Oh. Let's turn back to John chapter
6, and we believe, says Simon Peter. Thou hast, to whom shall
we go, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. And we believe and are sure that
Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered
them, have I not chosen you? And one of you is a devil. And he spoke of Judas Iscariot,
the son of Simon, for he it was that should betray him. being
one of the 12. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might fulfil your promise to be our teacher
and that we might be led to learn the lessons that you have promised
to teach your people, that we might be caused to cling to the
Lord Jesus Christ and be warned and be caused by your grace to
cling to him and to love him for the good of our eternal souls
and for your glory. I pray for all of us here this
morning, Heavenly Father, for I pray in Jesus' name and for
his glory. Well, the question is, what about
Judas, the very mention of his name? is evocative, isn't it? He is one of those names in history
that speaks volumes just in a word. His betrayal of the Lord Jesus
Christ with a kiss is infamous. what other lessons we can learn
from Judas. The first thing that the Lord
says is in verse 70, have not I chosen you and one of you is
a devil? And so the remarkable thing is
that the Lord Jesus Christ chose these 12 people. You might recall
that he prayed all night long and then selected these 12. And
so it's an extraordinary thing. Obviously the choosing of Judas
wasn't a choosing to eternal life in eternal election. His
choosing was a choosing to this particular ministry of apostleship
to be this witness to the Lord Jesus Christ and to do what he
did to the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end, what a remarkable
witness he had and what a remarkable warning Judas is. And I pray
the Lord would be wise in teaching us and give us the wisdom to
learn from God about us that we may not be presumptuous. It's
so easy, isn't it, when we see other people's falls and see
other people in the Scriptures to think, well that's not me
and I don't have that heart and I don't have that ability. The
Lord presents Judas to us that we would not be presumptuous.
that we would always come to the Lord in reverence and that
we would vow to his absolute sovereignty that we would be
caused to fear him, to honour him and to glorify him. And that
we come, as everyone in the scriptures comes, as a mercy beggar, we
come clinging to the Saviour. Lord, if you will, you can make
me whole. Lord, says Peter, save me. And
that's a prayer that's on the lips of Jeremiah well into his
ministry. It's a prayer that should be
on the lips of all of God's people on a regent. Lord, save me, save
me from myself, save me from the world. Lord, I believe, help
thou mine unbelief. And we will, the children of
God, go to the temple of God like the public. And Lord, be
merciful to me, the sinner. He beat on his heart. He said,
my problem's in here. My problem's not external. My
problem's in here. And he's saying, you look upon
your son crucified and be merciful to me. The other thing, of course,
is that the Lord chose him. So our God is absolutely omniscient
and nothing surprises him. He never learns anything. He's
never surprised by any of the events of history. God sees into
the hearts of people. All the time. All the time. No one unto God are all his works
from the foundation of the world. He declares the end from the
beginning. And so his counsel shall stand. His counsel always stands. I love the fact that God sees
our hearts right now. I love the fact that he sees
my heart. It means that I can be honest
with him. It means that I can just say,
here I am, Lord. Here I am, Lord, be merciful
to me. I'm just a sinner. I'm weak,
unable, but you are able. We can be honest with God, and
we can be honest with other people. I have no righteousness to parade
before anyone. We have just one righteousness,
and that's the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
also need to be mindful the Lord warns all before his judges all. Did Judas hear these words? He did. Did Judas hear the warnings? Did Judas know Psalm 41? Did
Judas know Psalm 109? Judas is a picture of man in
his total depravity. People think that you can give
people evidences. What remarkable evidences Judas had in his life. Three and a half years he walked
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Three and a half years he was
in the very presence of God Almighty doing the very things that only
God can do. Only God creates out of nothing
and the Lord Jesus Christ created and created. Only God can speak
a word and this creation obeys perfectly and immediately Him. Only God can say a word and He
declares that the sins of the person in front of Him are gone
forever. God creates reality by speaking. He declares his own deity and
he proves his own deity. Judas is a picture, of course,
of the fact that man in his natural state is dead. Man in his natural
state is a captive and bound. Man in his natural state is darkness. So you can take the most beautiful
meal and the most beautiful flowers and the most beautiful music
up to the cemetery up the hill here, can't you? And you can
play the music, you can play the most beautiful music, you
can play the most beautiful words, and can they hear? You can have
the most beautiful perfume flowers you could ever wish to have,
and can they smell? You can have the most beautiful
meal, and can they taste? And that's what God declares
all of Adam's children in this world to be. We are dead to the
things of the Spirit of God. We have no notion, we come into
this world with absolutely no notion of who God is and absolutely
no notion of who we are. And as I said earlier, grace
alone makes the difference. And if Judas does nothing but
humble us before God and humble us before men, both believers
and unbelievers, we will not learn any of the lessons. See,
what was the difference between Peter and Judas on that fateful
night? Peter betrayed the Lord in word. Judas betrayed him with a kiss.
