Transcript

We’re going to Luke 22 this morning as we continue through that Gospel. I do not know in what ways but I hope and pray that God will let Grace Life Church and what we’ve experienced and what God in his grace has allowed us to do and accomplish, will be a well that if the Lord tarries, generations of pastors and church leaders will look back and say, “You can stand on the word of God. You can build a biblical ministry. You can have meaningful membership in a local church. You can have a true Gospel and have a biblical understanding of conversion. You can have biblical standards for membership.” You know, these things that, to be honest, as a young pastor, I was told, “Well, Brother Jeff, we appreciate your heart on that but you can’t do that.” And I would say, “What do you mean you can’t do it, it’s in the Bible.” And when we started to do it, then I understood why you can’t do it, it was very, very hard and there were many, many who opposed the doing of it. But thank God that’s in our past and God has allowed us to grow a congregation that overwhelmingly affirms sound biblical doctrine and methodology. It didn’t happen overnight, though. One of the truths that you face and learn how to grapple with and get through is dealing with the Judas spirit that was evident, of course, in the first Judas, the Judas Iscariot, and in a sense he wasn’t the first one but he gets, his name gets attached to the spirit we’re talking about, and it’s certainly evident in every age and every generation and to one degree or another in every church.

Let’s look at it together as our Lord is now in Jerusalem. He is in the last few days of his life before his crucifixion. It’s time for the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He has finished his last public sermon to the people and we come to Luke 22:1 through 6.

1 Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching. 2 The chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put Him to death; for they were afraid of the people. 3 And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve. 4 And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them. 5 They were glad and agreed to give him money. 6 So he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Him to them apart from the crowd.

I. The sovereign setting. The sovereign setting. You see, our Lord has come to a transition point in his ministry. He has now moved out of the office and function of prophet, he’s now moving more fully into the office and function of priest. We’ve seen, I pointed out, I pounded it from this pulpit over and over as we’ve gone through Luke, the strong, manly, courageous, prophetic ministry of Jesus Christ; how he would confront the common folks of his day with the truth of the word of God. He would confront their carnal desire to have a Messiah that would make them happy today and fix all their temporal needs while they would like to neglect the deeper root issue of their sin and their guilt and condemnation before a holy God. He confronted the immoral woman who was drawing water at the well when others would say, “Oh, she just needs mercy and grace because she’s been abused.” He showed her mercy and grace but as a prophet, he showed her her sin also. He confronted even his devout followers, his inner circle of apostles on many occasions, one occasion challenging them that loyalty to him must be greater than their loyalty to their mom, their dad, their children, or even their spouse if it came to that. Weighty, courageous, manly teaching and preaching. He confronted the religious leaders of the day over and over and over and over again about their man-made laws and their man-made traditions and their oppressive dominance they placed over the people. Then, of course, he faithfully called all, everyone everywhere, to repent of all and everything that they would put their faith and trust in and turn only and exclusively to himself. He’s been doing all of those things and many more, but now, as I said, he has finished his last public sermon and he’s turning now to his high priestly ministry of being the one chosen and appointed by the heavenly Father to be the Intercessor between God and man. He’s going to go to a cross and there he’s going to die and become the substitutionary sacrifice for sin, opening the way as the one true high priest that gives all men who repent and believe access to God.

Now, verse 1 of chapter 22 says it’s the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover. This was, without a doubt, the most important religious rite instituted in Israel. It was a rite or a memorial that commemorated the night that the death angel in Egypt passed over all the Jewish households who had the blood of a spotless Lamb applied to the doorpost and then to the lintel. The death angel visits Egypt and God had told the Israelites, “Sacrifice a lamb. Take the lamb’s blood. Apply it to the doorpost and the lintel, and when the judgment of God and the death angel comes to Egypt, you will be passed over but every house that does not have the blood applied will be visited by the death angel and the firstborn will die.” So every year since then, Israel had this solemn and holy ritual of the Passover, sacrificing a lamb, and presenting it as an offering at the temple to commemorate that great Passover event.

