The Betrayal

The Betrayal
A Sermon
(No. 494)
Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 15th, 1863, by the
Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called
Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to
kiss him. But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss?"–Luke 22:47, 48.
WHEN SATAN HAD BEEN ENTIRELY worsted in his conflict with Christ in the
garden, the man-devil Judas came upon the scene. As the Parthian in his
flight turns round to shoot the fatal arrow, so the arch-enemy aimed
another shaft at the Redeemer, by employing the traitor into whom he
had entered. Judas became the devil's deputy, and a most trusty and
serviceable tool he was. The Evil One had taken entire possession of
the apostate's heart, and, like the swine possessed of devils, he ran
violently downwards towards destruction. Well had infernal malice
selected the Savior's trusted friend to be his treacherous betrayer,
for thus he stabbed at the very center of his broken and bleeding
heart. But, beloved, as in all things God is wiser than Satan, and the
Lord of goodness outwitteth the Prince of Evil, so, in this dastardly
betrayal of Christ, prophecy was fulfilled, and Christ was the more
surely declared to be the promised Messiah. Was not Joseph a type? and,
lo! like that envied youth, Jesus was sold by his own brethren. Was he
not to be another Samson, by whose strength the gates of hell should be
torn from their posts? lo! like Samson, he is bound by his countrymen,
and delivered to the adversary. Know ye not that he was the anti-type
of David? and was not David deserted by Ahithophel, his own familiar
friend and counsellor? Nay, brethren, do not the words of the Psalmist
receive a literal fulfillment in our Master's betrayal? What prophecy
can be more exactly true than the language of the forty-first and
fifty-fifth Psalms? In the first we read, "Yea, mine own familiar
friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up
his heel against me;" and in the fifty-fifth the Psalmist is yet more
clear; "For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have
borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself
against me; then I would have hid myself from him: but it was thou, a
man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel
together, and walked unto the house of God in company. He hath put
forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken
his covenant. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war
was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn
swords." Even an obscure passage in one of the lesser prophets, must
have a literal fulfillment, and for thirty pieces of silver, the price
of a base slave, must the Savior be betrayed by his choice friend. Ah!
thou foul fiend, thou shalt find at the last that thy wisdom is but
intensified folly; as for the deep plots and plans of thy craft, the
Lord shall laugh them to scorn; after all, thou art but the unconscious
drudge of him whom thou abhorrest; in all the black work thou doest so
greedily, thou art no better than a mean scullion in the royal kitchen
of the King of kings.
Without further preface, let us advance to the subject of our Lord's
betrayal. First, concentrate your thoughts upon Jesus, the betrayed
one; and when ye have lingered awhile there, solemnly gaze into the
villanous countenance of Judas, the betrayer–he may prove a beacon to
warn us against the sin which gendereth apostacy.
I. LET US TARRY AWHILE, AND SEE OUR LORD UNGRATEFULLY AND DASTARDLY
BETRAYED.
It is appointed that he must die, but how shall he fall into the hands
of his adversaries? Shall they capture him in conflict? It must not be,
lest he appear an unwilling victim. Shall he flee before his foes until
he can hide no longer? It is not meet that a sacrifice should be hunted
to death. Shall he offer himself to the foe? That were to excuse his
murderers, or be a party to their crime. Shall he be taken accidentally
or unawares? That would withdraw from his cup the necessary bitterness
which made it wormwood mingled with gall. No; he must be betrayed by
his friend, that he may bear the utmost depths of suffering, and that
in every separate circumstance there may be a well of grief. One reason
for the appointment of the betrayal, lay in the fact that it was
ordained that man's sin should reach its culminating point in his
death. God, the great owner of the vineyard, had sent many servants,
and the husbandmen had stoned one and cast out another; last of all, he
said, "I will send my Son; surely they will reverence my Son." When
they slew the heir to win the inheritance, their rebellion had reached
its height. The murder of our blessed Lord was the extreme of human
guilt; it developed the deadly hatred against God which lurks in the
heart of man. When man became a deicide, sin had reached its fullness;
and in the black deed of the man by whom the Lord was betrayed, that
fullness was all displayed. If it had not been for a Judas, we had not
known how black, how foul, human nature may become. I scorn the men who
try to apologize for the treachery of this devil in human form, this
son of perdition, this foul apostate. I should think myself a villain
