And this was manifested, the
love of God toward us, because that God, He sent His only begotten
Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love,
not that we love God, but that He loved us. He sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Oh, love of God, I thank
You for that song. Open your Bibles to the book
of Luke chapter 22. The book of Luke. We'll go to chapter 22. And we
will look at verse 22. The speaker is our Lord Jesus. He often referred to Himself
as being the Son of Man. Indeed, Luke emphasizes this
in his book. Our Lord Jesus is speaking in
Luke 22, 22, and truly the Son of Man goeth as it was determined,
as it was foreordained. But woe unto that man by whom
he is betrayed. Here is my subject, divine determination
and human responsibility. Let me give you the context. This is the evening before our
Lord will make manifest God's love in being the propitiation
for our sins. That word propitiation means
the satisfaction of divine justice. The mercy seat. This is the night
before He will lay down His life as the good shepherd for His
sheep. This is the night before He will
give His life a ransom for many. This is the night before His
death. This is the night before He will
remove all of the sins of all of His people by His sacrifice
on the cross. This is the night before He will
usher in everlasting righteousness for all of those in whose stead
He would hang on that cross. This is the night before reconciliation
will be made. This is the night before God's
justice will be satisfied in the Savior's death. Our Lord met with His disciples
in an upper room. This is the last, the very last
Passover. The Savior had instructed a couple
of His disciples to go forth into the city. They would see
a man. They followed that man. And they
said to the man's master, they said, the master, the Lord, has
this message for you. Where is the guest chamber where
he will have the Passover feast? And after that room had been
indeed secured, the Savior met with his disciples in this upper
room. It was the last supper, that
is, the last Passover feast. Of course, we know there was
a feast in commemoration of what God did for Israel when they
were in Egyptian bondage. God had said to Abraham that
the Israelites, his posterity, would be in bondage for 400 years. And the Lord said, I'll bring
them out into freedom. The Israelites being in Egypt,
they began to weep and ask God to relieve them of their miseries.
God mercifully listened to them. He said, this is the way it will
be done. Of course, he sent several plagues to Egypt. But they all
led up to the last one, which was the death of the firstborn. God said to Moses, you tell all
of the families of Israel, they should take a lamb. It's got
to be a male lamb. It's got to be a male lamb of
the first year. It has to be a male lamb of the
first year, and it must be spotless. It must be without blemish. And to make certain that it has
no blemish, put it up four days for inspection. And after you find that lamb
to be well qualified, that lamb to be killed, shed its blood, catch the blood
in a basin, take a bunch of hyssop, go outside your house, dip that
hyssop in the basin of blood, Put that blood over the door
posts and on the side posts. And this is what God said, when
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. But God said if I don't see the
blood, that firstborn of that family will die. It doesn't matter whose firstborn
child it was. This extended all the way from
the house of Pharaoh all the way to his handmaid, even to
those who were in prison. Firstborn died. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. The Lord instituted this feast. And he said to the Israelites,
he said, now, in generations that are to follow, whenever
your children, whenever your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren,
when they say to you, what does this feast mean? You be sure to tell them. This
is to remember when God spared us, when God spared the firstborn
child, because of the blood of a Passover
lamb. We know very well that lamb speaks
of the Lord Jesus. He is God's lamb, John the Baptist. He referred to the Savior, he
said in John chapter 1, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. All of those Passover lambs All
those that died that day and all the lambs that died on
Jewish altars from then on, they all pictured God's Lamb. He would die in order that God
could be just and justify folks like us. My friend, God can't show mercy
and grace. He can't save anybody at the
expense of His justice. We've wronged Him. We're guilty of awful acts against
God. Our Bible class this morning,
God said, I've nourished and brought up children that rebelled
against Me. That's us. We're a bunch of rebels.
