Transcript
Return to Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23, beginning to read at verse 8. Luke 23, verse 8.
“Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad, for he had desired for a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things about Him, and he hoped to see some miracle done by Him. Then he questioned Him with many words, but He answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused Him. Then Herod, with his men of war, treated Him with contempt and mocked Him, arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him back to Pilate. That very day Pilate and Herod became friends with each other, for previously they had been at enmity with each other.”
In 1991, if you had walked into the office of Gary Johnson somewhere in the Houston area, you would probably have received a shock. I mean, it’s not every office that has an aquarium that is filled with plastic skulls.
You would also have found a small storage room in Johnson’s office that was filled with large and small microphones and video cameras, tape recorders, amplifiers, and filing cabinets that were filled with bugging equipment. On Gary Johnson’s wall were posted his standard operating procedures. And among the statements that were up on the wall were these: “If you don’t want it recorded, don’t say it.” Or this: “Fate is a tombstone with your name on it.” Or this: “Three people can keep a secret only if two of them are dead.”
Now this may strike you as a very unusual office. And you’re exactly right, because Gary Johnson had an unusual type of clientele. You see, his clients were very often husbands or wives who wanted to get rid of their spouse, particularly for the purpose of collecting on insurance. Or they were somebody who wanted to get rid of a romantic rival or a business partner or a witness at a trial or someone that they owed money to.
To put it very bluntly, his clientele was made up of people who wanted a hit man. They wanted somebody who would be willing to commit murder for hire. Now usually Johnson engaged his prospective customers on the telephone several times before meeting them. And before he would even meet them he would pretty well have figured out whether they were actually going to go through with the deal.
When he did get around to meeting them he listened very closely to every word they said. He tried to respond appropriately. He even set his price at the economic income level that he believed his prospective customer came from. And he’d even been known to take as small an amount as one hundred dollars down as a down payment on a murder contract.
Now Gary Johnson also did something else for his customers which his customers didn’t know about. Gary Johnson recorded every word of their conversation with him. And then he turned in the tape recorder to his boss, who happened to be the district attorney of Harris County. And oh, by the way, most of his customers were referred to him by undercover police officers who had found somebody they thought was interested in hiring a hit man.
And how did Gary Johnson enjoy his job? Well, he told the Houston Chronicle, “A whole lot.” He said, “I’m one of those few people on earth who has found an occupation they really enjoy. I look forward to going to work every day. The day I quit work is the day I’ll die.” And I don’t know whether he’s still working or not, but the day he quits work somebody else may die, because Gary Johnson is in the business of preventing murder for hire.
Now I’m very sure that nobody in this audience wants to do business with Gary Johnson. And not only because we’re not interested in getting rid of anybody, but because basically we don’t like to do business with people who seem to be one thing on the surface and another thing beneath the surface.
Isn’t it true that we like the people that we deal with to be solid and genuine and real? And we don’t like it when they’re superficial and shallow and unreal. And yet the tragic fact is this, my friends, that there are probably thousands of people sitting in church meetings this very morning whose whole experience of God is a surface experience. And their relationship with God is not deep and meaningful. It is shallow and superficial.
And because it’s awfully easy to become a person like that, this morning I would like to discuss with you the following topic. The topic is: You Can’t Swim in Shallow Water. And as you’ve already guessed, that topic is also the title of my message to you this morning. You Can’t Swim in Shallow Water.
Now way back in the 1960s, if you were able to think that far back, sometimes we heard people described as plastic people. I remember meeting a young man who was going after California. And he didn’t like California. He’d come back to Texas. And he told me that the reason he didn’t like California was that there were too many plastic people out there. And that the lifestyle out in California was a plastic lifestyle.
And of course what he meant was something like this: that people out in California, in his opinion, were superficial. They were shallow. And the lifestyle was superficial and had no significance and no meaning. Now I don’t think we actually use the word plastic very much that way anymore. But nevertheless the fact remains that there are plenty of plastic people who are alive and well right here in the 1990s.
And if I had to choose someone from the Bible as the most plastic person in the whole Word of God, my candidate would definitely be the man about whom we read just a few moments ago in our passage of Scripture. He is a man that we know as King Herod.
Now please remember that King Herod was the man who had arrested John the Baptist. And the reason was that Herod was living with a woman named Herodias, who was actually married to Herod’s half-brother. And when John the Baptist had rebuked Herod for his immoral lifestyle that had made Herod mad. And he had shut up this great prophet in prison.