if I tried to screen him, and I shudder for the men who dare extenuate
his crimes. My brethren, we should feel a deep detestation of this
master of infamy; he has gone to his own place, and the anathema of
David, part of which was quoted by Peter, has come upon him, "When he
shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few; and let another take his office." Surely, as the
devil was allowed unusually to torment the bodies of men, even so was
he let loose to get possession of Judas as he has seldom gained
possession of any other man, that we might see how foul, how
desperately evil is the human heart. Beyond a doubt, however, the main
reason for this was that Christ might offer a perfect atonement for
sin. We may usually read the sin in the punishment. Man betrayed his
God. Man had the custody of the royal garden, and should have kept its
green avenues sacred for communion with his God; but he betrayed the
trust; the sentinel was false; he admitted evil into his own heart, and
so into the paradise of God. He was false to the good name of the
Creator, tolerating the insinuation which he should have repelled with
scorn. Therefore must Jesus find man a traitor to him. There must be
the counterpart of the sin in the suffering which he endured. You and I
have often betrayed Christ. We have, when tempted, chosen the evil and
forsaken the good; we have taken the bribes of hell, and have not
followed closely with Jesus. It seemed most fitting, then, that he who
bore the chastisement of sin should be reminded of its ingratitude and
treachery by the things which he suffered. Besides, brethren, that cup
must be bitter to the last degree which is to be the equivalent for the
wrath of God. There must be nothing consolatory in it; pains must be
taken to pour into it all that even Divine wisdom can invent of awful
and unheard of woe, and this one point–"He that eateth bread with me
hath lifted up his heel against me," was absolutely necessary to
intensify the bitterness. Moreover, we feel persuaded that by thus
suffering at the hand of a traitor the Lord became a faithful High
Priest, able to sympathize with us when we fall under the like
affliction. Since slander and ingratitude are common calamities, we can
come to Jesus with lull assurance of faith; he knows these sore
temptations, for he has felt them in their very worst degree. We may
cast every care, and every sorrow upon him, for he careth for us,
having suffered with us. Thus, then, in our Lord's betrayal, Scripture
was fulfilled, sin was developed, atonement was completed, and the
great all-suffering High Priest became able to sympathize with us in
every point.
Now let us look at the treason itself. You perceive how black it was.
Judas was Christ's servant, what if I call him his confidential
servant. He was a partaker in apostolic ministry and the honor of
miraculous gifts. He had been most kindly and indulgently treated. He
was a sharer in all the goods of his Master, in fact he fared far
better than his Lord, for the Man of Sorrows always took the lion's
share of all the pains of poverty and the reproach of slander. He had
food and raiment given him out of the common stock, and the Master
seems to have indulged him very greatly. The old tradition is, that
next to the apostle Peter he was the one with whom the Savior most
commonly associated. We think there must be a mistake there, for surely
John was the Savior's greatest friend; but Judas, as a servant had been
treated with the utmost confidence. Ye know, brethren, how sore is that
blow which comes from a servant in whom we have put unlimited trust.
But Judas was more than this: he was a friend, a trusted friend. That
little bag into which generous women cast their small contributions had
been put into his hands, and very wisely too, for he had the financial
vein. His main virtue was economy, a very needful quality in a
treasurer. As exercising a prudent foresight for the little company,
and watching the expenses carefully, he was, as far as men could judge,
the right man in the right place. He had been thoroughly trusted. I
read not that there was any annual audit of his accounts; I do not
discover that the Master took him to task as to the expenditure of his
privy purse. Everything was given to him, and he gave, at the Master's
direction, to the poor, but no account was asked. This is vile indeed,
to be chosen to such a position, to be installed purse-bearer to the
Ring of kings, Chancellor of God's exchequer, and then to turn aside
and sell the Savior; this is treason in its uttermost degree. Remember
that the world looked upon Judas as colleague and partner with our
Lord. To a great extent the name of Judas was associated with that of
Christ. When Peter, James, or John had done anything amiss, reproachful
tongues threw it all on their Master. The twelve were part and parcel
of Jesus of Nazareth. One old commentator says of Judas–"He was
Christ's alter ego"–to the people at large there was an
indentification of each apostle with the leader of the band. And oh!
when such associations have been established, and then there is
treachery, it is as though our arm should commit treason against our
head, or as if our foot should desert the body. This was a stab indeed!
