“Fear of God vs. Fear
of Man” Mark 6:14-29
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
Gospel of Mark is the record of an invasion.
It’s about the Son
of God coming into our world.
When he came, he was met with resistance.
We’ve seen the resistance
of the demonic world, also resistance of critics,
last week his
hometown. Now see that his followers
face the same resistance.
INTRO: We saw a great movie a few months ago—so
good, put on book table.
“Sophie Scholl: The
Final Days”
True story about a
German university student, Sophie Scholl,
who distributed
pamphlets critical of Hitler.
She was caught, tried before a kangaroo court and executed.
Sophie’s motives were not just political.
She was a Christian
and her convictions compelled her to speak out.
The movie does a
great job depicting her faith in Christ.
One of the powerful scenes is her trial.
The presiding judge is a rabid Nazi who constantly belittles
her.
You learn from an
earlier comment that he is driven by a desire
to move up the
ranks in the party—over the top in his attacks.
Her court appointed attorney is such a coward that he offers
no defense at all.
You see he is
petrified that he is going to be connected to her
in some way because
he knows exactly where this is heading.
As she speaks with conviction about her love for
and the immorality
of the Nazi regime, you see the faces in the courtroom.
Some of the military men are Nazi SS types and they are
mocking—
but you also see
career German army officers,
and their
consciences are pricked—but look down in shame,
because they don’t
even have the courage of this young woman.
Everybody is afraid—afraid for their advancement and
reputation,
afraid for their
lives and for their comfort for maintaining their power—
Everybody except Sophie who fears nothing.
Her confidence is
in God and in the truth.
Throughout church history this same scene has played out
countless times.
Christian men and
woman are brought before hostile courts and kings
because their words
threatened the power, prestige, and comfort of the regime.
This story in Mark 6 is one of the great dramas of this
kind—
John the
Baptist—the last of the Hebrew prophets, the forerunner of Christ,
imprisoned for speaking
the truth.
He comes before Herod over and over, but in the end it is
Herod’s fear of man,
his fear of his
reputation among his drinking buddies that controls him.
Why is this story in Mark’s gospel?
One of Mark’s
writing techniques is to start one story—
interrupt it with
another one—and then finish the first one.
We’ve seen that technique before—like in the raising of Jairus’ daughter.
Mark did that to
give you a greater understanding of the surrounding story.
What story surrounds this one?
We read it last
week—Jesus sending out disciples.
Look at verse 30—the apostles return and give a report of
their mission.
So right in the
middle of Jesus sending out the disciples to witness,
we have a flashback
to this story of John and Herod.
Mark is saying that when disciples of Jesus speak, they will
meet resistance.
John the Baptist’s
experience is a pattern for God’s people.
Unlikely that any of you will be dragged before courts and
kings.
But if you speak
and live with your Christian convictions, you will face conflict.
And the temptation will be to give in to fear—
fear for your
comfort, fear of criticism—What the Bible calls the fear of man.
When that happens, you are going to have to ask—
Do I fear man or do
I trust God?
If you fear man, and give in to those fears, there will be
painful consequences.
But if you trust God,
he promises to keep you safe through Christ.
So this passage is
both a warning and an encouragement.
For you note-takers, let me tell you how I want to study
this passage.
Look at our theme
verse at the top of the bulletin, Proverbs 29:25.
This is a perfect
commentary on this story. Use it for two
points.
1. Fear of man will
prove to be a snare.
2. Whoever trusts in
the Lord is kept safe.
MP#1 Fear of man will prove to be a snare
Let’s start with the fear of man. See how it proves to be a snare.
Herod executed John because he was afraid of what his dinner
guests would
think about him if
he went back on the promise he made to Herodius’
daughter.
Herod was the kind of man who would have said he wasn’t
afraid
of anybody—but he
really was. Herodius
knew what he feared.
That’s why she was
able to manipulate him so easily.
I want us to look at Herod’s fear not so much to understand
Herod,
but to understand
ourselves better.
In him we see the source and the consequences
of our own fear of
man.
First, the source.
Where did Herod’s fear come from? It came from deep within him.
Because of our
sinful natures that we have inherited from Adam,
every one of us
tries to build an identity on something besides God.
We latch on to something—
and that thing
becomes our savior,
it’s the thing we
base our significance on.
It might be power or control or approval—
We look for those
things in career, or the love of a particular person,
or in the causes
that we take up, or even in things like looks or money.
Everybody looks at something besides God for their
salvation—
and whatever that
is, you become a slave to it,
and fearful
whenever it is threatened.
It’s not hard to see what Herod’s was—it was prestige.
It was being
honored and admired as a king.
