The Sermon on the Mount IV

Subtitle: Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God II

Matthew 5:21-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 31, 2023.

We will continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount today.

We looked at the Introduction that Jesus gives to the Kingdom in Matthew 5:3-16.  There he challenged his audience to quit looking at what they don’t have and to start seeing what they do have.  God was opening the door to the Kingdom for them in Jesus, in fact, he is The Door to The Kingdom (John 10:1-9).

Jesus then gave them three metaphors to help them see what God was wanting to do through those who entered the Kingdom.  He wanted them to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city on a hill.  Each of these speak to the spiritual impact believers in Jesus would have on the world around them.

Just like a door is a transitional spot between two different places, so the presence of Jesus brought Israel into a transitional spot between being the nation through whom God was primarily working to choosing to follow Messiah into a new reality.

In verse 17, Jesus begins to develop his first major point by stating his purpose to fulfill the Law of Moses, rather than destroying it.  In verse 21, he then points to six places in the Law of Moses in order to show how Israel’s leaders were missing the mark and how they could hit it.  Let’s look at our passage.

Six case studies in fulfilling the Torah and Prophets of God (v. 21-48)

Verses 21-26 are the first look at the Law, which focuses on the Sixth Commandment of The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.  “You shall not murder.”

Before we get into looking at what Jesus says about murder, there are some structural issues to take note of in each of these six case studies.

Jesus will always start out with what they have heard from their teachers in expounding the Law.  He will then contrast that with what he teaches them now.  Lastly, Jesus then moves to give some “therefore” statements, which highlight the fact that he intends us to think about the implications of what he teaches.  The therefore sections flesh out what it would look like to heed his teaching.

In each of these, if we treat Jesus like another rabbi, and if we approach his words like the Pharisees approached the Law of Moses, then we will only be focused  on the letter.  Jesus would simply be adding more laws to the 613 that they already had.  Yet, this is not what Jesus intends.  The words that he speak are a representation of him and what is in his heart.  They draw us into relationship with The One who spoke them so that we can be led by His Holy Spirit to “flesh out” his intention for us.

Another issue is this.  Any honest look at the Law of Moses will see that they are not all of the same kind.  There are different types of laws.  The most obvious are the moral laws, which say things like, “You shall not murder.”  Murdering is inherently wrong, evil.  It will always be wrong because we do not have the authority to murder people, any more than to rape them or take all of their things.

A second category are the ritual laws, sometimes called ceremonial laws.  These have to do with how the tabernacle, the temple, would work.  You will notice in these laws about sacrifices, etc., that there is nothing inherently good about killing a bull in a special way, and in a special place, every time you sin.  They were symbolically pointing to greater spiritual truths.  This is part of the tutor, or schoolmaster, purpose of the Law.  They are only a moral obligation because Israel covenanted with God to do them.  Like a parent telling a child what they should do, the moral issue is not something like what time you go to bed, but rather about whether or not you will listen to your parents, even greater, God.

Lastly, there are civil laws that described how Israeli society would operate and the things they would do to set themselves apart from the world around them, whether in diet or dress, etc.  Some of these categories have overlaps.

In the first century, Jesus had to qualify his teaching by stating that he is not trying to abolish the Law of Moses.  It is interesting to me that most would accuse me of trying to bring people back under the law.  This is not what I am doing.  To be clear, Christians are not under the covenant of the Law that began at Sinai.  Yet, we need to hear the heart of our master here.

The Law of Murder

There were laws that also talked about manslaughter and what to do in those cases, but let us stick to what Jesus is doing here.

Jesus begins with the phrase, “You have heard that it was said to those of old…”  As I said earlier, this points to the teachers that they are hearing in their day.  Jesus refers to their teaching in order to set up a contrast with his own teaching. 

More than contrasting, he is demonstrating that there is something that these teachers are doing that is in error.  On one hand, Jesus will show us how God intended the Law to be followed, and yet on the other hand, Jesus is preparing to cut a new covenant that would require his death and resurrection.  This gives us a dual point of how the law should be heard, but also moving on to the new thing that God is doing.

The shepherd of their day are not good shepherds.  So, what was their error?

Their teachers have been focusing on the letter of the Law, which over time had accreted a large number of precedents and rabbinical “case-law.”  They emphasized the outward conformity to the Law, but ignore that these are the instructions of a loving Father who is more concerned about the moral character that would drive their actions, than simply wanting outward conformity.

Have you ever listened to lawyers twisting every word that is said by someone in order to get their client off, or if you are the prosecutor, to nail the defendant to the wall?  To a lawyer, the law is merely a challenge.  It simply becomes something to be manipulated to your favor.  Surely, God could never be pleased by people twisting His words.

In the case of murder, they simply taught that you would be liable to the judgment if you murdered someone.  Of course, it is not bad to teach this.  The error is in what is missing, the heart of the One who gave the Law, and the heart of those who were receiving it.
It is interesting that the Bible begins with two chapters about the work of God in making all things “very good.”  However, the next two chapters are very bad.  Genesis chapter four is often seen as the first murder.  Cain murders his brother, Abel.  Notice that God sees that Cain’s heart is wrong (i.e., Cain hasn’t murdered anyone yet).  Like a good father, God speaks to Cain about what happened and what was going on in his heart.  He warns Cain to control himself because sin sought to have mastery over him.  Any true father is not content to merely have sons who don’t murder one another.  You want sons who have his heart for their brother.  He wants us to honor how He feels towards our brother, our neighbor, even our enemy.

By the way, Genesis four is actually a story about two murders.  Lamech kills a young man who had injured him, and we see him justifying himself.  The chapter ends with violence filling the earth.

Yet, don’t miss that Genesis three is also a story about two murders (or potentially, the murder of the human race).  The serpent, the devil, seduces Adam and Even into an action that brings death into their lives.  The pre-flood civilizations did not go deep enough.  They abused the mercy of God to Cain (not capital punishment) and refused to go deeper into their hearts.  In the end, the world was filled with murder because the hearts of men were full of murder.  All of this begs the Genesis :26 question, just who were they imaging?  It wasn’t their Creator, it was their own murderer, Satan.

After laying out what they were being taught, Jesus turns on the phrase, “but I say to you…”  Jesus does not have the kind of credentials that their teachers had.  Just who does he think he is?  Well, he is the One sent from God, and thus, he has credentials that none of them had.

Jesus gives three statements.  The first is about being angry with your brother.  The version that I have been using adds the phrase, “without a cause.”  This phrase is debated because there are some early manuscripts that do not have it.  The question then becomes, was it added or was it taken out?  There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to take it out.  But, if it wasn’t there, putting it in would soften a harsher statement.  I would simply say that the apostles would later teach us to be angry and sin not (Ephesians 4:26 quoting Psalm 4:4).  Anger isn’t so much the problem, as it is the source of our problem.  Anger has a lot of power and our flesh tends to use the force of anger in order to push us into sinful actions.  James 1:20 tells us that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

So, even if my brother did something that I am rightly angry over, I am still in danger of sinning.  I will come back to deal with the warning Jesus gives.

