Soap Operas and John the Baptist’s Death – 7/27/25

Good morning, friends. It’s good to see you all. I was thinking as I prepared for today that, as teachers who get up here each week, we ask a lot out of you as listeners.

I was thinking that all of you have to put up with each speaker’s style — the way they talk, the way they deliver information — and all the idiosyncrasies that go along with each person. There’s no need to list those out to me after the service. You can keep those to yourself. You can email Peter if you want to. But you have to listen to different people and the way they communicate information.

You also have to patiently listen. We’ve been in the book of Matthew now for 19 months, but we haven’t been in it for about five weeks. As speakers, we actually hope you remember where we were, where we are, and where we’re going so that we can all apply the same passage at the same time in the same way. That’s a pretty bold — and maybe at times — too big of a request.

For today, what I want to try to do is get us all back on the same page about the book of Matthew. So we’re going to do a quick recap of the book Matthew.

Matthew writes his gospel (this story, this autobiography of Jesus) and makes a gigantic claim: Jesus is the promised divine rescuer. Jesus is the Messiah who will rescue humanity from their sin and reconcile the relationship between God and man.

Matthew proves that gigantic claim by organizing his book into an extended show-and-tell about Jesus. Matthew focuses on Jesus’s works and he focuses on his words, a show and a tell. All of that is to substantiate Jesus is indeed the forever King and divine rescuer.

Matthew pulls back the curtain and lets us watch as Jesus is declared the Davidic King in the genealogy at the beginning of the book. We get to see Jesus declared the Son of God when he’s baptized. We see Jesus’s perfection when he resists every temptation from the devil, like no human had in history. Jesus teaches with unmatched authority and does miracles that none but God could do.

Jesus explains his kingdom, but it’s not a kingdom won through military conquest, which is what all of the Jewish people would have wanted. “It’s time to overtake Rome. Let’s overthrow this deal.” Jesus comes in with an upside-down kingdom. For those of you who are fans of Stranger Things, you’re very aware of the upside down: a place of darkness, gloom, death, and pain. That’s not Jesus’s kingdom. Jesus’s upside-down is glorious. There is peace, faithful love, controlled anger, forgiveness, and endurance.

Jesus also includes odd people in his kingdom-building team. He overlooks the religious elite. He moves past the powerful and goes to regular people: tax collectors, fishermen. Both men and women he brings to follow him, and they bring nothing but their desire to follow and listen to their teacher.

Five weeks ago, we finished a small section (chapter 13) that could be summarized with two words: kingdom and rejection. Kingdom and rejection.

In chapter 13, Matthew takes us on this fast journey through a ton of Jesus’s words about the kingdom:

“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 13:11)

“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:19)

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed” (Matthew 13:24)

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed” (Matthew 13:31)

“The kingdom is like leaven” (Matthew 13:33)

“The good seed is the sons of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:38)

“The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin” (Matthew 13:41)

“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43)

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field” (Matthew 13:44)

“Again, the kingdom of the heaven is like a merchant” (Matthew 13:45)

“Again, the kingdom of the heaven is like net” (Matthew 13:47)

“Therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 13:52)

Kingdom, kingdom, kingdom. Jesus’s kingdom. Matthew then tells us a story about rejection.

Jesus, the King of this amazing kingdom, is rejected, and he’s rejected by his hometown. He’s rejected by the people where he grew up. They didn’t deny his miraculous words. They were deeply offended by his authoritative words. After all, they had watched this guy grow up. They knew who Jesus was. They knew who his parents were. They knew who his brothers and sisters were. They knew how he was educated. This guy was nothing special. So who did he think he was to teach with the authority that he possessed? So they rejected him.

The tight recap of Matthew is this: Matthew claims Jesus is the forever and ever King and divine rescuer. Jesus’s kingdom is not like the kingdom of this earth, and people can refuse or receive Jesus as King and his kingdom. So now we’re caught up to our text for today, Matthew 14.

I’m going to ask a favor of you. Would you stand as I read this? We’re doing that to remind ourselves that the words I’m about to say aren’t my words. These are God’s words.

“At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.’ For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because John had been saying to him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet. But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given. He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus” (Matthew 14:1-12).

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may have a seat.

This gigantic claim about who Jesus is, a show and tell about the life of Jesus, a whole chapter dedicated to the kingdom, and a short story about rejection, then the gruesome death of John the Baptist as he was beheaded in prison. Does anybody else feel like this is a whiplash transition? We’re talking about one thing, and all of a sudden, there’s this random story about John the Baptist dying.

