Why Does God Allow Evil?

Feeling a bit disconnected in your walk with Christ?

Well, Pastor Greg Laurie has a great new book called What Every Growing Christian Needs to Know that'll help. Let's say you're feeling lethargic and tired. You know, if you have a diet of social media and you don't take time for the Word of God, this is going to have a damaging effect.

So this is just one of the things we talk about in this new book called What Every Growing Christian Needs to Know. Available at harvest.org. We're going to be in John 13. Again, the title of the message is White Does God Allow evil. What we saw in Las Vegas was nothing short.

of pure evil. A sixty-four-year-old man with More than 21 guns shot and killed well over 50 people in what has been described as. The largest mass shooting in U.S. history, hundreds more wounded, one of them among us tonight. The question that comes to mind when something like this happens is, why?

Why? Why would God in heaven allow such a horrible thing to happen. You know, a Barna poll was conducted, and the question was asked: if you could ask God one question and knew He would give you an answer, what would you ask? I think you can guess a response. that.

The people said, we would want to know why is there pain and suffering in the world? C.S. Lewis said, quote, the problem of pain is atheism's most potent weapon against the Christian faith, end quote. In fact, often people will point to the problem of evil and suffering as a reason for not believing in God than any other. Listen, it's not merely a problem, it is the problem.

Why does God allow tragedy? And if God can prevent such tragedies, why does he allow them to take place? And in the classic statement of the problem, it usually goes along these lines: either God is all-powerful, but He's not all good. Therefore, he doesn't stop evil, or he's all good, but he's not all-powerful, therefore, he can't stop evil. And the general tendency is to blame God for evil.

We effectively transfer responsibility over to him. But let's kind of back up a little bit and. Come back to that core question. If God is so good and loving, as it's often framed, Why does he allow evil?

Well, the first part of that. Question is based on a false premise because basically, I am the one now who will determine what goodness is. In fact, the very way I frame the question, I'm already sort of saying what I think, right? If God is so good and loving, why? I'm really saying in so many words, He's clearly not good and loving.

Because if he was, he wouldn't allow that.

So I'm already making a judgment of God. I think the immediate response is, when did you become the moral center of the universe? You know, who are you or who am I to say what is good or what isn't good? And we have to go back to what we do now. Listen, when you don't Know what's happening.

Go back to what you do know. And so you might ask, why did this happen? I'm going to give you the answer. I have the answer tonight. Are you ready?

You might want to write this down if you're taking notes. Why did this happen? Ready? I don't know. I wish you could have met me when I was in my 20s and I started out as a preacher.

I knew everything. I knew the answer to every question. Of course I didn't, but maybe I thought I did. And I think one of the things you learn with the passing of time is you don't have all the answers, and you don't necessarily need to have all the answers, but God has all the answers. And some of those answers, he gives us the sight of heaven.

and others will have to wait for. But, you know, Tiffany, I can't think of a better place to be than in church after something like this. That's exactly where you should be. You know, when our son died. on a Thursday.

I was in church the following Sunday. And I wasn't preaching, but I was attending. We had a guest speaker. Uh Don McClure. A friend of mine.

And so I sat there, and people saw me in church, and they saw my wife with me, and they saw our son Jonathan. And they thought, They said, You are so courageous to be in church. You are such a model of faith. You kidding me? I needed to be in church.

I wasn't there because I was strong. I was there because I was weak. And I needed God, and I needed help, and I needed the Bible, and I needed worship, and I needed perspective. Because when you go through something like that, you know, you have so many questions swimming around in your head. And so we look to the Lord.

So here's the bottom line: we don't always know the answers. Why did God allow this to happen? We don't know. But here's what I do know. I know God is good.

I know God is good. And I know God is loving. And I know God loves me.

Well, coming back to the question again, well, if God is good and loving, why did He allow that?

Well, okay, first of all, let's stop and think about this for a moment. And understand, God did not create evil. You know, God gave us a free will. And in the Garden of Eden, he allowed our first parents, Adam and Eve, to make a choice. He could have made them robots.

He could have made them wind up dolls. He could have made them to do whatever he wanted them to do. But he wanted us to follow him out of choice. But Adam and Eve sinned, and sin entered the world, and now we have the choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing. And what this man did was obviously pure evil.