Peter denied the Lord with his deeds. He cursed and swore to
prove that he hadn't been in the presence of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Judas did it in conspiracy with
others. There was one difference, wasn't
there? There was one difference. The Lord said to Peter, Satan
wishes to sift you as wheat tonight, but I have prayed for you. The one difference was the intercession
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The other thing we need to remark
with all of the apostles, none of them, none of them for three
and a half years ever suspected that Judas was the one. Even at the Last Supper they
are saying, Lord, is it I? Is it I? There wasn't a or a single word that the Lord
Jesus Christ did in that three and a half years to cause those
people to think that Judas was the one, even though he declared
it here in John chapter six, even though it was promised in
the Psalms. For three and a half years, Judas
had the most remarkable privileges, didn't he? He lived every day
with God incarnate and with his apostles. He heard the words
of life and he preached the words of life. He saw the mighty works
of God. He had fellowship with the apostles. He knew the hatred of the Jews
and he knew how unjustified it was. He saw the Lord respond
to them to go again and again and again to Jerusalem and be
abused by them and misunderstood by them. And Jesus had the company
of the apostles and the company of the Lord. He heard the parables
that people didn't understand and he heard the explanation
of the parables from the Lord's mouth himself. And his heart
was never moved to love. When the gospel is preached,
you are hearing from an ambassador of God. I have a task, which
is to simply, as an ambassador, I'm bringing the words of the
King. They're not my words, they're
his words. The result of those words is
in His hands, not mine. The only thing I cannot do and
be faithful to Him is to change any of His words. We are hearing,
you hearing from an ambassador, we are hearing, as Judas did,
we are hearing the very words of God. And my heart has been
heavy and I've been praying much that the Lord would cause us
to learn these lessons. You know, as Paul says, knowing
therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. So let's go and spend a little
time looking at lessons from Judas's fall. I want us to see
some lessons from it. And I want us to remember that
it wasn't until the very end of the Lord's ministry that Judas
was revealed, and his heart was revealed to some, but not to
all. John is writing, expecting us
to know his Gospel and to read it and to re-read it and to re-read
it again. He wants us to know, as he writes
in John 6 about Judas being a devil, he expects us to know the stories
of John 12 and John 13 and John 18 and so in John chapter 12 is
the beginning of Judas's fall and you might recall it was six
days before the Passover, six days before the crucifixion of
the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord is at the house of Lazarus. So Lazarus has been raised from
the dead in the previous chapter. And then they made a supper in
verse 3. And then Mary took a pound of
ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus
and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with
the odour of the anointment. It seems as if amongst all of
the people who had been told for three and a half years, Mary
was the only one who seemed to really believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ was going to be crucified and killed. And then
said one of his disciples, verse four, Judas Iscariot, Simon's
son, which should betray him, why was not this ointment sold
for 300 pence and given to the poor? This he said, not that
he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the bag
and bear that was put therein. I'm sure that was a postscript
that John put in there. It's not something that John
was aware of at the Last Supper. Then Jesus said, Let her alone,
you leave her alone. Against the day of my burying
has she kept this. For the poor always you have
with you, but me you have not also. The first thing I want
us to remember is that Mary is expressing her love for the Lord
and her understanding of how that love was going to be expressed
on Calvary's tree in just a very, very few days' time. And it's
fascinating in Psalm 109 which speaks of Judas again and it's
a prayer we may not have time to look at but if you have time
in your leisure to go and see read the Lord's Prayer about
Judas you'll see it's a horrible thing to be in Judas's place
but he says They have surrounded me also with words of hatred
and they fought against me without a cause. They hated him without
a cause. There was nothing in anything
the Lord Jesus Christ ever did or said that caused people to
hate him. In verse 4 of Psalm 109 he says,
For my love are my adversaries but I give
myself unto prayer and they have rewarded me evil for good and
hatred for my love. The Lord Jesus Christ was expressing
in John chapter 12 and in particularly in John chapter 13 at the beginning
of John 13 he says He says, now the Feast of the
Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should
depart out of the world unto the Father, having loved, having
loved his own. It speaks of his eternal love
for his own. Have you read in Jeremiah 31
through, having loved his own. having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them to the end. And it's that love that
