A gentleman by the name of Robertson McQuilkin give a poem.
I have shared it with you before because I think it expresses something that is very,
very important to all of us.
After serving 22 years as the president of Columbia International University, Dr. McQuilkin
shocked the institution by resigning in 1990.
And why did he resign?
Well the answer is that he resigned to care for his wife Muriel, who had an advanced case
of Alzheimer's disease.
He explained, Muriel has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years.
If I cared for her for the next 40 years, I would not be out of her debt.
Duty, however, can be grim and stoic, but there's more.
I love Muriel.
I don't have to care for her.
I get to it.
It's a high honor to care for so wonderful a person.
McQuilkin seemed genuinely shocked that so many people would think that his actions were
exceptional.
He said, I took marriage vows, didn't I?
His wife Muriel lived another 13 years after he resigned as the president of that institution.
He cared for her those 13 years.
Some years before she became so ill, while he was still the president of Columbia International
University, he wrote the poem entitled, Lord, Get Me Home Before Dark.
It's sundown, Lord.
The shadows of my life stretch back into the dimness of years long spent.
I fear not death, for the grim foe betrays himself at last, thrusting me forever into
life.
Life with you, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear.
I fear that dark specter may come too soon, or do I mean too late?
That I should end before I finish, or finish but not well.
That I should stain your honor, shame your name, grieve your loving heart.
Few they tell me finish well.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of a spirit grown mean and small.
Fruit shriveled on the vine.
Bitter to the taste of my companions.
Burdened to be borne by those brave few who love me still.
No, Lord, let the fruit grow lush and sweet.
A joy to all who taste.
Great sign of God at work.
Stronger, fuller, brighter to the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of tattered gifts.
Rust locked, half spent or ill spent.
A life that once was used of God, now set aside.
Grief for glory is gone.
Or fretting for a task God never gave.
Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory.
Gazing at the faded banners of victory long gone.
Cannot I run well unto the end?
Lord, get me home before dark.
Our text today tells us of a man whose name was John.
We call him John the Baptist.
We read in today's text about the end of a well-lived life.
John the Baptist was a close relative of Jesus, their mothers being related.
One, Elizabeth, being much older than the other, Mary.
Like Jesus, John's conception was announced by the angel Gabriel.
His name was divinely assigned by the angel, and his character and ministry were prophesied
by this heavenly messenger.
Read about it in Luke chapter 1.
It says there about John that he will be a joy and delight to you, Zechariah and Elizabeth,
his parents.
It says there many will rejoice because of his birth.
He will be great in the sight of the Lord.
He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, meaning that he is to be set apart
as a Nazarite, a special classification of person that the Old Testament established.
He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth, says the angel.
He will bring back to the Lord many of the people of Israel.
He will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to make ready a people prepared
for the Lord.
Luke then records the birth of this baby John, as well as his circumcision on the eighth
day, just as in the case with Jesus.
John's father, Zechariah, uttered a divinely inspired poetic prophecy, which Luke records
just as he recorded the prophecy of Mary regarding Jesus.
Both prophecies outline in detail how their sons would fit into the promises of God to
Israel and what purpose God had for their sons.
Then Luke, interestingly, records a brief summation of the growing up years of both
John and Jesus.
Then nothing else is said about them until they are into their ministry.
About John it says, and the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the
desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.
The only other glimpse we have of Jesus is that when he was twelve years old he went
to the temple with his parents.
Other than that, both of these men were in their early thirties, about thirty years of
age, before they began to be recorded again by the gospels.
John you see entered the world with a great deal of potential and promise.
Doesn't every baby arrive that way?
Last Sunday we rejoiced with six couples who were dedicating babies here on the platform,
dedicating them to God.
You look at those babies and you just think of all of the wonderful potential that God
has placed in that little one.
Every baby arrives with promise.
The promise of one's life is good.
But finishing well, finishing well, is even better.
Why do I put it this way?
Well it's because so much can happen between the start and the finish to derail one's life
potential.
The lives of two men intersect in the text we look at today in Luke, excuse me, in Mark
chapter six.
One of them, Herod, teaches tragic lessons to us.
The other, John, leaves a lasting example for us to follow.
I want us to look first today at the lessons from Herod.
