Courage, Fear, and Folly

Matthew 14:1-12

December 28, 2003

 

TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story [Edgar Allen Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart," The Works of Edgar Allen Poe, vol VI, 60].


With these words, Edgar Allen Poe opened his short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart." The story, written in first person, describes a man that detested one eye of an old man living in his home. He called it a "vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it." The man did him no harm but something about that "pale blue eye" pierced him, and he could stand to live with it no longer. So he ingeniously planned to rid himself of this man. For seven days he crept into his room at midnight, testing the darkness, and allowing only a slender thread of light to rest upon the eye. But it was always shut, and since it was shut he felt no hurry to close it in death. On the eighth night the door latch squeaked. The old man woke up, groaning with fear in the dark, while his assailant stood motionless at the door in the pitch dark of midnight. So quiet was he that after a time he could hear the old man's heart beating with "a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton" [64]. After an hour he stealthily opened the lantern to cast a ray upon the eye. There it was! The "Evil Eye" gazed at him, so he threw open the lantern, leaped toward the man, and as the old man screamed, he "dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him" [65]. 

 

He dismembered the corpse, took up three planks in the man's bedroom, and cunningly hid the remains while replacing the floor without the least scratch. He congratulated himself on a job well done, and one that no one could ever know. He had nothing to fear. Before daylight, though, three police officers came to the door. They had been notified of a scream in the night, so they came to investigate. Poe continued, "I smiled, -- for what had I to fear?" Showing them the entire house, with great confidence he finally put chairs out for the men with his own chair right over the dismembered body beneath the flooring. They chatted merrily, with the officers convinced that no problem existed. However, as he sat he felt himself turning pale, and a ringing began in his ears. It grew louder and louder though the officers heard nothing. 

 

He wished for their departure but still they sat and talked. His voice began to get shriller, his motions jerky, and the sound increased. "It was a low, dull, quick sound - much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton," Poe wrote. It grew louder and louder. His agitation increased as he raved, swore, and flung the chair into the wall. Louder it grew, but the officers remained pleasant, when finally he shrieked, "Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! - tear up the planks! - here, here! - it is the beating of his hideous heart!" [Italics added in several places for emphasis, 66-67].

 

Guilt is a strange phenomenon. It hears "things in the heaven and in the earth," and "many things in hell," as Poe expressed, yet it lacks physical qualities. Guilt cannot stand up or wield a weapon or write an essay or parade itself. Yet no one mistakes its presence. It stings and cuts the conscience to the bone. It broadcasts in the mind contents stronger than an essay in the newspaper. Guilt conducts its own mental parade with beating strains of drums pounding the mind for days on end. Guilt is unrelenting. So people will go to great lengths to silence the guilt of conscience.

 

The Scripture has ample "case studies" in guilt since it is a common part of humanity. Reality pictures drawn before us in the lives of real people help us to see the effects of sin and guilt that plague the human race. In each case we are reminded that some properly deal with guilt so that the conscience is cleared before God, while others attempt the most foolish things to rid themselves of the shadows of guilt. A guilty conscience demands to be cleared! The problem is that men often choose foolish paths to assuage guilt instead of the solitary path where the guilty find freedom. How do men deal with guilt?

 

I. Guilt and folly

 

I am not speaking on a subject unfamiliar to any of us. All of us have lived with guilt from time to time in our lives. At times it is guilt over a neglected deed or dereliction of duty. Or it is the lingering remains of secret sin - thought hidden from every gaze, and yet it weighs upon us as though broadcast for the world to see. It may be wounding words we spoke to our spouse or the impatient, hasty words delivered to a child. Guilt may linger over things we've watched and engrossed our senses with the imaginations of the forbidden. Or it may be a lie we've told or series of lies to avoid accountability or correction. Guilt shows up in poor hovels and in palaces; even that of Herod Antipas.

 

Herod, in our story from Matthew 14, is one of several with the same name in the New Testament. Herod the Great was King of Judea when Christ was born, and known for ordering the baby boys around Bethlehem slaughtered lest there be a rival to his throne from the newborn King. Later he ordered two of his own sons killed because he thought they might overthrow his rule. Herod Philip, called Philip the tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis in Luke 3:1, Herod Agrippa I who died after giving a self-aggrandizing speech (Acts 12), and Herod Agrippa II mentioned in Acts 25-26 before whom Paul appeared are named in Scripture. In addition, there was Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea after Herod the Great's death [Cleon Rogers, Jr., The Topical Josephus, 44].

