All right, I've titled the lesson
this morning, Religion and the Savior. Religion and the Savior. I want to look at religion with
the Savior and religion without the Savior, and then look at
the Savior himself. Now, I think it's safe to say
that the whole earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus was a time
of suffering. He suffered humiliation, being
clothed in the flesh, limiting himself to the weakness of our
flesh, being made a servant of his father, the servant for his
people, that was a time of suffering for him. But our text this morning
is the beginning of his soul suffering, his suffering unto
death. And as always, there are two
groups of people in the scene, there's believers and unbelievers.
And the whole issue for both of them, whether they know it
or not, the whole issue is Christ. Christ is the whole issue in
spiritual life. He is the whole issue in salvation. Christ is the whole issue to
the ultimate end of both believer and unbeliever. Christ is the
only issue. And I hope we'll always make
Christ the only issue here, the only issue in our worship, the
only issue in our religion, because we're gonna look at this here
in a minute. Boy, you get in trouble and you start getting
some other issues and start trying to look and deal with some other
things. I'm thankful that's the attitude
that Lord's given us here, and I pray it'll be especially true
after looking at our text this morning. So the first thing I
want to look at is the unbelievers who are at this event, the taking
of our Lord. Our text begins in verse 47 of
Matthew 26. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas,
one of the 12, came, and with him a great multitude, with swords
and staves, and from the chief priests and the elders of the
people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying,
Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same as he, hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus
and said, Hail, Master, and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him,
Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they laid hands on
Jesus and took him. And look down at verse 55. In
that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, are you come
out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I
sat daily with you teaching in the temple and you laid no hold
on me. Now this is a group of unbelievers.
And before we get to Judas, Judas is kind of the obvious thing
people look at here. But before we get to him, Let's look at
this mom who came with Judas to take our Lord. Now this is
not a bunch of low-life ruffians. This is not like the mafia or
something of that day. These are religious people. They
were sent by the chief priests. These were friends, people known
to the chief priests, the religious leaders of Israel. I'm sure these
men were very orthodox in that Jewish religion. I'm sure they
were very sincere in all their religious activity. I'm just
pretty confident that their lives were centered around the sacrifices
and the ceremonies. Their life was centered around
the temple and the Sabbath day and so forth. They were very
serious in their religion, but they had religion without Christ.
They were so set on having their own righteousness, which came
from them following the laws and observing all these ceremonies.
They were so set on having that, that they earned by following
the ceremonies or that they just received because they were born
a son of Abraham. They were so set on having those
things. They're so set on having salvation
in that way, that they hated the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
the way people are in religion to this day. They're not indifferent. They're not misinformed about
Jesus. They hate him. This group hated
him so much they came out against him with swords and staves. Now this large group, they had
no trouble taking one man. Why'd they come out with swords
and staves? Because they hope they can put them to use. That's
why they found no shortage of people to join this mob to come
out against the Lord Jesus because they hated him. And they hated
the Lord because they hated his message. They heard his message,
they understood it, and they hated it. The message that Christ
preaches, your righteousness cannot come by your works of
the law. It can't come from following the ceremonies. It can't come
from being related to Abraham. It can't come from anything from
the flesh. Righteousness can only come by
faith in Christ. It's the gift of God. Righteousness
can only come by Christ keeping the law for you, by doing what
you can't do, keeping the law for you. And they hated that
message. When Christ came and told them
salvation is not in these ceremonies, it's not in the animal sacrifices,
but it's in the blood of Christ, the blood of the Lamb of God.
They hated him because his message destroyed the foundation of what
they were hoping in. It took away all hope in the
flesh. It took away their foundation. It took away what they wanted
and they hated him. See, the issue is Christ. Is
he my salvation or is it something I can earn? The issue is Christ
and they hated him for it. They had religion without Christ. Now, the only use that any of
us can get out of seeing that, what they had, is that this be
a warning to you and me. This very easily could be us
and don't you think it could? The Jews, you think of them.