This King Herod that we see mentioned in Mark 6, 14 is the son of Herod the Great, the one
who was the king of the Jews when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
This is his son.
He was known by his name Antipas.
Herod was the family name.
He reigned from 4 BC when his father died until 39 AD when he was deposed by Caligula,
the Roman Emperor, because Herod was caught in treachery against Rome.
He ultimately spent his last years in exile in Spain and in France.
But at this time, in the mid-20s AD, he is very much a leader in the area of Galilee.
He and his three brothers actually shared their father's kingdom.
It was divided up four ways.
So technically he was not a king, although popularly he was called that, and Luke tells
us as much.
But technically he was a tetrarch, which means that he ruled over one-fourth of his father's
kingdom, a tetrarch.
And his region, which he inherited, was the area of Galilee and also Perea, which was
on the east side of the Jordan River.
He made his headquarters the city of Tiberias.
He was the Herod before whom Jesus would eventually stand in a mock trial.
That he in fact is a historical character, that he lived when he did, that his title
was what it was, as the Bible records, is demonstrated by a coin that has been found
in the city of Tiberias, struck in 33 AD, giving us that kind of information about this
man Herod.
He was a wily politician who was without principle.
Unfortunately he would fit in rather well with many of the politicians today in our
world.
That's why Jesus called him Herod that fox.
Jesus called him a fox.
He was tricky and smart and politically shrewd.
There are three tragic lessons that we learn from this foolish man Herod.
Who was, it seems, intrigued by the truth but ultimately turned away from it.
The first lesson is this, that a man's ignorance blinds him.
We pick up the reading in verse 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.
Others said, he is Elijah.
And still others claimed, he's a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.
But when Herod heard this, he said, John, the man I beheaded has been raised from the
dead.
You see, the news about Jesus' power in his ministry was becoming more widely known in
the area of Galilee and Perea.
Stories were circulating in this storytelling culture.
And finally the stories came to the court of this man that we call King Herod.
This mysterious rabbi from Nazareth who lives down the coast here abetted from Tiberias
in Capernaum, this rabbi is the topic of conversation and rumor in Herod's realm.
And so the question naturally arises, well who is this person?
And we see several of the answers that were given to Herod in his court.
Herod draws his own conclusion.
He says, this must be John the Baptist, the one I beheaded.
You see, Herod is a very superstitious pagan man.
And he is laden with guilt.
The guilt that he had killed, a man that he knew to be innocent.
He had beheaded John.
And now in his ignorance and his superstition, he believes that John has in fact come back
from the dead to plague him.
Now if there was anyone in all of Galilee who could have known the truth about Jesus,
it was surely Herod.
He was after all the Tetrarch.
He was the top dog in that region.
But instead he is superstitious and laden with guilt.
He could find out whatever he wanted to know, but he's in the dark spiritually and he draws
a false conclusion.
He is oblivious.
Sadly, tragically, totally blind and oblivious to what is going on in his very realm in the
most momentous time in all of history, when God himself was living among us as a man.
And Herod is ignorant about this, and his ignorance blinds his soul.
No one is more ignorant than a man who resolutely refuses to see.
That is the case with Herod, and that is the case actually with all sinners.
Indeed, all of us in our natural state.
Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, I tell you, and I insist in the Lord on this, that you
must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.
He says you've come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Don't think and act like the people who are pagans anymore.
He says they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because
of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
You see, the issue is not one of not being able to know.
The issue is that one does not wish to know.
That is the folly of one calling himself an agnostic.
There may be more honor in hell for an atheist than for an agnostic.
At least an atheist says, I don't believe.
He's honest about that.
An agnostic says you can't know.
That's a lie because you can know.
But it's the hardening of the human heart that causes the mind to be closed and the
understanding to be darkened.
A man's ignorance blinds him to what is taking place around him.
Herod gives us that sad lesson, and his condition reflects the reality of all people outside
of Jesus Christ.
There's a second lesson I see in Herod, and that is that a man's arrogance traps him.
Let's begin reading in verse 17.
Mark is now going to backfill the story for us about the death of John.
He says, 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.
For John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him.
She was ticked off at John.
It goes on to say, But she was not able to kill him, because Herod feared John and protected
him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man.
Notice that.