Perhaps, dear brethren, our Lord saw in the person of Judas a
representative man, the portraiture of the many thousands who in after
ages imitated his crime. Did Jesus see in Iscariot all the Judases who
betray truth, virtue, and the cross? Did he perceive the multitudes of
whom we may say, that they were, spiritually, in the loins of Judas?
Hymeneus, Alexander, Hermogenes, Philetus, Demas, and others of that
tribe, were all before him as he saw the man, his equal, his
acquaintance, bartering him away for thirty pieces of silver.
Dear friends, the position of Judas must have tended greatly to
aggravate his treason. Even the heathens have taught us that
ingratitude is the worst of vices. When Caesar was stabbed by his
friend Brutus, the world's poet writes–
"This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms,
Quite vanquish'd him; then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statua,
_________________________great Caesar fell."
Many ancient stories, both Greek and Roman, we might quote to show the
abhorrence which the heathens entertain towards ingratitude and
treachery. Certain, also, of their own poets, such, for instance, as
Sophocles, have poured out burning words upon deceitful friends; but we
have no time to prove what you will all admit, that nothing can be more
cruel, nothing more full of anguish, than to be sold to destruction by
one's bosom friend. The closer the foeman comes the deeper will be the
stab he gives; if we admit him to our heart, and give him our closest
intimacy, then can he wound us in the most vital part.
Let us notice, dear friends, while we look at the breaking heart of our
agonizing Savior, the manner in which he met this affliction. He had
been much in prayer; prayer had overcome his dreadful agitation; he was
very calm; and we need to be very calm when we are forsaken by a
friend. Observe his gentleness. The first word he spake to Judas, when
the traitor had polluted his cheek with a kiss, was this–"FRIEND!"
FRIEND!! Note that! Not "Thou hateful miscreant," but "Friend,
wherefore art thou come?" not "Wretch, wherefore dost thou dare to
stain my cheek with thy foul and lying lips?" no, "Friend, wherefore
art thou come?" Ah! if there had been anything good left in Judas, this
would have brought it out. If he had not been an unmitigated,
incorrigible, thrice-dyed traitor, his avarice must have lost its power
at that instant, and he would have cried–"My master! I came to betray
thee, but that generous word has won my soul; here, if thou must be
bound, I will be bound with thee; I make a full confession of my
infamy!" Our Lord added these words–there is reproof in them, but
notice how kind they are still, how much too good for such a
caitiff–"Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" I can
conceive that the tears gushed from his eyes, and that his voice
faltered, when he thus addressed his own familiar friend and
acquaintance–"Betrayest thou," my Judas, my treasurer, "betrayest thou
the Son of Man," thy suffering, sorrowing friend, whom thou hast seen
naked and poor, and without a place whereon to lay his head. Betrayest
thou the Son of Man–and dost thou prostitute the fondest of all
endearing signs–a kiss–that which should be a symbol of loyalty to
the King, shall it be the badge of thy treachery–that which was
reserved for affection as her best symbol–dost thou make it the
instrument of my destruction? Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a
kiss?" Oh! if he had not been given up to hardness of heart, if the
Holy Ghost had not utterly left him, surely this son of perdition would
have fallen prostrate yet again, and weeping out his very soul, would
have cried–"No, I cannot betray thee, thou suffering Son of man;
forgive, forgive; spare thyself; escape from this bloodthirsty crew,
and pardon thy treacherous disciple!" But no, no word of compunction,
while the silver is at stake! Afterwards came the sorrow that worketh
death, which drove him, like Ahithophel, his prototype, to court the
gallows to escape remorse. This, also, must have aggravated the woe of
our beloved Lord, when he saw the final impenitence of the traitor, and
read the tearful doom of that man of whom he had once said, it would be
better for him that he had never been born.
Beloved, I would have you fix your eyes on your Lord in your quiet
meditations as being thus despised and rejected of men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief; and gird up the loins of your minds,
counting it no strange thing if this fiery trial should come upon you,
but being determined that though your Lord should be betrayed by his
most eminent disciples, yet, through his grace you will cling to him in
shame and in suffering, and will follow him, if needs be, even unto
death. God give us grace to see the vision of his nailed hands and
feet, and remembering that all this came from the treachery of a
friend, let us be very jealous of ourselves, lest we crucify the Lord
afresh and put him to an open shame by betraying him in our conduct, or
in our words, or in our thoughts.
II. Grant me your attention while we make an estimate of the man by
whom the Son of man was betrayed–JUDAS THE BETRAYER.
