Mark 6:14-29 - Preacher, Tell Me Like It Is

Well, it's another week of Tabernacle Talk. Thank you for tuning in.

And I really, really appreciate everyone that listens to these, spends time with me in God's Word during the weekdays, and it's a blast. I have loved all of the different books and sections of scripture that we've been able to go through.

And today we are in a really interesting story, even as we consider the rest of the Gospel of Mark. This is something that doesn't really have anything to do with Jesus and it even kind of echoes some Old Testament stories.

The one that here in my study Bible, it mentions some parallels to the story of Ahab and Jezebel and Elijah and how Elijah had preached against this powerful king and queen and how they wanted to kill him as a result of it.

So we've been journeying with Jesus. We started off in Mark 1, his kind of first interaction for public ministry before he went to his temptation in the wilderness and all of that was to be baptized by his cousin, John the Baptizer.

And now we hear something in Mark 6 and verse number 14. It says, King Herod heard about it, the disciples preaching, they were casting out demons, people were being healed, and they were doing all of this in the name of Jesus.

So it says, King Herod heard about it because Jesus' name had become well known. Some said, John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. And that's why miraculous powers are at work in him.

But others said, he's Elijah. Still others said, he's a prophet, like one of the prophets from long ago. So here, everyone's tossing out these ideas of who they think Jesus really is.

Verse 16, when Herod heard of it, he said, John, the one I beheaded has been raised. Okay, well now we hear something that we had not heard before. John is dead.

Verse number 17 tells us how it happened. For Herod himself had given orders to arrest John and to chain him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her.

John had been telling Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. So Herodias held a grudge against him and wanted to kill him. But she could not, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing he was a righteous and holy man.

When Herod heard him, he would be very perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.

Here there is this debauchery that's taking place, and here a person that was supposed to be a ruler over Israel and Judea, and yet is behaving in a way that is completely counter to the Israelite law that God himself had set down 1,000, 1,200, 1,500

years prior to this account. And Herod had divorced his own wife, and then had basically stolen his brother's wife. And here, John the Baptizer, he makes a statement, he preaches against a political person, but it's not a political thing.

He's not saying, hey, you need to have this different tax law, and you really need to set down these rules about punishment.

Here, he's telling him, what you have done is in violation of the law of God, and so there is judgment that needs to happen here.

And I think it's really interesting that Herod, even though he could have just killed him and said, hey, he's stirring up the people against me, and so I'm going to kill him as a result, says that he knew he was a righteous and a holy man.

Sometimes the people that we try to correct, we do so in a way that they don't view us as righteous and holy. They just view us as a jerk. But here Herod knew what John is saying.

He's saying not just because he feels like it. He goes, John is saying this because this is what God's Word says. So he knows he's righteous.

He knows he's holy, and he doesn't want to get in trouble with God for having killed one of the prophets.

He doesn't mind getting in trouble with God because of his sin in stealing his brother's wife, but he doesn't want to get in trouble for killing him. I also think it's really funny at the end of verse number 20.

It says when Herod heard him, he would be very perplexed. That is kind of agitated. The other time that this...

Oh, actually, no, never mind. That will come a little bit later. So here he is perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.

And I think that's true for some people. They like some maybe fiery preaching. They like people that aren't afraid to step on some toes, to say what God has said.

And man, in our world today, where there's so much false niceties, it's refreshing to find someone that will just tell it like it is.

And there's an old song by the Southern Gospel Trio, Greater Vision, that the last line of the chorus is, don't tell me like it... Sorry. Don't tell me like I wish it was.

Preacher, tell me like it is. And I've been grateful for those times when someone has just shot straight with, hey, here's what the Bible says, and here's what you need to do as a result. And here I think Herod had an element of that.

It didn't change his behavior, but he really liked the spectacle of it. Then verse number 21, so John's in prison right now, chained up, but he's safe-ish for the moment because Herod still likes hearing him talk.

It says, An opportune time came on his birthday when Herod gave a banquet for his nobles, military commanders, and the leading men of Galilee.

When Herodias' own daughter came in and danced, the ancient historian Josephus would tell us that her name was Salome. I'm not 100% sure on that pronunciation, so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be pronounced Salome. It might just be Salome.

It says, When Herodias' own daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, Ask me whatever you want, and I'll give it to you.

He promised her with an oath, Whatever you ask me, I will give you up to half of my kingdom. So here there's even some allusions back to the story of Esther and what King Xerxes did there.

Now Herod was just a person that was a like deputy of Rome, like Rome gave him his power. He didn't have a bunch of authority, so he couldn't actually give her half of the kingdom. This is a hyperbolic figure of speech.

Whatever you want, I'll get it for you. She went out and said to her mother, What should I ask for? Oh, pardon me.

My screen went a little too fast. She went out and said to her mother, What should I ask for? John the Baptist's head, she said.

At once she hurried to the king and said, I want you to give me John the Baptist's head on a platter immediately. Although the king was deeply distressed because of his oaths and the guests, he did not want to refuse her.

This phrase deeply distressed the other time that it's used. It is of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before.

He has those great drops of blood that he sweat there because of the extreme tension and anxiety in his body knowing what was to come with all of his beatings and the cross, separation from God, all of that. And that's how Herod is described.

He's that deeply distressed and he goes, man, I backed myself into a corner and I can't get out now. Verse number 27. The king immediately sent for an executioner and commanded him to bring John's head.

So he went and beheaded him in prison, brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When John's disciples heard about it, they came and removed his corpse and placed it in a tomb.

So this particular portion of scripture especially because we've seen so many wonderful things of Jesus and what he's done and the miracles he's wrought, it's almost somewhat odd to see such a terrible event take place.

