“For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.” (Mr 6:20 AV)
Apparently not enough to keep him from chopping his head off! Herod married his brother Philip’s wife. They had a daughter together. Her name was Herodias. John the Baptist confronted Herod and his wife about it. This is why Herod’s wife wanted him dead. Herod, however, didn’t. According to the above passage, it seemed as though Herod enjoyed John’s preaching, even if directed at him. To a normal person, none of this makes any sense. If Herod was living in unconfessed sin, and he was on the business end of John’s preaching, it would be normal for Herod to avoid John. Rather, Herod kept him locked up like a caged animal, retrieving him whenever he wanted to hear preaching. Talk about disassociation. This man was so removed from his conscience that he could enjoy convicting preaching without so much as a smattering of guilt. This reminds me of some I have known. It takes an extreme kind of seared conscience to be such a person.
Many years ago, I taught High School Bible. In that class, I had two young men who didn’t care about a thing. They were a constant disruption to my class. They refused to do the work. They would not engage in class discussion. They never studied or did the homework. Time and again, they were corrected. Time and again they were rebuked. Their parents never came to parent-teacher night so support from home was non-existent. Many trips to the principle’s office didn’t help, either. Engaging with the rest of the class didn’t seem to help. They simply didn’t care. All they cared about was trying to catch me in my words. All they wanted to do was debate. I eventually came up with a plan that directly addressed the behavior of these two. Bad behavior demoted their final grade. Good behavior improved it. I went so far as to incentivize by way of making the mid-terms and finals harder or easier depending on schoolwork and behavior. This matter not to these two. They eventually flunked my class. It never phased them. Not one bit. No matter what happened, they were not interested in life-changing truth. All they wanted was to be entertained by the word of God.
I’d like to think that God’s people would never be like this. However, I have sat under preaching and been the preach for far too long to know we can be a bit like this. There may be several reasons why. Mostly our doing. We are simply not prepared to repent. We like our sin a bit too much. We are not ready to give it up. So, we sit under preaching and teaching that convicts the heart. Rather than respond, we quench the Spirit. We frustrate His work. We enjoy the good preaching, yet put aside that portion directly applicable to our situation. There could be other reasons. Back in the day, we would sit in sermon after sermon of nothing but condemnation. After a while, the saint can be a bit calloused. We can tune out the preaching we don’t like. We accept what we do like. This causes selective repentance. Other reasons are sure to come to mind, but the bigger picture is sensitivity to the truth of God’s word. Whatever our reasons might be, it is wrong. The word of God is not a source of entertainment. It is not a curiosity. The word of God is not a puzzle book designed to keep our mind engaged. It is a living book. It is the book that will bring repentance from sin. It is the only book that can transform lives. Searing the conscience to only accept that which pleases the ear means we eventually kill the prophet.
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