I'm going to open this up in prayer and then we'll begin. Is everything good Steve? Okay. Alright, so let's open up with a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you again so much for your grace this day that you allowed us to gather together to study your word and to understand the mind of our Lord and Savior.

God, I just pray that through this study that you bear much fruit for your glory and for your kingdom. That the people who are a part of your kingdom may be encouraged and be amazed at what the Lord has done, not only what we read in the scriptures but also in our own lives.

I pray that amazement will never die or be lessened, but rather Lord may it grow deeply in our hearts, in our minds, and in whatever endeavors that we may be committed to Lord, that we would desire to see your son be magnified. So God we pray for tonight that you would be with us as we continue our study of the gospel of Mark.

Pray for those who are coming here now. Pray for travel blessings that you would allow them to get here safely. We pray for those who are learning the gospel of Mark at our satellite campuses or homes. We pray for much blessing to come forth from them as well. So God we pray that tonight would be dedicated to you.

Give us a tent of minds and a tent of hearts. We pray this is your name. Amen. Alright. So one of the things I wanted to give you guys was the actual PowerPoint slides. I hope they're much more beneficial to you guys than the previous worksheets that I was passing out for before.

So just a quick review over the gospel of Mark and what we've covered so far. We had the threefold purpose of Mark as we found in verse 1. Then we moved on to the battle cry and Jesus' baptism. We had the beginnings of Christ's ministry in Mark chapter 1 verse 14-25.

We had the four offenses in Mark chapter 2. We had the rise of the opposition in Mark chapter 3 verse 7-35. Again, that's where Jesus' own family was kind of going against them. And then we had the planting of the parables in Mark chapter 4 verse 1-34. Where we see Jesus' teaching ministry shifting towards parables and no longer making direct calls of repentance to the crowds.

So that's what we covered over the past two weeks since we started. So yeah, so any questions from that so far? Any questions? Alright. So now we're going to just review over the outline of Mark. One thing that I want, I think in the PowerPoint it's blank. I didn't put down the location because, yeah.

So I just want to test you guys. I want to test you guys to see if you guys know where the outline of Mark goes geographically. And so I'm just going to call on you guys. There's only four little, four boxes that need to be filled in. So I'll just start off with Judy.

Chapter 1 verse 1 until verse 13, where is Jesus? The wilderness, Judea. Right? Very good. In chapter 1 verse 14 until the end of chapter 9, where is Jesus, Kevin Yoon? Are you sure? Alright, you're right. Chapter 10, the entire chapter, of chapter 10, we call that what? Becky Clark.

The turning point. And from chapter 11 until the end of chapter 16, where is Jesus? Alexi. Jerusalem. Very good. So again, very easy to track the Gospel of Mark geographically. What we're about to enter in tonight's study is something that I call the, there's four withdrawals in the Gospel of Mark.

Within his ministry in Galilee. And so tonight we're covering chapter 4 verse 35 until chapter 6 verse 29. And in that it's what we consider the first withdrawal. And as you guys can see, it's commenced or it started off by Mark stating, or Jesus stating, let's go to the other side.

And so, again, all of these withdrawals occur while he's in Galilee. They have some form of him saying let's go to the other side, let's go here, let's go there. And it happens four times within the first nine chapters of the Gospel of Mark. And every time he withdraws away from Galilee, he always comes back to Galilee.

So that's something to just take note of. So tonight, again, we're covering the first withdrawal. That's why the entire withdrawal. And so, yeah, so the outlook right there, the first withdrawal contains six events that we're going to cover tonight. The great storm, the great calm, and the great fear.

We have the three retreats. We have the 12 years, the hometown offense, the first commission of the apostles, and the end of John the Baptist. And so, yeah, so there we go. So we're going to head right on in. And we're going to talk about the great storm, the great calm, and the great fear.

And we find that in Mark 4, verse 35-41. And in it, it says, "On that day when evening came, Jesus said to them, 'Let us go over to the other side.' Leaving the crowd, he took them along with him in the boat, just as he was, and the other boats were with them.

And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Hush, be still.' And the wind died down, and it became perfectly calm.

And he said to them, 'Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?' They became very much afraid and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" Now, we see again in verse 35 that Jesus initiates this withdrawal.

He's going away from the crowds. We talked about last week that there was a bunch of people coming around Jesus. They were kind of, almost in a sense, kind of crushing him because they want to try to reach out and touch him and be healed. They want to hear his teachings, so they're kind of pushing in more.