 

Herod Antipas, according to some accounts, was the ablest of Herod the Great's sons, and yet Jesus called him, "that fox," to point to his weakness through lack of dignity and true power [C. Rogers 45-46]. His half-brother, Herod Philip, had married his niece, Herodias. Though married to the daughter of the king of Petras, Herod Antipas fell for Herodias while visiting with his brother. He cast care to the wind, and pursued Herodias' hand in marriage, and as a wedding gift, he would cast out his wife, the daughter of Aretas, king of Petras, even though this eventually resulted in a costly war with Petras [C. Rogers, 47-48]. Since Philip's kingdom was the least desirable of the three Herodian rulers, Herodias consented to his proposal, being "a woman of towering ambition" [John Broadus, Matthew, 314]. They returned to his kingdom, and thought that all would be well.

 

But the preaching of John the Baptist became a thorn in their side. Some New Testament scholars suggest that Herod had invited John to his palace with a view to gaining popularity with the masses around Galilee. While there, John cut Herod no slack! He rebuked him for his breach of the divine law (14:4).

 

1. Guilt - a universal problem

 

Whether John actually visited Herod in one of his palaces or John only passed messages of rebuke along, Herod steamed with anger. Matthew recounts the story.

 

For when Herod had John arrested, he bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. For John had been saying to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her." Although Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded John as a prophet.

 

The verb tense in "for John had been saying" suggests that this was no one-time rebuke. But it was ongoing. John recognized that Herod had a moral responsibility in Galilee to be exemplary in conduct, setting an example for the rest of his realm. He ruled over a region that honored God's law. He was no foreigner to this law having been raised in the teachings of Judaism as a child. Herod knew that the law forbade him to marry his brother's wife (Lev 18:16). John brought this sin to his attention. Herod reacted! He wanted to put John to death but that would have caused a popularity problem in his realm, so he imprisoned him.

 

But what crime had John committed? Had he harmed anyone? Had he been disloyal to his rulers by speaking the truth of God's Word? John had committed no crime. Herod's guilty conscience drove him to imprison John in order to silence him. Down in the dungeon of Machaerus, John would cause no problem. And yet the rebuke of John the Baptist lingered for Herod and Herodias. They could not get away from it, and would not be satisfied until John no longer existed.

 

Was Herod's guilty conscience unusual? His story remains as an illustration of the power of guilt over the human psyche. He is one of scores recorded in God's Word that faced the guilt of his sin. Guilt presses and hounds the conscience of everyone. Paul explained that the conscience is a common means through which God reveals Himself to us: "because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them." And yet, speaking of the Gentiles that did not have the written revelation of God's Word, "although they know the ordinance of God [that is, through the conscience], that those who practice such things [referring to a list of sins] are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" (Rom 1:19, 32). He further explains that Gentiles that do not have the written Law "do instinctively the things of the Law," that is due to the conscience, then even the conscience becomes a law to them "in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them" (Rom 2:14-15).

 

Some anthropologists and psychologists attempt to discount guilt, claiming that it is nothing more than conditioning by society. And yet even those that reject the Bible as the Word of God suffer from the guilt of their sin, even if they do not call sin "sin." I've told the story before of attempting to speak to a German man about the gospel. He made it clear that he thought Christianity to be foolish and the Bible to be absurd. I asked him if he ever did anything wrong. He replied that he did. I asked how he knew that it was wrong. "Well, I just know that it is wrong!" But how, I pressed. When I drove home the point that his conscience convinced him of guilt, and that the Creator put the conscience in him, he scoffed because he had no answer to the dilemma. He felt the guilt of his sin even though he denied the truthfulness of God's Word. Guilt is a universal problem. The tell-tale heart beats even for those denying the Creator and Sovereign Lord.

 

With all of Herod's pomp, he could not purge the guilt of his sin. Though John was in prison, the guilt lingered for it was not John that brought on the guilt. It was Herod's own sin. John simply exposed it.

 

Guilt affects us by zeroing in on personal breaches of God's law. Even a dull conscience still feels the occasional gnawing of guilt. All the while guilt points us to the reality that there is a law higher than oneself. It is a reminder that we are not God but the Lord is - and we must give an accounting to Him.

