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To Know Him
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Azusa Indonesian Seventh-day Adventist Church: Combined Youth Gathering
Delivery: 2006-07-22
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2006-08-07 01:03Z
Type: Study
URL: http://www.lastgenerationtheology.org/lgt/doc/7gre/kir-toknowhim.php
Today, a character study: Judas and John. Two disciples, two characters, two journeys, unfortunately, two different outcomes. The basis of our study will be the insights offered in the book The Desire of Ages. At the end, a series of reflective remarks.
From Judas A to Judas B
Yet when Judas joined the disciples, he was not insensible to the beauty of the character of Christ. He felt the influence of that divine power which was drawing souls to the Saviour. He who came not to break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax would not repulse this soul while even one desire was reaching toward the light. The Saviour read the heart of Judas; He knew the depths of iniquity to which, unless delivered by the grace of God, Judas would sink. In connecting this man with Himself, He placed him where he might, day by day, be brought in contact with the outflowing of His own unselfish love. If he would open his heart to Christ, divine grace would banish the demon of selfishness, and even Judas might become a subject of the kingdom of God (The Desire of Ages, p. 294).
See what we learn here. (1) Judas felt the influence of divine power that draws to Christ. (2) In Judas desire was reaching toward the light. (3) Jesus knew the depths to which Judas would sink unless delivered, placed, positioned where brought into contact with the outflow of unselfish love. (4) He must choose to open his heart to Christ.
God takes men as they are, with the human elements in their character, and trains them for His service, if they will be disciplined and learn of Him. They are not chosen because they are perfect, but notwithstanding their imperfections, that through the knowledge and practice of the truth, through the grace of Christ, they may become transformed into His image (Ibid., p. 294).
God takes you as you are. What do you have? Certainly, you have “human elements” in your character. Then comes the big “if.” Will you be trained by Christ? Will you accept His discipline? Will you learn of Him in this way? He chooses you in order to transform you. The transformation is not random either, but it in the image of Christ.
Judas had the same opportunities as had the other disciples. He listened to the same precious lessons. But the practice of the truth, which Christ required, was at variance with the desires and purposes of Judas, and he would not yield his ideas in order to receive wisdom from Heaven (Ibid.).
What was the reason for Judas’ failure? His desires, his purposes, were at odds with what it would take to practice the truth. He wanted to live like Jesus but not enough. He would not yield his ideas in order to receive wisdom from heaven. Notice that he heard the wisdom from heaven. It came into his ears, it rattled his ear bones. But he refused to embrace it. The problem wasn’t in the bones of the ear, or in the nerves that transmit the nerve impulses from it. The problem was not in the decoding of those signals in the brain. The problem was precisely where it come to choosing to embrace the meaning for himself. That was where God’s endeavor to save Judas ran into a giant blockade.
How tenderly the Saviour dealt with him who was to be His betrayer! In His teaching, Jesus dwelt upon principles of benevolence that struck at the very root of covetousness. He presented before Judas the heinous character of greed, and many a time the disciple realized that his character had been portrayed, and his sin pointed out; but he would not confess and forsake his unrighteousness. He was self-sufficient, and instead of resisting temptation, he continued to follow his fraudulent practices. Christ was before him, a living example of what he must become if he reaped the benefit of the divine mediation and ministry; but lesson after lesson fell unheeded on the ears of Judas (Ibid., p. 295).
As Jesus taught He dwelt upon “principles of benevolence.” He addressed the beauty of goodness and how to change to positive behavior. He contrasted unselfishness with selfishness. Judas saw it too. Sometimes when Jesus taught, with all His care and tact, still Judas knew that Jesus had been addressing wrong principles that he, Judas, had indulged. But Judas refused to confess and forsake his attitudes, his behavior. Nowhere in the divine record is there even one moment of true hearted repentance. Even at the end, when Judas takes the betrayal money back to the priests, his repentance is not full. He is full of fear but not remorse.
He was self-sufficient, and this was something that he refused to give up. Lesson after lesson was given, and lesson after lesson was resisted. Judas persisted in His fraudulent practices.