This first one had to do with internal thoughts and feelings of anger.  Jesus then moves to two outward actions that show contempt for our brother who has angered us.  Calling someone “Raca” was essentially calling them an empty-headed person, a numbskull, a dunderhead, an idiot, and I could go on.  It is contempt for them intellectually.  Calling someone “You fool! (the Gk is from the word where we get moron) also had a sense of poor intellect.  However, for Hebrews this word also had spiritual connotations (it generally doesn’t for us).  The fool is a person who willfully ignores the teaching and ways of God in order to make their own way.  Yes, it is foolish, but it is also a rejection of God.  There is a immoral component to it.  Thus, this is to have contempt for your brother intellectually and spiritually.

Notice that as Jesus moves through these three things that he starts with them being liable to the judgment, and then to the Council (the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem), and finally to the “Gehenna of fire” (my version says hellfire).  No human can put you in the Gehenna of fire, which was a phrase used to speak of God’s judgment.  This then begs the question of what judgment and what council he was speaking about before?  Regardless, something as small as calling your brother a name is coming from a dark place that God will not put up with.  They were definitely not thinking that they were in danger of God throwing them into Gehenna for calling their brother a moron. 

They should have gone deeper, but under the New Covenant that Jesus would cut with God at the cross and give to his followers, we do not serve as if following more stringent laws.  We follow and serve the purposes of Jesus by the help of the Spirit of God in order to do the spirit of the law.  We see this in Romans 7:6; 8:2,4; 9:29; and 1 Corinthians 5:7-8.

In verse 23, Jesus moves to his first therefore statement.  Notice that he has repeated the word “brother.”  It is reminding us of that first actual slaying of a human being, which was done between brothers.  Like Cain, our contempt and anger can push us to do heinous things against our brother, whom God loves.

This very same God desires us to reconcile and make things right.  Cain needed to see that he wasn’t imaging God and turn back from anger.  Even if there had been cause to be angry (in Cain’s situation, there wasn’t), Matthew 18 would later deal with what to do if you had cause to be angry.  You will notice there that Jesus is promoting the same thing that he does here, reconciliation.  We cannot come before God and pretend we are worshipping him while we know we have done our brother wrong.  Jesus actually puts the onus on the brother who did the offending.

We can’t force reconciliation, but we can do what Romans 12:18 says.  “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men…”  Then verse 21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

This is why Jesus boils the whole law and the prophets down to having a heart of love for God and our neighbor.  Such a heart of love will express itself in actions of love.  Yes, that is a hard task, but Jesus has done two huge things to help us.  He has removed our sins and their judgment from over our heads, and he has given us his Holy Spirit to help us battle sin in our life.  We first die to our own righteousness and then we die to our flesh.  We try to make things right with all who would have ought against us before approaching God in worship.

Jesus ends this section with a second practical therefore statement, even though he does not repeat the word. People who are angry do not always think well.  They are not as innocent as they may deem.  In such a case, you can end up getting yourself in a pickle.  Jesus envisions two angry men going to a judge and one of them is going to be shocked.  Jesus thus brings up the idea of settling out of court.  Would I push the issue if I was brought into court every time I became angry and ran the risk of a penalty?  Imagine how many times we become angry with people and don’t give it a second thought.  Yet, this is the turn of this small parable in verse 25.  Just who is your adversary?  Ultimately, your adversary is the devil.  He seeks to prosecute you before God.  You are even now on your way to the Judge of all men, the Lord Jesus.  Jesus is no respecter of persons.  You may win some judgments regarding your anger, but will you win them all?  Wouldn’t it be wiser to make your peace with your brother in this life while you can, before you end up at the judgment seat?  If something is settled out of court, then it seems that Jesus will not judge it.

Just as the fires of Gehenna were the danger earlier, here the danger is to be thrown into the prison.  The prison, the holding place of wicked spirits, is not a good place to go.  Some will point to the phrase, “you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny,” as hope that Gehenna is not without end.  Be careful of that.  It doesn’t say that you can pay it off.  Rather, it emphasizes that you won’t get out until you have.  This begs the question.  How does a person pay off a debt when they are in prison?  If the price for removing my sin was the perfect Son of God dying on a cross on my behalf, then it seems very unlikely that I will ever “pay it off.”  This is intended to scare the anger out of you, or at least, wake you up to the true dangers you face.

None of us would survive such a judgment.  Our only hope is to try and reconcile with our brother and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court, which is merciful to those who have shown mercy.

Instead of using the lack of a murderous action as a cloak, through Jesus, God is calling us to overcome evil by dying to our righteousness, and coming alive to his righteousness.  This is that righteousness which laid itself down that we might live.

May God fill us with repentance, and then with His Holy Spirit, so that we can live out the righteousness of God.

Fulfill II audio

It's Me Standing in the Need

2 Samuel 12:1-14.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on the Sunday preceding Dependence on King Jesus Day, July 2, 2023.

The story of David's sin with Bathsheba can be found in 2 Samuel 11.  It is a dark stain upon the otherwise righteous life and impeccable character of David.  I mean a stain so dark that it causes many to balk at how he could have done these things without having been like this all the time before it.  Chapter 11 ends with the statement that is translated in many versions as saying that David was "displeasing to the Lord."  It literally says that "it was evil in the eyes of the Lord."

Temptation is a powerful thing.  It started with David walking on his rooftop in the cool of the evening.  From his vantage point, he happened to see a woman bathing who was a striking beauty.  He should have walked away at that point.  One cannot control that first moment of seeing something that you were not attempting to see.  However, lust took root in David's heart.  He had "beheld" her too long with his eyes.

The Bible speaks of  making provision for the flesh.  In this case, David did not know who this woman was.  He could have left it at that, but his desire pushed him to inquire about the identity of this woman.  It was then that he found out that it was Bathsheba, the wife of one of his elite warriors, Uriah the Hittite.  He should have immediately walked away.  She was the wife of another man, and thus, not a potential prospect for him (even though he had plenty of wives at this point). 

Now that he knew her identity, David's lust pushed him further.  He sends for Bathsheba to come to the palace.  It is not clear how she is talked into coming to the palace, but it appears she was as willing as he to commit adultery. 

It is not clear if David intended to continue meeting with her, but she later sends back word to David that she was pregnant.  During this story, her husband Uriah has been with the army of Israel across the Jordan.  They were battling against the Ammonite city, Rabbah (the modern city of Amman).  We don't know how long they had been away, but Uriah's absence made it easier to commit the adultery.

