[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]

Now did God tell Satan what to do in the case of Job? Yes. What did He say? He said, "You can take all that He has." Did God create that? Yes. How did He create it? By speaking the word, giving the command. When God chooses our delusions, then God may present something to us which may not necessarily be true. If you believe in a lie and you believe in a delusion and God chooses that for your own end, is that not a righteous work? Yes, it is.

Now I want to tell you about this Operation Fortitude in World War II. The whole plan has been uncovered part by part, but it is now known. That during World War II, the reason that the Normandy invasion was successful, and the reason that the Allies won World War II was because of the greatest delusion in modern history. And Mountbatten, Lord Mountbatten, said that this was the greatest Machiavellian…which is then to take an ultra evil thing to try and work good. But let’s analyze a little bit. Were the Nazis, with their whole regime, and the whole thing they had, inherently evil? We could have "Origin: evil…" we could go down every one of these: Origin evil; motive: evil; appearance: evil; effect: evil. Correct? Ok, now if God chooses the delusion of the Nazis as a tactic to inspire the Allies on how to beat them, God did it with a big lie. In other words, would God tell an inherently evil person something that may not necessarily be true so that they would choose their own delusion? In this case God did. You can read the article written by…who was the English teacher there at Ambassador College? Torrance. He wrote the seven things that God did to make World War II happen correctly - the weather, and all these…the saving at Dunkirk.

But what else did God give to the Allies to do? Now God did not do this directly, but He gave it to the Allies. They perpetrated the biggest hoax, the biggest lie, the biggest deception that has ever been done in modern history. They made Hitler absolutely believe that they were going to invade at - instead of Normandy, what was it? Calais. They set up a whole dummy army. An army group, it was called the First Army Group, and they brought Patton. He was in trouble, as you saw in the movie. And the Germans respected him and thought he was the best American general. So they brought him to England. They set up a whole dummy army group that didn’t exist. They had rubber planes, rubber jeeps, everything. They set up great areas as of England so that when they would fly over they had fires burning in the stoves, and it looked like there were troops all round. They set up dummy communications, where they had about six or eight different people that could do up to fifteen different voice interpretations of radio. And they would pick a Southern voice, and someone else from Brooklyn. And so they set this whole thing up. And here are all the Germans over there, you know, spies. "Were going to listen…." So there’s all this coming in, coming in.

And then they went many steps further. They got into the Gestapo intelligence. They had counterspies in Gestapo intelligence, and then they had counterspies and counter-counterspies working with the underground. So instead of doing like we would do, we would go out and we would "get those dirty rats." No. The Allies were smart. They used them and they sent them disinformation. That was the great disinformation project in all of history of warfare. They even allowed the underground people to believe that they were going to attack at Calais. And on June 4th that they had certain songs that they told all the underground - and of course, they knew that the Nazis had infiltrated the underground. So then the word got back that, "if you hear this music two days in a row the invasion is coming to Calais." So that penetrated clear up to Hitler and Hitler gave the absolute order, "Under no circumstances are you to move any troops away from protecting Calais and the beach, because that is where the invasion is coming." And even the underground believed it. Huh? You talk about choose their own delusions. That’s how God did it. He chose the German delusions – "We’re the greatest; we’re the best," and they were evil, and wretched, and rotten, and terrible. So He let them believe a lie. That sounds a little biblical, doesn’t it? "That they might believe a lie." And they lost the war.

So when the troops invaded - and if you saw the movie "The Longest Day," if you ever wondered why that they could not get Hitler…yes, and it was that Hitler had taken a sleeping pill. And the German generals there, when they knew that the invasion was coming and saw that it was coming, what did they say? "Get a hold of Hitler." And Hitler refused. Refused! And said, "This is a dummy operation." They even had several drops of dummy paratroopers, these little midget paratroopers that they dropped down. And so the Germans thought that, "Well, this is a dummy, and where’s the real drop?" So they had everything that way where it was a tremendous delusion to them. So when God says He creates evil, He creates evil.