And then one day Herod was having a great big birthday bash in celebration of his own birthday. And all of the really important people that he knew were there. And at one point in this birthday party a dancing girl comes out who happens to be the daughter of Herodias, the woman he was living with. And she performs a dance for the entertainment of everybody at the birthday celebration.
And I’m supposing that by this time Herod had had a few glasses of wine too many. And he was wildly enthusiastic about the performance of this young girl. And rashly and foolishly, in front of everybody at the birthday party, he promised to give her whatever she should ask for.
And to his dismay, prompted of course by her mother, she requested that she be served with the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Now that put Herod between a rock and a hard place. Even though he had shut up John in prison, he knew that John was a righteous man. And he was really kind of scared to do anything more to John the Baptist.
On the other hand, if he failed to follow through on his oath and promise to this girl, he would look terrible in front of all these important people. And he made the decision that we’re not surprised that a man like this would make. He opted to look good in front of his guests at his party. And so he ordered that John should be beheaded in prison.
And his head, in the grisly fashion, was put on a platter and brought to the little dancing girl to whom it had been promised. And I submit to you that in performing this wicked and wretched act Herod revealed what a plastic person he was.
You see, plastic people basically take the attitude that the most important thing is: How do I look to other people? And the question that they’re asking themselves is not, What is the right thing for me to do? But, How can I look good? And that’s the type of man that Herod obviously was.
So we are not at all surprised that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes and stands before King Herod the Bible tells us that he was exceedingly glad. This was a big moment for Herod, because he wanted to see Jesus for a long time. And why did he want to see Jesus? Was it because his conscience was weighed down by the guilt of having murdered John the Baptist?
Was it because he was seeking a way to find peace with the God whom he had so seriously offended all of his life? Was it because he wanted to know what would happen to him after he died? The answer is none of the above. None of the above.
And the Bible tells us that the reason he wanted to see Jesus was he heard a lot about Him and he hoped to see a miracle done by Him. His reason for wanting to see Jesus Christ was he wanted to see a miracle. Do I need to tell you there are lots of people engaged in religion today who have very much the same attitude?
You know I’ve got a suggestion. I think I have figured out how we can fill Victor Street Bible Chapel from front to back next Sunday morning. First step is to put a big sign out front announcing that we were going to have a miraculous healing meeting. And that all the sick people in the area should come to Victor Street to be healed.
And then we could circulate flyers all out in the neighborhood with the same information. And if Joe is nervous with a few visitors, we’re both going to be nervous as we can possibly be, because I suspect the auditorium would be filled from front to end. Not only with people who wanted to be healed, but also with lots of people who wanted to see a person heal.
May I suggest to you, however, that when it comes to superficial reasons for being attracted to the Christian religion the desire to see a miracle is only one of them. And oftentimes people go to church for lots of other reasons. You know, it makes me feel good to go to church. Or I go to church because I think God will bless me better in the week than He would if I didn’t go to church.
Or I go to church because maybe God will help me out on some problem that I’m having. And we have a lot of reasons that are surface, shallow, and superficial reasons for drawing near to God.
You probably have never heard of Kirby J. Hensley. And it’s just as well, I guess, that you haven’t. Kirby J. Hensley was once a Baptist preacher. But later he called himself a bishop of the Universal Life Church. And in 1969 he was convicted in a court for sending religious courses that were not authorized by an accredited religious institution.
Kirby J. Hensley was not going to take this lying down. He appealed his case in the federal courts. And guess what? He won. And the case was sent back to a local court. And in a municipal court in San Jose, California, his sentence, which consisted of a six hundred twenty-five dollar fine and a one-year suspended sentence, was revoked and dismissed.
And now Hensley had tax-exempt status with the federal government. You better believe he plowed ahead. And at one point in his career, get this, he reported that he had issued twenty thousand doctor of divinity degrees. Now you have to go to seminary for a long time to get a real doctor of divinity degree. But he issued twenty thousand of them at the relatively modest course cost of twenty dollars per degree.
But that was only the small part of his business. He was constantly sending out ordination certificates. You know what an ordination certificate is. It gives you authority to act as a minister. And according to Hensley he had sent out two and one-half million ordination certificates. Not only for human beings, but also for dogs and cats and raccoons and leopards.
I bet you didn’t know that there were raccoons and leopards that were ordained to the Christian ministry. But according to the Universal Life Church it’s a possibility. And I don’t even need to tell you, do I, that this approach to religion is so superficial and so hollow that we almost laugh at it.
