So I was wrestling through what to preach this morning. Not that I was wrestling through it this morning, but, Pastor Ryan told me, you know, one of the joys of being Protestant is you can just preach the next verse. And so, we'll be in Matthew 14 this morning, which is the martyrdom of John the Baptist, but it is a very appropriate story for Easter Sunday. It was about a year ago when I started a study on John the Baptist. If you remember, we looked at John in Matthew three, all his baptism of Jesus.

We looked at Matthew, 12, well, you know, eleven and twelve where he sent messengers to Jesus, you know, wondering if Jesus was indeed the Messiah. And so now we look at chapter 14, which is kind of the end of the John the Baptist story arc, his martyrdom. Let me read our text. It's Matthew 14, verses one through 12. This is the word of God.

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, this is John the Baptist. He's been raised from the dead. That's why these miraculous powers are at work in him. For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, it's not lawful for you to have her. And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people because they held him to be a prophet.

But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, give me the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The king was very sorry, but because of its oaths and his guests, he commanded it to be given. He sent it had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. John's disciples came and took his body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus.

This is a story about, in a sense, a resurrection. John burial happens at the end of the story, and it begins with the declaration that Herod was going to put him to death. My first Sunday ever in my life going to church was on an Easter Sunday. A teammate of mine in high school soccer, I was 18 years old, had been inviting me to church for months, and I finally agreed to go with him. My reasoning was thus.

I thought, I'm an American. I should go to church at least once in my life. It is ironic how God works. So I went to church that morning, and was first of all surprised that I knew other people there. I didn't know what a Jesus Christ represented, but I knew people at my high school had them on their letterman jackets, and they were all wearing their letterman jackets to church, on Easter Sunday.

Albuquerque is a different place than Virginia. And I became aware that I had, in fact, been surrounded by Christians the whole time. I felt a little cheated, like shouldn't they have had warnings? In their defense, they were labeled. I just didn't know what it meant.

I won't go into all the details of the message that saved me that morning, although I remember it very well. But towards the end of the message, the pastor declared that the grave of Jesus is empty. He said the heroes in our country are buried in Arlington, Muhammad is buried in a green tomb, but Jesus has an empty grave, and that one fact should change everything about your life, literally everything. And it did for me. In fact, the pastor said, you could get in an airplane right now and fly to Jerusalem and go look and see for yourself.

It is a standing invite. It's not lost on me that my first time taking people to Jerusalem, there was a long line to look in the empty grave, and the tour guide said, Believe me, it's not worth it. You're gonna stand in line for an hour and look inside there, and it's going to be an empty grave. She had a point. It is true that living in light of the resurrection should change everything about your life.

It should change why you live, what you're motivated by, how you see yourself, what you actually value in life. The fact that Jesus rose from the grave should change everything about your perception of the world. Yet it is not true that everybody is equally affected by that. There are all kinds of people that live their lives denying the resurrection, live their lives not letting it impact them at all. Without the resurrection, they reason, I may as well eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow I die.

What does it matter? And that is in fact a biblical prescription. The prophet Isaiah says, without the resurrection you should eat and drink. Who cares? Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, without the resurrection, cast your bread on the water, drink wine, marry whoever you want to, and lead your life because you're going to die.

And the fool will die, then the wise person will die, and what difference is there between them without the resurrection? Paul says in one Corinthians 15, if the dead have not been raised from the dead, then let's eat and drink, and tomorrow we die. Who cares what happens? May as well get all you can right here and right now if the dead are not raised. In fact, Jesus tells a story in Luke chapter 12, it's often noted in the Bibles, the parable of the rich fool.

He may have even been talking about Herod Antipas, the one that we just read right here, because he tells a story around this time where he says there once was a rich man who just kept growing his abundance and he built bigger barns and bigger silos for all of his stuff. And then he went to bed one night, and he said, soul? He's talking to his soul. He says, let's eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow is just life. And Jesus says, what a fool.

