Matthew XIV

1. At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus,

2. And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.

3. For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife.

4. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her.

5. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet.

6. But when Herod’s birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod.

7. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask.

8. And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger.

9. And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath’s sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her.

10. And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison.

11. And his head was brought in a charger, and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother.

12. And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus.

13. When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by a ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities.

Man may be slain, but truth cannot be annihilated. John was buried, but the Gospel was still making way in the world. It has been thought that Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great) was a Sadducee, and that this exclamation respecting Jesus testified in a remarkable manner to the power of conscience in relation to theological belief. The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead; yet conscience rebelled against the theory, and forced the superstitious tetrarch into this confession. Whether it be true or not that Herod was a Sadducee, it is certainly true that the moral nature does, on great occasions, clear its way through all fanciful theories and speculations, and become authoritative as the voice of

God in the soul. Man overlays his spiritual constitution, so to speak, with creeds which flatter his vanity and give false peace to his conscience; but crises supervene which affect a moral resurrection, and give man to feel the discrepancy between the wants of his nature and the promises of false creeds. There is a great quickening and educational force in the exceptional circumstances of life. Crises make history. Man cannot tell what he is until some special event makes his soul quake with fear, or brings upon him the light of a great joy. As with individuals, so with nations; monotony would kill them; all enthusiasm would die out, and corruption would become universal. God has so arranged His government that monotony is broken up by startling events, — the thunderbolt, the pestilence, the mildew, come suddenly upon us, — death teaches life, and the grave calls to heaven. In all great crises, both in individual and national life, there is an instinctive movement of the soul towards God. The temporary creed is subordinated to the normal constitution; and it is most solemn to watch the soul in its resurrectional moods how impatient it is of mere speculation, and how anxious for positive doctrine and assurance. It then lives double life; with frightful energy it clears the field of false friends, and with startling rapidity passes over the chasms of the past and brings up all the sins which have weakened and deformed itself. When Herod heard of the fame of Jesus a species of resurrection occurred. The night of bacchanalian revel came back; the holy prophet’s blood dripped upon the palace floor again; and the soul said, This Jesus is the man whom I murdered! There is, so to speak, a moral memory as well as a memory that is merely intellectual. Conscience writes in blood. She may brood in long silence, but she cannot forget. All the universe helps her recollection. Every leaf of the forest contains her indictments, and every voice of the air prompts her remembrance. The revel

m 2 passed, the dancing demon-hearted daughter of Herodias went back to her blood-thirsty mother, the lights were extinguished, and the palace relapsed into its accustomed order; but the prophet’s blood cried with a cry not to be stifled, and angels with swords of fire watched the tetrarch night and day. All men are watched. The sheltering wing of the unseen angel is close to every one of us. The eye sees but an infinitesimal portion of what is around, — we are hemmed in with God! This great truth we forget; but exceptional circumstances transpire which for a moment rend the veil, and give us to see how public is our most secret life, how the angels hear the throb of the heart, and God counts the thoughts of the mind.

In this paragraph we have glimpses of three men and two women. The men are Herod, John, and Jesus; the women are Herodias and her daughter. The special characteristics of all are indicated very concisely but very vividly.

Take Herod: 1. Here is abused power. Government is of God, but not bad government. 2. Here is a time-serving policy. In the first instance Herod “feared the people,” and in the next he killed John because his courtiers, who hated the prophet, where round about him when the daughter of Herodias asked for the Baptist’s head. All bad men “fear the people.” No one man in the crowd was so mighty as Herod; but the crowd, as a whole, held him in subjection. Even kings cannot afford to ignore public sentiment, — it is a law which makes all outward laws, and only as outward laws shape themselves to the educated sentiment of the age are they likely to be useful or permanent. The people when taken in detail may be insignificant, but when taken in combination, they are as the sand-built shore which shuts in the billows of the great deep. 3. Here is a perverted conscientiousness, — “nevertheless for the oath’s sake.” Conscience founded on vanity is a false monitor; conscience founded on reason is a light from heaven. Men often blunder when talking of conscience. Some men confound the subtle interplay of honour and courtesy with moral instincts, and serve the published conventional creed rather than the directions of unsophisticated nature. Herod sacrificed conscience to courtesy; he immolated Right on the altar of Pride. No man has a right to swear to another man’s hurt. God never delegates the proprietorship of human life. John the Baptist was God’s property, not Herod’s; and Herod sinned in overlooking this fundamental truth. Every man is bound to recall foolish, false, impracticable, or unwarranted words and oaths. It is not his conscience that will be injured, but his pride will be wounded, and his selfish vanity will be cut up by the roots. Conscience is not a flower to be planted on its own grave. Conscience was violated in the promise; the “oath” itself was the crime; and no cure could be applied but to the error itself, as Herod had committed it.

