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This morning I tried to sketch in the background to the teaching that our Lord here gives in chapters thirteen to sixteen of the Gospel of John on the topic of our sanctification. And we saw that in this matter of our sanctification, the principal actors are as follows. One side there is the Father. On the other side, the world and its prince, alienated from God, under the domination of that prince who uses all his fel powers to keep men in bondage away from God. And the third principal actor, our blessed Lord, into whose hand the Father has given all things, entrusting the task of attracting men back to God entirely to Christ. We then saw how that Satan, clever strategist that he is, struck his blow not particularly against any one of the apostles for their own sakes, but struck his blow aiming at the very heart of Christ. If so be, he could overcome Christ and thus ruin any possibility of our sanctification. And we saw how Christ met his, uh, uh, foe by constantly demonstrating the glory of God, opening people's eyes to what God is really like. We noticed his words of predictive triumph, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. So now with that background, I turned this evening to the first two object lessons that our blessed Lord gave in this school of holiness. We shall find, as we proceed with these studies, that the lessons are set in a deliberate and ascending order. We will get ourselves set fair in the, uh, course of holiness. We must allow ourselves to begin where the Lord begins and take the lessons as he sets them, for they are graded lessons. We have two object lessons then tonight to follow. The one is the washing of the disciples' feet, and the other is the giving of the sop to Judas. Let us notice in passing that the one of them will tell us about our Lord's humility, how he stripped himself and bowed at the feet of his disciples to wash their feet. It will tell us of our Lord's humility. The other object lesson will demonstrate to us the glory of our Lord. For when Judas was gone out, Jesus said, now was the Son of Man glorified. Now, not now he is glorified, now Judas is gone, but now was he glorified. The tense of the Greek word is erist, is past, and God was glorified in him. So we have two lessons to learn, one upon our Lord's humility and one on his glory. First then, the lesson on humility, which object lesson our Lord held up to us and to his apostles that we should follow him. We must mark closely then his humility because we are expected to follow it. But then it becomes apparent in his subsequent comment that his washing of the disciples' feet was not just a lesson in humility. The whole thing was an enacted parable, because at the end he has occasion to say, he that is bathed needeth not say to rinse his feet, but is clean every wit, and it is obvious that our Lord is now using this ceremony of washing to convey a spiritual meaning. It is an enacted parable. This matter of our spiritual cleansing, this is number one lesson in the school of holiness. We start by being bathed all over. This is where it begins. Thereafter, there is need to wash our feet. But to take it in the order of scripture, our Lord's humility. Bend down at the feet of these men and wash them. What staggering humility. He rises from supper. I love the way scripture puts ideas together, knowing that he was come from God. I think of the authority of it, and that he was going to God. I think of the glory of it. He did what? How many of us have invested with such power and authority? Would want to climb and sit on a throne and from there give out our orders. He instead rose from supper, abandoning his rest, for they reclined at Sapa to serve, abandoning, feeding himself, and laying aside his garments, stripping himself of all that was superfluous for this task. He girded himself simply with that that was absolutely necessary to do the job before. He girded himself with a towel. Oh, what a sense of proportion our blessed Lord had of the task that was before him. No coming to it as a hobby, as an interesting thing to do of a Saturday afternoon if you haven't got anything better to do. No half-heartedness, coming lazily, self-opinionately, with all his flowing robes, getting in the water basin, stripping himself in workman-like fashion to do a job, retaining only what was absolutely essential for that job. Remember, my good brethren and sisters, we're meant to be copying this, uh, example. He got down then at their feet and he served them. But to wash the feet was a menial task. I can't help asking the question, when I see our blessed Lord stooping at their feet like that, was this humility genuine? Or was it a put on show? Oh, surely this was deliberate. And was genuine. And deliberately done in light of the, uh, thing he wanted to teach them. For, as I said, it was not merely a lesson in humility, it was a spiritual parable on the matter of cleansing. Not merely cleansing of people's feet, but cleansing