It’s also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread and, actually, the Feast of Unleavened Bread were the seven days after the Passover, but it became just known as one thing. But a word about being the Feast of Unleavened Bread: the Lord gave them this tradition of this one time of year eating bread for seven days with no yeast in it because yeast in the Bible represents that which is corrupt; that which is lower; that which is of man. It represents the arm of man or the strength of man including the corruption and the sin of man. So they ate unleavened bread to commemorate that the strength of man and the arm of man and the wisdom of man did not save us in Egypt, God saved us in Egypt. We look to no human strength, ritual, rite, procedure, work or merit to gain a standing before a holy God. God does that for us in his Son, Jesus Christ. So they would eat that unleavened bread to remind them it’s not the strength of man, we’re corrupt and evil. It’s not the yeast of man, the humanness, that achieves a righteousness before a holy God.

Anyway, they put both of these together, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and typically it was just call the feast of the Passover. Each family, again, secured a young unblemished lamb and presented it to the priest for sacrifice. Then it was to be eaten by the family and any that was not eaten was to be burned. So the Jews are all in this time of Passover. They are all preparing for the Passover lamb and the Passover meal, and while the people of Israel, the citizens of Israel, are preparing their own Passover lamb, in God’s sovereignty, he was preparing the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, who would be crucified for the sins of the world.

Isaiah 63:4 prophesied of this, “The year of My redemption has come.” It’s a sovereign setting. A sovereign God is orchestrating all of this. Jesus didn’t just happen to go to Jerusalem, and just happened to be the Passover. No, it was established from the foundation of the world that at this year, on this day, at this Passover, he went into Jerusalem as God’s Passover Lamb. Now, we know Jesus observed the Passover at this time and when he did observe it, we’ll get to that as we continue through Luke. He actually transformed the Passover from a meal commemorating what God did back in Egypt to a meal commemorating what he does for us when he dies on the cross.

Now, we go a little further here and we see not only that a sovereign God ordained and orchestrated this very setting and event, to verse 2, and that is, the scheming assassins. The scheming assassins. Verse 2, “The chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put Him to death; for they were afraid of the people.” Now, we’ve talked a lot about how the Lord has been in continual, I would even say from a verbal perspective, violent conflict with the religious leaders that were mentioned in this verse. Over and over, he just absolutely lashes them verbally; shaming them; embarrassing them; denouncing their error. Jesus was a man’s man when it came to the truth. And he didn’t just do it once or twice, he did it, as we’ve seen him go through it over and over, so for that reason and because he was beginning to gain some popularity and they were mostly concerned about losing their power and control position before the people, so for a multitude of reasons, they want to kill him and they are plotting how this might happen. But what a strange irony this is and an evil iron he that while the entire nation is gathering to observe and celebrate the Passover, the spiritual leaders are seeking to destroy the Passover Lamb that’s being revealed right before their eyes.

You see, everything in the Passover observance pointed to Jesus. Again, Jesus was the antitype, the Passover meal God gave the Jews was the type. It’s called typology. It pictured Christ. It pointed to him. The blood of the unblemished Passover lamb is the blood of the unblemished Lamb of Jesus Christ. The lamb itself represents the body of Jesus Christ. They would have to eat what was left over the sacrifice, that’s us receiving him who is our spiritual nourishment and sustains and gives us life. The lamb was to be brought as a sacrifice. Jesus went to the cross as the only true substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. They ate unleavened bread, that speaks of how Jesus is unleavened. He had no fleshly power or strength. He was divine, pure and holy. There was no leaven of corruption in him whatsoever. Then the lamb was to be consumed by fire. That consuming was the picture of how when Jesus dies on the cross, God’s wrath falls on him and he effectually consumes the weightiness of God’s just punishment that’s against us. He was effectual in his death on the cross, completely consuming what was against us as sinners before a holy God.

