-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Welcome to KJV Cafe. Good to be here today.
00:43 What a wonderful day, a wonderful week. Thank you so much for joining me here today. We’re so blessed to be here today to get into God’s Word and to study God’s Word.
00:51 You know, the Bible tells us to study God’s Word, to study the Word to show ourselves approved and that a workman needeth not being ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.
01:01 I’m paraphrasing a little bit because I have the verse in front of me, but we are to study God’s Word. And as we get into God’s Word, we learn really, really beautiful insights.
01:09 And one thing is I was studying in the book of John last week and we were on vacation and I was reading the book of John chapter 6.
01:18 And John 6 always stands out to me because there’s a verse in John chapter 6 verse 66 about how many people didn’t walk with Jesus anymore once they realized that following Jesus was more than miracles and it was more than being fed by him earthly blessings,
01:36 but that there was actual cost that came along with it. And what Jesus was asking them to do was very hard for them to understand, to eat of his flesh and to drink of his blood. Amen.
01:50 And many walked with him no more. That’s John 6:66. But if you go a little further down there, our text verse John 6:70-71, Jesus answered them, have not I chosen you the twelve and one of you is a devil?
02:03 He spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he that should betray him being one of the twelve.
02:10 And so John 6:70-71, Jesus is speaking to the disciples and he says, have I not chosen you the twelve, the twelve disciples, and one of you is a devil?
02:22 Well, when I read that, I started thinking, you know, Jesus is showing his foreknowledge. Of course, he’s God. He’s sovereign.
02:29 We should know this. Amen. But he was showing his foreknowledge there that he knew one of them was a devil.
02:35 And it says that he chose one of those people. And I’m kind of perplexed. I’m thinking, why would you choose a devil to be on your inner circle, to be the one of the twelve that you trust? And if you think about this, Jesus’ ministry, as we know, is three years.
02:51 And so Judas was part of this ministry for three years. I mean, think about it. If God knows everything, the hearts of everyone, why he, you know, he knows the hearts of everyone, why would he choose Judas Iscariot as a disciple?
03:06 Why let the betrayer into his inner circle? You know, God’s ways are beyond comprehension.
03:13 His plan is so poetic and effective, yet so unusual and awe-inspiring. Who else could take a wicked man and have him centrally involved in the salvation plan for all mankind, and yet not leave that wicked man to not go unpunished?
03:28 Because certainly Judas Iscariot, if you know the story, hung himself on a tree. He wouldn’t even take the blood money he was given.
03:36 He certainly was punished. He was humiliated. The devil used him for a purpose, and the devil got rid of him.
03:42 And that’s what happens. The wages of sin is death. And we see this perfectly illustrated in the life of Judas Iscariot.
03:47 But why? Why would God do that? That’s the question I want to answer here, and we’re not going to get into it in one episode.
03:54 It’ll be a several-part series, but let’s look at this. And let’s start with, who was Judas Iscariot? Who was he? So he was one of the Twelve Disciples.
04:03 He was in charge of the treasury. This is the treasury he would later steal from. He was called a thief, amen. And he was one of the Twelve Disciples.
04:12 And by the way, isn’t that funny that Judas Iscariot’s in charge of the treasury? Does that show you maybe God’s point of view on money?
04:22 If you had somebody in your church that you knew was a devil, would you put them in charge of the money? No. Oftentimes the treasure is one you can trust. You can trust the most.
04:32 One that you would think wouldn’t do anything wrong. And so it’s really fascinating there. He lived and followed Jesus three years, for as far as we know.
04:40 There were other important men named Judas in the Bible. Jesus’ half-brother was named Judas. Another disciple was named Judas.
04:46 That’s why we get Judas Iscariot pronounced or mentioned as the son of Simon. And it’s oftentimes mentioned, the betrayer, Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
04:54 And that delineates or helps us understand who exactly this individual is, compared to the other Judas’s in the Bible.
05:08 And Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, was paid 30 silver coins or 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. That’s from Matthew 26:13-15. All the facts I’m giving you are from the Bible.
05:20 Amen. He was not saved as indicated in John 13:10-11. The Lord gives us in his word the fact that Judas Iscariot was not saved so we can understand that.
05:29 He was empowered by Satan to betray Jesus. That’s John 13:27. Satan literally enters him there before he goes and acts on his betrayal.
05:40 He betrayed Jesus with a kiss. I mean, is there a worse way to betray someone? I don’t kiss a lot of people, amen. I promise you that by the Lord’s watching over me.
05:53 But I kiss the ones I love. I kiss my kids. I kiss my wife, amen.
05:58 And so what a worse way to betray someone than with a kiss. And he did not repent. So he was remorseful.
06:05 He gave the silver back and he went and hung himself. But he didn’t repent. And that’s Matthew 27:3-5. And so we see that we can have remorse and still be very guilty in the Lord’s eyes.
06:14 And so Judas Iscariot’s this very interesting character, amen. He helps fulfill a lot of prophecy in the Bible.Psalm 41:9. Yea, my own familiar friend in whom I trusted which did eat of my bread and hath lifted up his heel against me.
06:33 And after the blood money was returned to the chief priests, they bought a potter’s field. So we see here in Psalm 41:9 that it’s mentioned this person that ate of the bread. We know Judas ate of the bread and he was lifted up his heel against the Lord.
06:44 And we also see in Zechariah 11:12-13, another prophecy. Because Psalm was the Old Testament. Here’s Zechariah, the Old Testament.
06:52 And I said unto them, if ye think good, give me my price, and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price 30 pieces of silver.
06:59 And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter a goodly price that I was priced at of them.
07:05 And I took the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. And so Zechariah 11:12-13 is also prophecy. And both of these things, what are they? They’re future history.
