I just read the scripture, let
him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. So let's
be aware of self-confidence. And here's the first thing that
I want to mention to you. And it says, look what happens
when God leaves a man to himself. For most of three years, our
Lord has been closely followed by twelve men that He chose to
be His apostles. All of these men, our Lord picked
them. He picked them. These were His
closest followers. He chose these men to serve as
apostles. These were men to whom He gave
unusual gifts. men that he commissioned to go
out and preach the gospel. Their ministry was confirmed
by the gifts that he bestowed upon them, the ability to heal,
cast out demons, etc. But as we know, one of these
men was only He was only chosen to this office. He wasn't chosen
unto salvation. He was not given to Christ Jesus
in covenant grace. He was not loved of God. He had no faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Of Him, could be rightly said,
what the Lord Jesus said of those Jews in John chapter 15 or John
chapter 10, ye believe not, and here's the reason, you're not
my sheep. I don't know how much Judas knew
about the Old Testament scriptures, he being a Jew, I suspect he
had a good bit of knowledge of the facts of the Old Testament,
certainly the history of Israel. I don't know how much he knew
about the person and work of Messiah. But I'll tell you what I do know
about him. He lived a graceless life. A
godless life. He lived a life without Christ
Jesus. He lived a life in which he was
dead toward God spiritually. And as he lived, so he died. This was a man that God just
left him alone. He left him to himself. No grace was bestowed on him. No life was given to him. No
salvation was revealed to him. Judas, he came into this world
dead in trespasses and sin. He came as an ungodly individual. He was a rebel from the beginning. And just like David said, David
said of himself, he said, I was shaped in iniquity. I didn't
sin. Did my mother conceive me? That
was the case with Judas. And think of this. God's mighty
hand of grace never moved toward him. Never. He was not an object of God's
covenant mercy. He was not one of the beloved
of God from old eternity. Our Lord, back in John chapter
6, spoke to all of His apostles immediately after Simon Peter
made a great confession of faith. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. He said, we believe and we're
sure about that. Our Lord Jesus said to them,
have not I chosen you 12? One of you, one of you is a devil. One of you is an opposition against
the cause of God. One of you. The scripture says
he spoke of Judas Iscariot, who was the son of Simon, or he it
was who should betray him. He's an example of a man that
God left to his own devices, left to his own thoughts, left
to his own inclinations, and he shows us what happens
to an individual if God just leaves him alone. And as I studied this and read
this again today, I thought, oh God, don't leave me to my
thoughts. Don't leave me to my ways, because
my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. I
hear men today in religion say, well, God won't invade your will. you best hope that he does. Because if you can perish, you
will. You will. Your will can only lead you to
everlasting destruction. That's all it can do. Our Lord said to the Jews of
His day, and you will not come to Me that you might have life. There's the Lord Jesus. You read
about Him there in Proverbs chapter 8, back in the office. That one
who was set up from the very beginning. That one who is wisdom. He is wisdom. There Judas sat at his feet.
Judas listened to him. But Judas didn't see him to be
that one in whose face shines the glory of God. He didn't see
him to be the very Savior that he needed. He did not see in
Jesus of Nazareth the immaculate, immaculate Son of God. He did
not see Him as the Savior, as the Redeemer, as that One who
came to reconcile His people unto God. He didn't see Him that
way. I don't know what went through
the mind of Judas. I only know this, he hated Jesus
Christ. And I know that because if you
don't love Him, you hate Him. There is no in-between. You say,
well, you're being too hard on Judas. No, I'm not being too
hard on Judas. I'm saying Judas is an example
of a natural man that God leaves to his own ways. And if God leaves
anybody to their own ways, they're going to perish in their sins. He's an example of what happens
when God kind of exercises hands off on
a person. Listen, God doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't owe me anything. Well,
what if He does leave me to myself? What right do I have to complain?
I drink iniquity like water. I'm full of richness from the
top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I was born into this
world a rebel, ungodly, anti-God and anti-Christ. And I naturally
believe and embrace a salvation by my own doing. And that's just
in defiance of God. And I dare to set my righteousness
up in comparison to the immaculate righteousness of the Son of God. No wonder God puts men in hell.