So much for Herod; now look at John the Baptist. 1. Here is injured innocence. The prophet of God in prison; the prophet of the devil on the throne! This is among the paradoxes which make up the mystery of Providence. God is not to be judged by isolated acts. Providence is a system. The light makes the shade. 2. Here is moral courage. John was in prison because he had condemned Antipas for marrying the wife of his half-brother, Herod Philippas. Princes must be reproved by prophets. The religious element should dominate in society. Godly men should make their influence felt in all movements; for “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net which gathered of every kind.” Many men lecture the poor, but who will rebuke the rich? The prophet of the Lord has a right everywhere, specially where the devil is spreading his snares or rioting in the destruction of man. True godliness holds in reverence all social rights.

It holds the marriage bond to be sacred. It smites the wicked king; it comforts the dishonoured husband. All reforms are partial that do not begin with the moral nature. When man is harmonised with God, society will move with ease towards its great destiny, developing ever-increasing power and ever-heightening dignity. 4. Here is temporary defeat. John was beheaded; the royal murderer was triumphant. So much for to-day; but to-morrow will come! Turn now from John, and look at Christ. John’s disciples went and told Jesus. How plaintive and touching the scene! Jesus, the hearer of all human woe. Picture Him in a listening attitude, hearkening to the long sad wail of misery, — the cry never ceases, the listener is never released! Do we not need such a listener, and does not the fact of His existence suggest the Divinity of His person? When Jesus heard the saddening narrative “he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart.” Jesus turning away from the haunts of wicked men. He wanted rest after hearing such a story. There are recitals which make a heavy drain on one’s very life. They make us faint and weary, as if we had undergone a personal affliction. There is something profoundly suggestive in this keen susceptibility on the part of Christ. Who shall say what tears of blood He shed in the “desert place apart?” The good man is sickened every day by some sight of wickedness; and as he is like Christ in spiritual sensitiveness, he will live a martyr’s life. The sight of wantonness, oppression, misery, is such as to make one seek “a desert place apart,” — it sends a shock of disappointment on the soul as if all labour were vain, as if heaven itself were weak in contest with hell. This going away is solemnly prefigurative of Christ ’s final withdrawment from His mediatorial work. There is a point at which He will leave wicked men to themselves. He will take from them all the good, and in mutual hatred they will spend the ages that have no end.

Christ shows that the fate of good men should be interesting to Christians. Great spaces are left vacant when good men die. The young should be fired with holy ambition to take up the positions of those who have ascended to heaven.

Look to Herodias and her daughter, i. A bad mother; 2. A child willing to follow bad instructions. Is there a more terrible designation known in all the language of men than a bad mother? Here is wickedness at the very roots of society, or poison at the very fountain-head of life. The lesson to be learned from this womanly hatred of the Baptist is the tendency of hatred in the direction of murder. People often hate those who expose and rebuke their sins. There is nothing out of hell so virulent as the hatred of a woman. It never rests; nothing can appease its thirst but the hot blood of its victim. As woman on one side is nearest God, on the other she is nearest the devil. There is no love like hers, there is no hatred like hers. If she cannot operate directly, she will work indirectly. She will not hesitate to make her own child an instrument of hell. A mother putting murderous desires into her daughter’s heart! — to such lengths will hatred drive all who submit to its malignant rule.