What I want us to do together is what I did as I studied this passage. I want to ask Matthew a question, and I want to do it together. So would you read this out loud with me, please?

“Matthew, what is the point of knowing why and how John the Baptist died?”

Don’t forget, Matthew arranges his stories on purpose. So what’s the point? Why is that here?

To answer that question, we all have to be familiar with soap operas. And from the looks on your faces, that was not a natural transition like I thought it might be. Soap operas. I asked my 18-year-old if she knew what a soap opera was, and she looked at me and said, “I don’t really have a clue.” So for some of you, you might not even know that term.

Soap operas go all the way back to the 1930s. They were radio programs. They were named “soap operas” because the primary sponsors were soap manufacturers. Many of those programs transitioned from radio to television, typically airing between about noon and 4 PM. Soap operas became famous for melodramatic acting and insane storylines, mostly about the rich who were living lives that none of us could ever experience.

These serial dramas ran for decades. For instance, General Hospital is the longest-running TV show in history. It’s been on since 1963. It’s nearing 14,000 episodes. Now, I myself preferred Guiding Light, but that’s another conversation.

You don’t have to be old to understand soap operas. If you’re from my generation, without soap operas, there would have been no Beverly Hills 90210. And what a loss that would have been. If you’re my children’s age, if there weren’t soap operas, there would be no Outer Banks. It wouldn’t exist.

Soap operas and modern dramas like them, at times, give us beautiful fantasy stories. But most of the time, they present us with the ugliness of a world without God, where everyone is seeking pleasure at any cost.

In Matthew 14, Matthew takes us into an ancient Roman soap opera that censors would not allow on television, and there’s no way it would be on Netflix. So I’m going to do my best to explain the relationships that happen in this soap opera. I’ve worked to make it as kid-friendly as possible. Moms and dads, you know your kids better than me. Just be vigilant. We’re going to try to work it through so that they’ll understand, but you know your kids better than I do.

“Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

That was a callback for some of you there, wasn’t it? You feel like you’re in your mom’s living room in the middle of the afternoon? Welcome to the soap opera The Three Herods. Here’s the storyline of The Three Herods:

Herod the Great was the ruler when Jesus was born. Loving his position and power, when the wise men came to worship Jesus, Herod tried to trick them into telling him where Jesus was born so that he could go and kill Jesus. Herod knew that Jesus might be the promised divine rescuer, the Messiah, and he wanted to take him out. The wise men didn’t participate in Herod’s plan, so instead he ordered the mass infanticide of all children under two in the region where Jesus was born. Herod the Great died sometime between when Jesus was two to five years old.

When Herod died, his kingdom was divided, and those rulers became known as Tetrarchs. Herod had the following kids: Aristobulus — If you’re pregnant and you’re looking for a name, Aristobulus is an option. Not used a ton. Herod Phillip and Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas is the one who’s mentioned in our text today. He’s the ruler where Jesus is teaching and ministering.

Aristobulus marries and has a daughter named Herodias. Later, Herodius marries Herod Phillip. They have a daughter who, we learn from the historian Josephus, is named Salome. Salome is the girl in our text today who dances for Herod Antipas’s birthday party.

Herodias decides to leave Herod Philip, and then she marries Herod Antipas, who was already married to a Nabatean princess. So he leaves the Nabatean princess, which offends the dad. The dad invades part of Antipas’s territory and defeats him in battle.

Mass murder, weird marriages, princesses, and battles. Soap operas have nothing on history.

These characters in this story get us closer to answering our question,

“Matthew, what is the point of knowing why and how John the Baptist died?”

So let’s talk about these characters for a few minutes together.

1. Herod Antipas is unstable (at best).

Let me give you some reasons why I conclude that.

• First, he lives immorally. Just outright lives an immoral life.
• Second, Herod believes Jesus to be John the Baptist raised from the dead, newly empowered to do miracles. That’s his first conclusion. He hears of the fame of Jesus and thinks, “I know who that is. It’s John the Baptist raised from the dead, now with miraculous power.” Because John the Baptist didn’t do miracles. There are none recorded about him. So he makes this leap about who Jesus is.
• Third, Herod was morbidly curious. I get this actually from another gospel. The Gospel of Mark gives us this detail about Herod and John when he was in prison:

“When he [Herod] heard him [John the Baptist], he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly” (Mark 6:20b).

So Herod used his power to bind John and throw him into prison, and then he would sit down and listen to John and be perplexed by him. He’d be at a loss for words, but he would still listen with some type of happiness.