Who do you suppose enforces the penalty of sin? God does. How does He do it? You can read Deuteronomy 28. Through sickness, through disease, through those things. Is that not evil from a human perspective? Yes. Now we’re getting a broader perspective on some of these things. Now let’s go to some of the religious works sections that we need to go to. Let’s go to Matthew 5, then I’ll pick up on some other things. And here’s what Jesus said concerning our righteousness. Matthew 5:20, "For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." How righteous did the Pharisees appear? They appeared super-righteous. But what did Jesus say about them? Let’s take a couple other scriptures to look at that.

Matthew 6:1, Jesus said, "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them:..." Aha! Here we have a good appearance, a supposedly good effect. But what kind of motive? A bad motive, an evil motive, even though it may be a commandment of God to do. Didn’t God say, "Relieve the oppressed", "Assist the poor", "Relieve the widows"? And I’m going to show you an example here a little later about how that law was used in an evil way, believe it or not. And the effect, the answer that was given, if you would have just heard the conversation and known nothing about it you would of thought, "That stingy old man. He wouldn’t even give this to the poor. He took it to himself." So take heed that you do not your alms before men, "…to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven." So that’s why when someone told me, "Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you and I reconciled? Just think of what an example it would be to the brethren." I said, "Hey, it isn’t going to work." If it is not of God, if it is not before God, you can impress all the people you want. That’s your reward. And they would come up and say, "Oh, wonderful. Nice. Oh that’s sweet, good. God is in it." God had nothing to do with it.

"Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:..." That means don’t sit down and plan it out so that you’re going to have the effect that you want, to be thought of as good in the eyes of other people. In other words, let it be spontaneous and from the heart. "…That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites..." Now that’s the key thing - hypocrites. Mark that. We’re going to see a lot of hypocrites. And the Greek there means sanctimonious pretenders. And anyone who is a hypocrite is a pretender. In this case, a religious pretender, then. And doing good works on the surface is what? A sanctimonious pretender. Just like we heard before. God said, "All the sabbath, and all the feasts and all these offerings are a weariness to Me." Why? Because your heart is not right, and you’re sanctimonious pretenders. "...For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward" (Matt. 6:1-5). They were seen of men.

Now you might do this as just a little side study in the Bible. Go and see how many long prayers you have where it is showing that Jesus prayed publicly. You won’t have any. He blessed the food; and He said when He raised Lazarus from the dead, He said, "Father, thank You that You hear Me. I know that You hear Me always, and I’m saying this so they may believe" (John 11:41-42, paraphrased). And that was a short prayer. You would think, normally you would think that if anyone was going to do something to resurrect someone from the dead…and of course, what? The disciples thought, "Jesus, He should have come earlier because Lazarus would not have died." So they thought that Jesus deliberately neglected. They were coming close to saying, "Lord, you know, You didn’t do quite as good as You should have. If You have been here earlier this wouldn’t have happened." And Martha and Mary came out and were crying, and even Jesus cried He didn’t get up there and have some long great prayer. He just said, "Thank you Father, and Lazarus, come out." And it was done. That might tell us something about that when we connect it here.

And then it says when you pray enter into your closet, and when you have shut the door, stay there one whole hour with the clock, and set it, and pray. No, it does say that. "...Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions,..." And I’ve had many questions as to this. Because when I used to preach, "Pray an hour day…" And I did. I preached, "Pray an hour a day." And I did pray an hour a day. But I’ll tell you what happens when you do that. You end up repeating the same thing over, and over, and over again, don’t you? God says don’t use vain repetitions. What are vain repetitions? The vain repetitions are those things which you do over, and over, and over again to fill space. I mean, there is no difference to having a list that you go through rigorously every single day, "…and make sure you don’t miss it." Now I’m not trying to belittle or put that down. There are things you need to pray about constantly until there is an answer. That is not a vain repetition. But if you believe your prayer is going to be heard, and if you know that God is going to answer that prayer, why do you have to come back and ask it every day? Why do you have to come back and do it ten times a day? Or "…as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him" (vs. 7-8). And if your heart is right, compare the prayer of the Pharisee and the publican, Luke 18:9-14. I will just refer you to that because I had that on the tape here recently. I imagine the Pharisee’s prayer was long. The publican’s prayer was short, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Who was justified? The publican was.