I would call your attention, dear friends, to his position and public
character. Judas was a preacher; nay, he was a foremost preacher, "he
obtained part of this ministry," said the Apostle Peter. He was not
simply one of the seventy; he had been selected by the Lord himself as
one of the twelve, an honorable member of the college of the apostles.
Doubtless he had preached the gospel so that many had been gladdened by
his voice, and miraculous powers had been vouchsafed to him, so that at
his word the sick had been healed, deaf ears had been opened; and the
blind had been made to see; nay, there is no doubt that he who could
not keep the devil out of himself, had cast devils out of others. Yet
how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! He that
was as a prophet in the midst of the people, and spake with the tongue
of the learned, whose word and wonders proved that he had been with
Jesus and had learned of him–he betrays his Master. Understand, my
brethren, that no gifts can ensure grace, and that no position of honor
or usefulness in the Church will necessarily prove our being true to
our Lord and Master. Doubtless there are bishops in hell, and crowds of
those who once occupied the pulpit are now condemed for ever to bewail
their hyprocrisy. You that are Church-officers, do not conclude that
because you enjoy the confidence of the Church, that therefore of an
absolute certainty the grace of God is in you. Perhaps it is the most
dangerous of all positions for a man to become well known and much
respected by the religious world, and yet to be rotten at the core. To
be where others can observe our faults is a healthy thing though
painful; but to live with beloved friends who would not believe it
possible for us to do wrong, and who if they saw us err would make
excuses for us–this is to be where it is next to impossible for us
ever to be aroused if our hearts be not right with God. To have a fair
reputation and a false heart is to stand upon the brink of hell.
Judas took a very high degree officially. He had the distinguished
honor of being entrusted with the Master's financial concerns, and
this, after all, was no small degree to which to attain. The Lord, who
knows how to use all sorts of gifts, perceived what gift the man had.
He knew that Peter's unthinking impetuosity would soon empty the bag
and leave the company in great straits, and if he had entrusted it to
John, his loving spirit might have been cajoled into unwise benevolence
towards beggars of unctious tongue; he might even have spent the little
moneys in buying alabaster boxes whose precious ointments should anoint
the Master's head. He gave the bag to Judas, and it was discreetly,
prudently, and properly used; there is no doubt he was the most
judicious person, and fitted to occupy the post. But oh! dear friends,
if the Master shall choose any of us who are ministers or
Church-officers, and give us a very distinguished position; if our
place in the ranks shall be that of commanding officers, so that even
our brother ministers look up with esteem, and our fellow-elders or
deacons regard us as being fathers in Israel–oh! if we turn, if we
prove false, how damnable shall be our end at the last! What a blow
shall we give to the heart of the Church, and what derision will be
made in hell!
You will observe that the character of Judas was openly an admirable
one. I find not that he committed himself in any way. Not the slightest
speck defiled his moral character so far as others could perceive. He
was no boaster, like Peter; he was free enough from the rashness which
cries, "Though all men should forsake thee yet will not I." He asks no
place on the right hand of the throne, his ambition is of another sort.
He does not ask idle questions. The Judas who asks questions is "not
Iscariot." Thomas and Philip are often prying into deep matters, but
not Judas. He receives truth as it is taught him, and when others are
offended and walk no more with Jesus, he faithfully adheres to him,
having golden reasons for so doing. He does not indulge in the lusts of
the flesh or in the pride of life. None of the disciples suspected him
of hypocrisy; they said at the table, "Lord, is it I?" They never said,
"Lord, is it Judas?" It was true he had been filching for months, but
then he did it by littles, and covered his defalcations so well by
financial manipulations that he ran no risk of detection from the
honest unsuspecting fishermen with whom he associated. Like some
merchants and traders we have heard of–invaluable gentlemen as
chairmen of speculating companies and general managers of swindling
banks–he could abstract a decent per-centage and yet make the accounts
exactly tally. The gentlemen who have learned of Judas, manage to cook
the accounts most admirably for the shareholders, so as to get a rich
joint for their own table; over which they, no doubt, entreat the
divine blessing. Judas was, in his known life, a most admirable person.