The most wicked thing imaginable. And all the experts and all the pundits and all the anchor people are trying to figure it out. Why did he do it? Was it politically motivated? Was he a conservative or a liberal?

so we can take sides and argue about it some more. Oh, was he religiously motivated? Was he an Islamic terrorist, maybe? Or, you know, was he alt-right? What was he?

Because we want to make it a big political debate. I'm going to settle it for you right now. They can do all their investigations. He did it because he was motivated by evil and by the devil himself. That's where it came from.

Now I don't know if that satisfies all your questions, but Evil people do evil things because they allow the devil to influence them, and I wish that wasn't the case. And I wish we lived in a pain-free world, in a crime-free world. And a sin-free world, but we don't.

So Remember, it's humanity, not God, that is responsible for sin. But here's the thing that we know as Christians: God can bring good despite the bad.

Now, sometimes Christians can be a little fast on the draw with Romans 8:28. And that's a great verse. For we know that all things work together for good to those that love God and are the called according to his purpose. But let's not misunderstand Romans 8:28. It doesn't say we know that all things become good.

It says all things work together for good because sometimes there are things that happen in life that are bad, they'll always be bad, and they'll never stop being bad.

So we don't have to say, well, God will make it a good thing. He never promised that. But he promised good can come despite the bad, and I think that's a very important distinction. Because already we've seen some amazing acts of heroism. As we've heard some of these stories on the news, people shielding others with their bodies, some even dying in the process.

I saw Sarah Huckabee doing a briefing for the press. At the White House, and she quoted the statement of Jesus when he says, Greater love is no man than this, and he laid down his life for his friends. By the way, Sarah Huckabee is a Christian. I don't know if you knew that, as is her father. uh Governor Huckabee.

But, you know, people laid their lives down for others.

So we hear stories of courage. But another thing that happens at a time like this is: well, people re-evaluate their lives. I think that could have been me. I don't know why I survived. But I did.

And now, what does this mean? And what is my life about? And you start thinking of eternity, and you start thinking of things that really matter, and that is a good thing.

Okay, so look, I'm going to talk about another evil man tonight that is here in John 13. Uh this man next to the Antichrist himself. may be the most evil man who ever lived. This man that we're going to look at. Committed the worst crime imaginable.

He betrayed and sold out Jesus. And he had a hand. And the cold-blooded murder Of the very Son of God. I'm talking about Judas Iscariot. And it's hard to believe that a man could do such a horrible thing.

Yet, as we will discover, out of this act of pure evil, the greatest good came for all of humanity. Because though Judas betrayed Christ. We'll tell you why in a few moments, but his heart was evil, and Satan entered his heart, and there was greed involved. But though he betrayed Christ, and it was his desire to stop the ministry of Jesus, in fact, he helped to fulfill the ministry of Jesus because Jesus had come expressly to this earth to voluntarily die on the cross for the sin of the world.

So, Judas didn't realize he was helping to fulfill God's plan, but indeed he was. But his very name is synonymous with evil and treachery. Judas is the traitor's traitor. and his life ended miserably in suicide. Because he sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

But you might be surprised to know there's more to Judas than you may realize. I think if we could go back in a sort of a time machine to the biblical days, imagine how cool that would be. Because, you know, sometimes the question is asked: if you could live at any other time in history, when would you live?

Well, you know, some you the most popular answer, by the way, is the 50s. Did you know that? And I kind of get that because things were kind of cool in the 50s. But I would probably want to go about 2,000 years back. And I would like to be able to see Jesus Christ personally.

And I would like to just kind of hang out there and watch those stories unfold. But it would be nice if I could bring some modern conveniences with me, you know, like. In an Alp burger. An iPhone? No, I don't know.

I think it'd be great if there were no iPhones, honestly, or any phones of any kind. But anyway. Imagine what that would be like. And imagine if you actually approach Jesus and his disciples, there they are, there's the Lord. And you would be thinking, I wonder which one is Judas.

And you'd probably be thinking, I bet he's wearing a black robe, you know. Everybody else has a white robe, he has a black robe. In fact, it's not a black robe, it's a black leather robe. And he has the collar turned up motorcycle style. And he probably is wearing sunglasses before anyone even had sunglasses.

And you know, he's all tatted up, standing in the shadows. Looking tough. That's Judas. And we sort of envision him as the bad guy. He was a bad guy.

