Podcasts about herods

Daily Dose of Hope April 15, 2025 Day 2 of Week 3   Scripture – Mark 6:14-29   Prayer:  Almighty God, I come before you today with a sense of gratefulness.  You are Lord of all and yet you care for me.  Thank you, Lord.  Help me walk through this day with humility and your wisdom; help me represent you well.  Lord, in these next few moments of silence, help me gather my scattered thoughts, I want to hear your voice...Come Holy Spirit, and guide this time.  In Your Name, Amen.   Welcome back, everyone, to the Daily Dose of Hope, a Deep Dive into the Gospels and Acts.  Today is day two of three in Mark 6 and our focus is shifting back to John the Baptist.   Our section starts with King Herod asking about Jesus, who was gaining quite a bit of fame in the area.  One person answered that he might be John the Baptist reincarnated.  This gets Herod concerned, as he had John executed not long before.    Let's talk briefly about the Herods.  These were political figures appointed by the Roman government to oversee Judea.  Most people consider them very insecure puppet kings.  They did what the Romans wanted and in return got to keep their power and wealth.  While they considered themselves to be Jewish, they really were not and they certainly didn't behave they obedient Jews, which certainly did not endear them to the “real” Jewish residents.  Just for some context, Herod the Great was the ruler at the time of Jesus' birth (remember the one who ordered all the male babies to be killed in Bethlehem?)  He was an extremely violent king and is said to have killed his wife, her two sons, and anyone he perceived as a threat.  Not a nice guy.  His own son, Herod Antipas, is the one in today's Scripture.    This Herod had decided to divorce his own wife to marry his brother Philip's wife, Herodias.  It was quite a messy family situation.  Philip was still alive and Herodias was both Herod Agrippa's and Philip's niece.  Basically, Herod was trampling all over God's laws and John the Baptist had called him out on it.  Herod could have easily executed John because he spoke out against the marriage, but he chose not to do so.  Herod keeps John in prison but alive. It seemed that Herod actually had a lot of respect for John because he considered him a righteous man of God.   But Herodias, the wife/niece, was a different story.  She hated John for the way he spoke out.  So she bided her time until she was able to get her revenge.  The time came when at Herod's birthday party.  Herodias' daughter performed some kind of very seductive dance for the guests (keep in mind the dysfunction of this family).  In return for her provocative dance, a probably fairly drunk and lustful Herod offers the daughter anything she wants.  She asks her mother what to ask for and Herodias knows this is her opportunity to get rid of John the Baptist.  Herodias instructs the girl to ask for John the Baptist's head on a platter.  Herod was distressed at this, as he did admire John, but he felt the need to honor the very public request.  He sends the executioner to the prison and John is beheaded immediately.    The brutality of this narrative is a bit shocking.  Because Jesus was a man of peace, I think we sometimes forget how violent the Roman world was at that time.  The Romans, and in turn, the Herods, ruled with an iron fist.  They had perfected the art of frequent execution.  Keep in mind, there was no due process.  People could be killed or tortured for just about anything.  There was political tension, frequent uprisings, heavy taxation, and people were jailed for not being able to pay their fair share.  There was desperate poverty and the poor faced incredible hardships.    It was into this world that Jesus came.  You can see why the people were so ready for his message.  But is our world any different?    I'm going to close today with John 16:33.  These are the words of Jesus, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”   Blessings, Pastor Vicki  

Q: I am studying to teach Matthew 14 and wanted to see if you could help me with this question: Was Herod Antipas (who had John the Baptist beheaded) Jewish? One of my commentaries said he was, but I'm not convinced. Please help! Summary Dr. Michael Easley delves into the complex legacy of Herod the Great and his son, Herod Antipas, particularly in relation to their actions and identities within the context of Jewish history. The discussion explores the nuances of their Jewish heritage, the political dynamics of their reign, and the implications of their actions, such as the beheading of John the Baptist. The conversation highlights the intricate relationship between personal identity, political power, and religious affiliation in the historical narrative of the Herods. If you've got a question for Dr. Easley, call or text us your question at 615-281-9694 or email at question@michaelincontext.com.   Takeaways: Herod the Great was a paranoid murderer. Herod Antipas is considered half Jewish. The actions of Herod Antipas raise questions about Jewish identity. Herod's legacy is marked by political manipulation and violence. The historical context of the Herods is complex and multifaceted. Herod the Great's building projects included synagogues and mikvahs. The relationship between Herod and Judaism is complicated. Herod Antipas's actions were influenced by his family legacy. The Herods can be compared to modern political dynasties. Understanding the Herods requires a nuanced approach to history. Find more episodes of Ask Dr. E here. If you've got a question for Dr. Easley, call or text us your question at 615-281-9694 or email at question@michaelincontext.com.

Luke 13:31-35At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.' ” We lie to our children. That is one thing I've learned in my brief two years of parenting. Most of them are innocent, harmless lies—if there is such a thing. “There are no more cookies, Clive! Mickey Mouse is going to sleep too. Oh sorry buddy, that toy is broken. Yes, that's chicken, it's chicken, just eat it!” Those are some of the more common ones in my household. I'm sure you have, or had, your own in your home. Or maybe you remember some that your parents told you. And if you are sitting here saying, "Well, I never lied to my kids," or “my parents never lied to me," I hate to break it to you, but you're lying right now and yes they did.This is not to shame any of us or to make you look at your own parents in a different light. Most of the time, the lies are told out of protection, care, and concern. We don't want our kids to bear the weight of whatever it is: Spot went to live on a farm or Mommy and Daddy were just talking. This is normal and well-intentioned, no doubt. However, according to the novelist Allison Grant, there are some lies we tell, however well-intentioned, that do more harm than good.This past week, Allison wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about one of those lies—one she says she'll never tell her children—and that is about pain. When something will hurt and how much. Now, I am sure you have a story about a time you told a white lie about how much something would hurt and everything turned out fine. Well, that wasn't the case for Allison.She was born with one leg shorter than the other, by about three inches. When she was 11, she underwent a complex corrective procedure. Over 13 hours, surgeons drilled holes through her bones and attached a metal frame from the outside of her hip to her toe. For the next two years, the frame helped stretch Allison's leg those three inches. Before the surgery, when she asked if it was going to hurt, she remembers being told, “Don't worry, we have ways to manage any unpleasantness.” Reassuring, yes, but it skirted around the truth. Those two years, Allison was in excruciating pain, so much so that morphine, valium, and muscle relaxants were all needed on a regular basis just to mask it a bit.Reflecting on that experience, Allison writes, “The difference between what I was told and what I experienced shattered my faith in doctors and left me questioning whether I could trust adults at all. Now, as a parent—and through my years working in health care—I've made the conscious decision never to lie to people about pain.” Even with something small, she says, she is realistic about the pain they likely will encounter.This is not a sermon about parenting or about not lying to kids. I certainly don't have all that figured out yet. Rather, I hope this lens of honesty on pain and danger helps us see how God, like a good parent, doesn't lie to us about the danger and pain we'll face—and how that truth sets us free.We all want to protect people we love from pain. But what if real love tells the truth, even about the pain? I'd like to think that's what God did for Jesus. God was honest with Jesus about his life, his ministry, and the suffering, too. God didn't protect him from Herods or sugarcoat the cross. And yet—Jesus walked ahead to Jerusalem.That is where we find Jesus in our story today. Teaching and healing from town to town on his way to the holy city when some guys come up and say, “You need to leave right now, Herod wants to kill you!” And Jesus responds with one of the best lines in all the Bible, “Tell that fox that I've got work to do, so just try to stop me.”Don't you wish you could respond like that? Such confidence, such disregard for danger. Make no mistake—Herod was a very real and present danger who could invoke great pain. By this point in the story, he's already thrown John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, in jail and then beheaded him! But here in this scene, Jesus—the guy who always says, "Be not afraid"—shows all of us exactly what being not afraid looks like. “Sorry, Herod, I gotta keep going. I have work to accomplish, and you won't stop me.”Don't you want that? I mean, how is it that Jesus can face such danger, can be threatened with such pain, and not even flinch? I'd like to think, in part, it's because God the Father was honest with Jesus, his only Son. That in the many hours of prayer and discernment, God told Jesus everything about the life and work that was before him. How he would cure people and cast out demons. How he would go to Jerusalem, though foxes would try to stop him. How he would hang on a cross if he chose—but that wouldn't be the end because God promised resurrection.God didn't lie about the pain and the danger. And because Jesus knew what was coming, he could face it all head-on, unafraid, trusting in the promises God had made him. We might not ever be as fearless as Jesus, because well we aren't Jesus. But I do think God in Jesus is honest with us, too, about what we will face in our lives. And we hear that in this passage.There will always be foxes and Herods that are a real danger to us. We will face pain in this life. But here, Jesus makes another promise to us, one that can help us face the foxes. As a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wing, so does Jesus desire to gather and cover you.Notice I say cover you, not protect you. If you've spent any time around chickens, you know that a hen can't actually protect her chicks from a fox. Those wings don't do much of anything against razor sharp teeth and fast claws. And so you might think, “well what good is that then?!” If foxes and danger are inevitable, and a hen can't truly keep her chicks safe, then what good is thinking of God as a Hen? Of all the animals Jesus could have picked to describe himself, why choose a mother hen?Because a hen's love is stronger than any fear a fox instills. She will do all she can to cover her chicks, even gathering them with her wings while she gives up her own life to the fox. We all have foxes. The grief that lingers long after the funeral. The resentment or silence that frays marriages now barely hanging on by a thread. The words said or left unsaid that strain our friendships and families. The overwhelming pressure of raising children—how much screen time is too much, how to balance work and home, how to not fail them. The fear that no matter how hard we try, we are not enough. These foxes creep close, circling, threatening to undo us. But hear this promise: you are not left alone. You are gathered. You are covered. You are sheltered beneath the outstretched wings of Christ, alongside others just as weary as you. And in that love, we don't find protection from the foxes, but courage. Jesus lays down his life so that we can live—not in fear, but with trust and in the promise of resurrection. The foxes do not get the last word.We cannot lie our way out of life's pain, not to ourselves and not to our children. Allison ends that op-ed piece saying “We should tell our kids when it's going to hurt. In the long run, it will hurt them a whole lot less.” That's what God does with us, not to hurt us but to free us from fear and face the pain and danger in this world, trusting also that we do not face the pain alone. We have each other and we have the love that covers us, love that casts out fear. Amen.