That’s interesting. These leaders of Israel should have been the first to recognize Jesus and the first to welcome him and to honor him, but instead they are plotting to kill him. The text tells us they are afraid of the people because a number of the people still loved Jesus and still were clinging to his preaching. Now, I think we get the notion that all these people generally loved and were devoted to Jesus. It’s a mixed bag; it’s a mixed multitude. Some genuinely loved him, were devoted to him; many of them were curious; many of them hoped he’d start doing some miracles again; they wanted their best life now. And so there was just a lot of various reasons why some genuine, some not genuine, Jesus folks liked Jesus but he was liked enough and it ebbed and flowed, by the way, the crowd and the support. On one occasion Jesus looked at his disciples and said, “Are you going to leave too?” because the crowds got so small for a while. So as Jesus preached and taught the truth, his congregation would get big and then it would fall away, it would get bigger and fall away, but there was enough of them at this time still honoring him that they were afraid, “If we publicly try to kill Jesus, we could cause a riot and we don’t want that to happen. That would hurt us in the eyes of Caesar and then hurt our power and control over the people.” So they are temporarily held back from just going right out in the public and getting it done, but isn’t that just like Satan? He always sneaks around in the shadows. That’s the way he does his work. So these assassins, these scheming assassins, are waiting to find a chink in Jesus’ armor. They need a break. They needed an inside track and they are about to get one: Judas Iscariot.

III. The Satanic possession. “And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve.” He belonged to the 12. This is the 12 that Jesus prayed all night and chose to be his most intimate followers. These are 12 preachers in training, but far more than that, these are 12 men who are preachers but they hold an office of apostle, an office that no longer exists; an office that had unique power and authority. And Judas was chosen to be one of those 12. This, indeed, is the insider that the Jewish authorities need. Judas is a false convert. Judas is an imposter. Now, he put on a good front. They were all convinced he was the real genuine article, but he was not. Judas joined up with Jesus for the worldly gain he thought he would get by associating with Christ. Jesus was powerful. Jesus was popular. So Judas put his finger in the air and decided, “I’ll join up with him as long as I’m convinced joining up with Jesus will be profitable for my own self-ordained goals,” and, of course, he kept those concealed from others. Now, up to this point, Judas must have experienced some vacillation of heart as Jesus would get unpopular and Jesus would do things that would look like they were going to cause him a lot of trouble and get them all in trouble. Judas must have been hanging on by a fringe at times and I believe at this point Judas finally decided, “Do you know what? I can’t hang with him any longer.” Up to this point, Judas thought there was enough to hang onto but now it looks like that it’s best that he separate from Jesus and go another way.

Scriptures actually tell us that Judas was the treasurer of the apostolic band. They would take up offerings where Jesus would minister and pay their bills and Judas was pilfering out of the offering. You know, the true church, you might call it a biblically healthy church, always has enemies from without and from within. The New Testament is chock- full of examples and warnings that false brethren and false preachers and teachers will infiltrate congregations. In fact, the last thing the Apostle Paul told the elders at the church of Ephesus, by the way, the last thing you tell someone if you’ve been their pastor and been discipling them should be about the most important thing you say. The last thing he said to them in Acts 20:26-30, “Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.” Paul said, “I preached to you all the doctrines God wanted me to preach to you. I didn’t shrink back from anything that was uncomfortable.” Verse 28, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” Now notice verse 29, “I know,” Paul says, not that I think so or not that this could happen, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and,” in addition to that, “from among your own selves,” that’s the Judas spirit, he was among the 12, “from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

Verse 3 of our text, “Satan entered into Judas.” So we know that when you see the Judas spirit in a church, in a congregation, Satan is always behind the Judas spirit whenever it raises its ugly head. I think what’s important to note is that Satan had been coming to Judas as a tempter and Judas had been continually giving himself fully to this carnal, worldly pursuit, “I’m going to join up. I’m going to be a part of the group because I feel like it’s going to help me in worldly terms. I’m going to get ahead. I’m going to be in power. I’m going to have some control. It’s going to help me financially. I believe this is the right way to go.” Not because he loved Christ and loved the truth and was willing to suffer for it, oh, quite the contrary. Oh, he would do a little suffering; he thought in the end he was going to gain in it worldly sense but his heart wasn’t spiritual or with God at all.

