You are not simply allowed to do

00:29:06.820 whatever is legal. No, God's law reigns supreme. This is a big deal because Herod tried to claim,

00:29:15.300 like I said, that he practiced Judaism. I want you to see this pattern. This is a pattern

00:29:19.780 repeated over and over in history. Someone will try to excuse his sin. Well, technically it's okay.

00:29:27.000 I found a legal loophole to do this. No one's harmed. It's not against the law. Just two

00:29:33.260 consenting adults, all of that. And to that, we as Christians reply with what is lawful.

00:29:42.420 What has God said about the matter? That is our message. What is commanded by God?

00:29:50.980 And notice that the commands of God, according to John, applied to the least, the normal people 0.61

00:29:56.580 coming to be baptized and the greatest King Herod. Now I want you to see what happens when we 0.77

00:30:03.820 proclaim God's law to people who have hard hearts. God's truth and his judgment can come to haunt

00:30:12.780 people, to weigh on them with a guilt that they don't know what to do with. Even King Herod knew

00:30:20.180 that John was righteous and yet Herod and Herodias killed him. They did it anyway. Notice that verse

00:30:27.420 five said that Herod wanted to kill him the whole time he was in prison. Notice that Herodias

00:30:33.940 especially hated John's message. In Mark's gospel, we read that she bore a grudge for months against

00:30:40.700 him. So the guilt of the divorce and the unlawful marriage and eventually the guilt of imprisoning

00:30:48.560 and killing John blossoms in Herod into paranoia. Verses one and two tell us that when he heard that

00:30:56.680 Jesus was preaching, he's like, only explanation. Even though I'm aligned with the Sadducees who 0.99

00:31:02.720 don't believe in the resurrection, this is a resurrection. John is back and he's going to

00:31:06.780 judge me. You see, when we preach God's law, it leads to a sense of God's judgment on people.

00:31:15.880 and we as christians we sometimes forget that that is a terrifying thing to those who are not being

00:31:23.280 softened by the holy spirit matthew henry says this he says the terror and reproach of conscience

00:31:30.460 which herod like other daring offenders could not shake off and are proofs and warnings of a future

00:31:36.780 judgment and a future misery to them but there may be the terror of convictions where there is

00:31:43.980 not truth of conversion. In other words, the terror that God is right can be present even if someone

00:31:49.660 is not willing to repent. When men pretend to favor the gospel yet live in evil, boy does that

00:31:57.960 describe a lot of public figures in our time now. We must not favor their self-delusion but must

00:32:05.140 deliver our consciences as John did. The world may call this rudeness. What rudeness? An insistence

00:32:11.380 of saying no no no no no you say you love the gospel but you live wicked lives

00:32:15.460 the world may call that rudeness and blind zeal false professors or timid christians

00:32:24.400 may censure it as a want of civility politeness he's saying we're going to get called impolite

00:32:29.820 but the most powerful enemies can go no further than the lord sees good to permit herod feared

00:32:36.740 that putting of John to death

00:32:39.260 might raise a rebellion among the people,

00:32:41.380 which it did not.

00:32:43.460 But he never feared

00:32:45.360 it might stir up his own conscience

00:32:47.740 against him, which it did.

00:32:51.000 And then this line,

00:32:52.320 men fear being hanged

00:32:54.340 for what they do not fear being damned for.

00:33:00.360 So brothers and sisters,

00:33:01.660 we must not be surprised

00:33:03.560 with your friends and coworkers

00:33:05.840 and family members when we live in a wicked time that when we preach god's truth and god's law

00:33:13.440 guilt will descend on them but unless the holy spirit works in their heart

00:33:19.460 often their only response to that guilt is to retaliate

00:33:23.160 sometimes when god's people preach the truth revival happens as with nineveh

00:33:29.980 and sometimes people harden like with pharaoh

00:33:33.620 and that leads to the next point

00:33:41.680 everybody fears something but few fear God

00:33:46.900 notice throughout this text Herod is full of fear

00:33:52.240 he's afraid of a kind of ghostly supernatural vengeance

00:33:56.420 John the Baptist back from the dead a specter like Lady Macbeth feared

00:34:00.860 he's also afraid of the people the crowd the masses verse 5 said that he would not put john

00:34:08.300 to death because he feared them he feared a revolt that they would start an uprising

00:34:12.700 and there's one more thing that he's afraid of in verse 9 we see that he was afraid to lose

00:34:19.420 his reputation in front of his guests now think about this surely if this dancer

00:34:28.940 had asked for his own head,

00:34:32.240 he would have found a way out of this.