The incident is fruitful of suggestion as to life generally. 1. Bad men may have great power. 2. The season of intoxication, the season of temptation. 3. Reason extinguished by voluptuousness. 4. Opportunities to wreak their vengeance will always occur to those who are watching for them. 5. Great faith has great trials. 6. The most honoured men put to the greatest extremities, — “among men that are born of women there hath not appeared a greater than John the Baptist.” 7. The man who preached the baptism of water, sealing his testimony with the baptism of blood. 8. This closing of a dispensation with the blood of a martyr, a very fitting introduction to a dispensation which was to be closed with the blood of a Saviour. Thus one dispensation is graduated into another, the cry of the old prophets is taken up by the voice of John, and the blood of martyrdom is carried into the deep meaning of the blood of sacrifice: the old prophetic mantle has its counterpart in the leathern girdle, the block is elevated into the Cross; savage hearts gloat over the blood of the martyr, guilty hearts will find purity in the blood of the Redeemer. Thus the dispensations are graduated, — all the purposes of God are carried forward to the climacteric point, “the Lamb slain” seated in the midst of the throne.

14. And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Though Christ had upon receiving intelligence of John’s murder, retired into “a desert place apart,” as if sickened with the signs of depravity which were thickening around Him, yet His Divine philanthropy overcame the momentary depression, and impelled Him once more to mingle with the society which needed Him so much. The 13th and 14th verses represent the two aspects of Philanthropic Life; the aspect that is shadowed with failure, shocked by a terrible disappointment, and almost darkened into despair; and on the other hand the aspect which attests the immortality of love, the all-enduring patience of a great purpose. These verses supply the basis of a discourse upon The Retreating and the Re-appearing Christ. 1. The circumstances under which He retreats, — unbelief; misapprehension; ingratitude; disappointment; &c. 2. The circumstances under which Here-appears, — human sin; necessity; misery; penitence; helplessness; &c. Conceive the pictures, — Christ going, and Christ coming! Have not all philanthropists passed, according to their degrees, the very experience related in these verses?

Imagine the result if Christ had not re-appeared! Think of society being governed by such men as Herod, &c. Under

Herodic government three results would obtain: i. Free speech would be stifled; 2. The holiest social obligations would be dishonoured; 3. Good men who speak the word of a pure and happy future would be silenced or murdered.

15. And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.

16. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart: give ye them to eat.

17. And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.

18. He said, Bring them hither to me.

19. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

20. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

21. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

Here we have a special exemplification of the philanthropic spirit of Christ. In Christ, philanthropy was not a sentiment but a controlling power, not a dream but a fact. Some of the more striking suggestions of this paragraph are these: 1. Two different methods of dealing with social problems, — “send the multitude away;” that is one method, — “give ye them to eat;” that is another. We often have the remedy at hand while we fruitlessly seek it afar off. No man knows the range of his resources. This applies to mind, money, influence, — to all the aspects of life. A man’s resources, looked at from the outside, may be as a grain of mustard seed; but planted, used, put into right conditions, &c. The disciples took an insufficient view of their resources, — taking the account from the various evangelists, they said, “We have five loaves, we have but five loaves, we have but five barley loaves; we have but two fishes, we have but two small fishes.” Lower and lower they sink in their representation of their resources, — a picture of men who have no faith. The life that is in a man multiplies the resources that are outside. 2. The entire fulness of Christ in relation to all human need. He said, “Bring them hither to me.” Christ cared for the bodies of men; and His religion can never be unmindful of social, secular, commercial, and physical questions. The whole man came originally from God, and to the end of time the whole man must be profoundly interesting to God. All our resources must be taken to Christ if we would make them truly availing to the necessities of men. We hardly yet understand Christ’s relation to material questions. “Let the people praise thee... Then shall the earth yield her increase.” Man loses no bread by praying over it. The principle may be extended — no life spent in true devotion is wasted. If Christ “looked up to heaven” while using the things of earth, shall we use the things of earth as though there were no heaven? 3. The compatibility of carefulness with the greatest bounty, — “They took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.” God will not suffer loss. He makes use of every sunbeam now that fell upon the first morning of time, and the dew which glittered in Eden sparkles in the rainbow of to-day. God is the most exacting of economists.

Among the miscellaneous remarks suggested by this paragraph may be named: — 1. Christ’s power in all the wildernesses of time. 2. The impossibility of loneliness or want in fellowship with Christ. 3. The union of religious exercises with daily engagements. 4. The Giver of earthly bread is also the Giver of heavenly bread. 5. The man who is prepared to give himself is prepared to give all lower property.

