I couldn't help noticing as Lindsay
was teaching from Romans 16 in the first hour how that the apostle remembered
his friends in Christ and remembered with fondness one particular
thing about them. He spoke of the house of Narcissus
and says they are in the Lord. He spoke of Rufus chosen in the
Lord. Oh, if there's one thing, if
I could have one thing, just one thing, it would be that you
be found in the Lord. Oh, that you may be found in
Christ. If you have that, that's enough. You need nothing else. If you
miss that, you've missed everything. Now let's turn this morning to
Mark chapter 14, And I pray that God, the Holy
Spirit, will enable me to preach this message to you, effectually
ministering to your heart's needs, to comfort, edify, and strengthen
you who believe, and to grant you who are yet outside Christ,
faith in Him, that this day you may leave this building in the
Lord. In these verses before us, verses
17 through 25, we have Mark's inspired account of the Last
Supper, which our Lord Jesus ate with his disciples the evening
he was betrayed. You've all, of course, seen the
idolatrous painting of the Last Supper, and you can mark it down. Those paintings are always deceitful. Idolatry is always deceiving.
but those paintings and images and pictures you see of Christ
and the Last Supper and the crucifixion and so forth are deceiving. Yet
no doubt we have all wondered what that last meal must have
been like. As I was preparing this message
and preparing for it this past week, I thought to myself, what
solemnity, what anxieties, what fears, must have gone through
the hearts and minds of those disciples. I know they wouldn't
my own. If I had been there and I had
for three and a half years been following the Lord Jesus, had
forsaken everything and followed him at his command, and now he
tells me he is leaving the world and going to leave me here and
send another comforter, that he's going to die, I would be
sitting there with great anxiety, great solemnity and great fear.
I thought to myself, what love, what grace, What compassion,
as we now look back at it and understand something of the Lord's
meaning, must have fallen from his every lip, from his every
gesture. Everything he said and did was designed to convey to
them his grace, his compassion, his love. As a matter of fact,
as John describes it in John chapter 13, we read, having loved
his own which were in the world, he loved them to the end. And
this was a display of that steadfast love of Christ for his people.
And then I couldn't help but to think to myself, what demonic
hypocrisy, what cold hatred, what religious hardness must
have possessed the betrayer, Judas Iscariot, as he sat there
with the Son of God and his disciples, having already agreed to betray
the master for 30 pieces of silver. Now there's some lessons for
us to learn here. As we look at this passage of scripture,
I'm going to try to bring you some lessons from the Last Supper,
and I'll do so by directing your attention to four things in these
verses. First, here is a question to face. Look at verse 17, Mark
14, 17. And in the evening he cometh
with the twelve, And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said,
Verily I say unto you, one of you which eateth with me shall
betray me." Now let that sink in. You're sitting around the table
with the Son of God, and you have no reason to suspect any
of your brethren who are sitting there with you. These are men,
12 of them, been walking with you. and with him now for three
and a half years. You've been ministering side
by side, laboring together every day. Intimate as our relationship
has been these past 18 years, the Lord Jesus and these disciples,
they walk together every day. Every day. Three and a half years,
every day. And now the Lord said, Bob, one
of you is going to betray me. Freedom. And they began to be
sorrowful. I suspect so. But this is their
response. They say unto him one by one,
not, do you reckon it'll be Rex or Benzie? Do you reckon it'll
be Don or Bobby? No, no. They said one by one,
is it I? And another said, is it I? And
he answered and said unto them, one of the twelve, that dippeth
with me in the dish." Now, we must never forget Judas. Judas stands before us as a beacon
to warn us that a profession of faith is not sufficient. A
position of rank and acceptance and respectability in the church
and kingdom of God is not salvation. Power and influence, no matter
how great, is not grace. Judas was a man who was as hard
as he was hypocritical. His heart was as stony as it
was sinful, as proud as it was perverse. His religion had given
him a cloak to cover his wickedness, but it did nothing to remove
his wickedness. His barren familiarity with the things of God His barren
familiarity with the gospel, his barren familiarity with the
Word of God, his barren familiarity with the Son of God made him
twofold more the child of hell than he was before. But don't
forget, this hellish man appeared to be most pious to himself and
to all of his friends. He appeared outwardly pious,
so that if you looked at Judas, You'd say, well, it might be
this fella or that one or that one, but not this Judas. Judas seen himself outwardly
to be the most godly of them all. Even after he had agreed
to betray the Son of God with a kiss. Even after he had agreed
to take 30 pieces of silver to betray him to the Romans and
to the Jews. Judas kept up his appearances
of sincerity. He came, met with the Lord's
disciples, sat with them at the table, kept his place among the
apostles. He was capable, and I think probably
did convince himself, as well as all the others around him,
that he was all right. He was all right. He knew he
had done wrong. There's no question about that.
