Make sure I have all the buttons
turned on. There we go. We're on the air. You can open your Bibles to Matthew
chapter 27. It was encouraging to hear the other
brother preachers talk much like I feel. Last night as I sat there, I felt like a racehorse at the
gate, so anxious to get up and preach. And now I just wish I
could kind of slink away. But worrying is my nature. I'm good at it. Lots of practice. But I got to thinking this afternoon
and as I was fretting over preaching, the Lord went to a lot of effort
to ratify this gospel. He wants it preached. I want
to preach it and you want to hear it. At least I suppose most
of you do. So why should we doubt that it
will happen? And our Lord's good. We are a blessed people. I got
a thing about that. You know, here we got this crowd
here tonight. Why in the world would people take a Saturday
night when you could be having fun? and come hear two more people
preach after you've listened to four already. And not a one
of us has a new or novel message to preach. You've heard it four
times. And God being gracious, you're
going to hear it a couple of more tonight. Why are we here? We're here because God loved
us. And he did some wonderful things
for us. prompted by that love. And he
desired that we know what he did. And so that's what we're here
for. To hear what God in love has
done for our souls. Not to hear what we must do for
him as though we could do something for God anyway. People say, what
are you going to do for God? Nothing. At least nothing he
needs doing that he couldn't just as well get somebody else
to do or do for himself and do it better. We're so privileged to be of
a mind to hear the truth preached, to have a place to go where we
can hear it preached, and that our God has seen fit to give
miraculous powers to some men to preach it. And it takes miraculous
powers for us to do it. Brother Drew Dietz from near
Cape Girardeau, Missouri, he's, by the way, filling in for me
this weekend. And a couple months ago, he also filled in for me
when I was out of town. And he preached a message. And
it's where the Lord, where John the Baptist had sent to I think it was the case where
John the Baptist sent questioning about it, but the Lord said,
you tell them this. And he listed all kinds of, you
know, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, such, such,
such, such. And he ended with, and the poor
have the good news, the gospel preached to them. And Brother
Dietz pointed out, he said, we all recognize the miraculousness
of the blind seeing, the lame walking. He said, but it is a
miracle that the gospel is preached to the poor. And I don't deny
that I would be impressed if tonight some man born blind were
healed and we witnessed it. That would be something, wouldn't
it? It would be nothing compared to if the poor have the gospel
preached to them tonight. And I pray that God will come
in a power that only he has and preach the gospel to us tonight,
because we need it. It is reported that one of the
church members where Martin Luther preached asked him, why do you
preach the gospel every week? And he replied, because every
week you come in here looking like you need it. Matthew 27, beginning in verse
1. When the morning was come, and
this is the morning of the Lord's crucifixion, all the chief priests
and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put
him to death. They took counsel, but all they
counseled to do is what God had foreordained that they would
both counsel to do and see to it that it got done. They thought
this was their idea, and in some sense it was. But before it was
ever their idea, it was God's idea. They sought to work against God.
They played right into His hand. And when they had bound Him Good
luck with that. Our brother said he gave up the
ghost, the only one from whom death required permission. They bound him because he allowed
it. They bound him and they led him
away because he allowed it. And delivered him to Pontius
Pilate, the governor. because he allowed it. And Pontius
himself said, don't you realize I have the power to crucify you
or let you go? And the Lord said, you have no
power unless heaven gives it to you. Which was to say, unless
I give it to you. Then Judas, which had betrayed
him, when he saw that he was condemned, that is when he saw
that Christ had been repented himself and brought again the
30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders saying,
I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, what is that to
us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of
silver in the temple. and departed, and went and hanged
himself. And the chief priest took the
silver pieces and said, it is not lawful for to put them in
the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took
counsel. Seems like they're doing an awful
lot of counseling together, aren't they? They took counsel and bought
with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore,
that field was called the Field of Bud unto this day. Now of
all the sad stories ever told, certainly among the saddest must
be the story of Judas. Judas had all the spiritual privileges
that nature could give him, or that could be naturally given.
Now we realize that spiritual things cannot be received by
unspiritual people. That is non-spiritual people.
Nonetheless, there are great benefits which are given to people. Advantage, you might say. As
Paul said regarding the Jews, what advantages is there to being
a Jew? Well, much in every way. But these are spiritual advantages
naturally given. And therefore, they may not be
received. And Judas had them all. He was a citizen of the covenant
people of that day. God had entered into covenant
with only one nation, had revealed himself to only one nation, had
sent prophets pretty much to only one nation. They had the
promises. They were the first to hope in
Christ. They saw they're the only ones that knew there would
be a Christ. They were the ones who told he would be coming.
