Our reading this morning is from the gospel of Luke chapter 22. I'd invite you to join us in Luke chapter 22. We'll be reading verses one through six this morning.
Luke chapter 22 beginning at verse one. Now the feast of unleavened bread called the Passover was approaching and the chief priests and teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus for they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered Judas called a scarier one of the twelve and Judas went to the chief priests and officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money. He consented and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. The grass withers in the flower spade with the word of our God stands forever. Let's return to Luke 22 the passage that we read with John just a few moments ago if you're visiting with us We are in a study in the gospel according to Luke. It may seem like we're at the end of the book and we're approaching the last few chapters folks it took us over two years to get where we are. So we'll be here a while. Yeah, you If you don't have a church home and you're visiting you get a Bible and a pencil and Come and join us for the last part of this study as we look at the death of Jesus Christ before we Look at these first few verses of Luke 22. Let's pray and Ask the Lord Jesus who was there at the end and he's here this morning. Let's ask him to speak to each one of us where we are. Our father we come into this place and we come as a Body call the independent Presbyterian church. We're part of the body of Christ, but father We also come as individuals and we come as individuals and some of us are just worn out from the wheat and we're tired Some of us father are only worn out and we're really down and we're in distress We've gotten bad news and health is not good or we're concerned about our children or It's just not a good time We lost sleep this week Some of us father are here and we can't help but to laugh. We've had such a great week and and the news has been good Our father We come with from different situations We come with different matters on our minds Different personalities that father you're able to speak to each one of us where we are. I Can't dig that that father Just blows my mind How individuals who are in exactly opposite situations can leave here and say you know this morning God really spoke to me My father I know I can't do that and you know that I know and you know that this is not just some kind of spiritual rhetoric that a minister's praise before a message Our father I'm as helpless right now as I am to go to the moon and We're really fathers helpless to hear People heard Jesus and and didn't respond because they didn't have ears to hear I Pray father that in this room right now that Jesus Christ will come in power and That he'll open our ears to hear and open father our hearts to receive and We pray that Jesus will speak and it will be clear to each one of us where we are We pray that in Jesus name and we will give him the credit and the honor and the glory Amen How can anyone be so evil? There's not a person in this ring that hadn't thought that in the last couple of months about some situation We think of that phrase frequently just very weak and in in a situation in our country I've looked and said how could anyone be so evil as to do that Sometimes we look at Judas and that's how we think Judas how could you be so evil? How does it happen?
Remember the nursery rhyme Humpty dumpedy set on a wall Humpty dumpedy had a great fall and all the King's horses and all the Kings men couldn't the Humpty Dumpty together again It was Humpty Dumpty you know You know in I can tell you what's in your mind and what was in mind immediately an egg Remember you saw an egg sitting on a wall and it fell you can't put an egg together Well, you need to know that that nursery rhyme predated any picture about an egg someone I think it was first in Lewis Carroll's book that Humpty Dumpty was shown as an egg There's nothing historical to say that Humpty Dumpty was an egg There's a theory one theory about Humpty Dumpty that Humpty Dumpty wasn't was a
English war machine a siege machine And during the English Civil War when the battle between the Wiggs and the the Royalists Tories I guess There was this machine and they called it Humpty Dumpty because it was a rickety old siege machine and it set on this wall And finally that rickety thing fell and all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again That's one theory. There's another theory That says that this Point this rhyme was born out of a child's man from a primer As he learned to spell in the 1700s if you had been in England and 1700s When you learned your ABCs you would have learned your ABCs from something called the English Primer It began like this a In Adam's fall we sand all Wouldn't find that an ABC book today would you then you get down to X unit reads Erksees Erksees the great did die and so much you and so must I The thought is that the child said in Adam's fall We send all We fell you get down to X And you must die and so must die and all the King's horses and all the King's men Can't put Humpty Dumpty together again. You see Humpty Dumpty was man and man fell and All the efforts of men the great kings and common people in this world Cannot fix Humpty Dumpty Humpty Dumpty is a story of mankind As I read and reread the last several weeks the story of Judas I Was reminded of that theory about Humpty Dumpty Judas had a great fall He ended up hanged committed suicide In the darkness And even that didn't end it You know we look at people like Judas and