Jesus dealt him no sharp rebuke for his covetousness, but with divine patience bore with this erring man, even while giving him evidence that He read his heart as an open book. He presented before him the highest incentives for right doing; and in rejecting the light of Heaven, Judas would be without excuse (Ibid.).
Jesus knew the direction to which Judas was tending, but His patience was long, and He quietly continued to give him evidence that He read his heart. His arguments were the highest incentives for right doing. Judas understood them, but he kept back his heart from Christ.
Instead of walking in the light, Judas chose to retain his defects. Evil desires, revengeful passions, dark and sullen thoughts, were cherished, until Satan had full control of the man. Judas became a representative of the enemy of Christ (Ibid.).
Faced with the light, understanding the light, Judas determined to keep his defects. He wouldn’t surrender to Christ his evil desires, revengeful passions, dark and sullen thoughts. He kept these aspects, let his mind run in this channel of darkness, and became habitually of this disposition. This is what happens when we cherish these behaviors. A man, a woman, goes on and on and on and on until Satan has full control. The desire in a man that is reaching toward the light, is his hope. Judas A still had this desire, and could have embraced it. But he refused all along the way, and in the end, when he had completely sold out to the dark and sullen attitudes, when the desire that reaches toward the light was quenched in him by his own persisting attitudes, then he became Judas B. Then he closed his own door. Then he could not receive that which it was his privilege to receive.
When he came into association with Jesus, he had some precious traits of character that might have been made a blessing to the church. If he had been willing to wear the yoke of Christ, he might have been among the chief of the apostles; but he hardened his heart when his defects were pointed out, and in pride and rebellion chose his own selfish ambitions, and thus unfitted himself for the work that God would have given him to do (Ibid.).
Judas’ character was not settled when he came to Jesus. He then had precious traits of character. He could have gone down in history as among the chief of the apostles. Look how God later used another man of great learning, Paul. But Judas hardened his heart. Notice, he hardened it when his defects were pointed out. When God gently instructs you, shows you your defects, how will you react? Let him help you, let him shape you; thus you may keep from unfitting yourself for the work of God, the work of soul saving, the saving even of your own soul which God longs to accomplish.
From John A to John B: Violent to Godly
But turn now to John. John was the very contrast of Judas. he reacted differently. If we want to draw close to Jesus, John gives us the paradigm.
All the disciples had serious faults when Jesus called them to His service. Even John, who came into closest association with the meek and lowly One, was not himself naturally meek and yielding. He and his brother were called ‘the sons of thunder.’ While they were with Jesus, any slight shown to Him aroused their indignation and combativeness. Evil temper, revenge, the spirit of criticism, were all in the beloved disciple. He was proud, and ambitious to be first in the kingdom of God. But day by day, in contrast with his own violent spirit, he beheld the tenderness and forbearance of Jesus, and heard His lessons of humility and patience. He opened his heart to the divine influence, and became not only a hearer but a doer of the Saviour's words. Self was hid in Christ. He learned to wear the yoke of Christ and to bear His burden (Ibid.).
There is so much to notice here! John was be no means naturally meek. John and his brother were ready to be offended. They were combative. John, the Holy Spirit tells us, had an evil temper, a spirit of revenge, a spirit of criticism. He was proud and ambitious.
But as the days wore on he saw his own violent spirit contrasted with Jesus’ meekness. And this we must do if we would become like Christ. We must be in God’s Word day by day, we must there behold Jesus. And there we will find contrasted our own spirit with the spirit of Christ. But if we are not spending time with God in His Word, we will see no such contrast. This is about attitude. You must wallpaper your mind with God’s truth. You must become saturated in it. Then not just the doctrine but the attitudes of Jesus will begin to open to you. We want to get a grip on the attitudes of Christ.
Furthermore, John heard Jesus’ lessons. So had Judas. But John heard them, understood them, and where Judas rejected them with knowledge, John thought on these things. Over and over he thought on them. He perceived the beauty Jesus was placing before him and he began to change direction. From God’s Word we must also derive the teachings of Jesus. There is a close relationship between doctrines and attitudes.
John was at first a hearer. But day by day the desire in him that was reaching out toward the light of Christ was not sabotaged; it was not short-circuited by stubborn resistance. Instead, he observed Jesus, considered His goodness, and wanted more. The desire that reached out to the light waxed rather than waned.