Herod also trusted his power—but that was secondary—
it provided a way
to gain prestige and approval.
A number of Bible scholars make an interesting argument that
the reason
John the Baptist
spoke against Herod’s immoral marriage to his brother’s wife,
was because Herod
had actually invited John to his palace to preach.
Why on earth would Herod have done that?
Jewish historian
Josephus tells us that Herod craved popular approval.
He was not a full
Jew so Jewish subjects despised him.
And he was always doing things to make them despise him
more—
like seducing his
brother’s wife and marrying her.
John the Baptist was tremendously respected among the common
folk.
So Herod thought
that if John came and preached at palace,
it would make him
look like a good Jew.
Sort of like politicians today playing the faith card—
by going to a
church for campaign speech or quoting a Bible verse.
But it backfired horribly, John preached and he called Herod
to repentance—
right in front of
his new wife Herodius. So Herod threw John in prison.
He didn’t kill him.
Mark says it was because Herod feared John.
Matthew gives us
more insight when he says that Herod
was also afraid of
the people—they thought John was a prophet.
So once again, it was fear of what people thought of him
that kept John alive.
But Herodius knew her husband
better than he knew himself.
She knew that when
Herod made this oath to her daughter—
in front of all of
these guests that she had him.
Herod was trapped by his fear of losing the thing that he
trusted
as his savior—the
prestige and approval of people.
When you are afraid to do what is right—
when you are afraid
to say what you know you should say,
probe yourself, dig
a little, and you will find the source.
You will find a false savior.
Something besides
Christ that you are basing your significance on.
It’s our idols that
are the source of our debilitating fears.
Second, we see the
consequences of the fear of man.
When Herod had John executed, he not only sinned against
God, and John,
he violated his own
conscience and scarred his own soul.
That’s the most terrible consequence that can come from
giving in to the
fear of man—doing eternal damage to your soul.
Mark makes sure we know that Herod wasn’t just keeping John
alive
because it would
have been bad politics to kill him—that was part of it.
He also feared John because he knew he was a righteous and
holy man.
John was the only
person who had ever stood up to Herod
for reasons of
conscience and truth.
Herod knew that. He
didn’t understand it.
It went completely
against his world view.
Herod thought all
people were like him, out for themselves.
But here was a man who had nothing to gain for speaking the
truth,
and everything to
lose, but he over and over called Herod to repentance and faith.
Herod’s conscience
was being awakened.
That’s why he was greatly distressed when faced with this
dilemma.
He didn’t want to
kill John because he had come to realize that would be wrong.
But he knew that if
he didn’t kill him he would lose face.
And Herod followed his fears. What happened to Herod’s conscience after
that?
He was troubled by guilt.
When he heard about
Jesus and his miracles what did he say?
John, the man I
beheaded, has been raised from the dead.
This was not the Holy Spirit’s conviction—this was superstition.
This was not what
John’s preaching had been stirring up in Herod.
This was the response of a conscience so wounded
that the ability to
repent had been destroyed.
Proof comes about a year and a half later when we see Herod
again.
Luke tells us that
Pilate, as a political favor, sent Jesus to Herod for questioning.
Did Herod say, “Finally,
now I can confess my guilt in killing John.”
No, he mocked Jesus—dressed him in an elegant robe, sent
back.
Herod had listened
to his fears, followed them—
so scarred his
conscience so that all hope of repentance was gone.
Don’t look at this and say—Herod was an unbeliever, that
can’t happen to me.
Certainly a true
Christian can never fall away in the end.
The Lord will
always bring you to repentance.
But when, as a Christian you listen to your fears and go
against what the Holy Spirit
and your conscience
that is telling you to do, there are painful consequences.
You can scar your conscience. You can quench the Holy Spirit.
It may take you
years to recover the ground you lose spiritually.
Mark tells us this story in a context—Jesus’ disciples going
out to preach and serve.
Don’t let fear of
man overcome your identity as a follower of Christ.
Consequences are
not worth it.
MP#2 Whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
So how do you overcome the fear of man? Our fears are so strong.
So easy to say but
if I stand for Christ, do what is right,
then my comfort, my
reputation, my control,
my standing with
this person, will be shot.
There has to be something bigger than your fears that you
hold on to.
We find that in the
second half of the Proverb and our second point:
“Whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”
We’ve looked at
Herod, now let’s look at John the Baptist.
But right away we have a problem.
How can you look at
John the Baptist and say that the Lord kept him safe?
How can you say
that the Lord kept Sophie Scholl safe—she died too.
In fact, so often, down through the ages you see Christians
whose
stand for Christ
brought them trouble so have to wonder—
how does the Lord
keep this promise?