Judas was among them. He heard about this. How do you
know, or how do I know he heard about it? Well, because when
the Lord Jesus began to preach, it caught Judas' ear. He was among those covenant people.
He was not, as Paul described the Jews, without hope and without
God in the world. He had had the hope of Christ
set before him in the Old Testament scriptures. He knew who the true
God is. That's a lot of advantage. Do
you realize how many people are born, live and die and not one
of those things crosses their path? Not only this, Judas had
a good name. It's the same name as the name
Judah. Which, by the way, is the name of the tribe from which
our Lord arose. He is the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. The word means praise. And it's the name from which
the Jews derive the name Jew. Same as the name of the Apostle
Jude. He had a good name. I don't know
if he came from the tribe of Judah, but his parents must have
thought something of him. to give him the name of the tribe
from which every king of Israel and Judah arose, and in particular,
the king. He had glorious privilege. Look over at Acts chapter 1. Peter is together with the other
apostles the 11 remaining. And this shows you that even
when the, shall we call it the godly take counsel, it's not
always the right thing to do, but that's what they were doing,
taking counsel as to how to replace Judas. And Judas is described
in this way in verse 17, for he was numbered with us and had
obtained a part of this ministry. Judas had been chosen and called
by the Lord Jesus Christ to be his disciple. Now there were
many who in general were disciples of the Lord Jesus. There were
70 who were sent out at one time. And then loosely anybody who
followed him or believed him could have been called a disciple
of the Lord Jesus. But there were these 12. who would later be designated
as apostles. He called them to himself and
later sent them out from himself to declare his gospel and Judas
had been chosen to be among them. He was entrusted with the money. He held the bag, carried the
purse. And you know, You generally speaking
don't become the treasurer unless the people around you trust you.
So, of course, we know he wasn't trustworthy, but he must have
acted like it or they wouldn't have handed him the purse. As
to his outward conduct, it was such that no one other than the
Lord Jesus Christ knew what kind of man he really was. I don't
even think Judas knew. The Lord said, have I not chosen
you twelve and yet one of you is a devil? See, the Lord knew from the very
beginning what Judas was. Just like he knew what Nathanael
was. Just like he knew what all the disciples were. This was
not a failure of our Lord's choosing and calling. Judas was chosen
and given a place among the twelve, but he was chosen because he
had a job to do. Not one he ever would have thought
he would have done, but the scripture had been declared that one would
raise up his heel against the Lord. And that was Judas. He was a man of conscience. You
say, how do you know? Well, we read he repented himself.
You say, well, yeah, but the Bible says he was a thief. And
he stole money out of the treasury. Yes, he was. And I guarantee
you he justified himself in it. I'm sure he said something like
this. Well, you know, just like all the other apostles, I preach.
Just like all the other apostles, I have cast out demons. I've
healed the sick. Didn't they boast about that
when they came back? Judas was among them. And they didn't say,
you know, all of us but Judas cast out demons. And Judas said, I do everything
that all the other apostles do, and I take care of the money.
It's only right that I get a little extra for myself. Judas didn't
think he was stealing. Have you ever noticed that we
don't really sin in our own mind? We'll justify everything we do. We'll say, yeah, I'm sure other
people might think it was wrong, but really, when you think about
it, well, at least it wasn't as bad as what it could have
been. But for all his privilege, for
all the benefit that he had been given, and the glorious position that
had been handed to him, notice how his life ends back in Acts
chapter 1, Verse 18, 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. In just a little while, He goes
from trusted disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ to a pile of
rotten flesh in a hole in the ground. Oh, what a fall. Oh, what a sad ending. What I want to focus on is the
fork in the road where Judas ended up in a grave, a stinking mass of rotting flesh,
instead of the room with the disciples when the Holy Spirit
fell upon them. What went wrong? How come it took that direction? And if you'll go back now to
Matthew chapter 27. And by the way, if you like titles, the
message, the title of this message is see to it. See to it. That's what the chief priests
and elders told him, strictly speaking. It was, you will see for yourself. But that was just the way they
wrote it in the Greek, meaning you will see to it or you must
see to it for yourself. This is your problem, not ours.