I tell you what, this matter of our sinfulness, it's got to
be settled. It's got to be dealt with. And
I know who alone could deal with it in a way that would satisfy
God. That had to be God Himself. God's Lamb died. He died not to just give us an
example of how we ought to die willingly, submissive to the
will of God. He died to save sinners. The angel said to Joseph as that
angel had said to Mary, that the Savior's name, the little
baby's name was to be Jesus, for he shall save his people
from their sins. And the only way he could do
that was by his death. Don't ever forget that. Don't
ever downplay the blood. Don't ever ignore Christ as the
sin offering, as the sacrifice. That's the only way that God
could remain who He is in all of His integrity, in all of His
honor, and yet save folks like us. He's got to save in a manner
consistent with His justice. So, our Lord met with His disciples
and they're remembering, they're commemorating the Passover. And then after He had eight of
the Passover feasts with them, He then instituted a new ordinance. That's the Lord's Supper, which
we had just a couple of weeks ago. We partook of that. He took the bread, He took the
wine, took it from the Passover. He said, this bread is my body,
this wine, it pictures my blood. And what He was saying was, from
this point forward, There is no more Passover feast. That's
ended. That's the last supper. That's the last Passover. What's the reason for that? God's
Passover has died. God's Passover lamb. We read
in the book of 1 Corinthians, Christ is our Passover. Why does God Passover us? Is
it because we don't deserve Is it because we don't deserve judgment? Is it because we don't deserve
His wrath? Or we deserve it because of our
sinfulness? But the reason He passes over
us is because His eye is always on the blood. I do want my eye
to be on the blood, but it's not my view of the blood that
saves me, it's God's view of the blood. Our blessed Redeemer, He who
gave His life for us, He arose again, He ascended back to glory,
and His very presence up in heaven states to God the Father and
states to everyone, the issue has been settled. Justice, it
has been honored. The law of God, it has been satisfied. What did the law say? The law
said the soul that sent it, it shall die. God got death that
He demanded in the death of His Son. That's why we go free. It isn't because we don't deserve
to be damned. It isn't because we don't deserve
to go to hell. is because Christ Jesus suffered
all of the wrath of God in our stead. There is therefore now
no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. No judgment, no wrath, because
Christ bore it all. So, this is the Lord's Supper
that's been instituted. And then he says this, look at
verse 21. He says, But behold, the hand
of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And we know
this is a long night for the Savior. It's a long night even
for His disciples. Because He used this night to
instruct them in the things that they needed to be instructed
in. This would be the last time that
he would sit with them to teach them. If you want to know all
the things that he spoke about, read John chapter 13, 14, 15,
16. You'll learn the things that
he taught them on this last night. But as he was instructing them,
he gave them a bit of a shock. He said, one of you is going
to betray me. In fact, he is already betraying
me. You notice there in the 21st
verse, Behold the hand of him that betrayeth me. He is already
betraying me. And you go back to the beginning
of this very chapter, you'll find that Judas, he's already
gone to the chief priests and the scribes, and they have worked
out a deal. Thirty pieces of silver. That
will be the reward for him. Betraying the Master. He's already
betrayed. And this is a shocking announcement
to His disciples. In fact, those first two words
of verse 21, "...but behold, be amazed." This is a shocking
declaration. And nobody suspected Judas. You can go back and read in John
chapter 13, verses 18 through 30. Nobody suspected Judas. When the Savior said that the
one who dips the sop at the same time with Me, He it is, and then
He went out quickly, the Lord said, what thou doest, do quickly.
He left quickly. They didn't even suspect Him
then. They thought He had sent Him
to take care of some business venture for them because He was
the treasurer, because He carried the bag. Judas sat at the table. And by the way, he took the Lord's
Supper. Did you know that? He actually
took the Lord's Supper. Whenever our Lord, when they
served, they said, divide this among yourselves, He didn't say,
now all of you can eat except that guy right there. He didn't
even do that. I know there are churches and
preachers who, what they call, they fence the table. Maybe the preacher will say to
somebody, you can't take the Lord's Supper. Or maybe he will
instruct the ushers or the deacons or whoever it is that's serving,
they'll instruct them, don't serve so-and-so. Our Lord didn't do that. This
is a time for you to examine yourself. And I say to you, examine yourself
as to whether you be in the faith. Well, what does this examination
involve? Have I done enough good works?
Have I read my Bible enough? Have I prayed enough? No, the
examination concerns your foundation, your hope. Who are you hoping
in? Who are you resting in? Who are
you trusting in? That's the issue of the examination. Do you rely upon yourself? Are
you resting in something you've done or something you will do?
Or is the Lord Jesus all of your hope and all of your righteousness? This ought to be a time of examination
right now. Examine yourself and see if you
be in the faith. Is everything alright between
you and God? Many years ago I left. I was
getting ready to leave. I passed through Rocky Mountain.
