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Mark 6:14 - 29
A Sinner's Response

Herod was the Roman choice for king in the province of Judea.  So, having the Roman government behind him, he shouldn't have felt at all insecure.  In fact, his only concern should have been good government for the province.  But it shouldn't surprise us that there was lots of political corruption in those days, just as there is in ours.  For that reason, Herod knew that he was only going to stay in office as long as he pleased certain people among his subjects.  So he was constantly concerned for his reputation. 

And there was a big problem.  His name was John the Baptist.  As it turns out, John had said some things about Herod, things Herod wouldn't want heard by just anyone. The only solution He could see was to keep John quiet, and the only way he could think of to keep John quiet was to keep him housed in the local jail.

The problem was that John was one of those meddling prophet types who would come right up into Herod's face and tell him in a voice loud enough for everyone around to hear that he was guilty for marrying his brother's wife. It was embarrassing!  And he felt threatened by it, because it tended to lower him in the esteem of his Jewish subjects (and probably in his own esteem as well). On the other hand, though, Herod was superstitious, and he was pretty sure that John was a prophet of God, so he didn't want to kill him.  So he kept him imprisoned close by so he could control him.  Besides, Herod was curious enough about religion to want to hear what John had to say once in a while. He had a conscience, and it was obvious to him that John was a holy man who would always tell him the truth. He knew in his heart that he needed to hear the truth, even though he didn't particularly like it, so he made it his practice to have John come in and talk to him occasionally. He never intended to actually respond to it, but it salved his conscience to at least listen to it.

How different is it today? Don't many people go to church only because it makes them feel better to at least hear the truth, whether or not they ever intend to respond to it? In fact, sometimes people even become very zealous – or even obnoxious - to "guard the truth." They're always telling others how careful they should be to listen only to faithful preaching of the truth of God's Word. It makes them feel so much better to be "watchdogs," so they're very zealous to make sure their church gets nothing but the truth.

Possibly such people, in their distant past, when their consciences were still at least a little tender, may have felt somewhat convicted by the Word, but many years of merely "guarding" the truth has made them feel like Christians even though they have no living relationship with Jesus Christ. How about you? Do you have an ongoing, living, lively relationship to a real God and His Son? Are you "playing religion," or are you eagerly seeking to know and fully serve the living Christ?

Anyway, Herod felt better if he heard John now and then, even though he kept him under lock and key so he couldn't go out and cause him embarrassment. Here too there are similarities in our day. Many say, "Keep it in the church! Keep the 'separation of church and state,' and make sure religion doesn't get into the schools or any other public place where children (or others) might get infected by it and cause trouble. By all means, don't become a fanatic, and don't let loose on the public anyone who is a fanatic! After all, religion is a personal thing! So let's keep it that way. (Otherwise we we might have to deal with God!)

Because of his conscience, then, Herod had John brought out of prison once in a while, probably into a private-audience chamber, so he could talk to him where the public couldn't hear. It's likely that he tried to tell John all the extenuating reasons why he had married Herodias. John in turn probably told him more and more about the Messiah. Herod's curiosity kept him interested, if not quite to the point of true repentance, yet enough to make him sorry when he finally had to have John beheaded for the sake of his own reputation.

It's a little like old king Saul, Israel's first king. At a point in time just after he had begun to reign, when he was just beginning to gain some success in delivering Israel from the Philistines, Amalekites, etc., God, through Samuel, told him to attack the Amalekites.

In considering this we need to realize that the Amalekites had been immoral to an awful extreme. They were doing many things that were horrible and abominable in God's sight, and they had been doing them for a long time, so God's justice finally had to come. So He had Samuel tell Saul to get his army together, to attack Amalek, and to utterly destroy every last man, woman, and child, along with all their livestock. There were to be no spoils of war for the troops this time, because the Amalekites had used everything they had for immoral purposes, and it might remind Israelites of things they shouldn't be thinking about.

The attack was a rousing success. They captured the Amalekite king, Agag, and 1 Sam. 15:7 says they "utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword." But not all those perfectly innocent sheep and livestock! And not all those other expensive-looking goods! The way Saul explained it to Samuel was that, "they have brought (these things) from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed." Of course, to hear Saul tell it,  it was all the people's fault, not Saul's! And of course it was only for the worthy purpose of sacrifice to the Lord! Who could fault them for that?

But Samuel - and the Lord - had a little different view of it.  Samuel had to say to Saul, "Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?" Notice that he didn't ask Saul why it was that the people had "swooped down on the spoil." He pointed the finger directly at Saul himself.

It was all about reputation. Saul wanted to ingratiate himself with his people, so he let them keep some of the best things. But he also wanted Samuel's esteem, so he did some of what he had been told to do.

But, though he was to have destroyed everything, and though he was to have killed Agag, and not merely bring him to Samuel, yet he ended up doing only what seemed best to him, no matter what the Lord had said. When it came right down to it, he was responsible for his people's actions, his people's greed, and finally his own greed. In his heart he probably wanted to take Agag back home with him to parade him around a little so the people could see what a great king and great warrior this king Saul really was.

So concern for reputation won the day over obedience to the Lord. It was the same in Herod's case. Herodias knew him. She knew he would promise almost anything to a beautiful girl, even - or perhaps especially - to his own beautiful stepdaughter. So Herodias schemed to have the girl dance erotically for Herod and his dinner guests. Herodias knew he'd get into some sort of compromising situation - and she was prepared to take advantage of it to "get even" with John. It worked, and she did.

Herod compromised himself by making a wild promise to his stepdaughter in the presence of his guests, who were reclining together with him at the table, probably all of them at least partly drunk. Everybody was impressed with the girl's rousing show. Following it, they were impressed even further with his exciting promise to her. But then of course he had to keep them impressed by keeping his promise! He didn't really want to give up his conferences with John, but he certainly didn't want his guests thinking that he wouldn't keep his impressive promises. He wanted them to think of him as a grand, powerful king who could and would keep grand promises. His sorrow over what he had to do was a sorrow over his own loss, not a sorrow over sin against God.

How about you and I? Are we sorry for our sins? Are we sorry because we've sinned against a good and gracious God - or are we sorry because we lost self esteem or the esteem of others? How important is reputation to us? Has our sorrow moved us to give up real sins? Do we care enough about what God thinks to give up some very desirable thing - such as our own reputation? Self esteem and the esteem of others is so important to us! But how important is the esteem of God?

Oh let's pray for reviving grace, grace that will move us to become more and more taken up with our Lord, so that what He thinks may be more important than ANYTHING else.

Thank you brother Al.
Yes,let's think before we speak, and not fall into Herod's mistake of promising falsely,let our yes, be yes, and our no, be no.
To make promises that we cannot keep is very foolish,and to be so carnally minded as to feast your eyes on a member of the opposite sex, and be willing to do anything to get them!
Well, no Christian should go there.
Herod was earthly minded, let us keep our eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Amen, Chris.  And remember that the reason Herod could finally kill John was that did not want to do the thing John was preaching.  He did not want to repent.