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God's Will is Done (Audio) David Eells – 2/26/25 Do you know and understand that God is sovereign over the minds of all men? An angel recently told me that they could influence men's minds and they do. (Pro.21:1) The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the watercourses: He turneth it whithersoever he will. It is amazing to me how many Christians today can be so ignorant of the sovereignty of God when there is so much of it in the Word, though so many, even in the Old Testament, understood this truth. We would get a good argument if we said some of these things in almost any church, but we should be able to say anything that the Scripture says and feel good about it. When we quote the Scriptures and we do not feel easy about it, it is because we are wrong in our thinking. In this way, we can know if we have false doctrine and our mind needs to be renewed. There are many verses ignored by the modern church because they are uncomfortable to the carnal mind. Here is one of those verses. (Dan.4:17) The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the lowest of men. Why is it that people do not understand this today? There are so many Christians today that are so politically-minded they think that they have the ability by banding together to put somebody in office that God does not want. Be careful about matching numbers with the wicked. According to the truth of the broad road, there is no moral majority. It is not by might and not by power. Throughout history, God has set up over the kingdoms of men the lowest of men not the highest who are disciples of Christ and born of the Word. God has a good reason for doing this. It was the reason that the lowest of men judged Jesus, and it is the same reason that we need the lowest of men to rule over us now. Good people will not nail you to a cross, but without the cross, there is no crown. Even though at this time our Cyrus is overthrowing Babylonish Deep State kingdom to bring in one more favorable to conservative Christians, apostacy and corruption has not been corrected in the Church. This will give us a time of relative peace for the Man-child reformers to get the true Word out. Then that Word will be tested in them. In Biblical times, when God's people fell into apostasy, He raised up a beast kingdom to crucify them into repentance. Six world-ruling kingdoms – Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and Rome – were raised up to bring little Israel to their cross. Is it an accident that world kingdoms thought it important to subject the smallest of kingdoms? History and the Word of God are plain. (Ecc.1:9) That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. To bring to repentance a worldwide apostate (meaning: fallen away) Church, now God is raising up a seventh and eighth worldwide beast kingdom, which will incorporate the seed of all the previous kingdoms (Rev.17:11). We read about Nebuchadnezzar, a man who was so proud of the great kingdom that he thought he had built. (Dan.4:30) The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty? (31) While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, [saying], O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: The kingdom is departed from thee: (32) and thou shalt be driven from men; and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; thou shalt be made to eat grass as oxen; and seven times shall pass over thee; until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. This vessel of clay taking credit for God's work reminds me of the statement made by the Titanic's engineer, “We built a boat that God could not sink.” (Ecc.5:2) Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. This sovereignty of God instills respect. When King Nebuchadnezzar was walking in his palace bragging about his accomplishments, the Lord turned his mind over to the mind of a beast for seven times. This is a type of the last seven years of tribulation when God will turn the kingdoms of the world over to the dragon of Revelation 12 and then the beast of Revelation 13, giving them the mind of a beast in Revelation17. For seven seasons, that great boastful king ate the grass of the fields, symbolizing the flesh of men, until he came to the revelation in Dan.4:25 the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever He will. The first thing we should see here is that God made this arrogant man king and gave the rebellious people of God into his hand. God has repeated this habit throughout history. God through Daniel warned the king of his judgment ahead of time to make him responsible to repent. This is an example to us to fear God and not touch His glory. (Dan.4:35) And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; (It is not the world that is important in God's plan but those who are born from above.) and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? Nobody can push God's hand away and say, “What are you doing?” Nobody can stop Him from doing what God wants him to do. This should give us faith, rest, and the fear of God. Since God is doing exactly what He wants, why does He set up these evil men over the world? We thought God wanted to go the other way with the world. He, obviously, does not share the majority's opinion on that. God has no interest in saving the world through world politics; He has never done it before. This is the thinking of ignorant Christians who want to help God out. Their plan is to always put Christians at the head to make favorable laws and judgments for us so that we will never be under persecution, oppression, or on the cross. The problem with this is that deeply spiritual men have no desire to rule over men. They only desire to serve the kingdom in fulfilling the Great Commission. (Mar.10:42) And Jesus… saith unto them, Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority over them. (43) But it is not so among you: but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister (Greek: “servant”). Political Christians are left with those who desire power among men as their choice. These people and the world they rule over serve the larger plan of bringing sons to maturity. (2 Sam.7:14) I will be his father, and he shall be my son: if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. Political Christians would love to take away God's rod. If so many Christians did not have a name that lives while they are dead (Rev.3:1), there would be no need for the rod of men. When it comes to politics, I am totally neutral because I want to be on God's side not man's side. God does not always want to put in the good man we think He wants to put in. He did not do it with Clinton or Obama did He? Most Christians would agree with me there. God wanted to put a wicked man in office, because a wicked man is the only kind that would bring this wicked country into the chastening it needed. (Rom.13:1) Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the [powers] that be are ordained of God. God did not put these types in because they were our preference but because that was what we needed. No father prefers to chasten his child, but bless him. God put Bush in office because Christians asked Him to. Now, He can prove that we don't have discernment. He couldn't save nor keep us from chastening, either. You may ask, “Is it God's Will to use the true Christian vote to put in office someone like Clinton, Obama or Biden?” No, because if God uses a Christian, He wants to use a true Christian as a vessel of honor. Then would He have us not vote? When He desires to put someone like that in office, the answer is yes. When does He want us to vote? The short answer is when He tells us to. (Rom.8:14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. He wants us to vote when He wants to do something very unusual, like put a better man in office. We know that God has ordained that Cyrus/Trump be in office at this time. God wants to always use us as vessels of honor. God will use those who refuse to be used as vessels of honor as vessels of dishonor. God will use the wicked to put in a wicked man if He wants the wicked in there. If you disagree with me on that, at least agree with me on this. “There is no power but of God; and the [powers] that be are ordained of God.” This was written in the time of the Herods, Caesars and the Neros, and after that it was true of Hitler and Stalin. Listen, we cannot argue with the Scripture if we want the truth. According to the Word, if wicked men are in a position of power, God put them there. This gives me peace. I do not have to worry. I saw so many Christians worried that Clinton was going to get into office. They were erroneously thinking that it was their responsibility to make sure the right man went in, instead of just obeying God. I did not have to worry about that because my God reigns. I told many before Clinton's first term that God was going to put him into office. I was told that God would not do that. Well, He overruled them. God rules in the kingdom of men, and He rules in the heavens, and He never falls off the throne. Many are deceived into thinking that God's plan is to rule the world by democracy. In such a case, the broad road gang wins. He already rules through theocracy. Romans 9:21 clearly states that He has vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. God has a good purpose for His vessels of dishonor, as we shall see. Who was it that killed Jesus? The Jews who were recognized as the people of God were the voters who cried, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Let me show you Who was behind the voters. Do you know what “Barabbas” means? “Barabbas” means “Son of the father.” Barabbas was the criminal who represented us. The voters set Barabbas free and demanded that Jesus be crucified. (Act.2:22) Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know; (23) him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay. God delivered up Jesus to lawless men including their religious leaders. God could not use men who would not slay the Lamb. God put the people in power that would carry out His “determinate counsel.” Who was it that delivered up and smote the shepherd? It was not just the voters of Judas, Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate, the Romans, and the Jews. We have to look behind all of them. (Mat.26:31) Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended in me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. Even though all these vessels of dishonor are guilty, these are only secondary wills. We have to look behind the secondary wills and see the sovereign Will of God. God said, “I will smite the shepherd.” Thank God His plan was not to stop there because there is a lot more crucifying necessary. (Zech.13:7) Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn my hand upon the little ones. God is sovereign, and His plan is to crucify the sheep, the little ones. How else can we account for the persecution of Christians throughout history, throughout the world? Unless we take up our cross and follow Jesus, we cannot be His disciples. Of course, we would like to get rid of evil governments and be accepted by the world so that we could enjoy the good life, but all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Tim.3:12). If we are disciples of Christ, we will be persecuted. Jesus said, “I am the way.” The way to what? The way to heaven. How do you go? The same way Jesus went. If God were going to turn His hand upon the little ones in the way of crucifixion, would you take away His tools? How is God going to bring His plan to pass without the wicked being in rule? Can you see the earth, the dirt, and the plant? The dirt kills the seed coat, and the plant brings forth fruit. Sometimes God permits childlike thinking. If we understood some of these things without a good foundation, we might be tempted to charge God with doing evil and, of course, God never does evil. For this reason, God permits baby Christians to have this “God is in a war with the devil” concept. But when they mature and study the Scriptures, they should come into the knowledge and understanding that God is sovereign and does not make mistakes. He is creating sons. He created and is using the wicked for the day of evil, and they are necessary to crucify the sons. Prosperity and freedom have caused us to lose sight of this fact. (Mat.16:24) Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (25) For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. We must lose our carnal life to have God's spiritual life. (Acts 4:27) For of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, (28) to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass. God foreordained these wicked men to crucify Jesus for our salvation and His plan for us to be crucified as well. Not always physically, but absolutely the old man must die to self that the new man may live. God uses people around us to bring us to our cross. If you have ever thought, “I don't need this person in my life,” then you need this person in order to bear the fruit of Jesus. Difficult people are used to bring out the worst in us so that we may choose to walk in the light of the Word and be cleansed of this corruption (1Jn.1:7), or disobey the Word and not bear fruit. This is the whole reason for the most hated command in the Scriptures: non-resistance to evil. We are commanded to be as sheep in the midst of wolves (Mat.10:16), to resist not evil and turn the other cheek (Mat.5:39), to love our enemies (Mat.5:44), to bless those who persecute us (Rom.12:14), and to avenge not ourselves (Rom.12:19) to list a few. These are the natural actions of the one who obeys Jesus and forgives from the heart. God will turn all others over to the tormentors or demons. (Mat.18:34) And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due. (35) So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts. When we are faced with the wicked and we obey these commands of non-resistance, we can feel the fiery trial burning up the wood, hay, and stubble of our old life. Every time our flesh rises up on the inside and we deny it, it dies, and we get more of the gold, silver, and precious stones of the valuable life of Christ. We are to consider flesh, self or the old man, to be dead because it was crucified with Christ. Rom 6:6  knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; …11  Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. 12  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof.  This is faith and the key to arriving at death to self. You can slap, insult, or rob a dead man and he will ignore you. Stop feeding the flesh and see how quickly it dies. We should see the crucifiers as God's gift to us, even if they are being used as vessels of dishonor. All these wicked people are gathered together to do whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel has foreordained to come to pass. In other words, God does not have any trouble out of any of them. They all do exactly what they are supposed to do. All these rebellious people fulfill the Will of God perfectly. Just as God works in us to will and do of His good pleasure, He also does in them. (Pro.16:9) A man's heart deviseth his way; But the Lord directeth his steps. Decide what you want to be, but no matter what you are, God will use you. Pity, forgive, and have mercy on those who are being used of God, through the devil, as vessels of dishonor. Some of them will repent through your prayers and faith and love. (Psa.75:5) Lift not up your horn on high (I.e. Let not your might, power, or voice be heard.); Speak not with a stiff neck. (6) For neither from the east, nor from the west, Nor yet from the south, [cometh] lifting up. (7) But God is the judge: He putteth down one, and liftest up another. Much has been said recently about the hidden powers that are manipulating the duped masses to get their man into office, and there is truth to this, but God is sovereignly behind it all to work His Will. Fleshly power, wisdom, manipulation, or money lifts up no one. The men of means do not rule this world by their own design; it only appears that way for God's purpose. Just as God sovereignly puts into office, He takes out of office. He also gives us signs of this control along the way. The president in office on every twentieth year died in office until Reagan. 1840: William Henry Harrison (Died in office) 1860: Abraham Lincoln (Assassinated) 1880: James A. Garfield (Assassinated) 1900: William McKinley (Assassinated) 1920: Warren G. Harding (Died in office) 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Died in office) 1960: John F. Kennedy (Assassinated) 1980: Ronald Reagan (Survived assassination attempt). Why did this obvious pattern stop with Reagan and is he the last? God knows. I believe God used the faith and prayers of many Christians who knew about this cycle to bring it to an end. The millennial Sabbath or the actual year 6000 A.M. (September 2001 - 2002) may be the beginning of a new dealing with the sins of God's people. Spiritually, according to type, judgment comes on those who do not cease from their own works on the Sabbath. Two of the most famous of these Presidents who were 100 years apart had obviously God-ordained parallels. • Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. • Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. • Both were concerned with civil rights. Both their wives lost children while living in the White House. • Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both Presidents were shot in the head. • Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. • Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson. • Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. • Both assassins were known by their three names. • Both names are composed of 15 letters. • Lincoln was shot at the theater named “Ford.” Kennedy was shot in a car called “Lincoln” made by Ford. • Booth and Oswald were killed before their trials. Coincidence? It takes less faith to believe in a sovereign God! These signs are to show us the sovereignty of God. (Psa.75:7) But God is the judge: He putteth down one, and liftest up another. You cannot always judge by looking at the circumstances whether one is being lifted up or put down. For instance, look at Job. Job's friends certainly thought that God was putting him down, but God was lifting him up to sanctify him and to double what he had before (Job 42:10). Joseph is another good example of this. He was sold into bondage by his brothers, falsely accused by his master's wife, and thrown into prison, all as a type of Jesus. Through all Joseph's tribulations, God was actually promoting him over all. Pharaoh then promoted him, making him second only to himself. Joseph confirmed that all of the evil his brothers had done against him was for his good. (Gen.50:20) And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. When God is through manifesting His sons, they will be promoted, and the usefulness of the vessels of wrath will come to an end. (Isa.10:24) Therefore thus saith the Lord, God of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian, though he smite thee with the rod, and lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. (25) For yet a very little while, and the indignation [against thee] shall be accomplished, and mine anger [shall be directed] to his destruction. Then God's elect will rule by Him. (Psa.75:10) All the horns (power) of the wicked also will I cut off; But the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. Someone recently made the following comment to me: “So raising all these millions of dollars to promote a candidate is not necessary.” God is behind that also, even to put the one He wants into office. Those who do not love God need a natural reason for why things happen. Have you ever watched an ant colony behind glass? They carry on through instinct their own purposes, not realizing that they are being watched, and in our case tried. As long as only the natural is seen, God's purpose of a trial environment is established. It is God's purpose that both He and the devil stay hidden until the end. God is looking for those who will overcome walking by sight and will mature to a higher order of living by faith. After the candidate gets into office, it makes no difference. You may think that if you vote for a good conservative, he will be God's servant. He will always make decisions and choices we can trust because he is “God's man.” Has not God shown us the fallacy of that? G.W. Bush has taken away more civil rights because of terrorism than Clinton ever did. We know of a Christian, voted into office by Christians because they believed he would further the Christian cause. He made some of the most ignorant mistakes and foolish decisions, accomplishing nearly nothing. God teaches us lessons, not by the might of the Republican Party, nor by power of the ballot. We are not to trust in men like Israel who ran to Egypt for help against Babylon But we are to walk and speak faith so God can use a monkey. The issue is not about God's Will being done, because whoever gets elected, what he does will be God's Will. It will not, however, always be His wish. Let me explain. (2Pe.3:9) The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. “Wishing” in this verse has been incorrectly translated “willing” in some versions. If God was not willing that any should perish, believe me, none would perish since He worketh all things after the counsel of His will (Eph.1:11). Every good parent does things they do not wish to do, but they will to do, in order to train children. In like manner, these world rulers will do the Will of God but not necessarily His wish. The real issue is who we put our faith and trust in. If we believe that we can blindly follow the good conservative we helped to elect instead of God, we will trip and fall on our misplaced trust. And this, too, is God's Will. (Pro.21:1) The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the watercourses: He turneth it whithersoever he will. Just as a channel turns the water, the Lord turns the king's heart. If He rules the head, He rules the tail. If He rules the king, He rules the people. God does what He wants by turning hearts. Either He turns their hearts as vessels of dishonor for our sake or He turns their hearts to righteousness. He has given us a method by which we can be His vessels to do this. If we forsake His way for the world's ways, the country will crumble. If we think we are going to turn our country around through politics, we are deceived. We cannot politically force evil people to be good. Only the Gospel has the power to change the hearts of the wicked. It is the power of God to save the one that believes it (Rom.1:16). Therefore we should be focused on obeying the Lord and preaching the Gospel to change this nation. Jesus and the apostles are our examples. They focused on the spiritual war and were not deceived into wrestling with flesh and blood. If our country is turned around, it is because people repent; when people repent, God gives them a good government. Since God's people rarely repent without chastening, our nation will hate us. (Mat.24:9)… Ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name's sake. We must never fear the will or conspiracies of men or governments. They are all working for His Name's sake. God predestines and does according to His Will. (Psa.103:19) The Lord hath established his throne in the heavens; And his kingdom ruleth over all. (20) Bless the Lord, ye his angels, That are mighty in strength, that fulfil his word, Hearkening unto the voice of his word, (Angels fight for us and are unlimited when we agree with God's Word, as it was with the Prophets. For instance: We cannot kill but they can.)(21) Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts, Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. (22) Bless the Lord, all ye his works, In all places of his dominion: Bless the Lord, O my soul. God is doing everything that is being done. Through many vessels, He is bringing to pass His eternal creation through the last Adam, Jesus Christ. We need to differentiate between the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God. The devil offered Jesus authority over all the kingdoms of the world (even your country!) as a temptation, but He turned the position down (Luk.4:5). Some Christians are not turning the devil down. They are being deceived into working in and for the wrong kingdom. Politics is the world's method for ruling the world. The Gospel is God's only method for building His kingdom. Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world (Joh.18:36). Although God has people everywhere, in order for them to obey the Great Commission, they are forbidden to entangle themselves with the affairs of this life (2 Tim.2:4). Jesus said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you (Luk.17:20-21). In other words, the kingdom of God is not to be seen or physical. It is within you; it is the spiritual or born-again man, the one who submits to Jesus as King. Many Christians are building a physical kingdom thinking it to be God's kingdom. Many are worshiping God and country, thinking their country to be God's kingdom. We are here to seek first the kingdom of God, but many are seeking and serving the world and the flesh, which are passing away. Have you ever noticed how the church usually aligns itself in any dispute according to its patriotic nationalism? For instance, during WWII the church in Germany for the most part aligned itself with Hitler while the church in the United States aligned itself patriotically with this country. Christians went out to kill Christians, members of their own kingdom! (1Pe.2:9) But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God's] own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Our kingdom is one race in the midst of all races and one nation in the midst of all nations. Our brothers and sisters do not have national bounds or ethnic divisions as the world does. We are a spiritual race and nation sent to the fleshly races and nations to “show forth the excellencies of him.” Shall we show the world how to kill in the name of Christ? The lost, who are killed, will never have another opportunity to have eternal life. The following excerpts from God's Word should answer that question: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword”; “Love your enemies”; “Resist not him that is evil”; “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves”; “Bless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not”; “Render to no man evil for evil”; “Avenge not yourselves”; “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink”; and “Overcome evil with good.” God's people are confused into being members of the wrong kingdom. If we align ourselves with the world, we are God's enemies! (Jas.4:1) Whence [come] wars and whence [come] fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your pleasures that war in your members? (2)… ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. (4) Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. Religion or patriotism is the cause of most wars, sending multitudes to hell. We are forbidden to fight with people and only allowed to fight with evil spirits. (Eph.6:12) For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places]. In the days ahead, God will open our eyes to this adultery with the world. The whole world, including apostate (fallen away) Christianity, will unite against God's people. When this happens it will cause true Christians to unite behind Christ. (Mat.24:9) Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name's sake. The whole world will follow the beast to make war on the saints (Rev.13:7-8). To those same saints, God says, If any man [is] for captivity, into captivity he goeth: if any man shall kill with the sword, with the sword must he be killed. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints (Rev.13:10). Many will disagree with me on the grounds of their own reasoning instead of God's Word. I have been asked, “If we do not fight for our country, who will?” Those who are on the broad road, who are not disciples, will, and God will use them as well if He wants to save their country that way. We can and should fight for our country God's way. (2Co.10:4) For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds.

Read OnlineHerod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. Mark 6:20Ideally, when the Gospel is preached and received by another, the effect is that the receiver is filled with joy, consolation and a desire to change. The Gospel is transforming for those who truly listen and respond with generosity. But what about those who do not respond with generosity? What effect does the Gospel have upon them? Our Gospel today gives us that answer.The line above comes from the story of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist. The bad actors in this story are Herod, Herod's illegitimate wife Herodias, and Herodias' daughter (traditionally named Salome). John had been imprisoned by Herod because John told Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” But what's most interesting about this story is that, even in prison, Herod would listen to John preach. But instead of leading Herod to conversion, he was left “perplexed” by what John preached.Being “perplexed” was not the only reaction to John's preaching. Herodias' reaction was one of hatred. She appeared to be stung to the heart by John's condemnation of her “marriage” to Herod, and it was she who then orchestrated John's beheading.This Gospel, then, teaches us of two other common reactions to the Truth of the holy Gospel when it is preached. One is hatred and another is confusion (being perplexed). Obviously, hatred is far worse than simply being perplexed. But neither is the right reaction to the words of Truth.What is your reaction to the full Gospel when it is preached? Are there aspects of the Gospel that leave you uneasy? Are there teachings of our Lord that confuse you or lead you to anger? First look within your own heart to determine if you struggle with having a similar reaction as did Herod and Herodias. And then consider how the world reacts to the Truth of the Gospel. We should not be surprised at all that we find many Herods and Herodiases alive today. Reflect, today, upon any ways that you see the Gospel being rejected on one level or another. If you sense this within your own heart, then repent with all your might. If you see it elsewhere, do not allow the hostility to shake you or concern you. Keep your mind and heart upon the Truth and remain steadfast no matter the reaction you encounter.My Lord of all Truth, Your Word and Your Word alone brings grace and salvation. Please give me the grace I need to always listen to Your Word and to respond generously with all my heart. May I repent when I am convicted by Your Word and may I wholeheartedly return to You. Give me courage when others reject Your Truth and wisdom to know how to share that Word with love. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.Pieter de Grebber, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Text: Proverbs 17:12-14 (ESV)   12 Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly. 13 If anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house. 14 The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.   MUCH DANGEROUS THAN A BEAR   How dangerous is a man filled with foolishness? He is much dangerous than a mother bear robbed of her cubs. They reject God's truth and goodness.[Psa 14:1; Prov 14:16] Hence, they are unpredictable and capable of doing harm far worse than a ferocious bear. In the days of the New Testament, the ruling Herods were vicious and violent fools. Herod the Great ordered the slaughter of all the male children in Bethlehem and its vicinity, hoping to kill the infant Jesus (Mat 2:14–16). Another Herod killed James the brother of John, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he apprehended Peter and intended to kill him too (Acts 12:1–3).In our times, educated despots and dictators could be unconscionable in their acts of genocide. This is because there is no fear of God in their hearts.   Furthermore, they return evil for good for their conscience are seared. As a general-case observation, those who do evil in response to good can expect catastrophe. What they sow they reap. Consequently, they rarely will receive help from others. And in some cases, they might inspire others to take pleasure in their misery, instead of trying to ease it (Prov 17:5). Evil will not depart from their house. The sad consequence of sin is as the stubborn stain that stays almost forever.   Verse 14 emphasizes to stop the dispute before it breaks out. Instigating a conflict is somehow like releasing water, possibly in the context of a flood. The root words used imply ideas like bursting or breaking free. For this reason, many suggest the image of breaching a dam, letting the flood roar out. Earthen dams and levees are prone to failure when allowed to leak. The small hole allows for erosion that leads to total collapse. Similarly, the early moments of a disagreement are the ideal time to make peace. Letting an argument fester can lead to greater problems. Once the breach happens, the situation is out of control and destruction is inevitable. Jesus understood how quickly a quarrel can escalate. He cautioned us, saying, "Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison" (Mat 5:25). Listen and FOLLOW us on our podcast ------------------------- Visit and FOLLOW Gospel Light Filipino on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram

A Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas St. Matthew 2:13-23 by William Klock For us, a week has passed since we heard Matthew's account of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem and the visit by the shepherds.  But as we come to today's Gospel, roughly two years have passed in the story of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.  For now, we'll skip over Matthew's account of the visit of the wisemen.  (That's for this coming week as we celebrate the Epiphany.)  So today we pick up the story at Matthew 2:13, Matthew tells us that after the wisemen had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.  “Get up,” said the angel, “and take the child and his mother and hurry off to Egypt.” I can only imagine what Joseph was thinking.  This is the second time an angel has come to him to tell him what to do.  Remember from last Sunday's Gospel, Jospeh was thinking through how best to extricate himself from his upcoming marriage to Mary after he found out she was already pregnant.  The angel came to him in a dream.  “Don't be afraid!”  The famous first words of every angel.  “Don't be afraid.  Mary didn't cheat on you.  She's pregnant by the Holy Spirit and she's going to have a son and you need to name him ‘Jesus'—which means 'Yahweh saves'—because he will save his people from their sins.” So it's not like Joseph didn't know there was something special about Jesus.  Ditto for Mary.  Matthew tells the story from Joseph's perspective.  Luke tells it from Mary's.  Luke tells us about the visit she had from the angel and how the angel told her—also—to name the baby “Jesus”.  Why?  “Because he will be called the son of the Most High.  The Lord,” the angel said to her, “will give him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever.  His kingdom will never come to an end.”  That was all familiar messianic language to Mary.  There's that song that popular Christmas song that asks over and over, “Mary did you know?”  Yes.  She did.  She even composed a song about it that she shared with her cousin Elizabeth—who, you remember—was pregnant with John, who would prepare the way for Jesus.  Mary knew what her baby meant.  Think of the words she sang out in praise: My soul doth magnify the Lord… He hath shewed strength with his arm, he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the might from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath send empty away. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.   That night that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph both knew with absolute certainty that in him the God of Israel was about to act and that the world would never be the sme.  And not that he was about to act in some unforeseen way that exploded into history totally unexpectedly.  No.  This was the fulfilment of prophecy.  This was the fulfilment of the Lord's promises to his people.  The fact that shepherds came, having been told by angels; the fact that wisemen came, having been guided by a star—these were no mysteries to Mary and Joseph.  They knew from the beginning who Jesus was.  I'm sure they had lots of other questions: Why us?  How is this going to work?  But they knew from the beginning that this child would one day cast down the powers, the gods, the kings of the present evil age and set their world to rights.  That's what Mary's song is all about. So they knew that Mary's baby was a challenge to everything and everyone that stood in the way of God's new age.  As much as scripture gives us every reason to think that they trusted the Lord, I have to think that if they're anything like us, they still had their worries.  At the top of the list had to be King Herod.  And so, I suspect, Mary and Joseph probably didn't go around town announcing any of this.  Surely word got around at least a bit.  There were, of course, the shepherds.  But I expect Mary and Jospeh kept what the angel had told them on the low down as much as they were able.  And then the magi—the wisemen from far away—no one could mistake them riding into town with their camels.  And to hear that they'd been to see Herod, to ask about the new-born King of the Jews.  That was not good news.  Not at all.  Because now Herod knew about Jesus and Herod was what people today might call a “psycho”. Herod was an Idumean—today we'd call him an “Arab”.  His ancestors had been absorbed into Judaea, were circumcised and converted to Judaism—at least nominally.  Most people saw Herod as a pretender.  His decadent lifestyle was out of step with Judaism, but most of all, people hated him for the way he cozied up to the Romans and betrayed his people.  He had no right to call himself King of the Jews.  The Roman Senate had given him that title.  He was no descendant of David.  And all this made Herod more than a little insecure.  Deep down he knew he had no right to Israel's throne and it made him paranoid.  He murdered his own family members—even his wife—because he thought they were scheming against him.  Just before he died, he ordered the leading citizens of Jericho to be killed so that the people would be weeping as his funeral procession passed through the city. So Joseph and Mary had to be worried to hear that Herod had been told about this young “King of the Jews” in Bethlehem.  If Herod would murder his own family at a hint of sedition, what would he do to a new-born rival?  I expect Jospeh was already trying to think through their best course of action.  And then the angel came and said, “Get up and take the child and his mother and hurry off to Egypt.  Stay there until I tell you.  Herod is going to hunt for the child to kill him.” Matthew says that Joseph wasted no time: “He got up and took the child and his mother by night, and went off to Egypt.  He stayed there until the death of Herod.”  And then Matthew adds a quote—just as we saw him do in Chapter One, last week, with that quote from the Prophet Isaiah about the virgin conceiving and bearing a son whose name means “God with us”.  Matthew does it again.  He does this all through is Gospel, but we have to know our Jewish scriptures to know who he's quoting.  In this case it's Hosea 11:1.  Matthew's Jewish audience would have recognised it instantly and it's an indictment against our poor knowledge of the Bible that we need a footnote in our Bibles to tell us.  Anyway, Matthew writes, “This happened to fulfil what the Lord said through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.'”  We'll come back to this in a bit. Matthew then continues with the story.  You'll remember that instead of reporting back to Herod about the child as he'd asked them to do, the wisemen—because of their own visit from the angel—they bypassed Herod on their way home.  So Matthew tells us that when Herod realised that he'd been tricked by the wisemen, he flew into a towering rage.  He dispatched men and killed all the boys in Bethlehem and in all its surrounding districts, from two years old and under, according to the time the wisemen had told him.”  And then another quote from the Prophets, this time from Jeremiah 31:15: “That was when the word that came through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:  There was heard a voice in Rama, crying and loud lamentation.  Rachel is weeping for her children, and will not let anyone comfort her, because they are no more.” And then another visit by an angel.  Matthew writes in verse 19: “After the death of Herod, suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. ‘Get up,' he said, ‘and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel.  Those who wanted to kill the child are dead.'  So he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.  But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judaea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there.  After being advised in a dream'—again—he went off to the region of Galilee.  When he got there, he settled in a town called Nazareth.  This was to fulfil what the prophet had spoken: ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.'” Again, we sort of have this idyllic scene of Christmas in our heads: Jesus in a manger.  No crying he makes, of course.  The shepherds kneel adoringly.  Mary and Joseph sit there peacefully with their halos glowing.  Even the animals stifle all their natural noises and gather around to adore the baby.  “Silent night…all is calm…sleep in heavenly peace,” loops in our heads. But when you read the actual story as Matthew tells it things aren't nearly so peaceful.  Matthew tells us of the birth of Jesus at a time and a place of trouble, of violence, and of fear.  Jesus was born in a world of darkness, into a world controlled by powers and gods and kings who stood opposed to him.  Before he had learned to walk or to talk, the wrath of a psychotic king forced his family to flee to Egypt.  The shadow of the cross lies dead across the Christmas story.  And yet all this is in keeping with what Matthew told us last week.  If Jesus is the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy of Immanuel—of God with us—we'd expect this.  God's people longed for his presence, they longed for his deliverance, because the world was not as they knew it should be.  And so God came to them in the midst of the darkness, the brokenness, the evil, the pain—the violence and injustice—the sin and death.  God entered the world of a king who would murder dozens of innocent children just to keep his investment in the present evil age secure.  Think about the fact that on the three days after Christmas Day the Church commemorates St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents.  John was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the good news about Jesus.  Stephen—the first martyr—was stoned to death outside Jerusalem for preaching to the people that Jesus was the fulfilment of Israel's story.  And the Holy Innocents—the collateral damage of the first attempt on Jesus' life.  It's a reminder that, yes, the light has come into the darkness, but that there are those who love the dark and there are those invested in it. Brothers and Sisters, as much as the light has shined in the darkness and as much as the darkness has not overcome it—as St. John writes in the opening of his Gospel—the darkness still remains and the darkness still fights back.  Herod's murder of the innocents of Bethlehem—probably a few dozen baby boys—pales in comparison to the millions of unborn children murdered in modern times in our once Christian nations.  The wars and violence of Herod's or of Caesar's day pale in comparison to the wars and violence of the last century—all too often perpetrated by supposedly Christian nations, kings, presidents, and prime ministers.  We see the light around us too often subverted by the darkness.  First by Modernists and now by Postmodernists, the gospel virtues that once transformed the West are plucked from the gospel tree, left to go feral, and fed back to our culture, twisted and abused—darkness masquerading as light. It's easy to get discouraged, isn't it.  Last year I read historian Tom Holland's book Dominion.  It's about how Christianity transformed the West.  The Gospel came into a world of Herods and Caesars and taught us things like mercy and grace that hadn't been known before.  It transformed sexual ethics.  It gave status to women and children and to the poor.  It ended slavery.  And now you look at the world around us and everythings reverting back into the darkness.  Large segments of the church have or are selling out.  I look at the alumni page for my seminary on Facebook and it seems everyone is “deconstructing”—and it always ends the same way—with denying the exclusivity of Jesus and an embracing of Postmodernism and the twisted sexual ethics of our post-Christian culture.  I've listened to local pastors who spend their time apologising for the Bible, blurring the lines it makes clear, and walking their people through deconstructing their faith.  Others have sold out to the materialism of our secular culture and are preaching a crossless gospel of health and wealth.  The gospel—the real gospel—is the answer, but it seems like it falls on deaf ears these days and that the people lost in today's darkness have become resistant to it.  It's easy to lose hope. But Brothers and Sisters, that's when I think of Matthew as he drops his quotes from the Prophets through his telling of the good news.  Remember that I said last week that Matthew saw God's promises down through the ages as lights in the darkness.  Last summer Veronica I did some railgrade riding on our bikes.  We rode through some tunnels—some of them long and windy enough that there was no light at the end—at least not at first—and so there were small lights at intervals, guiding the way, until you finally came around that final corner and daylight blazed into the tunnel.  I didn't appreciate those lights until I rode through the Adra Tunnel in the mountains between Kelowna and Penticton.  It's one of the longest rail tunnels in BC and it's been closed since the 80s.  Volunteers have spent the last few years making repairs and it's just about ready to be reopened.  At present the trail bypasses it and there are fences across the old railgrade to keep people out of the tunnel.  But when I got there, the fences were off to the side.  I took the turn and pretty soon found myself inside the tunnel.  It goes through something like a 270° turn and pretty soon I was in pitch dark, riding slowly, cold water dripping on me.  There are no little lights to light the way.  And I almost ran—smack!—into a grader that was parked in the dark.  I could just as easily have run off the grade and into a ditch or a wall. Like the lights in those tunnels, God's promises led his people through the darkness—around the corners, keeping them out of the ditch, keeping them from running—smack!—into obstacles sitting in the darkness—so that he could lead them out into the light.  At the time those little lights seemed like really big deals—those little lights like Passover and the Exodus, like the torah and the tabernacle, like King David and like the return from Exile.  They gave the people some bearings.  The lights gave them hope.  But what many didn't realise at the time was that those lights were leading the people—preparing them—to understand how God works, to understand that he is faithful, so that when they finally came out into the bright light of Jesus, into the bright light of the gospel—they'd understand that this is where the story had been taking them all along.  This is what Matthew's up to all through his Gospel.  Like we saw last Sunday with that bit of Isaiah and the baby, Immanuel, who served as the sign to accompany the Lord's promise to deliver his people from Israel and Syria.  And here, Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”  At first it looks like Matthew is ignoring what that passage means in Hosea.  It's not looking forward.  It's looking back.  Israel was the Lord's son whom he had called out of Egypt.  That meant—at the time, back in the dark days of Hosea—that the Lord would not abandon the people: Israel was his beloved son and he'd gone to great lengths to deliver Israel from Egypt.  And Matthew saw that little light back there in the darkness of Hosea's day and it led him towards the light that had come in Jesus.  Jesus brings Israel's story to completion.  He's not just “God's son” in the sense that he's divine.  He's “God's son” in the sense that he is the embodiment of Israel.  Remember what I've said before: the King represents his people.  And so Jesus came to represent his people, to finally accomplish what they'd failed at all those centuries, and then to die on their behalf the death that they deserved. Matthew does something similar with the prophecy spoken by Jeremiah.  He holds up Rachel weeping for her children as a backdrop to Herod's murder of the baby boys of Bethlehem.  But when Jeremiah spoke those words, he was drawing on the imagery of Rachel to describe the pain of Israel's exile to Babylon and to proclaim the hope of God's promise to renew his covenant and to restore his people—to bring Israel back from her long exile.  The long darkness is full of weeping and mourning, but at the end is the Lord's deliverance. And then that bit of Isaiah 11 that Matthew quotes about Jesus being a Nazarene.  Isaiah uses the Hebrew word nazir.  It means “branch” and through Isaiah the Lord promises that he will be faithful to the promises he'd made to David and his descendants.  A branch will grow out of the stump of Jesse.  It's about a new beginning for the royal line of David.  Matthew hinted at this already in Joseph's genealogy.  The fact that the Old Testament nowhere mentions Nazareth, the fact that the Isaiah passage about the branch has nothing to do with Nazareth, that's okay.  Matthew knew that the lights along the tunnel—even if it doesn't look like it—they all lead to the same place.  Everything in Israel's story was leading to Jesus and so he takes Isaiah's prophecy of the nazir, the branch, and ties it to Jesus' hometown of Nazareth.  Matthew's sort of saying that we know Jesus is the promised branch because he came from “Branchville”.  Maybe it's a more “creative” way of using the Old Testament than we're comfortable with, but for Matthew it worked—again—because he knew that everything God said and everything God did—the whole story of the God of Israel and his people—was leading them through the darkness to Jesus and to the light of this new age, this new world, this new creation. And Brothers and Sisters, that's why as much as it's tempting to lose hope as we look at the surrounding darkness and even as the darkness creeps in and takes ground that was once won by the gospel, I don't lose hope.  Because the scriptures assure me of the faithfulness of God to his promises.  Because I know he has, in the birth, in the death, in the resurrection of Jesus done the hard part already.  Because he has poured out his Spirit.  And as surely as he called Abraham and his family and led them through the darkness—through slavery and through exile and everything in between—and then brought them finally out into the blazing glory of Jesus and the gospel, I know that God, who has established his church and has equipped us with his own Spirit to proclaim the good news—to carry his light into the darkness—will not fail to bring us eventually to that day when his glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, when every last enemy has been put under his feet, even death itself, when every tear is wiped away, and everything is once-and-for-all set to rights. Matthew saw God's promises fulfilled all through the story—even at its darkest.  As Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane he said, himself, “All this has taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.”  God is sovereign and God is faithful, Brothers and Sisters.  Even as the darkness mustered its forces and rose to its full height to deal a death blow to Jesus, it was doing so as part of a plan orchestrated by the Lord.  Darkness, unwittingly, concentrating itself all in one place so that, through Jesus, it could be defeated when he rose, triumphant over sin and death.  And that is why I remain full of hope.  God's faithfulness to his promises did not end in the First Century.  He remains faithful today.  If we will only walk with him in faith, his light—his gospel promises, his Spirit indwelling us—will lead us through today's darkness. Let's pray: Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word:  Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Reflect on the unyielding anticipation of the holiday season—those magical yet trying moments of waiting, as we unravel the layers of emotion and expectation surrounding Christmas. Ever wondered how an advent calendar can be more than just a countdown? It's a reflection of our impatience and longing for change, resonating with the Jewish people's historical anticipation of the Messiah. Journey with us as we set the scene within the Roman Empire's expansive reign, where hope struggled to stay alive amidst overpowering control.Step back in time to the oppressive days of King Herod's rule, a period marked by fear and tyranny. Discover how absolute power can devastate, as we draw stark parallels between Herod's violent reign and modern-day atrocities. We share personal insights from travels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where eerily similar themes of senseless violence persist. These narratives remind us of the metaphorical "Herods" we face in life—those daunting challenges that feel insurmountable yet call for courage and resilience.Through personal trials and triumphs, embrace the reassurance that divine accompaniment is ever-present, even when unseen. We recount a season of financial strain that was met with unexpected opportunities, offering a glimpse of how faith and perseverance can lead to miraculous changes. As we celebrate the unexpected gifts life offers, like the story of Jesus redefining strength and salvation, we encourage embracing surprises that surpass our own expectations. Join us in finding hope and joy in the unexpected, trusting that life's greatest gifts often come in the most unanticipated forms.Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing to Madison Church on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us, so please take a moment to leave a review and share the podcast with your friends and family.For inquiries, suggestions, or collaboration opportunities, please reach out to us at help@madisonchurch.com. For the latest updates and behind-the-scenes content, follow us on social media: Facebook Instagram YouTube New episodes are released every Monday, so mark your calendars and join us weekly! If you'd like to support the show, you can make a donation here. Your generosity helps us continue to bring you meaningful content. This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only. The views expressed by the hosts or guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Madison Church. Any reliance you place on such information is strictly at your own risk. For detailed information regarding our terms of use and privacy policy, please visit our website.Thank you for being part of the Madison Church community! We appreciate your support.

