AN UNPREACHED SERMON (216)
The person responsible for me committing my life to Christ as a boy of 14, was the leader of the school Scripture Union group. He was seventeen and was involved in coaching us in the junior team rugby. He was someone that we all looked up to and admired and had led many to a saving faith in Christ. Obviously, he left school before I did, but he went on to train for the ministry. Year’s later I heard he had given it all up and turned his back on the faith he once professed and the Christ he had followed in such an effective evangelistic way. Many of us will have a similar tale to tell of those who once walked closely with the Lord, but now seem to be nowhere when it comes to the faith. People who joined the church at the same time as us or were once very active in church life, but have now fallen by the wayside. Circumstances and experiences in life, over which it is useless for us to speculate, got the better of them and they denied Christ. Even now they may be far from being labelled “a Judas”, but betraying Christ they certainly have.
Over the years I have read articles trying to explain why Judas did what he did. The two questions that pop up over and over again are whether he ever was a true disciple in the first place and why on earth Christ initially chose him to be one of the Twelve. Again, speculation is useless. How can we ever delve into the psychological mindset of Judas, when we sometimes can’t fathom why we engage is certain courses of action ourselves? The human mind is a strange thing. The story and character of Judas portrayed in the Gospels is surely recorded as a warning sign to us all.
Leaving aside the fruitless psychological attempts to analyse what went on in his mind, I think there are a number of things we can say with certainty and just leave it there. Perhaps the nearest we can get to an understanding of what was going on in his mind surrounds the incident of the foot-washing at the Last Supper (John 13:12-30). “After receiving the morsel of bread, Judas immediately went out. And it was night” (v30). It’s not at all difficult to see where Judas went wrong once he had made up his mind to leave. Look upon them as four biblical clues to be taken together.
CLUE NUMBER ONE.
A love for money seems to have progressively displaced any initial desire he had for Jesus. He allowed something else to creep in and take control to such an extent that it shifted his focus off the Lord. John, also one the Twelve, has no qualms about mentioning Judas’ supposed interest in the poor. He suggests it was a cover for what he was really up to. It was “because he was a thief, and having charge of the money he used to help himself to what was put into the bag (Jn 12:6). At heart he was too materialistic. He was in it for what he could get out of it. His feigned concern for the poor was merely a cover for what he was really up to. Judas’ betrayal forces upon us the challenging question: Is there anything, no matter how right in itself, that displaces Jesus into a secondary place in our lives?
The Bible makes it clear it is not things, possessions or money that are problematic, but “the love of money that is the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:10). Many of us have discovered, in wise stewardship through life, that in seeking first the kingdom, “many things have been added unto us” (Matt 6:33). It is not the things that are the problem. Having things and using them well, is quite different from letting things have us
CLUE NUMBER TWO.
He entertained tempting thoughts. “During supper the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Jesus” (John: 13:2). Sitting at the Lord’s Table he was even then mulling over in his mind what his next step should be. You and I can never control the thoughts that come into our minds, especially if they are targeted at us by the Evil One’s fiery darts (Ephesians 6:16), but we can stop them from lodging there to damage to our ongoing followership of the Lord.
CLUE NUMBER THREE.
He made a deliberate choice to turn away from Him who is the Light of the world and move into the darkness. How telling is the juxtaposition of the phrases, “He went out and it was night” (Jn 13:30). It was Judas’ own irrevocable choice to betray His Master. There is coercion from no one. His mind was made up.
We wrongly think the decision to follow Christ is only a once-in-a-lifetime choice, but it is something that we are meant to renew daily, if not hourly. This is what Judas failed to do with sad consequences for how his life ended in tragic suicide (Acts 1:16-20). Don’t betray the Saviour to such an extent that someone else has to be found to take your forfeited place.
CLUE NUMBER FOUR.
The intricacies of Greek grammar and tenses don't usually excite most Christians, but just once in a while, insights are provided by the original language that help us to see things more clearly. Such is the case with the New American Standard Bible translation of John 18:2a. (For those who like to know these things, the Greek original is a present active participle.) Put simply, it speaks of a continuous, repeated action. “Judas, who was betraying Him” is the more accurately translated phrase.
The culmination of the betrayal may have been in the Garden of Gethsemane, but the process had been going on for some time. No one ever betrays Christ in an instant. It is a long time in the brewing before it reaches the sorry climax. Betrayal is a process, never a single act. Judas had been building up to this for a long time. Anything good and real in his initial following of Christ was twisted into a betrayal process that brought him to the inevitable point of no return.
Any breakdown in following Jesus wholeheartedly does not happen overnight. It is never a spur-of-the moment decision but an increasingly downward spiral beginning with attitudes, leading to decisions, resulting in actions. No one can betray Jesus like a disciple can. Keep the old couplet in mind:
“Still, as of old, men by themselves are priced;
For thirty silver pieces Judas sold himself, not Christ”.
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