It's good to see you all here.
It's lovely to see our friends from over the other side of the
mountain here with us again today. And if you might open your Bibles
to Acts chapter 1. We've been following the apostles
on their journey from that remarkable event of the crucifixion and
the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus. to this wonderful
day that we'll read about in Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost.
And here we have this period which is probably just 10 days
where the Lord had gone up to glory. And the apostles were,
under His instruction, gathered together in Jerusalem, and they
were to gather together to wait. And here we have the record of
it. This is the only record. Luke
records what they did. He says in Luke 24 that they
were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. These
disciples, these apostles now, went back into Jerusalem and
they went into the temple Acts 1.12 says, and they returned
they unto Jerusalem from the Mount of Olivet, which is from
Jerusalem about a Sabbath day's journey. A Sabbath day's journey
is 2,000 reasonably moderate steps, so it's about a kilometre
or a little bit more. And when they were coming, they
went into an upper room, and there abode both Peter and James
and John and Andrew and Philip and Thomas and Bartholomew and
Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, Zelotis, and Judas,
the brother of James. And these all continued with
one accord in prayer and supplication. They not only prayed but they
pleaded. Their prayers were not just prayers,
their prayers were involved in pleading with God. Pleading with
God to do His will. With the women and Mary the mother
of Jesus and His brethren. This in the scriptures is the
last reference to Mary. the last time she's mentioned.
It's extraordinary, isn't it, the terrible, terrible injustice
her name has been given in this world by that blasphemous institution
which is called the Roman Catholic Church. How dare it be named
a church without horror. It has spewed forth out of the
open sewer that it is all sorts of blasphemies that The denigration
of the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is appalling. She,
like us, needed a redeemer. She, like us, had a redeemer. She, like these others here,
bore witness to the fact that her son had risen. And what a
meeting that must have been to her, whose very soul was pierced
as she watched him die in agony on the cross. And now she knows
that it's all over and it's all worthwhile. His brothers is still
opposed to him, if you can read in John 7 and other places. Now, we're there. And I love
what it says, isn't it? In verse 14, they all continue
with one accord in prayer and supplication, this 120. In those days Peter stood up
in the midst of the disciples and said the number of names
together were about 120. This group of 120 stayed together
and were there together until the Holy Spirit came upon them
and they went out again proclaiming the Lord Jesus with great power.
And this is what Peter said as he stood up there. This Scripture must needs be
fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke concerning
Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered
with us and had obtained part of this ministry. Now this man
purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong,
he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all dwellers
of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper
tongue, Asildama, that is to say, the field of blood. And
so it remained until the Romans destroyed it. For the rest of
their day, when they looked out on that part of Jerusalem, they
were reminded They were reminded of the shocking events of the
betrayal of the Lord Jesus and the death of Judas. For it is
written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation be desolate,
let no man dwell therein, and let his bishopric another take. His bishopric means his office,
his overseership. Pope Peter is quoting from the
Psalms, Psalm 69 and Psalm 109, Wherefore, of these men which
have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and
out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the
same day He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be
a witness with us of His resurrection? And they appointed to Joseph
called Bar-Sabbath, who was surnamed Justice, and Matthias. And they
prayed and said, Lo, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men,
show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take
part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression
fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth
their lots, and the lot fell to Matthias, and he was numbered
with the eleven apostles." Much has been written and said about
the election of Matthias. the difficulty of casting lots
and so many other things. I would like us today to put
aside those things. It's interesting how the Holy
Spirit has left this history on record without comment, and
we have no doubt about it, that there are twelve apostles. Twelve
is a remarkable number in the Scriptures, isn't it? There are
twelve tribes of Israel that came from the twelve patriarchs.