He does not know that the next day his life will be demanded from him. That'll be our outline as we make our way through this passage here is eat drink and be merry. Like I said, that's Jesus's words from Luke 12 that he used to describe somebody very much like King Herod. This is a king who doesn't believe in the resurrection until it grabs him by his collar. He doesn't contemplate death, he lives for himself.

Now this is a complicated passage because it has lots of names in it. These names would be very well known to the readers of Matthew's original gospel, who he wrote it to. It'd be like using the main political names from our world today. You wouldn't have to describe them to people. Americans would know who they are, even in the cases where lots of people may have the same name, and such it is here.

And so I thought it'd be helpful by that. Several people told me I needed to do this. To give you a cast of characters on your screen here, who we encounter in this passage, the first is Herod the Great. He's not in this passage, but he is the kind of the father of the feast here. Herod the Great is in quotes because there was nothing that great about him.

He ruled over all of modern day Israel. He was known as Herod the Great, known by himself as Herod the Great. He had all kinds of kids, at least 12 kids that we know of, probably more from, you know, six or more different mothers were involved in this, and he was a very feared ruler. He's the one that tried to put Jesus to death when Jesus was born. They said, oh, here's the one who was born King of the Jews, so he tried to slaughter all the infants.

That's Herod the Great. He died not long after that. He had left his kingdom to three of his sons. We'll get to them in a second. There's Herodias in this passage.

Herod named almost all of his children Herod, that makes it complicated and expresses his humility, and one of them had a daughter that he humbly named Herodias. That's the feminine version of Herod, if you can't tell. I assume that he named her in honor of him or in honor of his dad, Herod the Great. So Herodias is Herod the Great's granddaughter, if that makes sense, also named Herod. Third, we have Herod Philip.

He's called in the gospels. Philip was his nickname, not his real name. If you wonder why he has a nickname, it's because there's seven of these clowns named Herod, and so you need some help. And by the way, on the screen, these aren't even all the Herods in the New Testament. There's others in the New Testament.

Herod Agrippa, by the way, is Herodias' brother. Herod Philip, that's the nickname for this Herod. Historians tell us his real name is Herod II, which isn't also very helpful. He's Herod the Great's son, one of probably seven more or less sons that Herod the Great had. Herod the Great, by the way, killed most of his sons.

He suspected them of trying to poison him. Can't imagine why. Herod Antipas, that's Herod's youngest son. Herod Antipas was promised by Herod that he would inherit the kingdom and be king when Herod the Great died. But Herod Antipas was lied to.

When Herod the Great died, before he died, he altered his will and said he wanted his kingdom divided between three of his sons. One of his sons would get half of it, the other two sons, in order, would get a fourth of it, and the least favored of those was Herod Antipas. He got the smallest part. He was promised it all, and he was given a fourth of it. All three of the sons that received the kingdom traveled to Rome to appeal to Caesar.

This is all under Caesar's reign. And they all made the case for why they should be the ones to rule all of Israel. Caesar, it's unclear how much he really cared about it, just followed Herod the Great's will. Made one of the sons the ruler of half and called him an ethnarch, that means a ruler of half, told him you can't be called king, you're ruler of half ethnarch, you get to reign in Jerusalem. The other two sons, he said you're called tetrarchs, that means ruler of a fourth.

And it's meant to be a put down. You know, here in Fairfax County, we don't have a mayor, right, we have commissioners. The mayors are not, the commissioners are not mayors, you wouldn't call one a mayor, and if one started presenting herself as the mayor, there would be, you know, her own pride that's doing it. And so it is in this case, these guys are tetrarchs. That's meant to be a diminutive title to them.

They're not king, they're not governor, they get a fourth, they're commissioner. Have fun. It's basically what Caesar tells them. By the way, if you're curious, this intersects with Bible history, the one who was given Jerusalem lasted only a few years. The Jews revolted, complains to Caesar, this clown you put over us is is an imbecile, he's not worthy of being our king, get rid of him or we're gonna riot.

And so Caesar sent and had him exiled and said to punish the Jews, they were never gonna have a king again. They could always have a governor. And that is why during Jesus' lifetime, they did not have a king of the Jews. During Jesus' lifetime, they had Pilate, their governor, who was not Jewish but was put there as a Roman as a way of punishing the Jews for exiling the last king that they had. Well, Herod Philip, he is Herod the great son and he ends up marrying Herodias.