They started out, I mean, they started out with Abraham, but
you just think when they came out of Egypt as a large nation,
this is the first time they're a large nation. They came out
with the tabernacle. the priesthood, the prophet,
they had Moses. God Almighty spoke to Moses and
he turned around and told people what God just said. God spoke
to Moses, they had the priesthood, they had the prophets, they had
the law. God gave that law to Moses, he
gave it to the people. They had the ceremonies, they
had the day of atonement, they had the Passover. Oh, they saw
the power of that first Passover. When God passed through the land
and set them free with a mighty arm. They were the only nation
on earth given the true worship of God. Every other nation was
steeped in idolatry. And they took what God gave them,
that pure worship of God, and they polluted it into pure self-righteousness. That's human nature. Now compare
that to us now. I'm talking Hurricane Road Grace
Church, us right here. We've been given the completed
word of God. Even Israel didn't have that.
They just had the first five books, didn't they, of the Bible.
We've been given the completed word of God. We've been given
the message of salvation by grace through faith that's been preached
to us by some of the best preachers who ever preached the gospel.
We've been surrounded, most of us growing up around here, we've
been surrounded by faithful believers from different generations. You
think what God's given us. We need to be mighty careful
not to pollute that. Don't get so full of ourselves that we
pollute what God has given us and turn it into a self-righteous,
hypocritical, religious show. If you take away Christ, that's
exactly what we'll have. A self-righteous, hypocritical,
religious show. If something besides Christ alone
becomes the issue here, that's exactly what we'll have. I'm
telling you, it'll just be a religious show. I got a TV with a cable
box connected to it with, I don't know, 100 stations. I don't know
how many stations are on it. I got enough shows, don't you? I need Christ. We need Christ. Well, that's this mob. They had their religion without
Christ. And the man leading them out was Judas. Judas was a hypocrite. Now he was a religious man too,
wasn't he? He was one of the 12 that he sent out to preach,
he sent out to perform these miracles and different things.
He did those things, he preached. He was the treasurer, he performed
miracles. But Judas also had religion without
Christ. Now we know Judas was a reprobate
from the beginning. That's what scripture says. He
didn't love Christ, he didn't believe Christ. But boy, he made
a good outward show, didn't he? He made a good outward show of
this religion. He made a good outward show of
loving Christ, but Judas was a hypocrite. He sold out his
master for the price of a slave, 30 pieces of silver. He leads this mob out. He's already
agreed secretly to sell out his mastery. He leads this mob out
and he comes and kisses the master on the cheek. He kisses the Lord
himself on the cheek and says, hail master. And I'll tell you
what that greeting meant. It meant joy and peace to you,
master. Now he meant anything but. And he meant the opposite
of that. He's a hypocrite. He's making
a good show of love for Christ, but his heart was hard and dead
and full of hatred for Christ. And Judas by far was not the
last religious hypocrite. The most despicable and the most
dangerous people you and I will ever meet are religious hypocrites. They pretend to kiss you while
they hate you. They pretend to hug you just
so they can stab you in the back. I mean, just being completely
honest, just you and me talking here, there's some folks I just
sue not hug me because I'm afraid I could get that stiletto out
of my back, you know, before they're done. You know, they're
religious hypocrites. Now a hypocrite, you got to remember
this, is an actor. It can be hard to spot them.
because they're good at being deceitful. They're good at covering
this thing up and playing the part that they want you to see.
The hateful mob with their swords and their staves and hatred in
their eyes, they're easy to spot. You see them coming from 100
miles away. But Judas, not so much, not so
much. This is the very reason our Lord
said, you beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly, what are they? Ravening wolves. That disguise, that sheep's clothing,
can make them hard to spot. They know the lingo. They know
the words. They know what you'll accept
and what you'll reject. They know the way to act. But
inwardly, I mean, I might look like a sheep outward, but inwardly
they're ravening wolves. An outward religion without Christ
in the heart will lead to hypocrisy and it'll lead to hatred every
single time. Every time. Listen, it's not
enough to know the right doctrines. It's not enough to know the right
definitions of words like grace and mercy and peace. I hope you
do know the right definition. I hope you do know the right
doctrine, but that's not enough. Not for salvation, it's not.