Now just let me put it on pause here for a moment. Let’s go to Luke 7. Here’s a parable. And here we can get a good contrast of the judgment of a good or an evil work, where the appearance of it is different to the perception of one person and another, and especially the difference in perception between what Jesus saw and what the Pharisees saw. Let’s pick it up here in verse 36. Now we’re going to find out about the Pharisees and their motivation here in just a little bit. "And one of the Pharisees desired Him that He would eat with him." So that was nice. Isn’t that nice? That’s a nice work. He invites someone over for dinner. That’s a reasonably good motivation. A good appearance, reasonably good effect – you’re going to get fed. "And He went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to [eat] meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner [which means that she was probably a harlot], when she knew that Jesus sat at meat [to eat] in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,…" (Luke 7:36-37). Now we have two perceptions of this, don’t we? The perception of it by Christ, and the perception of it by the Pharisees. Now we will see how one was perceived of as an evil work by the Pharisee, which was really a good work because of her heart, and the way that Jesus saw it, because He knew the hearts of men.

"…And stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment" (vs. 38). You can picture whatever you want, however this woman may have been. You could say she may have been typically…even though she was crying, had a repentant heart, you’d be a Pharisees sitting there. And you know, "That’s one of those women. And I’ve seen her before, and I’ve heard about this person."

"Now when the Pharisee which had bidden [invited] Him saw it, he spake within himself, saying,..." Aha! Here’s what happens. When you have a heart that is not right with God then you start judging other people’s motives, right? Look what he said: "...This Man [Who was the Messiah, Who was doing the healing, Who was doing all these things], if He were a prophet,..." Now how many times do we justify evil by imputing evil? Let’s put it this way…how many times do we justify our evil motives when we impute evil motives to someone else? So therefore, since we know that this other person is evil, therefore we are justified in imputing evil motives, right? Isn’t that what’s happening here? A Pharisee who was supposed to be righteous, who on the outside, as Jesus said, is like a whited sepulcher, but on the inside, this is within, he is thinking to himself, "...This Man, if He were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of women this is it that toucheth Him: for she is a sinner" (vs. 39).

"And Jesus answering said unto him,..." Now notice, chooses his own delusion, gives him a little parable. "...Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on" (vs. 40). You can almost see him, quivering, fawning, feigning, "Say on. Yes, say on Master." But what did he say in his heart? "This Man, if He were a prophet, He should have known." Then He turns and says, "Simon, I have something to say you." "Oh, yes. Say on, Master!" Hypocrite.

"There was a certain creditor which had two debtors:..." And He gave him a very simple thing to figure out. "...The one owed five hundred pence [that is, as it is in the Interlinear following along there, denarius], and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both." And what irks someone who has a little to be forgiven? When someone who has a lot to be forgiven, that they are forgiven. That’s why He uses this. "...He frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him the most?" And he probably thought to Himself, "Boy, now I can answer that one." Yes. "Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And He [Jesus] said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged" (vs. 41-43). Now just imagine how he would feel. Here is this person wanting complements, wanting to do all this on the outside and wanting to be stroked, and all of this ego stuff involved. Let’s just picture this. And Jesus said, you have said rightly. He probably [sigh]…you know, "Hooray, great. Got it right."

And Jesus said, "Simon, that’s wonderful of you." No, He didn’t. "And He turned to the woman, and said to Simon, Seest thou [do you see] this woman?" I’ll point down here because there are women here. "…Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest Me no water for My feet: but she hath washed My feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head." And he was there condemning it, wasn’t he? "Thou gavest Me no kiss:..." (vs. 44-45). Can you imagine the kind of hypocritical kiss that would have been given? We will talk about a hypocritical kiss here in a little bit. Can you think of one famous historical, hypocritical kiss? And that was not Brezhnev and Carter. That was one of them.

"…But this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss My feet." Now if there’s any part of the body that would be terrible to kiss…you know, walk in off the dusty old trail and start kissing those…you know I wouldn’t want anyone to kiss my feet. "My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed My feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee [who is supposed to be righteous], her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And He said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven" (vs. 45-48). Instead of everybody saying, "Hurray, there’s a repentant…" you know, "…this woman has changed. Her sins are forgiven. Wonderful!" "And they that sat at meat with Him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?" And you can…and their lips were probably sneering up, and their eyebrows were kind of looking out, and all these beady-eyed gossips with their tongues plowing along. "And He said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace" (vs. 45-50). Now there is a classic example of a good work and an evil work, but God looks at the heart.