So Satan had been coming to Judas as a tempter but now he has come to Judas as a possessor. He came to Judas for a season as a tempter but now he’s sole proprietor in Judas’ heart. Judas, through continually yielding to his lust for power and profit, now becomes an open door for Satanic possession. I believe this state that Judas has entered into is a state beyond God’s designs for grace. Judas had yielded again and again and again and never repented and now he’s hardened beyond God’s purposes of rehabilitation. He has crossed God’s deadline. Judas, no doubt, believes Jesus has taken a wrong strategy. Judas believes, has hurt his cause beyond compare and beyond, rather repair, and now Judas who was only in it for self and worldly gain, looks for an exit by which he may profit himself and he cares not if it destroys Jesus because he was only using Jesus anyway. Judas is looking for a way out of this failing enterprise and perhaps he can make himself a little money in the process. Van Doren, in one of the commentaries has just done an excellent job on Luke, he says, “The likes of Judas has occurred in the church throughout history.”

IV. The sinister plot, verses 4 through 6. “And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them.” He went away in disgust. He’s come to the point where he’s very deliberate, even premeditated. Judas has spent three years with Jesus experiencing the Lord’s kindness and love and now he plots the worst wickedness ever recorded in human history. But let’s, as a point of application, remind ourselves that the Judas spirit is alive and thriving in many congregations today. As a matter of fact, most all congregations have something of the Judas spirit. So many today actively, premeditatively, seek to gain their own selfish worldly advantage in the church and if they cannot get it, they do not mind destroying the church or hurting it as much as they can as they make their exit. That’s the Judas spirit. Judas, in our text here, is falling into the stronghold of sin. He’s at a point where God is going to allow his heart to harden swiftly. That’s something you need to pray, “Oh God, oh God, oh God, save me from me. Don’t let me fall headlong into sin whereby you deliver me over to swiftly harden my heart to you and to the things that matter.”

The Bible says in verse 4 he goes away to betray Jesus. The Psalmist prophesied of this in Psalm 41:9, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.” Remember, Jesus as the Gospels record, was dipping his bread in the sop and said, “The one who dips with me will betray me.”

Verse 5, “They were glad,” of course they were glad, “and agreed to give him money.” Their long cherished hopes of destroying Jesus are now being fulfilled. They agree to give him money. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.” They knew Judas loved money. He didn’t love the Christ, he loved money. He is capable of anything. Balaam, a good example of the love of money. Aiken brought Israel’s armies into defeat out of the love for stuff. Ananias and Sapphira had to be disciplined and removed from the church during a service out of the love of money. The Bible tells us it’s actually 30 pieces of silver that Judas received to betray the Lord Jesus. Scholars tell us that was about the price of the lowest menial slave sold on an auction block. Levitical law said if your oxen got loose and killed a servant, then that servant, the fine is 30 shekels of silver, so Judas betrayed Jesus for the lowest, lowest cost.

Verse 6, “So he,” Judas, “consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Him to them apart from the crowd.” So from that point on, they have this sinister plot, “We’ve got to find a way when Jesus is away from everyone else and will not cause any kind of public disturbance, and we’ll have him done away with.” Now, the Judas spirit always measures a church by the worldly good it will bring them. Those who are controlled by the Judas spirit often spend time in a lot of different churches because they are about themselves. The notion of joining a sound church doctrinally and methodologically and giving myself unselfishly to advance Christ through that church, that doesn’t enter their mind. They’re about them and maybe their ministry and what they want to perform and how they want to do it, and they’ll go until they find a place where they think they’re allowed to do that. I’m not saying all these people are possessed by Satan but that’s the Judas spirit. Judas, Van Doren says, is a type of traitor that occurs in the church from time to time.

Now, I want to close with four conclusions for practical application. Four conclusions for practical application, CPAs. 1. Let’s all remember, let’s be humble and let’s be balanced, that there is some Judah spirit in all of us and we have to keep it repented down. So in one sense, we need to cut Judas a little slack here. There are untold thousands, could it be millions, throughout the ages who would qualify to be Judas. I’ve been in this Baptist thing for what, 35, 36 years now and I’m telling you, I’ve preached a lot of places and I’ve spent the bulk of my energies outside of here pastering pastors and counseling pastors and helping pastors and they’re up against the Judas spirit all the time. But even the truest, most devoted, truly regenerate, born again child of God still has something of a Judas spirit in him. The key is God has given you humility and grace to see it and repent of it and keep it repented down out of your life. You ought to say amen there because the sure way for you to fall to it is to think you don’t have it. What you need to say is, “Oh God, when it raises up, when I get to thinking, ‘Well, I didn’t get my way. I didn’t get to do it my way. I didn’t get what I wanted. Why did Joe Blow get…?” Judas spirit. “Oh God, help me to see that. Help me to catch it and repent of it and not let it rule my life.”

