One of You is a Devil

If you have your copy of God's Word, I want to invite you to open it with me to John chapter 6.

And this morning we are going to be looking at verses 66 to 71.

So Lord willing, we will be closing out the chapter today. And the title of today's message is,

One of you is a devil. Now that is not an accusation.

I thought that would be a little funnier than it is, I guess.

No, that is a direct quote from the Lord Jesus Christ when looking out at His apostles after the

Bread of Life discourse. He looks at them and He says, Have I not chosen twelve of you? But one of you is a devil.

One of you is a devil. There are devils in the church. Sometimes they are hidden in the shadows.

And sometimes they stand in the pulpit. Recently I was looking through my news feed and I came across a video of a lady preacher.

I believe she is in the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, which is the very left -leaning wing of the

Presbyterian movement. And she was talking about the fact that she was not only pro -abortion, but that she herself had had several, and that she believed that God was with her during those events in a way that He had never been with her before.

And she said she believed if Jesus Christ were on the earth today, that He would be an escort at an abortion clinic, walking women into that abortion clinic to have their abortions.

First of all, it is a depraved mind that even dreams up such a thing. If you go to Romans 1 and it talks about being turned over to a debased mind, that's it.

That's it right there. But it's even more wicked to consider that that was preached from God's pulpit.

But such is a good reminder that there are those still today who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ who are not.

There are those who claim to be part of Christ's church, and they are visibly part of Christ's church, but they are not truly part of the body of Christ, not having been born again by the

Spirit of God. John MacArthur says this, he says, it is a tragedy for Hindus to go to hell, or for Buddhists, or Muslims.

It is a tragedy for atheists and Jews who have rejected their Messiah to go to hell. It's a tragedy for anyone to go to hell.

But it seems to me that the tragedy of all tragedies is the often repeated

Judas tragedy, where you hang around Jesus, but you end up belonging to Satan.

That is the real tragedy. Today we're going to face this reality in two ways.

As we look at this text that concludes the bread of life discourse, we are going to see, one, that the vast majority of people who are following Jesus up until this point are going to turn and walk away to follow

Him no more. That, of course, on the grandest scale, is a terrible tragedy.

But then Jesus is going to say that even within His band of supposed faithful ones,

His apostles, that one of them also is the devil.

So let's stand together and read. We're going to start back at verse 60 just to bring us into the context of our text.

So, even though I said I was preaching 66, let's go back to verse 60 and let's begin reading. When many of His disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling about this, said to them,

Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?

It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray

Him. And He said, this is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by My Father.

After this, many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.

So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?

Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

And we have believed and have come to know that You are the

Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve?

And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

For he, one of the twelve, was going to betray

Him. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we come to You in Jesus' name.

And we thank You for the opportunity to again consider what

Your Word has to say. Interpret it, understand it, and apply it.

This is our task this morning. Not to, as James tells us, be one who looks at the

Word of God like looking at a mirror and then goes away forgetting what he has seen. But Lord, may it be that we be those who are changed by the preaching and teaching of the

Word. Lord, may it not be from my own skill or wisdom or ideas.

But Lord, may it flow from the Spirit of God. May You keep me from error.

May You tie me to the post of Your Word. And Lord, may You take the

Word of God, mix it with faith, and Lord, deliver it into our hearts where it might be applied and we might live out what we have learned.

Lord, we have seen and continue to see throughout the church many who have started by following Christ but have fallen away for various reasons.

Some have gone after the cares of the world. Some have gone after the lust of the flesh. And some have become uninterested in the teachings of Christ.

But Lord, today I pray that You would keep us from stumbling. Tie us to the post of Your Word and let us not stray.

Lord, help us through Your Word to recognize that not everyone who claims the name of Christ is a

Christian. And Lord, may we also prayerfully consider our own hearts to know if we are in the faith.

As Your Word says, make our calling and election certain. We pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen. John chapter 6 has one of the longer discourses of Jesus that we have recorded for us in Scripture.

And as I've mentioned over the last several weeks as I've been walking through this verse by verse, I knew this chapter was going to take us quite a bit of time because I did not want to rush through what

Jesus is saying, but I also didn't want to belabor it either, so I've tried to stay at a decent pace and yet it's still taken us now,

I think, eight weeks to walk through this chapter because there's so much here that we have to learn.