00:34:35.160 But he didn't.

00:34:36.680 Because it was John the Baptist's head

00:34:38.460 and because he was afraid of losing face,

00:34:40.700 even though he didn't want to,

00:34:42.560 he thought probably this is not a good idea,

00:34:44.820 he did it anyway.

00:34:46.460 He feared losing his public image.

00:34:51.720 You see the contrast here. 0.99

00:34:53.260 Herod, the unworthy king, afraid, cowardly, conniving.

00:34:58.940 And then Matthew drawing the image of Christ, Jesus.

00:35:03.460 The true king, bold and courageous, giving.

00:35:07.940 The next passage, this is not a coincidence, is the feeding of the 5,000.

00:35:13.280 So here we see Herod's banquet of gluttony and debauchery and death.

00:35:17.820 And then we see Jesus' banquet of life and service and grace.

00:35:23.980 afraid people are tight-fisted cautious ready to lash out and suspicious

00:35:34.540 they are this way not only because they're afraid to lose the one thing that they have

00:35:40.900 but also because deep down they know that they're a slave to their own fear

00:35:46.480 fear brothers and sisters fear is a terrible master it completely paralyzes controls and

00:35:55.660 drives us to do wicked and totally illogical things and not only is the true king christ

00:36:02.640 not afraid but he goes beyond that and he frees his subjects from fear

00:36:08.240 unlike Herod whose subjects lived in fear we do not have to fear what any man would do to us

00:36:17.200 yes in this passage we see they may do terrible things to us but we do not have to fear them

00:36:24.680 John Gill says this Herod feared the multitude not God but the multitude and these not only the

00:36:32.960 large number of people that attended on John's ministry and were baptized him and became his

00:36:38.060 disciples, but also the generality of the people, the whole body of the Jewish nation.

00:36:43.920 So God is pleased oftentimes to restrain the wickedness of princes by the fear of their

00:36:49.720 subjects. And in this sense, it was a good fear for a while that kept John alive.

00:36:57.220 I said just a moment ago that Christians do not have to fear, but that's not entirely 0.94

00:37:02.820 true, is it? We do fear. We do fear. We fear the Lord, the holy judge of all. But that fear,

00:37:12.920 as a Christian, actually becomes a wondrous thing. Think of a Formula One driver, which I have never

00:37:21.060 been and never done. But I imagine it's a terrifying thing to sit down in that machine,

00:37:26.700 to go racing around it over 100 miles an hour inches apart from the cars next to it taking

00:37:34.620 turns in all weather conditions formula one drivers experience extreme g-forces from the

00:37:42.060 rapid changes in speed and direction it can be over five g's while they're braking and cornering

00:37:47.500 they also exert significant physical force pushing that brake pedal and the clutch and all that can

00:37:53.700 can require up to 200 pounds of leg pushing force and they do this for hours their neck and their

00:38:01.240 core has to be extremely strong because they get bounced around so terrifically and yet when that

00:38:08.540 driver gets in that car I imagine there's still a thrill of exhilaration but there's a confidence

00:38:15.020 in how the car has been built in the years of his training the communication with the pit crew

00:38:21.700 and that fear that would be terrifying for us becomes a sense of awe and exhilaration for him

00:38:29.640 so it is with christians as we believe more and more what christ has done for us that he has

00:38:36.140 redeemed us our nearness to god which apart from christ is utter terror and ruin becomes less and

00:38:44.060 less terrifying we come to trust the work that christ has done we are in constant communication

00:38:49.560 with him. We experience not only forgiveness for past sins, but strength for today's struggles.

00:38:56.560 And suddenly, the terror of being in God's presence becomes something else. It becomes awe.

00:39:03.800 It becomes reverence. It is the fearful delight of being embraced by Aslan.

