Jesus is on His knees before Judas. Friend. He's washing this guy's feet with love in His eyes. He takes bread, dips it in the bowl: "Judas, here you go, friend." And then He says, "One of you will betray Me."
Scripture Focus: John 13:21-26; 1 Timothy 1:15
"When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.'"
"To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled."
You would think if there was any remnant of a conscience, when Jesus says "One of you will betray Me," Judas would say, "I've been found out by the Hound of Heaven. It's me. Forgive me." Like a lance just slicing and dicing up his conscience.
But you know what Judas says along with the other eleven? "Is it I?"
Remarkable.
How to be a Judas? You sear your conscience.
What is the conscience? Your conscience is your God-given warning system that you are violating the natural law of God written on your heart. The conscience is to your soul what pain sensors are to your body. It inflicts distress in the form of guilt whenever we violate what our hearts tell us is right.
Your conscience can be pricked. It can sting. It can be sore. But praise the Lord—as long as your conscience is still sore, there's hope.
But woe, woe to the one whose conscience is no longer sore because it has been seared.
The sin that maybe used to keep you up at night becomes ho-hum and you can sleep like a baby.
I wonder how Judas felt the first time he stole. "Shouldn't have done that. I should tell Him. I should tell Him."
And then what do you do? You silence your conscience. You live in a world that wants to silence the conscience. Turn it off. Turn up the noise. "It's herd instincts. It's just the way you've grown up. You shouldn't feel guilty."
I remember the first time I played guitar as an 11, 12-year-old. Trying to hold down the strings—it hurts. "Mom, my fingers are bleeding."
My instructor said, "Hold those chord formations every day. Play for an hour every day and watch what happens."
What happened? I developed calluses on my fingers. Those calluses persist to this day. And when I play guitar today, I feel absolutely nothing.
I want you to know that this is what can happen to your conscience. It gets calloused over time. What used to sting, you've become numb to.
And the Scripture says, "Woe, woe to you if you sear your conscience, cauterize your conscience, callous your conscience—your soul is in danger."
There is a point where your conscience is past feeling. It's like a body when rigor mortis has set in. You become, as Ryle says, blind to every warning, deaf to every appeal.
1. What sin used to bother you that no longer does? Has your conscience been calloused?
2. Are you actively silencing your conscience—turning up the noise, making excuses, justifying?
3. Can you still feel the sting of conviction, or have you become numb?
Stay dialed in