It's not enough to bear the name of Jesus on our lips. Any hypocrite
can do that. Any hypocrite can. Salvation
is having Christ formed in the heart. It's not enough to make
our friends impressed with us. I mean, honestly, I want you
to like me. But it's not enough to make our friends impressed
with us. It's not enough to make our friends think, oh, you know,
he knows the Lord. Any hypocrite can do that. Judas
did. The other 12 thought he was one
of them. When the Lord said, one of you is gonna betray me,
not one of them said, Judas. I haven't had my eye on him.
They all said, is it me? They never thought of Judas.
Judas, he tricked them that way. Salvation is not just knowing
the name of Jesus and using the name of Jesus. Salvation is knowing
Christ, knowing Him who the Father has sent and trusting our salvation
to Him in the heart. See, this thing's in the heart.
It's not just for show. It's in the heart. Now, what's in
the heart will come out and will be seen, but this is not just
outward. It's what's in the heart. And again, I point this out about
Judas as a warning to each of us that we will genuinely seek
the Lord, that we'll seek to know Christ, that we'll seek
to know him and trust him, that we'll be seeking God and asking
God to do a hard work in me so I don't end up being a religious
hypocrite and end up just like Judas. because I will if God
don't keep me. I will if God's not the one doing
the work in my heart. And the best safeguard that I
can think of for that is to always and only preach Christ, to make
Christ the issue. If we know him, God's pleased
to reveal his son to people by the preaching of Christ. Well,
if we know him, will trust him from the heart and won't become
this religious hypocrite. So whether you're a believer
that's openly hatred, or an, excuse me, an unbeliever who's
openly hatred of Christ, or you're an unbeliever that's a religious
hypocrite, what's the issue? It's Christ. Who do you need?
You need Christ. You need somebody preaching to
you. You need God to reveal him to you and form him in your heart.
The issue is Christ. He's what we needed. All right,
second, let's look at the believers who were there when the Lord
was taken. And the issue for them is Christ too. Look at verse
56. That all this was done that the
scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled, that all the disciples
forsook him and fled. Now these other 11, they were
religious men too. You know, when Peter said, Lord,
we've given up all and followed you. He wasn't whistling Dixie.
They had. They'd given up all and followed
Christ. They were with the Lord for three and a half years. They
heard Christ himself preach. He sat with them privately, teaching
them the scriptures, teaching them who he was. And they believed
on him. Now I know Peter was a spokesman,
but they all amened it. This is what they all said, we
believe and we're sure thou art that Christ, the son of the living
God. We believe that, we're sure of
it. The Lord has saved these men and given them faith in Christ. And just like all of us, their
faith was often weak, wasn't it? These men believed on Christ,
they did. Yet they got scared and fled
and left their master all alone, drop of hat. And when did they
do that? Hours after swearing. These others will leave you,
I won't. I'll die with you. Just a couple hours later, they're
running away in fear. I'll tell you what this shows.
Not just the 11, what it shows to you and me. how dependent
we are on Christ at all times. You know, everybody in this room
knows this. We're dependent on Christ to
save us, aren't we? We know He's got to save us or we'll be lost.
You know, we're just as dependent on him to keep us saved. It's
not like God saves us and then we keep ourselves saved by our
faithfulness and our good works and our, you know, orthodoxy
and all these things. No, we're dependent on Christ
to save us. And we're dependent on him to
keep us saved. If he don't hold us in his hand, we won't be there.