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent Philippians 4:4-7 & St. John 1:19-28 by William Klock The days are short and the clouds are heavy.  I was walking home for lunch yesterday and thinking that it felt more like dusk than noon.  It seemed very appropriate for Advent.  These dark and dreary days build anticipation for Christmas, for the birth of Jesus—they're very fitting.  Think of Israel two thousand years ago—in those days of Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, and King Herod.  The world was dark.  The nations were enslaved to false gods and pagan kings.  Even little Israel, called to be the light of the world, lay in darkness.  The candlestick in the temple was kept lit, but the cloud of glory that had once filled the holy of holies, the very presence of God, had been absent for five-hundred years.  God's people were ruled by pagans and pretenders.  But the people knew the words of the prophets, the promises of their God.  It would not be this way forever.  That's the setting for today's Gospel, which begins at John 1:19.  Here's what John writes: This is the testimony John [the Baptist] gave when the Jews sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”  He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  “What then?” they asked him, “Are you Elijah?” “I am not,” he replied.  “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”  “Well, then who are you?” they said.  “We've got to take an answer back to those who sent us.  Who do you claim to be?”  He said, “I am ‘a voice calling in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord,' just as the prophet Isaiah said.”  (John 1:19-28) The priests were the spiritual gatekeepers of Israel and when they heard of this prophet, John, preaching and baptising, they sent their people to ask him what he was about—to see if he was legit.  People were talking about John like he was the Messiah.  You have to understand that everyone was eagerly waiting for the Messiah.  He would come to drive away the darkness and to set things to rights.  He would deal with the pagans and then sit on the throne of David to usher in a new age.  Was John the one? So they ask, “Who are you?  Who do you claim to be? Elijah?”  Some people thought Elijah would come back as Messiah, kind of like King Arthur coming back in Britain's darkest hour of need to save the nation.  Remember that Elijah never died.  He, the greatest of Israel's prophets, was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot.  Malachi had prophesied that he would return, writing: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.  (Malachi 4:5) But John says, “No.  I'm not Elijah.”  He hadn't come to earth in a fiery chariot.  He was the son of Zechariah the priest and his wife, Elizabeth. “Are you the prophet?” they asked.  In Deuteronomy 18 the Lord had promised that he would one day raise up a prophet like Moses, who would declare his words.  Many people thought this prophet would be the Messiah.  But again John answers, “No, I'm not the prophet either.”  We get a sense of the longing and expectation of the Jews in those dark days.  They were in an Advent season of their own.  Like a kid waking up every morning in December and asking his parents, “Is it Christmas yet?”  So the Jews waited expectantly for the Messiah to come and drive away the darkness: to vindicate their faithfulness, to end their long exile, to restore the presence of the Lord to his temple.  They knew the Lord had promised all of this long before and they knew from their own history that the Lord is faithful to fulfil his promises.  He would surely come and rescue them just as he'd rescued them from Egypt and just as he'd rescued them from Babylon.  So for five hundred years, they woke up each morning eagerly asking, “Is it today?  Will the Messiah finally come today?” John says “No”, but in Matthew and Mark, Jesus affirms that John was fulfilling the prophecy of the return of Elijah.  I think John denied these things because he knew people associated the prophecies of Elijah and the Prophet with the Messiah.  John knew he wasn't the Messiah; he was the Messiah's herald.  And so when the priests finally let him speak for himself, he quotes Isaiah 40:3, and says, “I am ‘a voice calling in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.'”  In other words, John was indeed fulfilling prophecy—not as the Messiah, but as the one sent to prepare Israel to receive the Messiah. They were surprised.  People in the past had claimed to be the Messiah.  No one claimed to be his herald.  That was weird.  So they dig deeper.  Look at 25-27: They continued to question him, “So why are you baptising, if you aren't the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?” John answered them, “I'm baptising with water, but there is one sanding among you whom you do not know—someone who is to come after me.  I'm not worthy to untie his sandal straps.” Baptism was a symbol of cleansing and of ritual purity.  At this point the other gospel-writers are helpful as they expand on John's answer.  Mark tells us that John's baptism was a baptism of repentance—it was a preparatory act in light of the coming judgement the Messiah would bring.  And Matthew and Luke also report John continuing about this one who will come, this one greater than John: “He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16).  In other words, John is calling Israel to repentance in anticipation of the Messiah, who will fulfil the Lord's promises to set Israel to rights by filling his people with his own Spirit.  The law written on stone tablets would be inscribed on the hearts of God's people so that they could finally fulfil his law of love.  But the Messiah was also coming in judgement.  He would baptise the repentant with God's own Spirit, but he would baptise unrepentant Israel with fire. These are the two sides of the gospel coin.  You can't have one without the other.  Jesus' advent, on the one hand, brought mercy to the repentant, but on the other it also brought judgement on the unrepentant within Israel.  What's important for us here, Brothers and Sisters, is that this exchange between John and the priests reminds us of the Messiah's place in Israel's story and of the faithfulness of God to his promises.  It is this manifestation of the Lord's faithfulness (and of his goodness, mercy, grace, and wisdom) to Israel—something we see brought to its climax in the birth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus, that has drawn us—you and I—to the God of Israel and that, by faith, has incorporated us into the people of God.  Through our union with Jesus, through our incorporation into this people, through our being made adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, you and I have come to know God's mercy and the life of the Spirit, too.  Because of the faithfulness of God, revealed in Jesus and in the power of the gospel, the darkness that Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, John the Baptist and Jesus knew, that deep, deep darkness full of false gods and wicked kings and demonic power has been driven away by the light.  The light has come into the darkness, his gospel has thrown those powers down and lit up the world.  And you and I have seen—we live in—the glory of that light.  And this is where our Epistle today takes off.  Brothers and Sisters, it means something that you and I have been incorporated into the people of God.  God has a purpose and a mission for his people—for us.  This is where our Epistle takes off. Paul writes those wonderful and challenging words in Philippians 4:4: Rejoice in the Lord always; I say again, rejoice. What prompted Paul to write this?  Well, just two verses earlier, Paul exhorted two women, Euodia and Syntyche, to agree with each other.  They had once been fellow labourers with Paul, but they'd had some kind of falling out.  There's something providential in the fact that Paul doesn't give us the details, because with no details I think we all end up thinking of the fallings out we've had with our own brothers and sisters in the Lord.  This isn't just about two women in Philippi.  It's about each of us.  In response to that falling out, Paul calls the Philippian Christian to rejoice in the Lord.  Instead of a public display of disunity or resentment or anger—whatever it was that was going on between these two women, the Church was to put joy on display, to celebrate the life of God.  They were people of the light, but they were living in the dark.  It was imperative that they come back into the light.  Brothers and Sisters, the devils and the evil powers of this age want nothing more than to undermine our gospel witness in the world, to flip the switch and turn off our gospel light.  Don't let that happen.  Jesus and the gospel should overcome and drown out the darkness whenever it tries to creep into our church family.  Here's how it works.  Paul writes: Let everyone know how gentle and gracious you are.  (Philippians 4:5a) Gentle and gracious.  Paul uses the same description in 2 Corinthians 10 to describe the meekness of Jesus as a model for Christians.  This is gospel light lived out.  What Paul's getting at is that Jesus is the King, but in him we see this amazing display of gracious gentleness.  This is the gentleness we see revealed as Jesus, the one to whom heaven and earth belong, humbled himself to be born one of us, to die on the cross, and to show mercy to his enemies.  This kind of meekness or gentleness is unique to Jesus, and yet Paul stresses that as his people, as stewards of the gospel, we're called to witness this same gentleness amongst ourselves.  As it should be the resolution to so many disputes in the Church, it was the resolution to whatever had driven Euodia and Syntyche apart. Brothers and Sisters, when we demand our rights, when we grasp for power, when we nurse grudges, we undermine our gospel witness—we put on display the very darkness from which we've been delivered by the one who is light.  In contrast Paul calls us to rejoice in the Lord and to manifest Jesus-like gentleness in our relationships.  Jesus' gracious gentleness has forgiven and restored us and that same gracious gentleness ought to shine through us and through the life of the church.  Consider that every time we hold a grudge, allow a relationship to break down, or follow the world's advice to cut those problem or negative people out of our lives, we undermine the Church's witness to the world.  But that's not all. Paul goes on: The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything.  Rather in everything let your requests be made known to God, by prayer, supplication, and with thanksgiving.   There's that Advent theme again: Jesus has given us a job to do.  He's given us a gospel treasure to steward in his absence.  In the meantime, rather than being anxious, we should take our needs to God.  Jesus made the same point in the Sermon on the Mount.  The pagans worry about what they'll eat, what they'll wear, and where they'll sleep.  God's people should know better than to worry unduly about these things.  God will provide just as he always has.  He is faithful to his promises.  The story of his dealings with Israel is the proof and even more so, so is his gift of Jesus, who died and rose again to set us free from sin and death.  So go to the Lord with your needs and ask.  And while you're at it, give thanks, because you know his faithfulness and his love. This is part of the witness of the people of God—it's how we are light in the darkness—and it ties back into rejoicing.  When Paul talks about rejoicing, at least part of what he's got in mind is a public display or a public witness.  The pagan Greeks in Philippi regularly held public celebrations to honour their gods.  And yet the pagans, as Jesus said, were always anxious.  Why?  Because their gods never delivered.  Pagan religion was a non-stop game of trial and error, trying to guess what the gods wanted, trying to guess what you may have done wrong to offend them, and then guessing at what you might offer to appease their anger or to ingratiate them to you in order to get what you needed or wanted.  The pagan gods were silent and they were notoriously capricious and unreliable.  And in this context Paul exhorts the Philippian Christians: Rejoice yourselves.  Let the pagans see you celebrating the fact that the Creator of the universe has, through Jesus, made you his own and lives in your midst by his own Holy Spirit.  Let the pagans, who know only mean and capricious gods and who live in a dog-eat-dog world, let them see the gracious gentleness of God in you.  Live in such a way that they see in you the God who humbles himself to die for the sake of his enemies.  And let the pagans see you living in faith, praying in confident thankfulness to the God whose story reveals an unfailing pattern of promise and fulfilment.  Shine the light of Jesus into the darkness of the world.  And the result of all this?  Look at verse 7: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in King Jesus.   I think we tend to look at Paul's exhortation here as something we should do in order to experience the peace of God ourselves, but given the context in Philippians, I think Paul's point is actually more about our witness.  If we truly live as stewards of the good news about Jesus, if we truly live as people who know the faithfulness of God revealed in Jesus and particularly in his death and resurrection, if we truly know the life of the Spirit, the peace of God—rather than the strife and anxiety of the world—will guard our hearts and minds in a way that will astound the pagans around us. I said last Sunday that we are called both to proclaim and to live the gospel.  This is how we live it.  Put together with our proclamation, to truly live in light of Jesus and what he reveals about God, should cause the world to stand up and take note.  This is our way of being John the Baptist in our own age.  And as it did for John, for us—if we are faithful—it will result in many giving glory to God for his faithfulness and then coming to him in faith as we have.  But it will also threaten many who are invested in the pagan and sinful systems of the world.  Brothers and Sisters, we are now the voice calling in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the Lord!” So we need to ask: Does the world see our joy?  Are we the voice crying in the wilderness?  Are we the royal heralds the Lord has called us to be, summoning the word to let go of its false gods and to come to the Lord Jesus, calling the world away from sin and self and to come to the cross?  And we need to ask how the world is responding to us.  If we're faithfully proclaiming the good news about Jesus, if we're faithfully calling people to repent and to believe, if we're faithfully proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and that his kingdom has come—well—people will respond in one of two ways.  Either they'll believe or they'll get angry—as Herod got angry with John.  There's some of both out there in the world, but overwhelmingly, when I look at how people respond to or think of the church these days in our part of the world, it's often just indifference.  Why? Because we have not been the witnesses God calls us to be.  We have been mealy-mouthed and, quite often, just plain silent in our proclamation, because we have too often sought to please people rather than God, and because we have been half-hearted and unfaithful in our gospel living.  Like old Israel, we pray to God, but we've failed to tear down the old altars to Baal and Asherah—or Mammon or Aphrodite or Caesar.  We name Jesus, but we deal dishonestly in business, we sell our souls to the commercialism that surrounds us, we look to politics or to science as our saviours, and we dabble in the sexual immorality of the age.  We've failed to proclaim the gospel and we justify it, saying that we'll preach it with our lives.  But if we stop to ask what the world sees in our lives, is it really very different?  Does the world see us rejoicing in the Lord?  Does the world see us manifesting the gracious gentleness of Jesus?  Does the world see us living in faithful prayer and trusting in God, or does it see people just as anxious as everyone else?  Does it see enmity and strife and broken relationships or does it see a gospel people living out the healing and reconciling love of Jesus?  Does the world see the peace of God ruling our hearts and minds?  Does the world see us, holding high the gospel, as a challenge to its gods and its kings and its sins?  It should.  But sadly, I think that for the Western Church at large, the answer is often “no”. And, all too often, when we do proclaim the gospel, we do so without power or authority.  Think of John boldly declaring the coming judgement and calling Israel to repentance.  It was urgent and powerful.  In contrast we tend to hold the gospel out as good advice, rather than as the good news that it is.  Friends, the gospel is the royal summons to submit in faith to Jesus, the world's true Lord—the Lord who has come with mercy so that the repentant will escape when he comes one day in judgement.  This was the power behind John the Baptist' preaching.  But all too often we present the gospel as just another option on the religious smorgasbord—something you might want to try. See if you like it.  See if it works for you.  If not…oh well.  Brothers and Sisters, that's not the gospel.  The gospel is good news to the people living in the midst of darkness: the king who will set the world to rights has come.  And that means the gospel, when preached as it should be, will challenge and upset the Herods and Caesars of our age and all those invested in the false gods of the world. The Advent message is to be prepared.  Jesus has given us a gospel mission to take the good news of his death, his resurrection, and his lordship into the world.  Brothers and Sisters, pray that we will be faithful to our mission—faithful enough to provoke persecution, because that's the kind of faithfulness that also reaps a harvest for the kingdom.  Pray for the holy boldness of John the Baptist and the gracious gentleness of Jesus.  Pray that we will be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Pray that the joy of the Lord will overcome us.  Brothers and Sisters, Rejoice!  Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again, I say rejoice. Let's pray: O Lord, come among us, we pray, with your power and strengthen us with your great might; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us, your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, now and for ever.  Amen.

Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College, talks with Word&Way President Brian Kaylor about his new book The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession. He also discusses the political issues at play in New Testament stories like the birth, teachings, and death of Jesus. This episode is being reissued and was originally released in December 2021. Note: Don't forget to subscribe to our award-winning e-newsletter A Public Witness that helps you make sense of faith, culture, and politics. And order a copy of Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood. If you buy it directly from Chalice Press, they are offering 33% off the cover price when you use the promo code "BApodcast."

Excerpt--The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you're looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.Donate Now --IntroIn our penultimate lesson of our Christmas seriesThe story of Christmas from people who were actually thereThe inn keeper - making room for JesusThe shepherds - loners and outcasts invited into the storyThe magi - pagan astrologers used by GodToday: King HerodBut, as always, let's start with a question:Q. Whose Kingdom Are You Building?Think about it: everyone's building someone's kingdomA successful friend of mine wants to start his own businessHe's made a lot of money for the owner of his companyDawned on him: why doesn't he start his own!!Today's point isn't to inspire a new generation of entrepreneursIt's to call your attention to this fact:Everyone's working for someone's kingdomEither God's or yoursToday as we meet King Herod we'll find a ruler desperate to protect his kingdom at all costs, even opposing God's eternal plan.NOTE: The Bible mentions several rulers named Herod, each playing a distinct role in different contexts. The Herods were a dynasty of Edomite rulers under Roman control, and they feature prominently in the New Testament:1st Gen: Herod the Great: Ruler at Jesus' birth. (Matthew 2:16-18)2nd Gen:Herod Archelaus: Feared by Joseph. (Matthew 2:22)Herod Antipas: Executed John the Baptist, mocked Jesus. (Mark 6:14-29, Luke 23:7-12)Herod Philip I: First husband of Herodias. (Mark 6:17)Herod Philip II: Tetrarch of northeastern territories. (Matthew 16:13)3rd Gen: Herod Agrippa I: Executed the apostle James and imprisoned Peter. (Acts 12:1-4)4th Gen: Herod Agrippa II: Heard Paul's defense. (Acts 25:13–26:32)Herod the Great = clear bad guy in the storyDriven by self-interest (building his own kingdom) made some terrible decisionsIt's easy to see sin in someone else's life, isn't it?But when we look in the mirror, we're often blind…Truth is: We are Herod - we all tend to do this, act out of destructive self-interest:Sinful HabitsAddiction that destroys you and your relationshipsOr Even Good things:Careers: pushing hard at any cost (often families)Finances: building wealth without asking “what for?”Relationships: burning bridges Influence: Gaining followers but losing friendsBlinded by self-interest: Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos (see “The Dropout” podcast) once celebrated as a groundbreaking entrepreneur who promised to revolutionize the medical industry with her blood-testing technology. obsessed with maintaining her

A Winter Wyness Shuffle Wonderland God rest ye merry gentlemen and deck the halls with lashings of Scottish football! It's the Annual Christmas Wyness Shuffle Extravaganza. Join very special guest Shuffler ‘A View From the Terrace's Craig G Telfer' as he buckles down for the thrilling Polar Express that is the annual festive Shuffle. Hear the 2024 ICT story as reimagined as a Christmas tale, marvel at the magic of festive ICT themed puns you've maybe only heard once before, and join in the wide-eyed wonder of the Wyness Shuffle Secret Santa. It's all here, It's a Wonderful Life, Die Hard, Eastenders, Clay Davis from the Wire, plus all the festive football action and much, much more 01.06 Festive Tidings All your regular Shuffling Elves say hello, we introduce Telfer, and wonder what everyone's up to for Christmas Day.   06.21 Gamebird by Gamebird Before we get on to the festivities, we look at the football over the past three weeks. What games jingle our bells and what matches have given us the chills? We review the Arbroath anguish, the Montrose marvels, and the Scottish Cup exit to Cove. 34.00 Fan-tastic We get the views of a few Caley Thistle supporters on the new manager. 37.40 Talk Tinsel To Me: Craig G Telfer Craig is mostly known for fronting the excellent BBC Scotland TV show A View From the Terrace but he's also been podcasting for the Terrace for years, and now regularly hosts jobs for the Scottish National side. He takes us through his career, give his views on Caley Thistle, and reveals a startling revelation about TWS host Andrew Moffat. 01.03.47 Talk Tinsel To Me: Alan Savage Administrators BDO were appointed on 22 October, but just what has happened since? We've heard very little other than there are 20 interested parties. Other than the administrators, one man has more insight into any of this than anyone, so Stevie spoke to Alan Savage. And two previously unknown pieces of key info are revealed! 1.24.32 The Xmas ICT Story Christmas time is the most wonderful time of the year, but as ICT fans we have all been part of another story, a tale with no end of Grinchs, Herods or Hans Grubers. So, we thought we'd mix fantasy and reality, and reimagine the ICT story of 2024 but the key individuals as characters from Xmas tales and films and stuff. 1.29.57 Craig G Telfer Best & Worst Telfer takes us through his best and worst. Hint: it's Maya Jama and Robert Borthwick. 1.38.07 The Festive Feast of Football It's the festive feast of football preview as we cast our eyes over the delicious spread of ICT action before us and wonder what will be the roasted tatties you can't get enough of and what will be the minging brussel sprouts. We focus mainly on the clash at Stenhousemuir on the 21 Dec before moving onto Cove and Dumbarton.   2.09.13 Secret Santa and Competition Time Some say Christmas is about the baby Jesus and goodwill to all men. We say it's about getting as many presents as you possibly can. So we present the very first TWS Secret Santa, featuring lego, traffic cones, Napoleon, Buzz Lightyear and a lovely jumper. Followed by the RETURN OF COMPETITION TIME! On Christmas Day you could be in with the chance to win a signed ICT shirt. There's it. Thanks to all for listening throughout the year. Please do have an amazing festive period and we'll see you all on the other side of 25. Merry Christmas from all at TWS.

