Disclosure of the Betrayer - Applications

In this part of the sermon: Martin recounts the setting of the Passover and Jesus' shocking disclosure of the betrayer. He reviews previous observations about Christ's complete control, submission to God's…

Martin describes the vast number of people (over a million) gathered in Jerusalem for Passover, setting the scene for the solemnity and significance of the event where Jesus disclosed the betrayer.

Multitudes, it is estimated, that perhaps well over a million, some estimate even more, had made their way to the holy city in order to celebrate the feast of Passover, that feast instituted by God. Amen. God to commemorate God's mighty intervention in the deliverance of his ancient people out of Egyptian bondage. And on a certain unnamed street in the upper level room of a home of an unnamed friend of Jesus, a group of 13 men are gathered for that commemorative feast. And well into the elaborate rituals of that feast, and after a number of other incidents, some of which are recorded in Luke 2...

4:28 - 5:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section forcefully validates that there is no contradiction between God's absolute sovereignty and full human responsibility. Martin cites numerous scriptures to establish…

Martin quotes John Calvin's commentary on the betrayal incident, which explains how Christ's suffering was by God's will and decree, yet Judas remains fully culpable, illustrating the compatibility of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

Calvin, commenting on this very incident, writes as follows, Christ here encounters the offense that might otherwise shake godly minds severely. What could be more appalling than that the Son of God be foully betrayed by a disciple, exposed? Exposed to the frenzy of his enemies and taken off to a shameful death. Christ declares that this occurred by the will of God.

22:16 - 22:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This passage vividly illustrates the inability of the greatest light and privilege to change the human heart.

Martin draws an analogy between society's desensitization to immorality and Christians becoming unshocked by the shocking truths of Scripture, preparing the audience for the profound implications of Judas's betrayal despite his privilege.

It not only sets before us this validation that there is no contradiction between absolute sovereignty and complete human responsibility, but this passage vividly illustrates the inability of the greatest light and privilege to change the human heart. This passage vividly illustrates the inability of the greatest light and privilege to change the human heart. We become so familiar with things that ought to terrify us and shock us. That's true in the realm of our own existence in our own country at this time. There was a time when if someone were known as a public figure to be living in an immo...

32:50 - 34:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not rest on your privileges; examine whether you are truly attached to Christ, or if the Lord Jesus would say 'one of you shall betray me' to you.

Martin quotes Bishop Ryle, who uses Judas's 'melancholy history' to warn against relying on external religious acts and privileges, emphasizing the necessity of the Holy Spirit's grace and a converted heart.

This incident of Judas underscores that no amount of light or privilege can ever change the human heart. Listen to Bishop Ryle speaking on this very issue in his comments on this passage. He says, Let us learn from this melancholy history of Judas to be clothed with humility and content with nothing short of the grace of the Holy Ghost in our hearts. Knowledge, gifts, possessions, privileges, church membership, powering, praying, and talking about religion, are all useless things if our hearts are not converted. They are all no better than sounding brass in a tinkling cymbal if we have not put...

51:06 - 52:27 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin affirms the doctrine of eternal punishment, drawing from Jesus' statement that it would have been 'good' for Judas never to have been born. He refutes conditional…

Martin references Philip Hughes's recent book on the image of God in man, specifically chapter 38, where Hughes denies the conscious everlasting torment of the damned, using this as an example of contemporary evangelical error regarding hell.

It's been there since the day of Adventism for years and in certain forms of liberalism among the Russellites. But among so-called evangelicals there is a broad fad to do away with the doctrine of the conscious everlasting torment of the damned in hell. In his most recent book, Philip Hughes, a long esteemed evangelical Anglican scholar, excellent commentaries on both Hebrews and the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 38 of his newest release, a book on the doctrine of the image of God in man, in chapter 38 on the question is the soul immortal? Till a fusion of the wicked. And then he gives his so...

62:33 - 63:48 Read in full sermon