Judas—Fateful Choices FBC

Have you ever noticed how we make our decisions, and then our decisions have a way of making us? The choices that we make, even those we make on the spur of the moment, can have long-term impact on our lives.

A young couple buys a cottage where they spend every summer weekend, only to find, twenty years down the road, that they have raised children who regard Christianity and church attendance as a part-time commitment at best. A high school student takes his first drink at a prom party, only to find years later that his adult life has spun into the abyss of alcoholism.

Every one of us, whether we know it or not, faces these crucial moments of decision during our lifetime. They are like crossroads, where we must choose one of two different pathways which lead, ultimately, to different destinations. They are turning points, although we almost always fail to recognize them as such at the time. Moments of decision have a way of profoundly affecting the course of our lives, but it is only in retrospect that we realize it.

This is because those crucial moments usually come unannounced. They occur during the course of daily living, without prior warning. They creep up on us as we go about our routine, amid the myriad little, humdrum choices we make every day.

God never sends you a telegram saying “You are about to face an important and life-changing decision next Thursday at 3:30. Please be ready.” You cannot gather yourself, collect your wits, and spend extended time in prayer and reflection as you anticipate such moments. They are here, they are gone; and the die is cast.

The Bible records such moments in the lives of many of its leading characters. Like us, those men and women made their choices and then their choices made them.

Remember Ruth, declaring to her mother-in-law with clear-eyed courage “I will go where you go…” Recall Joseph, his heart-pounding, his senses filled with the allure of a beautiful, available woman, stammering “How could I do such a thing and sin against God?” Think of Esther, swallowing a lump of fear in her throat and stating “If I perish, I perish.”

Those moments of decision profoundly altered the course of their lives. There is another Bible character who faced several critical moments of decision. But unlike these others, he made the wrong choices and they led him to personal and spiritual tragedy. His name was Judas Iscariot.

From the beginning, Judas was different from Jesus’ other disciples. The others were northerners—Galileans. Judas was a southerner from a little town called Kerioth in the province of Judea.

We don’t know much about Judas in terms of his trade or occupation. We do know that the disciples chose him to be their treasurer. Maybe this meant that he had had some previous experience handling money. Surely it meant that the disciples thought him to be trustworthy. It’s significant that they didn’t give the job to Matthew, the former tax-collector!

We don’t know how Judas met Jesus, or how Jesus called him to become one of his followers. We do know that Judas was chosen to be one of Jesus’ twelve apostles; a choice that Jesus made after spending a night in prayer.

Luke 6:12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

The Bible says that Judas became a traitor. That means that he wasn’t a traitor to start with. Oh, I know that Jesus calls him “the one doomed to destruction” in his high priestly prayer in John 17. But that was after Judas had already sided with the enemy. Even as Jesus was praying that prayer, Judas was in the process of leading the chief priests to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest him. That’s where Judas ended up. But that is not where he began.

If you were to ask Judas at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: “Why are you following Jesus?”, I’m sure that his answer would have been quite similar to that of the other disciples.

Undoubtedly, Judas started out believing that Jesus was the Messiah, as did the other disciples. Now we know that their view of the Messiah was deficient.

Everybody was expecting Jesus to be a political Messiah; someone who would overthrow the Romans and usher Israel into a golden age. That’s what the disciples were thinking when they heard Jesus saying that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. That’s what James and John had on their minds when they tried to finagle themselves into the best positions in that Kingdom.

They were thinking earthly thoughts; Jesus was thinking heavenly thoughts. Was that what made Judas become a traitor? Just that he didn’t have his theology straight? No.

It was much more mundane than that, and it comes back to this matter of choices I was talking about earlier. At some point along the line, Judas decided to deliberately disobey what he knew to be God’s will for his life. And that’s where his treason started to take root. Turn to John 12.

John 12:1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Now again, we have to remember that this comment was made in retrospect. None of the disciples knew at that time that Judas had his hands in the till. They only found out about it later.

So what they were hearing from Judas that day in Bethany was, as far as they were concerned, a “ministry” statement. Judas had a problem with Mary’s philosophy of ministry, and, by extension, with Jesus’ philosophy of ministry because he was letting her go ahead and anoint him with this expensive perfume.