 

2. Guilt - a consuming problem

 

The first tinge of guilt to the conscience raises an alarm to silence it. For those that know Christ and the work of His cross, there is the reminder in guilt of one's weakness, the call to confession and repentance, and the clinging to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ's death. But apart from Christ, the mad scramble begins to put the lid on guilt.

 

Herod was not unlike kings from Israel and Judah's past. When Elijah rebuked the wicked Ahab, King of Israel, and called the nation to repentance, Ahab sought the prophet to put him to death (I Kings 18). When Joash, King of Judah, forgot about the lessons taught him by the godly priest Jehoida, he had Zechariah, Jehoida's son stoned to death for reproving his actions.

 

"Herod wanted to put him [John] to death." But "he feared the crowd, because they regarded John as a prophet." With Plan A spoiled he went to Plan B - imprisoning John. Excavations at Machaerus have revealed two dungeon cells at the base of this mountain fortress that Herod kept. John was imprisoned in one of them to silence his rebuke and attempt to hide from the law of God that called Herod into account.

 

But we don't have dungeons to cram every source of guilt away, so we resort to other things. Some avoid church altogether, thinking to stay away from the reminders of sin's guilt found in worship, prayer, the reading and proclamation of God's Word. Others plunge into church activity seeking to drown the effects of guilt through doing something considered worthwhile or in a vain attempt to appease a holy God.

 

Still others try to find activities to divert the mind. So they plunge into even greater sin trying to drown guilt by convincing the heart that it is free to pursue whatever it desires. Generally, those pursuing such a course are not satisfied going alone. They callously drag others along into the same sins.

 

Case studies: Herod and Herodias

 

Herod's real desire was to put John to death. The crowd's favor toward the prophet stymied Herod's real desire so he chose a less demonstrative reaction to John's rebuke. But did he recognize that the presence of the crowd was a greater demonstration of God's mercy so that Herod would sin less against God's prophet?

 

Think about your own wrestling with guilt. How often has divine mercy intervened, and held you in check because you must give some accountability to others? It may be the shame of having to face parents or spouse or colleagues or classmates that stops your continuing in evil pursuits. It may be fear of reprisal or the consequences of your actions that halts your intention toward sin. But God is merciful to provide such roadblocks to vengeance or hasty actions or plunging deeper into a course of sin in defiance of His holiness.

 

Perhaps we have inwardly grumbled when our Plan A for dealing with guilt is foiled. But do we not realize that even what is thought to be an intrusion or encumbrance to our freedom is actually an act of divine mercy to lessen the extent of judgment deserved?

 

John was still alive while Herod's guilt remained fresh. But Herod continued to ignore not simply the prophet but God the Judge.

 

Once he killed John, Herod reacted openly because his guilt remained. We see this when the news about Jesus' Galilean ministry reached him. "This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him." As though the "tell-tale heart" was beating in his ears, Herod emphatically stated, "He has risen from the dead!" Though he had no tender conscience like David who felt the tinge of guilt for simply cutting off the corner of Saul's robe in a cave, nevertheless Herod still had a conscience. It was seared by his sin and hardened by his pride, but beneath the pretentious exterior there was a man aware of his guilt, and hopeless to deal with it.

 

Herod needed the gospel! It is in the gospel of Christ - the good news of Him bearing God's judgment against us at the cross - that guilty sinners find hope, freedom, and peace. That's why one recurring theme in the New Testament is peace. "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 5:1). "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful (Col 3:15).

 

Herodias is yet another story. Though guilty by reason of her sin, Herodias shows us what happens when guilt abides in the heart. It festers into hatred toward whatever exposed the guilt. Consider Herodias' seething hatred of John that caused her to stop at nothing to silence her accuser. Mark's account tells us that she waited for "a strategic time" to strike. The fires of hatred, stoked by wounded pride, caused her to do the unthinkable. John Broadus points out how unusual it would have been for a princess to dance voluptuously before drunken men at a king's banquet. It was unheard of, and yet Herodias sent her teenaged daughter (implied by the choice of Greek term) on this risky venture, having calculated that Herod's immoral heart would fall for her trap. It was common for gifts to be given when women danced at such events. Herod's pride would get the best of him! "But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod, so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Having been prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist." Although he was grieved, the king commanded it to be given because of his oaths, and because of his dinner guests. He sent and had John beheaded in prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother."