But he didn't know he was wrong. There's a big difference. Most
everybody knows they've done wrong. Everybody acknowledges
that they do wrong. Very few people know they are
wrong. Judas understood that what he
had done was a betraying act. He understood that what he had
done was a covetous, mean-spirited thing. But that did not make
Judas understand that he was mean-spirited. that he was covetous,
that he was a lost man. Oh no, Judas, he maintained his
integrity firmly before others, and I'm convinced, firmly before
himself, so that he did not understand that he was the lost son of perdition
he was. Listen to what the scripture
says. In Matthew's account in verse 25 of chapter 26, listen
to this. All these disciples asked, Lord,
is it I? Lord, is it I? And then Judas,
which betrayed him, verse 25, answered and said, Master, is
it I? Is it me? You see, the Church of Christ
in this world always has been and always will be a mixed multitude. There's no such thing as a purified
local church. There's no such thing as an assembly
of believers without unbelievers. There's no such thing as a body
of believers brought together as the sheep of Christ in which
there are no goats. There's no such thing as a field
of wheat where there are no tares. Not in the things of God. In
this world, the church of God always has been and always will
be a mixed bag of believers and unbelievers. True believers and
religious hypocrites. But we have a problem. And the
problem we have is not in dealing with others who may be hypocrites.
It is not in dealing with others who may be lost besides ourselves. The problem we have is we must
deal each one with ourselves. It is not my responsibility,
nor is it within my power to determine whether or not you
who profess faith in Christ truly have faith in Christ. But James,
it is my responsibility to prove myself, to examine myself, and
it is yours. Let me warn you, my friends. Oh, let me warn you. While you
sit here this morning, don't allow yourself to be duped with
false religion. Don't allow yourself to go to
hell clinging to a profession rather than possessing the Son
of God. I don't know exactly how to deal
with this as it needs to be dealt with. Somehow we must understand
the scriptures teaching something about assurance, as they do.
Every child of God ought to walk before God with an assured hope
before him, and yet at the same time carefully examining himself
incessantly. You see, faith in Christ is neither
proud presumption nor dread despair. Assurance is neither a fleshly
familiarity with God, nor a slavish fear of God. The believer's hope
is somewhere between that carnal security that says, well, I believe
once saved, always saved, and that blind, stoic fatalism that
says, well, if I'm chosen of God, I'll be saved, everything
will be alright. In the Word of God, we are constantly hedged
in. On the one side, with the promises
of God, lest we should despair. On the other side, with warnings
given over and over again, lest we presume. God promises, I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. God promises,
the righteous shall hold on his way. He that hath clean hands
shall wax stronger and stronger. That's God's promise. God warns
us plainly, if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure
in it. He warns us over and over again, except a man continue
steadfast unto the end, he has no part in the kingdom of God.
We see over here a lot preserved in the midst of his
faults, failures, weaknesses, and sins. Oh, bless God for preserving
immutable grace. And here's Judas. Never even thought about behaving
like old brother Lott. And I said, well, you can tell
a Christian. I've had idiots. I mean, religious idiots. They
say, I spot a Christian. You can just tell by the way
they talk. You can just tell by the way they walk. You can
just tell by the look and the glow in their face. Well, I'll
guarantee you, you'd have Lott in hell and Judas in glory. Judas! never knew the master. He stands
as a warning, a warning to every man who professes faith in Christ. Pastor, what are we to do? Turn
to 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and I'll show you. 2 Corinthians chapter 13. We would
be wise to face this question and ask
God who alone can answer it, to answer it in our souls. Lord
is it I. Examine yourselves. Examine yourselves. That's a sermon in itself. That
doesn't say examine Ron Wood, it says examine yourself. Examine
yourself. What's to be examined? You be in the faith. The point of examination is just
that. Do you or do you not believe the Son of God? Do you or do
you not trust Jesus Christ the Lord alone for righteousness,
redemption, grace, and salvation? Examine yourself, whether you
be in the faith. Know you not your own self? How that Jesus Christ is in you? Well, that's the issue. Is Jesus
Christ in you? Is Jesus Christ in me? If he's not, then you're reprobate. Accept to be reprobate. All right,
turn over to Second Peter, a little boy asked his daddy one
time, the teacher was teaching on Christ in you, the hope of
glory. This little boy asked his daddy when he started home
and said, Daddy, how big was Jesus? He said, well, son, I
don't know. I guess he's just an average
sized man. Why do you ask? He said, well, if he was in me,
wouldn't he stick out? And he said, I expect he would.