Mary was expressing, and that love that the Lord was declaring,
and it was that love that Judas found repulsive. So one of the
first things I want us to take note of is that the Lord Jesus
Christ, when he comes and speaks to us, is going to rebuke us. He is, isn't he? We come to him
with our own righteousness. We think that we are basically
good. We think that God may necessarily
owe us something because we're not as bad as the rest of humanity. We come to God with our righteousness
and he's going to strip us of our righteousness and strip it
away altogether. We come to God with our sense
of our ability. We got that in the garden from
Satan, didn't we? You shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil, that we will be able to stand in judgment of
God and in judgment of humanity. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
to strip all of these things away from us. He will rebuke
us. I do love how Proverbs 26 verse
8 says that Faithful are the words of a friend. But the kisses of an enemy are
deceitful. The Lord rebukes his people. He chastens those he loves. Everyone that he loves is going
to, as many as I love, I'll rebuke and chasten the wounds of a friend.
Who are your true friends, brothers and sisters? Who are your true
friends? Who are your true friends? Who truly loves you? The answer, the answer is the
one who loves your eternal soul. The answer is the one who loves
the Lord Jesus Christ enough to tell you the truth about who
he is and tells you the truth about who you are. We will, from
the hand of our God, receive wounds to our human pride, because
the pride of our hearts have deceived us. God will have heart
love. Judas was rebuked. What a remarkable scene. Judas
was rebuked. And Judas' response to that rebuke. Leave her alone, he says. Just
leave her alone. He was rebuked when love was
exhibited. You leave her alone. And it says
in Luke chapter 22 verse 3, then Satan entered into Judas. Turn with me in Luke. We'll have
to go back through all of the other synoptic Gospels to get
a full picture of it. But in Luke chapter 22 verse
3, then Satan entered into Judas, surnamed
Iscariot being one of the twelve. And listen to what happens when
Satan entered into him. He went his way and he communed
with the chief priests. Now the Lord Jesus Christ had
told these people and told Judas that these are children of the
devil. He went his way, he communed
with the chief priest how he might betray him unto them. And they were glad and they covenanted. They made a promise with him
to give him money. We know how much money that was,
30 pieces of silver, exactly as the Old Testament had promised.
They were glad and they covenanted to give him money. Judas went back. That night,
Having been rebuked by the Lord Jesus Christ, he walked three
kilometers from Bethany, over the hill, down the Mount of Olives,
through the Garden of Gethsemane, an hour or more of a long and
lonely walk in the dark. and not a hint of remorse, but
a heart filled with hatred to God and a conscience calloused
by his hatred. To go back is to go his own way. If you go your own way and you
turn from the Lord Jesus Christ, you will always find it very
easy to find companions on the broad road, and it doesn't matter
which broad road you choose to go on. It can be the broad road
of this world. It can be the broad road of your
own wisdom and your own walk. It can be the broad road of religion. It can be the broad road of self-indulgence. It can be the broad road of sin.
It can be all those broad roads, but Satan is particularly interested
in keeping his people on the broad road of religion. He's
always been involved in religion, Satan. To go back, you'll always
have companions and you'll find, when you meet them, you'll find
that they'll be glad that you have joined them. and you will
have some sort of communion with them. Isn't it extraordinary?
The communion the Lord had with Mary and Lazarus and Martha in
that house compared to the communion that they had. He communed with
those whose one intention according to verse 2 of Luke 22, the chief
priests and scribes thought how they might kill him for they
feared the people and they needed to do it secretly. Once again
I want us to be reminded that people, all mankind, is 100%
responsible for his rejection of the Lord. He's 100% responsible
for his disobedience to the commands of the Gospel. He goes his own
way. And Acts chapter 1 says that
Judas went to his own place. I don't want you to go to your
own place, brothers and sisters. I don't want to go to my own
place. There is one place. There's one place of safety,
one person of safety. I want to be in his place. And
the thing that's remarkable, of course, is that the Lord Jesus
Christ is God. He's omniscient. And when Judas
walked back and when Judas had his meeting with those high priests,
chief priests and others there in Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus
Christ was a witness to everything that they said. He knew their
hearts. And the remarkable thing, if you turn back into John's
Gospel in John chapter 13, is that Judas then returned. Having done this deal, Judas
then returned to the Lord and his apostles. And I don't have time to read
all of John chapter 13, but if you have your leisure time, you'll
find it the most remarkable chapter. The Lord Jesus Christ knew that
his hour was coming, that he should depart out of this world
unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world.