There are twelve stars in the Church's crown in Revelation
12.1. There are twelve thrones reserved for the Church in Matthew
28, and we have no doubt that Paul was an apostle. We have no doubt that Paul was
an apostle. But I would like today, if the
Lord would be our teacher, to look at the lessons of Judas. I have ten lessons from this
tragic, tragic event which was laid there before all of Jerusalem
and particularly before the church. See, Peter was speaking about
his friend. For three and a half years they
had been together, day in and day out. For three and a half
years, Judas had suffered the trials that they had suffered,
been through the anguish that they had been through, been a
party to the threats that threatened both the Lord Jesus and all those
who were with him. And yet, at the time of the Last
Supper, Not one of them suspected that there was anything amiss
with Judas at all. It is quite remarkable. This man lived before them as
an apostle and he lived before them and others as a preacher. And so if this is a lesson to
anyone in this room, the lesson of Judas is a lesson to me and
those who participate in the proclamation of the Gospel. And
the other thing that's quite remarkable about it is that at
the last supper, None of them knew. And at the Last Supper,
having witnessed the Lord Jesus' relationship with this man who
he knew to be a devil from the beginning, not a single thing
in all that they were able to witness of the dealings of the
Lord Jesus with this man, this reprobate man, caused them to
consider for a second that he was not as favoured as they were. I have ten lessons that I would
hope the Lord might teach us from the life of Judas. I trust
that you might not be horrified, I will be brief, but I think
they are so important and so relevant and so significant in
the life of the early church and so significant in the life
of the church ever since, that I trust the Lord might, as He's
promised, be our teacher. I'd like you to turn to John
chapter 13 briefly as I look at the first one. And the first one concerns our
heart attitude in these matters, considering the lostness of the
lost. The Lord Jesus, there at the
Last Supper, having loved His own, verse 1, having loved His
own which were in the world, He loved them to the end. He
loved them completely. He loved His own which were in
the world. And the supper being ended, the devil having 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, that he
was come from God and went to God, he rises from the supper
and lays aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself.
After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the
disciples' feet, including Judas, and wipe them with the towel
wherewith he was girded. And cometh Peter, Simon Peter.
And Simon Peter Peter said unto him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered, What I do you
don't know, and thou shalt know, but thou shalt know hereafter.
Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered
him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter
said unto him, Lord, not only my feet only, but also my hands
and my head. It is to say to him, he that
is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every
whit. And you are clean, speaking of
the twelve, but not all. For he knew who should betray
him. Therefore he said, you are not
all clean. He says in John 6, haven't I
chosen you all? Yet one of you is a devil. I
had years of warning about these events. So after He'd washed
their feet and taken up His garments and sat down again, He said to
them, You know what I've done to you. You call Me Master and
Lord and you say, Well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and
Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's
feet. For I have given you an example
that you should do as I have done. Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that
is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things,
happy are you if you do them. I speak not of all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but
the Scripture may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me
has lifted up his heel against me. It's a quote from Psalm 49
verse 9. And now I tell you before it
come, that when it is come to pass, that you may believe that
I am He. You might believe that I am. I am the great, I am God that
met with Moses. I am the God of this universe. I am sovereign. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, that he that receiveth me receiveth him that
sent me. When Jesus had said thus, he
was troubled in spirit and testified and said, Verily, verily, truly,
truly, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. The first thing that I would
like us to ponder and like us to ask the Lord to continually
give us is a heart like our Lord Jesus. the most appalling thing,
and something that ought to horrify us, because it dwells in all
of the flesh of all of us, and the children of God especially.
A shocking, a shocking possibility, a shocking reality that we can
be hard-hearted regarding the lostness of the lost. How was
he when he spoke? He said he was troubled in spirit,
he was moved. The reality is that any knowledge
of God that is real and saving will enter into a heart of flesh,
not a heart of stone. A heart that brings forth tears
and not hatred or uncaring coldness. A heart that brings forth prayer,
not cold indifference. A heart that brings forth a gospel
proclaimed with hope and not with spiritual pride. And the Lord alone, the Lord
alone can give such a heart. Knowledge puffs up. We don't
need very much of it to be puffed up very much by it. But a heart
that is moved, a heart that is governed by God, the new heart
of the saints of God is a heart that's troubled in spirit. that
weeps over the lostness of the lost, that cares deeply about
the glory of God, cares deeply about the fact that people willfully
and wickedly sin themselves into eternal hell. and we are no different
from them at all. The only difference is the difference
that grace has made. The Lord Jesus, and the second
lesson here isn't it, the Lord Jesus writes and says these things,
these things are written, the Lord Jesus said these things
that you might believe. The Scriptures are to be fulfilled. We have on record here before
us in the book in your hands a historic record, a historic
public record laid out before all of humanity, laid out especially
before those who were the enemies of the Lord Jesus. believed that
I am. He writes these things that you
might believe that I am. He says these things that you
might believe. All things, he says, must be
fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets
and the Psalms. Our God has given us these scriptures
and in these scriptures we have a testimony of God's faithfulness
to himself, his faithfulness to his word. He will be faithful,
he will always be faithful to what he has written. May He cause
you to find the Scriptures, a book of promise and a book of reality. May you go again and again and
again to it, to see and to find Him, and to find peace in Him,
to find comfort in who He is and what He's done. You might
believe that I am, you might believe that this very man, this
man of Nazareth, was really God. And when He died on that cross,
He was God. It was the blood of God that
was shed, and the blood of God purchased His church for Himself.