Yes, they are both called Herod. Yes, that is weird. Yes, he married his cousin. It's Rome, okay? They get married.

Herod Antipas also gets married and is ruling a fourth of his former kingdom and he is smarting about it. He wishes he were king. He appeals to Caesar to make him king. Caesar ignores him, he finally becomes convinced that he needs to travel to Rome and make an appeal to Caesar face to face. He does so in Rome, he meets Herodias, who is visiting Rome, and they fall in lust.

Herodias, as I mentioned, is married to Herod Philip. Herod Antipas and Herodias both decide to divorce their spouses. They think that if they marry, they will have a stronger claim on the kingdom than if they are separated. They're consolidating the line of Herod the Great, that's their argument, plus they love each other. So they divorce, they go back, remarry.

How do you think Herod Philip took this? Not well is the answer. He raises an army and goes to attack Herod Antipas and take his wife back. It starts a war. Caesar intervenes with the Roman army, squashes the war, and tells these two, you need to figure out how to get along or I will exile both of you, and you'll die on an island like your other brother there.

And so they say, well, what about the woman? Whose wife shall she be? And Caesar says, I don't care. I don't know if he actually said that, but that's interpreting the historical documents. Oh, he said, whoever she's with now, keep her there, and if the Jews revolt, you're both done for.

So Herod Antipas, who is the Herod in Matthew 14, Herod Antipas on the screen is so called Herod the tetrarch in Matthew 14, he takes his new wife, Herodias, back to Tiberias, their capital city, and all he needs now is the Jews to accept his marriage as legitimate. Because otherwise, he could lose his head. So what do you do if you are the tetrarch, the so called governor or so called king of this area, and you need the Jews to sign off on your marriage or you will die, paging John the Baptist, John the Baptist, please come forward. He needs John the Baptist to sign off on this. If John okays this, then all will be well.

John is famous. As you've heard many times from me, more people had seen John than probably even Caesar. People were coming out to see John at the river by the tens, if not hundreds of thousands. And so John's king, his tetrarch, but his king, summons him and says I need you to approve this marriage. What would you do if you were John?

Dragged by your ear into the king's palace? Threatened with death if you don't sign off? I'm sure you can imagine the speech. I'm sure you can imagine it because I'm sure some of you have received this exact speech. Who are you to be the marriage police?

Their marriage is legal. It was signed off by the emperor himself. You don't have a higher court, he signed off on it as official, he's got the marriage license from the county clerk, everything is in order, it is legal, who are you to say who is supposed to love who? Everybody gets divorced, it's their life, why don't you mind your own business, you prophet? Who made you in charge?

These guys aren't even believers, so called, they're ostensibly Jewish, but nobody's buying that. They're definitely not going out to see John the Baptist at the river. They don't care about God clearly. Why should God care who they marry? Can't you sign off on their marriage like everybody else, you bigot?

Some speech like that, I'm imagining. Anyway, John finds himself in prison, and that's where our narrative gets going. I'm gonna go through it chronologically. Like I said, Matthew 14 jumps forward and backwards all over the place, so we'll just go chronologically. The first people we see chronologically is show us life without hope in a resurrection.

Life without hope in a resurrection, and this kicks in in verse six. Herod's birthday came. The Jews did not celebrate birthdays. They considered it idolatry, they considered it hedonistic, they considered it proud and arrogant, so they rejected the celebration of birthdays, not the Romans. The Romans loved them a good birthday party.

They loved cake. Their birthday parties were debauched, especially the male birthday parties. They called them stag parties, which is a name we still use today. It was male only. There would be drinking.

There would be dancers that were paid to come in and get everybody excited, and it turned into an orgy. That was the birthday parties that they had. It was something that you did for a friend. It was your birthday, your friends put this on for you, and that gives this particular birthday party a sad note. Because Mark lets you know, Mark's version of this is longer, Mark lets you know that Herod threw this party for himself.