There is just no end to the evil that a believer will do. There's
no end to the harm that we will cause. if the Lord doesn't keep
us from it. Christ is our only righteousness. He's all of our salvation and
our works and our faithfulness don't enter into the equation
at any point, not as far as salvation is concerned. Now, every believer
knows this. When the Lord saves us, he gives
us faith in Christ, doesn't he? He gives us faith. That's part
of the new birth. But, and we can say that I do,
I do trust Christ, I do. Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. But our faith is almost always
weak, almost always. I don't know any believer who
is satisfied with the strength of their faith, or at least he'll
say so publicly. Nobody's honestly satisfied with
the strength of our faith. But in this matter of faith,
do you know Christ is the issue? Whether it's in giving us faith
or our weak faith, Christ is the issue. The best cure is the
faithful preaching of Christ alone. How does God give faith
in Christ's people? by the preaching of Christ. Somebody's
gotta tell us who he is. You can't believe in who you
haven't heard. Somebody's gotta tell us who he is. And boy, if
somebody tells us who he is, and God's pleased to take that
message and apply it to ours, we'll believe him. We'll have
faith. This is the way God gives faith to his people. It's the
preaching of Christ. And we all have loved ones who
don't know the Lord. Children and loved ones and these
things. Well, what can we do for them? Preach Christ. Preach Christ. The only way they're
gonna come to believe him, somebody makes Christ the issue and preaches
Christ to them. That's how God gives faith to
his people. Well, what about God's people? They're saying to their faith,
it's weak faith. What can we do for them? Well, the issue
is Christ. Tell you what we can do for Him.
We can preach Christ and Him crucified. We come in here just
struggling to get in here with our weak faith and fighting our
flesh. When we get here, what's the
issue? It's Christ. He's the issue. We need to preach Him. And the
more we hear of Christ. Now, I'm talking about God's
little lambs. We faith believers, oh ye little
faith, the more we hear of Christ, the more we'll trust him. The
more we're reminded of him, the more we're reminded to trust
him. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
That's how God has pleased to give faith to his people. Well,
faith grows the same way, by hearing. And the more we learn
of Christ, the more we'll lean on him, the more we'll trust
him. So in the matter of weak faith, Christ is the issue. In
the matter of being given faith, Christ is the issue. In the matter
of weak faith, Christ is the issue. What can you do for both
of those people? Preach Christ to them. Now like I said at the beginning
of the lesson, this is the beginning of the Lord's soul suffering. Why is he doing it? Why is he,
in the coming weeks, we'll look at great detail of his suffering. Why is he doing it? Why is he
giving himself to suffering like this? Why would he suffer like
this? Paul says he suffers for our offenses. He was delivered
for our offenses. Delivered to the Jews, delivered
to the Romans, and more importantly, delivered to his father's justice.
He was delivered for our offenses, to pay for our offenses, to put
the sin and offenses of his people away. That ought to make us want
to trust him, shouldn't it? He did that for his people. He's
doing this for his people. Here's the other thing I want
us to see, a way that Christ is the only issue. We're fighting
a spiritual warfare here. We are, we're fighting a spiritual
warfare. Look at verse 51. And behold,
one of them, which were with Jesus, stretched out his hand
and drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest
and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, put
up again thy sword in his place. For all they that take the sword
shall perish with the sword." Now, there is a time for the
sword. There's a time that wars are
necessary for countries to defend our freedom and so forth, put
down evil. But this is not one of those
times. This there in the garden was not one of those times. And
what we do here in the worship of our God, in the service of
our God, in the preaching of the gospel, this is not one of
those times either. This is a spiritual warfare. It's not an earthly warfare.
It's not a war against flesh and blood. It's a spiritual warfare.
The kingdom of God cannot be advanced by human means and human
might. Can't be done. Souls are not
won to Christ by our psychological warfare, all of our psychological
tricks to get people to feel religious and get them to do
something. That's not how God saves his people. Look at 2 Corinthians
chapter 10. 2nd Corinthians 10. Well, I mean 1st Corinthians. Let me get to 2nd Corinthians.
2nd Corinthians 10 verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,
casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ. Our weapons, we're
not fighting flesh. So we don't have fleshly weapons. This is what Paul is saying.
This is our only weapon. This is our only sword. It's the preaching of Christ.