That our God is absolutely sovereign, and He rules in His sovereignty
through the declarations of His word. Real saving faith is a
gift of God, but Judas reminds us that unbelief is an act of
willful rebellion and human pride. There is no shortage of evidence.
There was for Judas and there will be for all who go to hell.
There will be no shortage of warning. There is in the heart
of human beings a heart of stone. And God alone can provide and
will provide a heart transplant to his own. The heart of man
is deceitfully wicked and beyond cure. That's a medical term,
beyond cure. It is uncurable. It won't be
cured. Religion wants to adjust it and
modify it, and it can be very successful, but it can't cure
it. There is no cure for it. The
only cure is a new heart. Judas shows us, in number three,
doesn't he? He shows us the hardness of the
human heart. The Lord says in Psalm 109 verse
4, for my love they are my adversaries. He loved his own who were in
the world. For my love, for his love for
his own, he came. For his love for his own, his
enemies were raised up against him and he never held back. to declare to people that he
has his own in this world, and he must save them. And yet, in
the face of all of that, we see human hearts hardened against
him, and the scriptures are full of it, and Acts is no, there
is no shortage of it. We will see in a little while's
time the shocking story of Ananias and Sapphira, killed instantly
by God. for lying to the Holy Spirit.
The Scriptures show us Judas' again and again, they who looked
for all the world as if they were really God's children. Lot's wife lived with him for
years, was the mother of his children, was taken by an angel
out of Sodom. taken by an angel. She witnessed
the activities of that town the night before, where not only
did they want to rape and murder Lot's daughters that he was prepared
to give them, they wanted to practice homosexual sodomy against
the angels of God. And yet, on her way out, holding
an angel's hand, Lot's wife looked back. No wonder the Lord Jesus
said to us, remember Lot's wife. What on earth in Sodom was there
to look back for? What on earth was to gaze back
there with fondness? The scriptures are full of them,
Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Achan, Kingsall, Demas, Deocritus, again
and again. So many of them, like Judas,
appeared to be disciples. And like those in John 6 who
had witnessed the miracles of being fed by the hand of God
Almighty in a way which no one else could ever do, they went
back. They went back when He declared
Himself to them. He declared Himself to be the
I Am. And the more they railed against
what he was saying, the more he explained to them who he was. And they went back and they walked
with him no more. Not all Israel, not all Israel,
as we read, Thyman read to us out of Hebrews 3, not all Israel
are Israel. Judas, who looked for that three
and a half years to be the genuine article of an apostle. What a
remarkable privilege to walk with the Lord Jesus, to spend
three and a half years in His presence, to eat with Him, to
walk with Him, to listen to Him teaching, to watch the remarkable
miracles. And yet, He's here at the beginning
of the church as an emblem of the Lord's betrayal. He was a
preacher of the gospel. He was a performer of miracles,
mighty miracles. And not only that, but in the
apostolic band it seemed very clearly as if he was number four. You have Peter, James and John
mentioned again and again, and there was Judas, the treasurer. But he betrayed the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you turn over to Luke 22,
Luke tells something, a story in Luke 22 verses 3 and following. The Feast
of the Unleavened Bread drew nigh and was called the Passover,
and the chief priests and scribes thought how they might kill him,
for they feared the people. Then entered Satan into Judas,
named Iscariot, being of the number of the Twelve, and he
went his way. Notice that, brothers and sisters.