He would have been an alderman ere long there is no doubt, and being
very pious and richly-gifted, his advent at churches or chapels would
have created intense satisfaction. "What a discreet and influential
person;" say the deacons. "Yes," replies the minister; "what an
acquisition to our councils; if we could elect him to office he would
be of eminent service to the Church." I believe that the Easter chose
him as apostle on purpose that we might not be at all surprised if we
find such a man a minister in the pulpit, or a colleague of the
minister, working as an officer in Christ's Church. These are solemn
things, my brethren; let us take them to heart, and if any of us wear a
good character among men and stand high in office, let this question
come home close to us–"Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I?" Perhaps he who
shall last ask the question is just the man who ought to have asked it
first.
But, secondly, I call your attention to his real nature and sin. Judas
was a man with a conscience. He could not afford to do without it. He
was no Sadducee who could fling religion overboard; he had strong
religious tendencies. He was no debauched person; he never spent a
two-pence in vice on his life, not that he loved vice less, but that he
loved the two-pence more. Occasionally he was generous, but then it was
with other people's money. Well did he watch his lovely charge, the
bag. He had a conscience, I say, and a ferocious conscience it was when
it once broke the chain, for it was his conscience which made him hang
himself. But then it was a conscience that did not sit regularly on the
throne; it reigned by fits and starts. Conscience was not the leading
element. Avarice predominated over conscience. He would get money, if
honestly, he liked that best, but if he could not get it
conscientiously, then anyhow in the world. He was but a small trader;
his gains were no great things, or else he would not have sold Christ
for so small a sum as that–ten pounds at the outside, of our money at
its present value–some three or four pounds, as it was in those days.
It was a poor price to take for the Master; but then a little money was
a great thing to him. He had been poor; he had joined Christ with the
idea that he would soon be proclaimed King of the Jews, and that then
he should become a nobleman, and be rich. Finding Christ a long while
in coming to his kingdom, he had taken little by little, enough to lay
by in store; and now, fearing that he was to be disappointed in all his
dreams, and never having had any care for Christ, but only for himself,
he gets out of what he thinks to have been a gross mistake in the best
way he can, and makes money by his treason against his Lord. Brethren,
I do solemnly believe, that of all hypocrites, those are the persons of
whom there is the least hope whose God is their money. You may reclaim
a drunkard; thank God, we have seen many instances of that; and even a
fallen Christian, who has given way to vice, may loathe his lust, and
return from it; but I fear me that the cases in which a man who is
cankered with covetousness has ever been saved, are so few, that they
might be written on your finger-nail. This is a sin which the world
does not rebuke; the most faithful minister can scarce smit its
forehead. God knoweth what thunders I have launched out against men who
are all for this world, and yet pretend to be Christ's followers; but
yet they always say, "I is not for me." What I should call stark naked
covetousness, they call prudence, discretion, economy, and so on; and
actions which I would scorn to spit upon, they will do, and think their
hands quite clean after they have done them, and still sit as God's
people sit, and hear as God's people hear, and think that after they
have sold Christ for paltry gain, they will go to heaven. O souls,
souls, souls, beware, beware, beware, most of all of greed! It is not
money, nor the lack of money, but the love of money which is the root
of all evil. It is not getting it; it is not even keeping it; it is
loving it; it is making it your god; it is looking at that as the main
chance, and not considering the cause of Christ, nor the truth of
Christ, nor the holy life of Christ, but being ready to sacrifice
everything for gains' sake. Oh! such men make giants in sin; they shall
be set up for ever as butts for infernal laughter; their damnation
shall be sure and just.
The third point is, the warning which Judas received, and the way in
which he persevered. Just think–the night before he sold his Master
what do you think the Master did? Why, he washed his feet! And yet he
sold him! Such condescension! Such love! Such familiarity! He took a
towel, and girded himself, and washed Judas's feet! And yet those very
feet brought Judas as a guide to them that took Jesus! And you remember
what he said when he had washed his feet–"Now ye are clean, but not
all;" and he turned a tearful eye on Judas. What a warning for him!
What could be more explicit? Then when the Supper came, and they began
to eat and drink together, the Lord said–"One of you shall betray me."
That was plain enough; and a little farther on he said explicitly–"He
that dippeth with me in the dish the same is he." What opportunities
for repentance! He cannot say he had not a faithful preacher. What
could have been more personal? If he does not repent now, what is to be
done? Moreover, Judas saw that which was enough to make a heart of
adamant bleed; he saw Christ with agony on his face, for it was just
after Christ had said "Now is my soul troubled," that Judas left the
feast and went out to sell his Master. That face, so full of grief,
ought to have turned him, must have turned him, if he had not been,
given up and left alone, to deliver over his soul unto his own devices.
