Matthew 27:1Now when morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put Him to death; and they bound Him, and led Him away, and delivered Him to Pilate the governor. Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”
This was probably one of the most important days of all, of which I want to portray two opposite pictures, two extremes. In the darkness of the night the mob had come with their torches burning, with clubs and staves like a lynch mob. They had taken Jesus and brought Him forth to a trial. What a mockery of a trial it was; they were anxious to do away with Him as soon as possible. The events happened very fast from the time of Judas’ kiss. He started something that swept him along, as if he had leaped into a tide that carried him almost beyond his own will. Judas suddenly realized what had happened. Too late he remembered the faith that he previously had in the Lord. In some perverse way he had thought that Jesus would be pushed into a corner and would manifest Himself as King, and then the whole thing would be a vindication of himself and his betrayal. I think that was in his heart. Judas had taken matters in his own hands almost unbelievably.
Few men have ever gone ahead to do what they would do and in the process of it so open themselves up that devil possession took over. It takes a great deal of frustration and rebellion, and a great deal of real honest rejection of what God has said, to come to the place that Judas was in. Judas had come to that place, but not overnight. He had healed the sick, moved in God, and he’d had revelation. If he were living today we would say that he was in the Walk; he’d had signs, a great deal had happened to him—good things, evidence of the anointing. But someplace along the line because of rebellion, something happened to him such as happened to Samson, where the Scriptures tell us that Delilah said to this lustful Samson asleep in her lap, “Awake, Samson, the Philistines are on thee.” And he said, “I will get up and shake myself like I always have and then go out and slay the Philistines.” But he did not know that the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him (Judges 16:20).
Rebellion is like an opiate. It deadens the spiritual senses until you are not aware of what is taking place in you. “Samson wist not that the Lord was departed from him.” Few people are really aware of their decline. They are not aware of the ebbing spiritual tide. There are no alarms that ring, saying, “You’re in trouble, buddy; you’re getting rebellious here, and you’re in danger.” The further you go in rebellion, the more deception is at work. Any time that you say, “I was deceived; it was the devil that deceived me,” remember that your awareness of spiritual things depends upon your willingness to do the will of the Lord.
John 7:17 says, “If any man will to do His will he shall know the teaching.” Your spiritual perception is based upon your willingness to do the will of the Lord. When rebellion enters in, the spiritual senses are deadened, and you are rarely aware of what is taking place in you. You do not sing any mourning songs for the departed glory. Often you have a kind of false sense of confidence that suddenly bolsters you up, and you think, “I can work out my own destiny; I’m going to work the thing out that has to be worked out in my own life. I can do it.”
When Judas went out from the disciples at the Passover Feast, Jesus said, “What you do, do quickly.” The same urgency is upon us now. Whatever you are going to do, get with it now, because the time is short, the divine scheduling of events has taken place. With greater and greater rapidity you are going to find an acceleration in events. Things are going to happen too rapidly. Whatever you are going to do toward God, do it quickly. If you are going to fast, get with it! If you are going to pray, get with it. If you are going to walk with God, get with it. If you’re going to withdraw, do it now.
Judas went out, and the Scripture says that it was night. It was not just the falling of darkness upon the earth, but it was something else. A darkness came over his spirit, and the darkness was not lifted until morning had come. That was not just a sunrise, but it was something else. He realized that the One bound with ropes and carried into judgment was his Lord, and he had betrayed Him. So he took the pieces of silver back to the leaders of the Jews, and he said, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” They did not care. “What’s that to us? You see to that; that’s your responsibility.” He threw the money in the treasury. Very carefully they picked it out, like good religious people right now, who would crucify the Walk and those in it, who could not see it end quickly enough; nothing could happen that would please them more than to see the betrayal of the Walk. They strain at a gnat, yet swallow a camel, looking for little things in their religiosity, so careful.
“We have to pick this out, this is the price of blood. Where is that last thirtieth piece? There it is! Now we have it. What will we do with it?” The prophets had written it; Zechariah had already described what would happen. But is significant what did happen. “With thirty pieces of silver we could buy a piece of land. It won’t be worth very much, we can’t raise anything on it; we can’t till it. No gardens will grow there, no herbs; it’s a potter’s field.”
What is a potter’s field? That was where they would take all the broken fragments of the pots; everything that had been broken and everything that was to be discarded they would take out and dump there. It was nothing but the fragments of broken pottery—a potter’s field. Today we use what will be filled in. We dump the garbage and trash in large mountain ravines and cover it over. There are many things that will not disintegrate, such as simple little plastic cups. We are manufacturing things now that will not dissolve; they will not rot nor go back to their original elements. For centuries they will remain just as they are now. The pottery that had gone through the fire was something that could not be easily broken up and plowed under to disintegrate and finally become good ground again, soil that could grow things. So it was a potter’s field, a good place to bury Judas. It was typical. The things that have been smashed and broken have no purpose. What cannot and will not fit into the will of the Lord is broken, smashed.
“We’ll use this potters field. We can’t grow anything; we can’t do anything constructive with it, but it’s a good place to plant a corpse. And if a stranger passes through and has a heart attack and drops dead, we don’t have to worry about it; it’s not going to cost anybody anything. We’ll go out and dig through the fragments of the pots and bury our strangers there. We’ll call it the ‘Field of Blood’ because it was the price that betrayed the blood of Jesus Christ.”