I was getting ready to leave and go preach. I had to preach
in Louisiana and then I was going to go to Madisonville, Kentucky.
I was going to go to Franklin, Tennessee, and then back to Rocky
Mount. And just a couple of days before
I was to leave, one of the men in the church had a really bad
heart attack. I guess there's no good heart
attack, but this was one where he wound up in ICU. He had a
lot of heart damage. And I went in to visit with him
and I called him by name and I said, I know you've been faithful
for many years to the church. But I said, you know that doesn't
count for anything with God. He said, I know that. I said,
so let me ask you this. Is everything alright between
you and God? I can still hear his words. He said, everything's alright.
if you told me right." I said, well, what did I tell
you? He said, you told me about Christ Jesus and His blood. He
said, He's the only hope I've got. He said, everything's alright
with me, preacher, through Christ Jesus. You go preach. You go
preach. I went to Louisiana, preached
Sunday morning. After the Sunday morning service,
I got a phone call. He had died. I drove back non-stop
except for stopping and getting gas until I got back to Rocky
Mountain. But those words, those words
in response to, is everything alright with God? It is if you
told me right. Well, I told you right. Do you
believe the right message? Are you resting in the Savior?
And this is a message, this is a question I address to you,
and I wish I could just, one by one, go right through the
building, up this side, and come back down the middle aisle, and
go back up this one, and I'll ask each one of you, is everything
alright between you and God? You say, yes it is. On what basis
do you say that? If you ask me on what basis I
would say everything's alright between me and God, I'd say it's
because I have a substitute. I have a Savior. The blood's
been shed. The righteousness has been established. The Lord Jesus, He did everything
a holy God demanded for the salvation of this poor sinner, and He is
all my trust. He's all my confidence. I don't
trust anything I've ever done or am doing or will ever do. I'm just a poor old sinner just
like you are. I never want to give anybody
the impression I'm preaching down to them. Hey, we're all
in this together. We are all failing at Him. We
are all individually guilty. There is no difference between
you or me or anybody else. The Apostle Paul said there is
no difference between the Jew and the Greek. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We are all wiggling maggots. It is no use for one wiggling
maggot to just kind of work his way up above the rest and say,
I am better than all the rest of you. Well, you are still a
wiggling maggot though. After all is said and done, have
you looked at a wiggling maggot lately? I remember one day, I went out
to the garbage can and Nancy had thrown the chicken carcass
away. And it was just in there. I took
the lid off that trash can. Whoo! What greeted me will wake
you up. And then I looked at all these
little creepy crawlies, little white little devils, and I happened
to think, that's us in our spiritual state before God. Boy, I tell
you, this matter of being proud of who you are, that's rather
foolish, isn't it? Rather foolish. That's senseless. That's what we are before God.
I have no merits to lay hold of. I'm just a poor sinner and
nothing at all. Nothing at all. I was nothing.
I am nothing. I'll never be anything in and
of myself. But Jesus Christ, His blood and
His righteousness, He's my all. He's all my boast. He's all my
hope. He's all my confidence. This is the last Passover supper. It's the instituting of the Lord's
Supper. The Savior said, the hand of
Him that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table. And Judas ate the last supper. He ate the Lord's Supper. Though
he was guilty, and we know from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, He
ate and drank damnation unto himself. Read the scripture.
Isn't that right? He ate and drank damnation unto
himself. Who is worthy to take it? Our worthiness is in heaven.
Christ Jesus is our worthiness. We take the Lord's Supper trusting
Him. So Judah has betrayed Him. But now notice this in verse
22, "...truly the Son of Man goeth." He goes. He goeth as
it was determined. Who made this determination?
