p. 762 | The Commentary

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 48.

The Commentary.

NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.

HEROD AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

MULTITUDES had flocked to the wilderness to hear the words of the wonderful prophet. He had laid the ax at the root of the tree. He had reproved sin, fearless of the consequences, and prepared the way for the ministry of Christ. Herod was affected as he listened to the pointed testimony of John, and with deep interest he inquired what he must do to become his disciple. He was convicted by the plain truths uttered by John. His conscience condemned him, for a woman of vile passions had gained his affections and controlled his mind. This unprincipled woman was ambitious for power and authority, and thought if she became the wife of Herod her object would be gained. As Herod listened to the practical truths proclaimed by John, reproving the transgression of the law of God, and setting forth the future punishment which the guilty must suffer, he trembled, and greatly desired to break the chain of lust which held him. He opened his mind to John, who brought Herod to the law of God face to face, and told him it would be impossible for him to have part in the kingdom of the Messiah unless he should break away from the unlawful connections with his brother's wife, and with his whole heart obey the commandments of God.

HEROD was inclined to act upon the advice of John, and stated to Herodias that he could not marry her in defiance of the law of God. But this determined woman would not be thwarted in her designs. Intense hatred was awakened in her heart toward John. Herod was weak in principle, vacillating in mind, and Herodias had no great difficulty in re-establishing herself in his favor, and holding her influence over him. Herod yielded to the pleasures of sin, rather than submit to the restrictions of the law of God.

WHEN Herodias had gained influence over Herod, she determined to be revenged upon the prophet for his daring to reprove their course of crime, and she influenced him to imprison John. Herod intended to release him, but his purpose was delayed from time to time through fear of displeasing Herodias, who was determined he should be put to death. While he was delaying, she was active, planning how to be revenged in the most effectual manner on the prophet, because he had ventured to tell the truth, and reprove their unlawful life. She knew that although Herod kept John in prison, he designed to release him, for he honored and feared him, and believed that he was a true prophet of God. John had made known to Herod the secrets of his heart and life, and his reproofs had struck terror to the guilty conscience of the king.

IN many things Herod had reformed his dissolute life. But the use of luxurious food and stimulating drink was constantly enervating his moral as well as physical powers, and warring against the earnest appeals of the Spirit of God, which had struck conviction to his heart, and was urging him to put away his sins. Herodias was acquainted with the weak points in the character of Herod. She knew that under ordinary circumstances, while his intelligence controlled him, she could not compass the death of John.

SHE had tried, but unsuccessfully, to gain the consent of Herod to have John slain. Her revengeful spirit was now at work to accomplish her inhuman design by strategy. She knew that the only way to accomplish her purpose would be through the gratification of the king's intemperate appetite. So she covered her hatred as best she could, looking forward to the royal birthday, which she knew would be an occasion of gluttony and intoxication. The king's love of luxurious food and wine would give her an opportunity to throw him off his guard. She would entice him to indulge his appetite, which would arouse passions of the baser order, subvert the finer sensibilities, produce a recklessness of consequences, and an inability to exercise his proper judgment and decision.

SHE was acquainted with the effect of these carnivals upon the intellect and morals. She knew that the unnatural exhilaration of the spirits induced by intemperance lowers the moral standard of the mind, making it impossible for holy impulses to enter the heart and govern the excited passions; that festivities and amusements, dances, and free use of wine cloud the senses, and remove the fear of God; therefore she prepared everything to flatter his pride and vanity, and indulge his passions. She made the most costly preparations for feasting, and voluptuous dissipation.

WHEN the great day arrived, and the king with his lords was feasting and drinking in the banqueting hall, Herodias sent her daughter, dressed in a most enchanting manner, into the royal presence. Salome was decorated with costly garlands and flowers, sparkling jewels and flashing bracelets. With little covering and less modesty, she danced for the

amusement of the royal guests. To their perverted senses she seemed a vision of beauty and loveliness, and charmed away the last remnants of self-respect and propriety. Instead of being governed by enlightened reason, refined taste, and sensitive conscience, the baser qualities of the mind held the guiding reins. Virtue and principle had no controlling power.

THE mind of Herod was in a whirl. His faculties were confused, judgment and reverence were dethroned. He saw only the hall of pleasure, with his reveling guests, the banquet table, sparkling wine and flashing lights, and the young girl in her voluptuous beauty dancing before him. In the recklessness of the moment he was desirous to make some display which would exalt him still higher before the great men of his kingdom; and he rashly promised, and confirmed his promise with an oath, to give the daughter of Herodias whatever she might ask.

THE object for which she had been sent into the royal presence was now gained. Having obtained so wonderful a promise, she ran to her mother desiring to know what she should ask. The mother's answer was ready—the head of John the Baptist in a charger, Salome was shocked. She did not understand the hidden revenge in her mother's heart, and at first refused to present such an inhuman request; but the determination of the wicked mother prevailed. Moreover, she bade her daughter make no delay, but hasten to prefer her request before Herod would have time for reflection. Accordingly Salome returned to Herod with her terrible petition: "I will that thou give me, by and by, in a charger, the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her."

HEROD was astonished and confounded. The riotous mirth ceased, for his guests were thrilled with horror at this inhuman request. An ominous silence settled down upon the scene of revelry. The king, though drunken and confused, endeavored to summon reason to his aid.

