Men Who Never Came Back — Walter Wilson

Thank you, Brother Beck. I want to talk with you about the man that never came back. His name was Judas. He kissed goodbye to the only man in all the world. He kissed the man goodbye, the only one that could take him to heaven.

Judas Betrays the Only One Who Could Save Him

He kissed the man goodbye, the only one that could make him acceptable to God. And he was hopeless. I'm going to read you what it says. Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, that is, Jesus was condemned, he repented himself.

He did the job. You see, God didn't repent him. He did himself. And brought again the thirty pieces of silver, that's eighteen dollars and a half, to the chief priest and elder, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.

And they said, what's that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. One time about his wife and children. How many of you knew he had a wife and children?

Psalm 109 and the Judgment on Judas's Household

Let's see. Well, what stupendous ignorance. The whole story of his family is given in Psalm 109. Peter quoted it, do you remember? In the first chapter of Acts. See, you didn't read your Bible, or else you didn't read intelligently.

He had a wife and children, and I wrote a story about it. And I couldn't get anybody to publish it. I sent to Zondervan, they turned it down. I sent to Erdman, he turned it down. I sent to Moody, and they turned it down.

And I sent someone else, four of them, and they all turned it down. And I couldn't figure out why. I wrote a wonderful story. It was a, you know, it was a novel. Very novel. I couldn't get anybody to take it.

And then I didn't finish my reading in time. I read on farther down the chapter, in the generation following, let his name be brought it out. Then I knew why God wouldn't let anybody publish it. You read the story of his father and mother and their sin, the sin of Judah's father and mother, and what happened to his widow and what happened to the children.

It's all in Psalm 109. And that dear man, he was with Jesus. He saw him feed the multitude. He saw him raise the dead. He saw him curse the fig tree. He saw him calm the storm. He was in the boat when he calmed the storm.

And yet with all of that marvelous evidence, he didn't love the Lord Jesus at all. He was right with him. He saw his miracles. He heard those sweet words. Never a man spake as this man, but didn't touch his heart.

Religious Proximity Without Conversion

And I was the same way. I was in the church for a number of years, and I didn't know the Savior either. I was right close to him where people getting saved. Didn't touch me. I heard splendid sermons. Didn't touch me.

Until one day the Spirit of God showed me Christ. And this dear man had everything that the heart could wish in the way of evidence. In fact, he was the treasure. That's the reason he was with Jesus. He was making money out of the deal.

I remember a woman came, wanted to join our church, and she said, I want my husband to join with me because I think he'd get a lot of business out of this church. Well, I don't think he's a saved man, so he couldn't join our church.

So she went out to another church, which was a very wealthy one, and he joined there. I didn't hear about him getting any business, but he made good money by being with... And I think that he thought when Christ became king, he'd be the treasure of this great kingdom.

I think that's in the back of his mind. And when he saw Christ losing out, he sold out. And the wife and children were punished, as well as he punished himself, committing suicide. You know, there are 2 ,007 suicides in the Bible.

I have more written out in the back of my Bible. 2 ,007 of them. 2 ,000 of them were pigs, of course. Now, he had a last chance. Do you remember when Judas was at the table with the Lord Jesus? The Savior said, That thou doest, do quickly.

I believe that was Christ giving him a last chance to throw away what he was planning on and become a lover of Christ. I think so. That was his last chance. But he had the chance. Now, why was the wife and the children punished?

Judgment for Shared Wickedness

Well, I'll tell you, you find that all through the scripture. Wherever the wife and the children agreed with the husband in his wickedness, they were punished. You remember the men that threw Daniel, John, and the lions in?

Every one of those fellows, it says, were thrown into the lions' den, and their wives and children, because they agreed with what their daddy did. Achan, you remember, that stole the Babylonish garment and the wedge of gold and so on.

His wife and children were all stoned to death because they agreed with him. In fact, I expect the children dug the hole to put that stuff in under the rug in the tent. And whenever they agreed, they get punished.

There are four such cases, I believe, in the Bible. And this dear man, with everything in the world to make him trust the Savior, turned his back on him. And the Lord gave us that detail so none of us would do it.

