Saturday, August 28, 2021

Intro to Judas (Matt. 10:4b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2021 9:46 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                        Focus: “Intro to Judas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:4b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”

 

            It was on my walk yesterday that I listened to the hour sermon that John MacArthur spoke about Judas.  I have to say that I learned a lot of things about Judas and it is my hope that as we go through the life of Judas that we will all learn some of these very interesting things about him, things that will include what his name means, about his call, about his character, about his progressive rejection, his betrayal, his death, and then lessons learned from the life of Judas will conclude our study of Judas which will conclude our study of “The Master’s Men,” found in the early verses of Matthew chapter ten.

 

            I have to say that this introduction to Judas will be a very short SD, which fits into what I usually do on the weekends of having shorter SD’s.  I think that what I will do, because of the shortness of this introduction to Judas that I will quote from MacArthur’s commentary what he has written in his introduction to this man whose name has not been named by many children by their parents since what Judas now represents.

 

            “Among the twelve apostles, one stands out against the backdrop of the others as a lonely, tragic misfit, the epitome [essence] of human disaster.  He is the vilest, most wicked man in Scripture.  In the lists of the apostles he is always named last and, with the exception of Acts 1:13, is always identified as Jesus’ betrayer.  For two thousand years the name Judas Iscariot has been a byword for treachery.

 

            “Forty verses in the New Testament mention the betrayal of Jesus, and each of them is a reminder of Judas’s incredible sin.  After the description of his death and his replacement among the twelve in Acts 1, his name is never again mentioned in Scripture.  In Dante’s Inferno Judas occupies the lowest level of hell, which he shares with Lucifer, Satan himself.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There are two beings, one angelic, and one human who have had the most light given to any about who God is and what Jesus would do in order to take care of sin, and the one of course is Lucifer, and the other Judas Iscariot.  The punishment of persons in hell is not all the same as I believe it has to do with how much light was given to a person, and with the rejection of that light the harsher the punishment and that is why I totally agree with what Dante has written in his work “Inferno.”  I am thankful for the light that God has given to me, and it is my desire to share that light with those who read the blogs that I write and those who are in my Sunday school class that I teach.  I desire to complete the things that God has charged me to do from eternity past as Paul writes about in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  It is my desire to teach things from the book of Hebrews that I believe is clear, and not forget the overall theme of Hebrews which is Jesus Christ is better than anyone, to which by studying this book those who are in my class will understand that Jesus Christ is who we are studying about and that because of that that He will receive the glory.

 

8/28/2021 10:13 AM

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