And so, here is Jesus in verse 35, and he's telling his disciples, "Let us go to the other side." Now, Jesus wasn't trying to avoid the crowds. Again, he's not saying, like, "I'm tired of the crowds, and I just want to get away from them." Rather, in divine sovereignty, there's a purpose behind this withdrawal.

There's a purpose behind it. Jesus is on a mission as he takes this first withdrawal. And so, off he goes in a boat with his 12 disciples, and there arose a fierce gale of wind that was basically tossing the boat to and fro within the Sea of Galilee. And we notice here that, again, the disciples are afraid, and they're just like, "Oh, man, what's going on?" They wake up Jesus, and they're saying, "You don't care about us?" "You don't care about us?" All this stuff, and they're complaining, "I'm afraid so, because we're about to die." And so, Jesus wakes up, and it says that he rebukes the wind.

He rebukes the wind. And that word is significant because that's the same word he uses when he's casting out demons from people. And so, some of the commentaries will say that perhaps this sudden gush of wind that's attacking this boat may have some demonic influences. It might be a demonic attack upon the disciples.

But it's also, the Sea of Galilee could also be very vicious. It could easily turn into something that was peaceful, but it could also turn very violent. And so, it could be a mixture of both. I don't know, but Mark chose the word "rebuke" for a reason. And so, he rebukes the wind, and there's a great calm.

And again, it just reveals that Christ has authority over nature. And we'll see that all throughout the Gospel of Mark, him having authority over a particular thing. It could be nature. We saw already that in Mark chapter 2, or Mark chapter 1, where he's talking about he's teaching the synagogues with great authority.

So, we're starting to see his authority being established. And in this section, in this story, in this event, we see Christ revealing his authority over nature. And so, we title this section of Scripture as "The Great Storm, The Great Calm, and The Great Fear" because we notice that it started off with a great storm.

We notice a contrast where it turns into a great calm. It says it became perfectly calm. And lastly, we notice that the disciples were greatly afraid. They had great fear. Because they'd never experienced this kind of power before. Previously, before, they saw Jesus cast out demons, heal the sick.

But now they get to see that, man, he controls nature. And so, the disciples were experiencing this for the first time, and they're, again, rightfully so. They should be afraid of who Jesus is. And so, there we go. Jesus going on his mission. And to start off his mission, he faces a great storm, and he calms it down.

The next section that we're going to go over, we call "The Three Entreaties." Or, as some of you guys already know, it's called "The Gerasim Thamaniac Story." We can cross-reference that with Matthew 8, 28 and 34, and Luke 8, 26 and 39. In this section, we see Jesus coming off the boat.

And immediately, as he came off the boat, a man with an unclean spirit comes and meets him. And we know from the other Gospel accounts that it wasn't just one man that came to confront Jesus. Or that, rather, there were two men who were possessed. And so, the total description that we have, if we combine the Gospel accounts, is that there's two demon-possessed men, naked, violent, and cutting themselves.

And, again, I think the description of them being naked is from Matthew. Them being violent is from Luke. And cutting themselves is from the Gospel of Mark. And so, we see that being there. Jesus' mission is starting. It's initiated now. He came here for this purpose. Mark and Luke, again, are focused on the one who is talking, even though we know that there are two demons, or two men who are demon-possessed.

And, most likely, only one gets saved in this story. We see the dialogue between Jesus and the demons in verse 7. And we see that this demon apparently knows a lot of theology. And they're shouting with a loud voice. He said, in verse 7, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I implore you by God, do not torment me." So, apparently, they know what the torment is. And they don't want it. So, again, that makes us aware that even the demons know what lies ahead. And as Jesus continues his conversation with the demons, he introduces himself as "legion." And some of us already know that "legion" is just a term, it's a military term.

It means, like, there's 6,000 men in one legion. And so, perhaps, within this one man that's talking to Jesus, who is possessed by this demon called "legion," that perhaps there are 6,000 demons that are involved with him. And so, here we have, again, this scene of Jesus on a mission, and he's coming to confront this garrisoned demoniac.

For this one purpose, he's coming forward. What we come up next is, again, the demon imploring Jesus. He's imploring him to not send them out of the country. And, surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, there's a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain, as it says in verse 11.