Isn’t it interesting that, of all people, Judas Iscariot became a ministry critic? He didn’t like what Mary did. He didn’t like the way she chose to express her devotion and adoration for the Lord. He didn’t think it was appropriate. He didn’t think it was right. He didn’t think it was in order, so he said so.

And he cloaked his criticism in “concern for the poor”. Is this how we should be using our resources? Shouldn’t we be using this money to meet people’s needs? Shouldn’t we be opening up a ministry to the inner-city? Shouldn’t we be sending out more missionaries? But Judas wasn’t really concerned for the poor; he was just looking out for his own interests.

Often times in the church, you will get people criticizing one thing or another. They become self-appointed “ministry critics”. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of worship.

Let me tell you that worship—the way we express our adoration of the Lord—is a real battleground in the church in North America today. Everywhere I go, I hear Christians arguing and criticizing each other over issues like what kind of music to use in worship, what style is right, what kind of instruments are appropriate, whether it’s right to raise your hands in worship, etc., etc., etc.

And a lot of this criticism comes cloaked in “spiritual” terms. But what it really is is what Judas’s criticism was: sheer, stubborn self-interest. “I want things done my way because I want to come out a winner here. I want to feel comfortable. I want to get something out of this. And I don’t want to give up something I’m accustomed to having.”

Judas had no concern for Jesus. No concern for Mary. No concern for the poor, or anyone else for that matter. His only concern was for himself.

When Judas started dipping into the cashbox, he was making one of those fateful decisions I talked about earlier. Now I don’t know what was going through his head at the time, but for some reason, he just decided to start helping himself to the shared money.

When was the first time he did it? How much money did he steal? How did he rationalize it? We just don’t know.

Did he know it was wrong? Sure he did. It would be pretty hard to hang around with Jesus and listen to Jesus teaching about righteousness and not know that stealing was wrong. But he did it anyway. He went ahead and did it anyway.

When you allow sin into your life; when you go ahead and do something even though you know it’s wrong, you’re making one of those fateful decisions. You’re starting to walk down that road that Judas walked. The treason has already begun.

You may think it is something very trivial. But the consequences of sin can be devastating. Because sin in your life is like a snowball rolling down a hill. If it keeps going long enough, pretty soon you have an avalanche. It will sweep away everything before it; everyone you love and everything you find precious.

I was sitting in my study in Lynbrook a couple of years ago when the doorbell rang. I answered it, half expecting to see a street person there asking for a handout. But instead, I found myself facing a smiling, well-dressed man who wondered if he could talk to me about a problem he was having.

I invited him in, and we sat down to talk. His name was Steve. He told me a long story about how he had lost his job, how his wife’s paycheck was being held up for some reason, and how they were behind on the rent. He was really embarrassed to be in this situation, but could I please lend him some money to tide him over?

Now normally I do not give money to people in a situation like that. I have learned over the years that they’re usually not telling the truth, and that money is not what they need anyway. But something (or maybe I should say, Someone) seemed to be telling me to go ahead and give this guy some money. So I decided to give him $40 from our Deacons’ Fund.

But I told him, “Steve, I don’t ever give people like you money. But against my better judgment, I think the Lord is telling me to give some to you. I don’t know if your story is true or not, but I want you to understand that the money I’m giving you is the Lord’s money. It belongs to Him. And if you take the Lord’s money under false pretenses and use it for something wrong, He’s going to come after you for it.”

Well Steve reached out his hand and gingerly took the money. He promised up and down that this was just a loan—he would pay me back next week. And he swore up and down that everything he had told me was true. And then he went on his way. And that was the last I saw of him. Until about three months later.

The doorbell rang, and there was Steve. This time he wasn’t well dressed. He wasn’t smiling. His eyes were red. He had been crying. I invited him in.

He said, “Pastor, I’ve come to confess to you that I lied to you. I conned you out of that money so that I could buy crack. I’m addicted to cocaine. I’m addicted to alcohol. I’m addicted to gambling. I’m addicted to pornography. There didn’t seem to be an addiction that this guy didn’t have. (He had run up hundreds of dollars in calls to 900 numbers. And now he was making obscene phone calls himself. He had bounced checks all over the place to pay for his gambling debts. And now they were after him.)