HE had been exalted for constancy and superior judgment, and he did not wish to appear fickle or rash in character. The oath had been made in honor of his guests, and had one of them offered a word of remonstrance against the fulfillment of his promise, he would gladly have saved the life of John. He gave them opportunity to speak in the prisoner's behalf. They had traveled long distances to the mountains in the wilderness to listen to his powerful discourses, and they knew he was a man without crime, and a prophet of God. Herod told them if it would not be considered a special mark of dishonor to them, he would not abide by his oath.

BUT though at first they were horror-stricken at the unnatural demand of the girl, they were so far intoxicated that they sat in silent stupor, without reason, reverence, or thought. Though they were invited to release the monarch from his oath, their tongues were dumb. No voice in all that company was raised to save the life of an innocent man, who had never done them harm. Herod, still under the delusion that, in order to maintain his reputation, he must keep an oath made under the influence of intoxication, unless formally released from it, waited in vain for a dissenting voice, but there was none. The life of God's prophet was in the hands of a company of drunken revelers. These men occupied high positions of trust in the nation, and grave responsibilities rested upon them, yet they had gorged themselves with dainty food, and added drunkenness to surfeiting, until their mental powers were enervated by the pleasure of sense, their brains turned with the giddy scene of music and dancing, and conscience lay dormant. By their silence they pronounced the sentence of death upon the anointed of the Lord, to gratify the horrible caprice of a wicked woman.

Too often in these days the most solemn responsibilities rest upon those who, from their intemperate habits, are not in a condition to exercise the calm judgment and keen perceptions of right and wrong with which their Creator endowed them. The guardians of the people, men in authority, upon whose decisions hang the lives of their fellow-creatures, should be subject to severe punishment if found guilty of intemperance. Those who enforce laws should be law-keepers. They should be men of self-government, in full harmony with the laws governing their physical, mental, and moral powers, that they may possess full vigor of intellect and a high sense of justice. In the martyrdom of John we have a result of intemperance among those invested with great authority. This eventful birthday feast should be a lesson of warning to the lovers of pleasure, and an exhortation to Christian temperance.

HEROD waited in vain to be released from his oath, then reluctantly commanded the executioner to take the life of John. The head of the prophet was soon brought in before the king and his guests. Those lips were now forever sealed that had faithfully declared to Herod the reform he must make in his life, when that monarch inquired why he could not be the prophet's disciple. Never more would that voice be heard in trumpet notes calling sinners to repentance. The frivolities and dissipation of a single night had caused the sacrifice of one of the greatest prophets that ever bore a message from God to men.

HERODIAS received the gory head with fiendish satisfaction. She exulted in her revenge, and thought that Herod's conscience would be no more disturbed. But her calculations were greatly in error; no happiness resulted to her through her crime. Her name became notorious and abhorred because of her inhuman act, while the heart of Herod was more oppressed by remorse than it had been by the condemnation of John. And the very act which she imagined would rid the world of the prophet's influence, enshrined him as a holy martyr, not only in the hearts of his disciples, but of those who had not before ventured to stand boldly out as his followers. Many who had heard his message of warning, and had been secretly convinced by his teachings, now, spurred on by horror at his cold-blooded murder, publicly espoused his cause and declared themselves his disciples. Herodias utterly failed to silence the influence of John's teachings; they were to extend down through every generation to the close of time, while her corrupt life and Satanic revenge would reap a harvest of infamy.

AFTER the feast of Herod had ended, and the effects of his intoxication had passed away, reason again resumed her throne, and the king was filled with remorse. His crime was ever before him, and he was constantly seeking to find relief from the stings of a guilty conscience. His faith in John as an honored prophet of God was unshaken. As he reflected upon his life of self-denial, his powerful discourses, his solemn, earnest appeals, his sound judgment as a counselor, and then reflected that he had put him to death, his conscience was fearfully troubled. Engaged in the affairs of the nation, receiving honors from men, he bore a smiling face and dignified mien, while he concealed an anxious, aching heart, and was constantly terrified with fearful forebodings that the curse of God was upon him.

WHEN Herod heard of the wonderful works of Christ in healing the sick, casting out devils, and raising the dead, he was exceedingly troubled and perplexed. His convictions were that God, whom John preached, was indeed present in every place, and that he had witnessed the wild mirth and wicked dissipation in the royal banqueting room, and that his ear had heard his command to the executioner to behead John, that his eye had seen the exultation of Herodias, and the taunting and insult with which she had reproached the severed head of her enemy. And many things which he had heard from the lips of the prophet now spoke to his conscience in louder tones than the preaching in the wilderness. He had heard from John that nothing could be hidden from God, therefore he trembled lest some terrible punishment should be visited upon him for the sin he had committed.

WHEN Herod heard of the words of Christ, he thought that God had resurrected John, and sent him forth with still greater power to condemn sin. He was in constant fear that John would avenge his death by passing condemnation upon him and his house. "And king Herod heard of him [Christ] (for his name was spread abroad); and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him. Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded; he is risen from the dead."

THE Lord followed Herod, as is described in Deuteronomy: "The Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear, day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see."—Mrs. E. G. White, in Great Controversy, Vol. 2.