What language could have been more thundering than the words of Jesus
Christ, when he said, "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is
betrayed; it had been good for that man if he had not been born." He
had said, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil."
Now, if while these thunders rolled over his head, and the
lightningflashes pointed at his person, if, then, this man was not
aroused, what a hell of infernal pertinacity and guilt must have been
within his soul! Oh! but if any of you, if any of you shall sell Christ
for the sake of keeping the shop open on Sunday, if you shall sell
Christ for the extra wages you may earn for falsehood–oh! if you shall
sell Christ for the sake of the hundred pounds that you may lay hold of
by a villanous contract–if you do that, you do not perish unwarned. I
come into this pulpit to please no man among you. God knoweth if I knew
more of your follies you should have them pointed out yet more plainly;
if I knew more of the tricks of business, I would not flinch to speak
of them! But, O sirs, I do conjure you by the blood of Judas, who
hanged himself at last, turn you–if such there be–turn you from this
evil, if haply your sin may be blotted out!
Let us for one minute notice the act itself. He sought out his own
temptation. He did not wait for the devil to come to him; he went after
the devil. He went to the chief priests and said, "What will ye give
me?" One of the old Puritan divines says, "This is not the way people
generally trade; they tell their own price." Judas says "What will ye
give me? Anything you like. The Lord of life and glory sold at the
buyer's own price. What will ye give me?" And another very prettily
puts it, "What could they give him? What did the man want? He did not
want food and raiment; he fared as well as his Master and the other
disciples; he had enough; he had all that his needs could crave, and
yet he said, What will ye give me? What will ye give me? What will ye
give ne?" Alas! some people's religion is grounded on that one
question–"What will you give me?" Yes, they would go to church if
there are any charities given away there, but if there were more to be
got by not going they would do that. "What will you give me?" Some of
these people are not even so wise as Judas. Ah! there is a man over
yonder who would sell the Lord for a crown, much more for ten pounds,
as Judas did! Why, there are some who will sell Christ for the smallest
piece of silver in our currency. They are tempted to deny their Lord,
tempted to act in an unhallowed way, though the gains are so paltry
that a year's worth of them would not come to much. No subject could be
more dreadful than this, if we really would but look at it carefully.
This temptation happeneth to each of us. Do not deny it. We all like to
gain; it is but natural that we should; the propensity to acquire is in
every mind, and under lawful restrictions it is not an improper
propensity; but when it comes into conflict with our allegiance to our
Master, and in a world like this it often will, we must overcome it or
perish. There will arise occasions with some of you many times in a
week in which it is "God–or gain;" "Christ, or the thirty pieces of
silver;" and therefore I am the more urgent in pressing this on you. Do
not, though the world should bid its highest, though it should heap its
comforts upon one another, and add fame, and hononr, and respect, do
not, I pray you, forsake your Master. There have been such cases; cases
of persons who used to come here, but they found they did not get on,
because Sunday was the best day's trade in the week; they had some good
feelings, some good impressions once, but they have lost them now. We
have known others who have said, "Well, you see, I did once think I
loved the Lord, but my business went so badly when I came up to the
house of God, that I left it; I renounced my profession." Ah, Judas!
ah, Judas! ah, Judas! let me call thee by thy name, for such thou art!
This is the sin of the apostate over again; God help thee to repent of
it, and go, not to any priest, but to Christ and make confession, if
haply thou mayest be saved. You perceive that in the act of selling
Christ, Judas was faithful to his master. "Faithful to his master?" you
say. Yes, his master was the devil, and having made an agreement with
him he carried it out honestly. Some people are always very honest with
the devil. If they say they will do a wrong thing they say they ought
to do it because they said they would; as if any oath could be binding
on a man if it be an oath to do wrong? "I will never go into that house
again," some have said, and they have said afterwards, "Well, I wish I
had not said it." Was it a wrong thing? What is your oath then? It was
an oath given to the devil. What was that foolish promise but a promise
to Satan, and will you be faithful to him? Ah! would God that you were
faithful to Christ! Would that any of us were as true to Christ as
Satan's servants are to their master!
Judas betrayed his Master with a kiss. That is how most apostates do
it; it is always with a kiss. Did you ever read an infidel book in your
life which did not begin with profound respect for truth? I never have.