Now let’s look at another one here. Let’s go to Matthew 23. Matthew 23 is perhaps the classic example of religious works which appear good, that Jesus condemns because the heart is not right. Let’s just go through them. Verse 1, "Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to His disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:..." So they were in authority. Notice what He said: "...All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do;..." That is, all the official things that obviously are based upon the Word of God. Obviously, if they ask them to sin they should not do that. "...But do not ye after their works:..." (Matt. 23:1-3). Now when we focus in on the works, it’s not so much of the works as it is the heart. And it’s not so much the work that is evil, but the motivation behind the work makes it more evil.

"For they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders;..." Now that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I’ve heard, "Tithe, even if you have to go on welfare." Isn’t that a grievous burden to be borne? "...But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." Sounds a little familiar: "You go on welfare, and by the way, we’re going to take all this and we’re going to redo this house, and redo this mansion, and buy all these things." There’s a good example of it. "But all their works they do for to be seen of men:..." Now, the whole wrong motivation. "...They make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,..." (vs. 3-6).

And I remember we went back to visit a church that we pastored, and we went on a holy day. And here, the ministers had a table set up on the stage, and they instructed the deacons to bring them the best of all the food, the desert, the meat, the vegetables. And the brethren were down there. And so rather than associate with that, I went to the back of the line. Not to be seen of men, but not to be seen of them. Because I was ashamed. And obviously that is something that shouldn’t be. So I just made myself unavailable and just went down with the brethren and some that I knew were talking with, and I was talking with them in line, we just went on through the line. And the word came down, "Well come on up and eat." I said, "No, I’ll just skip my food." I didn’t want to be up there with this thing, where everybody can see, and all the brethren whispering, "All of the ministers are up there,…" And they got all…now you see how clear all this becomes?

"...They make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your Father upon the earth:..." Because what happens? It just becomes a very fawning thing – "Oh, Father this, Father that, Father the other thing..." "...For one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted" (vs. 5-12).

Now notice. Then He takes this whole principle here and applies it to all the rest of the sayings in chapter 23. "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses,..." And how they do that? By taking, by robbing, under the pretense of what? "Donate it to the temple, and it is corban, and you are released." "...And for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation" (vs. 13-14). Now let me ask you a question: is it a good work to pray? Yes. But if for a pretense you pray, it gets nowhere. God says what? "When you spread forth your hands to heaven, I will…" What? "…Not hear you, for your hands are defiled with blood."

Let’s go on, verse 15. "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte,..." Isn’t that a good work? Go out and get a convert. You dedicate your life. You know the Mormons do this. They give two years. Every young man gives two years at no salary from the church. He gives it to the Mormon Church to go out and be a missionary. And what do they do? They compass land and sea. I know, I talked to one Mormon missionary. Guess where his mission was? France. Guess what one of the Mormon doctrines is? "Thou shalt not drink." Can you imagine telling a Frenchman not to drink wine? It’s like trying to keep a baby from nursing. You can’t do it. During his two years, and he said he went into many villages, talked to a lot of people, made a lot of friends. But not one convert in two years. Was that a good work? It was a good work. He came home and was thought well of by the Mormon Church because he set a good example.

"...And when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the..." And this is the religious argument. We got into that a little bit last week. The person said, "How can one live in adultery when adultery is an act?" And I said, "Well, if the marriage is not binding by God then is an adulterous state of living in adultery." Well here is the same thing. A person comes in and says, "Ok, I’m going to vow a vow to God, and I’m going to swear by the temple. And you Pharisees say that’s nothing." "...But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor [to do your vow]!" Notice what Jesus said, "Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?" (vs. 15-17). See, so all these nitpick little arguments are nowhere. Of course, that would be a good work, wouldn’t it? "I’m going to swear by the gold of the temple!" And the Pharisee runs out there and says, "Hallelujah, you’re a debtor! You’re a good boy. You’re a good man. God loves you because you swore by the gold, and you’re going to do what you said you would do." A good work? No, not a good work.