It, of course, begins with Jesus in the most expansive miracle that He performed on this earth and that was feeding over 5 ,000 people with just a few loaves and a few fish.

And then, of course, it moves to the next day's events. Everything that occurs in this chapter happens the day after that event.

Everything after that event is all one day. Jesus travels by walking on the sea and He arrives in Capernaum having gotten into the boat with His disciples.

And while He is there, He says things that the crowd takes great offense at and we talked about this last week.

Jesus asked, has what I've said offended you? And the truth of the matter is that it had.

What Jesus said offended the crowd. Last week we walked through ten reasons why

His statements were offensive and they were to the natural mind. He said He was the bread of life.

He said we had to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. He said that the only ones who would come were the ones who were drawn by the

Father. And He told the group, you've seen Me, but you don't believe.

That's often one that is most offensive to people. When you say, you know,

I really don't think you're a believer. You ever said that to someone? I mean, it's one thing to call somebody out for sin, specific sin, but say, you know, your life is not, doesn't seem to appear like you really believe.

Boy, you get punched in the mouth. People get really, because a lot of times people will say, no,

I don't care what you say. I know what I believe. I don't care what you think.

I know I'm a believer. Well, Jesus had something we don't have.

He had the ability to know for sure. Like you might say to someone, your life isn't in line with what

I believe a believer would be or something like that. You might be, and you might think that's awfully judgmental, but if we're sharing with someone about Christ and they say, well,

I'm in Christ, but I'm also living in consistent habitual adultery or homosexuality or some other grave sin and they're continuing to do this and they have no desire for repentance, you would say to that person, there's something wrong in your heart if you say you're a believer and you continue in this sin without any desire for repentance.

You'd say there's something wrong here. That's about as best as we can do. We can't look at someone's heart.

We can't do a CAT scan and see born again or not born again.

But Jesus knew. Jesus knew who would believe.

And he knew this. He knew there is really only two categories of men in all of human history.

And I've said this before, but I want to remind you of it again. It doesn't matter your sex, your age, your color or your socioeconomic status.

That is not what divides us. Now all of those things can have cultural implications or something like that and all of those things.

But what distinguishes men is whether or not they are in Adam or in Christ. That's what distinguishes men and women.

It's what distinguishes mankind. If you are in Adam and you are not in Christ, then at this moment you are unsaved.

You're outside of the kingdom of God. And if you die in that condition, your eternal consequence will be the wrath of God abiding on you for all eternity.

That is the two conditions. You are either in Adam and that's the way you were born. Every person is born a fallen son or daughter of Adam.

No person in here was born a new Adam. I think this is one of the grave mistakes of many theological systems is they have the idea that every person is born somehow a new

Adam. No, you're not born a new Adam. You're born with the corruption of Adam. We're actually born having inherited the guilt of Adam.

And we stand with Adam opposed to God. The Bible says we are at enmity with God.

We are by nature children of wrath. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3. That is the condition we are in prior to conversion.

But what happens at conversion? The Bible says we are in Christ.

We are now a new creation. And you're either in one of those this morning.

You came in this morning. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. There is no third category.

But I want to add this statement. There is a subcategory of the

Adamic side. And that subcategory is those who appear to be in Christ.

So there is a subcategory on the Adamic side. Can we all agree there are those who appear to be in Christ who are not?

I would hope we would because Jesus said so. Jesus said that there are those among us who are not genuine.

The Bible talks about those who are pseudo -adelphoi, false brethren. Jesus said on that day there will be those who come to him and say,

Lord, Lord, did we not do many miracles in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?

And what will he say unto them? He will say, I never knew you. If Jesus says to someone,

I never knew you, are they in him or not? But what is their claim at the judgment throne?

Hey, I used your name. I said to you, Lord, Lord. I called you by the proper title.

And I did the good works that I thought I was supposed to do. But Jesus said, yes, you did those things.

You said those things. But you never departed lawlessness. And in that I would say more deeply, you never truly trusted in me.

My friends, this is what Jesus is facing in this chapter. Remember what

I said last week. If you go back to verse 60, notice what it says in verse 60. When many of his disciples heard it.