But actually, he was the opposite of what I just described. You would not pick him out immediately as the evil one. In fact, you might even think he was the most virtuous of all the disciples. Say why? Because Judas was an amazing actor.

He was really convincing. In fact, the only person he didn't convince was Christ himself. But Judas was putting on an amazing performance as a follower of Jesus Christ, and to the point he was sort of religious outwardly. Don't forget, as we learned earlier, remember when Mary came and took that expensive perfume and poured it on the feet of Jesus and mopped his feet with her hair. And who spoke up, Judas?

Well, this is wasteful. Why would you do this? This is worth around 30 grand. Could not this have been sold and the money given to the poor? And everyone was saying, Yeah, that's true.

Good point, Judas. What a good steward you are. But then John points out in his commentary and the gospel account of that story: this he said because he was greedy and was stealing the money himself.

So things are not always as they appear, but at that moment, Judas. Put on a pretty good show. And there are people like this today in the church. You know, they talk the talk. They carry their Bibles.

They sing their songs. They look like one of us. We think they're one of us. They might be sitting next to us. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're a believer.

They may be what a hypocrite is. I don't think we understand what a hypocrite is, because we throw the word around. And boy, people love to really call other reciprocates you. Yeah. Hypocrite.

You know, drive. And what is a hypocrite? A hypocrite, we think, is someone who says they believe something and they do another. That's hypocrisy. No, it isn't.

That's humanity. How many of you have ever believed one thing and contradicted it by the way that you live? Raise your hand up. You hear? Yeah.

You're just people. You're messed up people like I'm messed up. And we all fall short of the glory of God. That's not hypocrisy. I'm not justifying contradicting what you say, but I'm saying it happens to all of us in one way, shape, or form.

But that's not the technical definition of a hypocrite. And when Jesus called out the religious leaders, his hypocrites, it had a simple meaning: admit, an actor. That was the translation of the word actor. It came from the word hypocrite. It just means one who's putting on a performance.

And so that is the technical definition. A hypocrite. And the way it's used by Christ is a person that pretends to be something they are not. Judas was a classic hypocrite. He pretended to be a follower of Jesus, but he really wasn't.

And then one day he showed his true colors. And here in John 13, The Lord's hour has come. Often he would say, My hour is not yet come. My hour has not yet come.

Now his hour has come. The hour of his arrest, his suffering, his crucifixion. and his resurrection from the dead. We're about 15 to 18 hours away from the crucifixion of Christ here, chronologically in John 13. And we're coming to the last Passover.

That Jesus would celebrate with his disciples. We get a closing glimpse of Judas. as he slings into the night. with betrayal on his mind. We also get a somewhat comical look at Simon Peter.

And we get a better look at ourselves. As we see what Jesus really wants for us.

So let's read from John 13. I'm reading verses 1 to 9. And by the way, I'm reading from the New Living Translation. Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.

It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. He got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel he had around him. And when Jesus came to Simon Peter, he said to him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet?

Jesus replied, You don't understand what I'm doing, but someday you will. No, Peter protested. You will never, ever wash my feet. Jesus said, Unless I wash you, you won't belong to me. Then Peter exclaimed, Then wash my hands and head as well, not just my feet.

Okay, we'll stop there. Verse 1, what a powerful opening verse. Before the Passover celebration, Jesus, knowing his hour had come to leave this world. To return to his father. He loved his disciples during his ministry on earth.

And now he loves them to the very end. Calvary closing in. and all the pressure it brought. This is such a touching picture of Christ. He's down on his hands and knees, washing their feet, loving them to the end.

The disciples were alone with Jesus this night. The crowds were not present because they were always pushing and pulling, and Christ was always helping them and reaching out to them. But in this case, they were alone with Jesus. The world was locked out. And this is the Last Supper.

Here's the problem. When we think of the Last Supper, we think of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Not Leonardo DiCaprio, that's another Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter. And in Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper, and he also painted Mona Lisa, of course, but in his painting of the Last Supper, it's a long table, right? And everybody's seated behind the table.

Jesus is in the middle, and they're kind of facing forward, kind of like they're posing for a selfie or something, right?

So that's how we envision the Last Supper. Erase that idea from your mind, that's not the way it looked. It would have been a low-slung table. they would have been sitting on pillows, probably reclining, and maybe in sort of a semi-circular fashion. And they would have various bits of bread that they would dip in various kinds of sauces, sort of like chips and salsa, if you will.