And so the demons beg Jesus, "Send us to the swine so that we may enter them." And so Jesus gave them permission. And, again, all this is to show, all this is really to show, just like how in the previous section of Scripture it was to show that Jesus has authority over nature, in this section, what we're seeing is Jesus' authority over demons.

And so we're seeing that now. And so he allows demons to go into the swine, and as we all know the story, the swine become rabid and they end up jumping off a cliff. Now, I don't know about you guys, but when I was reading this story, I was kind of perplexed.

I was like, "Why are there even pigs in this area? Because isn't this area Israel? Why would they have pork?" And so, again, that's a question to ponder and to wonder why that was there in the first place. You know, people have told me that maybe they were trading with Gentiles, and so they had swine available for them.

That could be a reason why. But it's just really interesting that in the nation of Israel, where God said that pig was an unclean animal, yet we have a herd of swine in the nation of Israel. So anyways, I thought that was interesting, but moving on. He cast out the demons to the pig, and we come up to this man now.

We come up to the demoniac, the ex-demoniac, and that he's now healed. And whereas before he was described as someone who was unable to bind, he was always running around, he was naked, and he wasn't in the right mind. We now see in Mark 5, verse 15, that he's described as being one who is sitting down, clothed, and in the right mind.

And so again, we see dramatic transformation in this demoniac after he's saved, after having the demons casted out from him. And in there, we also included Ephesians 2, verse 4-7, talking about we've been seated with Jesus, we're clothed in his righteousness, and we're now in the right mind. In Romans 12, verse 1-3.

So again, the image that we see here with the ex-demoniac is really a good depiction of what we are now. As believers in Christ. That we too are seated with Christ, that we're now clothed in his righteousness, and we're now in the right mind. We've been given a right mind because of what Christ has done for us.

And so, here we have the ex-demoniac. And as we continue on with the story here, after the swine fell off the cliff, the herdsmen ran away, they told the entire city what's going on, and they come back, and the whole city comes to see who is Jesus and what happened to this guy who was terrorizing their city for so long.

And after they observed him, and asked him questions, and revisited the story, the people in the town did something that was really, you would think, opposite of witnesses of Jesus' miraculous healing. And instead of having him stay with them, they implored him to leave. That word "implored" is like they prayed for him to leave.

They wanted him to leave their presence. And so here we have, um... And so here we have, again, the second entreaty of the people wanting Jesus to leave. And he answers it. He says, "Okay, I'll leave." And yet, the reason why we call it the three entreaties is because there's a third entreaty involved with the garrisoning demoniac, the ex-demoniac.

And he's begging Jesus, begging Jesus for him to come along with him. Perhaps in a state of gratitude and thankfulness of what Jesus has done for him. He wanted to follow Jesus. And rightfully so. And yet, out of all of them, out of the three entreaties, right? Out of the, you know, you have the first entreaty with the demons.

You have the second entreaty with the non-believing, garrisoned people. And you have the third entreaty with the ex-demoniac. Jesus said yes to the first two. But to the last one, he said no. To the one that really wanted to be with Jesus, Jesus said no. And the reason why he said no, you find in verse 19 of chapter 5.

And it says, "And he did not let them. But he said to them, 'Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you.'" So sometimes God will say no to things that we want to do for him.

Not because we're not capable or not because our hearts are wrong. But perhaps because God has a better plan. Clearly Jesus knew that the ex-demoniac wanted to follow him. Jesus clearly knew that the ex-demoniac wanted to follow him and learn from him and just be in his presence because there's such a state of thanksgiving that he wants to just show to Jesus.

And that's a noble thing. And yet here we have this former demoniac. He's being rejected by Jesus saying no. I have a better plan for you. You're going to go back to your hometown. You're going to go back to your friends and family who have known you for this long.

Who have seen you in this condition. And you're going to go back to them and say what the Lord has done for you. And to explain to them the Lord's mercy that has been shown upon you. And so the former demoniac went away. He had no questions. He didn't want to haggle with Jesus.

He didn't want to lie to Jesus. He said okay. And off he goes. And he goes back and he proclaims that he's a capitalist. The area that surrounds the garrison area. What great things Jesus has done for him and everyone was amazed. Again the question might be asked why did Jesus allow this man to go and share with everyone else what he has done for him.

Or as we had the case with the leper. You guys remember the leper? He told the leper not to say anything. But to go back to the priest and show them what has happened with his leprosy. It could be the case where the former demoniac went back and perhaps it was because of the location.