This is not talking about the 12. The disciples in verse 60 is referring to everyone in the crowd.

Because the word disciple is a generic term. Mathetes in Greek simply means a learner or a student or a follower.

This is referring to everyone in the crowd. And we know this because later he looks at the 12. It says the disciples depart.

But he looks at the 12 and he distinguishes those who we would call apostles. And he says, are you going to go away too?

These people were followers, learners, hearers of Jesus. But they were not believers.

Jesus said that. They were not genuinely believers. Again, going back to verse 64.

What does he say? But there are some of you who do not believe. There are some of you who do not believe.

He's already told us that. Verse 36, he says, you come to me, but you don't believe. This is the second time Jesus is saying that.

Notice though, I do want to point this out in verse 64. He says, some of you do not believe. What is the implication of that?

Some do. He says, some of you do not believe, which means some of you do. There's a blessing in that.

And we're going to see in a moment, Peter is actually going to announce his faith. And he is going to speak on behalf of the other disciples as he often does.

As the, I would say, sometimes impetuous mouthpiece of the apostles. Sometimes speaking too quickly.

But in this case, he says something really, really good. And he announces their faith in Jesus Christ.

But not everyone in the group believed. And Jesus knew the heart of men. He knew whose faith was genuine and who had a false faith.

This harkens back earlier to the gospel in John chapter 2. When it tells us he knew the heart of men.

He knew the heart of men. And we see that in the

ESV. It puts it in parentheses. Of course, that's not in the original language. That's just added by English translators to provide us with some help in contextualizing different phrases and understanding.

And it's also showing us that Jesus didn't say this. This goes along with what he said. Jesus said, there are some of you who do not believe.

And John is giving us a commentary on that. He says, for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe.

Jesus knew from the beginning. That speaks to his divinity.

It speaks to the fact that nothing took Jesus by surprise.

And may I add this. Not even the betrayal of Judas took

Jesus by surprise. Because notice what it says. It says, for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe.

And who it was who would betray him. Jesus knew

Judas was Judas before he ever called his name.

Now, it is an important thing that we remember that God did not force

Judas to betray Jesus Christ in the sense of any type of external coercion.

God is not in heaven pulling Judas' arm up behind his back like a bully would do in school and tell us to say uncle.

You know when the bully would grab your arm and wrench it behind your shoulder and say, say uncle, say uncle. And we say uncle to relieve the pressure on our shoulder.

Well, God is not in heaven grabbing Judas by the arm and twisting his arm up behind his back and saying, betray

Christ, betray Christ. Judas did exactly what Judas wanted to do.

This is why we can claim that God is sovereign and yet man is still responsible. Judas is responsible for what he is going to do.

God did not introduce any fresh evil in his heart. Judas' heart, like all of our hearts, carried the sin of Adam within it and was already evil.

I like to think of it like this and I point this out sometimes when we think about why we're responsible for sin.

You've heard me say this, some of you, some of you haven't. I say when it comes to my sin, I say I'm completely responsible for all of my sin.

And yet for any goodness I have, I can say thank you God because it is God who gives me that ability.

It's God who gives the grace. This is why Augustine, when he prayed that prayer which so inflamed

Pelagius in the 4th and 5th century when they had their debate, he said,

God, command what thou wilt but give us the grace to do what thou command.

Tell me what you want but then give me the ability to do it because apart from your grace

I don't have that ability. So when the evil man does what the evil man does, he does it because that's what he wants.

Judas did exactly what he wanted to do and yet it is part of the decree of God. According to Acts chapter 2, it says,

Jesus was delivered up according to the definite knowledge and plan of God. Excuse me, I read that wrong, let me read back again.

Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified by the hands of lawless men.

This is Peter speaking. And then again in chapter 4, we hear these words,

For truly in this place they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the

Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

God is not caught off guard. God has a purpose and he has determined the end from the beginning.

And yet we're still responsible. By the way, if you ever want to know the difference, where the ditches lie, you know we often talk about there's ditches on either side of any doctrine.

There's ditches that lead you into false teaching one way or the other. The ditches on this lie in this.

If we say God is so sovereign that man is not responsible, that's a ditch. But if we say man is so responsible that God is not sovereign, that's a ditch.

God is sovereign and yet you are still responsible. And that is a balancing position that we must maintain because the scripture maintains it.

