"Woe to that man"
The Scripture reading this morning will be from Mark 14:10-21
10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Him to them. 11 And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. So, he sought how he might conveniently betray Him.
12 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, “Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?”
13 And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him.14 Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”’ 15 Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared; there make ready for us.”
16 So His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Passover.
17 In the evening He came with the twelve. 18 Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me.”
19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, “Is it I?” And another said, “Is it I?”
20 He answered and said to them, “It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. 21 The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.”
One of the most tragic stories in all the Scripture is the story of Judas Iscariot. Not only does the Bible say it would have been good if he were never born, the Bible says he was a devil from the beginning! He is called the Son of Perdition, which basically means “child of hell”, Acts 1:25 says “He went to his own place” which seems to imply that not only did Judas go to hell, his hell, his punishment will be far worse.
What was his crime? You say “He rejected and betrayed Jesus which led to His crucifixion.” Do you remember what Jesus said those who crucified Him? Father forgive them for they know not what they do. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
When somebody does something wrong you tend to give them a break if they don’t understand all the implications. Not only that I think by nature we look for excuses for bad behavior – “well take it easy on that person, they don’t really know any better – or he’s young, cut him some slack, she’s been through a lot don’t be too hard on her”. We often look for reasons to be merciful and that’s not necessarily a bad thing depending on the motivation but let me say this: its one thing to sin in ignorance, its another to sin willfully. Its one thing to reject Jesus in ignorance, its another to do it knowingly & willfully.
I realize there may be some here who wonder “can a person really reject Jesus and claim ignorance?” Certainly, nobody will be saved out of ignorance but Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 2 that the rulers of his age were ignorant and Paul would know something about that because in 1 Timothy 1:13 although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
I believe Judas knew full well that Jesus was the Christ but he betrayed him anyways. Not only that I believe there are many people today who walk away from the faith being fully convinced that the Bible is true but they do it anyway. There is no tragedy greater than this and I also believe that the Bible teaches there is reserved no greater punishment than for those who knowingly reject Christ in a willful manner. Jesus said “To whom much is given much is required!”
Hebrews 10:23-29 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
I consider this one of the most frightening passages of Scripture - one of the reasons being it is not talking about the lost who have never heard the Gospel, it is talking about those who have heard it, those who were part of the church assembly and yet they walked away and trampled the Son of God underfoot.
This is speaking first and foremost of those Jews who were convinced of the Gospel yet they still turned away (many went back and put themselves back under the law – back under condemnation) but this passage is also addressing all those who do not keep the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is it called when a person falls away from faith? The term is Apostasy! A person who turns his back on the faith is an apostate – that is they no longer hold to the faith which they once professed. Another important term is the term Reprobate. A reprobate is one who does not want God in his thinking, he knows that God exist but he has made a willful choice to reject his creator therefore God has given him over to sin and destruction.
How does a person get to that point? How did Judas get to that point? Set aside for a moment the fact that we know he was a devil from the beginning. It looked like Judas was off to a good start. Jesus chose him to be an apostle, Judas agreed, he left behind all he had to follow Christ. Jesus commanded Judas along with the others to go out and preach, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons! I don’t know if Judas was able to do all those things but at least on the surface it appears he was. Anybody who knew him would have viewed him as a committed disciple.
Can you think of people who you once considered committed disciples of Christ but now they have chosen to live a life of sin? Can you think of people who were once devout members of the church but now they wouldn’t even consider stepping through the front doors? The question is are they backslidden or are they apostates? There is a difference! Are they just going through a season of sin or were they unsaved from the start? The fact of the matter is most of the time we really don’t know for sure. Some of them might come back! Some of them may be restored to fellowship – YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT GOD WILL DO! We don’t know what tomorrow will bring and that’s why we shouldn’t give up on anybody.
Believe it or not there was a time when every single person here was unsaved. Obviously not all at once but there was a time when you were unsaved. Would anybody dare to say “Nope, not me, I was saved from the womb!” I don’t think so!