And that is kind of pathetic. The guy throws himself his own surprise birthday party. He brings his advisors and his military officers there. It's a who's who. It's all there.

Remember, he is trying more than anything. This Herod wants to demonstrate that he is the king. He wants everybody to know that he is in charge, that he is as powerful as his dad is. His dad promised him he would be that. Nobody's listening to him.

Caesar doesn't listen to him. Wife doesn't want wife number one doesn't listen to him, so he had to get rid of her and marry somebody else who would. Now they have a shared vision of his greatness, and he's throwing his own birthday party. It is fairly pathetic. In comes the daughter of Herodias.

Historians tell her her name was Salome, relatively common Jewish name. She's not named in Matthew's gospel. She was living in Rome when her mother, she's a grown woman here, her mother drug her out to Galilee against her will. She liked her own better. She's drugged by her mom out to Galilee because there's this idea if the whole family is together, they're consolidating Herod's line, he can be king one day.

She comes in, in verse six, and dances before the company is what the ESV says. The Greek literally says dances at the middle. You could infer from that some kind of belly dancing, it might be called. Definitely some kind of erotic dancing is what is meant by that. The ESV cleans it up for you and says she danced before the company.

And it pleased Herod. The Greek word here is it excited Herod. This is a very debauched scene. You can look at this and see basically all of the 10 commandments being broken. Their parents are dishonored, adultery is celebrated, there's bribes and oaths, there's wives coveted and captured, And before the menu of dessert before dessert is even served, murder is already on the menu.

That's only commandments five through 10. You can imagine if they're all broken, one through four aren't far behind. This is the cardboard cutout of hedonism for sure. What's sad about this is that this is the happiest these people will ever be. This is their life.

This is the zenith of Herod's power right here. He doesn't get better than this. By the way, his life ends when his wife convinces him to go back to Rome a second time and ask for the crown. His brother Philip, that wind of it, sent a messenger to Caesar and said he's plotting a coup. He's gonna overthrow you.

And if he signed off on this, he's already got an army staged. So he and his wife show up to Caesar. Caesar has them banished to an island where they're killed. Their greed and covetousness, both of them, both he and Herodias, cost them their life. This, as I said, is as happy as they will ever be.

Drunk at a party, exotic erotic dancing by the princess for goodness sake. That would have been unheard of. This kind of party would be very normal, but to have the princess come in and do the dancing would be ridiculous, unheard of. But that's what's happening. It's obviously a trap.

Herod is drunk and doesn't see it as a trap. This is debauched. It is as happy as they will ever be. They're living for themselves and it becomes a picture of the people who lead a life without hope in the resurrection. I mean the flavor of hedonism may change, but this is a person who leads this is a picture, it's in the Bible, as a picture of somebody who is leading his life without belief in life after death.

They do not believe in any functional way of the resurrection, they're living for the here and the now. He just wants to be happy. He's living for the weekend, would be our expression. He's just living for Fridays. That's it.

And your flavor of that might change, I'm sure you know people that don't know the Lord, and their life is spent, if not living for the weekends, their life is spent living for the lake, their life is spent living for a raise, they're serving money, they're trying just to make headway at work. All they want is the recognition at work, or their family, or in sex, or whatever. They're leading their life for something. Maybe a sports team. That's innocuous enough.

Their life is so wrapped up around their favorite sports team. And when they're winning, they're so happy and their life revolves around the games and everything, and I mean that's innocuous. But you recognize when you take a step back it's kind of sad. It's sad in a very profound way. Their life is wrapped up around something that doesn't matter And you can't, of course, say that to a person.

If you have a friend who's like that, you can't say, hey bro, your life is pathetic. It's kind of rude. But when you take a step back, you see it. The guy is living for himself, or maybe it's not for sports, maybe it's more robust, it's for work or money or whatever. Political power is the example here.

It's a thousand variations of this, but they're all equally sad. If there's no resurrection, the logic goes, let's eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But the truth is you're not gonna be merry. Your life gets spent on something that is meaningless and becomes a very sad life. Well, this leads to life with fear of the resurrection, Life with fear of the resurrection.

