Haunted by Guilt

Every one of us come into this world with a guilt problem.

The question is, how do we deal with it? We'll say, well, what we did really wasn't a sin. And I can find so many of my friends who have done the same thing. And this is acceptable in our culture.

And we give all these reasons why this behavior is okay. It's not a sin. And so we deal with the guilt by denial. Nobody likes feeling guilty, so we come up with all kinds of ideas and philosophies to make it go away. When we sin, though, we experience feelings of guilt because we're actually guilty. In Luke 9, we read about King Herod experiencing the guilt of putting John the Baptist to death. As we'll discover today, true guilt can only be remedied by one thing. Here's Dr. R.C.

Sproul. In this brief little interlude, Luke describes a man who is haunted by guilt. And well, it was that he should be haunted by guilt, for his guilt was connected to an atrocity that was committed under his rule. Now that we might recall that particular atrocity, I'm going to take a moment, if you will, and read Mark's account of what had gone before this event. In chapter 6, in Mark's Gospel, verse 14, we read as follows. King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him. Others said, no, he's Elijah.

And others, he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard of it, he said, John, whom I beheaded, has been raised. For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death, but she could not, because Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and he heard him gladly. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commandments and the leading men of Galilee. And when Herodias' daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you. And he vowed to her, whatever you ask me, I will give you up to half of my kingdom.

And so she went out and said to her mother, for what should I ask? And she said, the head of John the Baptist. And she came in immediately with haste of the king and said, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. And when John's disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. Now obviously, this is one of the most grisly and macabre stories that we read anywhere in the New Testament.

There's a brief word of background about it. Herod, one of the sons of Herod the Great, was given a quarter of his father's kingdom, thus he was called a tetrarch, and part of that reign was including Galilee. And he had been married to a neighboring king's daughter, and the marriage was arranged chiefly in order to secure a political alliance with this neighboring country, with whom over the centuries Israel had had intermittent bouts of conflict. But in order to bring peace between the two countries, the marriage was arranged between the daughter of the king of one and the king of the other, namely Herod the tetrarch. But after the marriage was arranged, Herod's eye turned away from his wife and toward that of the wife of his brother, whose name was Herodias.

And so he dismissed his wife and illegally and immorally and against the law of God took his brother's wife, Herodias, for his own wife. And when that happened, John the Baptist, who was a prophet, publicly denounced Herod for this immoral action. And Herod, as we're told, was fearful of John the Baptist. He had enormous respect for John the Baptist.

He recognized that John the Baptist was a righteous man and indeed a holy man. But his wife, Herodias, couldn't stand this public humiliation that came at the denunciation of her illicit marriage to Herod that was made by John the Baptist. And so she labored endlessly for her husband to arrest John the Baptist, keep him in custody where he couldn't do them any more harm. If you read the pages of the Old Testament, you can't help but see the parallel between this episode and the way Jezebel constantly was all over her husband Ahab to go after the prophet Elijah because Elijah had spoken against the practices of Ahab and his wicked consort Jezebel. So this is Ahab and Jezebel redo, as it were.

And this ugly chapter in the New Testament takes place. Well, weak as he was, Herod surrendered and acquiesced to the wishes of his wife and placed John under arrest and held him in a cell. And then the occasion came for the celebration of Herod's birthday, as we've just read.

And he invited all the nobles and the people of great status in the environs and invited them to this birthday party. And as part of the celebration, the daughter of Herodias Salome, who presumably was the daughter from Herodias's previous marriage, performed a dance in front of Herod and his guests. And Herod was so moved by this dance that in his exuberance, as we've just read, he offered up to a half of his kingdom a reward for whatever the young girl requested. And so she consulted with her mother, Herodias's mother, what should I ask for?

And this was Herodias's great opportunity. She says to her daughter, I want the head of John the Baptist served on a platter here and now. And so she came back to Herod and said, the head of the Baptist on a platter. Now Herod, who had made an unlawful vow and was bad in his ethics and his theology, thought that he was duty bound to fulfill this vow. What he should have done is said, my vow was unlawful.