I don’t know exactly what Herod was thinking when he was sitting in front of John and listening to him. For me, I tend to see this proud, powerful, immoral ruler genuinely listening, but his amusement level is self-serving. Behind bars, John the Baptist is to Herod what a gorilla is to a zookeeper when they can do sign language. They’re interesting. They’re unique. The only difference is that the zookeeper would never kill the gorilla. Herod will kill John, even though he’s amused by him.

• Fourth, Herod led out of fear. There may be nothing worse than a ruler who leads out of fear. He wanted to kill John, the text tells us, but he was afraid because the people thought well of John. He was sorry to kill John, but killed him because he was afraid of his party guests, because he had made an oath that he would do whatever Salome asked. Herod is unstable at best.

 

2. What about Herodias? With all the sarcasm I can muster (which is significant), what a joy she must have been like to live with. She is a portrait of evil. She is the New Testament version of Jezebel. She marries two uncles, plots revenge, misuses power, victimizes her daughter, and relishes an unjust, gruesome sentence.

3. Salome. Salome is a victim of abuse. Most scholars suggest Salome is young, and I’m just going to leave that right there. She’s used by her mom, ogled by her uncle, and objectified by the crowd. To satiate her mom’s guilt, anger, and shame, she has to debase herself in public performance in a manner that is inappropriate for any woman, let alone a teenager. The dance she performed was not one you would see at a wedding. Trauma multiplies trauma when she has to fulfill her mom’s command to ask for the death of a man and deliver the head back to her mom.

That’s the kingdom that Jesus steps into with his kingdom.

In the book of Matthew, there are always two kingdoms at play. There’s the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven. Here we see in vivid reality the kingdom of this world. This is the kingdom behind the death of John the Baptist.

Now, for the health of all of our souls, let’s stop thinking about the soap opera of the Herods and let’s consider what I’ll call a short documentary on John the Baptist.

Who is John the Baptist? Who is this guy? We’ve already heard a lot about him in Matthew’s gospel, so I want to remind us all of who he is so that we can come back to our question and ask Matthew.

John the Baptist receives his nickname because of his practice of baptizing people out in the wilderness. John is a messenger who prepares the way for the Messiah. John prepares a way so that Jesus can come behind him and do his thing. John is the challenger to the religious leaders. He is very clear that he is lesser than the Messiah. He’s a hesitant baptizer of Jesus himself. John, at one point, is a discouraged inmate looking for reassurance when he’s in prison. John is a prophet, the last Old Testament prophet. And John is known for being a little bit different. John has a unique style and eats a unique cuisine.

So these people all come together in the middle of this story: Herod Antipas, Herod Phillip, Herodias, Salome, and John the Baptist. Because of that, there is this clash, this finale of both the soap opera and the documentary.

With that backstory, I want to revisit our question:

“Matthew, what is the point of knowing why and how John the Baptists died?”

I want to offer three reasons, three reasons why we have this story, why Matthew gives it to us.

1. John’s death story demonstrates that humanity is accountable to God’s kingdom laws.

Humanity is accountable to God’s kingdom laws. The Three Herods narrative shows us the natural state of humanity. It shows us the anti-kingdom, the kingdom of this world.

John steps into that realm, these Roman pagan leaders, and John holds them accountable to God’s law. John looks at immoral marriages and says, “That’s wrong. God says that’s wrong. God gave laws in Leviticus for what marriage and even remarriage look like, and what happened in this Roman court was out of bounds.” John calls them on it.

Everyone is accountable to God’s law.

God’s kingdom laws don’t discriminate.

God’s kingdom laws don’t require human assent to be true.

You don’t have to agree or believe in God to validate God’s law. No, it’s true because God says so. God’s kingdom laws don’t require personal belief to be personally applicable.

God’s law applies to everyone, whether you choose to recognize it or not.

Another follower of Jesus who wrote later than Matthew (his name is Paul), interestingly, he writes to the new church that’s in Rome. Paul concludes this about humanity and God’s law:

“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Romans 3:19).

God’s law looks at humanity and goes, “Shh. Don’t talk. You can’t explain your way out of your condition.” The law then looks at humanity and says to you, “You are accountable to God.” It was to those Roman rulers and Jewish citizens alike that John and Jesus stepped in and said, “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Change kingdoms.

There’s a way out of this anti-kingdom of the world, this world where we do not obey God’s laws. It’s Matthew’s point of his entire gospel. Recognize who Jesus is. He’s the divine rescuer. He’s the forever king. Reject the anti-kingdom of the world and follow Jesus. That is the entry point to the kingdom of heaven.