We think there's a great chasm We say how can anyone be so evil as if it couldn't be us We here I am and here Judas is and there's a great chasm in between and I could not possibly be like that I want us to look The life of Judas this morning And try to understand how Judas happened see what God says about how Judas happened and Then the end will say that There's not a great chasm Between Judas and us
And that in a very real sense. We're all Humpty Dumpty's First I want you to see in this passage. We're gonna look at five different views And we're just gonna drop into the life of Judas and look at him at a certain time at a certain place and didn't move to the next The first scene is this I would entitle it Judas just slightly sinful Look at verse 4 of Luke 22 and Judas went to the chief priests in office in the temple and Discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreeing to give him money Why did Judas go to those religious leaders? They didn't say we'll give you money to do it Judas came saying will you give me money? He wanted money Thanks you can try to put a noble picture on him and say well He was trying to get Jesus to make his move to be Messiah He was disappointed in Jesus for not being it folks. It was about money You see Judas was eaten alive by averis He loved money. He was a thief We read this in John 12 John chapter 12 verse 6 Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief as keeper of the money bag He used to help himself to what was put into it He kept the common purse for the disciples There was always money in it and he thought nothing of taking out a few dollars here and a few dollars there and using them for his own Ends at that place in John chapter 12 a woman had had spent a Thousands of dollars what would be in our in our times thousands of dollars on a perfume to anoint Jesus and Judas said said what a waste is that he said it out loud and John was saying he didn't think it was a waste because he wanted to use it for the poor He thought it was a waste because he wanted the money in the treasure so he could take from it You know you you watch Judas And he's taking a few dollars from the purse maybe paying himself to be treasure And here that's not a great chasm between us is it that's not Becoming a traitor to Jesus Christ. That's no great evil all of us have stolen stolen time stolen reputations stolen from God and not giving to him what belongs to him. We've even stolen stuff and things from others If we understand our own souls then we can identify with Judas He could have gone to Jesus along the way when he was taking a few dollars here and a few dollars there And he could have said you know Jesus. I've really seen I've done wrong This is not right and this sin is eating me alive Jesus Please forgive me. You know he didn't do that He didn't want to say I'm a thief and neither do we We we don't like the idea you know you some of you are gonna leave here this morning You know John Sartill said that the Bible calls me a thief. I really don't believe the Bible says that Well check it out. Your argument's not with me. It's with God We don't like to admit with these we don't like to admit we're liars We react against someone suggesting that we are we should listen to the words of Mother Teresa when she counseled Don't get upset when people say bad things about you. Just think of what they could say. I have what Martin Luther said it this way If all thieves who nevertheless do not wish to be considered such were to be hanged from the gallows The world would soon be desolate and would be without both executioners and gallows. What's he saying? We're all the eaves You know, I have a theory about those of us Who screamed the loudest about the sin and hate and murder and lust and prejudice of others as we look over at someone and say how can anyone be so evil? I think we make the loudest noise Because we're trying to distance ourselves from those folks and we're trying to distance ourselves from those folks because deep down inside We know we have the same tendency So we scream very loudly to deny that we do Philip Yancey Christian writer in our day was visiting with a minister who had served in the armed forces with the allies with the United States infantry in the Second World War in Europe And he told Yancey that he had been with that first group of soldiers that arrived at a certain Concentration camp and Yancey was just so fascinated as we would be and he said I want you to tell me all about that And the man spoke of the Nightmarish horror of these death camps and and of how you just had to turn your head at times that you became sick and And he talked about the German the captured German wardens who were systematically being sent back to headquarters for questioning He said that one day there was a group of six German officers who had been head over this camp And they were to be sent back to headquarters and they asked for a volunteer to take them back And the man named Chuck raised his hands and I'll be glad to take him back And he picked up his machine gun and marched those German officers often. They they Few minutes after they were gone from camp. They rounded the curve and all of a sudden the soldiers back in camp heard machine gun fire and they began to run towards where Chuck had gone and He came back around the corner And he said you know what all those blank and they blank they tried to escape. I shot them all and Then he grinned Everyone knew what had happened Now I know what you're thinking same thing. I thought I understand why Chuck did that I Might have done the same thing You know the minister that told Jansi that story who was there said it was right then and there that I gave my heart to Jesus Christ and it was right then and there that I said I'm going into the ministry He said because for the first time I realized the great potential for evil that was in my heart He said for the first time I realized