Judas: Omen for the Last Days

Normally I would continue in my study of the Torah, since that is what I said I was going to do for the next several months, but this past week, the Lord has given me a word that I want to share because it affects the way we look at the society we live in today.

In many of today's churches, when we hear sermons from the Bible at all, we hear sermons on "good" figures, such as Peter, or David, or St. Paul--and we hear, in my experience, something like this: "Peter was a godly man, but he was not perfect. He was saved. In like manner, you and I are godly men (and women), but we are not perfect. We are instead saved."

This is small comfort to me, ladies and gentlemen. In a nation where 80% of respondents to recent surveys said they believed in an afterlife--and even believe in God--but 60% of Christian (that's right, Christian) marriages end in divorce, I find sermons like the one above, so commonly heard in our congregations today, to be not only foolish but even, in a culture that prizes Playstations, Nikes, and Magnavox DVD players over spirituality, enabling.

No, I think it is far more instructive--and timely--for our pew warmers to listen to an example from the Bible that isn't so pretty, and from a life that isn't very often preached about these days. The example I'm referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the example of Judas Iscariot. Yes, that's right--the "evil" disciple, the one who betrayed Jesus, that is the Judas I will be talking about at great length in this post. What is so compelling about this man, you may ask, that I would devote an entire (lengthy) post to his life?

Let me answer that question by outlining first what we know about this man from the New Testament accounts:

1. We know that Judas was one of the twelve disciples, one of Jesus' inner circle (Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:19, Luke 6:16, and John 6:71).

2. We know that his father's name was Simon, and that "Iscariot" was a family name (John 6:71).

3. We know that Judas was greedy, to the extent that he would help himself to the disciples' common treasury when it suited him (John 12:6).

4. We know that Jesus sharply rebuked Judas for his attachment to money and things (John 12:1-8, corroborated in Matthew 26:8-13), and that immediately after that, Judas went to the chief priests of Judea with the intent to betray Jesus to them (Matthew 26:14).

5. We know that Judas asked the chief priests what they would pay him to betray Jesus, and they offered him thirty silver coins (Matthew 26:15), which he accepted (Matthew 26:15).

6. We know that even though the Holy Spirit had informed Jesus of the identity of his betrayer, and even though Jesus demonstrated this beyond doubt at the disciples' feast of Unleavened Bread (otherwise known as the Passover), Judas still attempted to claim innocence (Matthew 26:25).

7. We also know that even as Judas' act of betrayal reached its fruition, he still attempted to put on a show of innocence by kissing Jesus and calling him "rabbi" (Matthew 26:49, Mark 14:45, and Luke 22:47), and that Jesus, incredulous, said, "Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" (Luke 22:48).

8. We know that Judas was so stricken by what he was willing to do for thirty pieces of silver, even though he had been under the direct tutelage of the Lord for 3 years, that he committed suicide (Matthew 27:3-5).

9. Finally--and this is important, ladies and gentlemen--we know that at the moment that Judas got up from the feast of Unleavened Bread to betray Jesus, the motivating factor in his actions was that "Satan entered him" (Luke 22:3, corroborated in John 13:2).



We live in a land where people betray each other for money every day--some for millions of dollars, and others for twenty, but the principal is the same--and there are spiritual forces at work in this nation that would seek to reduce every man, woman, and child to a mere "consumer," an animal that pampers its own fleshly desires at the expense of not only its brethren but at the cost of everything good and noble.

We live in a land where the prevailing wisdom is "the Bible is boring, but my TiVo is more than I will ever need."

We live in a land where men who claim the passion of service as ministers of Christ to a lonely, hurting people are caught surfing the internet looking for porn, or embezzling money, or investing in questionable business ventures with equally questionable partners.

We live in a land where the words "abortion" and "divorce" and "adultery" are greeted, not with horror, but as a normal facet of everyday life, and we live in a land where "the home" is a place people run away from more often than they cherish it.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this land is a very sad land, and it is the one we live in--but I am not speaking today of America, or at least not the secular America of politics, public schools, and corporate-military power. No, I am speaking of the American church.