His wife kicked him out because she couldn’t stand him anymore. He cried out “I can’t even stand myself. I hate what I have become. I need God in my life. Can you help me find God?” (See, I told you the Lord would get him!)

To make a long story short, I led Steve to the Lord that day and got him started on the long road to recovery. He and his wife got back together and started attending our church.

Don’t you believe that sin is harmless. Sin can wreak havoc with your life. And it always starts small, with something you feel you can manage. Enjoy it, manage it, keep it covered up and everything will be alright. But it won’t, because sin is like malignant cancer. It grows. Eventually, it takes over. Ultimately, it’ll kill you.

This is what happened to Judas. The stealing became bigger while His loyalty to Jesus became smaller. Pretty soon, he was calculating how much money he could make if he sold Jesus out completely.

So he struck a bargain with the chief priests. You can have Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. That’s a significant number, by the way. Because back in Exodus 21:32, the Law of Moses said that if a rampaging bull fatally gored someone’s slave, the owner of the bull had to pay the owner of the slave thirty shekels of silver as compensation.

In other words, thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave. That’s all that Jesus was worth to Judas by this time. Only the price of a slave.

It may not be for silver, it may not be for gold

But yet by many people the Prince of Life is sold.

Sold for a godless friendship, sold for a selfish aim,

Sold for a fleeting trifle, sold for an empty name.

Sold in the halls of science, sold in the seat of power,

Sold at the shrine of fortune, sold in pleasure’s hour.

Sold for an awful bargain none but God’s eye can see.

Ponder my soul the question: Shall he be sold by me?

Sold! Oh God what a moment—stilled is conscience’ voice.

Sold! And a weeping angel records that fatal choice.

Sold! But the price accepted to a burning coal will turn.

And the pangs of a late repentance deep in your soul will burn.

When you stand on a long, straight railroad track and look off into the distance, the two tracks appear to converge. This, in a spiritual sense, was what was happening in Judas’ life.

He was running down one track, wrapped up in his sin, oblivious of everyone but himself. But there was another track running parallel to his that began to converge on him. On that track was Satan, and Satan’s program of opposition to the work of God.

Satan’s strategy was to destroy Jesus. To somehow prevent him from accomplishing the work he had come to do. Satan had been working on this project for thousands of year.

He tried to eliminate Abraham so there could be no nation Israel from which the Messiah would come, but he failed in doing that.

He tried to destroy the nation Israel by conquering them, capturing them, compromising them and culturally absorbing them, but he failed in doing that.

He tried several times to wipe out the royal line of David through which the Son of David would come, but he failed in doing that.

He tried, through Herod, to kill Jesus when he was still a baby, but he failed in doing that.

He tried to persuade Jesus to come over to his side by tempting him in the wilderness, but he failed in doing that.

Now if he could just succeed in getting Jesus arrested and executed before he could finish God’s work, then he would have won the battle.

This is what Satan was aiming at when along came Judas. Judas, the disciple. Judas the apostle. Judas the deacon. Judas the respected follower of Jesus, the trusted treasurer of the disciples. But Judas the man who, in secret, had decided that getting what was coming to him was more important than following Jesus.

Judas was completely unaware of what was happening in the spiritual realm. He was totally oblivious to the program of Satan, because sin had blinded his eyes. He had lost whatever spiritual discernment he might have had. He just didn’t get it.

And ultimately, the two tracks converged: Judas’ track and Satan’s track.

Luke 22:3 Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus.

When you let sin gain a foothold in your life, you are buying a ticket to ride on Satan’s train. You may think that you’re pursuing your own interests, but you’re playing right into his hands.

When you think of the names of the great villains of history—people like Adolf Hitler, Attila the Hun, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling of Norway—the name of Judas Iscariot has a special place in that Hall of Shame. He sold out the Son of God.

Did Judas set out to make that kind of a name for himself? Not on your life. But he ended up there because of the little choices he made along the way. Little, fateful choices against God and for sin.

This week, you’re going to face some of those moments of decision. Maybe at work, maybe at school, maybe in the privacy of your own home. How will you choose?