Herod knew that John was a righteous man and a holy man.
That's why he's so overcome with guilt in his superstition, and he thinks John has come
back to haunt him and to plague him.
When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, yet he liked to listen to him.
After the opportune time came, on his birthday, Herod gave a banquet for his high officials
and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.
When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.
Her name was Salome.
The king said to the girl, Ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you.
She promised her with an oath, Whatever you ask, I will give you up to half my kingdom.
Now, he didn't literally mean that.
That was an expression meaning, Anything that's in my power to give you, I will give to you.
She went out and said to her mother, Herodias, What shall I ask for?
She answered, The head of John the Baptist.
At once the girl hurried into the king with the request.
I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
The king was greatly distressed.
A man's arrogance traps him in the verses that we read.
Herod had ordered John to be arrested in order to please his illegitimate wife.
In the course of the arrest, he conversed with John.
He would have him brought from the cell, apparently, to his courtroom, or maybe he went to the
cell, but the two of them got into conversations.
John intrigued Herod.
To Herod, John was a novelty.
He found him interesting.
He was unusual.
They would converse together.
But Herodias this whole time is plotting, you see, to find an opportunity to kill John
because he has humiliated her, showing that in fact she is an adulteress, as is Herod.
She was married to his brother, Herod Philip I, who was also one of the heirs of Herod
the Great.
The story in Josephus is that he went to visit his brother, and while he was there, he wooed
away his brother's wife and took her back to Tiberias and married her there.
She brought with her her daughter, Salome.
After the dance, which sensually aroused and pleased him, he says, I'll give you whatever
you want.
She and her mother come with the request, we want the head of John the Baptist.
Ah, now it's time for revenge.
And Herod, because he is before guests at a party that he's throwing, is trapped by
his own arrogance at this point.
He knows that John is innocent.
He doesn't really want to kill this man, but he must to save face.
Arrogance traps you and me too.
Pride can get us into situations where we are embarrassed to back out, where we feel
that if we don't do what we said we would do, even though it's wrong, we will lose face
in the eyes of others, and we get trapped.
That's how pride works.
That brings us to a third lesson, tragic lesson that we see from Herod, and that is that a
man's obstinateness damns him.
We pick up the reading in verse 26 where it says, because of his oaths and his dinner
guests, Herod did not want to refuse her, so he immediately sent an executioner with
orders to bring John's head.
The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter.
He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother.
On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
Refusing to humble himself, Herod stubbornly went against his own conscience and beheaded
John.
This according to tradition happened at his palace at Macharis.
I think we have a picture of that on the slides if we could put that up on the screen for
a moment.
Now it is just a barren, flattened mountaintop, but at one time, 2,000 years ago, on the top
of that mountain, there was a castle, a fortress.
It had been originally built in the time of the Maccabeans, shortly after that, in order
to defend that surrounding area.
But then Herod the Great, Antipas' father, strengthened the castle.
And he actually had built there walls and towers that reached up as high as 80 feet
on the corners.
It became one of his refuges where he could flee in case his life was threatened.
And now his son has inherited this place, magnificent castle that was there.
And you may be able to see the holes in the side that go along, that are right next to
the pathway up the side of the mountain.
Those were cisterns, possibly used as cells.
And it could be that it was in one of those cells that you see there that John the Baptist
was imprisoned and where he was beheaded.
Others say no, it was in a dungeon below the castle itself.
But whatever, that's exactly where this is said to have happened.
You see, Herod Antipas brought eternal damnation and notoriety to himself by his intractable
will.
And he murdered an innocent man.
Besides his many other sins for which he would have been condemned, we see here that his
obstinate stubborn heart damns him as the killer of the last prophet of the Jews, whose
name was John.
My friend, these are tragic lessons, that ignorance blinds a person, that arrogance
traps us, that stubborn obstinateness in our hearts damns us.
But so it is, and Herod lays it out for us in the way that he lived.
But so much for Herod.
Let's move on to John's happier example.
John the Apostle introduces John the Baptist with very simple words in the first chapter
of his gospel.
He says, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.
You see, John was a man like you and me.
He was not without sin himself.
But John proved to be a faithful man.
He was a man sent from God.
John is one of the often unnoticed heroes of the Bible.