We dare to steal His glory. And if God leaves me like that,
if He leaves you like that, we're going to come to a bitter end.
Just like Judas did. Our Lord Jesus, He talked about
man having to be born again. He said, accept a man to be born
again. He can't see the Kingdom of God.
Go over to James chapter 1. Let's see whose will reigns in
salvation, in the new birth, in the conversion of a sinner.
Look at James chapter 1. Look at verse 17, you know this
passage. James 1, 17, every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above. Every gift that lacks nothing,
it's got to come from above. Where does it come from? Well,
it come down from the Father of lights with whom there's no
variableness, neither shadow of turning, And here's an example
of one of His good gifts. Of His own will. Whose will? God's will. Whose will reigns
in salvation? Not yours. Not yours. I tell you, most religious people,
they worship at the altar of man's free will. That's what
they did. It's as though they erected an
idol. And the idol, it's not a rock,
it's not a tree, it's not a statue, it's a will. Man's will. Do you remember that scripture
in Hebrews chapter 10? By which will we're sanctified? Well, I ask you, which will is
it? Which will? Is it God's will
or my will? And when it comes right down
to it, you can examine the rightness or the wrongness of your understanding
of salvation when you consider this, is it God's will or your
will? And if you think, if I think
that my will is the ultimate the ultimate determiner of my
salvation, I just don't know God. I've never been an object
of His saving grace. Because everybody God saves,
everybody God brings to Christ Jesus, Everybody God draws to
the Savior and we receive from Him life and righteousness and
forgiveness. Everyone that God saves, they
know, God saved me. God did something for me. I was
going the wrong way. He turned me around. It's not
my will, it's His will. Of His own will begat He us with
the Word of Truth, He says. that we should be a kind of first
fruits of His creatures. Go over to John chapter 1. Here's
another passage that you know well. But this is what God has done
for us. And you see, if we look to the
Lord Jesus Christ as our all in all, if we see the work of
redemption was finished upon the cross of Calvary, If we see
that's where all of our sins were fully put away, if we see
the blood made atonement for our souls, it's because God's
done a work of grace within us to show us that. He's convinced
us of it. Here in John chapter 1, look
at verse 11, speaking of Christ Jesus, the Word, And you know,
He's introduced the book with the Word of God, the living Word,
the Word who's the incarnate Word. He came unto His own, Christ
did. And His own received Him not,
but as many as received Him. Received Him. What does that
mean? Believe on Him. How do we receive
Him? We receive Him as Prophet. We
receive him as priest, we receive him as king. We bow to his word,
he's our prophet. All that matters is what the
prophet says. That's the only thing that matters,
it's his word. And he is our priest. He's the
priest who offered the sacrifice to God, and he's the sacrifice
that was offered to God, and therefore accepted. And we receive
Him as the only priest. And we receive Him as King. The
Sovereign. The One who does as He pleases. As many as received Him. To them gave He power to become
the sons of God. Even to them that believe on
His name which were born. Alright now. You notice in verse
12 it doesn't End with a period. Gotta keep on going here. This
sentence isn't finished. Those that believe on his name
were born. When it says born, what does
that mean? Made alive. Made alive. Watch it. Which were born? Not of blood. And this is a direct attack upon
the Jews who said, hey, we can trace our ancestry all the way
back to Abraham. Not of bloods! Just because mom
and dad believe and love the gospel of God's grace, and they're
going to glory, or they've gone to glory, that don't mean you
will, because it doesn't run in the blood. Not in your bloodline. I tell you what you got by nature.