And He says, and Jesus gave the answer then, "And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, [you say] it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty." Oh yes. That was their argument. Whoso swears by the altar. Someone walks up and says, "Well I swear by the altar of God that this is true." And that’s what is called the horns of the altar. That if a person came in...and you remember Joab wanted to come in and grab hold of the horns of the altar so that he could not be killed? And that’s what it’s talking about. But the Pharisees said, "That’s nothing. If you swear by the altar, that’s nothing." "…Whosoever swears by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by Him that sitteth thereon" (vs. 18-22). So in other words, it gets back to the condition of the heart again, doesn’t it? All these things are on the surface a good work, every one of them.

Verse 23, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin,..." And those are good works to do. "Yes, I am a good Pharisee. I sit here and, yes, there’s ten percent for God, there’s ninety percent for me. And there’s ten percent for God, there’s ninety percent for me. Oh, by the way, get these widows out of here. We’re not going to give them anything." "...And have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." So here’s a good work. It doesn’t matter if you do a good work. But your heart is locked up and not doing the things that God wants you to do. That’s why. The question came up about a person being baptized. You can go dunk people in the water all day long. Technically, when you get down to it, it really doesn’t matter who baptizes the person. Technically. I mean, it says Jesus baptized but the disciples did it. But if your heart isn’t right and you haven’t repented, you can go to Christ Himself in the flesh and your baptism would not be any good. Because your heart is not right. So we have the same thing here. Verse 24, "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter,..." (vs. 23-25). And today isn’t that what most people do? Do the outside.

Now this Wittburg thing, the Jews all came and they pleaded with President Reagan, "Don’t go to Wittburg." Now who was this fellow, this Jew that stood up, this big philosopher Jew, and he corrected the president publicly on television, and…what was his name? Eli…something. Eli… which is a derivative of God’s name…Eli Weiss was it? Somewhere around there. So anyway, the Jews all got together and they said, "Now we must not give the appearance that we’re ... if President Reagan changes us we don’t want to have the appearance that we forced him to do it," when they were all the ones that were doing it. Now it’s the same thing, the same thing when Jesus was crucified, right? "We don’t want to give the appearance that we had anything to do this, so we’ll go out at midnight." Clean the outside, but the inside, they clean outside of the cup and the platter, "...but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward,..." (vs. 25-27).

Now this is but one of the things that really gives you a key on the good work, the evil work, the origin, the effect, the appearance, and everything here. We could say with what the Pharisees were doing, the origin was not right because it really wasn’t from God. Who did Jesus say they serve? "You are what of your father the devil." The motive was not good because the heart was not right; the appearance looked good because they were doing it on the outside; and the effect was evil because it brought God’s correction upon the whole community. So that which looks good may not be good. "...Which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity" (vs. 27-28). And then He went on and labeled their attitude. We’ll finish the last few verses here of this section.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." In other words, we wouldn’t have martyred them. Come on. What did they want to do to Jeremiah? "Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, they ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (vs. 29-33). And there He said that the judgment was coming upon that generation for everything that was done from Able clear down to the present time.

Now let’s look at one more example here. Let’s turn to John 12, and we will see an example of a cloak of righteousness to cover evil. John 12:1, "Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus,…" Now this was different from the other one that we covered a little earlier in Luke 7. "...And wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. Then saith one of His disciples,..." Now here is a cloak of evil and criticism. Notice how it’s done. This is very common that people do. "Then saith one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray Him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" Aha! A waste. Didn’t that look like on the surface a righteous cause, a good work? But, "This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein" (John 12:1-6). See, so here’s a righteous cloak to disguise evil. An apparent good work to cover up an evil work. Then we know what Judas did when he betrayed Him.

Let’s go back here to John 18. They came after Him at midnight. Does this account show where he kissed Him? Well anyway, you can look it up later on. We’re almost out of recording room here. But what did Judas do? He said, "The one Whom I kiss is the one that you are to arrest." So he betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Now a kiss is supposed to be what? A sign of affection, a sign of love, a sign of friendship, a sign of, "I am with you; I will never do anything against you or harm you" type of thing right? So he used this as the signal to betray Jesus so that He could be arrested. Now there is an example of an apparent good work with an evil motive, with an evil result, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Now I’m going to go ahead and do some more research on this, and maybe bring one more sermon about a good work and evil work, and I will get it a little more defined, a little more developed than this. But this gives us something to work on it to sink our teeth into.

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]