It's musicals month for November's theme and hitting up Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber again because it's time to go to church though we can't tell what denomination this is. It's pretty sweaty but there are some baddies hanging around. A little gay, to be expected, but the band is pretty sick. They're all the band. This is what Nazarenes wish their services were like. It's two thousand years ago by way of the 1970s in this rock opera retelling of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We're jamming to Norman Jewison's 1973 film adaptation of “JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR” and it stars Ted Neeley (who crushes it) Carl Anderson (who steals the show) and Yvonne Elliman (who can get it). Then you got your Pauls, your Pharisees, your Herods and your Pilates and the timeless tale has never been told like this. We didn't know this at the time but Yvonne Elliman had some disco hits as well. She also hooked up with Eric Clapton but nobody's perfect. But anyway…Jesus. He's just a man, right? Why does he scare them so? Check the link here if you want to see it: https://archive.org/details/jeesus-kristus-superstaar-1973-compressed Subscribe to us on YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJf3lkRI-BLUTsLI_ehOsg Contact us here: MOVIEHUMPERS@gmail.com Check our past & current film ratings here: https://moviehumpers.wordpress.com Hear us on podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6o6PSNJFGXJeENgqtPY4h7 Our OG podcast “Documenteers”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/documenteers-the-documentary-podcast/id1321652249 Soundcloud feed: https://soundcloud.com/documenteers Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/culturewrought

Paul's day in court is packed with history and intrigue: Meet the Herods: Acts 25:13 - 26:32

Jeff's Full Nehemiah Song Thanks to everyone who supports TMBH at patreon.com/thetmbhpodcast You're the reason we can all do this together! Discuss the episode here Music by Jeff Foote

Saturday, 17 August 2024   Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Matthew 2:16   “Then Herod, having seen that he was mocked by the magicians, was exceedingly enraged and, having sent, he killed all the boys in Bethlehem and in all her borders, from two years and under, according to the time which he exacted from the magicians” (CG).   In the previous verse, Matthew quoted Hosea comparing the movement of Jesus from Egypt to that of Israel at the Exodus. Now, the narrative returns to Herod, beginning with, “Then Herod, having seen that he was mocked by the magicians.”   The word translated as “mocked” is empaizó. It comes from “in” and “play.” Thus, it means to sport someone or mock them. Almost every use is a mocking direct against Jesus. However, in this case, it is the magicians who have mocked Herod through their departing to their own country without providing him the information he requested. Because of this, it next says, he “was exceedingly enraged.”   The word thumoó, enraged, is used only here in the New Testament. It signifies to be full of angry passion. Combined with the word “exceedingly,” one can get the mental image of Herod flipping his lid, seething in rage, and turning bright red in the face. He really blew a gasket over being duped. Thus, it next says, “and, having sent, he killed all the boys in Bethlehem and in all her borders.”   This event has been called “the slaughter of the innocents” for eons. The term “innocent” has various nuances. From a biblical perspective in relation to sin, there are no innocents. We have all inherited Adam's sin. However, these children had done nothing deserving of death. Therefore, they are innocent in the sense that Herod unjustly had them killed.   As tragic as this is, the number of male children that were this age is estimated to be very low. Bethlehem was not a large city. Even though the extended borders were included, the number still would not have been great. However, the fact that Herod did this stands as a witness to his depravity. If the city were much larger, it is clear that it would not have mattered to him if he killed hundreds or thousands.   The account itself has been called into question because there is no extrabiblical reference to it. However, that is both an argument from silence, and it is not unlikely that it is not mentioned if only a small number of children were killed.   It would have been devastating for the families who lost children, but in the larger picture, it would not have garnered the same attention that it probably would have today with media and the internet. Of those killed, it next says they were “from two years and under.”   Only males and only those up to two years of age were killed. Herod simply wanted any challenge to his authority to be stamped out. It didn't do him any good, however, because his reign only lasted a short while longer, and as Barnes noted in the previous commentary, “he died of a most painful and loathsome disease in Jericho.”   The word translated as “two years old,” dietés, is also only found here in Scripture. It comes from two words indicating “twice” and “year.” Next, Matthew says that this killing of the children this age was “according to the time which he exacted from the magicians.”   Here is the second and last use of the word translated as “exacted,” akriboo. It was seen in Matthew 2:7. It signifies to learn carefully or inquire with exactness. Herod had carefully ascertained the information from the magicians, and he then used that information to kill these innocents in a desperate act of trying to overturn the prophetic word of God.   Life application: As noted above, the word “innocent” has to be taken in the context of what is being conveyed. Little children and babies are innocent in that they have not committed any intentional wrongdoing. They are in need of care for their very existence as well.   Unfortunately, those who need the most care of all are those targeted by the wicked people of the world, like Herod. Today, the Herods of the world are those who support the killing of unborn children through abortion, who target young minds for perverse agendas, like transgenderism, and who abuse little children through sexual perversion.   In today's world, each of these vile practices is fully supported by those who hold to liberal values in any given country. The democrat party of the United States is fully behind these things. And with each new piece of legislation they pass, another one is quick to follow that is more depraved than the one before.   There is very little hope that they will change their ways, but individually, each still needs to hear about Jesus. It is our job to share the good news. For those who realize the wickedness they are committing, they normally will become staunch supporters of that which is right.   Therefore, even in your anger at the conduct of those on the left, be sure to at least offer them the gospel and tell them there is hope, even salvation, from the wickedness they are so mired in.   Lord God, may we be willing to share the gospel with everyone, even those who are so at odds with You in many ways. Satanists, pedophiles, murderers, and the liberal left in general all hold to stands that are contrary to what You accept, but we were once contrary to You as well. Help us to remember that we were also saved from eternal condemnation. May we be about sharing the good news with all people. Amen.  

Daily Dose of Hope August 14, 2024 Day 4 of Week 20   Scripture:  2 Samuel 9-10; 1 Chronicles 18-19; Psalm 89; Acts 26   Welcome back, everyone, to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Church Bible reading plan.  We have a lot of Scripture to talk about today so let's get to it.   Let's get started with 2 Samuel.  In 2 Samuel chapter 9, we see David making good on his promise to Saul and his commitment to Jonathan, Saul's son.  Despite the fact that Saul tried to kill David numerous times, it was David's commitment to care for Saul's descendants.  He also wanted to “show kindness for Jonathan's sake.”  If you recall, Jonathan was David's best friend who risked his own life to save David's.  Thus, David asks one of Saul's former servants, named Ziba, if there are any descendants of Saul remaining.  Ziba is honest and tells David about one of Jonathan's sons who lives in self-imposed exile with his family.  This son's name was Mephibosheth and he was disabled.    David then offers Mephibosheth the land that belonged to Saul and includes him at the royal table.  Mephibosheth asks, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?”  It reminded me of our discussion yesterday, when David asks God, “Who am I that you should bless me?”  Again, we have this beautiful picture of grace.    Let's head over to chapter 10.  In an attempt to show kindness and build alliances, David sends a delegation to the new king of the Ammonites.  David had a good relationship with the king's father and wanted to continue that relationship with the king.  But the new king was not so wise. His advisors tell him that this delegation from Israel may actually be spies, sizing up the area for a conquest. The king takes their advice to heart, or possibly wants to exert his independence from the more powerful Israel, so he humiliates the men in the delegation by sending them home with half a beard and half-naked.   In those days, this was basically a declaration of war.  The Ammonites expected Israel to respond militarily so they hire mercenaries, the Arameans, to help them fight.  But neither group is a match for the army of Israel, led by Joab. J.oab is strategic and brave, leading the men to victory despite formidable odds. In the end, the Ammonites plan backfired. Israel becomes the strongest nation in the area, politically, militarily, and economically. With God on their side, they cannot be stopped.   Our passage from I Chronicles details several different battles during which the army of Israel was victorious.  In I Chronicles 18 (as in 2 Kings 10 - it's the same story), the Hebrews are humiliated by the Ammonites and they respond by setting up battle lines.  With Joab and David commanding the army, Israel is victorious.  God is clearly with them.   I Chronicles 19 is a little different.  Yes, it's about war.  The Israeli army conquers Rappha.  But it also says that in the spring, the kings go off to war.  Did you notice that David did not go?  On first glance, that's really puzzling.  David was excellent in battle.  Maybe he didn't think this offensive was worth his time or he was just getting lazy.  But he should have been with his men.    What we know is that David staying home led to trouble.  He saw a woman bathing.  Maybe you have heard of her?  Her name is Bathsheba.  He then commits adultery (many would say rape because there is no way she had any say in the matter).  When she ends up pregnant, he sends her husband, Uriah, to the front lines to be killed (in the same battle, he himself should have participated).  Certainly, a lot happened from the time David sent his men off to war and their conquering of Rappah.  It's curious that Chronicles does not chronicle this very significant event.  What are your thoughts about this?  Why does the chronicler leave this out of the passage?   Psalm 89 is written by Ethan the Ezrahite.  He was a very wise man.  He is mentioned in I Chronicles 2 and I Kings 4.  His psalm praises God and also reaffirms God's covenant with David.  No matter what David's sons do (and David's sons have some big issues that we will be talking about soon), God will keep his promise to David.  His throne will last forever.  Of course, we know that it is Jesus who will sit on David's throne and fulfill the covenant but that isn't obvious to anyone yet.    Our New Testament passage is Acts 26.  Now, Paul is pleading his case before King Agrippa, to be more precise King Herod Agrippa II.  Let's think about the power-hungry and unethical family of Herodians that had lorded authority over the Jews in the past several generations.  The Herods were essentially puppet kings who the Romans put in charge of Judea.  There was Herod the Great who tried to kill baby Jesus.  Then there was his son, Herod Antipas, who beheaded John the Baptist for speaking out about his illegitimate marriage.  Next in line was Agrippa I who beheaded James, the son of Zebedee.  Now, Paul is standing before Agrippa II, with no sign of fear, simply speaking the truth with clarity and boldness.   In today's passage, governor Festus has accused Paul of insanity after hearing his full testimony, including his conversion on the road to Damascus.  In response, Paul speaks directly to Agrippa, knowing that he was very familiar with the ways of the Jews.  As Paul stands there in chains, he forcefully asks the king if he believes in the ways of the prophets.  I kind of picture the king embarrassed in front of all his Roman/pagan friends, stammering, not quite knowing how to answer.  So he asks Paul, "Do you think you can convince me to be a Christian in such a short time?"  There must have been something about Agrippa that Paul knew he was curious and open.  Maybe God told him to direct his questions to Agrippa.  We can assume that throughout this whole trial, the Holy Spirit is directing Paul's words and actions. There is a purpose for each trial, for each giving of testimony, for each conversation, because in each setting, more and more people are exposed to the Gospel.    What's interesting to me at the end of this chapter, Agrippa and Festus are talking and say that it's a shame that Paul has appealed to the emperor because he had done nothing wrong and they could release him.  However, his appeal meant he would be heading to Rome to testify once more.  What they don't understand is that this isn't simply about Paul's freedom, it's about carrying the Good News to people and places it had never been before. God's up to something more.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki    

This is Good News beloved - God knows what it means to be a King of a Kingdom and He knows what it means to be a human. Gods great goal is so much more than removing mans sin problem and giving him a hope of heaven after they die! Gods great goal is NOT to snatch people away from the earth and all of its problems....this is NOT what we see in the Kingship of Jesus. Jesus is not interested in Herods throne or Ceasars throne He is revealing the life of Heaven on earth in real time. And then inviting us to do the same!

672 John's Disciples Laid His Body in Tomb, A Guided Christian Meditation on Mark 6:27-29 with the Recenter With Christ app  The purpose of this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and connect with the true source of peace, Jesus Christ.  Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization. Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing.  If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.   Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:   Breathe and direct your thoughts to connecting with God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate,  deflate. Scripture for Meditation NASB 27 Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded him to bring back his head. And he went and beheaded him in the prison, 28 and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard about this, they came and carried away his body, and laid it in a tomb. ESV 27 And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison 28 and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. Meditation on Scripture: In the previous verses, Herods's wife and daughter skeemed to get John the Baptist killed. It was based on a grudge. It was based on offense. Herod's wife planned John's death because she was offended. As I was reading these verses it reminded me of the impact that John's death had on the early followers of Jesus and even Jesus himself. This was heavy news. It was a sign of the fact that those who followed the correct path were not saved from death and persecution. Yet the thing I found myself thinking about this time reading through it was the impact that this skeem had. Those actions to plan John's death obviously took the gift of life from John. This death was an unnecessary robbery of the potential of the human life of John. John, created in the image of God was robbed time on earth. This was certainly not a surprise to God, and it didnt stop God's plans but it was still wrong.  Additionally not only was John killed but many people were racked with the grief and uncertainty that his death represented. The action based on her own pride resulted in a death and profound sadness to many people. It made me think about the impact of our actions. Our actions have an effect on other people. Sometimes people tell me proudly that they dont care what anyone else thinks about their actions. This misses the important way in which we all owe each other love, as Jesus said. Part of what makes certain actions wrong is if it harms others. Murder is wrong because of what it takes from others. Similarly it is wrong to be cruel to someone else. I dont mean sharing God's loving words of correction but to share spite, hate, jealousy, and other negativity is wrong also. Invariably there will be times when doing the right thing will bother others. That is not what I mean here. Clearly parents sometimes make their kids sad by correcting them and sinners that are invited to repentance are not always happy to do so.  When we act we should ponder the effect it has on others. We should seek to represent what Jesus would do.  Meditation of Prayer: Pray as directed by the Spirit. Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him. Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm: I invite you to sit in silence feeling patient for your own faults and trials. Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life: This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast Final Question: If you consider the invitation and command to persevere in the faith, what change in your life does that bring to your mind?  FIND ME ON: Download my free app: Recenter with Christ Website - ChristianMeditationPodcast.com Voicemail - (602) 888-3795 Email: jared@christianmeditationpodcast.com Apple Podcasts - Christian Meditation Podcast Facebook.com/christianmeditationpodcast Youtube.com/christianmeditaitonpodcast Twitter - @ChristianMedPod

668 Herodias Nursed a Grudge Against John, A Guided Christian Meditation on Mark 6:17-19 with the Recenter With Christ app The purpose of this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and connect with the true source of peace, Jesus Christ.  Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization. Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing.  If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.   Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation: Breathe and direct your thoughts to connecting with God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate,  deflate. Scripture for Meditation Mark 6 NIV 17 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. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” 19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to,  NABRE 17 Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. 18 John had said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” 19 Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Meditation on Scripture: John the Baptist had gained a large following and he spoke the words of God. He prophesied about the coming of Jesus. In the womb he provided a visceral testimony of the nature of Jesus as the Son of God. John's whole ministry was to set the stage for the coming of the Messiah. He knew the law, which forbade Herod from taking his brother's wife after his own divorce. With that said, John did not say these things as a personal aggression against Herod or his wife Herodias. It was a condemnation of God. Herod was held by Rome to be the leader of Judea. John knew the influence this leader could have for good or bad.  King Herod's relationship with Rome had challenging implications. He was powerful as to the things of the world, but many of the Jews saw him as a traitor, someone who was after personal gain by siding with the enemies of God. He did not remain faithful to the word of the Lord. Eventually he executed John the Baptist based on this condemnation but it bothered him. The people feared John, and it is hard to know what exactly Herod thought about John but the way scripture paints it the grudge that Herod's wife had was the primary drive that resulted in John's death. I find it interested the way it says Herodias nursed a grudge. Grudges can be so terribly destructive. To hold a grudge is in opposition to the life Jesus preached. We are meant to hate sin, to move toward what God would have of our lives, but not to nurture personal grievances. How would John's life have been different without this grudge? Scholars believe that him seeking a new wife was related to the defeat of Herod. In this way John's condemnation was adjudicated by an indirect means. The reality is when we think we get away with things in our heart we don't.  How would the world be without grudges? How would our lives be different without grudges? As you have reflected on the grudge played out in this scripture, remember the temptation we all have to self vindication. The Lord says vengeance is His. Our role should be to seek the will of the Lord, not to seek the destruction of those who offend us. Just as Herods word would have been better without this nursed grudge, so too would each of our lives. Attempt to let go of any ill will you may harbor for others.  Meditation of Prayer: Pray as directed by the Spirit. Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him. Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm: I invite you to sit in silence feeling patient for your own faults and trials. Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life: This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast Final Question: If you consider the invitation and command to persevere in the faith, what change in your life does that bring to your mind?  FIND ME ON: Download my free app: Recenter with Christ Website - ChristianMeditationPodcast.com Voicemail - (602) 888-3795 Email: jared@christianmeditationpodcast.com Apple Podcasts - Christian Meditation Podcast Facebook.com/christianmeditationpodcast Youtube.com/christianmeditaitonpodcast Twitter - @ChristianMedPod  

Herods story

Reading Mark 8:10-21 where Jesus confronts the Pharisees and then warns the disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Herods, but they don't understand. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

In this episode, we journey back to the first century to explore the rise and fall of the most powerful and infamous family of that era—the Herods. Known for their ruthlessness and political maneuvering, the Herods were at the height of their power during the birth of Christianity. From Herod the Great, who reigned during the birth of Jesus, to his descendants who continued his legacy of tyranny and opposition to God's plan, we delve into their historical impact and ultimate downfall. We'll examine the intriguing history of Herod the Great, his sons, and grandsons, who played significant roles in the New Testament narrative, including the execution of James and the imprisonment of Peter. As we delve into Acts 12, we'll see how God's sovereignty triumphs over political power and human evil. Herod Agrippa I, the persecutor of the church, meets a dramatic and divine end, illustrating the timeless truth that God's purposes cannot be thwarted by human schemes. Join us as we uncover the lessons from this historical account, reflecting on the unstoppable spread of God's Word and the ultimate futility of opposing His divine will. This episode is a powerful reminder that no matter how mighty the earthly rulers may seem, the King of Heaven reigns supreme.

In this episode, we journey back to the first century to explore the rise and fall of the most powerful and infamous family of that era—the Herods. Known for their ruthlessness and political maneuvering, the Herods were at the height of their power during the birth of Christianity. From Herod the Great, who reigned during the birth of Jesus, to his descendants who continued his legacy of tyranny and opposition to God's plan, we delve into their historical impact and ultimate downfall. We'll examine the intriguing history of Herod the Great, his sons, and grandsons, who played significant roles in the New Testament narrative, including the execution of James and the imprisonment of Peter. As we delve into Acts 12, we'll see how God's sovereignty triumphs over political power and human evil. Herod Agrippa I, the persecutor of the church, meets a dramatic and divine end, illustrating the timeless truth that God's purposes cannot be thwarted by human schemes. Join us as we uncover the lessons from this historical account, reflecting on the unstoppable spread of God's Word and the ultimate futility of opposing His divine will. This episode is a powerful reminder that no matter how mighty the earthly rulers may seem, the King of Heaven reigns supreme.