You get sin by nature, but you don't get grace by nature. You
get grace as a gift from God. Watch it, keep reading, which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh. It's not a man's will. It's not
of your will. Down with man's will. Who was
it? Luther, who said, if a man believes
that aught of his salvation is attributed to his own will, he
knoweth nothing of grace or right. You don't know anything about
grace if you think it all hinged on you. And see, this is just
absolute wrong. Because you're robbing God of
the glory of salvation. When people say the purpose of
God in salvation and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing the Lord Jesus and
His work of redemption, it's all dependent upon you. They're
robbing God of His glory. And He won't allow that. He's
going to put you in hell. He's just not going to put up
with it. not of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man. They're people that we love,
and we want them. We want them to see what we see,
to believe as we believe, to understand as we understand,
to embrace the Lord Jesus and see in Him that God has made
Him to be our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. We say, oh, we wish you would
believe, They're not going to be born again because we will
it. But of God. But of God. The salvations of God. And here's
the thing about Judas. God just left him alone. Several years ago, We had a preacher. I went and preached for him in
Danville, Virginia. And the message of the gospel
resulted in the folks of that congregation voting him out.
And we felt, our church felt an obligation, I felt an obligation
to help him, and so we moved him to Rocky Mount. where he
stayed for a bit and then he went into the service. And he
became a chaplain. Chaplain in the service army,
I think. But after three or four years,
I saw in the newspaper that he was back in town, actually just
in the outskirts of Rocky Mountain, Franklin County, and he had accepted
a pastorate of a Southern Baptist church. And this was a man who
said he believed the grace of God. And I thought, well, I'll
go listen and see what he's got to say. I didn't think anybody
would be preaching anything down there at that particular church.
And I went down to hear him, and he just butchered the gospel. And so as I was leaving the building,
I said, I'd like to talk to you. when you have a chance. He said,
I'll be in my office in the morning. I said, OK. So I came by the
next morning to visit with him. Now, mind you, we had a history
together. So I go in and I said, well,
I want to talk to you about your message last night. He said,
before you say anything, let me tell you something. And I
said, OK. He said, I want you and I want Henry Mahan to leave
me alone. Just absolutely leave me alone. I don't want to hear from you.
I don't want you to write to me. I don't want you to send
me anything. Leave me alone. I say, you don't have to tell
me again. I'll leave you alone. You don't want to ever tell a
servant of God, leave me alone. Because it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them from belief. And most especially,
you don't want God to leave you alone. And He speaks through
His Word. Men are begotten through the
Word of God. And as we're begotten, we understand
the reason the Spirit of God has given us life is to show
us Christ Jesus finished the work of redemption 2,000 years
ago. And the Spirit of God convinces
us the work has been done. You make no contribution. Your faith doesn't finish the
deal. If I could put it this way, the
deal was finished when He said it is finished. That's when it
was finished on the cross. So, Lord don't leave me alone. Lord don't leave me to my thoughts,
my ways, my wishes. Go back to John 13 then. Back in John 13, here's the second
thing. Our Lord Jesus spends time with
His disciples. Judas leaves. He's left the room. He's gone up to do his wicked
deed of darkness and now freed from the betrayer's company and
gathered with men who genuinely loved Him. Our Lord now opened
up his heart to this little flock more than he's ever opened up
his heart to him up to this point. Now it's just the Savior and
his true brethren. Here's the master and his servants. Here's the brother born for adversity
and his family. He's speaking to his disciples
the very last time before his arrest, before the trial of mockery,
before his sufferings, and before his death as our blessed substitute. He brings them this message,
which begins at verse 31 and runs through the end of chapter
16, And then it's concluded with His high priestly prayer. And I want you to understand
this. I think that these disciples are representatives of all the
people of God. Of all the people of God. All
the chosen of God. All the redeemed by Christ Jesus. All those in whose stead He hung
upon the cross. These eleven men stand as representatives
of all of us. And as our Lord taught them,
so He teaches us. And in John chapter 17, as He
prayed for them, so He prays for us. Now, here's the third thing. Our Lord shows us the right way
to love each other. We said last week, you'll remember
we talked about the 11th commandment of loving one another. Our Lord
Jesus did not bring up this subject of brethren loving each other
until Judas was gone. Judas can't love this way. He
can't love this way because he wasn't one of the brethren. He
was not loved by the Savior, and he did not love the Savior.