David had a problem.  Uriah would know that the baby could not be his.  David had no doubt made some promises to Bathsheba.  To solve his problem, David calls for Uriah to come back to Jerusalem under the guise of quizzing him about how the war was going.  After this debriefing, David tells him to go home, even sending food to his house as a reward for all his faithful service.  Of course, David believes that a man who has been away to war for months would immediately jump on a chance to be intimate with his wife.  Thus, Uriah would never know that the child was not really his.

However, Uriah did not comply.  He was too noble to sleep with his wife while his brothers in arms were still at war and perhaps dying on the field.  They couldn't sleep with their wives, and neither would he take advantage of his trip home. 

David finds out the next day that Uriah did not go home, but slept in the servants quarters of the palace.  He tried one more trick by having Uriah eat with him and attempting to make him drunk so that he would lose his inhibitions and go home.  Still, Uriah exercised restraint (unlike David) and again slept in the servants quarters of the palace.

David had to send him back, and so he sends him back to the battle with a letter for Joab the General.  It basically told Joab to put Uriah in the front of the battle and then have the men pull back so that Uriah would die.  Joab complied, and Uriah died at the hands of the Ammonites.

How could David have done such a horrible thing to anyone, much less a man who had been faithful to him during the many years of running from Saul?  David had chosen to act like the very man he had replaced, abusing his power, and unrighteously seeking the life of a just man.  He did all of this to satisfy his lust.

This brings us to our passage today.

Nathans story (v. 1-6)

One has to believe that the Spirit of God had been convicting David all along the sordid path of his sin.  At the moment of seeing her, it would have been there.  "Walk away!"  But, David didn't listen and pressed on.  "Don't ask who she is!"  However, David did it anyway.  "Don't send that servant to fetch her!"  Yet, he did.  "Don't take her into your bedroom!"  "Don't call for Uriah!"  "Don't send him home."  "Don't get him drunk."  "Don't write that letter!"  "Don't give it to him!"  All along the way, David trampled the warnings of his conscience and of the Spirit of God, letting his lusts drag him away.

Sin often creates problems and we see David scrambling to cover up his sin.  However, he reached a point where he was no longer scrambling and it appeared that he had gotten away with it.  Yet, when we refuse to listen to God, He has ways of getting our attention.

Let's recognize that David did not just commit two sins, adultery and murder.  He was daily sinning against the Lord who had loved him, protected him, and raised him up to be king of Israel.  He was sinning against God every day he hardened his heart.  David was trapped in his sin.

However, God cared about Uriah's family.  He cared about Israel, and about what David would become if he was allowed to get away with this sin.  God cared how David's actions would affect the strategic position that he had within God's plan of redemption for Israel and the nations.

In 2 Samuel, God had promised David that the Messiah would come through his line, and that he would sit upon the throne of David forever.  This sin was an obstacle to the work of God through David and so God steps in by sending Nathan the prophet to David.

Speaking truth to power can be a dicey prospect even when God sends you.  God can protect you, but He can also be testing the authority to see if they will abuse his servant.  Think about it.  What happened to most of the prophets?  They were killed by the powers to whom they spoke the truth. 

Today, in America, people are slobbering at becoming a prophet.  They are going to schools, and studying the lives of "prophets," so that they can learn to be one.  However, becoming a true prophet of God is akin to receiving a death sentence in this world.  It is heartaches and humiliations galore, not a giddy event.

Telling David a story allows Nathan to slip the truth in before David spits it out.  You remember the song.  "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down..."  There is a lot of medicine that we need, but we don't want to swallow it.  We don't want to hear it.  We are sick and tired of hearing it.  We put our fingers in our ears and then angrily go away so that we won't have to hear it.  Of course, in doing so, we have just testified against ourselves.  On the day that we stand before God, He will ask us why we didn't listen.  We may then reply that we couldn't have known.  Yet, God will play that moment back to us, and we will be silenced.

Nathan's story is a classic rich man versus poor man plot.  David would quickly empathize with the powerless poor man, having been the youngest of a lot of brothers.  Also, he had been falsely accused by Saul who was the previous king.  Saul had hunted him like a deer throughout Israel, seeking to put him to death unjustly.

The story is very straight forward.  A rich man who has plenty of lambs to slaughter, and plenty of money with which to buy a lamb if he needed, is contrasted with a poor man who had nothing but a ewe lamb that he had purchased.  It was a family pet, much like we would keep a pet dog.  Like any pet, this lamb had become very dear to the poor man and his children.

One day a traveler came and stayed with the rich man.  Instead of feeding him from his own flock, or buying a lamb from the market, he takes the lamb of the poor man and feeds it to his visitor.  Though nothing is mentioned, the poor man would have never agreed to this.  So, we are left to imagine what the rich man did to take the lamb, no doubt a group of his hired hands roughed the poor man up.  Of course, such details are irrelevant.  How does a person come to a point of such gross sin?

Of course, this is an analogy.  The traveler represents the temptation and the lust of David being stirred up.  Like a traveler from afar, lust shows up and asks for lodging for the night.  He should have told it to go lodge somewhere else.  However, David wished to entertain this traveler.

Though Nathan did not ask for a decision, David explodes with great anger.  He is quite passionate in declaring judgment against the rich man.  He calls upon the Lord as a witness, "As the Lord lives!"  He then declares that the man will die.

Now theft was not a capital crime in Israel, just as it isn't in our Republic.  His statement that the lamb will be paid back four times shows that David is quite aware of Exodus 22:1 and its prescription.  However, because the rich man did this thing "without pity," David wants him to die.

Mitigating factors are things that lessen the gravity of a crime.  Perhaps a man was an orphan, very poor, and had no food.  Such a person who steals a lamb in order to keep from starving is not going to be judged so harshly.  However, the rich man has aggravating factors.  David thinks that his riches and insensibility requires death.

It is an interesting dynamic that people who are overly harsh in their judgments are often hiding sin of their own.  They refuse to repent, and thereby punish themselves, so they take it out on others.  David himself is guilty of several capital crimes.  You might think he would be adverse to capital punishment.  Instead, he insulates himself by becoming overly righteous.  Sometimes people can become so bad that they lie to themselves.  "I'm okay, and it is everyone else who is wrong!"

Jesus alludes to this in Matthew 7:5 when he talks about judging.  "Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  When you have fought against sin in your own heart and mind, you tend to be more compassionate without excusing the sin.  You know that fighting sin is hard, so you work hard to help your brother come clean before God without crushing him with harsh words.

Every son is disciplined by their fathers.  As earthly fathers, none of us are perfect in our discipline.  If you have any kind of heart for them at all, you try to do your best.  Of course, no kid likes the discipline they receive at the time.  However, discipline doesn't have to be perfect to do a good work in us.  By its very nature, being disciplined to do anything in life builds strength and tempers a person.  It can be directed in better paths latter, but the foundational skill is there.