It can be almost overwhelming sometimes when we sit back and watch the world spinning ever-so-quickly toward anarchy and chaos. We see it world-wide, but we can't help but see it in our own nation, especially when we consider the corruption and/or ineptitude of leadership at the highest levels. Sometimes it feels like we don't have a chance! But if you look back through history, even to the time when Jesus came to earth, it was really much the same. Evil rulers dominated the landscape and tried their best to exert their evil wills in all directions. One was a dynasty we know as “the Herods.” Bottom line, though, is that the Herods are all gone. And even though new evil leaders will and do follow in their footsteps, their day will end. They will die and face inescapable judgment. But Jesus conquered death, and He still lives! It's good to remember history; it's good to have open eyes and see what's going on. But maybe it's better to keep our eyes on God and remember that our God reigns! He is not a God of chaos. In fact, it is out of chaos that He creates order, exactly according to His purpose. You can trust Him!Do you have prayer requests? Get in touch directly with the team at WACC using thislink: https://wacconline.org/prayer-requestWe look forward to hearing from you! Want to take the next step in getting involved atWashington Avenue Christian Church? Fill out this connect card and someone willreach out to you! https://www.wacconline.org/connectcard Stay in touch by signing up for our weekly newsletter!https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/RHyLGXQ Find messages from WACC here: https://wacconline.org/media If you would like to find out more about our church,visit us at our website: https://www.wacconline.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wacc.atx/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wacc.atx/Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/c/WashingtonAvenueChristianChurchPodcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/washington-avenue-christian-church/id1502459358 Everything WACC: linktr.ee/wacc.atx Used with Permission through our CCLI Copyright License Number 1046610 and Streaming License Number CSPL109160

This session studies Mark 6:14-52, taking a look at the disciples' mission work and being reliant on God; A look at the family tree of the Herods; John the Baptist in prison and beheaded and the opposition that is rising against Jesus and His followers; A look at Jesus the Shepherd; and an exploration into several more miracles.

Saturday, 2 March 2024   And after some days King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea to greet Festus. Acts 25:13   A more literal rendering is, “And some days having passed, Agrippa the king and Bernice came down to Caesarea, having saluted Festus” (CG).   In the previous verse, Paul was told that because he had appealed to Caesar, to Caesar he would go. Now, the narrative continues with, “And some days having passed.”   While Paul was awaiting his transfer to Rome, an indeterminate amount of time elapsed. However, during that time, the narrative introduces two people, “Agrippa the king and Bernice.”   Lengthy commentaries on these two abound if you want to learn more about them. In short, however, Agrippa is Herod Agrippa, the son of Herod Agrippa I. He was a brother of Drusilla, the wife of Felix, seen in Acts 24:24. The Pulpit Commentary lists some of the facts about him and Bernice –   “He was only seventeen at his father's death, and so not considered by Claudius a safe person to entrust his father's large dominions to. But he gave him Chalets, and afterwards, in exchange for it, other dominions. ... He was the last of the Herods, and reigned above fifty years. Bernice was his sister, but was thought to be living in an incestuous intercourse with him. She had been the wife of her uncle Herod, Prince of Chalets; and on his death lived with her brother. She then for a while became the wife of Polemo, King of Cicilia, but soon returned to Herod Agrippa. She afterwards became the mistress of Vespasian and of Titus in succession (Alford).”   Of these two, it says they “came down to Caesarea, having saluted Festus.” This would be a formal introduction to the new procurator. If they were already acquainted, it would be a congratulatory visit to his appointment. Either way, they have come to acknowledge his being placed in his role as the new governor.   Life application: One can see the same formalities today when dignitaries come to the office or residence of a newly appointed or elected official. Luke carefully records these events, describing what occurred when it is relevant to the ongoing narrative.   The visit of these two, and their interactions with Paul, will be carefully noted and detailed. The Lord is setting out His word so that we can see how the message of the gospel went forth and what were some of the workings that made it possible.   As you read the Bible, think about what is presented and why. We are being given insights into how the transfer from the Jewish-led to Gentile-led church took place, why it was so effective, and what will occur, even into the future as the words of Paul's epistles are fulfilled.   Look at the minute details and also look at the wider picture. A beautiful panorama of history is taking place before our eyes as we read and contemplate this precious word.   Heavenly Father, thank You for including us in the process of what occurred in the past so that we can know how we got to where we are now as Christianity spread in Israel and then beyond, even to the furthest extents of the world. We can see Your guiding hand in all of it. Hallelujah! We are seeing Your word fulfilled, even before our eyes. Amen.

Talk 17 Mark 6:14-29  Herod and John the Baptist Welcome to Talk 17 in our series on Mark's Gospel. Today we're looking at Mark 6:14-29 which relates the terrible story of the beheading of John the Baptist. The passage is set between Jesus sending out his disciples to proclaim the good news and their return to report to him all they had done and taught (v30). At first sight, the beheading of John the Baptist might seem to be something of a digression, but, when we remember the theme of our last talk, it becomes clear that there's a very real continuity of thought in this passage. Last time we saw how the people of Jesus' home town rejected him and how, when Jesus sent out his disciples, he told them to shake the dust off their feet as a testimony against any who rejected their message about him. Today's passage begins in verses 14-16 with the theme of people's attitude to Jesus and his message, and continues with the story of how one particular person, King Herod, hardened his heart against the preaching of John the Baptist and ended up by ordering his execution. And we know from Acts 4:27 and Luke 23:12 that this eventually led to his conspiring with Pontius Pilate against Jesus himself. But let's begin by reading the passage to remind ourselves of the details. 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." 15 Others said, "He is Elijah." And still others claimed, "He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago." 16 But when Herod heard this, he said, "John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!" 17 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. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." 19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, 20 because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. 21 Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you." 23 And he promised her with an oath, "Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom." 24 She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" "The head of John the Baptist," she answered. 25 At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: "I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter. 26 The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28 and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. 29 On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. The fact that Jesus' name had become well known (v14) is not surprising, bearing in mind the miracles he was performing and the great crowds who gathered around him. The miracles were causing people to wonder exactly who Jesus was. He reminded them of what they had heard about Elijah and the miracles he performed. Some even thought Jesus was Elijah, possibly basing their assumption on Malachi's prophecy that God would one day send Elijah back before the day of the Lord came (Malachi 4:5). (Although Jesus said in Mark 9:13 that it was actually John who was the promised ‘Elijah'). Others thought that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead. This included King Herod who said, John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead! (v16). Mark then goes on to explain how and why Herod came to order John's execution, but before we go any further it's important to identify which Herod we are talking about, as the New Testament makes reference to no less than four different Herods, all of whom were unpleasant characters, to say the least. Perhaps it will be easiest to say which Herod this is NOT. This Herod is not Herod the Great (so-called) who wanted to kill the baby Jesus and massacred the baby boys in Matthew 2. He is not Herod Agrippa I, who was smitten by the angel of the Lord and died because of his pride in Acts 12, neither is he Herod Agrippa II before whom Paul conducted his defence in Acts 25-26. The Herod who executed John the Baptist was Herod Antipas whose final attitude to Jesus is found in Luke 23:7-12. There we're told that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, who happened to be in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' trial, because Jesus came from the region of Galilee where Herod was the ruler and was therefore under his jurisdiction. Herod was pleased to see Jesus because, from what he'd already heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. He asked him many questions, but when Jesus refused to reply, he ridiculed and mocked him, dressed him in an elegant robe, and sent him back to Pilate, who then became his friend although up to that point they had been enemies. Herod was thus complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus as Acts 4:26-27 makes clear: The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel to conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed. So Herod and Pilate banded together against the Lord and conspired against Jesus. And now, as we return to our passage in Mark 6, we see that it was by hardening his heart to God's word through John the Baptist that Herod took the first steps that led ultimately to his role in the crucifixion of Jesus. His attitude to God's servant, John, was finally to determine his attitude to God's Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus once said: Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me (John 13:20). To accept Christ's message through the messengers he sends is to accept Christ himself, and to reject his message through the messengers he sends is to reject Christ himself. In rejecting God's message through John, Herod finally came to ridicule and reject Christ. But this need not have happened. Herod had every opportunity to accept John's message of repentance. Verse 18 tells us that John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And the tense of the Greek verb indicates that he had done so repeatedly. But instead of repenting, Herod had John put in prison where John continued to preach the same message. So Herod had plenty of opportunity to repent. He knew that John was a righteous and holy man. He feared him and he liked to listen to him but was greatly puzzled by what he heard. This verb (aporeomai) is sometimes  translated in the New Testament as perplexed and can also convey the idea of doubt. The mental confusion that caused Herod to doubt sprang from the fact that he knew what was right but was unwilling to do it.  There were so many voices clamouring for his attention – the voice of conscience telling him that his relationship with Herodias was sinful, the voice of John the Baptist constantly confirming that he must repent, the voice of Herodias demanding John's death, and the voice of the flesh telling him that he must protect his own reputation at all costs. No wonder we're told that he was perplexed. And so, although for a time he protected John from Herodias's thirst for his blood, the time came when, trapped by his own foolish vow, he murdered, without a fair trial, the man who Jesus said was the greatest person who had ever lived (Matthew 11:11), and in so doing involved a young girl [1] in the bloody process, undoubtedly psychologically damaging her for the rest of her life. But we know the story. It remains now for us to summarise where Herod went wrong. It began with his decision to break God's law and live in adultery with his brother's wife. Instead of listening to the voice of conscience and repenting at the preaching of John the Baptist, he chose to continue to disobey God. Embarrassed by John's public denunciation of his lifestyle, he attempted to silence him by putting him in prison. Infatuated with a young dancing girl he made a foolish oath, and when, at her mother's instigation, she made the most outrageous demand, he lacked the moral courage to refuse it for fear of what others might think. This series of wrongly motivated decisions led finally to the ultimate decision – the rejection of Christ. But before we conclude this message, let's turn our attention away from the evil Herod to the man he beheaded, God's faithful servant, John the Baptist. As we saw in Mark 1, the heart of the message God had called John to preach was that everyone needed to repent in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, and vast crowds came to be baptised in the Jordan confessing their sins. It's clear from Luke 3 that the message was for all – soldiers, tax-collectors, religious leaders, and even for political leaders like King Herod. As we have seen, John told him in no uncertain terms that his relationship with his brother's wife was wrong, and rebuked him for all the other evil things he had done (Luke 3:19) which led to his arrest, imprisonment and eventually his execution. John was imprisoned before Jesus started his public ministry in Galilee (Mark 1:14) but his execution took place some time later. We know little of the time John spent in prison except that Matthew tells us that: When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me" (Matthew 11:2-6). John's question shows that he was beginning to doubt if Jesus really was the promised Messiah despite the evidence of the miracles Jesus was doing. He was doubting the testimony of Scriptures like Isaiah 61:1-2 which Jesus said was being fulfilled in his miraculous ministry, and he was even doubting his own testimony that Jesus was the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. More serious still, he was doubting the testimony of God himself, who at Jesus' baptism had declared that Jesus was his beloved Son. These serious doubts would have been caused by the circumstances in which he found himself, unjustly imprisoned, and cut off from fellowship with like-minded people, but also perhaps by the expectation that the Messiah would proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18). If Jesus really was the Messiah, why was John still in prison? It's all too easy to doubt when circumstances tell us that God has not kept the promises we believe he has made us, and John was no exception. But fortunately, there is a remedy for doubt. John sent a message to Jesus and Jesus gave him the answer. Note that even though John was doubting who Jesus was, he still made contact with him. If you're doubting God, it might seem illogical, but contact him anyway. When my philosophy tutor at Oxford confidently asserted that he could disprove the existence of God, as soon as the tutorial was over I said, God, if there is a God, HELP. And he did! My AV Bible fell open at Psalm 119:99 where I read: I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. And my doubts were gone. So if your circumstances are causing you to doubt, do what John did. Keep in touch with Jesus, and if it seems that he's not keeping his promises to you, let him remind you of the things he has done for you and of how he has worked in the lives of others. Faith is not the absence of doubt. It's trusting the Lord despite our doubts and leaving the outcome with him. In the KJV Jesus' final word to John was: Blessed is he who is not offended in me (v6). John's doubts were leading him towards the danger of taking offense at Jesus like the people of Nazareth in Mark 6:3. The Greek word is the same, and as we saw last time it's frequently used in the New Testament to mean a stumbling block or something that trips you up. What tripped up the people of Nazareth was their refusal to see beyond the humanity of Jesus.  For John the potential stumbling block was that if Jesus really was the Messiah, why was he not setting him free from Herod's prison? One lesson we can learn from this is that we must not be offended by God's will for our lives. Some promises – especially with regard to the body – will not reach final fulfilment until the redemption of the body at the resurrection. When circumstances are against us, and when we're not yet experiencing the fulfilment of one of God's promises, it's all too easy to give way to doubt. The remedy is to concentrate on the many wonderful promises we have seen fulfilled in our lives and to rejoice in what we hear God is doing for others, even if we are not yet experiencing the same blessings that they are. If the great John the Baptist could come to the point of doubting the very truth of what God had called him to preach, we should not be surprised or feel condemned if we are tempted to doubt. Eventually, of course, John was liberated from the prison, but perhaps not in the way he was expecting or hoping. Death, for those who believe in Jesus, is the ultimate release, whether it be from imprisonment, or sickness, or any other form of suffering. Death is the gateway to Heaven where there is no mourning, or crying, or pain (Revelation 21:4). John's headless body was laid in a tomb, but he himself was already enjoying the rewards of Heaven, far beyond the reach of evil people like Herod and Herodias. [1] The Greek word korasion is used of Jairus's daughter who was only 12 years old (Mark 5:41, 42).

Well, this is an interesting story, but it gets dark. Apologies in advance. This does not have a good ending.

Matthew 2:1-12In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.' When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” 'Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.' When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. Today we celebrate Epiphany, the day when the magi find the Christ child by way of a star and offer him gifts. But this day is about much more than gifts. It's about a choice between two kings. And to understand the choice it puts before us, we have to know a little bit more about King Herod.We don't hear much about this Herod in the New Testament. But there is much known about him outside of biblical literature. He ruled for nearly 40 years before Jesus came along, being crowned King of the Jews by Rome in 37 BCE. He was liked by Rome because he did what they said and he kept the Jewish people happy. That was his job: to make the occupation seem not so bad. He was pretty good at this, that's why he was known as Herod the Great. He led huge building campaigns throughout the cities in his area, constructing fortresses, building aqueducts, theaters, and most importantly rebuilding the temple in all its glory. But none of this work was free and the burden to pay for it all fell on the jewish people in the form of taxes. Yet worse than his taxes was Herod's own insecurity. He was constantly plagued with paranoia that someone would oust him. It was so bad, that he divorced his first wife and exiled both her and his son. Then by the end of his life, he had killed his mother, another wife and at least three out of his four sons. Now maybe we aren't so surprised that when three strangers ride into town asking where the new “king of Jews” had been born, he didn't hesitate to kill all the infants in Bethlehem.Everyone loved what King Herod could do, but everyone hated what he cost them. Herod appeared to have the people's interest in mind, yet ultimately his concern was to appease Rome and remain in power and he would do just enough to maintain this image. We see the true Herod when these wisemen show up from the east, likely from modern day Iran. They arrive in Jerusalem and unknowingly ask a question that could have gotten them killed: “where is the child who has been born king of the Jews”? The very question frightened Herod and because he was frightened, so too was all of Jerusalem. They knew the damage he could do.Herod called for the magi and in this meeting we see the paranoia take over because he lies at that meeting. We know the end of the story; Herod did not want the magi to find the baby Jesus so that he could go and pay him homage also. Herod lies to gain trust, loyalty, to get what he wanted.The magi go on to complete their journey. They find Mary and the baby in a house, not a stable, with Joseph nowhere to be found. Great timing from the new dad. And it's here that the magi have a choice. They had already met with Herod likely in his palace. He looked like a king, acted like a king, and had the title of a king. But now they stood in the home of a palestinian peasant family, looking at an impoverished young mother with a baby. They could have said, the star must have been wrong, surely this baby is no king. Let's take our tribute and treasures to Herod, the real king.But they didn't. Instead, they knelt as in worship to this baby and offered him their gifts, but not just any gifts. Gifts that say these wisemen from another country, who practiced another religion, really understood who this baby Jesus was: they gave gold as for a king, frankincense to be burned as to a God, and myrrh for the embalming of a mortal. And since no angel visited Mary telling her all about this baby Jesus, just Joseph in Matthew's gospel (and we all know how well husbands communicate to their wives), these gifts told Mary for the first time who her son truly was.With gifts given, the magi must decide what to do next: ignore the dream, tell Herod where the baby is, and hope he was authentic? Or disregard and disobey the king and go home by another road, one that was likely longer or more difficult or unknown all together? Fortunately, they chose to go another way.We all have a Herod in our lives. It's that thing, that person, that political party that lies to you in order to gain some sort of power over you. You call it great because for some time now its been around, its made you feel secure, it's done some good things for you, but at a cost you can't afford. It is that thing that makes you think you have the same interest at heart, but in reality it's hurting you more than helping you. Perhaps your Herod is sports, whether you play them, watch them, or bet on them. The lie being told is that life is only good when you win, that it should be the most important thing in your life, that your identity is intertwined with this game or team, and that your value as a person depends on how many points you score, records you break, or how much money you win. So you put all your gifts toward this, but it comes at cost.Or perhaps your Herod is your job. It gives you enough to keep you satisfied, you've been at a while so it feels secure. But it tells you that you can always earn more, that you're just a few steps away from that promotion, and that your interests really are the same at heart. They want from you all your gifts; yet, who benefits the most and at what cost?Or perhaps your Herod is a political party or politician. And in our heightened political times, especially with it being a presidential election year, there are and will be many Herods pinning for our loyalty. They will lie to you to gain your trust. But in reality they will do whatever it takes to gain or remain in power. And if you feel secure or at home with a party or a politician, that is your Herod. Yet, as followers of Jesus we are politically homeless, constantly working to make God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, which means critiquing and challenging always the powers that be and doing all we can to protect the most vulnerable. If we fail to do that, it comes at cost.And the cost of any Herod is always more than we can bear: it's relationships, it's our identity, it's time, it's the wellbeing of ourselves, our neighbors, and it's sin.Jesus comes to liberate us from our herods and give another kingdom for you to offer your gifts. He might not look like a king or act like a king, but he bears the title Emmanuel, God with Us, and his only interest is forgiveness, and reconciliation, and salvation for you and all creation. And he was willing to pay the cost of our sin, all our herods, on a cross, so that you can have all the gifts he offers: grace, love, and life eternal; here and now and forevermore. So like the magi, we too have a choice between two kings. Choosing to follow Jesus is choosing where to place your loyalty and to whom you offer your gifts. It means frustrating those who are in power. It means taking another road, one that is likely longer, or more difficult for you, or unknown all together. It means bowing down to the one you'd least expect, like a peasant infant from Palestine. The choice is yours. May the Spirit guide. Amen.