It's the preaching of God's gospel. Our only weapon. Now we're in
warfare. We're fighting not for the bodies
of men, for the souls of men. And our only weapon, the only
thing that'll reach that soul, is the word of God. So in this
matter of establishing and building the kingdom of God and saving
God's people and building up God's people, what's the issue? It's Christ, isn't it? He's the
only issue. All right, third, I want us to
look at the Savior, who was there and who was taken away. Now this
is important to always remember, everything done in this night
and in the coming days and really all times and everywhere and
all of human history, all of eternity, everything that was
done, here we're talking specifically about this night, was done to
accomplish the will of God. Look at verse 46. Rise, let us
be going. Behold, he is at hand that doth
betray me. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas,
one of the 12, came with a great multitude of swords and staves
from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now, the Lord
knew this mob was coming. Before anybody heard him, the
Lord knew they were coming. It was nighttime. He could have
run away and hid, but he didn't do it. He didn't do it. He stayed
there and was taken. You know why he was taken? Because
that's his will. That's the whole reason he came
here in the first place. Look at verse 53. Thinkest thou
that I cannot now pray to my father and he shall presently
give me more than 12 legions of angels? and how these other
scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be. See, it must
be this way. This is why I came." Now, the
disciples fled in fear, didn't they? But even that was the will
of God. Even that was the will of God.
Christ had to suffer alone so that he was the only one who
would get any credit for the salvation of his people. If those
other 11 suffered with him, we'd say, oh, look at Jesus and the
martyrs, how they, you know, suffered. It can't be. It has to be Christ alone. If you look over, look at John
chapter 18. You know, The disciples fleeing, that was
the will of God. But you know, it was also the
Lord's will that those disciples flee as a picture of substitution. Look here at verse eight. Jesus answered, I've told you
that I am. If therefore you seek me, Let
these go their way. That the saying might be fulfilled
which he spake of them which thou gavest me, have I lost none. That mob came to take the Lord
with all their swords and staves and thought they were in power
and he's the one ordering them around. Let these go. As a picture
of substitution, take me and let them go free. All right, the next thing, all
this is being done according to God's will, to the will of
the Savior. Second, I want to see how the
Lord condescends to his people. You think how far down the Lord
had to stoop to allow Judas to kiss him on the cheek. Now he
did that for his reasons, that the scriptures might be fulfilled,
to fulfill his will. But do you know who else can
come and kiss Christ? His people at all times. Matter of fact, we're commanded
to do that. Psalm 2 verse 12, kiss the son. Kiss the son lest he be angry
and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Kiss the son. Come, kiss the
son. Now I venture to say when believers
come, they kiss the son. They're going to kiss his feet,
not his cheek, but you come kiss the son. He condescends to allow
his people to do that in his presence, to kiss him. And third,
last, I want us to see the compassion of the Savior. Now you know the
Lord's allowing himself to be taken. He says, let these go
their way. Take me, let these go their way. That's his compassion
and his love for his people. But our Savior's compassionate. He's compassionate. There's nobody
in hell that can be there because the Lord was not compassionate. Not one of them can say that.
Luke tells us that Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's
servant. And Luke said, The Lord touched
him and healed his ear. Would you do that for a man come
to torture you and kill you? I mean, maybe I shouldn't say
this to my shame, but I wouldn't. The Savior did his compassion. And I see a picture of salvation
there. Isn't that what the Savior does for all of his people? We're
born with a nature that hates the Lord, that would take him
off the throne if we could. We're right with that crowd.
Crucify him and give us, grab us. I'll not have this man to
reign over me. And in compassion, he touches
us. He heals us, he saves us. The
songwriter said, oh, he touched me. Oh, he touched me. And nothing's
been the same since. You think of the compassion that
the Lord has on his people. Here he's allowing himself to
be taken so he can give himself to put away the sin of his people. Now you think of how solemn that
is, you think of the enormity of that. You who believe that
he'd do that for you. How can we ever allow anything
but Christ to be the issue? God help us that we don't. All
right, Lord bless you.