This is why many in our society enter the work force and cannot keep a job.  They were never disciplined, and taught how to discipline themselves at home.  Parents know that life is tough, and if a person is not disciplined, it is even tougher.

The same thing is true spiritually.  Let's get real.  The effects of sin are devastating, and harsh.  If you are not disciplined, get ready for a lot of lumps.  Of course, there isn't a one of us who hasn't received their fair share of lumps from sin.  However, God is gracious to keep reaching out to us.

Nathan waits until David's response is made, and then, he masterfully reveals that the story was a picture of his actions with Bathsheba.

The meaning of Nathan's story (v. 7-14)

"You are the man!"  With this simple sentence, David quickly sees that Nathan knows everything, and that God is not going to let him get away with it.  You are the man in this story David.  And, this time, you are not the poor, persecuted man.  You are the abusive, rich man.

Nathan quickly moves to the judgment that God has given.  Notice that God is not as harsh in His judgment as David was in his.  You could say that God didn't keep the Law of Moses.  I remember a Jewish man asking me a gotcha question.  "Is there grace in the Law of Moses?"  I told him that there was grace all through the Law of Moses.  He was surprised that this would be my answer as a Christian.

The prophets of Israel understood that the Law could not save them in and of itself.  David himself got it.  In Psalm 51, which he wrote following this event, he writes that if God really wanted the blood of bulls and goats that he would give it.  Instead, what God really wanted was a broken and contrite heart.  Such a man God would not turn away.

Have you noticed that our society seems to be exalting a principle of not having to pay the consequences of sin.  However, mercy is not mercy unless sin is sin.  What I mean is this.  If we detach sin from its natural consequences, then we are no longer being merciful.  We diminish sin to something that isn't your fault, poor you.  We enlist the taxes of the rest of society to mitigate, and even erase as much of the consequences as we can.  This is not mercy; it is insanity.  It creates a society of thankless, entitled brats who have lost connection with reality.  It also creates an elitist class that grifts off of the tax pools that are enlisted to "help these poor people."  Yes, they are poor, and yes they need help.  But, this is the last thing these grifters would ever hope to happen.  Thus, every year the helpless and hopeless pool grows larger, and the pot of money needed to "help them" grows larger, and the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of the elite and their cronies grows exponentially. 

This is why God designed homes to be a protected environment for kids to learn about the consequences of sin.  Parents are not perfect, but they have the greatest interest in this child maturing into a man or woman that is able to discipline themselves for their good, and the good of society.  Believe me, when you leave home and go out into the world, the stakes become much higher, and the consequences of a poor choice can mean your life, and much more, your eternity.

We should see consequences as the grace of God that tell us that we can't ignore and run from sin.  It tells us that it is better to nip it in the bud because the effects of sin grow exponentially the longer we cling to it.

David was running from his sins, and it needed to be nipped in the bud.  God had staked a lot on David, but he doesn't hide his sin.  He makes him face it publicly.  In fact, God knew what David would do when He removed Saul and placed David in his place.

It is important to recognize that the Bible does not present King Saul as all wicked, and King David as all righteous.  They both are raised to power as good men, and they both end up in a place of abusing their power and being rebuked by God.  So, what is the difference between Saul and David?

The difference is this.  When confronted with their sin by the Lord, David repented, but Saul blamed it on everyone but himself (including God).  David turned away from a heart that is hardened against the ways of God with a broken and contrite heart, but Saul hardened his heart and persisted in his ways of wickedness.

This has always been the difference between the righteous and the wicked.  It is not that the righteous have never sinned, or haven't sinned as much as the wicked.  It is that they repent when God sends the message, "You are the man!"  Of course, we need to walk repentance daily.  It is a trap to think that you no longer have to worry about repentance because you did it already.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus identified with His Church knowing what a mess we would make of it.  Jesus is not for our sin as a Church.  He despises what it does to us and to a fallen world.  Don't be deceived.  He will always rebuke and discipline the ones He loves.  He will not walk arm and arm with us and pretend like our sin is no big deal.

However, God is not afraid to be connected to us and our sin.  We are His Church. He is faithful to do the work of purifying His children, and His Church as a whole.  Ultimately, the end times will bring forth a polarization of the external Church into a false church vs. a True Church.  Christ will allow the Beast to destroy one and will stand in defense of the other.

An aggravating factor is that David sinned in the face of great blessing from God.  David had difficult times during the years of King Saul.  Yet, God protected him, and sent men to rally around him.  God gave him victory over Goliath when no one else had the faith to stand against him.  God blessed him as a victorious general in Saul's army.  God blessed him with a family, and ultimately that his dynasty would last forever.  Verse 8 shows us God's heart.  "If that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!"

We should note that it was normal for kings throughout the world to have whatever women they desired under their rule.  In fact, it is even still normal for presidents today to send word to a woman, married or not, that the president is interested.  Power goes to people's heads, and people will protect and feed the lust of an individual simply to stay close to the levers of power.  No one would have batted an eye at what David did if he were in a nation other than Israel.  However, this was Yahweh's land.  The God of Truth, who raised up kings and put them down at His leisure, made this a different story.  The God of Israel would not countenance such a thing without repercussions.

However, I am talking about America today!  We have been so blessed, and we have been gobbling up blessing after blessing, to the left and to the right, just shoving it into our mouths like a bunch of porky pigs.  Still, we just don't have enough.  We have to go out and straddle the planet with our military and global corporations, taking as we please and cloaking it in a deceptive cloak of morality.

We do similar things in our cities and towns.  Family members do it to family members.  In so many ways, we are gobbling up the grace of God, and we are taking it for granted.  You can't do that for very long and survive the wrath of God.

Yet, God in His great grace is faithful to send voices out of the wilderness to tell us a story, to try and get our attention.  I believe that God is greatly displeased with these united States of America.  I think that He is trying to get some Nathan's to rise up and confront the people of this Republic.  Yes, truth must be spoken to our government officials, but the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court are not the highest human authorities in this land.  No.  The highest human authority in this land is We the People who ordained and set in order the highest human law of this Republic, the Constitution of these united States.  The rebuke must first be heard by We the People, and a response of repentance must first be walked out by We the People before God will hold our criminal servants in government accountable.

Ours is not a message of destruction.  God gives grace to David.  He deserved a death sentence, but God actually wanted a repentant heart that would quite the lawlessness.  There is hope in repentance.  God hasn't cast you off yet.  He is not calling for your death!

David  is told that he has despised God's commands (v. 9), and then later that he has despised God Himself (v. 10).  David knew the truth of God, but in this moment he wanted to sin.