Christ as the Only Door to Heaven

You remember, there's only one door into heaven, and that's Christ Jesus. And if you turn your back on him, you won't get in. There's only one gate. You read in the 118th Psalm about the gate of the Lord, and Christ is the gate.

And if you don't go in the gate, you don't get in. Christ is the only one that can make us fit to go into the Father's presence. Now, none of us here are fit to go into an operating room. You may have to.

I hope every one of you has an operation. It's a wonderful thing to have it. You always have something to talk about, you know. And you can tell how long your scar is. Nobody was ever on the table as long as you, you know.

And you can date everything from before your operation to after your operation. It's marvelous. But I tell you, the Lord wants us, beloved, to see the only one that can take us in and make us fit. You see, we'd have to all have these garments taken off us, and we'd have to put on sterilized garments, and wash our hands for 10 minutes in antiseptic soap, and then put on rubber gloves, and then cover the mouth and cover the head before we could go in the operating room.

And if it takes all that trouble to get into an operating room, what would it be to get into the glory? Somebody has to fix us up so we're fit to go in. We can't jump out of Delilah's lap into Abraham's bosom, that's sure.

It just doesn't work. We have to be fixed up. And, beloved, isn't it lovely there's a man that can fix us up? You ought to be shouting, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. There's a man that can fix us up, the man Christ Jesus, God's Son.

And then again, this man, while he made good money at it, you remember he threw the money away? He was willing to sell the Savior for $18 .50. That's the price he put on him. And some sell him for lots less than that.

I wonder if you're selling the Savior, beloved. You ask your heart. Are you selling him for pleasure, or for anything else? Well, he went out and committed suicide and never came back. He couldn't come back.

That path is a one-way street. When you turn your back on him, he turns his back on you. I've seen that four times in my life where a man definitely said, I don't want Jesus Christ. One was a great showman.

Rejecting Christ and the Hardening of the Heart

If I mentioned his name, you'd know him. I was trying to wait him for the Savior. I used to build his tents for him. And I saw him sitting at the table in a big hotel where we were having lunch, and the sweat was rolling off him, and he was trembling from head to foot under conviction of sin.

And then suddenly he said, Walter, I don't want Jesus Christ. I don't know anything about the religion or the church, and I'm satisfied with the show business. And immediately he got perfect peace. And although I saw him off and on for 10 years after that, I never could touch him again with the gospel.

When he said, I don't want him, he said, I don't want you. And he closed the door. The other was a prominent attorney in Kansas City. He was one of the attorneys for my firm, a fine fellow. And I tried to wing him for the Savior.

I saw him sitting beside my desk with the sweat rolling off him, trembling like a leaf. He said, I'll go home and ask my wife. And his wife was an unbeliever. And when he came back the next day, he said, I don't believe what you tell me.

I believe what my wife says. And I don't want Jesus Christ. I'm going to reject him. And immediately he got perfect peace. God blessed him. See, you can't fool with God, beloved. You can't play around with him.

If you tell him you don't want him, he'll just write you off. That's all. And about two weeks later, I met this man in front of one of our banks. And I said, say, Henry, how about you and the Lord? He said, I don't care anything about the Lord.

He don't bother me anymore. And I said, he never will. He'll never bother you again. I saw another man in Des Moines, Iowa. And it's the same experience. He sat at the dinner table in the big hotel there, trembling, sweating in the fear of God.

And then suddenly he said, Walter, I don't want Jesus Christ. I don't know anything about religion. I don't want to know anything about it. And I don't want him to bother me. I said, he won't. He'll never bother you again.

And I did business with that man for several years, but God never bothered him at all. Beloved, Judas told the Lord he didn't want him. He kissed him goodbye. And God wrote it down that he did. Now remember, God writes down what you do with the Lord Jesus.

It isn't what you do with prohibition, or with finances, or with business enterprises. That isn't the thing. He writes down what we do with the Savior. And let's remember, he writes it down. Then the next man that didn't come back was Demas.

Demas Forsakes Paul for the Present World

We read in 2 Timothy 4 .10, Paul said, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. Well, it says that Demas loved this present world. And you know what James says about that? The adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is the enmity against God?