Simple as it is. Now is there more that we could talk about? Yeah, but I'm sure you all want to get to that food eventually.

But we do talk about this a lot because within the Reformed tradition, we hold very strongly to the sovereignty of God.

But never let it keep you from thinking that that makes you think that we don't think we're responsible for our sin.

We absolutely are. And Judas is responsible for his sin. In doctrinal,

I said I wasn't going to do it. In the doctrine, we call it divine compatibilism. And if you want to look that up and ask questions later, you're free to.

But it teaches that God ordains all that comes to pass, yet humans act freely and justly, are accountable because their choices flow from their own desires.

Their choices flow from their own desires. A good book, if you're interested in looking that up, is a book called

On the Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards or On the Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther.

Both of those books make wonderful treatises on this subject. Now, the next thing we see is verse 65.

We haven't even got to the verses for today. Forgive me. I need to move on. But the next verse, verse 65 says,

This is why I told you no one can come to me unless it's granted by my Father. This, again, affirming what I just said. We can't come unless God gives us the grace.

Why? Because we don't want to. Because our hearts are darkened by sin. Our flesh has the desire for the flesh.

And the natural man does not desire the things of God. In fact, 1 Corinthians says they don't even understand them.

They're spiritually discerned. How can we discern spiritual things without being made spiritual? And this is why we believe we must be born again.

I heard something really great this week. It says if you believe a man can believe without receiving a new heart, what does he need the new heart for?

If he can believe without the new heart, what's the new heart for? No, God gives us the new heart.

And therefore, we believe. Gives us the desire. Now we get to verse 66.

After this, many of his disciples, and this is why I said, this is why the word disciples here does not simply mean the twelve.

After this, many of his disciples, this is the crowd, turned back and no longer walked with him.

I'm going to be honest with you. There are a lot of sad verses in Scripture.

This is one of the saddest verses in Scripture. The crowd has rejected the words of Jesus to their own spiritual peril.

They were happy to follow Jesus while Jesus was feeding them. They were happy to follow

Jesus while Jesus' message appealed to them. But in an instant, one sermon,

Jesus goes from somebody that they were willing to cross land and sea to follow, to someone that they will walk with no more.

As I said a few weeks ago, it only takes one bad sermon for a pastor to fall out of favor.

You say, wait a minute, you mean a bad sermon? A sermon that people don't like. Jesus didn't preach a bad sermon, to clarify.

But Jesus preached a sermon they didn't want to hear. He preached a sermon they did not like. There's a great movie that came out a few years ago.

Dennis Quaid plays a preacher. His son was born with an ailment in his legs and he had to wear braces on his legs.

And the story is about his son growing up to become a baseball player. It's a wonderful movie. I actually enjoyed it.

Jennifer and I watched it together. But in the movie, the father, Dennis Quaid, he plays a preacher. And he's preaching in a little country church.

And while he's preaching, one of the men of the church is sitting right around where Mike is sitting. Mark. Mike.

We don't even have a Mark. Mike is sitting now and he's smoking in the church.

Smoking and he's dropping the ashes onto the floor.

And the preacher just can't stand it. He's trying to preach his heart out. The movie is so funny because it's showing like his face.

And he'd look and he sees the ashes hit the floor. And you can see his smoke kind of coming out of his ears. And finally he goes,

Sir, if you would please just refrain until after the service. Please don't smoke while I'm preaching.

Well, the next week, his family, which were in there, it was a large family riding in their station wagon.

This was back in the 70s or something. They come rolling up to the church and everybody's standing at the front door. And he steps out and he says,

What's going on? They said, We just had a meeting. We don't want you anymore. Now, that may seem like an exaggeration.

But friends, one of the things that God has given me great grace in the last couple of years is to meet a lot of good preachers.

And I have heard stories that are even worse than that. Of people who will hear the

Word of God, they don't want to hear it, and the very next day that guy is gone.

That guy is gone. I wrote this. I said,

I would never be so arrogant as to say I know how Jesus felt at any given moment of his ministry, because I cannot even begin to comprehend the mind of my perfect and divine

Savior. But I can say this. Almost every pastor I know understands the feeling of ministering to people and pouring out your heart and soul to them, only to watch them walk away for all the wrong reasons.