It is a great blessing to know the heart and commands of God.  Many people in this world don't know their right hand from their left hand.  It doesn't excuse their sin, but it does mitigate their guilt before God in comparison to ours.  Some might say that no sin can be mitigated, but our sin can be done with aggravating factors that make it even worse.

Yet, over the top of this, David did his sin anyways.  He then continued to sin in order to cover up his previous sin.  Temptation and sin is precisely a trap.  The bait may be delicious, but now Satan has you in his hands.  He will manipulate you into more and more sin, worse and worse sin, in order to defeat the work of God in your life and sphere of influence.  Sin knows no boundaries, and there is no "bottom of the barrel."  There is only a descent into the abyss, into the bottomless pit of degradation and wickedness.

The word "despised" has the sense of lifting your head disdainfully against God and His Word.  Is this not a picture of our Republic today?  Is this not a picture of many Christians who give lip service to God, but despise His Words in their hearts and actions?  Let not a man bound by sin think that he can have freedom.  God will be faithful to send gracious rebukes, but if we do not repent, we will continue in slavery to sin and the powers that He places over us.

Nathan tells David that his actions had given the enemies of the LORD occasion to blaspheme (v. 14).  There were those in Israel who refused to serve Yahweh in their hearts.  There were also some who refused to believe that God had removed Saul and placed David on the throne.  They hated the ways and decisions of Yahweh.  To blaspheme is to declare things as true that are not true of Yahweh and His work. 

This is happening all across our land today.  Some of it is the fault of the Church.  We give ammunition to the enemies of God when we hide sin and refuse to deal with it.  This also gives ammunition to the spiritual powers to keep them from coming to see the truth of God and switching allegiance.

In this case, it is most likely that the blasphemy would not be centered on the idea that there is no Yahweh, or that He is not really about righteousness.  They would speak out against the decisions of Yahweh that were pronounced by prophets like Samuel and Nathan.  They could even reject the idea that a Messiah figure would come from the line of David.  How can a righteous man come from such a line?  One can't in the flesh, but by the Spirit of God, all things are possible!

It is one thing for people to despise God and His ways when Christians do what is righteous.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:6, "Blessed is he who does not stumble because of me."  Jesus had done nothing wrong, but he knew many people would not understand what He was doing.  However, the American Church is not pure.  We have become like David in many ways.  Have we also insulated ourselves so that we don't have to hear the voice of the Nathan's in our land?

Let me end with talking about God's mercy on David.  David would not be executed, and God would not cancel the covenant promise that He had made concerning Messiah.  Furthermore, God would remove David's sin from him. 

This is not favoritism.  This is about God's love for all sinners of the earth, and grace for those who will turn from their sin, repent, and turn towards Him and His righteousness.  Messiah would not come from a perfect family of a perfect tribe of a perfect nation.  God's work within all of us is at its best mercy upon a sinner who deserves death.  Even the people that He uses in our lives are merely sinners saved by the grace of God.

In the midst of God's grace is also chastisement.  The child would die, and David would continually have trouble with "the sword" among his family.  On top of this, God would raise up one who would sleep with David's wives in the full view of all of Jerusalem.  This was done during the rebellion of his son Absolom.  God sends a signal to Israel and to the nations that no man, no matter how much authority God has given him, is above the Word of God and the call to repentance by anyone in society.

America has been sinning for a very long time, but the greatest problem is those who claim to know Jesus who are refusing to repent.  They don't want to give up their authority and will not be held accountable to any religious notions.  Do you remember the phrase, "No king, but King Jesus!"?  Just like God knew Israel would fail from the beginning, so God was quite aware of the faithlessness of this nation that would grow through the centuries.  Yet, He decided in our favor during the War for Independence.

We must quit looking at the nations when God is saying, "You are the people!"  We must quit looking at the sin of others when God is saying "You are the person!"  We must once again become a repenting people, even as we pay a chastising price for past sin.

I believe that God can and will give mercy to this Republic if we will humble ourselves and turn away from our wicked ways.  We have to quit excusing sexual immorality in the Church.  We have to quit excusing the sacrifice of our children for a better life.  We have to quit eating, drinking, and being merry in our own houses while the rest of the Republic goes to hell in a hand basket.

Let me close by reminding us of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Eric Metaxas talks about this in his book, Letter to the American Church.  Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.  November 6, 1932, on Reformation Sunday, Dietrich was preaching from Revelation 2 in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.  All the bigwigs of society were there with many pastors in attendance.  This prophetic message focused on the message to the Ephesian Church.  "I have this against you, that you have left your first love."  They were celebrating the work of Martin Luther and that they were the spiritual descendants of him, the Lutherans.  Yet, the harsh pill, the medicine, you are not at all like Martin Luther.  He stood against every demon of hell in order to follow the Spirit of God in obedience to Jesus.  Yet, this group would not take a stand against the Nazi Party's racist policies.  The Church of Jesus could never compromise with such ideologies.

Dietrich was pushed off as a young man who was just looking for a fight.  Years of experience would tame him.  This is often true, but Dietrich was not looking for a fight.  He was simply seeing that they were already in a fight that precious few could see, a fight for the soul of Germany.

Metaxas says that there were 18,000 pastors in Germany at the time.  Three thousand were like Dietrich and stood steadfast against the Nazis from the beginning.  Another three thousand were Nazi lovers who had no problem with the invectives and signaled threats against the Jews.  That left twelve thousand (2/3rds) in the middle.  The problem for Germany was not the 3,000 Nazi-loving pastors, but the impotent two-thirds in the middle.  Some of the 12,000 eventually woke up, but after it was far too late to save their society from the great evil that was threatening it and the world.

Metaxas mentions that Hitler took power in January of 1933.  Bonhoeffer was already scheduled to make a speech via radio address in February 1933.  His topic was servant leadership.  As Bonhoeffer described the kind of leadership that Christians must exhibit and require of their leaders, the power to the whole radio station was shut down.  It had become to late to make a difference as Hitler quickly began to flex his power and take control of the media in Germany.

We can point to lost people who are doing lost things as the problem in our society.  They are a problem, but they are not the problem.  The problem is not even those lost pastors, bishops, and denominations that embrace wickedness in the name of love and tolerance.  No. The problem in these united States of America is the two-thirds of pastors, elders, and Christians who are on the fence about how to move forward.  The enemy does not care if you don't embrace wickedness, as long as you are feckless and afraid to take a stand exactly where the Holy Spirit is calling us to take a stand today (like Dietrich against Hitler, and David against Goliath).  God is looking for people in His Church who love truth more than their reputation, or a nice cushy position.  Martin Luther lost his place in the Roman Catholic Church.  He was hunted by the powers that be.