I could have easily been Chuck and gunned down six unarmed Nazis out of my hate and discussed and I would have called it justice And we might even say what's wrong with that, but he understood One must ask if Chuck had been in Germany under the Nazis if he had been raised with a hatred for Jews Maybe the same hate that gunned down those six Germans Would have been the hate that gassed unarmed Jews. I think when we rail against the sin and the hate and the murder and the lust and the Prejudice of others We do so because we're trying To deny that the same dark tendencies are at work within our own lives We look at Jesus We seem in those early days just taking a few dollars from the purse Judas just slightly evil Secondly, I want you to look in this passage and see Judas a sinful heart repressed but not regenerated Look at verse six. He considered and he watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crown was present Why did he choose to do this now? Why did he say yes this time? Why haven't he already done it? These men had been after Jesus for almost three years Because before his sin had not progressed to that stage His heart was sinful. He wasn't in a sea, but his sin was kept in check How was he sin kept in check? He was hanging around the greatest moral influence who ever lived He was hearing the greatest sermons that have ever been preached The physical and spiritual atmosphere around Jesus, around Jesus served to restrain his sin The sin in his heart was repressed, but that heart was not regenerated and there's a big difference Again listen to John chapter six. I haven't seen this before John chapter six verse 63 listen to this Jesus is speaking and he says this the spirit capital S the Holy Spirit gives life Not the law not will be the Holy Spirit gives life the flesh counts for nothing now Those are the words of Jesus and then he went on Jesus said the words I've spoken to you are spirit and they are life And then Jesus said yet some of you There are some of you who do not believe and he was speaking for his disciples are two his disciples And then John made this comment For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him Jesus was saying the Holy Spirit gives life and even though some of you seem religious You don't actually love me you don't have faith Because it is religion that has repressed your sin But there's no spirit capital S that has changed your heart remember when Nicodemus came to Jesus John chapter three Nicodemus was religious he went to the temple every day the very roads that he wore were religious and What did Jesus say to this very religious man? He said Nicodemus a man cannot see the kingdom of God unless he is born again Your religion will only can will only restrain your sin
But it will not change your heart You know that's why so many folks dabble in religion They identify with the church. They want to look good. They want to seem moral here in the South We're eating the live with this everyone. That's good goes to church and You know what their efforts may actually restrain the evil in them I think that our culture there's a morality about our culture that you don't find in other cultures where the church is not I think that religious activity May repress the sinful heart However more reformation Gossip restrained materialism checked anger controlled lusts repressed folks. That's not sufficient. That's not a changed heart
Reformation repressed a heart that represses sin But not regeneration Some of the people sitting in churches across America this morning are trying to say we're good people Sin has actually been repressed in us We're better because we go to church You know that's true But some of the people sitting in churches across America this morning Are not there for moral reformation. They've come there Because they have a heart for Jesus Christ Simply put they love him You want to know If your heart It's just being the sin in your heart just being morally repressed by religion Or if you've really been born a gang. This is the acid test Do you love Jesus Christ? Do you love him? You look at Judas Judas just slightly sinful You come at another point is light Judas a sinful heart repressed, but not regenerated thirdly Let's look at Judas and see a soul's gradual Disaccration now. This is in Luke 22, but it's on forward from where we read look at verse 47 Same chapter Luke 22 verse 47 While he was still speaking this would mean while Jesus he was in guess anything while he was still speaking a crowd came up And the man who was called Judas one of the twelve was leading them he approached Jesus to kiss him But Jesus asked him Judas are you betraying the son of man with a kiss? Wow Here's a man who had eaten with Jesus almost every day for three years. They'd set it to table together they had Drunk together. They had laughed together. They had fish together They'd gone through hard times and bad times together and now here comes Judas around the turn into the garden He's with the enemies of Jesus Christ He's with men who would crucify Christ and he comes up to Jesus and Kiss him a hug In Jesus of Jesus Do you betray me to my enemies? You've tried the Messiah with a kiss
You said Jesus How could you do it? Folks This is the result of the years of averse years of coveting years of loving money You do not understand if you think Judas would have done this three years earlier Judas would not have betrayed Jesus when they first met The Pharisees had been after Jesus for a long time. There had been other opportunities for Judas to sell Jesus out But he had not taken them He had been satisfied to skim off of the top from the fun It started with pill-fring but the sin grew Judas became finally a man who would sell out his friend for money He began to petty white collar thief in the end he became a traitor Why? Because the sin grew because his soul grew in desecration What did God say to Cain there in Genesis? He said Cain sin is crouching at your door It desires to own you deserves desires to have you. What was God saying? See we think of sin as an action a lie. We say that's a lie. That's an action That's stealing that's an action Well, we ought to know better than that because sin begins in our lives Not as an action it begins as a heart. We're born with a central heart. We're born with a nature to sin