We call it the revolving door of ministry. Jesus preached a sermon.

One sermon. And after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

Now, a few times in the course of these 6 or 8 weeks

I've been in chapter 6, I have said something that I want to correct. And if you think I'm wrong, we can talk about it later, it's fine.

But one thing I think I've said is I think I've said that only the 12 were left. I don't think everybody but the 12 left.

And here's my argument. I got to thinking about this as I got to verse 66, and I got to thinking about many of his disciples.

One, it says many, but two, I don't think all the women left, because the women were the ones who were, if you read the other gospels, the women were the ones who walked with him through very difficult times, and were even some of them, because some of them had wealth, and they were helping maintain the financial part of Jesus' ministry.

Of course, nothing's free, right? Everything needs money. And it says that some of the money that was used was because of this.

So I don't think everybody but the 12 left, but I think the vast majority left. So I'm just correcting myself.

If I've said over the past four weeks everybody but the 12 left, I meant in regard to comparatively.

Jesus, as I said, Jesus knew nothing of the church growth movement. Jesus knew nothing of the seeker -friendly movement.

Jesus preached, and he cleared the church. And only a few stayed. And only a few stayed.

So, this brings us to verse 67. In verse 67, so Jesus said to the 12,

Do you want to go away as well? Do you want to go away as well? They're gone.

The vast majority has walked away. What I just preached was so hard for people to hear and receive, that many of them are never coming back.

It says they walked with him no more. Many of these people are not coming back. Do you want to go too?

Do you want to go too? Now praise the Lord for Simon Peter. Simon Peter says the right thing here.

There were times when Simon Peter said the wrong thing. And that's why, as I've said many times,

Simon Peter is my favorite apostle. Because I feel like when I connect with different people,

I connect with him on the fact that I don't know when to hush. And sometimes I put my foot in my mouth.

And Peter could do that. Peter put his foot in his mouth more than once. Jesus even called him a devil.

Get behind me Satan. But in this moment,

Peter says the right thing. Praise God for that. Praise God that even those of us who are prone to putting our foot in our mouth get it right.

By God's grace from time to time. Simon Peter said,

Lord to whom shall we go? To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

And we have believed and we come to know that you are the Holy One of God. First of all,

I want to deal with his question. He said, Lord to whom shall we go?

Understand this. That particular question should resonate in every heart that has ever considered walking away from the

Lord Jesus Christ. Because I would ask you, if the world or the flesh or Satan himself would try to tempt you away.

And they are. All of those things are. Look at how many people today are deconstructing.

What is deconstruction? It means to re -examine your faith, but re -examine your faith critically.

And often times in this so called critical re -evaluation, people come out on the other side believing many false things about Jesus Christ.

And many of them simply depart Christ altogether. And my question to that person and to you if you are considering that, is where are you going to go?

Where are you going to go to find another Savior? That's Peter's heart.

You going to go away? Where? Where could I possibly go? One, you have the words of eternal life.

What you are saying is the truth. And what you are saying is what we have to base the foundation of our lives on.

Because you are speaking to us the words that give life. And we have come to know that you are

Messiah. That's the Holy One of God. We've come to know that all the promises of the

Old Testament. All the promises of a great prophet who would come. All the promises of a priest who would come.

And all the promises of a king who was to come. All are bound up in you.

To whom shall we go? You understand that's the message of the book of Hebrews?

The theme of the book of Hebrews is this. Jesus is superior to all. But the question of Hebrews is where else are you going to go?

If you turn from Christ and go back to Judaism, because that's who it's written to.

If you turn from Christ and go back to Judaism, you're departing from the sacrifice Christ has made.

And there's no longer a sacrifice for sins. Where are you going to go? I get a little animated because this is an important question.

Where are you going to go if you walk away from Jesus Christ? Amen.

Amen. But this is where we find ourselves today.

So many people who are willing to go somewhere else to find something else other than Jesus Christ.

Is Jesus Christ not enough for you? If He's not enough for you, nothing else will ever be enough.

He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one cometh unto the Father except through Him. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And at the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. No one else. Nowhere else. And Peter knew this.

Peter knew. Where else can we go? Now does that mean

Peter was perfect? No. Just a little while and he's going to be standing in a courtyard yelling at a woman because she said, you were with Jesus.