The dancing happens. Herod makes all kinds of promises in verse six. It's a progressive tense in the Greek. He keeps promising, keeps promising in verse seven. He keeps promising with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.

Mark says he made many oaths. In fact, you see the plural oath used here and down in verse nine because of his oaths. In other words, Herod wanted the dancing to keep going. So apparently, Salome was dancing in a way that excited him and then would stop and then dance again and then stop. And Herod was begging her to keep the dancing going.

In fact, said, I'll give you anything you want up to half of my kingdom, which to us is an expression that doesn't really mean anything. Right? You know, your wife asks you a favor for a favor and you say, I'll give you half of my kingdom. It's like, well, which half of the minivan do you want? You know, not here.

This is not an idle promise here. Not in this world. Half of my kingdom. This was what she wanted. This was the trap.

She leaves, goes and finds her mom. Of course, her mom, for obvious reasons, is not going to be at this party. Goes and finds her and tells her, we've done it. We've done it. What do I ask for?

Now, this might seem like a petty request, doesn't it? John the Baptist's head on a platter. If you could get anything from the king, why the so called king, why would you choose that? Well, what does she want more than anything? To be queen.

That's what she wants, and what is in her way? That idiot in prison. That's the only thing in her mind. That's what's standing in the way. Get rid of him, and I have the crown.

And so Herod is shocked. Herod is drunk. He did not see this coming. He was stunned. Mark says he was flabbergasted.

Matthew here, verse nine, says he was sorry. He's kind of a pathetic man, isn't he? But because of his oaths and his guests, he commanded it to be given. Well, this takes us back to present day. Go back up to verse one.

Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus. It's an odd way of describing Jesus as somebody famous. It's not the way the Bible usually describes Jesus, famous, but it's contrasting here with what Herod Antipas wanted. He wanted more than anything to be the king. He wanted to be famous.

Instead, John the Baptist, the crowds are going to see him, not Herod. And now John the Baptist is gone and the crowds are going out to see Jesus. Jesus is famous, not Herod. And let me make just a slight small detour here, a little observation, this is for free. Tiberias is the capital city where he was reigning from.

It's right there. If you have been to Galilee, if you've gone to Capernaum, you can see Tiberias. If you've gone to Chorazin, Tiberias backs up to Chorazin. When I take groups to Israel, we go on Mount Arbel for a lesson there, which is probably where Jesus taught the sermon in Luke seven and Matthew 11 took place up there. You can see Tiberias.

It's never mentioned in the New Testament. Jesus never went there, John never went there, it's as if Jesus doesn't care. He's doing His own thing in the wilderness. The Jewish leaders are stalking Him. The crowds are growing.

Jesus doesn't give the time of day to the political leaders in Galilee. Never goes there. What a stark contrast with how our tendency as Americans to get so in love with politics and, you know, pursue so many political ends and think that politics is the, you know, the zenith of our ambition, and Jesus throughout his whole life doesn't even go anywhere in Tiberias that we know of. If he does, it's not mentioned. What a contrast.

What a contrast. By the way, Jesus does end up before Herod. Do you remember when? Before he's killed. This is that Herod.

Anyway, he hears about the fame of Jesus, and he in verse two is terrified. He says to his servants, Greek is his boys, he tells his homies, this is John the Baptist. He must have been raised from the dead, which is not a rational conclusion. You see somebody at your window with 10,000 people following him, it's a long jump from that to this is the resurrected John the Baptist. You had his head on a platter, do you remember?

If it is him resurrected, he's headless. I mean, it's not John the Baptist, but he is so terrified. He is a murderer, and he is haunted by the ghost of the one he murdered. This is Edgar Allan Poe's telltale heart all over again. And if you remember that story, the tick, tick, tick from the ground is not the murdered one's heart, but the guilty man's conscience.

And that's what's happening here. He knows he shed innocent blood, and now he's terrified of the resurrection. This is how people move. They oscillate here between hedonism and terror, between living for happiness and being gripped with the reality of death and resurrection. And it terrifies them.