There need not be any difficulty in receiving this statement. If a man will closely examine himself he will find that in his own life there have been interpositions and deliverances, unexpected and thrilling manifestations of bounty which verify this narrative, and show that in every life the miraculous element is most positive and influential.

22. And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

23. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come he was there alone.

Christ’s power over men, — He sent away the disciples and He sent away the multitude. There is something mournful about this idea of Christ “sending away,” — every step from Christ is a step into darkness. In this case Christ wishes not merely to check the enthusiasm which the idea of a temporal kingdom excited, but to renew His strength in devout retirement. The 23rd verse shows: — 1. That the holiest life requires periods of prayerful repose. 2. That the busiest life can secure such periods if so determined. That the shortest life can spare such periods, and in sparing them increase its faculty and range of usefulness. Or thus: — i. Christ’s example refutes the sophism that special seasons of communion with God are not required by good men; 2. Christ’s example shows that devout and reflective exercises are only part of the Christian life. Jesus came back again; He built no tabernacle on the mountain; He went only as a man might go to fetch water from a pure stream. Taking the miracle and the retirement together, a discourse might be founded on the reciprocal action of service and contemplation in the Christian life.

24. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.

25. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

26. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

27. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

The ship had been driven from the shore where it was to have waited for Christ, so that when He came down from the mountain He had to walk upon the sea in order to join the disciples. This appears to be the most sensible suggestion yet offered upon the incident by many of the best expositors. The suggestion is important as showing that Christ never performed a miracle merely for the sake of performing it; the power was always associated with a purpose. By a slight accommodation, the incident may yield several points of remark: — I. The winds which baffle the servants cannot baffle the master (apply this to all the circumstances of human life). 2. An absent Christ always means a present storm. 3. A returning Christ always means a returning peace. Or the incident may be thrown into this homiletic form. 1. In doing their duty men may be exposed to storms (Christ bade the disciples go); 2. Storms which come in the course of duty are not to be regarded as tokens of Divine displeasure; 3. Jesus Christ never allows any storm to separate Him from His Church. By another accommodation the incident may be taken as the basis of a discourse upon mistaken interpretations of Divine Providence. 1. The disciples evidently thought that Christ could not walk on the sea. 2. Circumstances often obscure the Divine presence — night, storm, perplexity, &c. 3. Results do not turn upon human interpretations, but upon Divine purposes, — men may mistake God for a phantasm, but He is God still! 4. The weakness of human faith is not always punished by a withdrawment of the Divine favour; Jesus announced Himself; He knows what human nature is, and how to meet its moods of doubt, and its poverty of faith and hope. The incident might be further used to show the influence of Christ’s presence upon a troubled life: — 1. That presence dispels fear. 2. That presence inspires joy. 3. That presence secures safety. In the history of war we often read of the effect of one man’s presence, or one man’s courage; all such instances feebly represent the effect of Christ’s presence in the Church.

28. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

29. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

30. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

31. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

32. And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

33. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.

I. Peter’s action shows: — 1. The worthlessness of a faith that is merely impulsive. 2. The worthlessness of a faith that looks to circumstances rather than to Christ — He saw the wind boisterous! 3. The worth of a faith that looks to Christ rather than to circumstances — Jesus saved him.

II. Christ’s action shows: — 1. His perfect power over nature. 2. His benevolence under the most extreme conditions of human weakness. His constancy to great principles; He ever set Faith against Doubt.

III. The disciples’ action shows: — 1. The tendency of men to believe in power. 2. The tendency of men specially to believe in power that preserves. 3. The tendency of men to worship the power that has saved their lives.

Application: — 1. We are all in storms. 2. We may all mistake presumption for faith. 3. If salvation be the basis of worship, what homage will be rendered to Christ by a rescued world!

34. And when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret.

35. And when the men of that place had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased;

36. And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.

Christ wanted on the land as well as on the sea. Every place has its own history of sin and woe; so has every family; so has every man. Christ equal to all the calls made upon Him. He who prays on the mountain may save on the sea; He who saves on the sea may heal in the city. Christ’s was not a local power or a special skill; His energy was universal as the light or air. i. The blessed privilege of having an opportuity of being healed by Christ. 2. The tremendous responsibility of neglecting that privilege.