Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2051
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Evening, September 2, 1888
“And Herod with his men of war set Him at nothing.” Luke 23:11.
IT is your Lord whom Herod set at nothing! Once worshipped of angels and all the heavenly host, He is treated with contempt by a ribald regiment. In Himself “the brightness of His Father’s glory and the express image of His Person.” But now set at nothing by men not worthy of the name. Soon to reassume all His former glory with the Father and to descend in infinite splendor to judge the earth in righteousness and reign as King of kings—and yet here He is set at nothing! It is a sight of horror and of shame. How could angels bear to see it? This paltry prince and his rough retinue made nothing of Him who is All in All. They treated Him as beneath their contempt.
The most contemptible flouted Him. The mean soldier in the petty army of a petty prince made unholy mirth of Heaven’s high Lord and earth’s Redeemer. What a sorrowful and shameless business! May we be helped to sorrow over it! These wretches were of our race. May we mourn because of Him! When the thorns of grief and repentance are at our breast, may God grant that they may act as lancets to let out the foul blood of our pride, for we, too, are partakers in this tremendous crime, since our sin involved our Savior in the necessity of bearing this barbarous scorn.
Herod himself treated Him with contempt. In this loathsome being I see the most likely person to think nothing of the Lord Jesus. Let me just say a word or two about this member of a detestable family, that I may see whether his like can be found here tonight. I will not give you any history of this Herod. It is not worth while. This “fox” is not worth unearthing. The page of history is stained by the Herodian name. I will give you enough concerning him to help you to answer the question—Are you like he? Have you set Christ at nothing? Have you treated Christ with contempt?
I. This shall be our first enquiry—WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY PERSON TO TREAT OUR LORD WITH CONTEMPT?
Herod was a man who had once heard the Word of God. Yes, heard it with a measure of attention and apparent benefit. We read, “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.” According to the margin, Herod “kept him or saved him”—preserving him from those who would have laid violent hands upon him. But he broke away from his respectful regard of John and now that Jesus stands before him, his memory of the Baptist does not restrain him from mocking the Baptist’s Lord. He had silenced that eloquent tongue and now he had no care to listen to anything which might further bestir his conscience.
We often find that the greatest despisers of Christ are those who formerly were hearers and readers of His Word but have turned from it. An apostate Methodist is a scoffer—a runaway Baptist is an infidel. It looks as if men must have some knowledge of the Truth of God to be able to fight against it in the most malicious way. The viper must be warmed in the man’s bosom that he may have strength to bite him. Is not this a wretched business? Am I talking to any here who not so many years ago were regular attendants upon a faithful ministry but who have grown weary of it and given it up? I do not know what reason you give. But I suppose the real reason is that you love the world better than Christ and so you have left His people and His Word.
It troubles your conscience that you have done so and now you try to conceal your uneasiness by picking holes in your former minister and finding fault with the Truths of God which he preached to you. I know the tricks and manners of apostates. Wanting an opiate for your consciences, you invent a fault in the Gospel, or try to disbelieve it altogether.
What an unhappy thing that the hopeful hearer should decline into a hopeless despiser! Herod heard John but he ridiculed Jesus. See to what unconverted hearers may come?
If I look at Herod again, I see in him a man who, after hearing the Word faithfully preached, had distinctly done violence to his conscience. He heard John until John came home to him about the woman with whom he was living in an incestuous union. Herodias would have killed John at once—and though Herod did not dare to go so far as that, he shut him up in prison. A filthy lust must not be rebuked—Herod imprisons his reprover. He knew that John was right and he trembled at his rebuke. But he could not give up his sin and so he put the servant of God in a dungeon. He was held fast, as many a man before, and since has been held fast, by an evil woman.
She demanded of him that at the very least the man of God should be cast into prison. How dare he speak against what the prince chose to do! How dare a peasant censure so great a man as Herod about his personal life! So, instead of bowing before the supreme authority of right and listening to the voice of truth as uttered by the Lord’s Elijah, he must exercise his royal power and lay his reprover by the heels. The man who could do this was in training for the more daring act of setting the Lord Jesus at nothing.