That's exactly what those chief priests were saying. What is
this to us? You say you've got a problem
that you've seen. What's that to us? That's your
problem, not ours. So I want to focus on this thing.
See to it yourself. You know the story of Judas,
at least I imagine you do. He betrayed the Lord for 30 pieces
of silver. I don't know why. I mean, theologically
I know why, but I don't know what motivated him. I don't know
who motivated him, but I don't know what in his mind gave him
the idea that that would be a good idea, but something did. But
as, just like with us, there's a lot of things, is there not,
that we thought would be a good idea, and once they were done,
we realized that was a horrible idea. And it says of Judas, that he
repented himself. Told you he was a man of conscience. You know, we think that when
a man is stricken in conscience, oh, the Spirit of God's working.
He wasn't here. Because if the Spirit of God
had been working on Judas, things would have turned out differently.
Judas would have done different things than what he did, but
he was stricken in conscience. He had a sense of his sin. And most of us would think that
he rendered a good confession of his sin. If you look back
here in Matthew 27, note what he says. He repented himself, he brought
again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
verse 4, saying, I have sinned. I like this, that Judas, I mean,
it's sounding good so far. I like this, Judas didn't say,
you know, I made a mistake. I've made some mistakes in my
life. Have you ever noticed now, that's the word for sin now,
mistakes. Well, they certainly are mistakes.
But people like to say mistakes because all of us make mistakes.
And all of us think we can fix mistakes. But Judas said, I have
sinned. He called it what it was. And
he named the sin, didn't he? He didn't just say, I have sinned
in general. Who wouldn't admit to that? Boy, yeah, I know I've
sinned. Boy, he told it out. And he was
a nasty one. Nobody likes a betrayer. He said,
I've betrayed innocent blood. I've borne false witness against
my neighbor. That was the law he was appealing
to. That law was a law against perjury. And he said, I have
sinned. I have borne false witness against
my neighbor. I have betrayed innocent blood. I tell you, if he would come
before most churches and say that, They would have him baptized
and on the membership roll, and he'd be treasure all over again.
Boy, that's some good repentance. No, it wasn't. And there's a
very simple reason why. Very simple reason. It wasn't
because he wasn't clear about his sin. It wasn't because he
didn't feel bad about his sin. It was because of where he went
with his sin. He went to the law. He went to
the chief priests and the elders. That 30 pieces of silver standing
is a symbol of his transgression. And you all know how this feels.
Oh man, he sees Christ and he's been condemned. They've led him
off to be crucified. And it all comes crashing in
on Judas. What have I done? What have I done? I got to get
rid of this. 30 pieces of silver begin to burn
in his hand. And he runs back to the temple,
back to those very scoundrels who gave him the 30 pieces of
silver to betray him. But scoundrels though they were,
they stand as representatives of the law of God, the chief
priests, the elders at the temple. And he goes back and he makes
confession before the law. And they said, what is that to
us? Your repentance doesn't mean
anything to us. That does not authorize us to
take any action, nor does it constrain us to take any action. You go see to it for yourself.
Brethren, that was the fork in the road. He felt that overwhelming
sense of guilt, and the moment he did, he stood there at a crossroads,
at a fork in the road, and in one direction was the broad road
that leads to destruction, and off to the side, a little narrow
winding path, with a gate that was very narrow. And Judas looked, and he took the broad road. He
gathered up those coins, And he says, I will go and I will
get rid of my sin. I will undo what I have done.
I will make good where I made wrong. And some of you are doing that
right now. I say that, I say it out of a
sensitivity group like this. I don't care what you're professing.
In a group like this, there's bound to be some. who are actually
on the broad road that leads to destruction, when they think
they're on the narrow road that leads to life. Now I can tell
you how you can figure out what road you're on. And it's not
difficult. It will not be in examining the
depth of your sense of sin, because I don't care how deeply you feel
about your sin, you don't feel as deeply as your sins warrant.
I mean, we just don't. It's not going to be about how
clearly you confess or how many people you confess or how publicly
you confess yourself. That's got nothing to do with
it. Here's how you can know whether that repentance you have experienced
is the sorrow of the world that leads to death Or is truly that
repentance given by God from which a man never repents? It
was very simply this. When you repented, what did you
hear? Did you hear, see to it for yourself? If you did, if you're trying
to see to this for yourself, if you're trying to fix it, You're
on the broad road that leads to destruction. And I don't care
whether you're on a free will lane or a sovereign grace lane
on that road. You're still on that road. If
it says to you, see to it for yourself. Now this is the testimony of
the law to every person on the broad road that leads to destruction.