God will be gracious if enough of us wake up, and say yes to the Spirit of God.  Our actions right now actually say that we are just here for the American Dream.  But, have you ever considered what Jesus' Dream for America is?  We can stiff arm the Spirit and try to get back to "normal," having a good Church service with wonderful music, happy family, happy BBQ in the afternoon while watching sports.  It is not that these things are wrong and bad, but that they become all that we are living for while people are dying in a lost state, going to hell, and  we are losing our Republic.

Perhaps you are of the ilk to simply give up.  Yes, that's what happens when people sin.  Que sera, sera.  O, friend, you don't want to go through what can be next, and how bad things can get. God is removing the middle ground because it always belonged to Satan in the first place.  We must choose this day whose side we are on.  And, the only way to stop it is to repent and follow Jesus. 

Pick up your cross and let's follow him!

It's Me audio

The Things that God Hates 4: Hands that Shed Innocent Blood

Proverbs 6:16-17; Deuteronomy 19:9-10; Matthew 5:21-22; John 8:44; Luke 10:29-36.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 5, 2021.

Today, we are going to look at the third thing in the list of seven things that God hates.  The emphasis moves down to our hands.  There are many sins that we do with our hands.  However, the Spirit emphasizes hands that shed innocent blood.  This is a way of emphasizing murder versus capital punishment.

God hates hands that shed innocent blood

So, what is meant by innocent blood?  The point in this phrase is that they are not guilty of anything that deserves death at the hands of society.  It is not saying that they have no sin. 

Another point to be aware of is this.  It is easy to be confused between the laws of a country and the Law of God that is made clear in the Bible.  The taking of a life of someone who does not deserve it will always be hated by God, even when the society declares it legal.  Rome had no problem killing innocents in their Colosseum in order to keep the populace entertained and distracted.  Many places in the world have no problem killing innocents because they follow a different religion.  Even in these united States, we have no problem killing innocents in the womb because their presence is an inconvenience.  Of course, to assuage our conscience, we they are treated as not being a full person yet.  Sound familiar?  Such arguments were used by some to support slavery 200 years ago.

Don’t kid yourself.  When you stand before God, you will not be able to use the excuse that it was legal where you lived.  God’s Word stands above all nations, and this Republic, and holds us accountable to the truth about God and His Law.

Exodus 20:13 is the sixth commandment that God gave to Moses.  “You shall not murder.”  Yes, we are no longer under the Law of Moses.  Yet, murder was wrong before the Law of Moses (God held Cain accountable to his murder of Abel).  In the New Testament, we are reminded that murder is still wrong in the era of the Everlasting Covenant.  Why?  It is wrong because God still hates it, and it represents a rejection of the Truth of Christ.  The Law of Moses is filled with laws that were intended to teach symbolic truths such as the laws on sacrifice and the dietary laws.  However, the moral laws were not symbolic.  Early Christians understood that these things were still sin and God did not want people of any era participating in it.

It has become common place for our larger cities to see over a hundred murders a year, with places like Chicago leading the pack with over 1 murder a day.  Our systems do not keep track of the innocent who were murdered, and even if we did, they would not put the abortion numbers in it.  How enlightened we must be that we have legalized murder at the hands of some of the doctors in our land.  Around a million innocents a year have their blood shed in the united States of America.  Yes, the Taliban in Afghanistan are even now going door to door to kill collaborators and Christians.  This may seem repugnant to our delicate Western sensibilities, but God is just as repulsed by our clinical slaughter of babies in the womb.  You shall not shed the blood of the innocent!

Even though we are not under the Law of Moses, a study of it can help us to understand how God thinks on these matters.  For instance, take the cities of refuge talked about in Deuteronomy 19.  God is making provision for a person who accidentally kills another person (innocent blood).  He does this by having Israel set apart three cities to be a place of refuge for such a person.  He even tells them to add three more as they expand.  The point is not the system, but the intent that God had in setting it up.

Not all deaths are intentional.  Though it is bad to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it, it is also bad to kill the person who accidentally killed another.  By the way, the cities of refuge were never used as a sanctuary for murderers, law breakers.  The leaders of the city were to hear both sides of the event and any witnesses that were available.  If there was enough evidence to make it clear that the death was intentional, then they were to be handed over to their executioner.  There can be no sanctuary for a murderer, but the sanctuary of true repentance and faith in Jesus.  Our Republic has done a fairly good job in making a system that protects in the cases of manslaughter, though any system can be abused.

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus raises the bar for murder.  If God hates murder, then He hates the junk that goes on in a heart that leads to it.  No society can hold people accountable for the things that are listed in this passage: being angry at someone without a proper cause, calling someone an “idiot” (literally “empty-head”), and calling someone a fool (as an insult).  Yet, God will hold us accountable to these things.  He hates these things.  Jesus reminds us that to think and act in these ways towards another person is to be in danger of hell.  Like Jesus told the “Sons of Thunder,” you do not know what manner of spirit you are.  God is trying to save people from their sins, not execute them for them.  However, the rebellious will eventually be dealt with by Him.

A Christian doesn’t need to be against capital punishment, but they do need to have a heart that has given up anger, hatred, and despising others for their sins.  A Christian is a person who has repented of doing things that God hates, and who seeks to become like God, like Jesus, which raises this question. 

What image am I taking on?  When Cain killed Abel, 1 John 3:12 tells us that he was “of the wicked one.”  Cain had been warned by his Heavenly Father (God).  God was trying to help him overcome the temptation to sin, but Cain didn’t want to be like God.  He didn’t know it, but in refusing to become like God, he then became like someone else, the wicked one, aka the devil.  According to the Bible, Cain was not the first murderer.

John 8:44 tells us that the devil was a murderer “from the beginning.”  Who did he murder?  There may be more behind this verse than we know, since Jesus has knowledge that we do not and may be sending a message to the devil through it.  However, Genesis 3 lays out the classical act of talking someone into killing themselves.  We cannot blame our sin upon Satan, but his heart was the heart of a murderer when he tempted Eve to disobey God.  He is guilty of the death of innocent blood when he took advantage of their naivety.

I am either a child of God becoming more like Him each day, or I am a child of the devil, expressing one more novel way of becoming like the wicked one.  Thus, Jesus brought to the surface the real image that the religious leaders of his day had been taking on.  They didn’t believe that they were killers any more than our society today thinks that we are enlightened and righteous, more righteous than God Himself.  If Jesus were to step into my life, and I didn’t know it was him, would I hate him for revealing my sin?  Would I despise him and malign him to others behind his back?  Would I openly attack him?  Would I have the heart of a murderer towards him?  We duck these questions in this life because the people who may confront us are humans who are fallen too.  Lord, help us to be more aware of the image that we are taking on, and through repentance, keep near to God.