Even modern ones, when bishops write them, always begin like that. They
betray the Son of man with a kiss. Did you ever read a bank of bitter
controversy which did not begin with such a sickly lot of humility,
such sugar, such butter, such treacle, such everything sweet and soft,
that you said, "Ah! there is sure to be something bad here, for when
people begin so softly and sweetly, so humbly and so smoothly, depend
upon it they have rank hatred in their hearts." The most devout looking
people are often the most hypocritical in the world.
We conclude with the repentance of Judas. He did repent; he did repent,
but it was the repentance that worketh death. He did make a confession,
but there was no respect to the deed itself, but only to its
consequences. He was very sorry that Christ was condemned. Some latent
love that he had once had to a kind Master, came up when he saw that he
was condemned. He did not think, perhaps, it would come to that; he may
have had a hope that he would escape out of their hands, and then he
would keep his thirty pieces of silver and perhaps sell him over again.
Perhaps he thought that he would rid himself from their hands by some
miraculous display of power, or would proclaim the kingdom, and so he
himself would only be hastening on that very blessed consummation.
Friends, the man who repents of consequences does not repent. The
ruffian repents of the gallows but not of the murder, and that is no
repentance at all. Human law of course must measure sin by
consequences, but God's law does not. There is a pointsman on a railway
who neglects his duty; there is a collision on the line, and people are
killed; well, it is manslaughter to this man through his carelessness.
But that pointsman, perhaps, many times before had neglected his duty,
but no accident came of it, and then he walked home and said, "Well, I
have done no wrong." Now the wrong, mark you, is never to be measured
by the accident, but by the thing itself, and if you have committed an
offense and you have escaped undetected it is just as vile in God's
eye; if you have done wrong and Providence has prevented the natural
result of the wrong, the honor of that is with God, but you are as
guilty as if your sin had been carried out to its fullest consequences,
and the whole world set ablaze. Never measure sin by consequences, but
repent of them as they are in themselves.
Though being sorry for consequences, since these are unalterable, this
man was led to remorse. He sought a tree, adjusted the rope, and hanged
himself, but in his haste he hanged himself so badly that the rope
broke, he fell over a precipice, and there we read his bowels gushed
out; he lay a mangled mass at the bottom of the cliff, the horror of
every one who passed. Now you that make a gain of godliness–if there
be such here–you may not come to a suicide's end, but take the lesson
home. Mr. Keach, my venerable predecessor, gives at the end of one of
his volumes of sermons, the death of a Mr. John Child. John Child had
been a Dissenting minister, and for the sake of gain, to get a living,
he joined the Episcopalians against his conscience; he sprinkled
infants; and practiced all the other paraphernalia of the Church
against his conscience. At last, at last, he was arrested with such
terrors for having done what he had, that he renounced his living, took
to a sick bed, and his dying oaths, and blasphemies, and curses, were
something so dreadful, that his case was the wonder of that age. Mr.
Keach wrote a full account of it, and many went to try what they could
do to comfort the man, but he would say, "Get ye hence; get ye hence;
it is of no use; I have sold Christ." You know, also, the wonderful
death of Francis Spira. In all literature, there is nothing so awful as
the death of Spira. The man had known the truth; he stood well among
reformers; he was an hononred, and to a certain extent apparently a
faithful man; but he went back to the Church of Rome; he apostatized;
and then when conscience was aroused he did not fly to Christ, but he
looked at the consequences instead of at the sin, and so, feeling that
the consequences could not be altered, he forget that the sin might be
pardoned, and perished in agonies extreme. May it never be the unhappy
lot of any of us to stand by such a death-bed; but the Lord have mercy
upon us now, and make us search our hearts. Those of you who say, "We
do not want that sermon," are probably the persons who need it most. He
who shall say, "Well, we have no Judas amongst us," is probably a Judas
himself. Oh! search yourselves; turn out every cranny; look in every
corner of your soul, to see whether your religion be for Christ's sake,
and for truth's sake, and for God's sake, or whether it be a profession
which you take up because it is a respectable thing, a profession which
you keep up because it keeps you up. The Lord search us and try us, and
bring us to know our ways.
And now, in conclusion–there is a Savior, and that Savior is willing
to receive us now. If I am not a saint, yet I am a sinner. Would it not
be best for all of us to go again to the fountain, and wash and be
clean. Let each of us go anew, and say, "Master, thou knowest what I
am; I know not myself; but, if I be wrong, make me right; if I be
right, keep me so. My trust is in thee. Keep me now, for thine own
sake, Jesus." Amen.