And I think what we need to be reminded of is, number one, this is a realization that, yes, God's kingdom is coming. God's kingdom is here in the person of Jesus. But this world still exists.

And the nations of this world, even here, Israel and Judea, they were fighting against God. And as a result, those that were faithful, that proclaimed God's word would die.

It would even kind of foreshadow Jesus' eventual death that he too would be condemned to die, not by beheading, but through crucifixion, a much slower, much more painful, much more humiliating death.

But what we can see here is that there is great consequence in following God, in proclaiming to a broken, fallen, sin-cursed world that they are in sin, that they are under condemnation.

But it does not take away our responsibility to, like John, declare the truth.

And may we do it in such a way that it's clear that we are holy and righteous, that we want a right relationship with God and with people, that we have a reverence for the things of God, we esteem what he values as valuable.

You can think even of the Lord's Prayer where it says, you know, hallowed be your name, may your name be respected as holy, that people would realize the greatness of our God based on the words and attitudes and actions and treatment that his people

give to others. There will be times when we run absolutely contrary to culture.

I can think even in the United States, there are several ways in which we are not in line with our culture, that our culture has values, things that it says are good, that the Bible says is bad, and things that the Bible says are good, that our

culture says is bad. And we need to be able to hold these two truths in tandem, that we must speak the truth. We can't shirk away from it.

We must, like John, no matter the personal cost, we must be faithful to say what God has said and the way that He has said it. But we must also speak the truth in love.

If we do not do what we do in a spirit of, like Jesus, that gentle compassion, that effervescent belief that God can and will change people's hearts and minds and lives through our message and that we aren't just condemning them, we are inviting them

into vibrant relationship with God. We gotta hold those together. If we simply speak kindly or unoffensively, but never tell the truth, then it's pointless. We're not inviting people to anything.

We are merely making them like us, but there is no call to come to Christ. There is no call to faithfulness, to the Bible, to scripture, to what God has laid out for us that we should do with our lives.

But if we say the things that God has said, but with no care for people, then we will 100% become the Pharisees, those that had a great desire for actions that were, again, air quotes here, audio people, glorifying to God.

But they completely lacked God's heart. They did godly things, but they denied the power that actually made it meaningful. God's love and his care and his tenderness for us, his forgiveness, his grace, motivates everything that he does.

He has, man, I think I've mentioned this before. I was reading in the book Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortland, wonderful, amazing book.

In the book, he mentions an old Puritan writer that says grace is God's common action, and judgment is his strange, it's his foreign, it's not his regular action that he takes.

That's not to say that God isn't just, but his normal measure that he does is he is long-suffering, that he allows us to go throughout our lives and he doesn't zap us with lightning, he doesn't kill us instantly when we sin.

We are able to experience forgiveness and grace and patience over and over and over again.

And when we interact with people, maybe if we interact with someone that they've given themselves over to perhaps homosexual relationships or wholesale embracing a transgender ideology, if we treat them in such a way that is devoid of God's like

invitation to come and discover that life with God is the way that life is supposed to be lived, if all we have is maybe a disgust or a revulsion, then we don't have the heart of God. I've heard sometimes people mention the particular verse, they go,

oh man, those that maybe are men that lie with men, that's an abomination. They're quoting from some Old Testament scriptures and in some older translations, and yet they neglect to remember that in Proverbs 6, God says that a proud look is an

abomination to the Lord, that there are many abominations that are every day inside your mind, inside your actions, inside your words. God views all sin as an abomination before him.

And so to maybe solo out someone else's sin, to say this is particularly worthy of revulsion, and so I will treat this person in a way that is very different than how I would treat perhaps someone that's involved in, say, gluttony or lying or gossip

or slander. And I'm treating those as two entirely separate things. There are different effects of all of those sins, obviously. But we are called not just to condemn the world, though our lives are called to do that.

That the way in which we live would preach a message that would say, you don't have to live this way. You don't have to have these false beliefs turned to the one true God and obey him, embrace what he has for you, because it's good.

It will lead to your flourishing. It will bless every relationship in your life. That's our call.

That here, John the Baptist, he did it in such a way. He preached sin. He preached it straight.

He preached it so straight that he ended up in prison, but he preached it in such a way that Herod would keep on bringing him back in, because he liked to hear him. And man, what a worthwhile pursuit for how we talk to others.

We can become frustrated and angry and embittered, but we are called to have our Father's heart.

That the one who from the cross, while he was being destroyed by this world's kingdoms, he says, Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing. Man, we can see it take place in the lives of Jesus' followers.

We, at the very beginning of Tabernacle Talk, in the Book of Acts, we saw it with Stephen, where he said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing. And that is true for every person that we interact with, all of their sins.

When they are genuinely evil, when they are choosing a wrong path, they don't know what they are doing. They don't know who is motivating their actions. They don't know what the end result of what they are choosing to do is.

And so we are inviting people that are careening towards a cliff of their own condemnation and eternal judgment, and we are beckoning them to turn to life.

And the only way we can do that is if we have genuine love, a Christ-likeness in our heart, in our tone, in our words, let's preach it straight. Let's everything that God has commanded, let's hold on to it wholeheartedly.

But when we communicate with others, may we do so with a love that is astonishing and otherworldly and supernatural, supernatural because our love does not come from our own affection, it comes from our God, who loved us so much that He gave His one

and only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Thanks for tuning in today.

And tomorrow we are going to be looking at one of the most well-known stories of Jesus' time on Earth, the miracle that is mentioned in all four Gospel accounts that everyone viewed this as so important that they all had to mention it.

But I would encourage you today, tell it straight, stand up for truth, but do so in a way that mirrors Jesus, that people would, even if they sharply disagree with you, they would almost want to hear you again, like Herod did with John the Baptizer.

Thanks for tuning in.