He that will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Why? Because the world crucified the Savior. And if we join up with them, we just join up with those that killed the Savior, and we say, okay, it's all right with us, and beloved God won't have it.

And this man, he heard Paul's sermons. He was with him at Colossae, and heard Paul's sermons. And what a friend to have in Paul. And he loved him, evidently, stayed with him for quite a while. And then the allurements of the world attracted him.

And he heard what the world had to offer. I don't know whether it was music, or money, or sports, or chemistry, or it might have been public politics, or something of the sort. Doesn't tell us. You see, the Lord isn't in the business of advertising the sins of people.

The devil does that, and the devil's children do that, but he doesn't. And we don't know what it was that Demas saw in the world, but we do know that if any man loved the world, now listen to this, the love of the Father is not in him.

It doesn't say the love of God is not in him. It says the love of the Father is not in him. Because the Father sent his Son, and if we reject the Son in favor of those who kill him, you can readily see there's no Father's love here in this, because the Father's love of the Son has committed all things to it.

And you say, no, I don't want the Son. The world is so attracted. One of my boys, my oldest boy, got a wanderlust one time. He wanted to run away, like most boys do sometimes. And I endured it for a while, and I said, all right, Walter, here's twenty dollars.

The World Takes but Cannot Satisfy

Go and have a good time. Go anywhere you want to. Don't bother us. Go and have a good time. You don't need to tell us where you are, write us in letters. Just go out into this big, big lovable world. They'll love you and take you in, feed you and clothe you.

Goodbye. So he off he went with the twenty bucks. You know how long it lasted? Ten days. He found this lovable world. Didn't care one thing about him. And I'll tell you something. All the world cares about you is what they can get out of you.

That's all. And when you've got nothing more to give, they're through with you. But our lovely Lord said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. And this man Demas, he saw men transformed by the Lord Jesus.

He saw the hungry fed. Demas with Paul saw wonderful miracles. He saw, he heard his wonderful sermons have been such a blessing to us. And he decided he didn't want it. And he chose companions that were not friends of God, because in those days, everybody was an idolater, except a few Christians.

And he said, I'd rather be with them than with this man. He's too good for me. I don't want his sermons. I don't want him preaching at me. And he deserted him. He left him. And that word, uh, uh, forsake is the word of, uh, see if I can explain to you, it means say goodbye forever.

Mine too. He didn't want Paul. Now you tell me, what would he find out there that was better than what Paul had? I have a book on it on at home on evolution written by a very prominent man. And in that one book, 726 times, the writer says, we think, we propose, we suppose, we conclude, we think, we hope not a word of confidence, 726 times.

He says, we hope and we think not Paul nor John. And this man demons, he'd rather have that evanescent thing out there. That thing that comes and goes like money. Most of the money you've got in your pocket has got wings on it.

You just look at it when you get home, if you have any money left there for the offering and you'll find it's got wings on it. And we think we have a great magnificent, uh, business. And then I had a friend in Kansas who was in a very big business doing a wonderful business.

And the farming representative changed the model of the thing you were making. And he went into bankruptcy because he couldn't sell the stuff anymore. The model was changed back at the factory. That's how quick that stuff goes.

But this man demons, he'd rather have that than the certainty of what the apostle Paul had. Lord, to whom shall we go? Well, you answer. Who has what you and I need? Now, as a physician, I try to keep people out of heaven.

As a preacher, I try to get them into heaven. See, I got a double job, but I want to tell you something. I have never found anybody in the death chamber that wanted anything else except this precious book and what it says.

When things get real and the doctor says, this is it, nobody wants any ideas and notions. And we think, and we propose, we suppose, we just realize something that we know. And the apostle Paul had it, but demons didn't care for it.

And you notice how kind God is. He didn't tell us the end of demons. He doesn't tell us anything about how he ended up, but he told goodbye to the Lord Jesus when he said goodbye to Paul. He was through, and God brought him out.

You never read about him again. Then there was a rich fellow, young man. He was a very wealthy fellow. In Mark 10, 22, we read about him. Then came one running. I thought it said rich young ruler, but you know, I took my Bible today and I couldn't find where he was a ruler at all.