I'll have none of this. But instead, he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of his guests and fail to keep his word. So he gave the word to the executioner to go to the dungeon and there to kill John the Baptist and to present his head on a platter. And so in the midst of this birthday party, instead of a cake, they brought the severed head of a prophet of God and paraded it before the guests. Now John is hearing stories about this miracle worker in Galilee, and he doesn't know who he is. And back to the text, we read of how Herod was perplexed when he heard about what was going on of what was being done by Jesus. And he listened to the reports and the analysis that others had given, and some said that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. Others said that the prophet Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of old had risen.

Now when we look at the other texts, the parallel text with this one, we see of these three options, the one of which Herod was most persuaded, was the idea, number one, that this miracle worker can only be John the Baptist. He's come back. He's come back. He's alive. But how can he be alive? I saw his head on the platter.

I had him executed. How could that man possibly be back here? But Herod was thinking within himself, it must be.

All the other explanations fall short to explain all the miracles that have taken place. Only this holy and righteous man, John the Baptist, could be doing these things. I've got to meet this man.

I've got to deal with this man. Don't you feel the more I feel moral anguish that's going on here in the soul of Herod? I mean, he's seeing John the Baptist behind every bush.

He's seeing the ghost of John the Baptist when he goes to bed at night when he tries to sleep. He dreams about that severed head, and there's nothing he can do to get rid of the weight of this guilt that is on his head. Ladies and gentlemen, guilt is like that.

Guilt is one of the most powerful, demoralizing, paralyzing, disintegrating, and destructive forces in all the world. And I know there are people in this room this morning who have come here haunted by the guilt that they've incurred from past sins, which guilt has never, ever been resolved. I remember the very first time I administered the Lord's Supper. It wasn't to a congregation assembled such as ours. But the first time I administered the Lord's Supper was in a hospital to a woman who was dying. And before I gave her the sacrament, she told me that she had something to confess. She said to me that years before this, she had had an abortion. And she told me that she was convinced that the cancer from which she was now dying was a consequence of that and of God's love for her. It was a consequence of that and of God's judgment upon her. And she told me how that after she had had her first child, a daughter, and she became pregnant the second time, that her husband was adamant that he didn't want another child. And so, her husband insisted that she have this abortion. And so, she had her unborn baby killed.

And now, as she was facing the grave in a matter of days, she was haunted by that guilt. I said, before you participate in the sacrament, you need to understand the gospel. Yes, abortion is an egregious sin. It's a weighty sin.

But it is not the unforgivable sin. And we have a Savior who can forgive you of that sin and remove that guilt from you before you die. And she confessed that sin to God, and she was forgiven by Christ. She received the sacrament, and she died in faith.

But I'll never forget that, of the impact that unresolved guilt can have on people. Just a week or two ago at the local abortion clinic, a woman came, and as our friend John Barros and some of his associates were preaching the gospel and pleading with these women not to go through the abortion, one woman said, it's okay. I'm a born-again Christian, and Jesus will forgive me.

Wow! The sin of abortion is one thing, but to add to it such a blasphemous presumption of future grace makes it all the more wicked. And she went ahead with the procedure. You know, my prayer for that woman is that God will haunt her day and night until she truly repents and confesses that sin, not because I want God to punish her relentlessly, but because I want God to heal her. I want her to be forgiven. But the only cure for guilt that I know of is forgiveness.

And it's usually the last resort we seek. When we are burdened by our guilt, the normal process is something like this. The first thing we try to do is deny it. And we'll say, well, what we did really wasn't a sin. And I can find so many of my friends who have done the same thing, and this is acceptable in our culture, and we give all these reasons why this behavior is okay.

It's not a sin. And so we deal with the guilt by denial. Or then we recognize, well, it is a guilt, but let me…I had extenuating circumstances.

Let me give you my rationale. And then we try to rationalize our guilt. I'm not talking just about abortion. I'm talking about all those couples today who eschewed marriage and lived together without being married in a blatant assault against the sanctity of an institution that God established and ordained. But they carry on as if there were no God, or as if they were exempt from the commandments of God, or the widespread experience of adultery. If the New Testament, Paul says, let fornication not once be named among you as befitting saints, and yet the church is filled with unrepentant fornicators. We know that.