I'm telling you, Buddy-duddy, if he's in you, you stick out.
You stick out. Peter tells us how. Look here
in 1 Peter, or 2 Peter 1, verse 2. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
according as his divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue. He's called us to
glory hereafter, but he's called us to virtue here. Look at it.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises,
that by these promises you might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith
virtue. and to virtue knowledge, and
to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to
patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly
kindness charity. For if these things be in you
and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he
that lacketh these things These virtues, called other places
graces, called other places the fruit of the spirit. He says,
he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar
off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins,
at least by profession and by his own claim. Wherefore, the
rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election
sure. this is what Peter is telling
us, this is what I'm saying to you. Don't you be satisfied with
anything short of Christ. Oh my soul, don't be satisfied
with anything less than the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. Don't
be satisfied with anything less than Christ himself. Religion
is Religion is insignificant. Religion is worse than meaningless
and insignificant. Religion will drag your soul
to hell! Christ alone, you see. Only Christ. He got to heaven.
No wonder Paul said concerning all his religion, concerning
his mama and his daddy. He said, I was in Sunday school
from the cradle row before I was born. I was in church all my
life. He said, they had me listed there
every Sunday. I had pins hanging down to my
shoelaces, telling everybody I never missed a day of my life.
He said, I counted all just manure. Just manure? You mean all your
former knowledge and religion and experience and traditions
and customs and all that? I counted. manure that I made
in Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, that I may know. O great God in heaven, take from
me everything that would keep me from knowing him, and make
me to know him, whom to know aright is life eternal. All right,
here, secondly, is a conflict resolved. Look at verse 21. The son of man goeth as it is
written of him, but woe unto that man by whom the son of man
is betrayed. Good were it for that man if
he had never been born. Matthew puts it much the same
way. Luke says, the son of Angoeth, as it was determined, but woe
unto that man by whom you betray. Now, the question is often asked,
did Judas really have a choice? After all, he did what the prophet
said he was going to do. He betrayed the son of God for
30 pieces of silver. He betrayed him with a kiss,
the Lord's own familiar friend in whom he trusted lifted up
his heel against him. Now, since that's the case, and
since it is certain that God from eternity predestined that
these things come to pass exactly as they did, then Judas surely
can't be held responsible for his actions. Surely we must not
teach that Judas had a choice in this matter. Now that reasoning
may sound good to your peanut brain, But your peanut brain's
just a peanut brain, if that's the way you think. The Scriptures
are abundantly and specifically clear. And we bow our reasoning
to the Word of God. Now, if you can understand it,
wonderful. If you can't understand it, you still bow to the Word
of God. And this is what the Scripture
teaches. Truly, God Almighty is absolutely sovereign in all
things and always does all His pleasure He says, I will do all
my pleasure. That's how he identifies himself
as God. Read Isaiah 46. He said, you liken me to this,
and you liken me to that, and you have these gods, and these
gods, and those gods, and other gods. Here's God. Here he is.
I'll do all my pleasure. Surely, as I have purposed, so
shall it stand. God always does exactly what
he wills. Now anything less than that is
not God. Yet at the same time, the scriptures
tell us plainly that men, all men, you and I, Judas included,
are totally responsible for our actions. Totally so. Somebody
said, well, if God predestinated everything, the man can't be
responsible for his actions and God must somehow become the author
of sin so that he forces and coerces and compels men and women
to do that which is evil. Now you listen carefully to me.
