I love to think of our Saviour
triumphant when Judas, his unfamiliar friend,
brought that band and according to the title of the Roman soldier
who was in charge of them, there may have been 750 men that came
to arrest the Lord of Glory. led by Judas and the Lord Jesus
Christ went out to them and he wanted those 750 men and Judas
to know that he was a triumphant saviour. And they said, Jesus of Nazareth,
and he just said those words, which said, I am God. He says,
I am. And the whole crowd, and Judas
as well, fell down, fell down as one man, an army conquered
by a word. And the remarkable thing is that
they actually stood back up again by the power of God. And he allowed
himself to be bound with the cup in his hand of all the sins
of all God's people. He goes to the cross as a triumphant
Lord and Saviour. He goes there as our representative
and our King. He goes there to fulfil a purpose. And he cried out, it is finished. Paid in full across the bill
of debt of every one of his children. Nothing Owen. Let's sing number
33. Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing
call for songs of loudest prose. is So I turn with me to John chapter
six and I'll set the scene for our time looking at the lessons
of Judas. As we saw earlier, Simon Peter
in verse 68 says, answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life. Don't you love the words of eternal
life? The words of eternal life. Listen to some of them here.
Truly, truly, I'll go back to chapter five, verse 24. Verily,
verily, truly, truly, amen, amen. Faithfully, faithfully, I say
unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that
sent me hath in his possession right now life and shall not come into
condemnation. Why can't he come into condemnation?
Because all of his condemnation was laid on the Lord Jesus Christ
and God cannot be holy and he cannot be just and ever punish
one of God's children. He cannot punish the same sin
twice and be God and holy and just and righteous. His past
from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Our great Saviour makes these
remarkable promises, doesn't he? This is a special time, isn't
it? It's a special time in the history
of the world, it's a special time in the history of Israel,
it's a special time in the history of everyone that hears the words,
whether they heard them 2,000 years ago or they hear them now. In verse 66 he says, From that time, from the time
of these declarations, many went back. They heard the words of
eternal life. The crowds now following went
back. All of them, all of them went
back. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
up for election, brothers and sisters. He's not here to win
a popularity contest. They went back and he left them. They went back from light. Where
do you go when you turn from light? If you turn from light,
you can go 360 degrees and go into darkness in any particular
direction you go. Broad is the road that leads
to destruction. You turn your back on truth and
all you have is lies. And it doesn't matter what colour
and variety and how enticing they are. If you turn your back
on He who is the truth, all you have is lies. If you turn your
back on grace, all you have is the works of your own hands.
If you turn your back on salvation, Judas ended up going to his own
place. They went back. See, every move
away from the Lord is going back. And the Lord says, come. The
gospel says, come. The gospel says, come and believe. Come and look unto the Saviour
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. And obviously,
it's the sovereign hand of God that causes us to see the Saviour
and come. And they walked no more with
Him. These people walked in religion. They didn't turn away from their
Jewish religion. They walked with men. They walked in this world and
they no more walked with Him. There is a time, it was the time as the scriptures declare it
to be, the time of their visitation. God's Messiah had come. Solomon asked that question,
will God really dwell on earth? When he dedicated it, he said,
will God really dwell on earth? He wasn't asking you whether
it wasn't going to happen or not, he knew it was going to happen.
And here, God incarnate dwells on earth and he dwells As he's
promised, here he is, a living fulfilment of the Old Testament
Scriptures. This is God revealing God to
man. He came meek and lowly. He came touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He came moved with compassion
to any who had need. Lord, if you will, you can make
me whole, you can make me clean. He came to Israel fulfilling
all of the Law and the Prophets. Every single prophecy in their
Old Testament Scriptures was fulfilled in Him. They're all
according to the Scriptures. They're all now yay, yes, and
amen. He came to his own and his own
received him not. He came openly. He came declaring
that he is God. He came declaring that he is
the Messiah. And then he attested the reality
of who he is with all of these remarkable miracles. And John
6 is full of remarkable miracles. He fed 5,000 people with just
a few loaves and a couple of dried fish. He walked on water. healed multitudes on the other
side and they went searching for him as a miracle worker.
And here in John chapter 6 he declares who he is and how you
have eternal life in him. And they walked no more with
him. It was a time of their visitation. It was a time of the Messiah
coming. It was a time of declaration. You read what he says. He declares
God's eternal purpose in verse 37 of John 6. He says all that
the Father And here we have the clearest declaration of the will
of God that you could ever wish to have. And this is the Father's
will, which has sent me. that all of which he hath given
me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up." He'll raise
up a whole church. When the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead, all of his people were resurrected in him. And
according to Ephesians chapter 2, we're now seated with him
in heaven's glory. That's a picture of our union
with him. We cannot be separated. He's
the head and we're the body. He's the shepherd and we're the
sheep. We cannot be separated. He'll
raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of
him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the sun and believeth
on him may have everlasting life. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. He declares his deity, verse 46. Not that any man has
seen the Father, save he which is of God, he has seen the Father. He declares in verse 63 his absolute
sovereignty, doesn't he? It is the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. And he makes us to know
how much we are in need of a saviour like this saviour in verse 43.