their personalities and characters. You know you've got to be careful even how you wash feet, haven't you? Because feet are ticklish things. But personalities are even more ticklish things. And our feet, our spiritual feet, get defiled, don't they? Why do they? Our lords never did. He wasn't isolationist, he was a friend of publicans and sinners. His feet never got defiled. Ours get defiled, don't they? To put it bluntly, we, we react so very often the wrong way to our circumstances. And why do we react the wrong way, and why do we contract defilement? Well, because our personalities are not properly adjusted on. Now, you can see that readily with me. But please don't jump to the conclusion just because you could see it, you could put it right very easily. You'll come up to me after the meeting and say, look here, old fellow, you are an irritable old soul. Well, I know that. Would you put me right? You've got to be very careful. Because I'm very touchy. And I'm nowhere more touchy than when it comes to my weak points. Our Lord was surrounded with twelve men, eleven of whom he could do something with, but they were complicated men and difficult. So before he, he tells them one or two home truths, he gets down on their feet. There they are sitting up on the couches, and he's down below. He's making them feel important, wasn't he? Not as a show. This was genuine, and I tell you how I know it. He made them feel important because he did count them to be important. These were men whom he was prepared to die for as they stood, without their being improved. He regarded them important enough to make it worthwhile dying for them. That's why his armies need him. If you'd die for a man, you'd wash his feet, wouldn't you? And it was our Lord's secret of his way with men. He could say things to people because he really regarded them as important. In a word, he loved them. Don't you come telling me about my irritability, will you, unless you really think I'm important? I want your praise. I don't want your flattery. I want to sense that you love me with that kind of love that would, um, jealously stand up for me, that would make me feel secure. For underneath all of us there is that tremendous insecurity. Sin has made cowards of us. Before we knew Christ, we weren't even sure that God had accepted us. And to open ourselves so that the weak points are exposed, this is to run a tremendous sense of insecurity. The way in, to put them up there and let them feel how important they were to him. Of course, there was a need. When our Lord comes to Peter, Peter suddenly startled by what he now sees about to go on, the Lord at his feet, says, Lord, you're never going to wash my feet. Won't have it. Our Lord said, Peter, you must let me do it, for if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. Please notice that, not the RSV translation, thou hast no part in me, which is a terrible howler. Once in Christ, in Christ forever. Bible doesn't say thou hast no part in me if I don't rinse your feet. It says thou hast no part with me, no share with me, unless you allow me to rinse those feet. So let us concentrate on this a moment. Let's get it fully into our hearts that there is a need for our feet to be washed. What need? What if I don't let the Lord wash them? I have no part with him. How do you understand that? No share with him. In what? No part, no share with him in what? In all sorts of things, I suppose. Certainly no share with him in the work he's doing. Look, he's about to say to them, I've given you an example that you do what I do. I want you to share this kind of work with me. You do it. But unless I wash you, you cannot have a share with me in the work. That is obvious when you bring it down to practical terms, isn't it? Take my old irritability. I'm working in the factory alongside somebody, and I'm wanting to bring this man to the ball. But he only has to do a trifle long, and I'm as irritable as can be. Well, if I'm always finding fault and always being awkward and always generally making myself unpleasant, I shall have a job to turn round with the Savior, can't I, and start talking to him about spiritual things. I have a part with the Lord, you know, unless I am constantly letting him wash the old defilement, wash the old wrong reaction away. Isn't that so? And you know, I can't have a share with him in what he's doing, in washing other folks' feet, unless I'm prepared to have my own feet washed first. You know, sometimes we Christians, we get into a romantic mood when we suddenly see, um, what the Lord has done for us, then we're going to be wonderful. We get the idea of being a medical missionary, maybe. We go and be a brilliant missionary to the lepers. Yeah. Bring away home comforts. Give up a good job. Go and be a missionary to the leper. Marvelous. One day somebody'd write a book about us. And I say... there wouldn't be any missionaries to lepers unless there were first lepers, would there? What supposing God let you be a leper? Could you stand that one? You