Dealing with a Guilty Conscience. (Mark 6: 14-29)
Introduction.
Do you have a guilty conscience today, are there thoughts in the back of your mind that trouble you this day? Paul when he wrote to the early Church in Rome made a foundational theological statement.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
I hope I don’t have to labour that point today; the bible teaches that all of us have sinned against God. However, sin has a way of affecting us in ways that we are not even aware of. Today I want to talk about one of those ways. What I want to talk about today is this thing called guilt. What is interesting to me is that guilt can affect us in ways that we don’t even imagine. I would like to begin by have read to us a story, a story about a man who had a guilty conscience. So, we will hear the story and then and then we will look at it and hopefully show you how it affected him in ways we normally can’t even guess or imagine.
I suspect guilt can affect us, in the same way as it affected this man.
It doesn’t matter that this man lived around 2000 years ago. I’m going to read the whole story today in one go and then work through it verse by verse. With that in mind lets listen to Mark 6:14-29
14 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying] ‘John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’ 15 Others said, ‘He is Elijah.’ And still others claimed, ‘He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.’ 16 But when Herod heard this, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!’ 17 For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ 19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, 20 because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzle; yet he liked to listen to him. 21 Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, ‘Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.’ 23 And he promised her with an oath, ‘Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.’ 24 She went out and said to her mother, ‘What shall I ask for?’ ‘The head of John the Baptist,’ she answered. 25 At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: ‘I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a dish.’ 26 The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28 and brought back his head on a dish. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. 29 On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
As a said a little earlier what I would like to do this morning is begin by looking at the story, then we will get back to the issue of guilt at the end. I think if you understand what the story means, you will then understand more of what is going on at the end. It began by telling us, “King Herod heard about Jesus and how some said he was John the Baptist raised from the dead., and that was he was able to do miraculous things.’
At this point if you have been following with us as we go through the Gospel according to Mark you will know that the fame of Christ had spread not only throughout Galilee, but all of Judea. You will remember he has now sent out his disciples, which had certainly increased awareness of him even more. It is evident that this knowledge eventually got to King Herod himself.
It says, when King Herod heard this, now let me pause and point out that when people hear the word Herod, they usually think of Herod the Great. The King who when Jesus was born had all the male babies under the age of two killed. This is not that Herod, this is Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, who took his place when Herod the Great died some years earlier. Just to confuse us even more, there are in fact three different Herod’s mentioned in the New Testament all of whom appear in the story of Jesus for different reasons. Herod the Great, Herod Antipas and Herod Archelaus, who was a regional Governor not a full born King, but this is Herod Antipas, the Son of Herod the Great who replaced his father maybe around 4 AD or slightly later. This Herod had not personally known Jesus, but he heard about him and being a superstitious man, he thought that John the Baptist must have risen from the dead and that is why miraculous powers were at work in him.
This is fascinating, Herod Antipas had heard about all that Jesus was doing, and rather than wonder, who is this man is, he concluded that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. How in the world did he reach a conclusion like that? Helpfully the text tells us what other people were also thinking that at the time. Others said, ‘He is Elijah.’ (now the Old Testament did indeed say that Elijah would come again, in fact many people though John the Baptist was Elijah, even though John the Baptist denied that) But when Herod heard this, he said, (No, that’s not right, this is ‘John the Baptist whom I beheaded, (and) he has been raised from the dead!’ Now we begin to get an insight to how he has jumped to this conclusion.
Herod jumped to the conclusion that Jesus was John the Baptist come back from the dead, because Herod was feeling guilty for having beheading John. One commentator I read said this, “it was his own conscience that made him conclude this”. Another said, “he believed John had come back from the dead to condemn him for what he knew was an illegal act”. Herod was feeling guilty, in fact the text helpful explains what led to this actually happened. For it was Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because he took Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he then married, and John the Baptist had been it was not lawful for him to have your brother’s wife.’
There is a lot going on here and we need to try and untangle it. This sequence of events begins when Herod married Herodias, at that point in his life he is married to another different woman. Herod Antipas divorced his first wife Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV, in favour of Herodias, who had formerly been married to his half-brother also called Herod, just to confuse us. In order to do that, this Herod, Herod Antipas, had to convert to Judaism, whilst at the same time knowing the taking a wife of even a half-brother whilst the brother was alive was absolutely forbidden under both Jewish law and the current social norms but even so he divorced his wife and then he married Herodias. That’s the beginnings of this series of events.