You know that. And so the everybody's doing it excuse, tries to relieve ourselves of guilt. The other problem with that guilt is that the more we repeat our sins or deny our sins or rationalize our sins, the hardened our heart becomes. And we become, like what Jeremiah said, we have the forehead of the harlot.

We've lost the capacity to blush. That's what impenitence does to us. And so we try all these ways and means to escape from the reality of guilt. And I say this to you that we distinguish between guilt and guilt feelings. Guilt is objective. Guilt has nothing whatsoever to do with your feelings. Guilt is an objective state of affairs whereby we incur guilt when we break the law of God.

It doesn't matter how we feel about it. If we don't feel guilty about it, it doesn't matter. We're still guilty. Guilt feelings are our subjective response. And it's a good thing that Herod had guilt feelings, because nothing is more wicked than being a sociopath who incurs guilt and doesn't feel any guilt about it. And on the other side of the coin is forgiveness and feelings of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an objective state.

Feelings is a subjective state. I tell the story of a young woman who came to me and said, you know, I'm going to have a young woman who came to me, and she was all beside herself because of her guilt, and she confessed her sin to me. And she says, I've prayed to God 10 times to forgive me for this sin, and I still don't feel forgiven.

What can I do? And she wanted a deep, profound, theological answer. And I said, well, let me tell you what I want you to do. And she said, I want you to get on your knees and confess your sin to God. She said, what? She said, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I've done it already 10 times.

It didn't work. I said, no, I'm not asking you to ask God to forgive you again for what you've asked Him for 10 times. Now I want you to get on your knees and ask God to forgive you for your arrogance. She says, what arrogance?

She says, how can I be more humble? I've been groveling at the feet of God and telling Him how sinful I am. I said, yes. And did not God say that if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive that sin? Have you not confessed your sin? Yes. But you don't feel forgiven?

No. I said, so for you, the truth is that you're not forgiven because you don't feel forgiven. So, God isn't faithful. God isn't just. God doesn't do what He says He's going to do. So, your unbelief now is worse than your original sin.

Do you get it? Ladies and gentlemen, I don't care if we feel forgiven. I do care if we are forgiven. Feeling forgiven is a bonus.

It's a wonderful benefit. But the reality that we're looking for as sinners is the reality of God's forgiveness because if God forgives you, you're forgiven. Now I want to say to every person in this room who's carrying guilt, particularly if there are women here who have had abortions or men who aided and abetted in them, what do you think would happen if Jesus came in this room and asked for a private meeting with you? And you met with Jesus and you said, Jesus, I had an abortion. Jesus, I paid for my girlfriend to have an abortion.

And I'm sorry about that. And Jesus put His hand on your head and said, your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.

Now, let me ask you this. Would you be forgiven? Of course you would be forgiven. And you wouldn't be haunted another moment by your guilt. You would go out this sanctuary skipping and leaping and praising God because you had known the forgiveness. Of Christ.

One last thing quickly. Our session has put together a program to deal with this national holocaust of abortion on demand. And we're counseling people not to get abortions and all of that. But one of the important ingredients is to dealing with people who have had them and help them to be restored in their relationship with God. I don't want to think of anybody in this church walking around paralyzed, destroyed by a guilt for which there is a cure. The mercy and the grace and the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only reason why any of us can be here this morning. We're glad you've joined us for the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

I'm Lee Webb. on this Lord's Day, but you can give your gift and make your request online at renewingyourmind.org. In the 19th century, it became popular to deny any supernatural events that we read in the Bible. For example, when Jesus feeds the 5,000, the skeptics would say that the crowd merely shared their sack lunches with everyone else. The miracles say the skeptics was that everyone became generous. Well, next week, Dr. Sproul will return to Luke to prove that Scripture is accurate in what it records. Jesus miraculously multiplied five loaves and two fish. I hope you'll join us for that sermon next week here on Renewing Your Mind. you