John at first mostly listened, but began more and more to be a doer of the the Savior’s words. And as he began to do them, the changes took stronger hold in him. He began to see what self was in him, and how his own harsh spirit was so different from Jesus. More and more he resisted the easy paths and in the power of the Holy Spirit subdued self. He replaced his old ways with Christ’s new ways. He learned to serve Christ. He came to reflect the very attitudes of Christ. In this way he began to have the same burdens as Christ. He was becoming a changed man.
Jesus reproved His disciples, He warned and cautioned them; but John and his brethren did not leave Him; they chose Jesus, notwithstanding the reproofs. The Saviour did not withdraw from them because of their weakness and errors. They continued to the end to share His trials and to learn the lessons of His life. By beholding Christ, they became transformed in character (Ibid, p. 296).
Most of the disciples received Jesus’ teachings and began to reflect his attitudes. Although their defects were being revealed to them, they did not leave Christ. They stayed with Him. They stubbornly chose His presence even when inward inclination would have taken them somewhere else. Day by day they stayed with Jesus and were transformed.
The apostles differed widely in habits and disposition. There were the publican, Levi-Matthew, and the fiery zealot Simon, the uncompromising hater of the authority of Rome; the generous, impulsive Peter, and the mean-spirited Judas; Thomas, truehearted, yet timid and fearful, Philip, slow of heart, and inclined to doubt, and the ambitious, outspoken sons of Zebedee, with their brethren. These were brought together, with their different faults, all with inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil; but in and through Christ they were to dwell in the family of God, learning to become one in faith, in doctrine, in spirit. They would have their tests, their grievances, their differences of opinion; but while Christ was abiding in the heart, there could be no dissension. His love would lead to love for one another; the lessons of the Master would lead to the harmonizing of all differences, bringing the disciples into unity, till they would be of one mind and one judgment. Christ is the great center, and they would approach one another just in proportion as they approached the center (Ibid.).
We all have differing dispositions. Our unlikenesses to Christ are as unique as each of us are. But Christianity means being a learner. If we draw close to Jesus, and I mean authentically—willing to receive His attitudes, His teachings, His ever-advancing light of present truth, we will be continually coming into greater and greater unity with one another. Are you approaching the center, Jesus, or are you circling somewhere around the edges, doing your own thing, caught up in the cares of this life, and over-stressed, refuse to change, refuse to expose yourself to the attitudes and the teachings of Jesus?
For too long the church has been cutting cookies in parking lot earth. We are overly contented here. And so we behave as we do.
To Know About Him
Consider the situation that describes many of you here (at this youth gathering). You grew up in the church. Your parents, for your own good, wanted you to be in the church. They wanted to protect you, set you on the right path, and eventually, they want to see your life, as you become an adult, be as fulfilling and positive as possible. As minimally marred by failures and destructive relationships and behaviors, as possible.
If that is the way they have been, and the way they are, then you may thank God. Your parents are trying to do the right thing.
But this sometimes leaves a young person feeling overly protected, unsure to some extent, about whether the boundaries we have placed around our lifestyle are right. Just maybe, we wonder, are we being too restrictive? Bottom line: maybe I am missing out on something.
How do I advance spiritually? How do I make certain that I don’t just know about Christ, but that I actually know Christ?
We look at our church and we wonder. How many, of us, even of our elders, are seeking truth with all that we are. And how many have settled into the comfort zone? How many of us are comfortable living in the middle world between heaven and earth? And dying in it?
America is not heaven. The church militant is not the church triumphant. The mainstream experience in the church is more likely to make Judas B’s than John B’s.
At night in the garden, Jesus’ three-year period of ministry to His disciples is about to draw to a close. In the flickering torchlight a face draws near. Jesus can see the eyes. A crowd stirs in the darkness. Judas draws near. At Jesus’ word all is still. His word is soft, yet everyone can hear. “Judas. Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” He steps forward and kisses Jesus’ face. And the crowd erupts.