And yet sometimes we don’t examine the real reasons that throw us into a church meeting like this. Sometimes we do not ask ourselves the searching question: Why do I want to know God? Why do I want to have contact with His Word? And if our reason for that is self-interest and self-serving, it might be, it just might be, that we are a kind of a plastic Christian.
Please notice here is King Herod, my candidate for the most plastic personality in the Bible. And he is face to face with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the way, the truth, and the life. And if we even hadn’t read the passage we might predict that this interview was going to be a disaster. That it was going to be a catastrophic failure. And that’s exactly what it was.
Because this superficial king, this wicked and sinful king who wasn’t searching for God in reality, starts the interview by asking Jesus all sorts of questions. What do you want to bet that his questions were about miracles that he had heard Jesus had done in one place or another? Or do you bet that some of his questions were about whether Jesus could do this or that or the other thing right then and there?
And Jesus greeted every one of his questions with absolute silence. The Bible says He answered him nothing. Now I don’t need to tell you, do I, that for a man like Herod that was a slap in the face? I mean that was an insult. He was the guy who couldn’t look bad in front of all the important people in his birthday celebration. So he executed John the Baptist.
How do you think, as he stood there with his own soldiers watching this, with the leaders of the Jewish people heaping accusations upon Jesus, how do you think he felt that this man he wanted to see for so long wouldn’t say one word to him in answer to his questions?
And pretty soon the mask of interest, the mask of excitement that he had worn, dropped. And his attitude toward Jesus changes entirely. And now he begins to treat Him, along with the soldiers that were on his side, he began to treat Jesus with contempt. They began to make fun of Him.
And as a final insult they clothed Him in a gorgeous garment that was considered a ridicule of His claims to be a king. To top it all off he sent Jesus right back to Pilate, from whom Jesus had come in the first place.
Do I need to tell you that this man was superficial in his interest in Jesus? And you notice what happens here. Because he didn’t get from Jesus what he wanted to get from Jesus, he doesn’t want to have anything more to do with Him. He washes Him out of his life. He disdains Him. And he sends Him back to Pilate.
Oh, you say, I’d never do that. I’d never do that. I’m going to tell you something. I have known real Christian people who haven’t gotten what they wanted from God. They expected God to bless them in a certain way. They expected God maybe to help them with their family in a certain way. They expected God to heal a sickness that they had or to make them wealthy or something like that.
God didn’t do it. You know what they have done? They’ve turned their backs on Him. Sometimes they walked away from Him entirely and walked away from Christian fellowship simply because God didn’t do it their way.
And my friends, the difference between genuine interest in God and superficial interest in God is this. The superficial person is thinking, What do I want from God? And the genuinely concerned person is thinking, What does God want from me?
And the first thing God wants from every man and woman is faith in His Son Jesus Christ. He wants us to understand that Christ died for our sins on the cross and paid our way to heaven. And that all He’s asking us to do is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of everlasting life.
Jesus said, “He that hears My word and believes on Him that sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.” But after you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved and saved forever there’s something else God wants of you.
You know what it is? It’s fellowship. And that’s why the apostle Paul wrote these words. He says, “God is faithful who has called you into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” And everything that God asks you to do and everything that God asks you to be is designed to lead you into deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ our glorious Savior.
That’s what God wants from you if you’re a Christian man or woman this morning. He doesn’t want your superficial interest. He doesn’t want you to try to use your religion to gain some spiritual advantage for yourself. He wants you to know Him, to know His Son, and to have fellowship with Jesus Christ our Lord.
There was a small town newspaper one time that reported the following story. A certain Mrs. Johnson, it reported, took eight of her intimate friends to dinner at the country club. And then after the dinner she took them off to the Majestic Theater to see their play or a film called An American Tragedy.
And then the article in the newspaper added this. They said Mrs. Johnson gives five dollars a year to the missionary society at her church. She has always had a deep interest in that organization. I beg your pardon. She’s had a deep interest in the missionary society and she’s given five dollars a year. And the article said for eighteen long years.
Well, for eighteen years, my friend, she had given about ninety dollars. And she probably spent that much and more on her intimate friends when she took them to dinner and to the theater. And sometimes, my friends, we kind of like people to think we’re really, really interested. But what we’re interested in is fellowship with our friends or something else instead of having fellowship with God and with Christ and His love for men and women all over the world.
Have you ever heard of a rubber Baptist? I’m going to tell you about a rubber Baptist. This incident actually happened right here in Dallas at the First Dallas Baptist Church. A man got up at one of the services and introduced himself as Leonard Bernstein Jr., the son of the famous New York Philharmonic Orchestra conductor.
He handed to Dr. W. A. Criswell a check for twenty thousand dollars. And he announced the purpose of this check was to underwrite the expenses of the four hundred ten First Baptist choir, four hundred ten members of the First Baptist choir, to travel to New York to sing while his father conducted the Philharmonic Orchestra.
And he also informed the people that he and his father were now Christian Jews. And that they now attended New York City’s Calvary Baptist Church. When he said all this the congregation rose and gave him a standing ovation.
But the director of communications at First Baptist Church looked into this. And he discovered that the son of Leonard Bernstein was named Alexander. He discovered that Leonard Bernstein was still a practicing Jew. And most to the point he discovered that the check that had been offered was a rubber check which bounced.
And because it did we could call this man a rubber Baptist. And you know I sincerely hope that in this audience this morning there are no rubber Christians. You know what I mean. You know you would tell everybody you’re a good Christian, really dedicated to the Lord, really committed to Him. But when it comes time to cash the check it bounces.
And if things don’t go right in your life the way you would like them to go right you turn your back on God. Your professions of interest in Him are not sincere. I hope there’s nobody like that.
But let me just ask you to ask yourself this question. What brought me to church this morning? A hunger for fellowship with God? Or a feeling in the back of my mind that God will be better to me if I go today than if I stay at home?
The story doesn’t quite end there, does it? Not quite. There’s one more interesting fact. Do you realize that before this interview King Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, were at odds with each other? They were enemies.
But Pilate had kind of flattered Herod by sending this important case to him. Of course Pilate was trying to wash his hands of it. But it was kind of a compliment to Herod that he sent Jesus to Herod. And Herod returns the compliment by sending Jesus right back to Pontius Pilate.
And the effect of this exchange over Jesus Christ was that these two men became friends on that very day. I wonder if you catch the absolute irony of this conclusion. I mean Herod had had standing before him a man of whom people have sung through the years: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.”
And people have said, “Jesus, what a friend to sinners, more than all in Him I find.” And Herod was face to face with potentially the best friend he could ever have desired. And he waves Him away. And in His place he gets a shallow and empty friendship with one of the great villains of history. Because it was Pilate eventually who ordered the crucifixion of God’s Son.
So what did Herod prove? May I suggest he proved that you can’t swim in shallow water. You can’t swim in shallow water. If you are a shallow, superficial person it’s kind of like trying to swim in a pool of water that’s one and a half feet deep. You don’t get anywhere.
And until our commitment to Jesus Christ becomes real and deep we won’t progress as Christians. And we won’t enter into the rich experience of fellowship and friendship with the Son of God.
I like the story of the little girl who went with her mother to the school psychologist. And the interview was designed, I guess, to see if the girl was up to the intellectual stress of going to school. So the psychologist started out with this question. I kid you not. He said, “Are you a boy or a girl?” And the girl replied, “A boy.”
Now the psychologist was a little taken back by this. But he proceeded. And he said, “Well, uh, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And the little girl replied, “A father.” Now by this time her somewhat restful mother intervened. And she says, “Darling, uh, why are you saying those things to the doctor? You know better than that.”
And the little girl replied, “Well, if he’s going to ask silly questions I’m going to give silly answers.” May I suggest to you that the Lord Jesus Christ is not in the business of answering our silly and superficial questions. He’s not in the business of satisfying our foolish and selfish desires.
He’s in the business of giving eternal life to all who will believe on Him for that. And then He’s in the business of offering fellowship and friendship to those who are serious and committed to Him. And therefore the question we really need to be asking is the question that the songwriter asked: “What shall I give Thee, Master? Thou who hast died for me. Vowed its leave Thy throne above to die on Calvary. What shall I give Thee, Master? Thou hast given all for me. Not just a part or half of my heart. I must give all to Thee.”
Be sure that your commitment to Jesus Christ is rich and deep. You can’t swim in shallow water.
Shall we pray? Father, help each of us who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for everlasting life. Help each of us to examine the depth and the reality of our commitment to Your Son. Examine the degree to which we have an earnest desire to have fellowship and friendship with Him. And lead us into the experience that He designs for us because of His grace and love. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.