Simon Peter rejected the Lord Jesus three times. Judas spirit, but he repented and became the mighty preacher on the day of Pentecost. You see, there’s a difference between the truly saved man that is striving to repent of the Judas spirit and the lost man who is given wholly over to the Judas spirit. Are you with me? A big difference in those two.

Number 2 on the conclusions for practical application: Jesus selected Judas in his sovereign purposes. Jesus knew what he was and Jesus selected him to be a part of the apostolic band. Of course, God through his Son Jesus Christ, had a sovereign purpose for there being this rebel, this evil one in the midst of the 12, this one who had betrayed Jesus who, of course, would send Jesus to the cross and in that cross the victory for the church was won. So one thing we can remember is if we have to go through things, and we have and I believe God in his grace has brought us to an age or a time where this is not an issue. I don’t know if it’s an issue. If it’s an issue, I don’t know it. That we don’t have to deal with this but the average church has this everywhere and you’ve got to understand that if you’re a faithful pastor and a faithful Christian and you’re trying to get through it, God has a sovereign purpose for it being there. He is accomplishing something you don’t yet see or understand. Proverbs 16:4, “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil.” Now, God is not responsible for evil but in God’s sovereignty, he even uses the evil of the evil for his own ends and own glory. The greatest evil of time immemorial, Judas Iscariot, wrought the end of Jesus purchasing his church with his own blood.

3. Conclusions for practical application: in true churches or healthy churches, the Judas spirit is identified and removed. So healthy churches, mature churches, sound churches, aren’t fully exempt from the Judas spirit, it’s just quickly seen, identified and dealt with. And hopefully, 99.9 percent of the time, if I have the Judas spirit or you have the Judas spirit, it is seen, a brother says, “Hey, that’s the wrong attitude.” You say, “Thank you for helping me. I repent of that.” It’s over. Amen? That’s a good way to do it. But often it festers further and the Judas spirit always seeks comrades. Judas went out, aligned himself up with the religious authorities, and then they formed what the Bible calls a faction or a division, and that’s to be identified and removed. Titus 3:10 says, “Reject a factious man after a first and second warning.” And there is an urgency in this command. You cannot let a known and willful person who has risen up against the church elders and the direction of the church, there’s no real doctrinal failure or sin issue, they’re just about power and control, that’s got to be addressed and dealt with and removed. Now, you know what you find out as a church gets more healthy? They typically remove themselves. As God blesses a church family, they get to a point where those people rise up and everybody else says, “What are you doing?” And so they feel like, “This isn’t going to work here. I thought this was the way Baptists did their business.” And so they find out this is not the place where people are going to follow a proud, carnal, factious man.

Look at John, well, John 12:3-6 should be on your screen. Let me just look at that real quick. John 12:3-6, this is Judas, “Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Now, some scholars say that this was likely a year’s wage that this perfume would have cost. A lot of money in this perfume she was anointed Jesus’ feet with. Verse 4, “But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said,” verse 5, “‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?’ Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.” Now, here’s my point: God has given the church many gracious souls who have a strong gift of mercy and they are caring and benevolent and concerned about the less fortunate and that’s a wonderful blessing, but at the same time, the Judas spirit often portrays itself that way at first. They will often look like, “We care for the poor. We care for the downtrodden. We care for the hurting. That’s what we’re all about,” when all it is is a smokescreen outfront that they might achieve their agenda for self later on. They use that to draw the affections and the followship of others so that they might form their faction and have their own group and be in charge of it.

I believe a lot of what you hear in the world today about political agendas, of helping the disadvantaged, and helping the poor, is it because that group is somehow inherently filled with more virtue and kindness? It’s because they want power and control and it’s a means to gain it, to get a following on their side. Now, none of this is absolute but here is what I’m saying: church, you’ve got to be discerning. “Well, pastor, how do we know? If these people look so devoted, I mean, Judas was voted in as the treasurer. And I don’t know if they voted but they had to believe he was the genuine article to let him handle money. How do we know if a guy is real? How do we know if he’s generous and joyous? Or her, how do we know she’s a false one if she’s caring and loving and giving and sacrificing and loves to help folks who are hurting?” T-i-m-e. It didn’t come out for three years but it finally came out what Judas was, and that’s one of the gains of having a long-term pastor. This stuff keeps being exposed for what it is as time goes on.