John the Baptist then comes along and basically said, you know better than this, you know the Mosaic law forbids this. Within Jewish law at that time, this fell in the category of an incestuous relationship. John confronts him with this and says, just because you are king does not give you a get out of jail card for this offence and we are told that Herod reaction is to have him arrested. At this point the question you might reasonably ask, is why did he have him killed? He had him in prison, why did he need to have him executed, the text goes on to tell us. It was because it was Herodious who wanted him dead, Herod’s new wife. She is furious that he had told her husband he had committed a sin by marrying her. It said she nurses a grudge and that leads to vindictiveness that in turn leads to the desire to kill him.
Now, most of you are probably sitting there thinking, tut tut, I would never do anything like that. I hope none of you are currently planning to have somebody killed, However, I suspect most everybody here at some time or another has held a grudge against somebody. Maybe you are doing so, right now. Herodious wanted to have John the Baptist killed, but the text tells us she could not get that done because new he was “a righteous and holy man”. Herod was probably also aware that the people respected John the Baptist and he feared there might be an uprising if he had him executed.
This is an interesting predicament, we have a new wife who wants him killed, and a husband who doesn’t. The text tell us that “finally the opportune time came and on his birthday Herod gave a banquet and the daughter of Herodias came in and danced. This is not Herod daughter, it his new wife’s daughter, her daughter from a previous relationship, most probably the daughter of his own brother Phillip. An interesting turn of events; the daughter comes in and dances. For the daughter of a king, a Princess to come in and dance a sensuous dance in front of the great and the good including the leading men of Galilee, was scandalous to say the least. Jews would never have allowed a woman to dance before men, full stop, and even most Gentile mothers would have forbidden this. One commentator I read said, “She exposed and demeaned her daughter because such dancing were the art of the professional prostitute only”. So, the mother is so angry, so vindictive, that when this birthday party happens, she saw an opportunity to literally prostitute her own daughter to gain control over her husband. That’s about as diabolical as one can get. The men didn’t mind though, and neither did Herod, after all it wasn’t his own daughter.
Herod is so aroused by the dance, and says to his step-daughter,
‘Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you, whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.’ This may sound outlandish, but do you think this is the first time a man in a group of men drinking to excess have ever made an outlandish claim or promise. He says you can have whatever you want. Let’s see what she asks for.
‘The head of John the Baptist,’ mum answered. The head of John the Baptist on a dish.’The king is upset but because of his promise in front of his dinner guests, he feels he cannot refuse her’. Before we go on with the story, lets me just pause here and make a point. This mother behaviour here is shameful, her entire focus is to eliminate the one man who had the courage to confront her with her sin, and to do it by any means no matter how depraved. She wished to continue doing as she liked with no-one to remind her of the moral rules she is breaking, or the law of God. She thought by getting rid of John she would no longer have to be confronted with her sin. What did Herod decide to do next?
The text says he was, “exceeding sorry, extremely distressed even”.
It would seem Herod is genuinely upset. Yet. Because of the oath, and the witness of the influential men sitting with him, he felt unable to refuse her. A question worth considering for a minute is, could Herod have got out of this? Could he have resisted the pressure to do this?
Could he have found some way to get out of this. Maybe you could argue that he shouldn’t have made this stupid promise to begin with.
But the fact is he did, and he then succumbed to social pressure. Yes, indeed Herod was a wicked man, but there is something else going on here, Herod was also a weak man.
Herod simply did not have the moral courage to do what was right.
crumbled under the influence of a wicked woman, combined with the social expectations and the peer pressure of those around him. What should he have done when he felt the pressure.
What should we do when we feel such pressure. We should recognise those pressures when them come and allow them to push us towards the Lord. It is when we lean on the Lord, we are given the strength to resist those pressures but Herod didn’t do that, he succumbed to the pressure. “He immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The John is beheaded in prison and she presents the head to the daughter, on a platter. She gives it to mum, who was behind all of this from the start.
Many of us too will have responded to peer group pressure in our lives.
Many of us have gone and done things we shouldn’t have for fear of what others might say or think. Many a person have done things worse than they are ever themselves wanted to do be just because they feared the laughter or rejection of their so-called friends. Even noted Atheist H G Wells noticed this when he said.
“The trouble with so many people is that the voice of their neighbours sounds louder in their ears than the voice of their conscience”.
So, Herod has John the Baptist killed, out of moral weakness. The story ends when it tells us. That my friend is the story and remember the starting point of all this is that when Herod heard about the fame of Jesus, he jumped to the conclusion that John the Baptist had come back from the dead because he felt guilty. Because he was guilty. This story is really about the consequences of guilt and the catastrophic affects it can have if it is not dealt with.
I would just like to take a moment to put the story in its chronological order. The way it is written is begins with the guilt and then is told in flash backs through the passage. I want to just for a moment, lay out the whole plot. Here is what happened in chronological order.
