At this time, I would invite you to turn to your Bibles with me to the Gospel of Mark. Continuing our series through the Gospel of Mark, we are at chapter 6, verse 14, where we will read and consider verse 14 through verse 29. Mark is the second book of the New Testament, just after Matthew, before Luke. Or it's page 888 of the Pew Bibles. Mark chapter six. Beginning of verse 14, hear the word of God. Now King Herod heard of him, for his name had become well known. And he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him. Others said it is Elijah, and others said it is the prophet, or like one of the prophets. But when Herod heard, he said, this is John, whom I beheaded. He has been raised from the dead. For Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her. Because John had said to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. Therefore, Herodias held it against him and wanted to kill him, but she could not. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and a holy man, and he protected him. And when he heard him, he did many things and heard him gladly. Then an opportune day came when Herod, on his birthday, gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers, and the chief men of Galilee. And when Herodias' daughter herself came in and danced and pleased Herod and those who sat with him, the king said to the girl, ask me whatever you want and I will give it to you. He also swore to her, whatever you ask me, I will give you up to half my kingdom. And so she went out and said to her mother, what shall I ask? And she said, the head of John the Baptist. Immediately she came in with haste to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter. And the king was exceedingly sorry. Yet because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded his head to be brought. and he went and beheaded him in prison, brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard of it, they came and took away his corpse and laid it in a tomb. As for our reading of God's holy, inspired, authoritative and infallible word, may he add his blessing to the preaching thereof congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a couple sermons ago that we had looked at and considered Mark chapter 5 verses 21 through 43. And there, those verses gave to us the story of Jairus, who came pleading to Jesus to heal his daughter. And then also, in those verses about how Jesus was then on his way with Jairus to do just that, to heal Jairus' daughter, and then subsequently to raise her from the dead, that then there was this woman, who believed that if she could just touch the hem of his garment that she would be healed. And indeed she was, and there was a, Jesus paused and pointed that out, and then it resumed on with the story onto Jairus' place. And it seemed like that was an interruption to that story. Kind of a side note. Oh yeah, by the way, this happened as they were doing this, but this is actually something that's very intentional with Mark, and this is what we've called and what others have called a Marken sandwich. It's a specific and intentional way of writing something to make a certain point clear. And the Gospel of Mark has a few of these and is known for these, where something's put in the middle. Or yes, it may seem for a moment to be like a side note, but it is actually a thing that contains the key. for understanding the point of the text. It's the meat. It's the substance. That's where the real stuff is at. And here, with these verses, we have another, another one of those sandwiches, so to speak. Now the pieces of bread, if we want to continue this analogy, is actually the section of verses that we had considered previously. The section of verses that were right before this, verse seven through 13. There was Jesus sending out the 12 after he was rejected in Nazareth, and then maybe you remember that we had included also the verses that are just after. our section for this morning, verse 30 and 31, because that's the 12 returning after they were sent. So what that means is that what we have just read here, verse 14 through 29, is the middle portion. So what we have is the meat. We've got something here that is of great substance. This passage is pressing upon us a key lesson. A key lesson for what it means for the followers of Christ to be faithful in this world. To be faithful witnesses to the gospel. but to Christ himself. And that key is made very vivid in verse 27, where John the Baptist is beheaded. And that for his faithfulness, his faithful witness to the truth He's beheaded because, as verse 19 says, Herodias held it against him and wanted to kill him because of his faithful witness. When Jesus tells us to count the cost, to count the cost of being his disciple, to be a Christian. These verses right here is being laid out before you, like on a platter, saying this is what it may cost you, your own life. So we must ask ourselves, are we prepared to pay that price? Are we willing to pay that price? It's not necessarily a guarantee that this will happen, martyrdom, but there is opposition. Is the cost of faithfulness worth it? Is it worth it, period? Is it worth it to you? That's what we must ask ourselves here, this title, The Cost of Faithfulness, where we will look at John's example here. Firstly, that's the first point, the example of John's faithfulness. And then the second point is the response or responses to John's faithfulness. And then lastly, the relevance of John's faithfulness. the example, the response, the relevance. And so first, consider the example of John's faithfulness and to fully understand John's example here that's being laid out to us, we need to understand what's the context in which John the Baptist is being faithful or faithfully witnessing to the truth of God, to the truth of Christ. What kind of world is he in? What kind of people is he facing? And so that requires us to consider a little bit about these other individuals that are spoken of in these verses, which is Herod and Herodias. Who was he? What was he like? And this is a somewhat challenging task because this is a family tree and a family history that is all kinds of complicated and convoluted with all kinds of twists and turns, things that you would expect to see in a kind of daytime soap opera. because it's just that complicated. One commentator said that the Herodian family tree was as twisted as a