The brokenness that fills and defines the life of the Herods is the same brokenness that’s in me and in you. We may marry differently, we may party differently, we may not have the power to unjustly imprison and behead someone, but those desires that are on the inside of the Herods are the same ones that are on the inside of Ferguson and drive him to live as well. And John and Jesus say, “Repent, turn from that world, turn from the kingdom, follow Jesus, and enter the kingdom of heaven.” John’s death demonstrates that the whole world is accountable to God.

2. John’s death story illustrates the dramatic value of the kingdom.

What is this kingdom worth? Jesus said this about the kingdom,

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44).

I am wandering around some field out in TR that’s for sale where I live, and I come across a gigantic chest full of old coins. I go home to Rebekah and say, “We’re putting the house on the market. What’s over there is of way more value than Bolero Lane. Let’s get it.”

Jesus says this,

“Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45-46).

That one pearl is way more valuable than everything else I possess.

John the Baptist understood what the kingdom was worth. This guy found it so valuable that he was willing to alter his apparel, alter his diet, be put into prison, unjustly accused, and killed. John the Baptist did indeed sell everything he had for the kingdom. Without even trying to be funny, he literally sold his head for the kingdom of heaven.

John, as powerful as he is, though, one of the beauties of the story of Matthew and John the Baptist is that we get to see that even this strong prophet needed a moment of reassurance.

“Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ [of the divine rescuer, of Jesus], he sent word by his disciples and said to him [Jesus], ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” (Matthew 11:2-3)

It’s like John’s saying, “Jesus, I’m in prison over here. Are you the one? Are you really the one? Am I in here for the right person and the right reason?”

“And Jesus answered them [John’s disciples], ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see [words and works, show and tell]: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:4-5).

Jesus says to these followers of John, “Go tell him the kingdom’s here. I am the one. Tell him what you see and hear. Tell him he found the pearl in the treasure.” John endured it, prison and ultimately death, because of the value of the kingdom.

In a literal sense, how much do you have to value something to die for it? It’s a short list of things that, even in the hypothetical, you know you would die for. My kids, by God’s grace — done deal. Hopefully, I won’t even think. My wife. After that, I love you all but . . . . What pearl or treasure in your life is worth dying for? For John, it was Jesus’s upside-down kingdom.

With this idea of valuing the kingdom, at this point, I would like to make an accusation against Peter Hubbard. That’s this: I feel like, in Matthew, I’m being assigned all the texts about persecution and dying for your faith. Now, I know he doesn’t have a plan to do that, because I know Peter. But that bothers me a little bit more, because now there’s a part of me that’s like, “All right, is this God’s plan? Am I preaching this thing again because I need it?” When we were in the Beatitudes, I was given this text:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10-12).

Blessed is John the Baptist. Happy is John when he was in prison and mocked and killed. In the words of Jesus, John will

“shine like the sun in the kingdom of [his] Father” (Matthew 13:43).

When I preached that sermon on the topic of persecution, I shared with everyone who was there a prayer that I wrote to Jesus about persecution. The best way, and I think the most honest way, I can apply this section is to read another prayer that I wrote to Jesus about this section of scripture. So I’m just going to read it.

“Jesus, John the Baptist scares me. He loves righteousness so much he calls out evil at the risk of his freedom. He loves your law enough to trade autonomy for incarceration. Can I say the same and still be honest?

“Jesus, John the Baptist humbles me. Even in prison he spoke with his jailer in such a way that he built conversations. Jesus, you know me. I would be spending all of my mental and emotional energy arguing and debating the unjustness of my condition.

“Jesus, John the Baptist angers me. I don’t want his life to be normative. I don’t want to consider imprisonment and death because of how much I love your kingdom. I don’t know that I’m regularly seeing your kingdom as worth selling everything I own to possess. I don’t always see it as a jewel that is so stunning that I must use every material possession to acquire the pearl. I do love your kingdom, but I wonder sometimes if I want your kingdom to be on clearance sale so that it costs me less but I get the same benefits.

“Jesus, if you gave me these two passages to make me more like John and ultimately like you, then I receive it. But I’m also telling you, I need you to continue to help me. This life of mine wants me to value so many things more than your kingdom. So please help me, help my family, and help me help these people here. Amen.”

3. John’s death story foreshadows Jesus’s death story. Why is this story in here? His death story foreshadows Jesus’s death story.

