SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/4/2021 10:06 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Character of Judas”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
10:4b
Message of the
verse: “and
Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”
In our past two SD’s we have been
looking at the character of Judas, and a part of his character was that he
first of all was a materialist which can be seen in his stealing from the money
that he controlled for the disciples.
Judas wanted the earthly benefits of a restored Jewish kingdom but had
no interest in personal righteousness or regeneration as he was perfectly
satisfied with himself and came to be with Jesus solely for material advantage,
and not for spiritual blessing. Our Lord
gave Judas every opportunity to renounce his self-life and seek God’s
forgiveness and salvation, however Judas refused it. When onereads and picks up on some of the
parables that Jesus gave, which Judas heard all of them, parables like the
unjust steward and the wedding garments, which if Judas would have desired to
come to the Lord for salvation could have been able to understand them and look
at his materialist life and seen the need for repentance but he refused. MacArthur writes “Jesus chose Judas because
the betrayal was in God’s plan and was prophesied in the Old Testament; yet
Jesus gave Judas every opportunity not to fulfill that prophecy.”
We have mentioned that there are
three groups of disciples that are mentioned in three gospels and also in Acts,
and Judas was a member of the third group along with James the son of Alphaeus,
Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot which indicates he was among the disciples who
were least intimate with Jesus. So it is
likely that he was on the fringe even of his own subgroup, participating no
more than what was necessary, and that happened from the sidelines. It is doubtful he was close to any of the
other disciples. Judas was thought to be
honest, but he developed no close friendships or have any intimate
relationships as Judas seemed to be a loner.
MacArthur concludes this section: “In the Orient, a host would always offer an
honored guest the first sop, which consisted of a morsel of bread dipped in a
syruplike mixture of fruit and nuts. At
the Last Supper Jesus offered the first sop to Judas. Yet at the very moment the Lord extended
special honor to Judas, ‘Satan then entered into him’ (John 13:27). To the very end Jesus loved Judas, but he
would have none of what He offered him.”
Lord willing we
will begin to look at Judas’s Progressive Rejection in our next few SD’s.
9/4/2021 10:23
AM
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