The Rich Young Man Wants Eternal Life Without Surrender

That's what we say about rich young ruler. I couldn't find where he was a ruler. May have been I was blind in one eye and couldn't see out the other. But we read this in Mark 10, 17. When Jesus was gone forth into the way, I like that.

You know, you find them on the street and on the streetcar and then the bus and in the station, in the butcher shop, anywhere you go out in the way, you find somebody like this. There came one running.

I like that. Did you ever run to the Lord Jesus for anything or important? Come running to him? Well, this man came running and kneeled to him. And men didn't do that, you know, to an ordinary person and said, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

I heard a strange thing. This boy was very wealthy and evidently prominent in the country and a good boy because he kept these commandments. He says so. But he knew he didn't have eternal life. And I see you, dear friends, that's one of the biggest discoveries you'll ever make.

You may have character, you may have money, you may have position, you may have a place in religion, but you ought to find out, do I have eternal life? And the only way you can know is to see the evidence of it.

There are five evidences of eternal life if you have it. I haven't time to give them to you. But there are five proofs that you have eternal life. And if they're not there, you don't have it. That's all.

You may have religion. And this fellow knew he didn't have it. He had everything else, everything a heart could wish. He had money, fame, position, honor. But he knew he didn't have this eternal life.

And he made the mistake, beloved, so many mistakes. He wanted the gift, but he didn't want to give her. And so the Lord Jesus said that the boy wanted eternal life, but he didn't want the one who gave eternal life.

Notice that. Phicol saw me good, thou knowest the commandments. And you notice that he only quoted the last six commandments? He didn't quote the first four. Very Godward. And the last six are manward.

Moral Respectability Without Love for God

And he was like that woman, that waitress in the hotel. She waited on me every day, and I tried to enter for the Savior. But she was too good. She told me how good she was. And she was awful good. She took care of her aged mother, took care of her little girl, and paid her debt.

And she was awful nice. But she knew a woman down the next block that needed the Savior. But she didn't. So on Friday morning, my last day, I said, bring me a pancake cooked on one side. She said, you can't eat it.

I said, that's my business. She said, I have to charge you for a whole stack. I said, charge me for two stacks. I have the money. And so finally, after a long argument, she went out and brought it in and placed it down in front of me.

Great big pancake, cooked on one side. There, she said, what are you going to do with that? I said, I want you to see what you look like. My goodness. You mean I look like that? I said, yeah. You see, on the human side, you're well done.

You're a beautiful character on the man's side. But on God's side, you're wrong. You haven't mentioned his name all week. Not one word. He don't mean a thing to you. You've never been fixed up with him.

And in two minutes, God did to that woman what I couldn't do in a whole week of arguing and reasoning. Leave him as a cake, not turned where he can hose in. Well, this dear fellow, he had all, he was well done on the underside.

So the Lord Jesus said, if you want to enter into life, go and sell your flocks and herds, go and sell your grain, your farm, everything you have, and turn it into cash. And give the cash away. Now, many a fellow will give a ton of coal, won't give any money.

He knew very well what he was saying. People will give away things, not give away cash. Turn it into cash. Go and give the cash away, and then I'll give you myself. You can have me, and I'll give you an inheritance up there.

You'll have treasure in heaven. Will you do that? Now, listen. He looked at the Savior, and he looked at all this great, magnificent farm and all the stocks that he had. You know what he said? No, I'd rather have the farm than you.

I want eternal life, all right. But I want to be saved at the end of the journey, all right. But I don't want to get rid of anything I have. I want all that and this. Two heavens, one here and one hereafter.

And the Savior said, it says he loved him. I like that. He loved him. You only read, I think, twice, three times in the Bible that Jesus loved anybody. The epistles tell us he does, but in the Gospels, he loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

Jesus Loves the Sinner but Demands Total Allegiance

He loved this man. It says, Jesus beholding him loved him, verse 21, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest. Now, here's the reason this rich man went away and never came back, as far as we know. He didn't see anything in the Savior that he wanted, except the gift.