The Bible teaches it's sin is not first an action that sin is a power of power that resides in our souls Sin is a spiritual power that is loose in this world Sin Contains to control the mind with propaganda Sin strives to seduce the emotions Sin wants to weaken the will and sin finally evolves to enslave us We can put it like this In this world our souls are either growing in sanctification in Christ Are they growing in desecration in sin? Desecration is the opposite of sanctification One is growing more sinful one is growing more holy The history of Judas is a study in the grass gradual desecration of a soul
We're seeing that same gradual desecration in the soul of our culture It's not only that we do evil in our day. It used to be that we did evil as a culture But now we do evil and what do we say not that we've done evil? We say we've done good We call evil good and not only that but we call the good evil I'm no longer afraid to call homosexuality a sin. I can say I love the center. I Don't hate the homosexual But I'm no longer afraid to call homosexuality a sin because the world will call me Homophobic is a John your evil to say that. That's homophobic I'm no longer afraid to call adultery a sin without the world saying that is judgmental and narrow-minded and it's evil to call adultery sin I'm no longer afraid to call abortion a sin two years ago. It was called a sin But I'm no longer afraid to call it a sin anymore. The world will say John you're a shameless and you hate women What's happened the soul of our culture? Is being eroded gradually by sin Several years ago the US Senator Daniel Patrick Monahan published a disturbing essay entitled Defining Defining DDSC down most of you remember when that was first came out and An issue of the new Republic the commentator Charles Crawfammer wrote about what Monahan had written and this is what he said listen this quote Monahan's powerful point is that without the moral deregulation of the 1960s or Excuse me went the moral deregulation of the 1960s We have had an explosion of DDSC in family life in criminal behavior and in just public displays of psychosis And we have dealt with it in the only way possible by defining DDSC down So as to explain away and make Normal what a more civilized order and healthy society long ago would have labeled and did long ago labeled DDS What's he saying that that we've become perverse in DDSC in our moral behavior? But we've called it good and We've defined DDSC is so far below that You want to feel good about being defeated and diverse just call it good and say no here to DDSC's Proversions is way down here
Sin folks will never stand still in a culture or in our souls We're either growing in sanctification or we're growing in desecration In time lapse photography we can watch an oak three grow over a 40-year period that This last week I was at a home that Where there was a great oak in the yard and they had planted that oak on a specific day in 1960 and the oak was no longer than an index finger when they planted it And now it's this huge oak that towers over house in neighborhood At any time in that tree's history I could have gone out one day and Then gone out a week later and could not have seen any change or any difference None the less change was taking place We cannot see change in our lives from one week to the next you can look at Judas one week and go out the next week and you wouldn't have seen any difference But time lapse photography of our souls will reveal either a gradual sanctification or a gradual and deadly Desecration one of the two I can tell you here this morning In a time lapse photo of your soul over the last few years you've either grown in sanctification or you've grown in desecration Judas would not have sold out Jesus earlier. He grew into it. You say hold it now 30 piece of silver That was not much. We say Judas. That's not much for what you did Folks think about it. Steve Brown said it best He said that where averis is involved The amount does not matter. That's true and if a person's a thief He'll steal two dollars. This is quickly as he'll steal two million dollars Doesn't matter what it is. It's just money. And you know those of us who sit there and say Judas You did it for 30 pieces of silver. Let me tell you whatever we sell Jesus out for In eternity won't seem anymore than 30 pieces of silver I don't care if we sell them out for autonomy. I don't care if we sell them out for wealth or sex or pleasure of power I don't care if we sell them out for a throne or for a chair on the board. It doesn't matter It won't seem any more in that day than 30 pieces of silver Look at this passage and see Judas a slight see sinful man Judas a simple heart repressed but not regenerated Third legitus of souls gradual desecration fourth legitus an evil man used by a much greater evil I don't want to make much of this. I just want you to notice it. It's important. Look at verse three of Luke 22 then Satan entered Judas called to scary it one of the twelve John and Luke make mention that Satan entered into Judas now why why did Satan go to this much? I mean this is he is why did he go to this much trouble? I mean think about the Sanhedrin it Satan was not saying well