He loved them, and to the end, the supper being ended, the devil
having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simon's son
to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the Father
had given all things into his hand and he was come from God
and went to God, he rises from the supper. laid aside his garments,
and took a towel, and girded himself. And after he had poured
water into a basin, he began to wash his disciples' feet."
Judas had his feet washed by the Lord Jesus Christ. They hated
me without a cause. He washed his disciples' feet. And remarkably, He participated in the Lord's
Supper. In Luke chapter 22 verse 21,
the Lord says in verse, go back to verse 90, took bread and gave
thanks and break it and gave it unto them saying, this is
my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me.
Likewise also the cup after supper saying, this cup is the New Testament,
the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you and behold,
The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of Man goeth
as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed. In John 13, I'm sorry about all
the page turning, but it's just how we have to put this together.
But in John 13, verse 25, The disciples at the Last Supper,
after the washing of their feet and after the communion, the
Lord Jesus said in verse 21, very, very I say unto you that
one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one
on the other, doubting of whom he spoke. They had no idea. After
three and a half years, there was not a word or a deed that
caused them to think that Judas was this one. Doubting of whom
he spake, now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples,
whom Jesus loved. This is John. Simon Peter therefore
beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom
he spake. Then he, lying on Jesus' breast,
saith unto him, Lord, who is it? He it is to whom I shall
give a sop when I have dipped it. And he dipped the sop, the
piece of bread, and gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop, Satan entered
into him. Then Jesus said unto him, That
thou doest do quickly. Now no man at the table knew
for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought,
because Judas had the bag that Judas had set unto him, by those
things we have need of against the feast, or that he should
give something to the poor. And verse 30 is an extraordinary
telling account, isn't it? You know that in John's gospel
there is light and darkness all the time. He went out immediately, and
it was night. He went out from the light of
the world into darkness, into darkness. Satan entered him. And then we read of Judas's activities. While the Lord was praying in
the garden, Judas was there with the chief priest and others gathering
that army of people together. And he comes to the garden, leading
that band of men. And we have, the multitude came,
in Luke 22 verse 47, a multitude, and he that was called Judas,
one of the twelve, went before them and drew near unto Jesus
to kiss him. Why is thou the son of man with
a kiss? I've already recounted the events
of John chapter 18 where the Lord Jesus Christ comes out and
they say, who are you seeking? And he says, I am God. And that
huge crowd of men with their lamps and their spears and their
swords and their rope all fell to the ground backwards. I did say earlier, who loves
you? You walk out of the light. If you walk in this world, you
will find that those who are with you on the broad road are
not your friends. They're not friends of your souls
at all. Judas, if you turn with me to
Matthew chapter 27. In the morning, the chief priests
and elders, they had Jesus now in charge. of the people, they
took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And when they
had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius
Pilate, the governor. Then, verse three, Judas, which
had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented
himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief
priests and elders, saying, in that I have betrayed innocent
blood. Listen to the response of these
people who previously had been glad about him and communed with
him and did a deal with him. And they said, what is that to
us? We don't care about you. We don't care about your destiny. We don't care about your life. We don't care about your soul. What is that to us? You see it. And he, verse 5, and he cast
down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went
and hanged himself. And these religious people are
still trying to keep themselves clean. Then the chief priest
took the silver piece and said, it's not lawful. They've broken
every law in God's book. They have broken every law of
human decency. They've broken every law of every
land in the world in their condemnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
not lawful, to put it. to put them into the treasury,
because it's the price of blood. So they took counsel and brought
with them the potter's field to bury strangers in, whereof,
wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this
day." And it was just the fulfillment of promise, wasn't it? They took
the 30 pieces of silver, it's Zechariah 11, the price of him
that was valued, whom the children of Israel did value. What's he
worth to you? What's he worth? 30 pieces of
silver. 30 pieces of silver. Acts chapter
1 tells us the horrible end of Judas. The horrible end of Judas. He committed suicide. Now this
man purchased, all the other people did it for, he purchased
a field with the reward of iniquity, verse 18, and falling headlong,
he burst asunder in the midst, and his bowels gushed out. He went to his own place. The command of God in the midst
of all this, to me, is that I comfort God's people. I comfort God's
people. There is both a warning and there
is a glorious comfort. in all of this for the children
of God, isn't it? Judas fulfilled the written purposes
of God. according as it is written, according
as it is promised. So we can take those words of
life that Peter had, the words of eternal life, the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and we can know even from the sad events
of Judas that these words are true and all of God's words must
come to pass. They must be fulfilled as it
is promised. I want us to go back to John
chapter 13. I want us to be reminded of the
fact that Judas is a picture of man in his natural state without
the grace of God. Judas is a picture of how great
a sinner you are. How great a sinner you are. See, people are very happy with
an anemic Jesus because they see their sins as little. They
see their sins as something that they can do something about by
their own efforts. They can reduce them somehow.