That's actually what it was like. And so it was a very casual thing. They would eat olives, they would eat dates, they would eat bits of fish and so forth. And that's what a meal would look like. And a meal was long, it was leisurely, it wasn't formal with cutlery in front of you.

You know, that's what you call it if you're from England, cutlery. And no, it was very casual and relaxed. And you would eat with your hands, you would share the food.

So, this is what a meal looked like. And this is what the Last Supper actually looked like. And Jesus now does something that shocks everyone. He gets out a basin of water and starts to wash their feet.

Now, this, by the way, was done customarily by the servant of the house.

So when you would walk in wearing your sandals or whatever, and you had all the dirt and dust all over your feet, the servant would come and wash your feet before you came into the house. But who is doing this? Not a servant, but Jesus himself washing their feet. You know, you wonder if as he was washing and drying them, if he was thinking of each one as he came to Andrew and Mark, and he's washing and drying their feet, and he's thinking, these precious feet will spread the gospel to the whole world, because the Bible says, How beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news. Then he came to the feet of Judas Iscariot.

And he thought these feet will soon steal away in the dark. And by the way, if I was Jesus, I would not have washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, I would have broken the feet of Judas Iscariot. Oh, yeah, you're going to do this? Try it now. Like that, yeah.

See how well you walk now. Mr. Betrayer, right? But our Lord knew exactly what Judas was about to do. And then Peter.

He's washing Peter's feet. I don't know why, but I think Peter's like, you know, size 13 or something. And Peter was so outspoken. That's why I like him so much, because you always knew where you stood with the big fisherman. There was no mystery to Peter.

He was not a complex kind of a guy. He would just say what he was thinking in the moment.

Some might even say he lacked a filter. Because he would just blurt things out. And so the Lord comes to his feet. Peter says, You can't wash my feet. Jesus says, Buddy, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part of me.

Well, then give me a bath right now. Hey, Peter, really? That's why I said it was Pretty much a comical moment. But why would Jesus even do this to start with?

Well he was demonstrating what he taught. He said, if you want to be greatest in the kingdom of God, Learn to be the servant of all.

So he's showing them what it means to love one another, but yet in Luke's gospel account of this story, an argument broke out as to who would be greatest in his kingdom. Can you see it? Here's this very heavy night. It's going to be the last meal he ever has with his disciples. He's washing their feet.

They can see the Lord's under stress, but they think that'd be a good time to argue about who will be greatest in the kingdom. Just like little kids, aren't they? And so that's what the backdrop is against this story. They were missing the point. But now we go to verse twenty-one of John thirteen.

Now Jesus was deeply troubled. And he exclaimed, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another. Wondering whom he could mean, and the disciple Jesus loved was sitting next to Jesus at the table. By the way, that's John.

John describes himself in his gospel as the disciple that Jesus loved. I like that, by the way. That might sound boastful. Oh, the disciple Jesus loved. No, it would be boastful if he said the disciple that loved Jesus.

He didn't boast of his love for Jesus. He boasted of Jesus' love for him. And you know what? You're the disciple Jesus loves too. He loves you.

Just like he loved John.

So the disciple whom Jesus loved. was sitting next to him. And Simon Peter mentioned to him What's he talking about? I love that. What's he talking about?

What does this even mean?

So that disciple leaned over to Jesus and said, Lord, who is it? Jesus responded, It's the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl. And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. And when Judas had eaten the bread, underline this. Satan entered him.

When he had eaten the bread, Satan entered him. Jesus told him, Hurry up and do what you're going to do. None of the others at the table knew what Jesus meant. Since Judas was their treasurer, some thought Jesus was telling them to go and pee for the food or give money away to the poor.

So Judas left at once, going out. into the night. I'll stop there.

Well, talk about dropping a bombshell. Look at verse twenty one again. Jesus was deeply troubled. And he exclaimed, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. The word that is used here for trouble is interesting.

It's the same word. To describe Jesus standing at the grave of Lazarus and weeping. He was troubled. by that same It's also the same term used in John 12:27 as he thought about the coming dread of the cross when he said, My heart is troubled. See, Jesus was always the one.

Who is the stable person to look to in the midst of a crisis. He was always the one that had the answer. He was always the one that had the calm in the midst of the storm.

