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Our Gospel reading is from the Gospel of John chapter 13 verses 21 through 30. John 13, 21 through 30, and this is God's Word. After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at the table at Jesus' side. So Simon Peter meant motion to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it. So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now no one at the table knew why he was telling this to him. Some thought that because Jesus had the money bag, Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel of bread, he went out immediately, and it was night. Let's pray. Father, in heaven, as we come to consider your word this morning, we pray that you would open our hearts and minds, that you would help us understand. Bless us, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. This is one of the most sobering passages in scripture. In it we see one of the apostles. Yes, Judas was an apostle. Not just turn away from Jesus. Not just leave, but turn against Jesus. Judas Iscariot had spent three years with the Son of God. He had been close to Him. He had seen all the miracles. The feeding of 5,000 and the feeding of 4,000, the turning water into wine. He had seen Him heal blind and lame and sick and lepers. He had even seen Him bring Lazarus back from the dead. He was there when Jesus turned water into wine. He saw Him walk on water and still the wind and the waves with the Word. He was sent out with the other apostles to preach the gospel and heal the sick. We see that in Matthew chapter 10. It said, He called His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal every disease and affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these. Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus, Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You receive without paying, give without pay. Acquire no silver or gold or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, no tunics or sandals or staff for the laborer who deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it. And stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone does not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Judas Iscariot was one of these. He was one of the apostles. Listening to Sinclair Ferguson talk about this, he said that preaching on this one time, he was meeting people at the back of the church, and one lady came up and had a very stern look on her face, and she said, Judas was not an apostle. And he was trying to think of a gentle way to answer her. And he said, well, the gospels say that he was an apostle. And they do. So what can we learn from this? Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve men in all the world, chosen by the Son of God, to take the gospel to Israel. And still, with all that teaching, with all that training, with all that privilege and trust given by Jesus, Judas betrayed him. What can we learn from this? What can we apply to our lives? Well, there are several things. The first is that we cannot equate position with possession. We can't equate position in the church, whatever it may be, with possession of the grace of God through Jesus Christ's gospel. A lot of times we think if someone has a position, an elder, a minister, a Bible teacher, a deacon, that must mean that they possess saving grace from God through Jesus. But Judas had the privilege of being chosen for one of the greatest positions anyone in the history of the world has ever had an apostle of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And still, he did not have saving faith. So you cannot equate position with possession. Maybe you've read or heard about people who have been in positions in churches, and then they completely abandon the faith. I know one person who in the PCA helped plant a church, he was the lead pastor planted a church in California, and it grew, became quite large for a PCA church in California. But then he found out his son was militantly gay, and he changed all of his theology so that his son could fit. And the church went down to about a third of its size. Judas had the privilege of being chosen for one of the greatest positions in the history of the church as an apostle, and he still did not have saving faith. Another thing we can learn is that we can't equate gifts with salvation. There are people who display great gifts. They can teach, or they can preach, or they can give, they can serve, and they do it so well that we think they must be spiritual people, who know Christ and are in possession of his grace and are filled with the Holy Spirit. And it very well could be that's the case. It usually is, probably. But here we have Judas possessing, at least in some measure, gifting directly from Jesus to do things that we could hardly imagine doing ourselves. Healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons. He gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and heal every disease and every affliction, and Judas could do that, and presumably he did. Remember, the other apostles didn't have suspicions, or at least it's not recorded, that they had suspicions about Judas. Now don't you think if Judas was the only one who couldn't do these things, who couldn't heal the sick or cast out demons, that the other apostles would have noticed? I mean, no one's saying, did you hear about Jesus? He couldn't heal anyone. Or anything. Not even a cold. Something's not right here. Or did you hear when Judas tried to cast out an unclean spirit, the demon actually laughed at him? See, none of that happened. If Judas was not keeping up with the others, if he was not doing the things that the other apostles were doing, that when they were ministering to people and healing people and casting out demons and raising the dead and healing the sick, if he wasn't able to do those things, they would be suspicious. They would be murmuring. They would be thinking, why did Jesus pick this guy? He's going to need to replace him with someone who can keep up. There was none of that. Now we don't need to be suspicious necessarily of people who are gifted, that's not the point. But it is not a guarantee of saving faith in the person that you should be most concerned about in this regard as yourself. Don't think, because you have gifts or even impressive ones, that it equals saving grace. Now another thing that we can learn from Judas is that right doctrine doesn't equal salvation. Believe me, correct doctrine is important. Good theology is vital for a Christian. But has anyone ever had a better teacher for three solid years than Judas had in Jesus? Judas had Jesus as his teacher, his elder, his shepherd. Whatever Jesus taught was correct, of course, without error inspired. It's from God the Father. So the apostles had access to the greatest theologian ever for three years. They could listen to his teaching. They could even ask questions, make sure they understood. Do you remember when he told a