There is nothing more tragic than to be called of God, like Judas, and to back away and betray it. It is not necessary for any of us to fail. It was necessary for someone to betray Christ because the Scriptures had to be fulfilled. But He is not coming forth now with His presence to be betrayed or to be crucified afresh; He is coming to be glorified in His saints. It is possible for every one of us to take stock in these times, especially in days of fasting and prayer, and say in your heart, “Lord, if there has been rebellion clouding my perception—until, like Judas, I have become rebellious, until I have become insensitive to God, and I no longer hear His voice, and I no longer feel the deep conviction of the Holy Spirit, until the prophecies don’t move me and the services don’t open my heart to God…”
Beware! Get rid of that rebellion! Any time you sit through one service where the Spirit of God is moving, and you are insensitive to it, be frightened. You are in danger, because you are in the position where very easily you will be so clouded that you will not see anything clearly anymore, and you will be like Judas. The betrayal was only a final step of rebellion.
You can become so rebellious that it will be as James 1:15 says: “Lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it hath finished, bringeth forth death.” It starts with a thought. It starts with one little thing contrary to God and leads to the next step, and the next and the next. But one thing you can count on, when you disobey God, each successive disobedience seems to be less, seems to be nothing, until finally you will justify your actions. Finally you will find many reasons for what you do. You have lost your conviction; you have lost your sense of guilt. It disappeared when rebellion began to take over and perception was clouded. Little by little you came to the place where no longer was your heart sensitive to even know what God wanted, or to even understand what you were getting into.
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). Never get to the place where the service seems commonplace, where you come and yet you are insensitive to what is taking place. Never lose that keen awareness of the presence of the Lord, because rebellion will stifle it. Rebellion takes away every sensitivity towards God. It is like a shot of Novocain. First you feel it, then there is nothing there. Then the enemy can proceed to extract, one by one, the good things that God has placed, but only when rebellion has deadened the sensitivity and the heart has lost its keen awareness of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit no longer nudges you with a conviction about sin or about righteousness. That is the way you become fragments: broken, useless, to be thrown in a potter’s field. That is where the dead, the strangers are buried. No one goes to put flowers on the graves there. There is no mourning.
And there is none to mourn Judas. Life became unbearable when morning came and he realized what he had done. A piece of rope, a tree hanging over the edge of a precipice, a ravine, and he hung himself there. But he was not to hang there for people to see him. The rope broke and he fell. The ragged rocks below caught his bowels and ripped them open. They literally had to pick up a man strewn over the countryside. “We’ll take him out where they used to throw the fragments of pots, to the worthless land, and that’s where we’ll bury him, in the Field of Blood.”
No wonder Paul said, “I don’t want to be like one who beats the air. I want to bring my body under subjection, lest when I’ve preached to others I myself should become a castaway.” (I Corinthians 9:27). Incidentally, the way the Greek reads is the same as “fragments of pots.” I do not want to be something that is cast away. I do not want to be a broken pot just to be discarded because there is no glue to put me back together, nothing to make me usable again. I don’t want to be without the discipline and the obedience that keeps my spiritual senses aware of the Lord. I don’t want to lose that sensitivity through rebellion, until disaster could overtake me, and like Samson, I’d wist not that the Lord was departed from me.
A message like this must be preached once in awhile. Our anxiety to please the Lord is high enough that this becomes a fitting admonition to us, to lift us up and to keep us living on our tiptoes, pressing toward the mark for the prize for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).
Maybe in your heart you say, “I have been rebellious. I believe I have become a little numb spiritually. No longer am I so keenly sensitive as I once was. The rebellion has dulled my senses. I want God to take that rebellion out and give me a heart and a conscience that is tender and sensitive toward the Lord, so the minute I begin to stumble I will be on my knees repenting, so I won’t let anything become between me and the Lord, so I won’t let anything darken my walk with God.”
Only those that have walked in years of rebellion can understand the darkness, the lack of sensitivity that is there. Only those that have walked in rebellion know. But isn’t it good to be alive to God? Isn’t it good to be sensitive to the Lord? Keep it with all diligence.
“Father, anything of rebellion we submit to You. We confess it within our hearts and we cast it out, for, Father, we would not be castaways before You, but would walk before Your presence with all diligence, guarding our hearts and serving You with all our heart. Amen.”
If there needs to be repentance in your heart, more than just this prayer, look to the Lord and get on your knees. Don’t get off them until your heart is broken before the Lord and sensitive before God. Keep that sensitivity. Find awareness. Work at this day and night to help keep your spirit up. Keep aware. The Walk will perish from the earth if someone isn’t continually exhorting you, to keep you alive and sensitive to the Lord so that you press in. I know the disaster that can happen. Repent if you need it. Seek the Lord until something happens. Don’t draw back.
God is getting ready to pour His Spirit out, and He is saying to all the little lambs, all the little children, and all the ones that are straying, “Come on, move with the family. We’re getting ready to go in; we’re going to possess the land. Give diligence lest any perish through unbelief.”