God loves hands that heal

Let’s take some time to focus on what God loves.  Instead of hands that shed innocent blood, we should have hands that help and heal others.  To show this, let’s look at the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-36. 

The Good Samaritan had compassion upon an enemy.  The story is not ultimately about having compassion.  Most people are capable of compassion when they want to be.  However, those who were most likely to help this Jewish man along the road, a priest and a Levite, chose not to help.  We don’t know what their rationalizations look like.  Perhaps they speculated that it was a trick.  Maybe they just didn’t want to be inconvenienced or made late for the temple service.  For some reason, they both ignored the man’s dire situation.

Jesus makes the hero of the story a person that Jews despised, a Samaritan.  To be fair, there was much despising coming from the direction of the Samaritans also.  This “half-breed” follower of a religious cult was the one who stopped and had compassion on the dying Jewish man.  I know the story doesn’t exactly say the man is Jewish, but it is most likely since the man had gone “down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”  The people hearing the story that day would have understood him to be a Jew that was helped by a Samaritan.  This would be like a BLM protester finding a wounded cop and helping him, or the reverse, a cop finding a wounded BLM protester and helping him.

Just because someone is my enemy doesn’t mean that I should desire their death.  The good Samaritan is good because he did what God would do.  He did all he could do to save the dying person.  He had compassion.  The reason I said this isn’t about compassion is because it is ultimately about who we are imaging in our actions.  Many priests and Levites in Jerusalem of the days of Jesus lacked far more than compassion.  They lacked the image of God.

We are told some very practical things that the Samaritan did to help the man.  He treated his wounds with the equivalent of antiseptic and salve.  He bandaged the wounds.  He then took the man to a safe place where he would not be harmed further, and where he could recuperate.  This couldn’t guarantee that the man would live, but it would give him the best chance.  The rest would be up to God.  He even paid for the cost of the man’s convalescence.  This man was more than a neighbor.  He was more than a good neighbor.  He was a godly neighbor, the hand of God to a man in need.

Think about it.  This Samaritan, if he was religious at all, would have had some twisted doctrines.  No self-respecting Jew of that day would want a Samaritan living by them.  Rather, they would want good Jewish neighbors, especially a Levite or a priest.  Maybe some of their blessing will land on me!  However, this Samaritan was the better neighbor of the three, a better lover of his neighbors.  His hands were not quick to shed blood, or to allow it to happen, but quite the opposite.  They were quick to help and to heal.

So, what can I do?  Notice that this story is not about a Samaritan who purposefully walked the road looking for robbed travelers.  It was a chance (or was it) meeting that gave him no time to prepare.  This is life.  Tests and choices that come our way that we were not expecting.

What can I do?  It starts with quick repentance when hard-heartedness surfaces in me.  I must develop the image of God within my life through choosing to help others, spiritually and physically.  The sad thing is that they won’t always want your help, and may even reject it.  How more like God can you get than that?  His help is spurned every day by hundreds of millions of people.

Friend, the spirit of this world is stirring us up against one another, to despise, and not love one another, but the Spirit of Christ is here this morning to teach us to love one another, even when it hurts.

The Martyrdom of John the Baptist

Mark 6:14-29.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 25, 2019.

Our Passage today is about how people in power do not like to have anyone rail against their sins in public.  Imprisonment and execution can be done in a moral manner and will occur under good governance, but they are the main methods and means of tyrants to keep a firm hold upon society.  The Bible warns that in the last days mankind will be more likely to kill believers than less.

We should praise God for the protections that have been provided for us in t he United States of America.  However, we are guaranteed that it will not last forever.  It is important that we recognize that our purpose on this earth is to take our stand beside Jesus before all others and without shame.  To do this without redefining Jesus in our own image, we must remember that our reward is not what we experience in this life, but what we shall experience in the life to come.

John’s imprisonment and death

This story tends to work backwards in time, which doesn’t give us a good idea of when John had been imprisoned and executed, and how long before this it was.  Those who have researched the history tend to see an overlap of less than a year in the ministry of John and Jesus before he is arrested.  It is also thought that John may have been in prison up to a year.  We will deal with the story by looking at the imprisonment and death of John first, and then we will come back to verses 14-16.

Before we get into John’s arrest, we must also take a moment to talk about the convoluted Herodian families, and just which Herod is being referenced here.  The Gospels don’t always give good clues to us because they had lived through these things and it was obvious.

Herod the Great is the Herod that is mentioned in the stories about the birth of Jesus.  He had been made king over all of Israel by the Romans.  He is also the one who ordered all children under 2 years of age in Bethlehem to be killed.  He was a dangerous man who was considered by many to be somewhat insane.  He executed three of his sons under suspicions of plotting to assassinate him.  Herod the Great died within 3-4 years of the birth of Jesus, which allowed Joseph and Mary to come back from Egypt and settle in Nazareth. 

Upon the death of Herod the Great, his kingdom was broken up into 5 parts and divvied up between three sons and 1 daughter.  Now, Herod had married many different wives and so, most of the brothers mentioned here are actually half-brothers.  The Herod of our passage in Mark 6 is one of these sons and is usually called Herod Antipas.  Herod Antipas was given rule over the Galilee (the western side of the Sea of Galilee including Nazareth) and another area called Perea, which was on the eastern side of the Jordan River between the Sea of Galilee and about half way down the Dead Sea.  Notice that John the Baptist would have been baptizing people on the edge of his territory.

John the Baptist had a clear message.  Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  He often challenged the people on specific sins, even calling out the Pharisees, but what got him in trouble was when he called out Herod Antipas for his sin.  You see, Herod Antipas had gone to Rome at the same time as one of his half-brothers named Herod Philip (not Philip the Tetrarch who is mentioned in the Scriptures).  There he had fallen in love with his half-brother’s wife, Herodias.  Yes, as her name implies, she is related and is actually the half-niece of Herod Antipas.  Apparently, the feelings were mutual because they divorced their spouses and married each other when they returned to Israel.  Now, the Law of Moses specifically prohibits marrying your brother’s wife, while he is still alive, not to mention the flimsy “case” for divorce.  Secondly, a case could also be made that she is too close in kinship to be lawful to marry.  Thus, John the Baptist calls out Herod Antipas for an illegitimate marriage.

People in power do not like religious prophets calling them out for their sin.  It is a personal affront, but also a political threat that can undermine their authority.  John had multitudes of people listening to his words and responding in repentance, which leads Herod Antipas to have him arrested and thrown in prison.

Herod Antipas had enough of his father in him to imprison John, but not so much as to have him executed.  He not only feared John as a holy prophet, but he also feared what the people would do if they heard he had killed John (Matthew’s Gospel specifically mentions this).  Yet, we are told that Herodias, his unlawful wife, wanted John the Baptist dead.  She could not do so because her husband stood in the way. 