Listen carefully. God Almighty will never let a
wicked man do anything that he won't use for his glory and the
good of his son. But God Almighty never causes
a man to commit evil, never. I'll give you an example. I recall
several years ago that a fellow was involved in some conniving,
vile deeds concerning myself, and he asked us all over. He said, well, maybe the Lord
was in it after all. And I said, he was in it. He
controlled it. But you're responsible for what
you do, and you'll answer to God for it. Judas is responsible
for what he did. He'll answer to God for it. And
you and I are responsible for what we do in wickedness and
godliness. Every man's responsible for his
own unbelief. Every man's responsible for his
own ungodliness. Every man does the wickedness
that he does because of his wicked free will. So I thought you didn't
believe in free will. I don't. But I recognize you've
got one. Just as free as it can be within
the boundaries of your nature. within the boundaries of what
you are. You see, as Brother Richardson put it, man's just
like a frog in a snake's belly, just as free as he can be, jump
around all he wants to, he just can't get out. And you have your will
and your choice, but your will and choice, like Judas's, is
governed by your lust, so that you do what you will according
to the corruption of your heart. Let no man say, James says, when
he's tempted, I'm tempted of God. He said God doesn't tempt
anybody with evil. He said, God is light. He can't do wrong. Every good and perfect gift comes
down from above. But wickedness, Bobby, that comes
out of us. That's what we are. Boy, I can't
understand that. Well, I might not be able to
understand it so clearly as to explain it, but I'm sure bow
to it. The scriptures always represent God's judgment upon
men as being in response to their ungodliness. Read Romans chapter
one. God does not judge me in arbitrarily. He does not condemn me in arbitrarily. He judges me in because of sin. Reprobation is God's response
to man's ungodliness. And yet the scriptures always
declare that grace, salvation, righteousness, and eternal life
come to sinners freely by the free gift of God. This is what
the book says. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now this is what that means,
Bill. If you go to hell, it's your
fault. If you go to heaven, it's God's fault. If you believe,
God gave you faith. If you refuse to believe, it's
because you don't want to. If you have life, God gave you
life. If you continue in your ungodliness
and death, it's because you cling to it. All right, now here is
a picture of redemption. Look at verses 22, 23, and 24. And as they did eat, Jesus took
bread and blessed and broke it and gave to them and said, take
eat, this is my body. He took the cup and when he had
given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank of it. And
he said unto them, this is my blood of the New Testament, which
you shed for many. Now, when the Lord Jesus took
the bread and blessed it, that doesn't mean that he picked it
up and did this little mumbo-jumbo stuff like that silly old man
in Rome. That doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that
he consecrated the bread so that the bread somehow mysteriously
becomes what it was not before. It simply means he gave thanks.
He took the bread. just like we bless our food,
just like we give thanks for our food. The bread represented
our Redeemer's holy humanity. It represented his body, his
body, which was prepared specifically by God the Holy Spirit in the
womb of the Virgin to be a sacrifice by which justice might be satisfied
for us. In Hebrews chapter 10, our Lord
said, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin,
but a body has to be prepared He was specifically prepared
without sin in the womb of the virgin and into that body he
came who is God himself and now the God-man came into the world
and in that body he established righteousness. In that body he
fulfilled all the will of God. In that body he had brought in
everlasting righteousness. And now his body, the body of
one who is himself the holy man and the holy God, is prepared
as an offering unto God. This bread represents my body. I bought it broken for you. The
blood represented in that cup of wine. He said it's the blood
of the New Testament, the blood of God's everlasting covenant.
the blood of covenant grace. By this blood, all the blessings
of the covenant flow in this fountain, filled with blood,
drawn from Immanuel's veins to guilty, needy sinners according
to the purpose of God. This blood is infinitely meritorious
blood. This blood is freely shed by
the sword of God's justice for the remission of sins and its
effectual Precious sin-atoning blood. Eating this bread and
drinking this wine is a picture of that God-given faith by which
we personally receive Christ for ourselves. You take the bread
and eat it. Take the wine and drink it. Our
Lord says, if a man eats my flesh and drinks my blood, He has eternal
life. What do you mean, pastor? Just
like a man eats the bread for himself, and that bread, everything
of value becomes his forever. And he drinks the wine for himself,
and everything in that cup that's of any value becomes his forever. Will you listen to me? Oh, you
who are hungry and thirsty, come down, eat of Jesus Christ. his blood and take his body and
eat in righteousness and atonement and live forever. What's that
mean? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And thus our Lord establishes
this blessed ordinance which we come together every Sunday
evening to keep, not a sacrament by which we receive grace, but
rather an ordinance by which we remember grace with gratitude. And he gives us one more statement.
He says, verily, verse 25, I say unto you, I will drink no more
of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink you with
you in the kingdom of God. And thus our Lord says, eat and
drink with hope. For one day soon, we're gonna
sit together in the kingdom of my father and all things shall
be healed. Amen.