He went His way. May God protect you from ever
going your way. There is a way that seems right
to a man, but the ways thereof are the ways of death. He went
His way and communed with the chief priests and captains how
He might betray Him under them. And they were glad and covenanted
to give Him money. And He promised and sought opportunity
to betray Him unto them in the absence of the multitude, to
betray Him in such a way that there wouldn't be a crowd to
witness it or to hinder it, hinder Him. You see, Judas' sin. was something
that wasn't just done in a moment. Peter fell grievously and it
was a momentary thing. You and I can all bear witness
to something of the falls of Peter. and they shock us, and
they should grieve us, and we should immediately turn and repent
and not for a millisecond try to justify ourselves. But Judas'
wickedness was a contrived wickedness, wasn't it? He'd actually planned
and plotted with those who'd shown themselves to be the enemies
of the Lord Jesus. What hardness, that's the lesson,
isn't it? The hardness of the human heart. when the Lord Jesus had promised
that this was going to happen, that he was going to be betrayed
into the hands of these people. And there is Judas with them,
communing with them, the chief priests and the captain. And there is a great lesson for
us in joining with these people joining hands with those who
make themselves, by their opposition to the declaration of the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who make themselves enemies of God,
we need to be careful about our fellowship with them. I'm not
saying that we need to run around this world fearful of who we
meet and bum into. We go with expectation. into
every situation. We trust the sovereign God. We
know that it's a heart transplant that He alone can give and He'll
give it in response, not to men's activities, but in response to
His divine sovereign hand. But to join hands with those
who mark themselves by the gospel they believe and the associations
they have, we need to be warned. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
When Judas repented, and we'll look a little bit more about
this a little bit later on, we'll see what sort of friends these
people were. In Matthew 27, Judas repented. He was broken-hearted. He saw,
in verse 3 of Matthew 27, then Judas, which had betrayed him,
when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and bought again
the thirtieth pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood.
And they said, what is that to us? You see, they were no friends
of God, nor were they friends of his soul. They were no friends. What is that to us? You see to
it yourself. It's your business. They cared
nothing for the glory of God and they cared nothing for His
soul. Such is the situation in the
hardness of human heart to this very day. Nothing has changed,
brothers and sisters. Where there is no love for the
Lord Jesus Christ, there is no love for eternal souls. Those who love you most love
the Lord Jesus the most. Those who love you most care
most about your eternal soul, care most about your relationship
with Him. So what ultimately is dressed
up as care And human love will be seen in time to best just
be selfish indifference to the souls of people. It will be exposed
to what it is one day. They had their reward. They've sought the praise of
men. They had their reward. there is the hardness of human
heart. But there is, in the story of
Judas, there is another wonderful, wonderful example of the fact
that our God is absolutely sovereign. There is not an event in this
universe that happens outside of His sovereign control. There
is not an event in the lives of all of God's people which
is not ordered orders and secure in every detail," said David
when he was dying. An eternal covenant God has made
with his people. Ordered and secure in every day.
That's all the desire of God's people. It's all their salvation. Our God, our God is absolutely
sovereign. The great I Am was in charge
of these events down to the detail. His Word was fulfilled with absolutely
perfect precision. And it is right now, brothers
and sisters. It was at the beginning of time. It was at the beginning of the
Church. It was at the cross of the Lord Jesus. And every witnessed
event and promised ones are there to comfort the brethren. We are
comforted by the fact that our God reigns. I don't have to know
the circumstances in particular. I don't have to know what the
wicked hearts of men are plotting. I just have to know that my God
sits on the throne of this universe and everything He does is right. And even the acts of evil plotting,
this deceitful, hateful man, are done exactly according to
God's eternal purpose. The wrath of man shall praise
Him. and the remainder thou shalt
restrain." He works all things for the good of you, his brethren
here. He was, in his sovereignty, bound
to go to the cross. He was bound to go to the cross. It must happen, he said, again
and again. He was bound, wasn't he? Lamentations
1.14, it says, the yoke of my transgressions is bound by his
hand. He says in verse 12 of the same
chapter, what is it to all you who pass by? Is it nothing to
all you who pass by? But here he says, the yoke of
my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are wreathed and
come up upon my neck. He has made my strength to fall.
The Lord has delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not
able to rise up. The Lord Jesus must be delivered.