The experience of Judas is not unusual. Some here today have the experience of Judas. He had his own ideas about how to make God’s work successful. He came to Jesus, trained and educated. He had his MBA. The other disciples looked at him and said, This man has the knowledge to help us organize this into a worldwide movement. But Jesus warned him at the very beginning. He had come to Jesus and said, “I will follow Thee whithersoever thou goest.” But Jesus had responded, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:19, 20).
Did you notice that Judas was applying for the position of the last generation Christian? As we all know, they are described in Revelation 14:4: “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.”
Judas claimed he would follow Jesus wherever He went. O, Judas. Will you follow me to the cross? Every one has a cross. Have you seen yours lately?
He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me (Matthew 10:38).
Cell phones, air conditioning, microwave ovens, SUV, instant messaging, comfort on demand; that is our world. Our God has allowed us to remove many crosses. We don’t know very much about what to do with our personal spiritual cross because we have it so convenient. The truth be told, we are satisfied to have this middle world, so much better than it might be, but so infinitely less than it will be after Jesus comes. Judas would have been satisfied for Jesus to take back the land from the Romans. He would have settled for knowing about Jesus, but living in his middle world.
Jesus is not the Author of any middle world. He is not its Creator, He is not its Savior. It is a world that is doomed, a world which already has its prince. Satan knows nothing of any crown of thorns. If you want to know about how to take up your cross, you have to go to someone who knows something about it. And that would be Jesus.
Jesus walked through this world. He was a stranger in a strange land. In the world but not of the world. And if we want to know Him and not just about Him, we must follow Him in the pathway. We must be in the world but not of the world. We must take up our cross and bear it daily.
What of Jesus taking up His cross? His cross represented the rejection of man, the rejection of the people He had made of the God who had made them. It meant denying the injustice of it all, in order that those who would be willing to be made willing, could live for eternity. Don’t forget for a moment that when Jesus took up His cross, He had you in mind. No, I mean you, exactly you, you who would 2000 years later believe (John 17:20).
He prayed that you would be enabled to know Him more closely. He prayed so that you could take up your cross in His power. What’s in your cross?
Convenience or Self-Denial
Convenience is in your cross. Some things would make life so convenient. And we don’t have to give up every convenient thing. Don”t think you have to rush home and throw away your dishwasher machine. But your cross includes you’re not allowing yourself to become a flabby person because of all the conveniences in your life. It is one thing to partake of the convenience and another to be taken by the conveniences. If you can’t live without a remote, you have a very thin cross. If you don’t know what self-denial is, then you won’t be able to know Jesus; just about Him a little.
Some of us came in out of the world. And there was a time when we had given up many things that we have since stealthily allowed back into our life. Some things perhaps we had given up in our immaturity and they weren’t things God was really calling us to give up. But some things He was calling us to give up. And they are in our lives again. O beware. You are walking into the garden to betray your Lord just like Judas. Turn around.
Worldliness or Spirituality
The world is in your cross. The world calls you. Its siren song ever draws you. Its glitter, its noise, its farsical happy-face attached to its many vices calls you. But behind the smiling plastic mask is a crying face. You are here in this world and your mission is to know Christ and serve Him. All who do He calls to labor for their salvation and the salvation of everyone else caught in “the Matrix.” Only this world is real.
The people are trapped in it, consumers of not only its unhealthy food, but its many popular ideas, its many educated, impeccably clothed theories. But the emperor has no clothes. The fun things of the world, they aren’t so fun. Pandering to the world means also the vomit of it in your mouth in the morning. After the party, the hangover. After the bait, the cage. After the illicit sex, the HPV.
The world allures in many ways. To some of you, it offers success, high degrees, dollars, the misplaced pride of self accomplishment, the swelled head. There is nothing wrong with aiming high, with pressing yourself toward excellence. Do what you do with might. But along the way, beware. Do not learn to trust in yourself. Learn rather to distrust yourself. Learn rather to rely upon God. Don’t forget Nebuchadnezzar, who after a year of good behavior, looked out over glorious Babylon and exclaimed “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). His pride was his downfall.
Mainstream Adventism or the Higher Call
Be willing to not be willing to settle for what passes as Seventh-day Adventism. Making your standard a higher standard is also your cross. Jesus did not die for a church of people who would know Him from a distance, who would settle for being just another mainstream church with all the other corrupt churches. To whom much is given what? Much is required. No one in Southern California has been given as much as you have.