00:39:10.760 and yet those who hate christ cannot know this their only fear is a dread terror of the holiness

00:39:20.620 of god they only know to fight or to flee so of course they will lash out but brothers and sisters

00:39:28.260 we do not fear them we fear and reverence the lord

00:39:32.920 and certainly we would be tempted to fear because the wicked in their fear and in their guilt and

00:39:43.180 in their hardness will lash out and so here we see the next point the twisted alliance between hate

00:39:48.880 and lust this story tells us more details than we might want to know about how wicked

00:39:56.680 Herod, Herodias, and even the entire ruling class were. First of all, we have to see that everything

00:40:04.260 about these two, Herod and Herodias, the king and his so-called niece's wife, revolved around

00:40:11.840 pleasure and power. Herod was a weak-willed man in a lot of ways. And this combination of a love

00:40:19.760 for pleasure and a love for power is a dangerous combination. I said earlier that Herod wanted to

00:40:24.820 take the whole region, the whole area for his own kingdom. And Herodias, the illegitimate niece's 0.95

00:40:31.320 wife, wanted this too. She wanted to be the queen. And so they both hated John for calling out their 0.62

00:40:38.700 sin, and they hated that the people would listen to them. They hated that the message was gaining

00:40:43.140 traction. That's even worse for them. Notice that verse 3 says that Herod imprisoned John in the

00:40:52.460 first place, quote, for the sake of Herodias. She's the one that demanded it. I hate that man 0.98

00:40:59.560 and what he says about me. Get rid of him. Kill him. Call him down. We're not killing anyone today. 1.00

00:41:06.160 I'll just throw him in jail. Imagine the rage, the immediate rage that she had to want his death 0.99

00:41:15.000 on the spot. John dared to tell the truth. And this is exactly what we see now. People get angry,

00:41:28.580 and the more public they are, the more angry they get. Look at how this festered in her. John 1.00

00:41:33.720 was in prison already. He's already out of the public image. He couldn't criticize her publicly.

00:41:39.740 he couldn't call her out anymore. And yet Mark 6, 19 says this, and Herodias had a grudge against

00:41:46.000 him and wanted him to be put to death, but she could not. This is at the time of the banquet

00:41:51.360 that we read about. So this whole time, months or maybe even a year, she's got this grudge gnawing

00:41:56.440 at her. John, John. And you have to think about how crazy he is. He's in a dungeon, completely

00:42:01.120 forgotten by everyone else in the country. She wakes up in the morning, John, that John the

00:42:05.780 baptist growing and festering in her we must expect that people will sometimes be personally 0.88

00:42:14.780 offended by god's truth and that this will lead them to carry a grudge and the grudge will be

00:42:20.300 carried against the messenger of that truth when we bear god's truth and we bear witness to his law

00:42:29.000 we will be the ones that people come to hate sometimes

00:42:33.060 there's another motivation here that we need to keep in mind and it is

00:42:38.780 herod's lust his debauchery herod hosts this lavish party to commemorate his birthday

00:42:47.560 commentators are a little bit split here some of them say maybe it was his coronation or the

00:42:51.960 annual celebration of his coronation either way large party it seems to be the custom of royalty

00:42:59.040 in ancient times to have these lavish parties with men only pharaoh did this uh the babylonians

00:43:06.480 did this uh sorry the assyrians did this um the men would come there would be a lot of drinking

00:43:13.780 a lot of gluttonous feasting and a lot of what we'll call it dancing

00:43:18.380 basically this was a modern day non-christian debaucherous bachelor party

00:43:26.780 the text doesn't tell us this but the historians do tell us so I'm going to read from

00:43:33.200 the commentator John Ellicott he says this dances so he's talking here about

00:43:39.340 what appealed finally to Herod and it was this dance by this girl he says dances in filmy garments

00:43:46.240 that but half concealed the form commonly of an impure or voluptuous nature were common enough

00:43:52.460 both at eastern and roman banquets the guests being simply spectators but the dancers were

00:43:59.520 for the most part women who made it their calling in other words they were professional dancers 0.92

00:44:04.340 usually and it was a new thing at herod's party at which every decent jew would have shuttered 1.00

00:44:12.020 for the daughter of a kingly house to come in thus in a shameless publicity and expose herself to the 0.87

00:44:19.800 gays of the banqueters including as they did the chief captains and chiliarchs of the roman legions 0.97

00:44:27.180 as well as herod's own courtiers and the chief men of the province according to mark 6 21

00:44:32.700 but herodias the wife it would seem knew the tetrarch herod knew herod's weak point and

00:44:41.740 sought to bend him to her will, even though it were by the sacrifice of her own daughter's

00:44:49.480 modesty. She danced before them, literally in the midst of them, as they reclined on their

00:44:56.240 couches, indolently, which means without shame, gazing at her. This wicked, wicked woman sacrificing 0.98

00:45:08.100 her daughter's modesty in order to get what she wanted because she knew that this wicked, 1.00

00:45:14.100 wicked man would love it.

00:45:19.840 Things have really not changed at all, have they? 0.95

00:45:23.600 Notice this, though.