He wanted this gift, all right. I think I told you one time that I doubted the verse in the Bible, and I was ashamed of it. There's a verse that says there's no man that seeketh after God. I didn't think that was so.

I'd seen the folks in soul trouble, and the Holy Spirit suggested to me that I'd better look after my own self. Was I seeking after God when I was in soul trouble? And the more I examined my experience at that time, I found I wasn't seeking after God at all.

I was after pardon and forgiveness and salvation, the things he gives. Not him. Just like the prodigal son. Father, give me the portion of goods. He didn't care anything about the man of nature. He didn't care anything about his father.

He wanted the gift. You asked your heart. You asked your heart about that. You just want his gifts? That's what this man wanted, the gift. And so the Lord says, you go and sell everything you got. Give it away, and come.

Follow me, and you'll find in me everything your heart wants. But he didn't. And it says, he turned and went away sorrowful. Verse 22. He was sad at that state. Sad that he could have Christ and heaven if he got rid of everything else.

And when he said it's easier for a rich, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go into heaven, he wasn't talking about any little bit of guilt. Don't you let anybody pull that off on you.

He was talking about a sewing needle. Matthew and Mark both use that. But when Luke tells the story, being a doctor, he used the name for a surgeon's needle, which has a bigger eye, which this camel couldn't get through.

And we never get come to God rich. We're bankrupt when we come. We are helpless when we come. We are hopeless when we come. And we trust that lovely Lord, and we come in on his merit, and we have nothing to say about our own goodness.

The Rich Man in Hades and the Finality of Death

Then there was another man, and we read about him in the 16th chapter of Luke, in verse 27. There was a rich man in hell, and he was praying. Now, he didn't believe in prayer while he lived, but he prayed a good deal after he died.

And we never read about the living praying for the dead. We only read about the dead praying for the living. That's what the word of God tells us. And what does it say? Father Abraham, send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water.

Now, do you know why he said the tip? Because this fellow, Lazarus, had been asking this rich man for crumbs. And he didn't have enough brass, I should say nerve, to ask for more than a drop of water.

Because he'd been asked for crumbs, and he didn't get any crumbs. And he didn't get any drops either. And cool my tongue. I don't notice that he called for a prayer meeting to get him out. Isn't it strange that rich man never asked to get out of hell?

He never did. He only asked for a little bit of relief in him. But he wanted Lazarus to come to him. Then he said, send him to my father's house, five brothers there, lest they come to this place of torment.

But Lazarus didn't come. God never let him come back. You see, God don't make his children work overtime. Lazarus has been doing the will of God. Lazarus has done everything necessary. And God took him to heaven to rest, not to work.

And when this rich man wanted Lazarus to come back and work, the Lord didn't let him come back. May I suggest the Lord put that in the Bible so you and I would do our work now? Don't you remember he said, we are judged for the deeds done in the body, not postmortem.

In the body. You don't get credit for what you leave to the Lord in your will. You can't do anything about it as far as there's a will. They're relatives. The Lord won't get much of it anyway. If you're going to do anything for him, you have to do it now.

You can't come back and do it. God wouldn't let him come back. Now listen, there was a Lazarus came back, a different Lazarus. God let him come back. The Lord Jesus called him out of the grave and let him come back.

You know what they wanted to do with him? You know, the rich man said they'll believe the dead man. Well, Lazarus came back and they wanted to, they went about to kill him. That's what it says. The very man that came back from the dead, there's a message from eternity.

We don't know what he said because nobody was ever allowed to come back from the dead and tell anything. There are four people came back from the dead in the Old Testament and six in the New Testament, not including Christ.

Not one of them was permitted to say where he'd been, or what he'd seen, or what he'd heard. Not one of them. God will not let any dead person come back and talk to us. We have his living word. And these fellows would be in competition with the scriptures, don't you see?

Scripture Alone Reveals Eternal Truth

And people say, oh, this dead man came back and he told us this, we'll believe what he says, and God won't permit it. There's a law against it. You remember that Paul was stoned to death at Lystra? And then they dragged him out of the city, it says.

And when they got him out of the city, they stood around wondering what to do with him. And they didn't know. And suddenly he got divine healing. And all those broken bones were healed instantly. And he got up and went next day preaching at Derby.