This sets up the scene, that Matthew and Luke both describe, wherein John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Coming One, or do we look for another?”  Of all the people in Israel, John the Baptist seemed the most confident in who Jesus was.  Yet, after he had spent weeks and months in prison, it is clear that he began to wonder if he had missed something.  How could the Messiah be in Israel, and I am in prison under threat of death?  Surely, he will take power and set me free any day now.  In those passages, Jesus tells the disciples of John, “Go tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the Gospel preached to them.  And Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” (Matthew 11:5-6 NKJV).  The word “offended” here is the Greek word Skandalizo, and literally means “to cause to stumble.”  It comes from the concept of a stumbling block or stone in the Old Testament.  Basically, Jesus is telling John to hang on to his faith.  He is right and Jesus was doing all he was supposed to do.  Sometimes we think God should be doing things that the word never says that He must do.  In those times, we must trust Him, even it means we will die.

Our text tells us that an “opportune day” came.  This is in reference to the evil desire that Herodias had for John.  Whatever we allow to grow in our hearts, will one day find an opportune time to be expressed.  This is why we are warned to guard our hearts, not from being wounded in love, but from sinful desires that rise up and consume our inner dialogue from day to day.  Herodias nurtured murder in her heart and finally an opportunity came and she fell headlong into the full expression of that sin.

The opportunity comes in the form of a party that Herod Antipas throws for his birthday.  All his nobles, chief men, and high officers of his lands are gathered.  Herodias has her daughter (Herod’s step-daughter) dance before the king and his assembly.  No doubt, this is a typical, sensual dance that stirs up the passions of the king and was no doubt set up by Herodias, knowing her husband very well.  Herod is so pleased by the dance that he offers the young girl anything up to half his kingdom as a reward.  She goes and asks her mother what she should say, and her mother tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist.  I would not think the young girl had such a gift in mind.  However, she does not seem to put up much of a protest.  When she asks Herod for John’s head on a platter, Herod is in a bind.  He had given his word by oath and would look weak, impulsive, and untrustworthy to his administers.

We are told that Herod is “exceedingly sorrowful” at this reply.  This is the same word that is used of the rich young ruler who Jesus told to sell everything and come follow him.  That young man was exceedingly sorrowful because he wanted to follow Jesus, but he also had a large amount of wealth that he did not want to give up.  It is also the word used for Jesus in the garden on the night he was betrayed.  As he prayed that night, he was exceedingly sorrowful unto death.  This is part of the tragedy of sin.  Most people are not as completely evil as they can be.  However, we can become so tightly entangled in a great web of sin that it traps us into descending further.  Many wicked things are done by unwilling people who feel that they are trapped and have no other choice.  Yet, remember the message of John the Baptist.  Repent.  Herod was only trapped because he continued to refuse a place in his heart for repentance.  We too are only as trapped as we are insistent on resisting the call to repentance.

Herod’s fears about Jesus

This leads us back to the beginning of our passage.  Herod had executed John and it bothered him enough to be superstitious, but not enough to repent.  You see, when word of the exploits of Jesus reach him, he concludes that John the Baptist has come back to life and is going to cause him even more trouble.  It is interesting that there is no statement of a fear of God, only of John.  This scene is a reversal of the scene where Jesus asks his disciples who people are saying he is.  There too we are told that a common theory of who Jesus was said that he was Elijah.  This is not as strange as it may seem to us.  Elijah had been taken up into the heavens by a heavenly chariot.  Also, Malachi 4:5 prophesied that Elijah would appear before the great and dreadful Day of the Lord, and he would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers.  This is a beautiful picture of what wholesale repentance can do in a society.  We know that this theory was not true.

The second theory was that Jesus was The Prophet or at least just one of the prophets.  This is a reference to an interesting prophecy that Moses himself had given in Deuteronomy 18:15. He said that a particular prophet would come in the future that would be like him.  This seems to mean that he would be on the same order and magnitude of Moses.  Thus, many prophets had arisen since Moses, but none of them with such deliverance from bondage, and establishing a completely, new order within Israel.  “The Prophet” was seen as either the same as the Messiah, or another who would work with the Messiah to reform Israel.

I take time to go through this because, in our flesh, we come up with religious speculation and superstitious conspiracy theories.  Even today, many Christians exist in a kind of Herodian sphere where they have enough religion to speculate and respond in fear to the things ahead of us.  However, the Holy Spirit of God is working to reveal to us that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  Herod put to death the very one who testified the truth about Jesus.  If Herod had only listened then he would know exactly who Jesus is.  He is the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!

Our passage ends at this point.  In Luke 13:31-33, we are told that Herod Antipas sought to kill Jesus.  When the Pharisees bring this up to Jesus, he basically tells them to go tell “that fox,” I will do what I am going to do and he can’t stop it.  Herod Antipas, or Caesar for that matter, had no power over Jesus.  He had to go to Jerusalem and die there because that was the prophesied plan.

Herod Antipas received one more chance and gracious witness of the truth from God when Pilate was determining what to do with Jesus.  He sends Jesus to Herod Antipas because Jesus was from Nazareth, which was in his territory.  We are told that Herod was excited because he wanted to hear what things Jesus would have to say.  However, Jesus refused to play his game and so Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate and deferred to his judgment.  There was no place for repentance in his heart.  Religion was only a fun game to play or a fine sounding instrument to play, and that was all.

Within ten years of the death of Jesus, Herod Antipas and Herodias are caught up in a political maneuver that causes them to be exiled to Gaul, where they later died.  If only he had responded to the tremendous people who witnessed to him of the truth of God’s Word.

John the Baptist is not recorded as the first Christian martyr because Jesus stated that John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and rightly belonged to the era of Israel under the Law of Moses.  With Jesus, a new era was beginning.  The remnant of Israel was called out in order to become the Church of Jesus, wherein both Jews and Gentiles would become one people of faith upon the foundation of Jesus and his apostles. 

We too can find ourselves in a position much like John the Baptist.  The difficulties and sufferings that we face in this life at the hands of selfish and even wicked people can cause us to question Jesus.  Precious, few believers in America need to really fear martyrdom, dying for our faith and testimony in Jesus.  However, this is part of the condemnation that comes upon this world.  God has sent us prophets and righteous people speaking the truth, and we have persecuted them and put them to death.  More people have died in this last century than all the previous centuries combined.  Part of that is because of the increase in population, but part of it is because the world hates the message of Jesus, and thus hates those who truly follow him.  Yet, such hatred, persecution, and even martyring, will not destroy us.  The work of John was not destroyed by his death and the work of Jesus was not destroyed by his death.  May we always remember that the things we do that are of God cannot be destroyed, but will only produce a harvest at thirty, sixty, even a hundred-fold!

Martyrdom audio