00:45:25.900 This was not a common practice.

00:45:27.820 Maybe having dancers, inappropriate dancers, would have been somewhat common. 0.97

00:45:32.480 But for someone of the royal family to come in and debase herself in this way,

00:45:37.200 that would have been new and we see in mark's account that everyone was delighted by it

00:45:43.200 their delight in perversion that day got turned up a notch before it was just

00:45:50.000 professional dancers now it's a holy or not a royal girl

00:45:55.860 this explains what we are seeing now by the way sin when it goes public when it's private sin

00:46:06.280 there's a measure of social shame that sometimes forces us to restrain ourselves but when sin goes

00:46:13.500 public and is an approved of publicly it gets turned up quickly it gets turned up quickly

00:46:20.920 and when it's embraced publicly it actually becomes a race now to see who can be the next

00:46:29.220 person to get his hand on the knob and crank it up, and crank it up. And then it becomes a delight

00:46:36.800 to be the person who turned it up a notch. So when sin is public, the situation is really desperate

00:46:43.320 because now it becomes a game to be the one who can turn up the volume and turn up the volume

00:46:48.920 and turn up the volume. And so though they were both involved, in this case we see that Herodias

00:46:57.040 plotted against her so-called husband, humiliated him in public by blindsiding him with the dance

00:47:03.360 and then also with the request for John's head. Herod is pleased and probably partially drunk 0.52

00:47:11.360 and he offers this girl whatever she wants. Now Herodias was obviously planning this.

00:47:19.340 She knew what kind of party it was. She knew that lavish offers would be made

00:47:24.120 because that was the custom.

00:47:27.600 And even so, her request blindsided Herod.

00:47:34.360 The girl goes out, comes in.

00:47:36.280 Herod's probably thinking she's going to ask for, you know, a horse

00:47:38.700 or some, you know, very expensive trinket.

00:47:43.160 King Herod, give me the head of John the Baptist here, right now, on a platter.

00:47:50.100 and immediately he realizes he's been played by his own wife but afraid to lose face publicly

00:47:59.680 Herod ordered it done immediately and as John was likely there in that fortress that's the one in

00:48:06.960 the southern region of Israel where Herod made his residence there was a prison there probably

00:48:13.020 John was on the premise, probably happened in like 15, 20 minutes. We need to see how bleak

00:48:21.560 this was at the time. John has been in prison for months with very little exposure. He's sent

00:48:31.240 messengers, Jesus, are you the one? He's by himself. He does not get any sort of final sermon.

00:48:39.160 He doesn't get a final appeal.

00:48:41.520 He doesn't get a confrontation like Elijah did

00:48:43.760 where fire descends and burns up the idols of the wicked.

00:48:48.380 He doesn't get Stephen's chance,

00:48:51.000 who even though he was martyred,

00:48:52.600 presented a defense, a powerful defense of the gospel

00:48:55.480 that was used to convert the apostle Paul.

00:48:59.240 He's brought out of the cell,

00:49:01.040 walked to the execution block,

00:49:02.480 and with no explanation,

00:49:03.840 and it's over.

00:49:06.460 The greatest of the prophets,

00:49:08.340 receives the most ignominious and shameful death.

00:49:14.520 Like Aslan's death, it seemed not only that evil had won,

00:49:18.740 but that it had won with impunity, with no consequence. 0.99

00:49:24.340 This conniving, evil, vindictive woman 1.00

00:49:26.600 and her lecherous, power-hungry husband 1.00

00:49:29.440 had killed the greatest of all the prophets just like that.

00:49:34.500 No epic showdown.

00:49:38.340 cowardice, cravenness, and capitulation. And this is the pattern. When people do wrong and pursue

00:49:45.420 evil, they can only descend more and more until what was once unthinkable, Herod was not going to

00:49:52.740 kill John the Baptist. All of a sudden, it seems like an okay idea. What was once unthinkable now 0.69

00:50:00.360 becomes a happy tool to accomplish more wickedness and this brothers and sisters this pattern is

00:50:09.520 inevitable in the wicked and it is why christians must speak god's truth it's the only breaks it's

00:50:17.700 the only true check the only hope for people to be convicted of sin there are other measures that

00:50:25.380 can temporarily restrain evil and we applaud those but they're temporary

00:50:30.280 but to close today i don't want to leave us on that note of despondency i want to just

00:50:39.780 quickly look at jesus response the last few minutes here looking at how jesus responded to this