I've got to have Judas so that he can lead the Sanhedrin this thing the Sanhedrin was well on us way Let me tell you they would have gotten Jesus without Jesus easily They knew who he was he didn't need to be identified. They really knew They did want to find him alone separate from the crowd. They were afraid of the crowds But they know where Jesus would go to secret himself from the disciples That that was public knowledge. They could have followed him Why did why did Satan want Judas Satan was delivering a message about his power Satan was laughing at heaven Satan was saying I can get into the inner circle God you can't even keep your own people What was the prophet Nathan said to David when he sinned? He said you had given the enemies of God an opportunity to laugh and scorn at God You know, we want to say sin is an individual thing We want to say well, you know, I cheated on my wife and It it only hurt her It only hurt the family art. I cheated on my husband. It only hurt him or I did this and it only only a few people knew about Let me tell you there's a whole dynamic out there that we never see
Satan takes our sin and he shakes it in the face of God God these are the people from whom you gave your son You think these people are saved you think you've done something with him look how they sin
Satan was using Judas to mock heaven and that's what Satan Great desire is to mock heaven Folks are seen as Christians is never in a vacuum. It's never a private thing Satan loves to use us to laugh at God Judas just slightly sinful Judas a simple heart repressed but not regenerated Judas a soul's gradual distress this desecration Fourthly Judas an evil man used by a much greater evil and this is finally five Judas blinded by grace Excuse me, blinded to grace by darkness This is the saddest of all Blinded to grace by darkness John chapter 13 we read this This talks of John is talking about Judas leading the upper room and as soon as Judas had taken the bread He went out and it was night Why did John say and it was night? John was a philosopher he had the heart of a writer and the heart of an artist He was saying far more than the sun had gone down He was saying There's no more daylight for Judas He went out into the dark night of despair He went out into the dark night of despair and lostness Judas went out And it was night Matthew records That Judas hanged himself He went back to the Sanhedrin We read in Matthew 27 for where I've sinned for I betrayed innocent blood What is that to us? They replied that's your responsibility? So Judas threw the money into the temple and left then he went away and hanged himself Why wasn't he saved? He showed remorse didn't he?
Mark this down It's a great great verse in the New Testament and it's hardly you know hardly ever hear a sermon on this verse Second Corinthians 7 10 listen to it Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret but worldly sorrow brings death He had a worldly sorrow Judas did he could see his sin But he could not see grace he could he could not see God's salvation He could not trust Jesus he could not trust Jesus and go to him and say Jesus He could not cast himself on God's grace He committed suicide To punish himself He committed suicide to try to make amends. I'm so evil. I don't deserve to live in a morbid sort of way Judas was still trying to save himself There was another disciple Peter he turned traitor
And he saw his sin When that rooster crowed in Jesus looked at in Jesus was standing right in the courtyard Luke records remember Luke records Jesus turned and looked at Peter. Can you imagine what that look must have been? Is there two eyes locked on each other as that rooster crowed? And Peter ran out we read and wept went to the night mentions the darkness Peter went out to the night and wept bitterly But in a few days a few days later he was walking on a beach in Galilee with Jesus What was the difference between Peter and Judas both were in the night both were despairing But one looked at Jesus for grace and the other was blinded by the darkness of his own sin And that's the worst darkness at all the darkness that owns our soul to the point That we can't see God's grace This is the way that I've come to understand hell It's a place of sin a place of darkness a place of despair beyond any hope and one cannot even commit suicide to escape or to a ton Someone has written sin will take you farther than you ever thought you would stray Sin will lead you so lost you think you'll never find your way Sin will keep you longer than you ever thought you would stay and And sin will cost you more than you ever thought you would pay. That's what happened to Judas Judas did not kill himself because God's grace was insufficient Did you hear me? Just did not kill himself because God's grace was insufficient Judas killed himself Because sin had darkened and hardened his own heart to any possibility of grace
Humpty dumpty set on the wall Humpty dumpty took a great fall and Judas would have said in all the King's horses and all the King's men could not put Humpty dumpty together again The great tragedy is That that's what Jesus came today to put together lives That could not be put together to put together lives that lie shattered at the bottom of the wall people This message ends Then on in the darkness It ends in the great light of grace Don't you despair Don't despair in the night God's grace is sufficient trusted If it's too dark for you to see right now ask God to show it to you
And that's our hymn Him number 501. It's a prayer And it's saying I'm a Humpty dumpty and I'm at the bottom of the wall Make this your prayer this morning wherever you are in this journey. We have mentioned Make this your prayer We're seeing the Stanzas one three four and five