Who was it that determined that He would suffer and bleed and
die? God did. Well, when did God make
that determination? He made that determination when
He made all of His determinations before the world began. God's
not making any new decisions. God's not making any new laws. God's not issuing forth any new
words. Everything God ordained, He ordained
before the world was ever made. It was God who determined that
He would die. Because God determined the salvation
of a great multitude of sinners which no man can number. God
made that determination. There is such a thing as the
election of grace. The election of grace, the election
of a people unto salvation in Jesus Christ before the world
began. God in His sovereign grace and
according to His sovereign rights, He selected, He elected those
who would be the recipients of His grace and mercy in Christ
Jesus. He did that for the glory of
His grace. He said, I will have mercy upon
whom I will have mercy and whom I will all harden. God chose a people. He determined
who would be saved. He determined how they would
be saved by the death of His own Son. That's the only way
justice could be honored and satisfied. God made this determination. God made this determination that
He would be betrayed by Judas? That the governor would be Pontius
Pilate? God made this determination that
the children of Israel, as a great group of people together as it
were, would come against the Lord God's Christ? God made this determination He
would die on a tree? God made the determination, the
means of His death, the manner of His death, and the very time
of His death, and the results of His death. God made this determination
before He ever created the world. All things were determined by
Him. You read in Romans chapter 11 that of Him and through Him
and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever. You can't
figure out the ways of God. His ways are past. Finding out
all things are of God. He has determined everything. That gives great consolation
to God's people. The troubles and trials that
you have to go through. You know, God's God's will is
being carried out for you? And you have this assurance that
all things are working together for your good? For God's glory? All things fulfill His will. The Son of Man goeth as it was
determined. We read in Acts chapter 4 that
Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Jews and the Gentiles, they
all gathered together to do whatsoever God's counsel, God's will had
determined before to be done. All things are of God. And I want you to notice the
second part of verse 22. but woe unto that man by whom
he is betrayed." Now, I see here God's absolute sovereignty over
all things. The Son of Man goeth as He was
determined. And I'll give you an illustration
of that. You remember when Joseph had been sold into slavery by
his brothers, and we won't go into the whole story. It's a
beautiful story in the book of Genesis. But he finally winds
up on the throne beside Pharaoh. And you know, his brothers, they
have to come to see him because they need food. They all recognize
his brother. And he revealed himself to them.
And they started apologizing. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. We shouldn't have done that.
Oh, Joseph, you've got the keys to all the treasuries, all the
granaries of Egypt. Please forgive us. We need food. Forgive us, forgive us. And Joseph
said, don't worry. He said, I know you meant it
for evil, but God meant it for good. God determined it for good. Oh, you carried it out, but God
determined it all to bring much people alive into this place
and that a great nation would come forth out of this family.
He said, God sent me before you to preserve a posterity, to save
His people. That's the way it is in the death
of the Lord Jesus. God sent Him before us to save
us from our sins by His sacrificial death. And I know we crucified Him.
I know it's for our sins that He hung on the cross. But while
we meant it for evil, God meant it for good, everlasting good. Even to the praise of the glory
of His grace and the praise of His glory in saving sinners like
us. But that last part of the verse,
"...but woe unto him by whom he is betrayed." This is the responsibility of
Judas. Judas did exactly what he wanted
to do. And I know the secret things
of God belong to him. But the revealed things belonged
to us and to our children. Judas knew this was wrong, but
he did it anyway. And you know who bears accountability
and responsibility for it? Judas does. I want us to understand this. And maybe understand is the wrong
word. Maybe I should reel that back
in. I want us to believe this because there are some things
we just can't understand. I want us to believe this. If anybody
is saved, God gets the glory. If at last you wind up in heaven,
Having been washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus and robed in
His righteousness, God gets all of the glory and you get none
of it. And that's the way we want it.
And that's the way it's going to be. But if you perish, if you perish having heard the
gospel of God's free grace, if you perish though God has given
you His Word. If you perish, though God has
given you one of His preachers. If you perish, though you have
been meeting with God's people. If you perish in your sins, it's
not God's fault, it's not my fault, it's not this church's
fault, it's your fault. That's responsibility. And I'm
going to give you a passage of Scripture, Proverbs chapter 1. And I know that there's a lot
of error in this area, because men have drawn this conclusion,
well, if I'm responsible to God, then I must therefore have a
free will. You are responsible to God, but
your will is not free. It's enslaved. It's bound by sin, it's bound
by Satan. But that doesn't relieve you
of doing the duty that is right. That doesn't relieve you of obeying
God's command, except you repent, you shall so likewise perish. God said that He now commands
all men everywhere to repent. God commands you turn from your
wicked ways, you turn from your idols, you turn to the living
God through Jesus Christ the Lord. God commands you to do
that. And if you don't do it, you are
a rebel. You are a rebel. Don't confuse responsibility
with ability. The fact we don't have the ability
to do what we ought to do doesn't relieve us of the responsibility. Look in Proverbs chapter 1. And let me say this before I
read this passage. I heard a preacher on the radio
the other day said, you know, every one of us, we're a free
moral agent. Have you ever heard that expression?