So when Jesus was troubled, that caused everyone to be alarmed. You ever heard the expression of mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy? You know? And if Jesus is troubled, everyone's a bit unnerved. Because if it unnerves Jesus, what does that mean to us?

Well, why was Jesus troubled?

Well, he was troubled because of what was about to happen. He wasn't troubled for himself, he was troubled for another. Believe it or not, He was troubled over the soul of the one who was about to betray him. The disciples did not know Judas was the man yet. Christ did not ide him.

But Jesus knew And they understood now that there's a traitor in their midst. And it's interesting when he says, one of you is going to betray me. They all say to a man, is it me? If Judas was as obvious as we think, they all would have stood up in unison and pointed to him and said, It's Judas, isn't it? The guy in the black leather robe, we always knew it was him.

And he had that evil goatee he grew out. And laugh like, ooh, you know, we knew it was him. No, that was no one thought of Judas. They thought of themselves. Could it be me?

And now Jesus responds in verse 26, It's the one I give the bread to, that I'm dipping in the bowl. And he dipped it and gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. By the way, Judas was sitting at the left hand of Jesus, which in this culture was the place of honor. The Lord probably asked Judas to sit in the place of honor that night. It probably blew Judas's mind a little bit.

Because he knew what he was about to do. And Jesus says, here, Judas, come up here, sit right next to me. Place of honor. Does he know what I'm about to do? Oh, yeah, he knew what you're going to do for sure.

And um But what was Jesus doing? He was offering love. to Judas. Here's effectively what he was communicating I know what you're about to do. and I still love you, and it breaks my heart And you don't have to do it.

See, Judas had a free will, he could have exercised, but he chose evil. He could have just as easily turned away. Christ would have forgiven him up to the last moment. In fact, later in the Garden of Gethsemane, after Jesus has been arrested. We see well, excuse me, in the Garden of Gethsemane, before Jesus has been arrested, I should say, Judas comes with the temple guard in tow to apprehend him.

And Jesus says, Friend, why have you come? Friend? Excuse me, that's Judas. You already ID'd him as your betrayer. But Jesus was offering to Judas one last chance to repent.

Hugh Hefner just died. Not a man that lived a godly life. That's an understatement. A man that, well. He said his greatest legacy was he changed people's feelings about premarital and extramarital sex.

And he was quite proud of the legacy he had left. And a friend of mine, who you all know, he's spoken here before, Lee Strobel. actually had an opportunity to share the gospel with you, Hefner. And you know what? Despite the life that Hefner lived, if he had turned to Christ at the last moment, God would have forgiven him of all of his sin.

I don't know what happened with him at the end, but I'm just saying. God will forgive anybody. Jesus would have forgiven Judas Iscariot if he had repented right there on the spot, but that is not what Judas was about to do. And apparently, Judas now passed the point of no return because look at verse 27. When he ate the bread, Satan entered him.

Those are ominous words. We read in the Gospels about people being possessed by demons. You know what? Demon possession is real. Demons are real.

Demons are powerful. But the good news is, when you become a Christian, you're under divine protection and no demon can possess you.

Now, demons can, you can apply for that if you want. Go ahead. Yeah, it's true. Demons can tempt you, demons can harass you, they can attack you, but they cannot possess you. It is only the non-believer that can be possessed by a demon.

And when Christ lives inside of us, there can be no demons. Jesus is not into a timeshare program. When he enters your heart, he's a sole occupant.

Okay, but Here's Judas. He wasn't demon-possessed. He was Lucifer-possessed. The big guy himself, Satan, entered his heart, which. Helps us understand he's on another level.

of evil. And I bring this up because sometimes people want to paint Judas as a victim. Poor guy, he was just a pawn in the hand of God. And, you know, God knew that Jesus would die on the cross, and someone had to bring it about.

So God just made Judas do this. He had no choice. Nonsense! He had plenty of choice. And he was handpicked by Jesus and he was loved by Jesus, but he made this horrible choice.

In fact, the only person who would ever equal Judas in wickedness would probably be the Antichrist himself. The Antichrist is sort of like The son of the devil. And Judas is pretty much the same thing. But here is a clear pattern of the deception of sin. even to the most knowledgeable of people.