07:16 They’re things that are going to happen, that are being predicted in God’s Word, so that we understand when we read it, that God is real, that His Word is real, and that there is foreknowledge there. Amen. There’s foreknowledge there.
07:27 Let’s see here. Acts 1:18-19. And now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity.
07:36 And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers of Jerusalem, insomuch as the field is called in their proper tongue Akledama, that is to say the field of blood. And that’s from Acts 1 18 through 19.
07:49 And you can look up Akledama. Sometimes it’s A-C-E-L-D-A-M-A, as the King James, but sometimes it’s with a K, A-K, on and on. And that field still exists today.
08:07 You can still go to that area and see it. Amen. And it’s pretty creepy.
08:13 There is a Greek monastery memorializing where they believe it happened. And so it’s almost like a place you can visit, like a trail you can walk. And here it is still known as the field of blood.
08:24 And so what we see here is that Judas was a well versed character person, real-life person, in the Bible. This wasn’t someone that was just put in for this one instance, and that’s it. This is someone that we can learn a lot about.
08:45 Again, all of these facts, these 7, 8, 9, 10 facts, they’re all from the Bible. Amen. And we’re given a lot of information about him.
08:52 And we understand that this is the individual that betrayed Jesus. And it still begs the question, why? Let’s look a little bit deeper at who he was, and who the Bible speaks of him as. A devil, right?
09:05 Is that not part of our text verse, that Judas was a devil? Our text verse, John 6:70 -71, Jesus answered them, have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? 71 clarifies, he spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.
09:27 And so we see that he’s called a devil. Is there a worse remark to make of someone? Did Judas know who he really was? Did Judas know who he was inside? I don’t know. Did Jesus know who Judas was? Of course he did.
09:44 And I think it’s something we need to spend a minute on. You know, Jesus knew who Judas was, and Jesus still gave Judas every opportunity to repent, every opportunity to be saved. Amen.
09:55 Can you imagine following the living God for three years on earth, and seeing the miracles, seeing all of these things? Just read John 6. It goes through many things that Jesus was doing, feeding 5,000 with barley loaves and fish, almost nothing, healing many people, seeing if Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, was involved in the treasury,
10:20 he probably was able to see, as those in the ministry see, that oftentimes just enough money comes in to pay for whatever we need. And that oftentimes leads us to praise God for meeting our need, and that is one way the Lord works. I believe it.
10:33 I’ve seen it many times. I’ve heard many testimonies, and I’ve been there many times in the ministry where I’ve had a need, and I’ve just had just enough to meet the need,
10:47 and I say, oh, thank you, Lord, especially when there’s times when we don’t know how we’re gonna do it. Well, Judas Iscariot saw that, and through all of that, his heart was still cold.
10:52 He was still not saved, amen. He was still not born again. And so you need to think today, do you know that the Lord knows who you really are, or are you convinced that you have the Lord fooled? The idea would be like playing church.
11:07 You go to church, maybe you sing in the choir, you teach Sunday school, but inwardly you’re living a life of sin. You must repent, get right with God, because he knows. It’s not like he doesn’t know.
11:19 He spoke. Jesus Christ said, I chose you twelve. I picked you twelve, and isn’t one of you a devil? He knows.
11:26 Jesus knew that one was a devil, and he knew it from the start, which again begs the question, why did he do it? And to give the end from the beginning a little bit, he did it because he died for our salvation, and we needed a way for the sacrifice to come,
11:42 and that was the way that the Lord chose was to be betrayed by one of his inner circle. And you can really go deep into that, looking at, oh man, what we do each day when we maybe would turn away from the Lord, and how we say we love the Lord as Judas did,
12:01 or we give a kiss to the Lord, right? We have instructions for the Lord’s Supper that I had researched years ago, and I repeat them as we go through the Lord’s Supper,
12:09 and it says that one of them in his adoration to bespeck, to give the Lord a kiss, is basically what the translation was of one of the instructions of us meditating on what the Lord did for us at Calvary, and did Judas not do that? And yet Judas wasn’t saved,
12:24 yet Judas was a betrayer, betrayed the Lord himself, Jesus Christ, for 30 pieces of silver. And I’m not a mathematician, I don’t know the exchange rate, I used to do that some would look up,
12:35 well what is it worth today, the gold or the silver or so forth, but I do understand that that’s not a lot, that’s not a lot.
12:40 And so the Lord is teaching us that he was betrayed for not a lot, and oftentimes many people will fall out into sin for stupid stuff, that they’ll fall into sin and betray the Lord for nothing,
12:53 for nothing good, for nothing of value, it’s a joke, and it’s sad, and yet so many people fall into this trap, and we need to realize that the way that the Lord planned this, he gave us a learning, he gave us a lesson from John chapter 6, and from the crucifixion story,
13:12 the Passion on the cross, he gave us salvation, and he gave us a way to understand the human nature, amen, to understand our need for Christ. And the question,
13:30 I’ll leave you with this as we wrap up the first episode here, the question I asked the congregation, could a saved person do this to Christ? Could a saved person have betrayed Christ?
13:34 Clearly I don’t think a saved person could, because they have the Holy Spirit living within them, and the Holy Spirit always lifts up and points to Jesus Christ, and would be never wanting to betray, amen,
13:45 and now we’re not perfect with the Holy Spirit living within us, because we’re still in the flesh, but I don’t believe a saved person could betray the Lord. Maybe you think differently,
13:53 I don’t believe a saved person could betray the Lord, and so we need to turn to the Lord and be saved if we’re not, and if we are saved, we need to stop playing church and realize that Jesus Christ is alive and well, and he knows the innermost parts of our hearts and our minds.
14:08 I thank you so much for listening today. Tune in next time as we get to the second part of this series on why Jesus chose Judas.
14:11 Thank you so much, take care, God bless, and amen.