Verse 44, sorry, no man can come to me except the Father which
has sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. Verse 63, it's a spirit, as I
said earlier, the quickness. It's a spirit that gives life.
And then in verse 65, it says, therefore I said I unto you that
no man can come unto me except it was given unto him of the
Father. Salvation is the work of God
alone. He puts a cry in the hearts of
his people who are unable, doesn't he? Lord, save me. Lord, you must do something for
me which is impossible for me. Our great and sovereign God will
have his people with him. It is This time, the time that they
went back, it's a time of decision, isn't it? Verse 53 says, from
that moment, verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. You have no
life in you. And of course the Jews and people
today still think that speaks of cannibalism. He's not talking
about that at all. He's talking about you living.
You living upon what the Lord Jesus Christ did in his flesh.
And you live upon what the Lord Jesus Christ did in the shedding
of his blood. You have no life in you. It's
the time of his visitation, isn't it? God visits his people. And God visits with people whenever
the gospel is preached, whenever the Lord Jesus Christ is preached. The Jews rejected the counsel
of God against them. speaking personally to people
in the preaching of the gospel. He's speaking to us about God
and he's speaking to us about ourselves. But in this passage
we have humanity divided by the revelation of of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Peter's declaration is a simple
one, isn't it? To whom shall we go? Thou hast
the words of eternal life. We believe, verse 69, we believe
and assure that thou art the Son of the living God. And how
did you get to have this revelation? How did you get to have that
testimony, Peter? I've chosen you. I've chosen
you is the answer of the Lord. I have chosen you. What's the
difference? What is the distinction? And
one of you is the devil. What is the distinction between
Peter and Judas? What is the distinction? What
is the difference? I do love what 1 Corinthians
4 verse 7 says. Who makes you to differ? Who
makes you to differ? Who makes you to differ from
another person? Who makes you to think that you
are better than Judas? Who makes you to think that you
can look down your nose at any other human being in this world
and think that somehow you're better than them? Who makes you
to differ from another? And what have you that you did
not receive? What do you have that you did
not receive? You think your own life, but
you received it from God. You think that somehow by your
activities and things you made yourself more appealing to God. What did you have? What do you have that you did
not receive? Now, if you did receive it, why
do you boast? Why do people boast? God's saying
you cannot boast about anything or salvation is entirely of grace. Why do you glory? Why do you
glory as if you hadn't received it? Grace alone makes the difference. To whom shall we go? To whom
shall we go? The children of God have come
to a whom because a whom has come to them and revealed himself
to them. Turn with me to Jeremiah chapter
30. and I'll just read some verses about why you come, and why you
can't boast, and why you can't brag, and why we rest entirely
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Why, Peter said, we believe and
are sure that thou art the Christ. You know the verse, well, in
Jeremiah 31 verse 3, the Lord has appeared of old unto me,
saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore
with loving kindness which is the Old Testament word for grace
Jeremiah 31 3 I have drawn thee I have drawn thee. I have drawn
thee. Turn over the page and we'll
read these familiar verses that are repeated in the book of Hedrus.
He says in verse 31, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that
I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with
the house of Judah, "'Not according to the covenant I made with their
fathers "'in that day that I took them by the hand "'to bring them
out of the land of Egypt, "'which my covenant they break, "'although
I wasn't husband to them,' says the Lord. "'But this shall be
the covenant that I will make "'with the house of Israel after
those days,' saith the Lord. "'I will put my law in their
inward parts "'and write it on their hearts and will be their
God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them
unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. Because, how do you
get to know God? because I will forgive their
iniquity and remember their sin no more. To whom shall we go? While you're
there in Jeremiah, if you just turn over the page, there's some
glorious verses in verse 38 of Jeremiah 32. And they shall be
my people, and I will be their God, and I will give them one
heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good
of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them. "'that I will not turn away from
them to do them good, "'but I will put my fear in their hearts "'and
they shall not depart from me.'" Don't you love the promises of
God of drawing his people to himself and then keeping them
with himself? "'To whom shall we go?' says Peter." These are
the words of eternal life. "'Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good, Now I will plant them in this land assuredly with
my whole heart and my whole soul, says God. Peter, like all of
us who believe, we are kept by the power of God through faith. And before we have a break and
ask the Lord to help us to learn some lessons about Judas, there
is this distinction between Judas and Peter that the Lord causes
us to take notice of here and the Blessed Holy Spirit has written
these words. And so my task is just to say
this is what God says. But there is a distinction, isn't
there? And the distinction in no way
ever diminishes personal responsibility. They went back, and the Lord
Jesus was still available to anyone who came to him in need. To anyone who was sick, to anyone
who was ailing, to anyone... He was there, wasn't he? Israel's a tiny country. You can drive from one end, you
can circumnavigate the whole thing if you had a decent road,
you'd circumnavigate the whole thing in a matter of hours. It's
a tiny country and he wasn't hidden. He wasn't hidden. Why didn't they ask him to clarify
what he was saying? Why didn't they ask the disciples? This wasn't the end of Christ's
witness to his glory. and his witness to his glory
continues. So let's have a break and then
we can come back refreshed to see what the Lord might teach
us about Jesus.