If there is any "Scrooge" in the New Testament, it is Herod ("the Great"). But this is more than a story of history - it describes our life today. It says: 1 -- despite what we'd like to believe, Christmas is NOT a perfect time, but instead is a real world of pain and joy. 2 -- The Herods of the world will always be outmatched and confounded by the love and faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Also, there is a bit of Herod in all of us - a part of us that is both threatened by Christ's Lordship and protective of our power.

For additional notes and resources, check out Douglas' website.

Where there's hope, there's always a Herod.

The Fourth Sunday in Advent: Testimony Philippians 4:4-7 & St. John 1:19-28 by William Klock As we make our way through Advent the days get darker and there's something oh so appropriate about that as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  It's a reminder of the state that Israel was in as the gospel story began—in those days of Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, and King Herod.  The world was dark.  The nations were enslaved to false gods and pagan kings.  Even little Israel, called to be the light of the world, lay in darkness.  The candlestick in the temple was kept lit, but the cloud of glory that had once filled the holy of holies, the very presence of God, had been absent for five-hundred years.  God's people were ruled by pagans and pretenders.  And apart from a faithful remnant, the nation had been consumed by the darkness, a holy people in little other than their calling.  But the people knew the words of the prophets, the promises of their God.  It would not be this way forever.  That's the setting for today's Gospel, which begins at John 1:19.  Here's what John writes: This is the testimony of John [the Baptist], when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”  He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”  So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us.  What do you say about yourself?”  He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said.”  (John 1:19-28) The Pharisees sent Levitical and priestly inquirers to interrogate John, to find out who he was—or at least who he thought he was.  If someone showed up with a message from God, the Pharisees were sure to show up and to ask questions to see if he was legit.  The Jews really were expecting someone.  John anticipates this in his answers.  They ask who he thinks he is and the first thing he says is, “I am not the Messiah.”  That's who everyone was really anxious to see.  The Messiah would lift the darkness.  The Messiah would fix everything that was wrong with the world.  The Messiah would deliver his people and reign as David had long ago.  There had been others in recent memory who had claimed to be the Messiah and things hadn't gone well for them.  I expect the Pharisees expected the same was true of John, but hey, you never know.  Eventually the real Messiah would come, they were certain of that, so they might as well ask some questions. “Well, then,” they ask, “who do you claim to be?”  John first denies that he's Elijah and then he denies that he's “the prophet”.  The bit about Elijah goes back to the prophet Malachi.  He had prophesied that Elijah, the greatest of Israel's prophets (or at least the greatest after Moses) would return one day.  This is what he wrote: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.  (Malachi 4:5) We have a pretty good sense, based on the literature of the time, that a lot of people interpreted this to mean that Elijah himself would literally return in the flesh.  Sort of like King Arthur to return to rescue Britain at its darkest hour.  It made sense.  Remember that Elijah didn't die.  He was caught up into heaven in a chariot of fire.  Some people thought he would come back as the Messiah.  John's answer is interesting, because in last week's Gospel we heard Jesus himself say that John was the one who fulfilled Malachi's prophecy.  John was indeed the one.  But John didn't see it that way.  He hadn't come to earth in a fiery chariot from heaven.  He was the son of Zechariah the priest and his wife, Elizabeth. John also denies, too, that he's “the prophet”.  This is a reference to a passage in Deuteronomy 18 in which the Lord promises that he will one day raise up a prophet like Moses, who will declare the Lord's own words.  Like the Elijah who was to come, many associated the prophet with the Messiah.  “Nope,” John says, “that's not me either.”  But here's the point.  Even if they were wrong about who the Messiah would be and when and how he would come, the Jews were living in hopeful expectation of the Messiah.  They were in their own Advent.  The days were dark.  They were supposed to be the people who lived with the Lord in their midst, but his presence had been gone for five hundred years.  They'd returned from exile, but without the Lord's presence and with foreign pagans ruling over them, they might as well have still been in exile.  They longed for the light to dawn in the darkness and they trusted it would happen, because they knew their story.  They knew that the Lord is faithful to fulfil his promises.  They belonged to him.  Just as he'd once rescued them from Pharaoh, he would rescue them from Caesar. John was sure of all this, too.  He may have denied that he was the one prophesied to come like Elijah or Moses—and it's worth noting again that in Matthew and Mark Jesus actually did affirm that John had come in fulfilment of the Elijah prophecy—but John knew the story, too, and he knew his place in it.  When the Pharisees finally let John speak for himself, he told them: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.'”  He quotes straight from Isaiah 40:3.  I think this gets at the reason John answered “No” to the questions about Elijah and the Prophet, but given the chance to identify himself, he looks back to this prophecy of Isaiah.  This passage from Isaiah is just as Messianic, but John saw in it the heart of his role and his ministry.  And while there were people who confused the one coming like Elijah or Moses with the Messiah, this voice crying in the wilderness is clearly the Messiah's forerunner—or at least that's how John saw it.  He was not the Messiah.  He was the one sent ahead to prepare Israel to receive the Messiah. And then the question they pose about baptism gives him a chance to expand on this.  Baptism was an act of cleansing that fit well with what the Messiah might be and do when he came.  But John has just denied that he is the Messiah.  “So,” the Pharisees wonder, “why is John baptising people if he's not the Messiah?”  Look at 25-27: They asked him, “So why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, he who comes after me, whose sandal straps I'm not worthy to untie.” Baptism was a symbol of cleansing and of ritual purity.  At this point the other gospel-writers are helpful as they expand on John's answer.  Mark tells us that John's was a baptism of repentance—it was a preparatory act in light of the coming judgement the Messiah would bring.  And Matthew and Luke also report John continuing about this one who will come, this one greater than John: “He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16).  In other words, John is calling Israel to repentance in anticipation of the Messiah, who will fulfil the Lord's promises to set Israel to rights by filling his people with his own Spirit.  The law written on stone tablets would finally be inscribed on the hearts of God's people so that they could finally fulfil his law of love.  But the Messiah was also coming in judgement.  He would baptise the repentant with God's own Spirit, but he would baptise unrepentant Israel with fire. These are the two sides of the gospel coin.  You can't have one without the other.  Jesus' advent, on the one hand, brought mercy to the repentant, but on the other it also brought judgement on the unrepentant within Israel.  What's significant for us here, Brothers and Sisters, is that this exchange between John and the Pharisees reminds us of the Messiah's place in Israel's story and of the faithfulness of God to his promises.  It is this manifestation of the Lord's faithfulness (and of his goodness, mercy, grace, and wisdom) to Israel—something we see brought to its climax in the coming, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus, that has drawn us to the God of Israel and that, by faith, has incorporated us into the people of God.  Through our union with Jesus, through our incorporation into this people, through our being made adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, you and I have come to know God's mercy and the life of the Spirit, too.  Because of the faithfulness of God, revealed in Jesus and in the power of the gospel, the darkness that Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, John the Baptist and Jesus knew, that deep, deep darkness full of false gods and wicked kings and demonic power is has been driven away by the light.  The light has come into the darkness, his gospel has thrown those powers down and lit up the world.  And you and I live in the glory of that light.  And this is where our Epistle today takes off.  There are practical implications of our being incorporated into the story of the people of God. Paul writes those wonderful and challenging words in Philippians 4:4: Rejoice in the Lord always; I say again, rejoice. What specifically prompted Paul to write this?  Well, just two verses earlier, Paul exhorted two women, Euodia and Syntyche, to agree with each other.  They had once been fellow labourers with Paul, but they'd had some kind of falling out.  There's something providential in the fact that Paul doesn't give us the details, because with no details I think we all end up thinking of the fallings out we've had with other brothers and sister in the Lord.  This isn't just about two women in Philippi.  It's about each of us.  In response to that falling out, Paul calls the Philippian Christian to rejoice in the Lord.  Instead of a public display of disunity or resentment or anger—whatever it was that was going on between these two women, the Church was to put joy on display, to celebrate the life of God.  They were people of the light, but they were living in the dark.  It was imperative that they come back into the light.  Brothers and Sisters, Jesus and the gospel should overcome and drown out the darkness whenever it tries to creep into the Church.  Here's how it works.  Paul writes: Let your gracious gentleness be known to everyone.  (Philippians 4:5a) Gracious gentleness—or gentle graciousness.  Paul uses the same word in 2 Corinthians 10 to describe the meekness of Jesus as a model for Christians.  This is gospel light lived out.  What Paul's getting at is that Jesus is the King, but in him we see this amazing display of gracious gentleness.  This is the gentleness we see revealed as Jesus, the one to whom heaven and earth belong, humbles himself to be born one of us, to die on the cross, and to show mercy to his enemies.  This kind of meekness or gentleness is unique to Jesus, and yet Paul stresses that as his people, as stewards of the gospel, we're called to witness this same gentleness amongst ourselves.  As it should be the resolution to so many disputes in the Church, it was the resolution to whatever had driven Euodia and Syntyche apart. Brothers and Sisters, when we demand our rights, when we grasp for power, when we nurse grudges, we undermine our witness to the world—we exhibit the very darkness from which we've been delivered by the one who is light.  In contrast Paul calls us to rejoice in the Lord and to manifest Jesus-like gentleness in our relationships.  Remember, as people whom God has graciously and mercifully forgiven and restored to himself, we ought to witness that in our own joyful unity in Jesus.  Consider that every time we hold a grudge, allow a relationship to break down, or follow the world's advice to cut those problem or negative people out of our lives, we undermine the Church's witness to the world.  But that's not all. Paul goes on: The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.   There's that Advent theme again: Jesus has given us a job to do.  He's given us treasure to steward in his absence.  In the meantime, rather than being anxious, we should take our needs to God.  Jesus made the same point in the Sermon on the Mount.  The pagans worry about what they'll eat, what they'll wear, and where they'll sleep.  God's people should know better than to worry unduly about these things.  God will provide just as he always has.  He is faithful to his promises and the story of his dealings with Israel is the proof.  So go to the Lord with your needs and ask.  And while you're at it, give thanks, because you know his faithfulness and his love. This is part of the witness of the people of God—it's how we are light in the darkness—and it ties back into rejoicing.  When Paul talks about rejoicing, at least part of what he's got in mind is a public display or a public witness.  The pagan Greeks in Philippi regularly held public celebrations to honour their gods.  In the decades before Paul wrote, new rites to honour and to celebrate—to rejoice in—Caesar had been introduced and embraced by the people.  And yet the pagans, as Jesus said, were always anxious.  Why?  Because their gods never delivered.  Pagan religion was a non-stop game of trial and error, trying to guess what the gods wanted, trying to guess what you may have done wrong to offend them, and then guessing at what you might offer to appease their anger or to ingratiate them to you in order to get what you needed or wanted.  The pagan gods were silent and they were notoriously capricious and unreliable.  And in this context Paul exhorts the Philippian Christians: Rejoice yourselves.  Let the pagans see you celebrating the fact that the Creator of the universe has, through Jesus, made you his own and lives in your midst by his own Holy Spirit.  Let the pagans, who know only mean and capricious gods and who live in a dog-eat-dog world, let them see the gracious gentleness of God in you.  Live in such a way that they see in you the God who humbles himself to die for the sake of his enemies.  And let the pagans see you living in faith, praying in confident thankfulness to the God whose story reveals an unfailing pattern of promise and fulfilment.  Shine the light of Jesus into the darkness of the world.  And the result of all this?  Look at verse 7: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.   I think we tend to look at Paul's exhortation here as something we should do in order to experience the peace of God ourselves, but given the context in Philippians, I think Paul's point is actually more about our witness.  If we truly live as stewards of the good news about Jesus, if we truly live as people who know the faithfulness of God revealed in Jesus and particularly in his death and resurrection, the peace of God—rather than the strife and anxiety of the world—will guard our hearts and minds in a way that will astound the pagans around us. I said last Sunday that we are called both to proclaim and to live the gospel.  This is that living it, right here.  And coupled with our proclamation, to truly live in light of Jesus and what he reveals about God, should cause the world to stand up and take note.  This is sort of our way of being John the Baptist in our own age.  And as it did for John, for us—if we are faithful—it will result in many giving glory to God for his faithfulness and then coming to him in faith as we have.  And it will threaten many who are invested in the pagan and fallen systems of the world.  We are now the voice in the wilderness. So we need to ask: Does the world see our joy?  Are we the voice crying in the wilderness?  Are we the royal heralds the Lord has called us to be, summoning the word to let go of its false gods and to come to the Lord Jesus, calling the world away from sin and self and to come to the cross?  And we need to ask how the world is responding to us.  If we're faithfully proclaiming the good news about Jesus, if we're faithfully calling people to repent and to believe, if we're faithfully proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and that this kingdom has come—well—people will respond in one of two ways.  Either they'll believe or they'll get angry—as Herod got angry with John.  There's some of both out there in the world, but overwhelmingly, when I look at how people respond to or think of the church these days and in our part of the world, it's just indifference.  Why? Because we have not been the witnesses God calls us to be.  We have been mealy-mouthed and, quite often, just plain silent in our proclamation, because we have too often sought to please people rather than God, and because we have been half-hearted and unfaithful in our gospel living.  Like old Israel, we pray to God, but we've failed to tear down the old altars to Baal and Asherah—or Mammon or Aphrodite or Caesar.  We name Jesus, but we deal dishonestly in business, we sell our souls to the commercialism that surrounds us, we look to politics or to science as our saviours, and we dabble in the sexual immorality of the age.  We've failed to proclaim the gospel and we justify it, saying that we'll preach it with our lives.  But if we stop to ask what the world sees in our lives, is it really very different?  Does the world see us rejoicing in the Lord?  Does the world see us manifesting the gracious gentleness of Jesus?  Does the world see us living in faithful prayer and trusting in God, or does it see people just as anxious as everyone else?  Does the world see the peace of God ruling our hearts and minds?  Does the world see us, holding high the gospel, as a challenge to its gods and its kings and its sins?  It should.  But sadly, I think that for the Western Church at large, the answer is often “no”. And, all too often, when we do proclaim the gospel, we do so without power or authority.  We hold the gospel out as good advice, rather than as the good news that it is.  Friends, the gospel is the royal summons to submit in faith to Jesus, the world's true Lord—the Lord who has come with mercy so that the repentant will escape when he comes one day in judgement.  This was the power behind John the Baptist' preaching.  But all too often we present the gospel as just another option on the religious smorgasbord—something you might want to try. See if you like it.  See if it works for you.  If not…oh well.  Brothers and Sisters, that's not the gospel.  The gospel is good news to the people living in the midst of darkness: the king who will set the world to rights has come.  And that means the gospel, when preached as it should be, will challenge and upset the Herods and Caesars of our age and all those invested in the false gods of the world. The Advent message is to be prepared.  Jesus has given us a gospel mission to take the good news of his death, his resurrection, and his lordship into the world.  Brothers and Sisters, pray that we will be faithful to our mission—faithful enough to provoke persecution, because that's the kind of faithfulness that also reaps a harvest for the kingdom.  Pray for the holy boldness of John the Baptist and the gracious gentleness of Jesus.  Pray that we will be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Pray that the joy of the Lord will overcome us.  Brothers and Sisters, Rejoice!  Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again, I say rejoice. Let's pray: O Lord, come among us, we pray, with your power and strengthen us with your great might; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us, your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, now and for ever.  Amen.

Today’s Broadcast December 8, 2023Ask Pastor Mike-What’s with All the Herods Listen Download Today's Message Purchase Message From Series: Ask Pastor Mike: What's with All the Herods Purchase Entire Series Broadcast Archive Message Description Pastor Mike answers the question: It seems like every page of the New Testament talks about a different Herod. So what’s with all the Herods and how do they fit into biblical history? Series Description The Ask Pastor Mike broadcasts provide answers that Christians have about God, the Bible and Christianity in our world today. What’s Next Pointing People to Christ Godly Confidence The Fear of God This Month’s ResourceTop Series Fatal Excuses Christianity In Real Life The Experience of Every Christian Receive Monthly Insight from Pastor MikeSign up to receive Pastor Mike Fabarez’s Monthly Ministry Update in your inbox. Contact Permission By clicking the “Subscribe” button above, I am requesting to receive e-mail communications from Focal Point Ministries, and I agree to allow my personal data to be processed according to their Internet Privacy Policy. Share This Message:

Bible Study: (2:20) Hg 1:1-8 Who was Herod the Great?  Letters (20:11) - If the Jews don't believe in Jesus, why was Jesus born a Jew?  Word of the Day: Paneled (35:10) Callers: (38:21) - Who where the Herods; were they leaders of the Jews or where they someone else? (43:35) - Can Father explain 'Peace be w/you'? (45:09) - We confess our sins, but at end of world, Jesus said 'all things would be revealed.' Would all our sins be revealed? (47:22) - Matthew 28:17 - how could they have doubted? 