I loved studying this. John the Baptist and Jesus are connected from the beginning to the ending of their stories. The connections are all over the place. Just a couple of ways that Jesus and John the Baptist are connected:

• First off, as a reminder, they’re cousins through their moms, Mary and Elizabeth. John and Jesus first met when they were both in utero. When they met, John the Baptists went crazy just meeting Jesus, even before they were born. The connections from there only continue.
• Their birth, life, and death are all recorded in the Gospels. Both had parents visited by an angel (Mary and Zechariah).
• Both of their births were prophesied.
• Both of their births were miraculous. In Jesus’s case, a virgin birth. In John’s case, his mother was old. Both have a parent’s prayer recorded in the scriptures (Mary and Zechariah).
• They’re connected to the Holy Spirit (John was filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus had the Spirit descend on him and lead him into the wilderness, and he gifts the Spirit to all of us). They preach the exact same message, word for word, Matthew 3:2 and 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” They both spoke severely to religious leaders. They both had disciples who followed them. They drew crowds.
• They both had rulers who were hesitant to kill them (Herod and Pilate). The same Herod (Herod Antipas) killed them both. They both died for their words and works. They were unjustly killed. They died for each other: John died for Jesus in prison, Jesus died to save John. They both had their bodies buried by friends.

 

I think it’s safe to say that when we read a detail about John in the Scriptures, we are regularly and repeatedly being pointed to Jesus in every reference. John the Baptist is the messenger who prepares the way of the Lord. He does it with his entire life, pre-birth until he dies. John the Baptist is like a traffic arrow pointing us to follow Jesus. John the Baptist is like a hyperlink that takes us directly to Jesus’s wiki page. John the Baptist is an MC who is introducing Jesus as the keynote speaker. If Google was biblically accurate, if you searched John the Baptist, all your results would be about Jesus. That’s his role over and over and over and over: he lived to point people to the Messiah.

So in this story, when we read that he was unjustly accused, unjustly imprisoned, unjustly sentenced, and unjustly killed, we already know what’s going to happen to Jesus. Jesus, the forever and ever King, will die for his kingdom and for the people who live in it.

At some point in the future of our series, we’re going to get to the end of Matthew. I will make no predictions about when we will get there, but we will get there. And we’re going to discover that the end of Jesus’s story is all about his kingship, all about this gigantic claim Matthew makes.

“Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said, ‘You have said so’” (Matthew 27:11).

“Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’” (Matthew 27:27-29)

“And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:35-37).

All the way to the end, Jesus loves his kingdom and loves his people. Jesus empties himself of his divine rights, his kingly rights. Jesus, the king, while still a king, does not use his authority as king to protect himself. Jesus allowed humans to kill him, humans he held together while they did it. Jesus suffered pain from a reed and from thorns that he himself spoke into existence. For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven was worth it.

Now, while John and Jesus are intimately connected, they’re also very different, and those differences are important.

John was a herald, Jesus is King.

John was a sinner, Jesus is the Savior.

John stayed dead, Jesus is alive.

So when we look at Matthew and say, “Matthew, what’s the point of knowing why and how John the Baptist died?” Because John’s death story demonstrates that humanity is accountable to God’s law, it illustrates the dramatic value of the kingdom, and it foreshadows Jesus’s death story.

Those answers to our question of Matthew lead us to questions that we then must ask ourselves:

In what kingdom do I live? What kingdom am I in? What do I belong to? Which one do I love? Because in Matthew, there are always and only two kingdoms: the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven. Which one does your life reveal you love?

This is the time to respond to John and Jesus’s message of “repent” because the kingdom of heaven is still at hand. We can still reject this world and receive Jesus and gain entry into the kingdom of heaven.

Another question is, to what degree do I value the kingdom? I do believe in Jesus. I believe in the kingdom of heaven, and I am pursuing him. In this upside-down kingdom, is it worth being made fun of? Is it worth being persecuted? Is it worthwhile being reviled? Is it worth dying for?

Like me, I hope you will lean in and—through God’s energizing grace—grow towards a resounding yes to all of those moments. The kingdom is worth being made fun of. It is worth being persecuted for. It is worth being reviled, and it is worth dying for.

Finally, as a reminder, how great was the cost for me to enter the kingdom? Entrance into the kingdom of heaven is not cheap. John the Baptist, from our perspective, paid the highest price he could in following Jesus. For us to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven, Jesus paid an exponentially higher price. He gave his life for you and for me. A king who is willing to die for his own people to gain entrance into his kingdom is a king worth following. Amen? Amen.