trunk of an olive tree. But this should tell us a little bit about who and what kind of people these are. The Herodian family, the reason why things were so twisted in terms of who's related to who and what's their relation to that person is because The Herodian family was infamous for their corruption, for their ruthlessness, for their malice, for their cunning and their worldliness and their evil. And there were four that we read in the New Testament, four different ones. Now the patriarch is called Herod the Great. He was the one that is mentioned in Matthew chapter two, who heard of Christ the king being born and sought to kill him by issuing a decree throughout the land that all male children under the age of two years old must be killed. That's how ruthless Herod the Great was. This Herod had 10 sons. One of those is the Herod here. His name is Herod Antipas. Now, this Herod Antipas was not as violent on a mass scale as his own father, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, because in terms of lifestyle, There is no one as wicked as this Herod. As you see what is going on in the text here with his birthday and the party that is going on, this is par for the course for the kind of individual that he was. He was known as a very wicked and lustful man, and Antipas demonstrated this lustful character quite blatantly. and poignantly in his marital life. We read in verse 17 that this Herod here married his brother Philip's wife, Herodias, which is in itself something not lawful, sinful, as John had pointed out to him. But Herod, in order to do that, had to persuade Herodias to leave Philip. All the while Herod himself had to leave his own wife. And all the while Herodias was the daughter of another brother. And so she was the niece of Philip and the niece of Herod. This is just a little bit of an insight into this family. But this situation here is all sinful, full of sin and foolishness. This is a wicked and an adulterous union that they have together and Herod knew it. He knew it. He entered into this anyways because he was a man of pride and of ambition and lust. If he wanted it, he got it no matter what. He used his position to get that. He led a very ostentatious, a very decadent life, very luxurious. He was one that fed his pride by building all kinds of palaces for himself. He fed his lusts with ungodly parties, as we read here, in all manner of sexual immorality. Basically, the heartbeat of this man was the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, and that very powerful to boot. He's the who's who. So it meant trouble if anyone spoke out openly against Herod, about the family, or criticized him in any way. John the Baptist comes in and condemn this union. Call it for what it is. He called her to repentance, verse 18. And that not privately. It wasn't whispering with other disciples behind their back. Verse 18 says it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. This means this was face to face. boldly confronted him with the law of God, the truth of that, and the wickedness of his own life. John didn't compromise. John didn't smooth it over, downplay it. He gave a very plain and straightforward account of it, right to the point, and he calls sin, sin. Didn't matter who was in front of him, who was indulging, it didn't matter to him when this was going on, it didn't matter how this was going on, or the conditions that surrounded it, sin is sin. John, a guy who eats locusts and wears sackcloth, is telling a king? Supposedly, was it a real king? He thought himself to be a king, but nevertheless a man with great power. John fears God, not man. He seeks to please God, not man. So John calls him to repent. This is a characteristic of John. We read it in the gospel of John and of Matthew, him doing the same thing to the Pharisees and calling them out to repentance as well and using strong language because he was a man who delighted. in the law of the Lord, who delighted in the Lord himself, his will, the gospel that was coming, and he brought both of those together in confronting these individuals with their sin, in the desire for them to repent of it, to turn their life, to amend it, and to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He would not have been loving for John to have glossed it all over or downplayed it. John sets an example of faithfulness, faithfulness of boldness, faithfulness in not compromising, faithfulness of calling and pointing out sin where it is. To not call evil good and good evil. And to do so to one who is a civil authority. One who is a mover and shaker of the world here. And so we have an example, a pattern. This is set before us as something worthy to follow, for the church, for pulpits everywhere to not be afraid to openly rebuke sin, sin that's before them, whether that be in a congregation or even generally speaking in the world around them. for the church to declare it to the world and society that is there, even if it means that it's one who is in the civil government. Call out sin, call out for what it is, and call unto repentance. but to do so in such a way that it is a warning call, a call to repentance, a call to faith in Christ. It's not just bashing over the head with the law, we need that. Certainly the law to convict of sin, but ultimately so that there is a repentance and faith in Christ. It is a merciful and loving firmness. It's tough love. It's what the church needs to be. It's what we need from the pulpit. And there's a similar firmness that I would hope you all would hold me accountable to. And that especially is the task of the elders that we have a congregation also to encourage, to spur on one another for boldness. A boldness even to confront you if need be on things. but a boldness and a sincerity in general. John the Baptist tells us and shows us the importance of being uncompromising. This is essentially the main point with this. Uncompromising with respect to sin, but also loving, patient, with a boldness and faithfulness for the sake of Christ, for the truth, for the gospel, unto repentance and salvation, but ultimately for the glory. Christ in His name. And it's not just the calling of the of the church generally speaking and the officers there and the preachers of the pulpit, it's a calling of every Christian, every disciple, follower of Christ to be of this spirit, to not compromise with this evil age. Do not soften it or