It is the testimony to everyone who under a sense of guilt tries
to undo his own guilt. He has come before the law and
the law has this two-fold testimony to give to him. And the first
part is very simply this, what is that to me? The law doesn't
care about your repentance. Repentance means nothing to the
law. Repentance is just a confession that you've broken it. A man kills somebody. He comes
before the judge and he says, oh man, I've killed somebody.
Judge, I'm so sorry. I feel so bad about this. And
they paid me to do it. Here, you can have the money
back. Is the judge going to say, well, okay, you're good to go.
That's fine with me. Oh, there might be some judge
who'd do that, but what would we call such a judge? We would
call him an unjust judge, wouldn't we? We'd say, what are you doing,
judge? That's a murderer. You don't let loose a murderer.
Well, one thing about God's law I know is it's not unjust. And
therefore, all your tears mean absolutely nothing to the law.
In fact, the law will only take them as testimony against you.
Because if you hadn't done it, you wouldn't be weeping. Those
tears testify against you before the law. And not all the weeping
in the presence of those commandments. will absolve you of breaking
the least of them. What is that to us? You see,
you cannot go back to the law and put the responsibility of
your sin on the law. The very purpose of the law was
to hold you accountable. What our brother said this morning,
the law wasn't put there to show you how to live. The law was
put there to show you that you haven't lived how you live, but
there is no corrective value in it. It doesn't fix the problem. Like an x-ray machine that may
reveal a horrible disease within you, yet it can do nothing about
fixing it. What is that to us? He said, now, you go see to it
for yourself. Translating from one language
to another is a little difficult. sometimes because some languages
have forms to them that don't even appear in what they call
the target language. And there's a voice for you grammarians,
a voice in the Greek language that has no correspondence in
the English. It's called the middle voice.
And it means to do something to oneself or in one's own interest. And the middle voice is what's
used here. And what those chief priests
and elders said to them, you go see to that for yourself. That's your problem. You've got
to take care of this, not us. And Judas, still filled with
a sense of his guilt and absorbing what the law had just said to
him, still what's he want to do? He tries to separate himself
from his sin. And he casts those coins back
in there. Oh, brethren, have you ever tried
to do that? They stick to you, don't they? You throw them. I
gotta get this off of me. I hate who I am. I hate what
I've done. I'm not fit to be among men. I gotta get rid of this. And
that's what Judas was doing. But if you compare the account
of Matthew with the account given in Acts, you find out something
interesting. He threw that money into the
temple and left. Those chief priests and elders
picked it up, and I don't know how long it took them, but once
they figured out what to do, they found a piece of property
for sale, and they took that money and they bought that field
to bury strangers in. By strangers, they mean aliens,
not from outer space, from other countries. I mean, somebody from somewhere
else being in Jerusalem doing business, they have a heart attack
and die, what are they going to do with him? They certainly can't ship
him back home, they have no idea where he came from, maybe, and
it'd take too long to get him back there. They need a place
to bury him, so they buried them, and it became what is commonly
called a potter's field, where we bury poor people that can't
afford a grave. But you read over there in Acts,
and it says, this man, What man were they talking about? Judas
bought the field. Wait a minute. Judas threw that
money back in the temple. Yeah, but it was still Judas'
money. Not all the throwing that he
could do, not all of his attempt to detach his sin from himself
could ever make those coins belong to anybody but him. And with
the wages of unrighteousness, he bought himself a grave. In
fulfillment of the Scripture, the wages of sin is death. Brethren, your repentance that
takes you back to the law and makes you try to make amends
and fix things with God, all it will do is earn you the wages
of righteousness so that you can buy yourself a grave to die
and fall in a rotten, smelly mess. Buried where they bury
aliens from the covenant of promise. People that have no part in the
people of God. People who are truly without
God, without hope, without Christ. Oh, what a sad, sad story. And
you say, well, on one hand it says he hanged himself, and the
other it says he fell headlong and burst apart, yeah? That's
just two parts of the same story. The man went out and hanged himself.