It's worth noting that Judas was so effective in his lion, so cunning and so skillful an actor, no one even suspected him until Jesus made it clear he was the one. As I said earlier, Judas fooled everyone but Jesus. Know this, you can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool God any of the time.

So Jesus had Judas's number He knew what was going on. But it's really incomprehensible. That a man with such opportunity Could so squander it. I mean, think about Judas for a moment. Judas Iscariot.

And I don't know why, but whenever I have his name in one of my Word documents and I go through spell check. They always wanted to take his last name, Iscariot, and turn it into Escargot. We know it's fine.

So maybe that's the French Judas, right? Judas Escargo. Snails with garlic.

So Judas Iscariot. He spent every waking hour. Walking and talking with God incarnate. What a privilege that was. I mean, sometimes non-believers will say, well, the reason I'm not a Christian is because there's hypocrites in the church.

And by the way, I don't buy that. I think that's an excuse, not a reason. And to sort of illustrate that, do you think Jesus was ever a hypocrite? Do you? No, he never was.

Jesus was literally perfect. Jesus never lost his temper.

Now he was angry. When he drove the people out of the temple, but that was righteous indignation. Jesus never said an unkind thing. Jesus never told a lie. Jesus never had a single thought.

Out of harmony with the Father. In fact, Jesus said, I always do the things that please the Father. And I couldn't say that, could you? But Jesus could. He was the perfect example.

Yet, not only did Judas not believe, but he turned against Christ, selling him out for 30 pieces of silver. And he was one of the original 12. Listen, Judas Iscariot heard with his own ears the Sermon on the Mount. Judas Iscariot. saw Lazarus resurrected from the dead.

Judas Iscariot saw Jesus walking on the water. Judas Iscariot saw the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and the fishes. And Judas Iscariot also heard the teaching of the Lord when he talked about the wheat and the tares together. And how the tares look like the wheat, but they're not the wheat, and they uproot the wheat, and they're imitations of the wheat. And that would have certainly applied to him.

But instead of turning to God, he became filled with anger and jealousy and bitterness. You know, there's an interesting parallel character in the Old Testament to Judas. King Saul. the first king of Israel. And Saul was a man who was initially blessed and called by God to be the king.

He began well. But there were some small compromises that led to larger ones, and ultimately he was rejected by God. And the Bible tells us an evil spirit began to torment him. But there was a young shepherd boy named David that would come in and rock out an electric guitar. No, he would play a harp.

But what is a harp? It's like a guitar, right? He played a stringed instrument.

So he would come in and play a song for King Saul. And The demon would not torment the king for that short period of time as David would sing worship songs to the Lord. But then when David left, the demon would come back and Torment Saul again, so he'd call for. David had come in, and then one time he got angry at David and threw a javelin at him, almost killed him.

So David was a little apprehensive of performing for Saul now. You can understand. But I find that interesting. You would think, well, why wouldn't Saul believe in the God that David worshipped? And then he wouldn't be tormented by these demons.

And, you know, sometimes I think non-believers feel: well, you know, maybe I need a little religion. You know, I've gone through this trauma, I've gone through this crisis, so I'll go to church every now and then, get a little religion. Read a little bit of the Bible, sing a little bit of some worship song. That makes me feel a little bit better.

Well, that's fine. We're glad that worship helps you and the message helps you. But ultimately, the answer is: you don't need a little religion, you need a lot of Jesus in your life. That's the answer. But uh King Saul didn't want that, nor did Judas.

You know, you might think, well, I should go through a little religious ritual, like I'll get baptized, or oh, you know, I'll receive communion. That'll be good. I'll have communion with the Christians, a little ritual. Do me some good. No, it actually won't do you any good at all.

And in fact, To receive the elements of communion without believing in the one they represent can actually be detrimental to you spiritually. Because the apostle says that as we receive these elements, if we don't know the one they represent, Or, as he put it, receive them in an unworthy manner, we eat and drink judgment to ourselves.

So here's Judas exposed to all the miracles, all the teachings, the perfect example of Christ. And while the others were having their lives changed, his heart was getting darker and harder. Reminding us of the truth of the statement: the same sun that softens the wax hardens the clay. The same sun that makes a living tree grows. Or makes the living tree grow, dries up the dead tree.

And the same gospel message that transforms one, drives another into sin. I can't explain it. But you can have two people sitting in a pew or in seats next to each other. One hears the gospel, they believe their life has changed. The other folds her arms, says, and doesn't make you nervous, you're folding your arms.