Don't worry, Theophiloi! You still have some time to leave coffee out for a werewolf and decorate your anti-arousal thorn bush for Approximate Week (observed). We're bumping back our celebrations to once again bring you a Chill Hangout Sesh with some of our multipals! This time, it's the oft-mentioned Drs. Janet Spittler and Tony Burke, a pair of experts in New Testament Apocrypha that I personally mostly just ask about Wolverine from the X-Men. Topics of Discussion: NASCAR: it really works!™, the noncanon canon, Just Some Gospels, a few apocalypses is plenty of apocalypses, the Comically Extended Death of the Herods, Johnnys Thunderson and Bapto, Jesus and the first chain letter, Jeezey and the Bandit II, Bible Team-Up #1-7, Toxic Mark Gospels_Manual_V9_Revised_Final.pdf, a consensus of one (onesensus), remembering the yellow guy from cartoons. Hymnal: "Hand on the Needle" by Brent Hagerman. Apocrypals is edited by Editorial Deacon Lucas Brown. Offertory: As Enoch writes, "Whoever of you spends gold or silver for his brother's sake, he will receive ample treasure in the world to come." Support the show via http://ko-fi.com/apocrypals, or check out Official Apocrypals merchandise designed by Erica Henderson! https://www.teepublic.com/stores/apocrypals?ref_id=18246  Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Heck 12. Isaiah 54:17  

[See below for the written description of this 2007 program.] * Tragic 2020 Update: Considered a solid Christian leader by many thousands of believers (and in many ways beloved by us here at BEL), the founder and host of Stand to Reason, Greg Koukl has tragically stated, beginning at 9:40 into a podcast, that "some same sex couples are fabulous." Please pray for Greg and for the man who phoned in a question, and for all those Greg is not-so-subtly influencing to become moral relativists. Here's what happened... 9:20 A caller asks whether children are better off in foster care or adopted by same sex parents. 9:56 "Some same sex couples are fabulous. Some same sex couples are deplorable. And actually, the same is true for heterosexual couples." Greg then offers the softest possible objection to one of the fiercest moral dangers of our day, which is homosexuality. (For, "In the public square, biblical Christianity and homosexuality are mutually exclusive. One or the other will be in the closet.") He followed that by repeatedly obfuscating with moral relativist utilitarian distinctions about which parents give the "advantage" and which is "better".  Koukl draws false equivalencies between homosexuality and heterosexual singleness, cohabitation, and bad parenting. Regarding same sex parenting, "there are other things [aspects of their parenting] that may be really good... there are a number of factors that are involved here. ... All things being equal I think it is better for heterosexual couples to raise children." 12:24 "A father brings something different to the relationship than a mother does. Period." Koukl puts much more emphasis on practical distinctions than he does on the far greater matter of the utter perversion and rebellion of homosexuality. Greg exhibits more fear about how his audience will view him than he does about the child raised in a dystopian world of normalized homosexuality. "Just to show that I'm not unfairly prejudiced here... I don't believe that single people should adopt." 14:50 "What we want to do is to make decisions based on the ideal." 15:45 "This is why it's hard to make a judgment. Are children in foster care better off [being adopted by] same sex couples or better off staying in foster care. It depends on the individual circumstance. I would rather see a child in a reasonably healthy environment with a same sex couple than in an abusive environment with a heterosexual couple." If that isn't moral relativism, then there is no such thing. 16:13 Constantly equivocating on underlying morality and legitimacy, "The big thing is, what's best for the kid... Heterosexual parents are better than same sex parents, on balance." 17:07 "However if this child had no parent whatsoever and was living in the squalor in the street somewhere..." Talk about situational ethics. Would Greg rather see a child rescued from a volcanic eruption by a human trafficker, than be burned alive? Oh brother. Come on. (Here's an actual example. In our 2007 debate Greg was defending pro-abort Rudi Guiliani, who got 3% of the pimary vote, and Christian listeners applied his arguments to pro-abort Mitt Romney of course, who got 22% of the vote, with pro-abort McCain winning. Regarding Romney, the presidential candidate four years later who regarding an unborn child who might end up being raised by a crack-addicted mother, would be only too happy to support the premptive killing of that baby. Or, for that matter, he supported killing any unborn child for any reason, for Romney is the father of tax-funded late-term abortion on demand.) 18:13 "Heterosexual couples bring something more to the parenting environment than same sex couples bring." 19:05 "You've got to start from the standards and work to the circumstances that you're faced with." Which is exactly the opposite of what Greg had just done in yet another text-book case of moral relativism. * Correction: Bob unintentionally exaggerated Clinton's willingness to support the PBA ban. See the full correction at the end of this show summary. * Christian Leader Koukl Defends Candidate Giuliani: Stu Epperson moderates the debate between Bob Enyart and STR.org's Greg Koukl on Stu's syndicated TruthTalkLive.com talk show. In the debate, Koukl defends Rudi Giuliani, an aggressively pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-Christian worldview candidate, as acceptable to Christian voters. Koukl denies that Giuliani is a mass murderer and denied the parallel between Koukl's own position and that of the Herodians of the New Testament. To start the debate, Bob asked Greg, "What if Rudi Giuliani is the Republican nominee, should Christians support someone like Rudi Giuliani?" Greg spent the whole show answering that question in the affirmative, stipulating only that his answer applies if two candidates in the running are Rudi and a Democrat candidate like Hillary Clinton. Bob characterized Greg's position as moral relativism. * Bob's Notes Against Christian Support for Giuliani: Christians should not support mass murderers. Rudi Giuliani is a mass murderer who as a governing official and candidate promotes child killing through public hospitals, tax funding, police enforcement, etc. Moral relativist Christians would oppose a candidate who was caught embezzling funds (not because it violates God's command, Do not steal, but because it is politically-incorrect). And while they'd not support a Republican caught embezzling, they support Republican candidates who brag of their support for killing children. The Gospels mention a pragmatic political party, the Herodians, the religious leaders who allied themselves with Herod Antipas, thinking that the Herodian dynasty was the lesser evil (than any alternative allegiance, with a choice between Herod or Christ, they would choose Herod), thinking the Herods were the best the Jewish worshippers could pragmatically expect in their hopes of attaining to their kingdom on Earth. (I have this understanding of the Herodians from my recollection of reading, way back in the 1970s, Alfred Edershiem's Life & Times of Jesus the Messiah, a classic written in the 1800s.) Like Rudi Giuliani, Herod was personally sexually immoral and murderous. Greg Koukl's moral relativism would defend supporting Herod. But John the Baptist, instead of joining the Herodians, rebuked Herod, and for his courage, this wicked ruler beheaded the man whom Jesus described as the greatest born to women (Mat. 11:11). But how would Jesus describe Koukl? Greg's moral relativism might have led him to campaign for Herod (as he does for Giuliani), and instead of persecution, Herod might have hired Koukl as an apologist for his murderous reign and his hopes for the continued support of Ceasar after Antipas built Tiberias (Koukl: yes, Herod murdered John the Baptist, but I would still campaign for him to rule). Greg Koukl is imitating the pragmatic religious leaders, the Herodians. Mat 22:16, 18 ...the Herodians, [said], "Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth [lip service]... But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?" [also at Mark 12:13] Mark 3:5-6   [Jesus saw] the hardness of their hearts, [and] the Herodians [plotted] against Him, how they might destroy Him. "You shall not murder" (Rom. 13:9) "Do not kill the innocent" (Exodus 23:7) Romans 3:8 mentions "do[ing] evil that good may come of it" (Romans 3:8), Paul considered it slander to be accused of something Christians now embrace, doing evil, that good may come of it. "we must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29) Giuliani is not only radically pro-abortion, but for years even supported the especially horrific partial-birth abortion. Giuliani is radically pro-homosexual, and would ban all handguns. New York Daily News, March 8, 2004  Rudy Giuliani came out yesterday against President Bush's call for a ban on gay marriage. ... "I certainly wouldn't support [a ban] at this time," added Giuliani, who lived with a gay Manhattan couple when he moved out of Gracie Mansion during his nasty divorce. Secular humanists who support Giuliani: Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, etc. Publicans: tax collectors, public building contractors, and military suppliers. The New Testament condemns the publicans, so Christians now sell their souls for the Re-publicans. The theme of much of the Old Testament, from the books of Moses, through Joshua & Judges, through the prophets, is that God's people did not trust Him, nor obey Him, not with national politics, and instead made alliances with wicked leaders, and so God abandoned them to their own destruction. * Comments at TruthTalkLive.com: Carl: where does Koukl draw the line? ... at 100,000,000? What line must be crossed that will turn Christians from supporting wickedness and back to God? Dave: Koukl thinks that Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito would fight for the Personhood of a child. I guess he did not read the Supreme Court decision of Gonzales v. Carhart. John quotes Reagan: "Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." Gus B: Mr. Koukl says Giuliani will appoint justices like Thomas and Scalia. Pastor Enyart points out these two do not believe in personhood... to which Koukl says, "Pro-Life Justices are not relevant to this topic." Andrew: To support the better of two murderers is relative. ... Webster should post your photograph next to "moral relativist." * Give your opinion at TruthTalkLive.com. * Koukl on Foster Care: The socialist foster care system of the government being intimately involved in the funding and raising of children should be abolished. Sadly, in Greg Koukl's ten-minute call beginning at 9:20 about homosexuality and foster care, he never gets around to condemning either and instead makes destructive comments such as, "some same sex couples are fabulous" and misleads on a terrible aspect of socialism by saying at 15:05 that "in the foster care system there are many saints." Today's Resource: Have you seen the Government Department at our KGOV Store? You can view BOTH of our powerhouse Focus on the Strategy DVDs for only $22.99! Also, we are featuring Bruce Shortt's vitally-important book, The Harsh Truth about Public Schools. And also, check out the classic God's Criminal Justice System seminar, God and the Death Penalty, Bob on Drugs and the Live from Las Vegas DVDs! * Correction: I need to clarify a comment I made debating Greg Koukl. I unintentionally exaggerated when I stated that Hillary supported the PBA ban. I was taking this position from the years of public position the Clinton administration maintained regarding the PBA ban. When Hillary and Bill came to Colorado in 1999 and spoke as a couple to Columbine parents, Brian Rohrbough told Bill, "Mr. President, when you vetoed the PBA ban, you became responsible for murder far more violent than what happened to our children." Clinton replied, with Hillary at his side, that he would have signed the bill, but it did not have an exception for the life of the mother. To the extent that they were a two-for-one deal in the White House, I had always assumed that was her position also: willing to support the law, as long as it had exceptions (like many "pro-life" Republicans). At any rate, it was wrong to say outright that Hillary supported the ban. I should have clarified, and in the intensity of the debate, I did not realize that I had mistated her position. Also, I kept wanting to talk about Rudy's pro-abortion actions as NYC mayor, but never got that in. And finally on this, since the 1990s, we have had an Errata link on our homepage and on every page at kgov.com (just scroll down to see it) And I've also posted this correction at Stu Epperson's TruthTalkLive blog. Thanks! -Bob Enyart * Dec. 21, 2015 Update: Bob Enyart posted the following to STR... Hi STR! Dr. Richard Holland of Liberty University wrote "God, Time and the Incarnation" surveying the leading Christian theologians on this topic and concluded that specifically with respect to the Incarnation the church has never openly defended its claim that God is utterly unchangeable. In my debate with theologian Dr. James White I took that insight and five times asked him about whether God the Son took upon Himself a human nature. (There's a 2-min YouTube showing those excerpts.) So far beyond the old/new covenant issue, reaching right into the heart of the Trinity, God the Son became a Man. God is unchanging in His fierce commitment to righteousness (i.e., His holiness), but because He is the Living God, He changes in immeasurable ways, including when the Son became the Son of Man. * For Bob's Many Other Fun and Educational Debates: See kgov.com/debates for our creation/evolution sparring with Lawrence Krauss, Eugenie Scott, AronRa, Michael Shermer (and spats with Jack Horner, PZ Myers, Phil Plait, & Jerry Coyne), and our exposing the liberal in the conservative with Ann Coulter, Dan Caplis, Greg Koukl (of course), Tom Tancredo, AFA's Bryan Fischer, AUL's Paul Linton, CWA's Robert Knight, National RTL's Board, NRTL's Political Director, Focus on the Family's Washington State Affiliate; and exposing the wickedness in the liberal with Barry Lynn and libertarian candidates; and opposing the national sales tax with Ken Hoagland and Neal Boortz; and debating sexual immorality with homosexual activists Wayne Besen and Gregory Flood; and defending the death penalty on Court TV; and theology with a Seventh Day Adventist, drinking alcohol with a Church of Christ minister; and whether or not God is inexhaustibly and eternally creative with Dr. James White, and King James Onlyism with one of their leading advocates; and finally, abortion with Ilana Goldman, Peggy Loonan, and Boulder, Colorado's infamous late-term abortionist Warren Hern.  

Just as the Herods couldn't deter the mission of Jesus, they couldn't put an end to His Great Commission. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/581/29

Why does it seem like Herod is dead one moment and alive the next? It's because there's more than one Herod who lived and reigned during the time of Jesus. Jonathan and Heather help you get to know who's who among all the Herod's you see in Scripture. Join us at www.firstcenturyyouthministry.comBecome part of our growing Facebook community Join our "closed" group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/firstcenturyouthministryLike our fan page! https://www.facebook.com/FirstCenturyYouthMin

In this week's episode, Fran and Yadi talk about all the Herods of the Bible.  Follow & Connect with the Misfits

The name Herod is mentioned nearly 50 times in the New Testament, but Scripture is not speaking of just one man.There are five different rulers named Herod referred to in Scripture: Herod the Great, his sons Herod Archelaus and Herod Antipas, and his grandsons Herod Agrippa I and Herod Agrippa II. (Herod Philip would make six, though he is mentioned simply as Phillip).On this episode, we explore the five different Herods mentioned in the New Testament, including their historical context, where they show up in Scripture, and how they are important to understanding New Testament times. For more on this topic, visit ReasonableTheology.org/HerodIf you enjoy the Reasonable Theology Podcast go to ReasonableTheology.org/Subscribe and get the weekly email, which includes the latest article or podcast episode, a helpful theological definition, a painting depicting a scene from Scripture or church history, a musical selection to enrich your day, and the best book deal I've found that week to build your library.Support the showGET THE NEWSLETTEREach edition of the Reasonable Theology newsletter contains my latest article or podcast episode PLUS: A Theological Word or Phrase Explained Quickly and Clearly A Painting Depicting a Scene from Scripture or Church History Audio of a Hymn or other Musical Selection to Enjoy A Recommended Book or Resource to Expand Your Library SUBSCRIBE HERE

In this episode Kerry and Lamar help you understand who all the Herods are that are mentioned in the New Testament. They also help us understand the miracle of feeding the 5000 and how that leads to the story of Peter walking on water. They explore the meaning behind that, and how it leads to the Bread of Life Sermon, and how that leads to one of Christ's most powerful questions and Peter's powerful answer. In this episode they mention the website scriptures.byu.edu/mapscripWe are grateful for our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and for our editor, Alexia Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composes and plays the music for the podcast.

Just how many Herods threatened the life of Jesus? Dr. Jason Combs explores the many Herods, their effect on Jesus and especially on the life, and death of John the Baptist and the call to sacrifice for the Savior.00:00 Part 1–Dr. Jason Combs00:56 Introduction of Dr. Jason Combs04:19 How the Gospels relate to one another as testimonies07:18 Mark 6 and Jesus is the carpenter's son09:46 John the Baptist was killed15:34 Josephus's account of John the Baptist's death17:44 Mark and intercalation–Markan sandwich21:47 President Faust story about Rafael Monroy and Vincente Morales24:12 Jesus departed by ship after hearing of John's death26:47 Feeding of the 5000, Moses and Jesus's name in Hebrew32:43 Additional details remind us of Exodus and Jesus as a New Moses36:58 Messianic Banquet and the Essenes42:00 Gentile vs. servant leadership43:16 Jesus walks on the water47:41 Commandment to be of “good cheer”49:57 Matthew emphasizes they know who Jesus is52:50 Mark shows Jesus's divinity in subtle epiphanies55:17 Beliefs about ghosts in the First Century58:20 Matthew teaches us how Jesus is tutoring Peter1:00:26 Jesus and Peter walk on the water1:08:15 End of Part 1–Dr. Jason CombsShow Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.coFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

This week we hear from Minister Mark about the different Herods we see throughout Jesus' lifetime.

Here it is, Season 3, kicking off a new series on Between the Testaments! Have you ever paused and asked: what happened during the time between the end of Old Testament writings, but before the Gospels? During this era known as the Intertestamental period, many fascinating and important events transpired. Part of this story begins with the Hasmonean Dynasty, which finds its eventual culmination in the rule and reign of Herod (and the "other" Herods that come later). In this episode Heather introduces this new series with a brief historical overview of the time of the Hasmoneans, and what led into the time of the Hellenization of the ancient world, and how much pressure the Jewish people were under to conform to the Greek way of life. Join us at www.firstcenturyyouthministry.comBecome part of our growing Facebook community Join our "closed" group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/firstcenturyouthministryLike our fan page! https://www.facebook.com/FirstCenturyYouthMin

Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. Mark 6:20Ideally, when the Gospel is preached and received by another, the effect is that the receiver is filled with joy, consolation and a desire to change. The Gospel is transforming for those who truly listen and respond with generosity. But what about those who do not respond with generosity? What effect does the Gospel have upon them? Our Gospel today gives us that answer.The line above comes from the story of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist. The bad actors in this story are Herod, Herod's illegitimate wife Herodias, and Herodias' daughter (traditionally named Salome). John had been imprisoned by Herod because John told Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” But what's most interesting about this story is that, even in prison, Herod would listen to John preach. But instead of leading Herod to conversion, he was left “perplexed” by what John preached.Being “perplexed” was not the only reaction to John's preaching. Herodias' reaction was one of hatred. She appeared to be stung to the heart by John's condemnation of her “marriage” to Herod, and it was she who then orchestrated John's beheading.This Gospel, then, teaches us of two other common reactions to the Truth of the holy Gospel when it is preached. One is hatred and another is confusion (being perplexed). Obviously, hatred is far worse than simply being perplexed. But neither is the right reaction to the words of Truth.What is your reaction to the full Gospel when it is preached? Are there aspects of the Gospel that leave you uneasy? Are there teachings of our Lord that confuse you or lead you to anger? First look within your own heart to determine if you struggle with having a similar reaction as did Herod and Herodias. And then consider how the world reacts to the Truth of the Gospel. We should not be surprised at all that we find many Herods and Herodiases alive today.Reflect, today, upon any ways that you see the Gospel being rejected on one level or another. If you sense this within your own heart, then repent with all your might. If you see it elsewhere, do not allow the hostility to shake you or concern you. Keep your mind and heart upon the Truth and remain steadfast no matter the reaction you encounter.My Lord of all Truth, Your Word and Your Word alone brings grace and salvation. Please give me the grace I need to always listen to Your Word and to respond generously with all my heart. May I repent when I am convicted by Your Word and may I wholeheartedly return to You. Give me courage when others reject Your Truth and wisdom to know how to share that Word with love. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2023 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.