There may be several who were saved at a very young age and that’s all that you have ever known. There are some here who were saved later on in life and remember full well what you were saved from. And there are also some who know what it’s like to backslide, maybe for a good long time but the thing with backsliders is they tend to come back, they backslide for a time but they eventually get right with God.
So there are the saved and the unsaved, the apostates and the backsliders. Then there are the backsliders who repent and the backsliders who don’t. This leads us to the book of 1 John 5: 14-17 where we read about the “sin unto death” and I believe this addresses those backsliders who refuse to get right with God.
1 John 5:14-17 (KJV) And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
The context is one of prayer and John says there is a sin that leads to death and sin that does not lead to death. He doesn’t give us any more details on what that sin is that leads to death but I don’t think we should assume that it is any one thing in particular – in fact it might be different for everybody.
Our Roman Catholic friends might like to tell us this is the difference between venial sin and moral sin. They will say you can commit venial sin and although its wrong, it’s not all that serious. If you die in a state of venial sin you can still go to heaven (you might have to spend some extra time in purgatory but its not enough to send you to hell). Mortal sin they say is unto death, that is Spiritual Death and if you live a good life for 80 years it doesn’t matter because just 1 mortal sin can cast you into hell forever! That is unless you jump through all the hoops you need to jump through in order to be forgiven.
We reject that idea %100! First of all, I don’t believe such a distinction is ever made in the Scripture, second when John is speaking of death here he seems to be referring to physical death (NOT spiritual death) and third he says we should pray about a brother in sin but not pray about one who is committing sin leading to death, why? Because God is not going to hear you!
When Catholics commit so called “mortal sin” they go to confession, they receive penance, they say their prayers, they take communion and they are forgiven – so obviously mortal sin (according to them) can be forgiven so how could that be the sin unto death? Of course we believe all sin is mortal sin because any sin can separate us from God but we believe what the Bible teaches that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus – that is there is no eternal condemnation, you have been made alive by the Spirit of God, you are forever a child of God BUT there is certainly punishment in this life.
We typically call this “chastisement”. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:6 “For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”
To make a long story short I believe what John is saying is that God will only allow a person to backslide so long, he will only let them stray so far and if you go over the line (if you commit the sin unto death) God will take you out of the world early. You may go to heaven but you will lose your life, you will lose your testimony and most likely you will lose any and all rewards. Somebody might say “God doesn’t just strike people down dead, at least He wouldn’t ever do that to believers”. Turn to Acts 5: 1-11 - - - -
What do we learn from this? Don’t lie to your pastor! LOL! There is no reason to think that Ananias and Sapphira were unsaved - This all teaches us that God will not be mocked and we need to take sin seriously. Now back to Judas - Hopefully we all see the difference between backsliding and apostasy. The backslider is saved but he will receive punishment in this life (maybe even an early death) but the apostate was never saved to begin with. Both may leave the church but they do not end up in the same place.
There is no reason to believe that Ananias and Sapphira are not in heaven – Judas however isn’t! Of course, it’s important to stress that NOBODY EVER LOOSES THEIR SALVATION! It may look like that to the human eye but that is not what happens.
Many people will be die lost, and some of them will be ignorant to some extent, in that they have never known the full truth of the Gospel. Everyone knows there is a God, everyone of sound mind knows right and wrong, those who reject God will be lost but the greatest punishment is reserved for those who know the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and still they reject it.
Judas was one of those individuals. He saw the healings, he saw the miracles, he heard the preaching, he even preached himself and yet he turned his back on the Lord and trampled the Son of God underfoot.
The thing that frightens me most is that so many have heard the truth - it seems that so many have accepted the truth (at least on the surface it appears that way) and yet they depart from it! At the last supper when Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him, they don’t all look to Judas, instead they say “Lord, is it I?” You may say to yourself “I would never betray the Lord, or I would never walk away from the faith!” And I trust you wouldn’t but we know that many do! The Bible says - Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall!
As important as it is to call upon people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ it is also extremely important that we exhort one another to keep the faith! Mark 14:17-21 In the evening He came with the twelve. 18 Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me.” And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, “Is it I?” And another said, “Is it I?” He answered and said to them, “It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. 21 The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.”