I want you to look at the example that John gives to us and learn from his example.
We're going to turn to some other texts regarding John because that's where we learn about him.
John chapter 1 is where we start.
The Gospel of John, the first chapter.
And the first thing I want you to notice about John's example is that he understood his life's
purpose.
In John chapter 1, I begin reading in verse 19 where it says, now this was John's testimony
when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.
He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, I am not.
I am not the Christ.
They asked him, then who are you?
Are you Elijah?
I'm not.
The prophet?
No.
Finally, they said, who are you?
Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us.
What do you say about yourself?
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, verse 23, I am the voice of one calling in
the desert, make straight the way for the Lord.
John knew whose he was and who he was.
He says, I am the one that was prophesied by Isaiah 700 years ago, and my job is to
prepare the hearts of the people of Israel for the coming of the Lord.
That's what he's saying.
He understood his life's purpose.
What about you?
Who are you?
And why are you here?
How would you answer that question?
I want to say to you that we ought to be able to answer it in some words that are very similar
to John.
Because you see, what we learn from him is that our job too is to prepare the way of
the Lord.
Your role in mine is to go before the Lord, to make the road straight and smooth into
the lives of other people.
As he moves us about in our world and we come into contact with this person and that person,
our role, our life's purpose is very similar to John.
We are to prepare the way of the Lord.
We are to correct their misperceptions about Jesus.
We are to give to them the truth about him.
We are to move them along on that scale of evangelism that we've talked about so many
times.
We are to build a bridge into their lives and prepare their hearts to hear the word
of the Lord.
So if someone were to ask you today, why are you here?
What is your life's purpose?
I would hope that you too would be able to say, as did John, I'm here to prepare the
way of the Lord.
Notice also from John that he accepted his diminishing role.
Turn over with me to John chapter 3 in verse 22.
It says, after this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside where
he spent some time with them and baptized.
Now John also was baptizing at Anon near Salim because there was plenty of water and people
were constantly coming to be baptized.
See John's doing his thing here and Jesus has now started engaging in his own ministry
and John says this was before John was put in prison.
We've just read about that.
And then this argument developed between John's disciples and a certain Jew over matters of
cleansing and they came to John and they talk about this one who's on the other side of
the Jordan who's also baptizing.
And John then begins to tell them that he knows that his time is coming to an end.
That this one who's coming is greater than he.
And he says in verse 30, he, Jesus, must become greater.
I must become less.
I'm newest place.
And we learn from his example here that he pointed to Jesus, he did his job, and then
he got out of the way gladly.
Some servants of the Lord get so wrapped up and excited about pointing other to Jesus
that they fail to get themselves out of the way.
There's something about the adrenaline, about the excitement, there's something about the
ego of making disciples, of sharing the truth and pointing people to Jesus that can trap
a person so that he begins to make disciples after himself instead of Jesus.
I submit to you that this happens with far too many televangelists, for example.
Not just them, but we see a marvelous example in them.
When in fact they intended to point people to Jesus, but something happens along the
way in this journey.
And suddenly their ministry explodes and it all becomes bigger than themselves and they're
trying to live up to their own press releases and they cannot get out of the way.
And the problem is they then begin to go askew because they cannot move out of the way and
let Jesus come onto the stage.
John gives you and me a great example here in humility.
We have the most wonderful privilege in all of the world to point people to Jesus Christ.
Once we have done that, our job is to be sure that they follow him and not us.
He must increase and we must decrease.
Let me say something else about John.
There was a time when John was in prison and doubts began to come to his mind.
Undoubtedly the enemy was working him over and he thought, have I misjudged?
I'm not certain anymore of what's going on.
You can read about this in Luke chapter 7 if you want to in the middle of the chapter.
And he began to have nagging doubts.
And what we see John do is an example for you and me.
John resolves his nagging doubts.
He sends a delegation to Jesus and he just wants to confirm.
He says, go and ask him, are you the one?
Are you the one?
Lord, please tell me you're the one.
And Jesus said, look, you go back and tell John in prison what you're seeing and what
you're hearing, that will reassure him.
He'll know.
Along the journey that you and I have with Jesus, it's common to have times of questions
and doubts.
Am I on the right course?
Lord, I don't really understand what's going on around me.