I think Valerie mentioned that to me a couple weeks ago. And the reason why is because of the location. We don't really see Jesus coming back to the Decapolis until later on in the Gospel Mark. Because the focus of his ministry is in Galilee. And so by allowing him to spread the news of what kind of mercy he has received from the Lord.

Might drum up some popularity but it's not going to hinder Jesus' ministry. Because he's not going to be there for that long. And so perhaps he allowed him to go and spread the news. My take would be that area of the Decapolis, even though it's in the middle of Israel, is mainly Gentile.

It's a Gentile, it's mainly a Gentile region. There are some Jews that live in that region. But I think it's mainly Gentile and I'm thinking that perhaps this was a way in which the Great Commission was to be fulfilled. Where the Jews and Gentiles would be able to come together under God's salvation plan for the lost.

And so I think that this was just a precursor of what's to come. That the Gospel was to reach to the Gentiles. That it wasn't meant to just stay in Israel. We can talk about that later. But anyways. Any questions so far? Alright. Now, this next section I call the 12 years.

I call it the 12 years. And we're going to go over this one right now. So after he heals the demoniac, again, he traveled that far. He endured through a great storm in order to save this one soul. Right? That's love. There it comes. And so even though he endured through all the storms, even though he endured through the interaction with the demons, endured through the rejection of the people of the land.

Jesus' love was on display. Because he wanted to save that one soul. And so now he goes back. He leaves the demoniac, the former demoniac. And he goes back to Galilee. And the love story continues. Here. The love story continues. As soon as he gets off the boat, there's a large crowd that's around him.

And so he couldn't go further into the land. He had to stay by the seashore. And we see in verse 22 that one of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up and fell at his feet. Now this individual named Jairus, we know, again, Mark notes that he was a temple official.

And what this probably means is he's already heard about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit that the other religious teachers brought up. He probably has seen the opposition grow within his own temple, other temple officials. And he probably knew about the plot to destroy Jesus. And yet, here this temple official comes.

He's running up. Again, running back then was not seen as a good thing. He's running up to Jesus and he falls at his feet and he's begging him to come and to heal his little daughter. And so again, him falling down at Jesus' feet and making a plea for him to come, in and of itself marks opposition against the temple officials, the religious teachers of his time.

And so Jairus is being a brave man here. He's going against his co-workers, he's going against his associates. He's making this very public. He wasn't going to Jesus in private or at night. He's going out in the daylight in front of everyone. Coming to his knees and begging Jesus to come.

And so again, he asks him, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Please come and lay your hands on her." "My little daughter" is a term of endearment that we'll see later on in this chapel. It's a term of endearment. And so Jesus, without question, goes off with him.

He follows Jairus back to his home. And as always, a large crowd is following Jesus again. And as we know, there's an encounter with a woman who has a blood henna for 12 years. Again, what that means is she was ceremonially unclean for 12 years. She couldn't participate in any of the temple activities for 12 years.

She couldn't go to any of the feasts or the festivals for 12 years because of this blood henna that she cannot seem to be cured of. So for 12 years, she had to endure this. And we see in verse 26 that she endured much at the hands of many physicians.

And she spent all that she had. But even though she went to the best physicians and used up all her money, it just seemed like her condition was getting worse. So casting all her hope on this man named Jesus, she goes up to him and touches his cloak. And immediately, she's healed.

We see that in verse 29. Again, that word "immediately" is an indication of the Gospel of Mark, one of its patterns. And in verse 30, we see again, immediately, Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, he began to ask, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples were like, "What?

What are you talking about? You have a huge crowd around you. Of course, everyone's touching you." But Jesus knew. Jesus knew someone grabbed that henna with the intent of being healed. Now, in verse 33, we see that the woman came out. She didn't hide. She didn't run away. Rather, she came up.

And she came out fearing and trembling. Now, why would she come out with fear and trembling? Two reasons why. The first reason why she came out fearing and trembling was because she stole. She took something that wasn't hers. She didn't ask Jesus to heal her. She just took it.

She stole from Jesus. And secondly, the reason why she came out fearing and trembling was because I'm pretty sure the larger crowd knew of her. They probably knew her as the woman who couldn't stop bleeding. And obviously, in Old Testament times, if you even touch someone who is bleeding, you are ceremonially unclean.

And so I'm sure in a large crowd, you can't avoid making contact with people. You can't. And so, basically by her being in this large crowd, she intentionally made everyone else there ceremonially unclean, including Jesus. And so for this woman, there are many reasons, very good reasons to be fearing and trembling.