Peter's not perfect, but he's getting it right right now. And the great thing is, you're not perfect either.

But if you're in Christ, you're forgiven. And you're declared righteous. And when you stand before God, it won't be because of what you have done, but because of what

He did for you. Don't turn from Him. Don't walk away from Him.

He is enough. He is enough. Jesus responds.

Verse 70. Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?

He spoke of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, for he was one of the twelve. He, one of the twelve, was going to betray

Him. The word devil here is diabolos.

It's where we get our English word diabolical. Which, of course, simply means devilish, slanderer, accuser, title for the chief of all the demons.

Jesus says, I've chosen twelve of you, but one of you is diabolos. One of you is a diabolical soul.

One of you is a devil. Judas was not an example of someone who lost their salvation.

That's a key distinction. You'll often hear people who argue for the ability to lose one's salvation will use

Judas. They'll say, well Judas was walking with Jesus, and when he was with Jesus he was saved, but he lost his salvation.

Judas is not an example of losing salvation. He was a devil from the beginning.

And this is the scary part. This devil can be in the midst and be hidden among the true.

The other eleven, I mean, you know, we know a lot about Simon Peter. We know about Andrew and John, and we know about James.

We know very little about a few of them. Some of them we only know their name, really. Church history gives us a little bit more about them.

Tradition says every one of them died for their faith. But one thing we do know, the eleven believed.

Even Thomas who struggled with doubt after Jesus was raised, when he saw Jesus, what did he say? My Lord and my

God. Doubts vanished. You are my Lord and my

God. And history tells us he actually was responsible for taking Christianity further east into India.

The Martama Church is named after St. Thomas. These men believed, but one of them was a devil.

One of them was a devil. And he was a hidden devil. He was a devil that none of them would have guessed. And a friend of mine was reading ahead, and he listened to our sermons online, and he reached out and he said,

I got a question about verse 70. He says, why don't we get anything else?

And of course I don't know the answer to why we don't get anything else. But he says, did the apostles just hear that and say okay?

Because they don't respond. If I stood among you and I had the ability to see your hearts, and I said one of you is a devil, you would think there would be some conversation.

Maybe on the way home in the car. But there's no conversation.

There's no conversation. Now we know later in the upper room, Jesus will say, one of you is going to betray me.

And in that moment, they actually don't point at each other. They say, is it I? Am I the one?

Which I think there's actually some powerful humility in that. Because normally when you say one of you is a devil, you're looking elsewhere.

But they were at least humble enough to say, am I the one who's going to fail? Am I the one who's going to stumble? Am I the one who's going to fall?

But we don't get a recording in this. That's not to say it didn't happen. Remember, John even tells us later in his gospel, not everything that happened did he write down.

So there could have been a long conversation after. So we don't know why there's nothing after this.

But what we do have after this, rather than an interaction between, rather than a discourse between Jesus and the apostles, when

Jesus says, one of you is a devil, John chooses to give us a commentary to tell us who it is.

This he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon. See, John is writing after the fact.

You know, John is writing several decades after these events have taken place. And he can look back under the inspiration of the

Spirit and write down, when Jesus said this, he was talking about Judas.

And it's not written here, but the implication is, at this point, they didn't know.

At this point, they didn't know. But Jesus knew. The most dangerous thing that occurs, and it's everywhere, but the most dangerous thing we see in the church is what

Jude calls the hidden reef. You know,

Jude is only one chapter. It's in that last book, right before you get to Revelation, at the end of your Bible. And you read that.

You know, he says, and if I don't read what he says, in Jude, Jude verse 3 says this. He said, He said,

I wanted to write to you about our salvation, but I've got to write to you to stand up and fight for the faith.

Why? Why? Verse 4. Again, the sovereignty of God.

He says, right there, he says, Why? And later, he says,

What does a hidden reef do? A hidden reef, when the ship is going close to land, the hidden reef will tear the bottom from the boat and create incisions into the hull, which allow water to flow in and sink the ship.

How many local churches have been sunk by hidden reefs?

Men who have the spirit of Judas within them, when they come in to the house of God, not to bless and benefit

God's people, but to bring in destructive heresies and draw men after themselves, and in doing so, they bring swift destruction upon them all.