Yeah, you are, though. But it's okay. You're probably cold. There's a lot of air conditioning here. Yeah, I know.

But um all the people folding their arms like jokes. But you know, the person who's not responsive, I don't mean you, I know you're responsive, but you're sitting up close, right? That says it all.

Now the people in the back, those uh who are folding their arms even worse, huh? No, but seriously. One can hear it, it changes their life. Another hears it, and they get harder in their sin. It's kind of an amazing thing, actually.

And truthfully, that's all on you. It's not on the gospel. The gospel is true. It's not on the Bible. The Bible is alive and powerful.

It's not on God. It's on you. Because you choose how you will react. You choose what kind of soil your heart is. You choose it to be receptive soil to the seed of God's word, or you choose to have soil like concrete to God's word.

It's all up to you.

So that was Judas. Exposed of the truth. Listen, if a person Can habitually commit sin without any sense of conviction or remorse. That would be a clear indicator they don't know God. But you say, but Greg, they went forward at a harvest crusade or at one of the services, and Greg, they have a start Bible that looks just like this.

Like you always say, it looks just like this. And it's the New Testament with notes you wrote, right? Isn't that what you always say? That's true. They have a start Bible.

They have a SoCal harvest sticker on their car. They've got to harvest tea. Surely they're a Christian.

Well, I hope they are, but it doesn't mean they are. Because if you can continue in sin, Without any remorse, That would say to me, you don't know God at all. Hey, don't judge me, man. Don't judge my journey. I will judge you.

Because I'm told to judge you by God Himself. No, judge not lest you be judged. That's like the non-believers favorite verse, by the way. They always default to that. Judge not lest she be judged.

Which means Go away. I want to keep doing what I'm doing, and I don't want to listen to you, Christian. But people misunderstand the verse. What it means is when it says judge not lest you be judged, it means condemn not lest you be condemned. I would never condemn anybody.

I wouldn't say, oh, you're, I condemn you. You don't know God. You're going to hell. I don't know that about you. Only God knows.

That's what that verse means. But, judge. Means to evaluate. And the Bible says judgment begins at the house of God. And the Bible even says we should judge one another, right?

That doesn't mean condemn one another, it means make evaluations, right?

Okay, so if I see you're doing something that contradicts what the word says, and I bring it to your attention and say, you know, you're a Christian, but you're out getting drunk, that contradicts scripture. You're a Christian, but you know, you're having sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend. That contradicts scripture. Excuse me, you're a Christian, but you're looking at porn. That contradicts scripture.

Don't judge me. No, sorry, I will judge you. And I'll tell you why I'll judge you, because I love you. And I don't want you to go that way because. That would indicate to me you don't know God.

Now, look, if you struggle with something and you want to repent of it, that's one thing, all right? But if you continue in that sin without any desire to change, And not even feeling it's wrong, despite what the Bible clearly says. That would say to me You don't know God. Because the Bible says by their fruit you will know them, and that fruit is not good.

So think of me as a fruit inspector. Not to hurt you, but to help you. I would never confront someone about something like that to drive them away. The Bible says if you see someone who's overtaken in a sin, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.

So the idea is, I come humbly to you. Hey, I'm capable of doing the same thing. But I want to help you because I don't want to see your life get wrecked by sin.

So If you don't have that concern in your life, It makes you wonder. You know, the Bible says if you're a believer, The Lord will discipline you, and if he doesn't discipline you, well, that would indicate you're not a believer.

So, Judas. He missed all the cues. He turned his back on all the opportunities. He went through it and he betrayed. Jesus and walked out, the Bible says at the end of that story, into the night.

It's even so telling that phrase, he walked into the night. You know, Judas's life could be summed up in. That phrase Proverbs 14:12, there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof. Are the ways of death.

Now, there's one other little vignette in this. Chapter. We won't really get into it. Because our time is up, but Let me just paraphrase it, because something else happened. Judas betrays Jesus.

And he walks out.

So Simon Peter, good old Simon Peter. That this would be a great time to boast of his love for the Lord. And he said, you know what? Even if all... deny you.

I will never deny you. Like, yeah, Judas, he's a loser. I always knew he was a loser. But you can count on me, Simon Peter, who, by the way, you nickname the rock. And I am the rock, Lord.