The Third Angel’s Message is no laughing matter. It is not something to make jokes about; not something to sing comfortable old camp-meeting songs about, or to sell generic Christian music on CDs or DVDs about. This is serious.
So there are people and groups in the world who want to throw stones at us and threaten to call us a cult if we don’t join them in their common Christianity. So what? Is that what we are? Can we be intimidated, seduced, by such apparent risks? Believing in God’s truth costs something. Knowing Jesus is going to cost something. Are you willing to pay the price? Or are you a wimp?
If something off track is taught in a church quarterly, will you sit by and ignore it and teach it anyway? If you hear the preacher preaching a smooth line and making of none-effect the Spirit of Prophecy, or the Investigative Judgment, or the teaching of victory over sin, will you just go ahead and shape your life by that anyway? What are you made out of?
I want to ask you a question. You want to honor your elders. Could Jesus have honored His elders by quietly submitting to the teaching of the teachers who were off track? Never. We can only honor God, or our elders, or our parents, by being willing to stand up for Jesus and His present truth. We have to bear the cross that is built into Adventism. Yes, some won’t like it, some will laugh at us, tell us we are wrong, taunt us as an unbiblical cult. Are we to cut and run?
It has a precedent, a history among God’s disciples you know. When they took Jesus, the disciples all fled for their lives. And it has a precedent in our church. WHen the Evangelicals threatened to label us in with the cults in the 1950s some then forsook their Lord and fled. They changed the church’s teaching for a generation.
A New Day
But brothers, sisters, today is a new day. The last time this happened was 500 years ago with the advent of the printing press. Today, it is the internet. People are studying for themselves. Young people. They want to know Jesus, not just know about Him. Here’s the deal. If what we believe is false, we just don’t want any part of it. At all. Ditch the whole thing. Better yet, blow the whole thing up. If it is false, we’re out of here. But in contrast, if it is true (and it is), then we say, no, we want to go deeper, way deeper. We want to finish the unfinished task. We want to take Seventh-day Adventism out of its prolonged pit stop and as fast as possible, race to the finish line. If this is true, if this is the truth delivered to the saints by the King of the saints, then we want to live it out in its fullness. We want to live out Adventism and its implications. No holds barred. No half-measures. No silly songs, no rock and roll kind of plasticized Christianity. The real thing. That’s all.
You see, brothers and sisters, for too long we have approached our Lord only to betray Him with a kiss. We settled for an easy kind of Christianity, like you could get in some evangelical church. We settled for following Jesus at a distance, when He had called us to join Him in the forefront of the battle. That’s right. We grew comfortable. Comfortable enough, that if opportunity presented itself to us, we would be willing to betray Jesus with the rest of the torchlight mob.
But no more. We want more of Jesus than before. We won’t settle for a lame, limping Christianity. We want to walk with Jesus.
Judas took his journey from Judas A to Judas B. He was open, his heart was reaching toward the light. But over time he persisted in making the wrong choices. He knowingly rejected Jesus, tiny increment by tiny increment, until it was night in his soul.
John started off with a load of problems too. But over time, what he saw in jesus moved him. More than moved him, he more than thought it was nice; rather, he began to copy Jesus. John A was also moving to John B. But along the way he was melting, he was becoming more Christ like. Where Judas finished he had surrendered to his bad humanity, he had joined his character fully to the fleshly clamor. John turned, John fought the hardest battle that was ever fought, the battle with self. In Christ’s power he subdued self. John B was like Christ.
All of us are journeying. We are moving from version A to version B, or if you want, from version 1.0 to version 2.0. God’s grace is as sufficient for you as it was for John. You choose. Cutting cookies in parking lot earth? That’s an option. But translation without seeing death is also an option. If you’re game. It is good that Jesus left. “Through the Spirit, Christ was to abide continually in the hearts of His children. Their union with Him was closer than when He was personally with them” (Steps to Christ, p. 74). Will you take Him up on that? You have an advantage over both Judas and John. And you could be the last generation.
So. What will it be? LGT
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