They didn't find him for several days. Oh, the law said to him, you
go take care of this yourself, and he did. The law says that
if you break the law, you're under curse, and cursed is everyone
that hanged on a tree. And the only thing Judas could
do to see to it himself was to curse himself and hang himself
up. And that he did, and he died,
and he began to rot. Meanwhile, those priests take
his money and buy a grave. And somebody said, you seen this
over here? This man's been hanging here, I don't know how many days
he's been here. And they got somebody to take that swelled
up, bloated body down from that tree. And you can just see him. I mean, no nice wrap him up,
give him a decent burial. They dug a hole and they shoved
him in it. And when he hit the bottom, he
was such a rotten mess, he burst apart. He cursed himself because
he did exactly what the law told him to do. You go see to this
yourself. Brethren, that is the fork in
the road. But now I'd like to take you
back 2,000 years previous to this in what tradition says was a
location near to this. And a 114-year-old man They say that's about what it
would have been. And his 14-year-old boy, they're walking up the side of
a mountain. And the boy's been trained by his father about how
you worship God and what it takes. And he says to his father, I've
got some wood here. And I see you've got in your
hand a tinderbox with some coals in it. I see what's going on
here. There's going to be a sacrifice. And you can't have a sacrifice,
dad, without a lamb. Where's the lamb? I mean, you
know. And his father said, son, God will provide for himself
a sacrifice. Now our English says provide.
If you know the etymology of that word, it's a good word to
use. But most of us don't know where it came from. Strictly
speaking, What Abraham said was, the Lord will see to it. The Lord will see to it. Provide
is derived from the Latin language pro meaning to video. You all know what a video is.
It's something you watch. It's something you see. The Lord
will see to it. And brethren, at that fork in
the road is the one, is the broad road that says, you see to it
for yourself. And there is that little winding
path with just a few people on it, wherein the Lord says, I'll
see to it. I'll take care of this. I'll
bear the responsibility. Oh, if Judas, instead of going back to the
temple and those men who had hired him in the first place,
instead of going back to the law, he had made his way out
there to Golgotha. Cast those coins there. It had been different. Metaphorically speaking, the
Lord would have picked it up and said, I'll see to it. I'll
take care of this. I'll take care of it. Rather, the difference between the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ And every other approach to God is simply this,
who's taking care of things. That's all. And if you're living
under, see to it for yourself. You're on the broad road. You're
on the broad road. I urge you this day, go before
God. in all the vileness of your wickedness,
not making any excuses, and say to him, oh God, I have sinned. And hear him say, I'll see to
it. God, I've not only sinned, I'm
a sinner. I'm wretched inside. a different nature. I need to
be changed." And hear him say, I'll see to it. God, there's guilt against me
and you're a just judge. It's got to be paid for. And
hear him say, I'll see to it. You say, oh, but I need to die
for I read, I've heard from your law. I went there once and I
presented this same thing to the law and your law told me
this, that the soul that sins, it shall die. Then you hear God
say, I'll see to it. I'll take care of that. I need redemption. I'll see to
it. I'll take care of that too. I need a dwelling place. taken care of, I'll see to it. I need an inheritance, I'll see
to it. And after you have laid out your
case before God and told Him of all the obstacles
which are before you, which you cannot take care of for yourself,
and you have heard Him say over and over and over again, I'll
see to it, When that's all done, behold, the father turned to
his right and looked at his son and said, see to it. Our brother read that when our Lord, just before he
died, he said, it is finished. And it would not be a stretch
of the scriptures of the gospel to say that his meaning was,
I've seen to it. It's taken care of. There's nothing
left to do. Are you still trying to see to
some things? You say, my faith's not good enough. Well, of course
not. Did you ever think it would be? but I don't believe I've repented."
Well, of course not. God's taken care of that too.
It's all wrapped up. He's left nothing for you to
perfect. Nothing for you to tend to. He's
left no question mark. You say, You believe that God arranged
everything, it's all done and all that, so I guess I should
just sit here and do nothing and see if the lightning strikes.
You misunderstand. We don't live any of the rest
of our life like that. The Lord has determined the number of
my days. It's written down in his book.
But I still look both ways before I cross the street. And yes,
I know that from God's viewpoint this thing is all wrapped up.
And I still, He's not left anything to you, but I tell you this.
Look to Him. Call upon His name. Hang your
soul upon Him who says, I'll see to it. Because if you do
not hang your soul upon Him, the day will come. when it will
be said to you, see to it for yourself. And you will spend
eternity trying to see to it. And you'll never be done. The Lord will see to it. And in the mountain of the Lord
it will be said, he has seen to it. May the Lord God give
you grace and me grace to see that he has seen to it and it's
all taken care of. May the Lord be thanked.