Brothers and sisters, you are far worse sinners than you can
possibly imagine. God hides most of your sin from
you. because if it was really exposed
you couldn't live in the very presence of yourself on this
earth. We are far worse sinners than we can possibly imagine.
we are far worse sinners. And the false teachers heal the
wounds that God brings slightly, saying peace, peace, when there
is no peace. There is one place of peace,
there is one person of peace, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
But I want us to go back to John 13 in verse 21 and see how the
Lord responds. There is now almost like a breath
of fresh air comes over that scene that was so extraordinarily
heavy and the scene was going to be remarkably heavy at the
end of it and that night and the next day when the Lord Jesus
Christ is hanging on the cross. But listen to how he responds
to the activities of Judas and he knew exactly what he was doing,
he knew when he was doing it, he knew who he was doing it with,
he knew exactly every little tiny bit of all of these events.
He is God. When he was gone out, verse 31,
Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified. All of the evil, all of the accumulated
evil, all of the people in this world who hate him without a
cause is not going to do nothing to damage the glory of the Lord
Jesus. Now is the Son of Man glorified
and God is glorified in him. And if God be glorified in him,
God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway
glorify him. Little children, Yet a little
while I am with you. You shall seek me, and as I said
unto the Jews, where I go you cannot come. So now I say unto
you, a new commandment, a new covenant I give unto you, that
you love one another, that you also love one another. By this
shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another." We have a glorious, sovereign,
reigning saviour. And that very next day, The Lord
Jesus Christ would take that cup in which God the Father had
given him and he held it in his hands and he looked into that
cup and in that garden great drops of blood fell to the ground
and he began to shed his blood as his heart was broken as he
looked what sin was. The only man ever to know what
sin was. saw it in that cup, and it broke
his heart. It broke his heart, and he cried
out to his father, if it's possible, can you take this away from me?
But not my will, but your will be done. And he says, if this
cup can't pass away, unless I drink it. On Calvary's tree, he drank
all of the sin one with Him, and God in holiness
and justice slew His Son. We have a glorious Saviour. That's love, brothers and sisters,
isn't it? having loved his own which were
in the world. He loved them unto the end. He loved them purposely. He loved
them distinctly. He loved them particularly. He
loved them. Our God triumphed over Satan
on that cross the next day. Colossians chapter 2 says that
he made a spectacle of Satan. Judas had already gone at that
time to what the Bible says is his own place. and our savior, spoiled principalities
and powers. And he says to all of his people,
he came with a purpose in the body of his flesh, through his
death, to present every single one of his church, holy, unblameable,
and unapprovable in his sight. And Satan and Judas and all the
demons of hell, all conspiring together, are never gonna stop
our Lord Jesus Christ having his own with himself, having
his bride washed in his blood, sanctified, perfect, and holy. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
We pray that we might be drawn by your omnipotent chords and
bands of love. May you reveal your dear and
precious son as glorious as the chief among 10,000. that we might see him in the
beauties of holiness and that we might be drawn, Heavenly Father,
into his arms. That we may, like Peter, say,
we have nowhere, no one else to go to. Make your Son precious
to us, Heavenly Father. Make us to adore and worship
his absolute sovereignty over all things and his love. for his own who are in this world. Our Father calls us to take,
to eat and to drink in remembrance of him. We pray in his name and
for his glory.