And as she came to Jesus, she fell down before him and told him everything. She confessed everything. And how does Jesus respond? How does Jesus respond? Go into the next slide. In verse 34, and he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction." Now mark that, the word "daughter." Where did we hear that word "daughter" from?

With Jairus. Jairus, right, he came up to Jesus and said, "My little daughter is sick." So now here Jesus is calling, using the same term of endearment, to this complete stranger. To this complete stranger, calling her "daughter." As a sign of affection, a sign of endearment, and saying, "Your faith has made you well." "Go in peace and be healed of your affliction." Again, a love story indeed that we see here in Mark chapter 5.

And we call Mark the "Go Gospel" because in verse 35 we're going again. While Jesus is saying these things, an official from Jairus' house comes and informs the crowd, which I'm sure includes Jesus and Jairus, and he makes an announcement saying, "Your daughter has died. Why struggle with a teacher anymore?" But Jesus overhearing replies back saying, "Do not be afraid any longer.

Only believe." Again, making a connection back to the faith of this woman who had the hemorrhage. He's calling for the entire crowd, calling Jairus to just believe. And so he went. And this time he made sure that no one was allowed to accompany him except for Peter, James, and John.

Again, the inner circle of three within his twelve disciples. And he comes into the room and he kicks out all of those who are weeping. And he goes into the room where Jairus' daughter is asleep. And he touches her. Touches her hand and says, "Wake up." And immediately the girl got up and began to walk in verse 42.

And so again, we see here this concept of being unclean. Jesus was not concerned with that. Jesus was cared about the people. He wanted to serve them. And so despite being touched by this ceremonial unclean woman, despite touching a dead body, which again counts him as being ceremonial unclean, all these miracles happened.

And so you guys might ask, "Why did I title this Twelve Years?" And the reason why I titled it Twelve Years... The reason why I called it Twelve Years is because twelve years ago, twelve years ago, the woman began to bleed non-stop. Twelve years ago, Jairus' daughter was born.

And twelve years ago, there was a carpenter in Nazareth who was waiting to heal both of them at this time. And so we see here again, the twelve years. It's really tying together the story of Jairus' daughter, the woman with the hemorrhage, and Jesus. All for a God-sovereign plan.

In order to heal and to save. And so just as I've been saying from before, what does the story of the garrisoned demoniac and the healings of the bloody woman and Jairus' daughter have in common? It's a divine love story between the Savior of the world and people in need of a Savior.

It's a divine love story here, guys. Sometimes we can take these sections of scripture and try to make it into a theology, and I think that's great. I'm not going to dodge on that, but we can't lose sight of the fact that Jesus had compassion for these people. He traveled through a great storm in order to save that one man.

Jesus endured the great crowds in order to save and to heal this woman with the hemorrhage, suffering for twelve years. And yet, despite the bad news of Jairus' daughter passing away, Christ still endured to go and heal her and to resurrect her from the dead. Love compels Jesus to continue on like this.

It's a great example for all of us to be challenged. In a sense, for us to... How are we being compelled by Christ's love in our endeavors to reach out to those who are unsaved, to encourage those within the body of Christ? Are we compelled by the love of Christ to do these things?

And so, what we laid out before you here, again, in these events, is really a divine love story of the Savior. Now, this divine love story doesn't end. It continues on. But we're going to take a little step back because there are some problems that we find in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth.

And we see in chapter 6, verse 1-6, that Jesus goes back to his hometown of Nazareth and his disciples follow him. And in chapter 6, verse 2, when the Sabbath came, he began to teach. And the people who were listening to him were kind of like astonished, but not in a good way, because they were wondering, "Where does he get this kind of authority?

How can he do these miracles?" And so, they start attributing back to his father, who, again, like I mentioned last week, there's a good chance that Joseph may have already passed away. And so here we have Jesus being mocked, being opposed to in his own hometown. And verse 5 is...

verse 5 is really unique. Because this is probably one of the few parts in the Gospel of Mark where it explicitly states that he could do no miracle there. Except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. So imagine, I mean, Jesus lived there for 30 years before he went out and did his ministry.

He built relationships with these people. He probably played with some of these kids that are now full-grown adults. And perhaps they had ailments, perhaps there was sickness in their own families, and yet Jesus could do no miracle there. And it's a tell-tale sign that perhaps even Jesus' own hometown had a similar condition to the land of the Gerasene.