gloss it down. Do not tolerate sin. Certainly not in your own life. Be bold and confronted in the power of the Spirit by the truth of the word. Confront that unto repentance. Don't give it an inch. Don't compromise. I mean, not just in your own life, but even in this world around us. where we are in a situation perhaps with our friends and there are conversations and rude jokes and things like that going on and there are times where you may be tempted to just be silent or to walk away when a wisdom would say that this opportunity, this occasion means you must speak up. Call it for what it is. Sin is sin. And even in one another's lives as we live among one another and serve one another to call out these things. We're going forth in humility, of course, but we need to do this because we are to fear God more than man. But this can be very difficult. to do, to be bold in this way. Because it could come at a cost because of how they might respond. That's our second point here, the response to John's faithfulness. You could say responses to John's faithfulness. We see the response of Herod here, Herod Antipas, is one of a mixture. one of a mixture where there is some persecution and yet there is a protection that is there, which we read here in this text that after Herod had laid hold of John and had arrested him, he did so for the sake of Herodias, but Herodias could not kill him because Herod feared John, knowing he was a just and holy man, verse 20, and protected him. And then also that Herod heard him and did many things and heard him gladly. And so there is a certain response that we have that's a bit of a mixture. There is a persecution that comes, for there is the arresting of John in response to John calling out the immorality of his union with Herodias. But at the same time, there is some kind of curiosity that Herod has with John. Because, well, as we read that Herod heard him gladly. Herod had enjoyed, to some extent, hearing of John and the message of the gospel, hearing of John's Savior and of John's God and things of that nature. And yet, We see that there is ultimately no real repentance that comes as we read on in the story. We see that there is even some kind of conviction that Herod had. The beginning of our section here, there is a fear, there's a trembling, there's a conscience, so to speak, of John the Baptist coming back from the dead to haunt him, as it were, as though in Jesus he sees something of John the Baptist, something that would then not let his sin be, another one that would confront him. Another one that would here be that individual to point him unto the way of repentance. And so there is a certain conscience that he has, a certain conviction that comes about by his hearing of John. One, that we read that he did many things. As verse 20 says, when he heard him, he did many things. Meaning that there was even a conviction that led to some kind of outward change, outward reformation, doing these many things. And may that then be to us a lesson regarding just how far a convicted conscience can go without actually repenting and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ by the operation of the Holy Spirit. I can't remember who exactly said this, but I know that Jonathan Edwards, the theologian that was around the time of the mid to late 1700s in the United States, before it was the United States, he wrote a book on this concept called Religious Affections. in essentially arguing the fact that with every true spiritual grace, there is a counterfeit. And so there may be a lot that looks like repentance. There may be a lot that looks like conviction. As we see with Herod. But ultimately, there was not, for as his wife or his niece, sister-in-law, whatever title it is here, as she continues to plot and plan and trap him, it comes to John's own demise because he was a man that did not yet quite want to give up these things that he so dearly loved. At the end of the day, he refused to repent. He delayed and he delayed. He seemed to have some interest in hearing of some things. And yet that delay, that putting it off, proved that the love of his own heart won out, so to speak, and his hand was forced. John the Baptist was assassinated, was executed. So this is one response that you might get before faithfulness of those that appear to respond favorably to it. But unless there is true repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, one that arises from the heart with a new love, a new heartbeat for the Lord God, and not just some outward change, dressing up some things here and there in your life. It is not true repentance. His life was changing, but it was not changed. The heart was not changed. He had ultimately refused to repent of the lust and to believe in Christ alone for salvation. And because of that delay, and that delay, Herodias was plotting and planning because her response to John's faithful witness to her in confronting the sin of the lifestyle that they lived was absolutely outright hatred, desiring to kill. And so there was the plot that she had with her daughter, which the historian Josephus tells us her name was Salome, and using her as a pawn while Herod is in the throes of this party to procure from him the thing that she had wanted to do all along. was to kill John the Baptist to rid this faithfulness from before her. Now, what's the relevance that we have from this? Moving into our third point, We have responses, ultimately, that comes in hatred. The relevance of this is that this is laid before us just to remind us of how we open as the essence, the meat, of that discipleship, of that calling to faithful witness and testimony of the truth of Christ and of his gospel in this world. This is what we may face. We may face those that love their sin more. We may face those that hate. that hate the gospel, that hate Christ, that hate Christians. So relevance for us is because this is what we see going on in this world around us everywhere. Just to give you some numbers, World's Mission Digest, They have numbers that estimate that over 200,000 Christians are killed every year for being Christians. Almost 66 nations in this world are persecuting Christians overtly to some degree, in various degrees of opposition, 66. That number 200,000 Christians, that's an estimate, and that's just based upon the facts and data that they can acquire, so the estimate's probably more than