This isn't what I expected.
I'm surprised by what's come into my life.
And it may be something that's no fault of yours.
It may be because of someone else's choice.
Or it may be that some disease has come to you, some physical affliction.
And you say, what's going on?
John gives you a marvelous example here.
Settle your doubts.
Face your discouragements.
Take them to the Lord.
He can satisfy your heart.
There's no question, there is no doubt that he is unable to resolve in your mind and heart.
Do not allow it to grow to unbelief.
It's okay to have questions.
But you must get them settled or they will eat away at you.
Take your concerns, take your questions, take your surprises, take your disappointments
to the Lord.
And let him resolve them in your mind and heart.
One final thing I want to talk about before I close.
That we see in John's life, and that is that John offered his final sacrifice.
This man had sacrificed all the years of his life.
He was a Nazarite.
It was a sparse existence.
He lived alone.
He was in the desert.
Many came to hear him, but there were those who hated John.
He was fearless and courageous.
And now he is in prison, and the steps of a guard approach the cell where he is.
The stone is rolled back or the door is opened, whatever the situation was, and a man with
a sword comes into the cell.
And John understands exactly what this is about.
And in a matter of a few seconds he has knelt and the blade has found its mark and John's
head rolls to the floor.
He offers his final sacrifice.
What I want to say to you from this is that you and I need to give ourselves without fear
to God's purpose for us.
See your whole life as a living sacrifice.
Live each day as if it were your last.
Be prepared every day to go home.
And then when that time comes, and for some of us there won't be time to think about
it, we'll drop dead.
For others of us it may be a few seconds, and for some of us it may be months or even
years of anticipation as we battle disease.
But however the Lord chooses to call us home, may we see that, as I believe John did, as
the final sacrifice that we make to Jesus.
As Paul said, I am now ready to be offered up to the Lord at his own beheading.
The picture there, I am ready to offer up to him the final sacrifice of my very life
itself.
We have been bought with the price.
We are not our own.
God has put us into this world for a purpose.
He sustains us here that we might accomplish that purpose and end well.
End well with the final sacrifice.
Jesus gave perhaps the greatest compliment possible to John the Baptist.
He says in Luke chapter 7 verse 28, he was the greatest prophet in all of Israel.
You go back and think about Elijah.
You think about Samuel.
You think about Moses.
But the Son of God said, none of them surpasses John the Baptist.
He ended well.
News came a few days ago that Byron Nelson passed away.
Byron Nelson, as some of you know, was one of the greatest golfers of all time.
In fact, one person who was talking about him this week in the media said he was the
greatest golfer of all time.
In 1945, that's a while back, that's the year I was born, he won 11 consecutive tournaments.
An interesting thing about him is that he went to church all of his life.
Apparently he was a Christian.
It is said that wherever he went in his tournaments as a professional golfer back in those years
and later, he went to church every Sunday, either in the morning or the evening service.
A few years ago, a fan was looking for Byron Nelson to meet him and drove out beyond Fort
Worth, Texas to the area where he thought the ranch was located where this now elderly
man, 90 some years of age, was living.
He stopped at a church because he saw the door open and there was, in that church, he
went in and he saw a man sweeping the floor and he asked him if he knew how to get to
the ranch that belonged to Byron Nelson.
This man that he assumed was the janitor smiled and replied and said, why, yes, that's where
I live.
Here is this man, elderly, sweeping the floor of his church.
He ended well.
How would Jesus sum up your life?
Or maybe better, how would you like him to sum it up?
Because you see, the choice is yours.
The choice is yours.
Someone told me this last week that Dr. Howard Hendricks, who for years was associated with
Dallas Theological Seminary as a professor, and I think still is a professor there, pulled
together a group of students at the seminary and they sought to identify the people in
the Bible whose lives are given to us in panorama.
That is, people about whom we know a lot, not just a snapshot here and there.
What they came up with was that there are about 100 people in the Bible whose lives
are given to us basically from beginning to end.
What they discovered amazed me when I heard it.
Of the 100 people whose lives are given to us that way, 55 of them did not end well.
Of those 55, 40 of them failed in the very last part of their lives.
Lord, help us to get home before dark.
Let's pray.
Father, I pray that we will learn what we need to from Herod.