And the same kind of doubt, the same kind of begging for Jesus to just leave. And so we see in verse 6 that he "wondered at their unbelief." Again, that's a detail in the Gospel of Mark showing us the mind of Christ as he wonders at his own hometown's unbelief.

And he still continued going around the villages and still teaching. And so we have his own hometown that's offended. In chapter 6, verse 1-6. Any questions so far? Please, straightforward, right? That's a controversial amendment. Alright. We go on to chapter 6, verse 7-13. And we see here the first commission of the apostles.

And we get the cross-references in Matthew 10, verses 5-15 and Luke 9, verses 1-6. In the Gospel of Matthew account, there's actually an explicit command for them not to go to the Gentiles. There's an explicit command for Jesus not to go to the Gentiles. Now, why did Mark not include that command in his Gospel?

Why do you think so? Because he's writing to the Gentiles. Writing to the Gentiles, exactly. And so that would have fit into his audience. They would have been questioning, "What's that all about?" And so it doesn't mean that Mark is being unfaithful or not being true. It just means Mark is trying to accomplish his purpose in writing this Gospel to the Gentiles.

And so we see that he commissions them to go out and to teach. And says, "Wherever you enter a town, stay there until you leave town. Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them." And so verse 12, "They went out and preached that men should repent." And so basically Jesus is instructing his disciples, his apostles, that you will only stay in this town based upon the response to the message that you are going to give to them.

That they should repent. So they're not supposed to stay there if people are clinging on to them and saying, "We have a great need for you." Because we see later on, right, in verse 13, "And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them." So they're not to stay there just for the sake of healing people by casting out demons.

They're only to stay there if the people there respond to this message with repentance. Again, people might ask, "Why is oil involved in verse 13?" Historically, oil was used for medicinal purposes. But we also know in the Gospel of Mark, we have Jesus healed without the oil. So that might not be the case.

So why was oil used to heal people? My answer would simply be, it's a visible avenue to display a source of healing, which is the authority of Jesus Christ. It's not like the disciples were just healing people and not talking about Jesus. They taught about Jesus, and then they healed.

So the point of this section is the commission of the apostles. And the point of this passage is to really show that the disciples engaged in the same work as Jesus. That the disciples were engaged in the same work as Jesus. That's the main point. Any questions? Alright. So we're going to conclude our study by looking at the story of John the Baptist and his end.

We see in verse 14 that "King Herod heard of it, for his name had become well known." The works of the disciples were becoming famous. And it wasn't just simply the works of the disciples, but it was Jesus himself, because the disciples taught that it was the authority of Jesus that brought about these healings.

And so King Herod heard about it, and this man, King Herod, is Herod's antipas. He is a Samaritan ruling Galilee. So if you guys know a little bit of Israel history, the Samaritans and the Jews, let's just say they weren't best friends, even though they lived within close proximity to one another.

So you can imagine already how the people may feel knowing that a Samaritan is ruling over them, over the people of Galilee. So he wasn't really a popular guy among his people. He was a cruel ruler, and he wasn't smart. And he had many family conflicts, again, we already know some of it, being that he married his brother's wife, who was actually his niece.

And so here is a man, Herod Antipas, kind of getting afraid now. He's getting afraid because he's hearing, going on to the next slide, he's hearing the words of the works of Jesus Christ. And he's wondering, "Is this John the Baptist, risen from the dead?" And other people were trying to comfort him, and they were just saying, "No, it's Elijah, no, he's a prophet, like some of the prophets of the Old Testament." But Herod was staunch in believing that this Jesus that he's hearing about is actually John the Baptist, resurrected from the dead.

And so Mark begins to explain why he guesses that it's John the Baptist. And so we go into a little history of how John the Baptist and Herod are related. You see here that Herod arrested John the Baptist. You hear about that in Mark chapter 1. And he was bound in prison because of Herodias, his wife.

And the reason why Herodias wanted John the Baptist arrested was because John was basically rebuking and correcting King Herod, saying, "You should not have stolen your brother's wife. You should not be married to her." And so because of that, in verse 19, Herodias had a grudge against him. Sorry, I skipped a very important detail here.

Now, Herod wasn't... he was afraid of John because he was a righteous and holy man, and yet he still kept him safe. Which is kind of unique, because why would you want to keep a man who was rebuking you and trying to correct you safe? For most of us, if we're trying to be corrected, most of us, we don't really respond that well.