The Scripture says Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it. But he didn't love Judas, and
consequently he didn't die for Judas. If he had loved Judas,
he would have given himself for Judas, wouldn't he? Of course
he would have. But Judas was like Esau. He was
hated by God. And like everybody who ultimately
dies without Christ Jesus, Judas was never the object of God's
loving kindness and tender mercies, but these 11 men were. Oh yes,
these men were loved of him. They were objects of God's everlasting
love and his tender mercies. And so our Lord Jesus speaks
to these men about loving each other and he says, by this shall
all men know that you're my disciples if you have love one to another. What a tall order he gives in
this new commandment. He says that you love one another
as I have loved you. As I have loved you. In Matthew chapter 5, we're told
to love our enemies. Love those that spitefully use
you. Love those that vilely mistreat
you. Oh God, I'd love to love that
way, but you've set the bar so high. But that's the goal. The old law said, thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself. Here the Savior says, love one
another as I have loved you. As I have loved you, that's the
example we're to follow. As I have loved you, that's the
right motivation. As I have loved you, that's our
inspiration for loving each other. And I'll tell you something about
this new law. It's mentioned in association
with, in the book of 1 John, with faith in Christ Jesus. I know the men of the world have
a kind of love, but really those only have true love, who are
loved by Christ Jesus, And the love of God has been shed abroad
in their hearts. Those only have true love. Because
real love, real love is of God. God is love. The love of the
world is nothing like the love of God. God has given evidence of His
love. He's manifested His love to us
in that He gave His Son to die for us. That's real love. And when He
showers this grace on us, and He pours this love into our souls,
and then that results in us loving the Lord Jesus and believing
Him, then only are we capable of loving. We love Him because He first
loved us. And then we love one another.
This world is so full of hate. Man alive. Resentment. Anger. Jealousy. Hatefulness. Love is of God. Love is of God. And this is how we're to love
one another as Christ loved the church. Now, I want you to look
at these last three verses. First of all, verse 35, he says,
by this shall all men know you're my disciples if you have loved
one another. That's the evidence. Now, watch this. And this is
what I'm gonna call this an example of perfect love. 36, Simon Peter
said unto him, Lord, with her goest thou. Our Lord Jesus, he
keeps on speaking about going. Going. Back in verse 33, with
her I go. He's talking about going to the
cross. He's talking about going to Calvary.
He's talking about going to die in the stead of his people. Whether
I go, ye cannot come. Look at verse 36. Jesus answered
Simon Peter, who said, whither goest thou? Our Lord said, whither
I go, thou canst not follow me. Now he keeps on talking about
going. Going. Look at chapter 14 and verse
2. In my father's house are many
mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go.
I go. And the interesting thing about
the disciples, they didn't want him to go. But he's talking about
going to Calvary. He's talking about going to establish
righteousness for them. He's talking about going and
paying all of their indebtedness that they owe to divine justice.
I go. He keeps on saying, I go. I go. And they say, Lord, we don't
want you to go. He said, I'm going to prepare a place for
you. Look at verse 3, 14, 3. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I'll come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am, there you may be also. Look at verse 4. And whither
I go, you know. And the way, you know. Look at verse 12. Chapter 14,
verse 12. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also,
and greater works than these shall he do, because I go, I
go unto my Father. Check out verse 28. You have heard how I said unto
you, I go away and come again unto you. If you love me, you
would rejoice. And he's not calling into the
question whether they loved him or not, but if they loved him
more, if they fully appreciated what he came to do, because we
know that these men, there was so much they didn't understand. The reason he must go, the reason
he must die. Now he talks about going away
again. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said, I go,
I go, I go unto the Father for my Father is greater than I. Over and over again, he speaks
of this. Even over into chapter 16, and
we'll get to that a little bit later. He was going to die. He was going to give His life
a ransom for many. He was going to the Father on
their behalf. As their representative. Oh,
bless the name of God. There's a man in glory. He went
to the cross and He's gone to heaven. Our forerunner. He has
entered in. And as it were, He staked a claim
to heaven itself for us. And we're going to follow Him.