That's real divine healing, beloved. All his bones were broken with the stones. But he said he went to heaven and back in that length of time, up to the third heaven. And listen, he said, I heard words that it is not lawful to utter.

God has a law that absolutely prevents anybody coming back from the dead and telling us anything. It's a law. It's his law. So don't you ever think anybody, when they do come back in, and when my father was quite a hand performer, and he would put on seance mediums, tricks, you know.

But everything they say, these fellows come back and say, wasn't it nice over here? Then they'll tell you anything, because they don't know anything and can't tell you anything. This man Lazarus couldn't come back.

I expect you would like to. Wouldn't it be wonderful to walk around and say, I'm the fellow that died. Now I came back. Wouldn't that be wonderful? But God wouldn't let him. God binds us to his word. Remember that.

The only revelation you'll ever get of eternal truth is out of the Bible. Not from any man or woman, just from the word of God, unless they're using the word of God. And this man Lazarus wasn't permitted to come back.

God had him do his work, took him home to glory, and he went from the barking of the dogs to the singing of the angels, and from walking by faith to walking by sight, and from being outside the gate to being inside the palace.

No Second Chance to Serve After Death

God wouldn't let him come back. And you can't come back, so if you're going to do anything for him, you must do it now. Why don't we? Why don't we talk to the folks we meet about the Savior? And there's so many ways of doing it easily.

So many ways. It doesn't make any difference where the person is. I went with a pastor in Chicago to see a man that was in the hospital, and I said to the nurse, she was a woman about 50 perhaps, I said, does this friend have lots of visitors?

She said, yeah, lots of them. Do they talk about baseball? No, he said, they all bring Bibles and talk to him about the Lord. And I said to her, how long has this been going on? She said, about six weeks.

I said, did any of them speak to you about the Lord? And she didn't answer me. She turned her back and went over to a bureau where there were a lot of bottles inside the pool, and there were these bottles, and I saw something was wrong.

And I went over to her side and I said, do you mean to tell me none of these men that came to see this sick man said a word to you? She said, not one of them, and I wished that they would, because I'd like to be saved myself.

And for six weeks, God's people have been coming in there to see the man who was injured, but paid no attention to the nurse. I wonder how many of us do that. And then when it comes to the end of the journey we wish we had, the printer said in his, had a sign in his office, live a life with no regrets.

God isn't going to let you come back and do anything. We have to do it before we go. And he turned to his a long, long time. I know we'll be with the Savior, but there'll be some memories there, I expect.

And we wish we had, or I'll tell you something else that I found in the sick room through the years. I've been practicing medicine a good many years, since 1904, in fact. And I want to tell you, when we're dying, the devil is going to give you a running for your money.

He's going to let you die in peace. He'll bring up all sorts of things that you wish you had done. I've seen it over and over again. He didn't want to let you die in peace at all. He knows he can't keep you out of heaven, but he's going to make you a wreck going there, if he can.

And this man wasn't committed to come back, and you can't come back. You was first that he went away to their own place, out of Darton. And the rich man in hell wanted Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers, but he wouldn't let him come back.

We don't have a second chance of service, nor do we have a second chance of salvation. We must do it now. What a lovely thing. There's nothing in the world so sweet as to see a soul pass out of death into life.

It's the sweetest thing. That's the reason I wrote that little book, Romance, for the doctor's visit. It's romantic. It's just marvelous to see an old sinner or a young sinner trust the lovely Lord Jesus and pass out of death into life.

And you can see it in the face. But you have to do it now. You have to do it now. Let us pray. But to thee, our blessed Lord Jesus, thou hast in thy rich grace revealed thyself to us, and the Holy Spirit has come to make thee precious to us.

We thank thee he's done it. And we love thee, blessed Savior, and those wounded hands and feet and side and back and head and tail. Tell us thy love for us. Then thou hast taken thy place at the Father's right hand to intercede for us and art the mediator.

We thank thee. Look how granted each friend that's listening may know thee so well that it will be so easy to talk about thee to others and to win others for thyself. Keep us from being just theologians.

Enable us to be soul winners for Jesus' glory. Amen.