But for whatever reason, Herod was fond of John the Baptist, and so he kept him safe. And he was very perplexed, but yet he still enjoyed listening to him. So it's very weird. Again, perhaps Herod wasn't the brightest student in class. Maybe he didn't really understand what John the Baptist was saying.

I don't know. But he enjoyed listening to him. But Herodias didn't like him. And so we see in verse 21... Next slide. There's a strategic date that came along. And it was Herod's birthday. And he was giving this banquet to everyone who was around him, his lords, his military commanders, and the leading men of Galilee.

And there was this plan for the daughter of Herodias to come and dance in front of the crowd. And it pleased Herod. I mean, most of us kind of know the story already. And basically this plan was to really exploit Herod's weakness. And his weakness was his low morals.

We can already see that as he married his brother's wife. And we see that even more. For after the performance, perhaps it was very sensual, perhaps, Herod was pleased. He may have been drunk because it was a banquet, it was a feast. And he swore to her, making a promise, "Whatever you ask for, I'll give up to you, even if I have to kingdom." And so Herodias' daughter goes out and talks to her mother, "What should I ask for?" And obviously Herodias was very intent, because this was a strategic date for her.

She asked for the head of John the Baptist. And so after she makes the request for the head of John the Baptist, we see in verse 26, that the king was very sorry. Now, he wasn't sorry for John the Baptist. He wasn't sorry for him. He was sorry that he had to make this decision in front of everyone else, because there was a tremendous amount of pressure upon him, pure pressure if you would, to make due on his promise.

He had to make this promise to come to life. And so even though before we saw King Herod protecting John the Baptist, he kept him safe, because of his mistake, because of his weakness, because of his weakness, he was sorry. Sorry to make the decision not for John the Baptist.

And so he calls for the executioner, and the executioner comes and beheads John the Baptist. So low morals led to John the Baptist's beheading. And so that's where we are with that. So Herod sat in to John the Baptist, but an explanation of why King Herod thought that John the Baptist came from the grave, when he started hearing about Jesus' ministry.

So with that being said, we conclude with this, again, just a quick review of the First Withdrawal. We had a great storm, a great calm, and a great fear. We had the three entreaties. We had the twelve years. Again, the three entreaties and the twelve years being combined as a divine love story.

We had the hometown of the Pentecost. We had the First Commission of the Apostles. And then finally, the end of John the Baptist. Are there any questions, encouragements? Yes. Two quick questions. You said Herod married his brother's wife, niece. Where did you get the niece from? So the question was, how is Herodias his niece?

I think, do you want me to draw up a document? Can I just show something here real quick? Alright. I'm going to find a genie all over the earth. Now I could be wrong. I hope I'm not. Alright. So this is like a genealogy of... So here we have Herod the Great, back when Jesus was born.

And we see that he had many wives, apparently. And so Herod Antipas is right here. Considered a tetrarch of the region of Galilee. And we see that Herodias is related to him, not just by marriage, but by blood. She is the daughter of one of the sons. Or yeah, so I don't know.

Niece, cousin. Somehow related by blood. So there's some family conflicts that are much involved with Herod. So yeah, that's how I got it. Just from historical studies and stuff like that. So yes, Herodias is somehow related to Herod Antipas, not just by marriage, but by blood. Any other questions?

It's very complicated. Found a tree. Alright. No questions? Oh, yeah, you had a question. Yes, sorry. This is just more for Twitter. It said that Herodias' daughter danced with him. Is that to say that's not his parent's son? Is it correct that we assume that it's his fellow's son?

Or daughter, excuse me? I think the daughter is Salome. Yeah, so all the way at the bottom here. I'm sorry, I'm coming your way. So perhaps... Yeah, I would say that Herodias' daughter from her previous marriage to Philip. And there's another name for Philip. I think his name was Aristopoulos.

That we see over there. On this side here. Philip? Yes. Oh, this could actually be my marriage too. I told you, this family is messed up. Yeah, so there you go. The daughter is Salome. The daughter from her previous marriage. Not his. I won't be surprised. Anyways, so yeah.

There you go. That's the quote. Fitness re-lesson right here, right? Any other questions? From the text or anything? Alright. So, like we always do at the conclude. Find someone next to you who was formerly a demoniac. And pray with them and give thanks to them that they were saved.

And pray with them and then we'll conclude.