I’m a blessed man because I have, if you’re new around here, I have an army of spiritual men in this church. If the Judas spirit rises up, I don’t even have to get involved anymore, they will quickly and completely and biblically and compassionately see that it’s taken care of. They are not going to let anymore Judas spirited people damage the body of Christ called Grace Life Church of the Shoals. They just won’t do it. You just try and see if that won’t happen to you. No, don’t try it. It would happen.

Now, on the other side of the coin, if something needs to be addressed, if there’s a real sin issue or a doctrinal issue, you can come respectfully and you’ll be heard and you can help us. We welcome that help. But this thing of just wanting to gain the advantage for yourself, worldly motives, and using the church to that end, is not acceptable in God’s church.

4. In true churches or healthy churches, this spirit is used by God to sanctify the church. God, I told you, he has sovereign purposes. God in the long run will use these kind of situations to sanctify, to set apart, to strengthen his true church. 1 Corinthians 11:19 which was experiencing the Judas spirit, a lot of factions and divisions rising up, and Paul writes something amazing to them, “For there must also be factions among you, so that,” in other words, God is doing something, “so that those who are approved may become evident among you.” He says, “It can get kind of difficult for a while and it’s hard to know who is right and who’s wrong, and this guy says this and it’s all mixed up and all messed up. Give it some time,” and Paul says. What God was doing by allowing that factious and divisive person to raise up and draw a following, is that it shows who the true born-again spiritual people are and who the carnal worldlings are. Give it some time. God was just sanctifying and purifying his church. Now, I’m not saying that, that’s what Paul says is happening in the churches.

1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” Now, there is certainly good and righteous reasons to leave a church and join another church but there are equally unrighteous and fleshly and unbiblical reasons to leave and that’s a means God uses even when people are rising up in a fleshly sense and getting mad and leave, that God uses to purify his church. And even in the ultimate sense of God sanctifying his bride, his whole bride, the whole church of the Lord Jesus Christ, because think about it, when Satan came into Judas and he overcame Judas, that Judas would in turn overthrow Jesus, that resulted in Jesus going to the cross and on the cross purchasing our pardon and sanctifying the church for himself for all the ages. So in the very ultimate sense of the very Judas Iscariot himself, Satan overthrows him, he overthrows Jesus, and God uses this uprising to purify his bride for his own possession for all eternity. So in his scheme to defeat Christ, Satan only crushes his own head and promotes the Lord’s aims and the church’s good and he’s still doing that today.

Now, on a practical note for us: when we have our conference practically every pastor and church leader that you’re going to come in contact with is seeing or will be seeing this very type thing in the church and you need to be ready, church, to put your arm around them and say, “Brother, hang in there. If your pastor is pure and trying to do right, he’s never going to be perfect; he’s got to repent some too. I certainly have. I have had to and will again. But you stand with your elders and keep going on and God is just purifying his bride and building his church.” Some of you, that’s one of the main reasons this text came up at this time, to help us encourage those brothers because it takes years for a church to turn the corner to where factions and divisions are the abnormal strange thing instead of the everyday common thing in the church.

I want to make one other comment just instructionally before I close because some of you have been in churches like most Baptist or evangelicals, and you’ve never really seen what I’ve described. You’ve never seen a rebel faction come up against godly, Bible centered leadership. What you have seen is one group with the Judas spirit fighting another group with the Judas spirit and there’s no true godly group that God would vindicate, and it just continues on. And then another fight and then another. As a matter of fact, years ago, there was the worship wars in Baptist churches and the old traditional service, hymn singers were fighting against the guys who wanted to do the new contemporary stuff and, I mean, they caused splits and divisions and everything. I thought, “The problem with that is the old group typically is making an idol out of traditional service style and the new group is making an idol out of contemporary and nobody’s on God’s side and it’s just fighting to be fighting, and whoever the most dynamic, persuasive personality gets their way in the church.” That is a church ruled by the Judas spirit.