This is a person who says there is no life after death, so I'm gonna lead as happy of a life as I want. And then when they're lying in their bed at night, they're terrified of death. They know they're a sinner. Their conscience condemns them. They've lied.

They've stolen. They've committed adultery. They've hated people in their heart. They're guilty of murder. They've done all those things.

So when the sun is up, they're living for themselves and pursuing happiness and leading their own normal life. And when the sun is down, they are gripped with fear of what happens to me when I die. This is the classic, you know, manic depressive is what people might call this. They're happy some days and terrified with grief the next. Peter Kreeft, the modern day philosopher, says, you know, anybody who thinks about life after death for ten minutes should be manic depressive.

You should go from living life for the here and now with all the gusto you can to, oh my gosh, I'm gonna die and be judged by God, and I'm gonna be condemned to hell, and I deserve it. You're going to bounce back and forth between the two. Of course you are. Grift by the fear of death. This is the classic damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In the literal sense, if there is no resurrection from the dead, life doesn't matter. I can live for it here and now, and it's all I've got, and then I'm gonna die, and what then? The universe goes on without me? I mean, you don't matter at all. Or there is a resurrection from the dead, there is judgment, and I'm going to be condemned by God because of my own sin.

If there's no resurrection, my life is meaningless. If there is a resurrection, I am condemned to hell. That's Herod. Now he's gripped by fear of the resurrection. He knows he is guilty.

He's haunted by the ghost of the one he has murdered. Of course it is not John the Baptist's ghost haunting him. Of course it is his own guilty conscience. I'm sure you may know people like that. You might be one of those people.

When you were in bed at night, you were terrified of death. You contemplate eternity, you know the universe will go on without you and it fills you with fear, and if there is a God, that's almost worse because you're guilty before Him. What a picture of that. The final group. Death with hope in the resurrection.

Back to the past again, verse nine, the king was sorry. Did you notice here that Matthew calls him king? This is the only time here he's called a king. He's the tetrarch. He's not a king.

It's kinda the point of the story. The Jews reading this would know he's not a king. This is an ironic use of the title by Matthew. He's not a king. Matthew's calling him that because it demonstrates his impotency.

He can't do anything. He's getting bossed by his wife. He's made a command that he can't, he doesn't want to follow. He's filled with fear for the people. Mark says he knew that Matthew was a right or that John the Baptist was a righteous person.

The guy does not have any convictions, this this king. He may have all the power, but nobody will listen to him. His His father demoted him. I don't want to go all psychological in this, but he was promised the kingdom, and he didn't get it. Now he's the ruler of a fourth of it, and he's got a wife who's gonna get him murdered in a few weeks.

I mean, this is just sad. Matthew calls him the king and the king was sorry and you can take that in lots of ways. This was a sorry king indeed. So he gets John. John was chained, that's Mark's word, chained to the wall of the prison.

Sad. He's beheaded in prison. His head was brought on a platter, given it to Salome. Salome, like I said, had lived in Rome. It was a normal thing for Roman emperors, the Caesar, if they had condemned someone to death, one of their political operatives or a military general to death for lack of loyalty, you would cut off his head and you would bring the head in on a platter in front of all of your advisors.

You have all your generals around a table, have your cabinets use the American language, or the joint chiefs or whatever the American language is around the table, and you bring in the head. We don't do that anymore. Now a general will just get demoted or whatever, a nasty letter in his file or something. But back then, cut off his head, it's on a platter in front of everybody else. And Emperor Caligula was famous for this, if the guy was killed for things he said about Caesar, you'd bring his head in and you pull the tongue out in front of everybody.

Solome would have known that. She would have been in this palace before all this. So that's what she does. She gets the head on the platter, probably abuses it, brings it to her mother. The disciples came and took the body and buried it.

And then told Jesus. We'll look at Jesus's response next week, but for now, this is a microcosm of the gospel in so many ways. The world's empty kingdoms use death as a tool to protect their sin, and the true King defeats death by rescuing His saints. They went and told Jesus. You're supposed to contrast this with John the Baptist's life, and what a glorious person.