that. And so we have, through the records of history, things like Fox's book of martyrs, which details so many of the deaths of Christians at the hands of the Roman Empire and others, and we could read of the persecution that the early church had faced under the Roman Empire, under those like Nero and others. We could read about the many violent deaths of the reformers, and even going back to the history of the land from which our tradition comes in the Netherlands, and read of just hundreds of thousands of deaths that come by that. We compare that with what's going on today. And all of that combined, combined, pales in comparison to what is going on today, worldwide. There are millions every Lord's Day, like today, that are meeting secretly for worship and are pressed about by all kinds of mobs and government forces every single time they do so. Were you? They're driven out of town, these Christians. Their homes are ransacked and are burned. Christian women and children are being sold into slavery. Husbands and fathers are being killed in front of their families in gruesome ways by all kinds of communist insurgents or Islamic militants and that for no other reason than for refusing to deny the name of Christ. Countless are brutally tortured. and they face severe discrimination, are ousted by their own spouse and given over to the hands of the government by their own parents, by their own children. And we in America skip church for a sporting event. or because the AM service was enough. Shame on us. People are dying for this. This is how, this is relevant. This is what it means to count the cost of being a disciple, of being a faithful disciple in this world. It's not counting the cost of, well, okay, I've got a Sunday, and then there's catechism, and then there's a Bible study on Wednesday. Okay, that seems to be about all the time that I've got. That's not counting the cost. Not really. Counting the cost is whether or not I'm willing to lay down my life for the Lord who laid down His life for me. That's counting the cost. Or whether or not I'm willing to sacrifice the good opinion and thoughts of friends and family for the sake of a dear love for the Lord, for his will. The cost is, as our Lord had summarized the law, is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, with our whole beings. That's the cost. Are you willing to pay that? And if the Lord wills, are you willing to even give up your own head as John the Baptist did? It's not a cakewalk exactly here in the West, either. We face some opposition, certainly, and it is intensifying. And we face many kinds of opposition based upon our faithful living in love to the Lord, whether you are in school, in the university, and having to face many godless teaching. There's a cost to calling that out and confronting that, or whether it be at work in the medical field and refusing to do a certain procedure. Are you willing to pay the cost of losing your job? It may very well be more and more a reality that we face, which means that what's going on around the world The violent persecution may be just a generation or two away here. So we pray to the Lord to have mercy upon us. That we would not be subject to such difficulty and to such misery, but we should not be surprised that there will be some degree of persecution and some degree of opposition because it has been promised to us. Our Lord Jesus Christ promised that to us. The Apostle James promised that to us. 10 of the 12 apostles suffered that and suffered martyrdom and regardless of what it is that we face, we are called to be faithful, faithful in the face of that degree of persecution that we suffer. Even though it may be less, the temptations are still there, but whatever it is, the call is to be faithful. Call it to be faithful because to answer that question, I was asked at the beginning, is it worth it? The answer is it's absolutely worth it. To suffer for the Savior who gave his life for us. He promised in the book of Revelation that he that endures to the end shall be saved And so we understand that there is a destruction that may come for our faithfulness by the hands of this world, of our earthly lives, but it is not an eternal destruction. Compromise and sin and the lusts of the eye, the lusts of the flesh, as easy and as pleasurable and as comfortable as it may be in this world, that is what destroys. Being faithful to the Lord and the strength of His might, not of our own accord. who are being faithful to a faithful Lord. He's the faithful one. He will uphold and He will strengthen and if it is His will that I taken out of this world or suffer any kind of persecution for His sake, He says, blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for His sake. You're blessed and you're brought and protected. You're brought back unto the Lord Jesus Christ himself, which is far better. These things help to refine the faith, to strengthen our faith, to cause us to cling loosely to the things of this world. causes us to look and store up our treasures in heaven, to things that are eternal, to look eagerly with anticipation, with hope and with joy to the coming of the day of our Lord, when we know that our God will come and will answer these things with the full force of his justice upon the wicked. There will be redress. and there will be the coming of peace, and of joy, and of rest, as the disciples do when they come back, verse 30 and 31, they come back to the Lord himself, and there they find rest. So it is worth it. Be faithful. It's worth it. Be faithful for our Lord, to the gospel, And so, have you counted the cost? Are you ready? Are you willing? Do you believe that it's worth it to repent and believe and continue on repenting and believing, looking forward to the day of the Lord Jesus Christ? Let us pray, amen. Our gracious God and Father, Do thank you for your word and for the things that you have revealed to us and for giving to us the ample information here for our wisdom, for our knowledge, for our discernment in this world. May you apply these words by your spirit that we will be helped. in this world that we live, the world that's growing darker. May we be faithful, not for our own sake, but for the sake of praise of your name, that we know all things go back unto you, for all things are through you, to you, for you, for your glory. And it is in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.