He keeps it in two ways.
1. He keeps you safe by preserving your
integrity.
Let me tell you what John was up against when he preached to
Herod.
The name Herod is
not a first name, it’s a family name.
There was a dynasty
of Herods—several are mentioned in the Bible.
The Herod who killed all the babies in
The Herod in this
story was Herod Antipas.
His brother Philip
was called Herod Philip.
You might have guessed from her name that Herodias was a Herod.
Philip was her
uncle. She married him, had this
daughter who danced, Salome.
Then, once when Herod Antipas was visiting brother Herod
Philip at his house
in
and go back with
him to his little kingdom in
That makes Salome’s dance even more creepy when you think
about her
uncle/step-father
getting so excited at his drunken party that he
makes her an
extravagant promise in front of all of his guests.
This Salome followed in the families footsteps—
she later married
another great uncle and so she became her own mother’s
aunt and sister-in
law.
Do you see how easy it would have been for John to say to
himself:
I’m going to keep
things very general—talk about sin, but not sexual immorality .
I’m not going to go
there with this family—too many landmines!
He could have softened things and had none of this trouble.
So the fact that
John spoke the truth and got in trouble with Herod and Herodius,
is proof that the
Lord was keeping him safe.
The Lord was preserving John’s integrity.
It’s not going to be by keeping you out of trouble,
and away from
criticism that the Lord keeps you safe—
sometimes He keeps
you safe by taking you right into trouble.
He’s not always going to keep you safe by making people like
you,
and not get
bothered when you speak and stand for Christ.
It will be by leading you into those kinds of situations
that he
is showing you and
assuring you of who you are.
The very thing that we fear most is that somehow we are
going to be diminished.
The people that
matter are going to scorn us,
our approval, our
standing is going to be shattered.
But as we saw in Herod, in following your fears that you are
actually diminished.
Any time you
deliberately turn away from God—conscience scarred.
Especially when a Christian who has known Christ, his love
and forgiveness,
anytime you
deliberately say, no, this is too costly for me to stand for him—
you are painfully
diminished—integrity, assurance, conscience suffers.
But it’s in trusting God, even as you perhaps suffer the
very thing you fear—
that your are built
up and receive greater assurances of who you are.
Jesus said: “Blessed
are you when people insult you, persecute you,
and falsely say all
kinds of evil against you because of me.”
2. He keeps you safe by delivering you from
evil.
John the Baptist suffered an evil death.
There was no time for last words, meeting with loved ones—
Executioner came in
with ax and platter and that was that.
Head brought out to
the drunken party.
But we have to believe—because Bible tells us—
that this was not
the end of John—doorway to great blessings.
You will not suffer
lasting harm if you trust Christ.
There is a fascinating verse in Luke 12. Jesus says:
“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of
those who kill the body and after that can do no
more.
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the
body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”
Some
people don’t like that verse because it talks about hell—
and it sounds like it’s scaring people into
believing.
It is
a frightening verse—it’s supposed to be frightening.
But it’s wonderful all at the same time.
Jesus
is saying that there is an eternal destiny for all people.
All people will answer to God.
And hell is the terrible punishment for all
sin.
That’s
the frightening part.
But
when you realize Jesus suffered that hell on the cross for us,
in those three terrible hours of darkness.
And
that God the Father himself in love and mercy sent his Son for us.
And that salvation is not just forgiveness
of sins,
but adoption as sons, and life and an
inheritance,
then the fear of God is transformed into
something wonderful.
It is
not terror, it’s not the guilty fear like Herod felt—tormented conscience—
it is the fear of awe, the fear of
amazement.
That
God himself has provided a way for the greatest evil,
the greatest harm that could come to me to
fall on his Son—
so that I can enjoy life and blessing
forever—that is amazing.
And
if the evil of hell has been born by Christ for me—
and that has opened the door for incredible
blessings—
then why do I ever have to fear any lesser
evil?
What
do I have to fear if people look down on me, scorn me,
or don’t like me if I speak the truth and
live for Christ? Nothing.
What
do I have to fear if an evil king chops off my head? Nothing.
No lasting evil can come near me. Because Jesus has born all the evil—
the scorn of men, and the wrath of God.
When
you get a hold of that truth, sinks in you can stand firm.
CONC: Let me say finally that tomorrow is a new day, and a new week.
Like the apostles—
Jesus is going to send you out to speak and minister in his name.
He’s going to send you to your workplace, to your school,
he’s going to send you out as teachers, businessmen, housewives,
and there will be decisions to make.
Like John, you will face resistance.
In the past you may have caved to that, followed your fears.
Repent and move ahead—
believing that
whoever trusts in the Lord will be kept safe.