We're a free moral agent. Well, three strikes and you're
out. You're wrong on all three points.
You're not free. You're bound. You're enslaved. You're not free. You're not moral. We're immoral. And we're not
agents. I can't do business with God.
I need an agent. I need a mediator. I'm not free. I'm not moral. And I'm not an
agent. And neither are you. That's why
we need Christ Jesus. God help us to believe Him. Now
look here in Proverbs 1. I'll read this with very few
comments and close. Look at verse 24, Proverbs 1.
This is man's responsibility. This is our accountability to
God. God says, because I have called
and you refused. How does God call us? Every day occurrence is called
providence. He calls through His preachers.
He calls through His Word. Because I have called, you refused. You said in your heart, well,
it's good for my husband or for my wife. It's good that other
people... I just don't have any interest. I just don't believe
this. If you want to believe it, that's
fine, but it's not for me. God says, I've called, you've
refused. God says, I've stretched out My hand, no man regarded,
but you have actually sat and gnawed all My counsel. And you
wouldn't honor My reproofs, you wouldn't listen to the reproofs,
you wouldn't listen to the counsel. You wouldn't listen to what My
servant said to you. You wouldn't look to My Son.
You wouldn't believe salvation by grace alone through Christ
alone. For that reason, verse 26, I'll
laugh at your calamity. And God says, I will mock when
your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as a desolation
and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and
anguish cometh upon you, When you approach the throne of judgment,
you call on the rocks and the mountains to fall on you and
hide you from the face of the Lamb that sits on the throne.
God says, I'm not going to hear you. I called, you wouldn't hear
me, so you're going to call and I'm not going to hear you. You
know what I'd say that is? Responsibility. That's what I'd
call that. You better hear this message.
You better hear God's Word. If you don't, God's going to
damn you for it. But there's nothing I can do. Wait, there are some things you
can do. Ask God to show you mercy. Ask
God to give you more light. Ask God to teach you His Word.
Don't tell Him there's nothing you can do. I know you can't
save yourself, and you can't put your sins away, and you can't
make yourself righteous. Only the Lord can do that. But
as a lost sinner, you can come to the Lord and say, Lord, oh,
God, show me mercy for Christ's sake. Can you do that? I'll tell
you what, I'm doing that. I'm doing that. And it's by His grace that I
do that. He says, verse 28, then they
shall call upon Me, but I won't answer. They shall seek Me early,
but they're not going to find Me. Why not? Verse 29, they hated
knowledge. They hated the knowledge of God,
the knowledge of Christ Jesus. They didn't choose the fear of
the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. You wouldn't have
it and you wouldn't have any of My counsel. You despise My
reproof. Therefore, Shall they eat of the fruit of
their own way? You be filled with your own devices."
In other words, God is going to leave you to yourself. And that's one thing you don't
want. You don't want Him to leave you to yourself and to your devices. Oh God, don't leave me to myself. Verse 32, For the turning away
of the simple shall slay them, the prosperity of fools shall
destroy them, but whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell in safety,
and shall be quiet from the fear of evil. O God, enable me to
hearken unto you. Oh God, give me ears to hear.
What scriptures say, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith to the church. Lord, give me ears to
hear you. Give me ears to hearken to you
because your Word says if I hearken to you, I will dwell in safety. That's forever. That's forever. And I don't have to worry about
the fear of evil or the fear of wrath. I don't have to worry
about judgment. Because Christ already bore my
judgment. And the evidence of that is that
God has worked in my heart and brought me to believe Him. Oh, here is divine determination. God's Son went forth as it was
determined. And He appointed Judas. He determined
Judas would be the one who would betray Him. And Judas did exactly
what he wanted to do. Woe be unto him. Woe be unto
him by whom he is betrayed. Oh, God, help us to hear His
Word, to honor Him by believing His
Son. Let's sing a final hymn.