parable, say, the one of the seed falling on the ground. Fell on the rocky path and the birds came and ate it up. Fell in the, I'm sorry, fell on the hard path, the birds ate it up. Fell on the rocky path, it grew up a little bit, but then died. Fell in the weeds and it came up for a while, but then it was taken away. It finally fell in the good soil in 30, 60, 100 fold. And the disciples came and asked what it meant and he explained it to them. And he did that a lot. And of course there are things John tells us at the end of his gospel that aren't included in the gospels, where these conversations took place and Jesus prayed with them and they had firsthand knowledge of the greatest human that ever was. The best teacher that anyone ever had. The most solid theology that anyone's ever learned. And yet, Judas had all of these things and he still betrayed Jesus. Now some of you know your theology inside out. You put some ministers to shame. I've talked to you. And that's a good thing. Don't be confused. It's a good thing to know your theology and to know it well, but it doesn't save you. And really, that's my concern for our church and our denomination. We put a lot of stock in our theology. We believe we have the best theology. I do too. But my concern is we can be people who trust in that and we have never met Jesus. You can know a lot of theology. You can know a lot of doctrine. You can know a lot of the Bible and still be lost. Judas had it as well as any of the disciples and still he betrayed him. Another thing we can learn from this passage is that sin is betrayal. It's a personal betrayal. And whoever the sin is against, it hurts that person. In verse 21, after these things, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, Truly, I truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. Jesus knew Judas would betray him. And it troubled him in the spirit because sin is betrayal of God. Sin is rebellion against God. When you sin against somebody, it hurts them. If you lie or steal or slander somebody, the person you sin against is harmed. And the closer you are to someone, when you sin against them, the more it hurts. The closer you are, the more it hurts. So if it's a stranger and they steal, you don't like it, you could be angry, but you don't feel betrayed necessarily. But if it's somebody in your own family, especially somebody you loved and were close to and you thought they loved and were close to you, and they take something from you, they steal something from you, it just is heart wrenching. It's betrayal. And that's what Jesus was feeling. He was troubled in his spirit. And what we have to understand about sin is that it's personal. It's against God. It's against God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When we sin against somebody, it's personal. When we sin against God, it's personal. It's personal betrayal. I want you to notice the progression of sin. Earlier it says that Satan had put it in Judah's heart to betray Jesus. But here, here, it says Satan entered him. Now whatever that means, it's different. It's different than he put it in his heart and he entered him. But the best I can tell from the studying that I've done, to put it in somebody's heart is to try to influence them towards sin. But when Satan entered Judas, it was a done deal. There was no turning back. And that's the progression of sin. Verse 25, so that disciple leaning back against Jesus said, Lord, who is it? Now Peter motioned to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was sitting next to Jesus. He motioned, he asked him, who is it? It was probably a whisper. And then John leans in and whispers to Jesus, who is it? Jesus answers, the person I give this morsel to. After I dipped it in, when he did, he gave it to Jesus, the son, or Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said, what you do, do quickly. This is a cosmic drama. Satan and the son of God are face to face. Satan and the son of God are face to face. The angel who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven and has been waging war with him for centuries, since the garden of before even, but on earth since the garden of Eden. When he said to Eve, you will not die. Satan has been waging war against God by waging war against us, made in God's image from the garden of Eden until now, and he thinks he's winning. He thinks he's winning. He thinks he's winning. This cosmic battle has come to a head, and Satan thinks he's winning. Jesus will be crucified fairly shortly. Satan will think he's won, but he didn't. Romans 5 says, while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. So what do we do? If you think you're a Christian, and you've been nursing a sin, a particular sin that you're fond of, that has a hold of you, that you don't want to give up. It could be anything. It could be selfishness. It could be pornography. It could be cheating on your taxes. It could be a lot of things. But if there is a sin that you've been nursing, that you've been saying, well this one doesn't matter, I can get away with this, this won't hurt me, it will kill you. Unless you repent. And you can. That's the beautiful thing about the Gospel. That's the beautiful thing about the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If you repent and give yourself to Jesus, if you repent and cast yourself on his mercy, you will be saved. The Old Testament example of David. David and Bathsheba is so appropriate here. I mean, here is David, the king of all Israel, the man after God's own heart, and he was at the pinnacle of Israel. He was the king. And yet, he sinned against Uriah, who was his friend, by taking Uriah's wife, and then to cover up the sin, he had Uriah killed. I mean, who would have ever thought that David would do such a thing? But you see, he nursed this particular sin. He fed it. And that's what Judas did. When Satan put it into his mind to betray Jesus, he could have. He could have said, no, I will not do that. I cast myself on the mercy of my Lord. I ask for his forgiveness. Please, Lord. But he didn't. And he nursed it and justified it. And at some point, it was too late. But if you repent, if you turn from your sin, and you give yourself to Christ, they'll be more joy in heaven. Jesus, in telling the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son, says, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Do you need to repent? Do you need to turn from a sin that you've been harboring? Today's the day. Now is the time. Don't delay. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you that you gave yourself for us. You took our sin upon yourself. That we could receive your grace freely. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please stand. Thank you, Lord. Oh, the wonderful cross, this meek of the night, find that I may truly live. Oh, the wonderful cross, oh, the wonderful cross, all who gather here, and grace join here, and bless your name. Bless your name.