He must be delivered by the hands of wicked and evil people. He must be delivered into the
hands of the Jews. He must be delivered into the
hands of the Romans. He must be killed. He must be
buried. He must rise again. And all of
this because He was bound. As Isaac was bound to the altar
of sacrifice, our Lord Jesus was bound by the cords of love
to His own people. He was bound by his own promises. He was bound by that eternal
covenant, surely, where he took responsibility for the sins and
for the righteousness of his people in eternity. And he was
bound by his great desire that he would magnify the glory of
God, that God's Word would be honoured, God's Holy Law would
be magnified. And by his stripes, all of God's
children are healed. Healed forever. And God's sovereign
hand, as I've said before, rules all things according to His word. I love what Jeremiah 29, 23 says. We're speaking much about witnesses
in Acts. We're speaking much about the
witness of who the Lord Jesus is. But there is a witness, there
is another witness, brothers and sisters. And it says, the
Lord is the witness to all His acts. he bears witness to his
acts, and all of his witnesses bear witness to who he is in
his acts, in his character, and in his word. That's why he says
in Acts 1.20, isn't it? For it is written, says Peter,
because it is written in the book of the Psalms, all things
must be done according to what is written. The sovereign hand
of God works all things. And the reality is that despite
the wicked, the wicked ongoing unbelief, the shocking betrayal
of the Lord Jesus into the hands of those evil men who thought
by deceit to put him to death, no harm, no harm ever befell
the Church whatsoever. Judas, a devil, was with them
for three and a half years and no harm came to the righteous. No harm, brothers and sisters,
no harm ever will come to the children of God. Our God's sovereign
hand will make sure that no spiritual harm ever comes to the children
of God. As I said earlier, the scriptures
must be fulfilled. So every promise, every activity
that happened at this time and happens throughout all time is
according to His promise. The only reason we don't see
it as clearly as we ought is because of our ignorance of the
scriptures. That doesn't mean that there
is much that is hidden from us. But in terms of the big things
for the salvation of our soul and the glory of the Lord Jesus
and the work of His Church in this world and its preservation,
all things must happen according to the scriptures. The scriptures
must be fulfilled. What remarkable times those apostles
who were so steeped in the Old Testament must have had when
they came to read the Scriptures again in light of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I often think what an amazing
time it must have been for Paul who knew probably all the Old
Testament off by heart. And he spent those hours, days,
weeks and months those first few days in darkness, until Ananias
came to Him. And all those days he spent in
jail, locked away, and the Scriptures would have come to him again
and again, and he would have seen the Lord Jesus again and
again. He would have seen Him there,
and he would have said to himself, I often imagine hundreds of times,
Oh dear, why didn't I see it? It is so plain it is written
on the surface of a text. And as a Pharisee, I had absolutely
no idea it was about him, ever. The Scriptures are glorious. The sixth lesson from the fall
of Judas is in our text here again. In 118 it says, he purchased
us the field with the reward of iniquity. Peter finishes his
references to Judas And it says in verse 25, Judas fell by transgression
from this apostleship and ministry that he might go to his own place,
to the place of his own making. by his own sin, by his own willful
rebellion, by his ignoring the warnings again and again, by
his denial of the very person of the Lord Jesus who had treated
him with such extraordinary kindness for that three and a half years.
Not once did he ever let him down. Not once Did he ever sin
against him in any way, no matter what the circumstances or the
trials? He rejected the Lord's mercy.
The Lord Jesus washed his feet. Judas, I believe, participated
in the Lord's supper and then left to go and betray him. He went to his own place. The reward of his iniquity. You see, his acts of deceit were
contrived with a purpose, weren't they? To betray the Lord Jesus,
to protect himself from the anger of the crowd that had to be done
in a secret way to earn money. Thirty pieces of silver. Thirty
pieces of silver. Exactly, exactly as Zechariah
14 said. What am I worth? 30 pieces of
silver. And he sold him for that. I love
what Henry Mayer said, it's in our bulletin. Peter, who stood
by the Lord in the garden with a sword, had more grace than
Judas, who came with a kiss. He betrayed him with a kiss. And such is the state of so much
religious profession today. They betray him with a kiss. Throughout this world where the
false gospel is being preached, there is an ongoing willful rebellion. The evidence is there in the
scriptures. The evidence is there in history. and they turn themselves away
from it. No one rejects the Gospel without
a willful activity. How can we have so many denominations
whose very statements of faith are a blasphemy against the character
of God, and yet for hundreds of years they have been warned
and warned and warned. None of them have gone without
warning. I have a book at home, an old little booklet written
in 1966 I think it is, which is 51 years ago, about a fellow
who was one of the team on Billy Graham's crusade in London, and
he makes it so abundantly clear in point after point after point
that Billy Graham was not preaching the Gospel. at all in London. And Billy Graham was deceiving
people in London. And Billy Graham was sending
people back to Catholic churches when they came to his crusades.