That's right. You and me--or at least those of us who profess to be Christians--we are the Judases.

You see, Judas was a disciple, just like Peter and John and James. He volunteered to live under the direct teaching of Christ Jesus himself, and continued to live under the Lord's guidance for 3 years. He was every bit as much a "Christian" (in the sense of being associated with Christ) as the other eleven were--but there was a difference:

Judas' number one priority was not Christ.

I want you to let that sink in for a moment.

There are a lot of you out there (I know because I was one of you not so long ago) who go to church regularly, listen to Christian radio, and play Christian music in your homes. You have family Bibles, you buy all the "right" devotionals, and you keep your television glued to "spiritual" programming (either the local TBN station or programs such as "Touched by an Angel" on other networks). You're against abortion, you vote Republican, and you accompany the thunderous statements of men such as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson with enthusiastic applause and "amen"'s . . .

Inside, though, you don't have Christ in your heart as your number one priority. The Jesus who said "heal the sick" and "feed my lambs" is not on your radar, and when you hear the Holy Spirit saying to you, "You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me," just as Jesus said to Judas 2000 years ago in defense of the woman who poured a jar of perfume over his head worth a year's wages (John 12:8), you find yourself chafing at Jesus' apparent lack of concern for material things every bit as much as Judas did.

My heart grieves for you, my friend.

You see, we don't live in this world as residents and citizens but as strangers and aliens. The fundamental truth of the Christian walk in this world is that in Christ, our hope lies elsewhere--a future more bright, more hopeful, and more real than anything this ridiculous excuse for a world has to offer. Jesus himself even said that this world, as we know it, is passing away (Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33).

This world, and may I say it, this nation we call the United States, has no future. It will go the way of the dodo and probably before you and I expect it to . . . so, my friend, just what are you holding on to?

Do you think your retirement pension is going to help you? Ladies and gentlemen, you and I already know that most major corporations in the United States have found a way around allowing longtime employees to collect their pensions. It's called outsourcing, and companies all over the United States are using this concept to lay off men and women who have worked for them for 20 or 30 years in favor of "cheaper" labor overseas.

Do you think the welfare system is going to help you? It is well-known that the current entitlement spending system, coupled with the current crisis caused by millions of baby boomers all retiring at once, is going to go belly up in 10-15 years. And personally, I'm not going to put my trust in the warm feelings and goodwill of a bunch of overpaid politicians and staff members in Washington D.C. to make sure that I get a social security check 40 years from now.

Do you think that the next generation is going to help you? Ladies and gentlemen, over the past 10-15 years, I have gotten a good look at what is coming out of our public schools, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist, in my opinion, to figure out that given the popularity of a teen and college culture that prizes hard drinking, partying, and illicit sex over responsibility and concern for others, we are going to have a real leadership vacuum in this country in 15-20 years. A nation in which a presidential candidate is rudely caricatured in a striptease video made by college chums for the sole purpose of airing fraternity-style jocularity on the internet is a nation that should fear for the integrity of its future leaders, to say nothing of its own future.

Maybe I'm coming on a little strong in this post, maybe you're sitting at your computer thinking "this guy is over the top, and a fanatic," but the point I'm making is very simple: You can't count on the material prosperity of this world.

Our nation is not invincible. Other nations have risen and fallen before us. Even Rome, that great empire whose remnants continued to exist for almost 1500 years after Christ's resurrection, is no longer with us.

Are you going to trust in the wealth of a world in which nothing is held to be lasting or permanent, or are you going to trust in the Lord, Christ Jesus?

We are all Judases, my friend, but we don't have to end up the same way Judas did. Jesus loved Judas just as much as he loved Peter and John and James, and he was trying to reach him, even at the Last Supper.

Are you going to listen?