Do you remember his birth? His parents were elderly and couldn't fall pregnant, and then his dad, Zechariah, is in the temple and an angel says you're gonna have a son. Call him John. Write it down. Remember he has to write the name down?

John is in the womb and leaps for joy at the mention of Jesus. I mean, he's worshiping Jesus in utero. That's John the Baptist. He would never be drunk, the angel said. He'd have the spirit and power of Elijah on him, the angel said.

He would turn disobedient people and make them righteous is the prophecy. He's gonna prepare the way for the savior. He baptizes Jesus, he tells his disciples to follow Jesus, He says he's gonna grow greater, I'm gonna grow less. Jesus says he's the greatest person that ever lived. That's John the Baptist.

As I mentioned, the most famous person in the Empire probably. And now he's on a chain to a wall in Macharius. He's not even in Tiberias. Macharius is where this took place. It's excavated today.

If you go to Jordan, you can visit it. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a poor man's Masada. It's, you know, Antipas' little fortress. He tried to build like his dad's fortress on the wrong side of the Jordan.

The whole thing is pathetic for like 20 reasons. It's so sad. That's where John dies. All everything John saw, remember his last words? His last words were to the messengers to go to Jesus and ask him, are you the one?

Of course he's the one. Why is he asking that question? I mean, he wants to know, is it worth it? Is what I'm doing worth it? I'm chained to a wall in a fortress in a Jordan Desert.

Is this worth it? Do you remember how Jesus answered the question? Did miracles for an hour, and you know what the last miracle was? He raised the dead. And then He tells the disciples, go tell John what you just saw.

The dead are raised to life. Think that's gonna encourage John to go be a martyr? Was it worth it? Of course, you have a pretend puppet, a polygamous king, versus the messenger of the true king. Which would you rather be?

If you were given the choice to be some so called king with a fortress and a palace and erotic dancing and all the political power, of course you could aspire to more, always. All of that life, your own palace and fortress and military. Or would you be the prophet who's gonna have his head cut off for opposing an illegitimate marriage? Which would you choose? Without the resurrection, the answer is obvious.

Of course you would choose Herod, who wouldn't be the king over the martyred prophet? With the resurrection, everything is different. You almost have to compare the feast of Herod's hall with the faithfulness of John's cell. John in his prison is standing on God's word. He says it's not lawful.

He's choosing holiness over hedonism. You can't take your brother's wife, he says. And he's trusting his life to the Lord. Jesus, is it worth it? Listen, if the tomb stays filled with John's half body, John chose wrong.

But if every tomb is only temporary, and you put your trust in the savior who raises the dead, then John made the better choice. That's the choice we have to make. The resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything. It takes us from pursuing a life in and of ourselves to pursuing a life greater than us and one that comes after us. John's soul went to paradise.

His body went to the grave. His soul went to paradise, and he stayed there for what, a year? Until he meets Jesus. Jesus's body goes to his own grave, Jesus's soul goes to the grave as well, and he liberates the souls of all those who died in faith, sends them up to heaven, and they don't get their bodies yet, remember Hebrews says they're gonna be souls worshiping God in heaven. They will get their bodies when we get ours, so that without us they won't be made perfect.

John chose the better thing. John chose the better thing. John didn't waste his life. They said eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. John declares eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you live.

God, we're so thankful for the resurrection of Christ. It changes everything. It gives us hope. It frees us from the slavery of fear of death, and compels us to a life that is spent in honor and worshiping You. We can't help but be sad at John's death.

What an amazing life he lived. What an amazing woman. What an amazing, amazing woman that led him to his death, betraying him, her judgment will be extreme. And yet what an amazing faithfulness that led John to the tomb, chained to its wall, yet he will be reunited with his body one day. What an incredible gospel.

It's an invitation that comes to us. Today, we can choose to place our faith in the empty grave of Christ, in his death on the cross bearing the penalty for sins so that we might live. We're thankful for that in Jesus' name. Amen. And now for a parting word from pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, I b c dot church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.