They came from a Catholic church, he sent them back to a Catholic
church. That's 51 years ago. There are books written, I read
a sermon, I heard a sermon from a fellow who went to Bible college
with Billy Graham and even in his teenage years, his early
twenties, people were warning him about the false gospel of
man's free will and God's infinite love for all people and Jesus
dying for all people and man having salvation in his own hands
and it not being in the hand of a sovereign God. And he charted
the history, and the history of that man and that murderer
which has infected the world. The history of that man is instead
of being drawn back to the truth, back to the truth, he has gone
in the opposite direction at every single step of the way. And now he's a 98 year old man
and revered. revered in this world, and he's
never heeded to my knowledge one single warning ever given
to him. In fact, in every case that I
am aware of, every time he was warned, he not only did not heed
the warning, but went more strongly in the other direction. Judas went to his own place. repented. But his repentance
wasn't a repentance to salvation. There is, according to 2 Corinthians
7 verse 10, there is a repentance that needs to be repented of.
And there is a repentance that doesn't ever need to be repented
of. Let me read the verse for you. For godly sorrow Godly sorrow,
a sorrow that comes from the hand of God and is worked by
the hand of God in the heart of His people, worketh repentance
unto salvation. The end of it is salvation and
it's not to be repented of. But the sorrow of this world
works death. The sorrow of this world works
death. Judas is an example before us
of someone feeling sorry. Someone feeling sorry. He says,
I have betrayed innocent blood. Matthew 27.3, he saw that he
was condemned and he repented himself. And it was no benefit
whatsoever to his soul. Multitudes feel sorry about sin,
and it's not godly sorrow nor godly repentance. Had he seen,
had anything in what we've heard of him in this time, had he seen
the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, if
he had seen the glory of God, he would have been horrified
about the thought of betraying him. He was, it appears, he was
terrified about the prospect of God's wrath, and multitudes
are, and it benefits them nothing. You see, he wanted to be eased
of that, but he didn't want a Saviour. He wanted mercy, but he didn't
want the Master. He wanted grace, but not the
glory of God. You see, God's repentance, as
we'll see later on, an act of our faith, is a gift of God. True repentance is a gift of
God. It's the goodness of God that
leads to repentance, not stories of His wrath. It's the goodness
of God. There is an awful awful chasm between being afraid
of God and fearing God. I don't have time to look into
these things with any deep clarity this morning. I trust you will
go and spend time with the Lord. There is a great difference between
being aware of guilt and the conviction of the Holy Spirit
that we read about in John 16.8. There is a huge difference between
the fear of God's wrath and true repentance. Judas, as I said much earlier,
Judas in lesson number 8, is a warning against spiritual pride. Judas shows us that it's possible
to experience much in spiritual matters, to be associated closely
with believers, to witness much in the divine acts of God and
be lost. See, salvation is an experience,
but it's much more. Salvation involves a knowledge,
a knowledge of God and a knowledge of ourselves, but it is much
more than knowledge. Salvation produces good works,
but true salvation is much more than good works. Judas stands
before the Church, before us again today, as a clear warning
from the Lord. Being associated with the things
of God is not necessarily salvation. As the Lord Jesus said to that
man who came to Him, He said, you are not far from the Kingdom
of God. Being not far from the Kingdom
of God is not good enough, brothers and sisters. Being in the Kingdom
of God is the only safe place, it's the only refuge. Judas was
a lost man and he never knew God. Salvation is Christ in you. It's a new heart. It's a new
man. It's a living union of faith
with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a divine, heavenly birthing
from above. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
not of human contrivances. It's not of man's works or will
or wisdom. See, man can make religions.