00:50:45.920 we see in the next verse that he took himself away he secluded himself when he heard about it

00:50:51.060 so we see here that in his humanity he wanted to grieve we see secondly that even though he

00:50:59.300 wanted to be alone the crowd followed him and his response was compassion and service to them

00:51:05.040 brothers and sisters remember as we think about the nation and the world

00:51:09.760 there are the people caught in the middle they are sinners yes but they're not the same as the

00:51:15.220 ones driving the wickedness they know their need and they come looking for help they don't know

00:51:20.900 where the help is these are the people that we see with compassion and we serve and we love

00:51:28.120 but we also see that Jesus removes himself rather than putting himself in public here

00:51:36.920 Jesus had a strategy and this was not the time for a confrontation with Herod

00:51:42.620 so he heard about the death of John the Baptist but he also heard that he was now on Herod's radar

00:51:47.900 and he moves out to the country for a little while but it will not always be that way if we

00:51:55.220 look down a little bit in the story at the end of his time in the galilee jesus leaves the region

00:52:03.060 in the northwest and where does he go i love this this is amazing mark 10 tells us it says that he

00:52:12.700 left the region of the Galilee, which was Herod's territory, and he went down to Judea beyond the

00:52:19.400 Jordan, also Herod's territory, exactly where John the Baptist had performed his ministry, had been

00:52:27.340 baptizing the people coming out of Jerusalem, and had publicly called Herod to account. He leaves

00:52:33.780 Galilee, and it's obviously intentional. I'm going right to where Herod had his showdown with John 0.89

00:52:40.220 the Baptist. And you remember I talked about how the question of this divorce dominated the public

00:52:48.440 conversation. It was still the case. And Jesus arrives in this region and the loyal lapdogs of

00:52:56.500 the Herodians, the Pharisees, if you look at verse one, it says the Pharisees came right up to him

00:53:01.640 to test him. Not to just discourse with him. It was to trap him. And they say to him,

00:53:11.480 first thing that they say to him when he arrives in Herod's region of power,

00:53:16.820 is it lawful to divorce a woman for any reason at all? Man, you see how this political question,

00:53:25.940 this religious question, they're like, we've got him. He's going to say yes or no. He's going to

00:53:31.280 say no it's not lawful and then we're going to report back to the Herodians and he's going to

00:53:36.800 be done but Jesus does something incredible here he doesn't go back to Moses he goes back to

00:53:43.320 creation and he says God created this way in the beginning and the important thing here is as

00:53:50.840 preeminent and powerful and central as the law of God is Jesus actually says you guys are missing

00:53:57.600 the point it's not about jewish law versus roman law it's about how god has made the world and no

00:54:05.420 roman and no jew and no pharisee and no sadducee gets to countermand that and it leaves them stunned

00:54:13.060 i love this about jesus that when he leaves the galilee he goes right to that spot picks that

00:54:19.840 exact same fight and wipes the floor with them by saying you're asking the wrong question nobody

00:54:26.040 here in this picture wants to submit to God. Nobody. And that's your problem. Because if

00:54:32.160 you submitted to God, you would recognize me as the King and the Messiah, and you would humble

00:54:36.960 yourselves. So brothers and sisters, we need to remember that in times that we live in, wicked

00:54:46.760 times when we preach God's truth it's going to hurt people have not been exposed to it

00:54:55.100 or they have been used to hiding it and it's going to hurt and there's going to be backlash

00:55:00.360 but that's the time that God has called us into to preach the truth and the gospel

00:55:08.440 with courage with boldness with resolution and to proclaim like John the Baptist did

00:55:16.640 the true king has come. And the message and the gospel of the kingdom is that he welcomes all

00:55:23.300 who humble themselves and repent and believe. So let us not grow weary in doing that in the face

00:55:31.040 of increasing hostility, increasingly high stakes. Let us carry the banner of Christ forward

00:55:36.780 together. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this incredible truth. Thank you that

00:55:42.940 your son Jesus Christ the true king and messiah is not cowardly he's not weak he is not indecisive

00:55:55.780 he is the true king of kings and the true lord of lords and we pray that you'd give us courage

00:56:01.840 to proclaim that to the world around us we trust you lord we don't fear the world we fear

00:56:07.420 and trust and revere you so help us to walk in obedience in Jesus name amen

00:56:12.940 Amen.

The NXR Podcast - November 09, 2025

THE SERMON - The Message to the Magistrate ｜ Matthew 14_1-12

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript