The are doubtless any number of lessons that one could learn when looking at the life of Herod the Great. There are four in particular that I would pursue at this time. I choose these particular issues because all history, like all Scripture, is by God's command, and is recorded for our edification. Santa Ana would say that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There is a good deal of truth to that, but if all we learn from history is the facts and the tactics, then we are no better off for our effort. Like the study of Scripture, the lesson is not learned until the moral import of the matter is not only understood but assimilated into our character.

I begin by looking at the political picture Israel presents in that period. Herod was crowned king of Judea, but would wind up having to take his kingdom by force. I want to note here that his was a subject authority. He was not king because the people would have him so, but because an outside power had appointed him to the throne.

In that same time, God crowned His own King of Judea, and not only of Judea, but of all nations. This one, too, was born into Israel, and this on, just like Herod, was not king because His people would have Him so, but because an Almighty Power had appointed Him to the throne. The similarities are stunning, but I know better than to suggest any accident in that!

Indeed, in some ways, the people of Israel recognized that something more than political aspiration was at work here. They understood that Herod, however much he might profess the faith of their fathers, remained a son of Edom. As Fausset's puts it, "Esau tried still to get from Jacob the forfeited blessing."

This is the reality of what was happening in Israel at that point. Two kingdoms were being established. In Herod, the kingdom of the world was making its play. Rome was the world power of that day, and it was Rome that was on the throne while Herod sat there. It was the kingdom of man. Herod, of course, did not intend to remain a Roman tool forever, it was simply a means to an end. His greater plan was to establish a wholly independent world power ruled by himself and his descendents. This tickled the national pride of the people he ruled, tickled it sufficiently that it clouded their judgment, that it became a stronger draw to them then their ancient faith.

Meanwhile, the true King was born into obscurity under this usurper's nose. Here was God's Anointed. Here was the long-awaited Messiah, the Eternal King. He, too, was establishing a kingdom. He, too, would have to take it by force, for there were pretenders on His throne. The world had claimed that kingdom and would not relinquish it peacefully to its rightful Ruler. In Him, as He came to be recognized in at least some quarters, Israel was reminded of their spiritual heritage and their spiritual purpose.

In Herod, Esau had the throne, Esau enjoyed for a brief time the birthright he had so cheaply sold. He had the throne, but the King was not impressed by this, was not put off by it. He would have His throne, whoever might be sitting upon it at the moment. Esau may have had the privilege of the firstborn, but He had the privilege of the Promise. The world chose tradition, heaven chose God's Chosen.

All of this left the people conflicted. In Herod, they saw the opportunity to recognize Israel's restoration as a world power. They recognized that were they to pursue this course, they must necessarily abandon their spiritual heritage. In Jesus, they saw the fulfillment of their spiritual heritage, but it seemed to them that to pursue that heritage in Him would mean abandoning their nationalistic dreams. It felt to them like there had to be a choice here. Two great prizes were laid out before them, and only a very few would see that there was a way to lay hold of both. Only a very few would look at Jesus in His humble estate and see the Victorious King. The majority would look upon the power of Herod, the power of the world, and pursue that at the cost of their own wellbeing.

Here is our lesson number one. In Herod, there was the apparent opportunity to gain respectability in the world. In him, Israel saw the chance for power. They saw the chance to become a proud nation once again, rather than a subjugated people on the fringes of polite society. Do you see it? It was pride that led them to choose this lesser king. It was pride that blinded them to his vile ways. A choice was laid out before them: this world power, clearly and wholly immoral but 'successful,' or this One who poured Himself out as a Servant to all? Why, He had few followers, and most of them of little account in society. He had no palace, not even so much as a home to call His own. Sure, He was righteous and all, but where was it getting Him? What future was there in that? This is exactly what Jesus would later address in His countrymen when He asked them: "What use is it if you have gained the whole world, but have lost your own soul? Having lost it, what price could you possibly pay to have it back?" (Mt 16:26)

The story continues unchanged in our own day and age. Two kingdoms are yet being built, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. The people of God are still being presented with this dilemma on a daily basis. Every moment of every day we are bombarded with opportunities to come join the kingdom of the world, to take up our place in the City of man. Every day, the world seeks to bring us into a place where we will forget that our citizenship is in heaven, not here. Every day is fraught with these attempts to blind us to our heritage. Paul fought it in the church in his day, and the battle has remained through all the ages. We are all just strangers here. This world is not our home. Inasmuch as we get sucked into pursuing the world's agenda by the world's means, we join them in modeling themselves after Herod. Herod, as sick as he was, put everything he had into appearing dignified. He wanted to look good. He wanted to be seen as being like Solomon, if not in his wisdom, at least in his riches. So long as he was a pretender to the throne, he may as well pretend to be the most splendid. Jesus, by contrast, is a King in whom we find even the least of His works arrayed in the splendor of Solomon. Herod reserved the bulk of that splendor for himself and for those who were useful to him. Jesus sheds that splendor even on the weakest of the weak. The least in His kingdom are made more glorious in reality than Herod sought to be in appearance.

Herod, then, represented in large type the power struggle that is the reality of every man. The ISBE has this to say of him: "Two powers struggled in him for the mastery, and the lower one at last gained complete control." The first part of that could as easily describe any one of us. Paul knew the reality of that power struggle in himself. I suspect that anyone who seeks to pursue the life Christ calls us to knows the reality of that power struggle. Truth be told, I am sure that a good number of those who remain in their sins, who reject the offer of redemption, know that same reality. The dichotomy exists in every man, that tension between desiring to do what is right and good, and desiring to do whatever might bring sensual satisfaction. It is the second part of that description that sets Herod and Paul apart. In Herod, the lower motive won out.

He was not unaware of Jewish religion, had been raised in it to at least some degree. At the very least, it was not wholly foreign to his culture. He knew of God, but he preferred the world. He had heard about hope, but he preferred immediate gratification. He had access to grace, but he chose slavery. He was a king, yet he was subservient not only to the powers in Rome who had installed him on that throne, but to the powers within that drove and dominated him. He was, as Josephus wrote, "a slave to his passions." He was 'the incarnation of brute lust.' It was more than human ambition that drove him, more than the typical desires of a man. It was a demonic mastery of his soul. It was that triumvirate of devils - pride, envy, and jealousy - that sat upon the throne of his own life, and pushed him to do whatever he must to preserve himself on the throne of Israel.

The various descriptions given of Herod are almost wholly negative. He had his qualities, at least from a worldly perspective. Consider Nelson's summary of his attributes. "He was a ruthless fighter, a cunning negotiator, and a subtle diplomat." A soldier is not evil. A brilliant military commander may yet be an exemplary Christian. But, can it be said of a believer in such service that he was ruthless? Negotiation is not evil, so long as one doesn't negotiate away the critical matters of faith. However, 'cunning' is not a word with positive spiritual connotations. Wisdom is a fine thing, a godly trait. But, cunning is not wisdom, it is an ability to play into the other's hand. It is a skilled use of trickery to bring about another's capitulation to one's own desired outcome. We are all of us called to the diplomatic corps of heaven. But, subtlety is not to be our strong suit. Subtlety speaks of elusiveness, an ability to turn a phrase such that its meaning is no longer precise, but will be taken as the hearer chooses to take it. It speaks again of craftiness and trickery, of an insidiousness. One could say, then, that Herod had any number of good qualities but all of them in a bad way. He had the characteristics of great leadership, but consistently poisoned and twisted by the threesome who sat the throne of his heart.

Each and every one of us shares in the description of Herod to some extent. Each and every one of us knows the power of our own passions, knows the dilemma of good and bad within our own hearts and minds. Each and every one of us knows that same struggle that was upon the people of Israel, and it only becomes more acute as we receive God's call upon our lives. Before He called, we were happy to pursue to path to power as the world displayed it to us. We were happy to serve our own ends and no other. We were pleased to the degree that our senses were pleased.

God's call has opened up a new vista for us. It invariably leads to a crisis within, requires from us a decision. "Choose you this day." That is the call of God. Will you continue to seek your happiness and your future in accord with the ways of the world, or will you forego that instant gratification and pursue lasting happiness and an eternal future in accord with the ways of God? To which kingdom will you belong? Both are set up here and now. Both lay claim to your allegiance, but there can be no dual citizenship.

The issue is not going to be decided, however, by one declaration, by one moment of decision. In the end, our character must declare which kingdom we serve. If our citizenship is in the kingdom of man, we can expect an epitaph not unlike Herods: "He knew men and he knew how to use them" (ISBE). If our citizenship is in heaven, as we profess it to be, we can expect an epitaph more along these lines: "He knew men and he knew how to serve them." It will not matter at all if the best that can be said of us is that we attended church regularly. It will not matter at all if the best that can be said of us is that we read the Bible daily. What will matter, what will declare our nationality, is consistent display of our national characteristics.

Lord, I know that my display is not yet consistent. There is far too much of the world yet in this man. Yet, You have brought change, this I know without doubt. You have brought me through more than one crisis of character, and brought me through it with heavenly credentials showing. But, I know too well that there have been other occasions when the flesh showed through, and these are to my shame - the moreso because they have brought shame to Your reputation. I beg Your forgiveness, Holy One. I lay myself upon Your abundant mercy, and I ask that You would strengthen me to subdue that rebel flesh. God! To know the victory that is certainly to come! How I long for it! How I hunger for that time when the distractions and temptations of this life are done away with, and what remains is wholly Holy! Even so, Lord, even so! I pray once again that You would establish Yourself in me as You are established in heaven - utterly Supreme, instantly obeyed, never rejected. Let all that is within me bow to You, Lord. Bring me into that place of complete surrender, that I may truly say I love You with all that is within me! Burn out all hypocrisy, Holy Spirit! Leave only the clean, pure holiness of Your desired temple.

Here is another summary description given of Herod: "Idumean in race, a Jew in religion, a heathen in practice, and a monster in character" (Unger's). There is a progression shown in that description, and at least a portion of it will apply to every member of the Church. We can all, for the most part, lay claim to the first part, for by and large we are all drawn from Gentile stock. The Idumeans were grafted into Jewish culture and Jewish religion by the previous administration. They were joined by circumcision into the life of Israel. We have the spiritual circumcision. We have been grafted into the true faith of Abraham, and so we can claim also that second piece of the description, 'a Jew in religion.'

Sadly, a fair number of us can probably lay claim to the third part of that list as well. Indeed, this is one of the biggest complaints about the church in our day, that its members do not behave as if they were believers, but behave as reprehensibly (if not moreso) as the rest of the world! Woe to us if that can be said of our conduct! Woe to us if the world cannot tell the difference, cannot see something better in us! We must be ever vigilant when it comes to our own behaviors, most especially outside the walls of the church, for this is where things will be most difficult, and it is also where our victories will be the most powerful.

We will all of us blow it on occasion, for we remain sinners saved by grace. If you don't believe that, as your fellow believers. They will recognize you clearly enough as a sinner saved by grace. Nobody is fooled by saintly pretensions. The thing is, inside the church we know this (or at least ought to), so we are able to recognize the saint even through the dirt of his occasional sins. Indeed, we are pleased to help him clean himself off, to help along his restoration. In the world, though, the stakes are higher. If we allow the stain of sin to remain on us, the world will not see the saint underneath, only the surface sins, and will take that as license to reject all that God has for them.

It is horrifyingly easy to fall into this, to allow ourselves to relax in the wrong place. Too often, we spend all our energy trying to look righteous in church, the one place where maybe we can afford to slip up a bit, and then let down our guard while we're out in public. We try to look good for those who might recognize good looks, and don't bother with it among the rest. Somehow, we think this satisfies the call not to cast our pearls before swine. Not at all! When we fall into this habit we have failed utterly. We have perhaps fooled ourselves, but not one other. No, and neither have we helped another. Our pretense of righteousness has kept any in the church from exercising their spiritual strength in aiding us through our weakness. Our pretense of worldliness has kept any outside the church from being impacted by the God of our salvation. We will draw no man to the church by showing them a church that looks like the world!

Now, consider the opposite approach. Consider what could happen if we let down our guard in the house of God, and saved our best efforts at righteousness for our days in the world. Oh, this is going to require trust from us, and it's going to require trustworthiness as well. It's going to hurt a lot more if we fail in front of our brothers. We may feel shame at blowing it in corporate circles, but it's a private thing and unrecognized by those around us. In the house of God, everybody knows how much we've blown it. If it is truly God's house, we need not expect to have our noses rubbed in it. We should be able to expect that there will be many to come alongside us and help us back up to where we should be. We should be able to expect loving admonition - not a whitewash that ignores the problem, but loving correction, loving advice from others who have known the same anguish.

The church is supposed to be our training center, yet we want none of its training when it comes to this. How else, though, are we to prepare ourselves for our mission in the world? If we can't make our mistakes among friends, we will assuredly make them elsewhere. If our friends have not helped us to learn from those mistakes, then the cost of them will be much higher. It's no different than being raised from childhood. Parents correct our mistakes while we are still in the home, while the consequences are still manageable, and we are taught by their loving ministrations. We are taught to recognize right from wrong, to choose right, and to make amends for our wrongs. We grow. We grow in stature, but more importantly in wisdom, because they have imparted wisdom to us. That is the church's job in our spiritual upbringing. It's not supposed to our party school. It's not supposed to be our social club. It's our training center.

Imagine the impact when we allow it to be so! Imagine the impact on our own lives when we can trust our fellow Christians to hold us accountable, to provide loving advice and correction, to forgive us our sins. Imagine the impact on our lives as we find we can be trusted to do likewise for our fellow Christians! What growth we will find in our own walk as we learn that we have something to say to our fellows! What confidence we can gain as we allow ourselves to say it. That's training! Why should it be thought that we must be on our best behavior at church? Are we on our best behavior with family? No! It's a chance to relax just a little, to let down our guard a little. If the church is family, ought that not be the case there as well? What prevents it from being so is our own incredibly fine-tuned ability to take offense. Far from being trained by loving admonition, we rather feel stung by unwarranted criticism. We prefer offense to understanding, wounded pride to increased wisdom, and we invite the triumvirate back onto the throne of our hearts.

But, if we have turned the church back to its purpose, wow! How great will be our impact on those outside the church! Because we've had our down time and our training time, we walk into the world prepared - prepared to do our utmost for the Highest. No, we don't seek approval in our works, we seek to do what our Beloved has prepared us to do. We seek to add more to His kingdom, because His kingdom has added more to us. The military offers to train young people to 'be all that they can be.' But, they cannot. They cannot begin to approach the fulfillment of that promise! That remains to God alone. In Christ, we can become all that we can be. In the Church, we have the joyful prospect of assisting the Master in His craft. We are but apprentices, but even apprentices have something to offer to those younger than themselves.

If we are good apprentices, we have observed well the ways of the Master. We have asked questions of Him and discerned by His answers not only the how of His ways but the why. We have studied His approach to our own learning, His own techniques not only in doing, but in imparting, and we have been practicing all that we have learned from Him. We have not perfected that learning, but we have been practicing. What we have truly learned, we are able to impart to those who have not yet learned. Each of us, as we have studied the Master, have progressed farther in some aspects than in others. Each of us has pursued more fully the particular things in Him that most fully strike a chord with us. He is Master of all arts, but we will at best become masters of a few. He is all in all, but we can at least aspire to become useful in some things.

Do you recognize the Church in this? We should. Do you recognize yourself in this? We should. This is the Church that will turn the world on its head. This is the movement that will effect change. This is the revolution! Are we willing? Can we be so bold as to stop trying to display our righteousness to those who are best prepared to tolerate our imperfections? Can we start really learning from each other as we all learn from the Master? Can we come to a place where we can entrust ourselves one to another, can accept one another 'as is,' and can offer one another what we have learned, that we all might together approach the fullness of the image of Christ in us? What will we not accomplish for Christ with a Church such as that!

The danger of that third description of Herod is that if left unchecked, it cannot help but proceed to the fourth. If it is said of us that we are 'Christians by religion, but heathens by practice,' beware! The two kingdoms are battling within us, as they always do, but that statement is a declaration of which side is winning in us. The world is on the ascendant when this is applicable to us. If we are 'heathens by practice,' then our profession of belief is meaningless. The just are saved by faith, and God will surely preserve those He has given that faith. The saved are not in danger of damnation, that is the blessed assurance that Jesus brings to man. However, if we are truly among the saved, if we are among those called of God, predestined to sanctification, set apart by God for God, and adopted into His household, then how can it possibly be that we would be described as 'heathens by practice?' It will not compute! If we truly think ourselves saved, and this is being said of us, it's a divine warning, just as strong as the angelic dreams of Joseph. It's a warning to change, because if we do not change, we are headed for the fourth description given of Herod, 'a monster in character.' Know this: there are no monsters in heaven!

Oh God! Let our church be a church such as the one You have laid out before me here! Let us be a house of trust, a house of real training, not a party school! Let us be a people sufficiently honest with ourselves that we might be honest with each other. Let us be a people sufficiently aware of ourselves that we are not put off by the occasional sins of our brethren, but are rather attracted to the training opportunity, incited to impart our own strength - as You have given it to us - into their weakness. Let us be a people who will live in the way You intend, who will offer each other every admonishment and encouragement, and who will walk worthy of Your calling most especially as we go through the harvest fields.

This morning has brought another of those interesting points when God brings disparate studies into alignment. Table Talk has been pursuing the book of Hebrews this year, and this morning's installment closed with this thought: "live in gratitude for coming into the kingdom that cannot be shaken" (Robert Rothwell). This is what I have been looking at in the life of Herod - the shaky kingdom of man serving the world vs. the unshakable kingdom of heaven. Herod chose the world, and was shaken to death as he struggled to hold onto a power that was not truly his. When we are truly citizens of God's kingdom, we do not suffer from that struggle to hold onto power, because we recognize that all power is fundamentally and permanently invested in Christ alone. It is not our power that makes us strong, it is His power. If we find ourselves in a leadership position for a time, we recognize both that it truly is but for a time, and that it is by His choosing that we are in that position at all. If we are to succeed in that position, it will be because we have left Him on the throne of our own ego. If we fail in that position, it is precisely because we did not.

This has been an issue for me, hasn't it, Lord? How many times have I tried to make my own that which You were only lending to me for a time? How many times have I forgotten You in my service to You? How often have I installed my own pride in the place that belongs to You alone, and then wondered angrily why my ministry failed to minister? God, forgive me! Teach me, Holy Spirit, how to serve truly. Teach me how to remember submission in the presence of authority. Show me how to accept the honoring testimony of others without feeding that demon pride. Come to my aid, my God! Cast these imposters out of this house of mine that I may serve You in purity! Too long, Lord, they have held sway in the courts of my heart. Too many times they have spoiled the good things You have begun. Yes, I know that You are faithful to complete those good things, but I am sickened by the fact that I have allowed this corruption to persist. Take it away, Lord, or else take me out of the way. If I cannot be a leader after Your own heart, then I beg of You not to allow me into any position of leadership. I want so desperately to be of service, God, but not at the cost of my own destruction. Show me the way. Show me Your ways, and train me to walk in them faithfully.

There was this phrase that had caught my eye as I looked over my notes on Herod, a phrase concerning the infant Jesus. One of the texts I referred to pursued the notion of Herod and Jesus as recapitulation of Pharaoh and the Jewish exodus. As the children of Israel were saved by the Exodus out of Egypt, Jesus was saved by a personal exodus. It is that thought of being saved by a personal exodus that really caught my eye, although I could not have said at the time just why it was significant. I think this morning's considerations may explain why the Holy Spirit impressed it upon me. It is precisely what is needed, I think, to remove the imposters from the throne of my heart. A personal exodus - a temporary removal from service.

This is, indeed, what Moses experienced prior to leading the Exodus - a personal exodus, a removal from the scene for a time, until he could be properly trained and fit for the service that was to be his. He had tried to take up that service early, and had made a mess of it, because there were still imposters on the throne of his heart. He was trying to serve the kingdom of heaven while maintaining citizenship in the kingdom of man, and that cannot work. There are no dual citizenships in God's house. This is what the nation of Israel experienced in the Exodus, as well. They could not come into the land of promise until the last vestiges of the kingdom of man had been eliminated from among them. It took forty years. It took the death of one whole generation.

Both Jesus and John before him went through that same process. So, too, did Paul. They each had their time alone in the wilderness, a time removed from service while God prepared them. Jesus, of course, was unique in His preparation, for there was nothing in Him that really needed removing. It was more a training exercise, a strengthening of His purpose, a proving ground that He might know in Himself that He was fully prepared for the ultimate culmination of His ministry on earth.

This is what, it seems, I am in need of myself, and as it is what I need, it appears to be what God has laid before me - a time of personal exodus. There have been things I was in charge of, things that fed my sense of importance to the kingdom, and almost every one of them has been stripped away. It has hurt. Wounded egos are painful to bear. It has hurt, and yet there has been a sense of relief, for I could see too many failures in my handling of those assignments. The failures come because I fail to lean on my Lord. I forget. I take my eyes off of my God and King and fall into trying to do it in my own strength.

Lord, as You have opened my eyes to this, I thank You for revealing it to me. I thank You for dealing with this in me, and I pray that by Your grace I may be a quick student, and diligent. I thank You for bringing understanding to my hurt. May it bring healing in its wake! Let there be this new perspective in me, Father. Let me neither grumble against those who stand where I once stood, nor relax in this place You have me. No, neither of these will do! Neither of these are the attitudes of the diligent understudy. I thank You for this time of personal exodus, Lord, and I pray that it need not be over long. I want to serve You, but not as I have served You before. I want to serve You in spirit and truth, with a service given solely out of love for You, and with no thought for myself. God! Cast away the insecurity that comes with starving out demon pride! Replace it with a confidence borne of laying hold of Your own presence in my life, of clinging to Your coats, and leaning no more on my own pitiful understanding.

To serve any other way, to serve in a fashion aimed at feeding the spirit of man within us, is to follow the horrid Herodian example. The family Herod made religion a tool. Service to God was made servant to service of pride and power. Religion was not a matter of heart and soul to the Herods, but a tool of policy, an instrument used to serve personal ambition. In Herod, this corruption of religion played out in most terrible fashion, yet that same corruption of religion is a danger for every one of us. It is exactly the same thing that is at work in us when our service to God is rendered with an attitude of 'look at me now!' It is a terrible thing to pass off our self-serving activities as being done for God.

This is what Herod did with the Temple. It was done neither out of love for God, nor even out of a vain hope of appeasing God. God wasn't in it at all. There was only Herod. There was Herod wanting recognition. It was a grandiose 'look at me now!' There was also the secondary political motivation of hoping it might make his subjects more amenable to his rule. This, too, was a 'look at me' motivation. It was all about feeding pride, it was all about feeding that envy which made him so insecure. It was a desire to be seen as having a legitimacy that was not his.

We play that same game whenever we seek to appear before our brothers and sisters as more righteous, more sanctified, than we truly are. When we pass ourselves off in church as having already conquered the sinful nature within, we have joined the Herodians, and have corrupted our faith. We have made of the pure and good stuff of religion a corrupted and vile prop to the throne of pride in us. We have made religion a tool of our emotional politics, and what was made true of Judaism under Herod becomes true of Christianity in us: "Religion, […] degraded into the instrument of unscrupulous ambition lost its power…" (M&S). That is the great danger. That is what we allow to happen in our own efforts of ministry when ministry becomes an instrument of personal ambition, for I dare say personal ambition will ever trend toward the unscrupulous. It is the way of all flesh.

Now, a number of sources pointed out that in Herod, a descendant of Esau sat upon David's throne. They see in this an attempt by Esau to get back what he so lightly gave away. However, there was far more going on here. It was not just Esau seeking to reclaim something that was never really his. It was the devil's own plan to keep God's Anointed from the throne of David. He knows the Scriptures well, and he understands them well, apart from his blind spot when it comes to his own inevitable defeat. He sees God's plan unfolded so clearly in the Scriptures, and thinks that this gives him the advantage - he who cloaks his own plans in darkness. Ah! He thinks himself so clever!

He looked at that plan, and saw that the one who would take back the kingdom of God would come from the children of Israel. So, he entered into Pharaoh, and sought to destroy the whole of that bloodline before Messiah could come of it. He understood the Scriptures, but he had long since ceased to understand the God of the Scriptures. Thus, his plan failed. Yet, he did not give up and run away. He bided his time. He worked around the edges of Israel, making inroads where he could, softening the resolve of the people to remain set apart. He used every means he could to corrupt the heart of the people, and distract them from their God and their strength. He succeeded rather well in that, but he did not succeed as he had hoped.

Now, in Herod, he had control of the very throne upon which Messiah must sit! Surely, this was the perfect defense! He knew the signs of the times even better than did the magi, who had, after all, learned their arts from his own underlings. No, he was quite aware that Messiah was come to earth, and he was making certain that the throne of David was not available to its rightful King. Herod sat the throne, a man fully subservient to demon pride and demon envy. In truth, he was a puppet king. History would see him as a puppet of Roman power, but in truth, he was a puppet of the demons that were enthroned in his own heart. This was to the devil's purpose, for there was no way he would relinquish the throne of Israel to its rightful king. Indeed, he was as malleable to the usurper's purpose as had been Pharaoh. He, too, would call for the death of the sons of Israel, would seek to eradicate the line of promise, thinking that it would preserve his own power. Yes, the devil was greatly pleased on the day that Herod ordered slaughter in Bethlehem. But, his clever plans, his darkened counsels were hardly secret from God. Nothing is hidden from His sight. He knew the devil's plans more clearly than did the devil himself, and He counteracted that plan in the same fashion He had before - an exodus.

That same purpose of thwarting Messiah lay in Herod's efforts in rebuilding the Temple, by some accounts. It stands to reason. The thought is that as he had access to the Temple during its reconstruction, he had access to the genealogies which were used to validate the high priest as legitimate. Without those genealogies, he was more able to install whom he would into that office, making it easier to make religion subject to politics. As he controlled the office of high priest, he was able to gradually eliminate men of understanding from that post. This was in service to his desire to avoid Messiah's rise. This was his kingdom after all, and he was not going to give up easily the dynasty he had lost his soul to establish! Yes, if he had his own men in the ruling hierarchy of the Church of God, who would recognize Messiah if He came? The people, by and large, looked to their religious leaders for understanding and direction. If their direction was blinded and aimless, what hope was there for this Messiah? Who would recognize Him when the leadership denied Him?

Both Herod and the devil appear to have failed to learn the lessons of history. The tactics they used had been tried before, and God's counteraction was really pretty much what it had been before, too. Truly, He laughs in heaven at the nations that rise up against Him! Truly, He does not feel threatened in the least by all their ranting! He is Lord of all, Creator of heaven and earth, the Only Power, from whom all these rebels have what futile power they have. And, He shall reign forevermore! The plot against His throne failed. The one who sought to establish a name for himself succeeded. To this day, he is known as Herod the Great, yet it is known to one and all that for him, the title 'great' is an ironic misnomer. In all things, he failed magnificently. Even in his successes.

If there is one thing we learn from Herod, it must be the incredible danger of leaving pride, envy, and jealousy unaddressed. They are demons common to man, uncommonly resilient in their tag-team approach to corruption. It is the activity of these demons that poisons so much of ministry. It is the activity of these demons that serves most often to distract us from our proper focus. Let us learn from Herod, then, the critical necessity of turning our eyes upon Jesus at all times, of leaning wholly upon Him in all things, for truly, apart from Him we can do nothing.