Beloved, I wish this were uncommon, but it's not.

There are entire movements of Christianity right now that are being run by Judas's.

There are entire groups whose leaders, I watched a video recently of a leader, he talked about how if somebody came into his church and said,

I'm here to serve Jesus Christ and not a man, he would say, I'd send him right back out because he's here to serve me. I'll send the video to you if you don't believe me.

That's exactly what, it was in a leadership conference at one of the charismatic church movements, and he said,

I'm the man of God, they're here to serve me. And I said, dude, you better watch your mouth.

What a heart, what a heart. There are dangerous men who hide behind titles like preacher, pastor, elder, deacon, and sometimes friend.

Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss because he pretended to be his friend.

Beloved, this is a dangerous, dangerous thing. So two types of people are seen in this text.

One, there are those who hang around Jesus hoping to be blessed and fed, but the moment he says something that offends them, they depart never to be seen again.

But two, there are those who claim fidelity to Christ, even have positions of leadership, and yet they hide a heart of unbelief.

Oh, how this sadly, and yet in great detail, describes the church in many ways today.

But please, oh please, oh please, remember the words of Peter when he said, to whom shall we go?

If the devil ever tempts you to turn from Christ, if the devil ever causes you to want to look in a different direction than Jesus Christ, remember the words of Peter who said, to whom shall we go?

There is nowhere else, there is no one else. Jesus is the one, the only one.

And beloved may it be that we never be caught up with the wicked perversion heart of Judas that would say, it would be better to me to betray the

Lord Jesus Christ. What a terrible thought that would be.

My friends, I want to leave you with a quote from J .C. Ryle, great

Anglican bishop. Consider his words as we prepare for prayer.

There are many people about whom the Bible shows me I ought to stand in doubt. Reader, art thou one of these?

There are many whom I call almost Christians, for I know no other expression in the Bible which so exactly describes their status.

They have many things about them which are right and good and praiseworthy in the sight of God. They are regular in their moral lives.

They are free from glaring outward sins. They keep up many decent and proper habits. They are usually diligent in their attendance to the means of grace.

They appear to love the preaching of the gospel. They are not offended at the truth of Jesus, however plainly it may be spoken.

They are not objectionable to religious company, religious books, or religious talk. They agree to all that you say to them when you speak to them about their souls, and all this as well.

But there is no movement in their hearts of these things that even a microscope can detect.

They are like those who stand still week after week, year after year, and they are just as they were.

They sit under our pulpits, they approve of our sermons, and yet, like Pharaoh, they are nothing the better, apparently, for all they receive.

There's always the same regularity about them, the same constant attendance to the means of grace, the same wishing and hoping, the same way of talking about religion, but there's nothing more.

There's nothing going forward in their Christianity. There's no life, there's no heart, there's no reality. Their souls are in a deadlock.

And all this is sadly wrong. And reader, are you one of these? This was a book, by the way. Reader, are you one of these?

There are thousands of them in this day, thousands in our churches, thousands in our chapels, and I ask you to give an honest answer to the question, is this the state of your soul and the side of God?

Beloved, if so, today is the day of repentance. Today is the day to turn from such wicked vices and such wicked ideas and turn to the

Lord Jesus Christ. I'll inverse what

Peter said. Peter said, to whom shall we go? If you are in Christ today,

I'll ask you, why have you not come? If you're not in Christ, why have you not come? What in the world is keeping you away?

What is keeping you from coming to the Savior? May God, by His grace, grant you the ability to come.

Let us pray. Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for the clarity of Jesus' words here, where He reminds us,

Lord, that there are Judas's, real and true

Judas's, and yet, Lord, there are the faithful.

Within the twelve, there was only one Judas, but the most, the many, the majority were the faithful.

Thank you, Lord, for the faithful. Thank you for those who do believe. Thank you for opening their hearts and drawing them to yourself.

Thank you that, Lord, your church continues because of faithful men and women, because,

Lord, you have given them a desire to follow after you. Lord, work through us, work on us, correct us, and give us your grace.

And for the one who is outside of Christ today, the one who is still in Adam, open their heart to believe,

O Lord. Pray, O God, that they would come. We pray,

O God, that they would come to the fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, for sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.