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Bible Questions with Michael Pearl - Episode 034
[intro music]
Michael Pearl: All right, here we are still outside cleaning fish. This is a big
old buffalo we caught in the Tennessee River, Kentucky Lake down
here in Tennessee. It weighs 41 pounds. Buffalo is real good
eating, a lot better than carp is, especially if you get the meat
when it's real white. This looks to be pretty white meat, so I
think this is going to be a good tasting fish. Now we're answering Bible questions today
as we usually do. Well not as we usually do... We've been fishing.
But we're going to answer your Bible questions. I'm not seeing
them not heard from them, Jared caught me here. So, I thought
we would just shot this thing outdoors on a beautiful spring day in...
What is this? April. Beautiful spring day in April. All right Jared,
what is your first bible question that folks have been asking
out there?
Jared: Did Judas repent when he threw away the silver and cried out to
God? If so, then why was he condemned to hell?
Michael: Judas did not repent towards God. You see the word "repent" just
means turn. It just means turn. It can be turned; -turned from
anything. It could be change your mind about the kind of soap you
use, or the kind of shampoo, or where you're going to go for
vacation. It's used in politics. It's used everywhere now. We get
use to it being used in religion. We think that it's a religious word, but its
not. For instance, the Bible, 39 different times, says that God repented
himself. One time he said, "It repented me that I made man upon
the earth." That's Genesis Chapter six. In other words, God is
saying, "I am reversed in my mind about having created man; I've
changed my mind. I would like to have not created man."
So, when Judas repented himself he didn't repent towards God. He
did the same kind of repenting that I saw a... I was preaching in a
rescue mission one time. This drunk got up and took his bottle of
Vitalis Hair Oil what they use to use back in the '60s. He'd been
drinking it as mostly alcohol; wood grain alcohol.
He took it out of his pocket and threw it against the back wall
right where I was preaching. First, I thought he was throwing it at
me. It kind of scared me. I was just an 18 year old young fellow.
But I realized he was just repenting himself. He said, "I'm not
going to drink this anymore," and changed his mind. Well, the next
day he was out in his car drunk on a new bottle of hair oil that
he'd purchased.
He repented himself but he didn't repent towards God. In other
words, he changed his mind. You know, alcoholics repent, some of
them everyday. Everyday they say, "Oh, I'm so sorry I'm an
alcoholic. It's destroying my family. I've got to quit this. I'm
not going to be an alcoholic anymore. I'm going to repent." And
they do. They give it up. They quit; 24 hours, six months, a year.
But that has nothing to do with God.
What Judas did was "Sorry..." He just spent three and half years
with Christ. So it hurt his conscience. It got to him. He'd just
done a horrible thing. He just sold out a good friend. He sold out
11 good friends. So, he realized he'd made a mistake. He realized
he'd done the wrong thing. So he changed his mind. He wept about
it.
It made him feel so bad, so badly, that he went out and hung
himself and he died. The Bible said Judas went to his own place. I
don't have a Bible here to look it up. But Judas went to his own
place. Another place Jesus said that he the was a child of the
devil in the beginning.
And then when Jesus was praying right before his crucifixion he
said, "Father, those that you gave me I have kept and have lost
none except one; the son of Perdition." So he says, "Judas was a
child of hell."
So it's clear that Judas didn't get saved and it's clear that he
didn't repent towards God. When you look at the scripture you find
that it tells us the reason Judas was stealing is because he was a
thief. That's what he'd been doing along.
It wasn't that he suddenly had a weakness, but that he never was a
faithful believer in Christ. He was always a child of the devil. So
when he thought Christ was going to be crucified... It was obvious
Christ was going to be crucified. It came up to the last week and
the way things were going down, it was clear and he just thought he
would make a little money off of it.
Some of these films that you see, and these TV interpretations of
poor old Judas. That he was actually trying to get Christ to
advance himself as Messiah and save himself is really just a ploy
to make the Messiah acceptable to force his hand, to cause him to
quit fooling around and go ahead and get down to business and
defeat the Romans.
All that's silly nonsense. Judas was just an ordinary plain old
thief and as such his sin caught up with him. He changed his mind
about it but it wasn't enough because he didn't repent to God. Had
Judas repented to God... Remember when Judas came into the garden
where Jesus was and kissed him. What did Jesus call Judas? He
called him "friend." Why? Because Christ would have forgiven him
right then. Christ would have forgiven him at anytime.
But Judas didn't treasure Christ's forgiveness. He treasured his
good name. He treasured a clear conscience, but he didn't treasure
forgiveness from Christ. A lot of people out their in religion are
like that. They want a good name and they want a good clear
conscience.
They want to feel good about themselves, and so they will stop
doing or refuse to do certain sins because of the social stigma
that's placed upon them if they sin like that. But they've never
repented towards God.
So, I've got a little book called "Repentance" and I go into every
single verse in the bible, 112 times the word repent appears. Of
those 112 times, 66 times man repents in regard to God or sin. 39
times God repents. That's interesting 66 is the number of books in
the Bible, the exact number of time man repents. 39 is the exact
number of books in the Old Testament, the number of times God
repents.
Then there are six times the number of times man repents before
man, six times man repents before God, six times man repents in
regard to sin, six times man repents. Let's see I can't remember it
all now. You have to... I'll have to get my book and read it. But
there's six groups of six which is the number of man.
When God repents it is divided in sevens. Seven times that God
repents in regard to this and regard to that. Groups of seven which
is God's number. So it's fascinating that the King James Bible, the
other bibles don't have that same number, happens to fall out in
such marvelous number patterns.
Such scientific patterns all the way through. Get that little book,
"Repentance" that we have here "No Greater Joy" and read it. I'm
not trying to sell books. I don't make any money off of it. It's
all non-profit, but I think it'll be helpful to you and be
fascinating for you to read.
[music]
Jared: If you would like to ask a bible question, email us at
"biblequestions@nogreaterjoy.org" or call at 931-805-4820.
[music]
Transcription by CastingWords