Well, Peter said, Whither goest thou? Go back to chapter 13 real
quick. Jesus answered him, Whither I
go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me
afterwards. You'll die. You're going to die,
Simon. Tradition says he's crucified
upside down because he said he wasn't worthy to die like his
Lord. Well, here's what Peter says in verse 37. Lord, why cannot
I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy
sake. Full of self-confidence. He's far too arrogant. And I'll
tell you something, he's got to be brought down. He's got
to be brought down. He thought too highly of himself.
He boasted too much. And he prayed too little. He
acted too fast. And as we shall see, he followed
too far behind the Savior. Now this is the man who in just
a little over seven weeks is going to preach a powerful sermon
on the day of Pentecost. But he's so cocky. He's so full
of himself. The Lord's got to bring him down.
And He will bring him down. You see, even our own wickedness, God has mysterious ways to use
that to fulfill His purpose in us.
Here's Simon Peter. I'll lay down my life for you."
The Savior says, will thou lay down my life for my sake? Verily,
verily, our Lord, whenever He's going to introduce something,
a weighty statement, that's what He used. Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me
thrice. Thrice. What Simon Peter did in denying
the Lord Jesus is nothing short of awful. A maiden said to him,
thou wast with Jesus of Galilee, you're one of his disciples. Peter said, I know not what thou
sayest. And then another maiden saw him
and said to some soldiers and others, this fellow, he was with
Jesus of Nazareth. And again, he denied with an
oath. And he said, I don't know this
man. I don't know this man. And then
yet another said, surely you're one of his disciples. for your
speech betrays you. It manifests that you're one
of his disciples. Then he began to curse and to
swear. He said, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.
Everything happened right on schedule. Peter would say all of these
horrible things in his threefold denial. I don't want to be associated
with Jesus of Nazareth. I'm not one of His disciples.
I'm not one of His followers. I don't even know Him. I don't
even know what y'all are talking about." That's what he said. But, real love didn't write him
off. I think that's the lesson here.
He loved Simon Peter. And Simon Peter is hit rock bottom. He has brought such reproach
to the cause of Christ. People to whom he's preached.
They said, is this the same guy that preached to us? And now
he says, I don't even know Jesus of Nazareth. And he's cursing
and he's swearing. Let me tell you something. Our failures, and we've got a
bunch of them, it won't cancel out the love
of Christ. Isn't that wonderful? Even if
in weak moments, when put to the test, even if we deny Him,
and God help us not to do that. But I'll tell you here again,
if He doesn't hold us, if He doesn't give us a little backbone,
we will. We will. If the Lord just gives us a little
bit of slack, there's nothing we won't do that any other son
or daughter of Adam has ever done. I'm telling you the truth.
And just bring embarrassment to the rest of the saints? No, his sins didn't cancel out
the love of Christ. And his failures, though they
were great, didn't mean his name would be
removed from the Lamb's Book of Life. It can't happen. Because
he's loved with an everlasting love. And I'll tell you, his transgressions
and your transgressions will never, never overwhelm his forgiveness. Grace is indeed greater than
our sin. And this love of the Savior,
it can't be quenched. Because if it could be quenched
by the sinfulness of His sheep, His love toward me would have
been put out a long time ago. But it's never changed. It's
never changed. My love for the Lord Jesus, it's
real. But it surely isn't worth talking
about because a good bit of the time it's cold. But His, it's always perfect. And even
when I mess up, and even when Simon Peter messed up, The Lord
just kept on loving him. And you know, when Simon Peter
that third time denied the Lord in the cock room, the Savior
shot him a glance. Like a dagger to his heart then.
But he didn't stop loving him. And I'll tell you, this is an
example of the way we're to love one another. I tell you, one
of us, we might hurt one another, we might say something, but don't
stop loving one another. Christ said, love as I've loved
you. And then He gives us an example
of the way He dealt with Simon Peter. Well, let's sing the closing
song. And I'll tell you, this is a
song we do well to sing