 

'How dare John question me!' she thought. Why she was free to do as she desired, wasn't she? John had no right to interfere with his meddling words! No one could tell her what was right and what was wrong!

 

Herodias fancied herself above John, above the divine law he proclaimed, and worst yet, above the Lord God. Like Herodias, men react to rebuke and reproof concerning sin because of illusions of personal grandeur, thinking themselves to be above the judgments of men and God. The real shame when we try to squash our guilt rather than repent through turning to Christ is thinking that one owes nothing to God or has no obligation to His law.

 

Herod and Herodias remained guilty of their sins before a holy God, and John the Baptist beheaded by their folly in thinking that guilt is external. Their own consciences - put there by the Creator and Judge - accused them. The only relief was the solitary way of the cross of Christ. And that is the way for all that feel the weight of sin.

 

II. Courage and truth

 

Nowadays, only scant attention is given to truth. To stand upon the authority of Holy Scripture as trustworthy, authoritative, and God's complete revelation for every age, meets with ridicule. Why do people deny the veracity and trustworthiness of Scripture? There is no personal piety accompanying such rejection of God's revelation. Instead, men deny God's Word to rid themselves of the source of their guilt! When the Word of God is not heard, read, or proclaimed, people feel much freer to plunge into sin. Dulled hearts continue unabated in sin when God's Word has no place in their lives. That's where John the Baptist entered the scene with Herod Antipas.

 

1. Stand upon truth

 

John held the unique position as the last of the Old Covenant prophets, and in particular, the promised forerunner of the Messiah. He had only one agenda: to proclaim faithfully the truth of God concerning Christ. John stood firmly upon the rock of God's truth.

 

With unquestioned courage in the face of certain opposition, John stood upon the eternal foundation of the Word of God. "It is not lawful for you to have her," he told Herod concerning his recent marriage to his brother's wife. Leviticus 18:16 had made this clear. God had spoken, "You shall not commit adultery." John believed Genesis 2:24, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." He further would have echoed Jesus' words, "What God has joined together let not one put asunder."

 

John believed these words! They meant something to him. Even in the face of threat and royal disfavor he stood courageously upon the revelation of God. He was no whisp-o-will blowing in the breeze of popular opinion and following along the path of least resistance that accommodates the moral whims of the day. No indeed! John stood upon the eternal verities of God!

 

Do you stand with him upon God's Word? I dare say, apart from standing upon God's truth we are left to the opinions of men or worse yet, to our own untrustworthy feelings to guide us! We can be certain in such a path that guilt will only enslave us to more sin, just as it did Herod and Herodias in their denial of God's truth.

 

2. Respond to truth

 

Herod did not respond to truth, and just a few years after this he stood before the Sovereign Lord in the eternally bitter shame of rejecting God's mercies in truth. Herod and his wife reacted to truth, but never responded in obedience. While John's message gave evidence of God's mercy in calling them from sin and its consequences, they fought with bitter energy the guilt that showed them their need for the Lord.

 

Learn the lesson from their failure. Don't run from guilt to try to crush it with some device of retaliation. But look to Christ. Admit your helplessness. See Christ's death for you. Rest in the peace of sins forgiven through Christ's merits and not your own.

 

3. Proper fear

 

One more note from our text is important for us to consider. Herod feared men. John feared God. "He feared the crowd," so Herod avoided killing John. He was a man-pleaser. He tested the public opinion polls and conducted his life accordingly. John happened to be popular at that time so Herod sacked the idea of murdering him. Instead, he should have feared the God who created him, and who gave him the divine law that reveals God's holy standards for all men. He should have feared the God before whom all of us will one day stand in judgment.

 

John feared God more than men so he could speak out boldly the truth of God, even if it meant disfavor with the king. Whose opinion matters most to you? Are you more like Herod that thought more of men's applause? Or are you like John who felt the wonderful, liberating constraints of obedience through fearing God?

 

Conclusion

 

What are you doing with your own guilt? Do you stuff it, ignore it, avoid it, or try to rid yourself of it? Then you have fallen prey to the folly of Herod, who got rid of John but never got rid of his guilt.

 

There's only one place to rid yourself of the load of guilt - the cross of Jesus Christ the Lord.

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