And Jesus said, Well, rock, let me tell you something. Before the roosters crowed twice, you will deny three times that you knew me. No way! They'll all deny you. I will never deny you.

No, you'll do it, Peter. In fact, you won't do it once, you won't do it twice, you do it three times.

Well, what happened? You know the rest of the story. We'll get to it later in John, but That's exactly what Peter did.

So they both walked into the night. One betrayed Jesus, one denied Jesus. But here's where there's a difference. One came to his senses, Simon Peter. and wept.

and was restored by Jesus. The other Never repent it. And he was separated from Jesus. Where will your guilt? Drive you.

I would suggest you run into the open arms of the Lord. Who will forgive you No matter what you've done. Yes, it's true. What came as a result of this is the worst. Actually, Yeah.

Sinfulness, maybe in human history, the torture. And the murder. Of Jesus, yet from it came the greatest good because Jesus. Died for the sin of the Of the world, and more specifically, he died for your sin. And he died for mine because he didn't stay on the cross, he rose again from the dead.

Death died when Christ rose.

So that's the good news for all of us. Rock icon Tom Petty just died. I actually was A Tom Petty fan. I've gone and seen him in concert. Very talented.

He was 66 years old, died of a heart attack, cardiac arrest. And it's strange because I was just watching a documentary a few nights ago with my wife on Netflix. Called Living in the Material World, and it was a documentary about the life of George Harrison directed by Martin Scorsese. And so you may remember that Tom Petty was in a band called the Traveling Wilburies with George Harrison and Jeff Lynn. and Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, Roy Orbison.

And Roy was a bit older than the other guys, and so they recorded an album together, and then Roy died.

So, in the film about George, who had passed when this film was made. I was sort of looking back on his life, Tom Petty is interviewed. And Tom Petty is there in the studio with all of his cool guitars behind him, and he's talking about what happened after Roy Orbison died. He said he got a call from George Harrison. And he answered, and then Tom said, I don't know if I should share what George said to me.

Oh, I guess I will. And he smiled and he said, George said to me after Roy Orbison died, Aren't you glad it wasn't you?

Well, now was Tom. I don't know if you knew it was coming, but it came. Because you know what? Death comes to every man and every woman. And we don't know when that is, do we?

That's why we need to be prepared to meet our God. That's the big takeaway lesson. I wish I could control this world and can stop any harm that would come to any child of God or any person for that matter, but we can't. We live in a fallen world with evil people. We live in bodies that break down and don't work the way they used to work.

You know, and our health fails, and we have all the things happen to us that happen to anyone else. But here's the good news: if you put your faith in Christ, you do not have to be afraid. This could be your last night. To come to Christ. We don't know what the future holds.

We know who holds the future, though, don't we? But Jesus, who died on the cross and rose again from the dead, now stands at the door of each of our lives. And he knocks and says, If you'll hear my voice and open the door, I'll come in. And you can have Christ come and forgive you of all of your sin. I don't care what you've done, God will forgive you.

Listen, if Jesus would have forgiven Judas Iscariot, you don't think He would forgive you?

Well, I know I've done some really radical things. Yeah, you don't think God doesn't know about it already? God knows everything you've done. But he'll forgive you because Christ died on the cross for that sin and took God's judgment upon himself instead of. You having to face it, he died in your place.

And if you'll turn from that sin and believe in him, you can be forgiven. I'm going to lead you in a simple prayer, and I'm going to ask that you would pray this out loud after me. This is where you're asking God to forgive you of your sin.

So, again, as I pray, pray this out loud after me right now, right where you are, okay? Pray this out loud after me, Lord Jesus. I know I am a sinner. But I know that you are the Savior. Who died on the cross?

and rose again from the dead. And Jesus, I choose to follow you. From this moment forward. As Savior and Lord. As God and friend.

Thank you for calling me. And accepting me. And forgiving me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

God bless each one of you that prayed that prayer. God bless you guys. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go, I wanted to let you know about the important work we're doing here at Harvest. You know, we've had the same goal these last 50 years, which is simply this.

We want to know God and we want to make Him known. And we do that in a lot of ways. Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large-scale evangelistic events, and more. If you want to be a part of what we're doing to fulfill the great commission, you can support us with whatever you can give. At harvest.org slash donate.

Again, that's harvest.org slash donate, and thanks so much.