1 Herod meets Herodias.
2 Herod divorces his wife.
3 Herod marries Herodias.
4 John the Baptist tells Herod what he has done is unlawful.
5 Herod had John arrested.
6 Herod has John killed.
7 Herod hears about Jesus and out of guilt Herod concludes that John the Baptist had come back from the dead to haunt him.
The reason I laid that way for you is because there are a lot of things going on here, but the point is that Herod felt guilty over the killing John the Baptist. That’s the whole story let me make some observations. You see the problem here is that when people are fearful, angry or guilty, they can’t think straight. I believe this passage perfectly illustrates this principal perfectly. Herodias was so angry that it drove her to degrade her daughter and bring about the death of John the Baptist. When any of us are angry we inclined to not think straight and even do stupid or terrible things. If you listen to the experts who teach anger management classes, they will tell you that when people cannot control their anger their decision making become flawed. So, the text tells us Herodias was “angry”, but the text also tells us that Herod was “fearful”. He also wasn’t thinking straight, so rather than do what was right he listened to his angry wicked wife, and the combination of guilt and anger means Herod didn’t think straight, but as I said at the beginning of the message the big point of this story is guilt. That’s what sin does for you it makes you guilty and feeling guilty also means you do not think straight and makes you more likely to do the wrong things and make more wrong choices.
Herod was not thinking straight because he was guilty and he concluded that Jesus was John the Baptist, raised form the dead. Let me tell you why particularly he was not thinking straight. Herod Antipas was a convert to Judaism, and he was a convert to the Jewish sect called the Sadducees and the clear doctrine of the Sadducees that made it different from the other Jewish groups was that the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. This man’s guilt drove him to conclude something that he didn’t even believe was possible. He didn’t even believe in resurrection, yet he thought John the Baptist had been raised form the dead.
When you feel guilty you can’t even think straight. Guilt affects us in ways we are not even aware of, because we are unable to think straight. Guilt makes you do some really stupid things. Guilt affects the way you think, it makes you react out of emotion, and you stop making rational decisions. Unresolved guilt means you become conflicted in everything you do, and the voice of the devil in your ears tells you are a hypocrite.
Now I have good news for everyone here this morning, there is a solution to guilt. The first and foremost thing you need to do is trust the Lord, when you do that, you are given the ultimate defence against guilt. The bible is very clear about that.
Thereis therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
(Romans 8:1)
Many Christians I know have trusted in Christ, however, when they fall into sin, feel guilty. So, what do you do when you’re a Christian and you sin (And by the way Christians sin) By the way it’s only because you are a Christian that you recognise you sin in the first place. What should you do when you sin, the first thing you should do is confess it privately to the Lord.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(1 John 1:9)
The word confess, just means to repeat something back. You don’t have to seek out a religious leader in order to do it either. In the case of sin, you just look at what you did, and call it what it is before the Lord. It wasn’t an error, it wasn’t a lack of judgement, it was sin. By confessing it out loud all you are doing is agreeing with what God already knows it is.
The word confession confuses people, it just means your acknowledging what it is you have done and saying you don’t want to do it anymore. It sometimes helps to do that with another Christian, but you should only do this if you have complete confidence in that person, so they can support you and hold you to account if you fall back into that particular sin. As a matter of fact, Proverbs 28: 13 says;
He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
And what happens if you don’t do that.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and His word is not in us.
(1 John 1: 10)
So be clear headed about these things do what 1 John 1: 9 says and, “confess your sins, and He will be faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Don’t pretend, “you have not sinned, when you know you have because in doing so you make God out to be a liar”. When you have got it wrong the first time round, acknowledge it and make sure you don’t do the same thing again in the future. Don’t live in denial, and don’t make God out to be a liar. Go confess your sin if that is what is needed. Go reconcile with that person if that is what is right, just go do what is right.
The truth of the matter is all moral decisions come down to choices. Being angry is a choice, God says, don’t be angry Being fearful is a choice, God says fear not. Both of these things are choices and how you respond to those choices will only affect you. Anger, fear, and guilt are like acids, the mainly harm the vessel they are contained in. But guilt is the worse, because it really makes a person not think straight. People will bend there thinking process to the point of breaking rather than deal with their guilt. They will live in denial, they will rationalise, they will justify, to carry on doing what they are doing, rather than just do what’s right.
That’s the key friends, choose your direction for your life. I would like to submit to you when it comes to moral choices, you also need to choose the right path. Choose to be free of Guilt and confess you sin before God. Call it what it is and accept the path of repentance and forgiveness. Choose the right path, to release you from feeling guilty about your past, and to protect you, and prevent you from feeling guilty in the future. Choose the path daily of being and becoming a follower of Christ.