big ones, powerful ones, ones that last for millennia. But
God alone creates believers. Salvation is the surrender, says
Don Fulmer, the surrender of a sinner to the rule and dominion
and the will of God by faith in Christ. In salvation, the
sinner does what the first Adam refused to do, to bow and surrender
to God as God, acknowledging the right of God to be God and
to do what He will, to do what He will with His own, which is
what the Lord Jesus said in the garden, isn't it? Let this come
past me, but let your will be done. Judas's reward, the wages
of sin, is death. The treasures of the wicked profit
nothing, says Proverbs 10. What shall it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his soul? To sin against
light is a great sin indeed. To continue in sin against the
clear warnings of Scripture is a great sin indeed. He came to the very door of heaven,
and he handled the door, showed others the door, and then went
to hell. What does Proverbs 29 say? He
that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck. shall suddenly be destroyed,
and that without remedy." John says it as he does in such beautiful
simplicity in his Gospel. In John 13, when he speaks of
Judas going out, having received the sop, went immediately out
and John says, it was night. He went from the light into the
darkness. Nicodemus came out of the darkness
into the light, and I believe was saved. But he went out into
the night, and his horrible death, being hung, committing suicide,
which is what Satan wants to do to all humanity, is a liar
and a murderer. He was hung. He hung himself,
and then at some later date, He fell into that field that's
named the Field of Blood and his belly split open and his
bowels flew out. He had a horrible end. It was there as the early church
began. As they preached, the sermon
we'll start reading tomorrow, next Sunday in Acts Chapter 2,
Lord willing, Judas and his body and the field of blood and those
events were so clearly laid out before them. And finally, there
is some gospel good news in the confession of Judas. Judas, even one whom Satan had
entered, one who had spent that three and a half years with the
Lord, one who had performed all those miracles and cast out demons
and had now betrayed Him, not even Judas could bring one accusation
of sin against our Lord. And such as it is, for all of
the children of God. Such is the wonder of the Lord's
glorious righteousness that there will be nothing ever said against
the children of God. The devil and all his demons,
and all taken captive to do his will, not one of them will bring
an accusation against the Lord. Every mouth will be silent in
this great matter. He will declare, they will declare
the righteous judgment of God. There they had those Pharisees,
those chief priests, and Pilate, and Herod. There they had in
their hands, at their pale, there they had Judas as a witness. Why wasn't he brought into any
of the courts? Why didn't he stand there? Why,
the perfect witness, three and a half years with the Lord Jesus,
surely at that time something must have been said or done that
Jesus could have used as an accusation against him. The only accusation
they could bring against the Lord Jesus Christ was that he
claimed to be God. It's the only accusation they
could bring against him. Isn't that wonderful? It's the
only accusation. You'll kill him because he claims
to be God. Why the silence of Judas? Why
didn't they bring him in? because there was nothing. There was nothing in him, nothing
they could bring an accusation against. Wicked, apostate, deceitful,
hypocritical Judas knew that he had, as he said to those people,
he had betrayed innocent blood. Pilate declared the same thing
three times over. This righteous man, he said,
no fault in him. He knew, and all the reprobate
will know, that the Lord Jesus Christ is holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sin. Why? because only a spotless,
holy Lamb of God could take away my sins. All the sins of all
of God's people were put on Him, and He took them all away. I
love that picture in John 8 of that woman who's caught in adultery.
There she is, an open sinner, and they bring her before the
Lord Jesus to accuse her, don't they? Really, they brought her
there to accuse Him. And one by one they go away. And he said to her, where are
your accusers? There are none here, she says,
neither do I accuse you either. There is now. Right now, right
now, every moment of every believer's life, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. Satan and all of his demons and
all who work opposed to the glory of our great Redeemer will be
silenced. Not a word will be said against
the children of God. Only He who was one with them
in their humanity could bear their sin, and only they who
were one with Him could be as holy and spotless as He is. partakers of the divine nature,
perfectly made so before all the courts of this world and
the courts of heaven. What a great redeemer we have. What a great surety we have. Even over the worst things that
you can possibly imagine happening to him. and that might ever happen
to you, our God must reign and it must be good. Say to the righteous,
well, well, in every regard, well with your souls. Let's pray.