find tremendous satisfaction in being a brilliant surgeon in this country? And... how would it be if you were the man that needed the surgeon? Oh, we could do great things washing other folks' feet, but... Yeah. But the only folks that make good feet washers are people that have first realized their own feet need to be washed. All the man that never did feel his weakness and was not sensitive to it. I pray God it'll never come my way to start talking about my weakness. I have left you an example that you should do to others as I have done to you. The measure of your being able to help somebody else will be the measure in which Christ has helped you. You won't help them with secondhand experience. When were you last conscious of the Lord washing your feet? When did you last feel his touch? When did you last feel that kind of refreshing that comes when he washes the feet and cleanses and sweetens the atmosphere and takes away the grip that hurts? You felt that relief? Have you felt his touch? Then what he's done to you, you do to others. That will only be if he's first done it to you, and you have sensed the need for having it done. That you'll make any success of doing it to other folks. I should therefore, if this verse teaches me anything, I should make it one of life's number one basic lessons that I should constantly seek the Lord that he may wash my feet. No need, of course, to go to the other extreme. Oh, Peter is a good old fellow to have around in a class, isn't he? He's prepared to blurt out the things that some of us think but too ashamed to say. And say the wrong things so that it gives the opportunity for the Lord to correct them. Then we all get it right. Oh Lord, if it's feet washing you have to do, well, not only my feet then, if that's necessary, but all over. No, no, look, says the Lord, no, please. He that has been bathed needeth not save to rinse his feet, but is completely all over clean. So the rinsing then is a second thing. Actually, before the rinsing, there's a first thing here. And the first thing is being bathed all over. Thereafter, you only need to, uh, rinse your feet. Oh, please, within the context. In the spiritual context. And the bathing all over, what is that? Well, please notice what it isn't. It is not bathing in the blood of Christ, please not. No, blood in Bible is sprinkled on you. And blood cleanses us, cleanses our conscience. How does the blood of Christ cleanse my conscience? Well, it's like this that God's holy law says that if I sin, I must die. I must pay the penalty of that sin. I must bear the sanction of the law. I must die. I'm guilty. And as long as I am guilty, my conscience niggles away. The blood of Christ cleanses my conscience, sprinkles my heart from an evil, guilty conscience. How? Because the blood of Christ is the evidence and symbol of his death. He has suffered the penalty. He has borne the sanction, and the debt doesn't have to be paid twice. Therefore, my conscience can be clean. I no longer owe the debt. God's law is satisfied. The sanction has been borne and paid. And when I see the blood, my heart can be at rest. Blood cleanses the conscience from guilt. Now, this isn't bad, is it? This is the thing that, uh, Paul talks about to Titus. I mentioned it this morning. This is the thing that happens again when we first come to Christ. It is the regeneration, the washing of regeneration. You listen to Paul talking to Titus. He said, you know, Titus, old fella, you'll find it going difficult where you are because these people nationally are of a difficult character. They're liars, they're slow bellies, uh, uh, they're greedy, beastly. But then we were like that, Titus says, war. We ourselves were also one time foolish, disobedient, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But, oh, how did we get over that? Well, now, because Paul is thinking of their twisted old characters. He doesn't say, well, the blood of Christ cleansed us, didn't it? No, no. We're not thinking now forgiveness and delivering them from guilt. That's one thing, that's blessed enough. But God isn't content just to deliver us from guilt. God is out to change the man. To infuse a new life and with it a new nature. God saved us, says Paul, by the washing of regeneration and by that renewing caused by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out abundantly upon us. You see the matter of water, metaphor of water, fall out on us. That great washing of regeneration. Now that happens once and for all and never needs to be repeated. So that actually then the first stage of this, let me ask you a question. Which is the bigger thing? A bath all over or a rinsing of the feet? Would say undoubtedly the, the bathing all over, Gustav. For that means that you know that in this great work of holiness, the biggest thing has already been done. You say, Mr. Preacher, that you're not likely to do much good tonight because if you gave them a real resounding exhortation to be on their tiptoes for the Lord, now they might move a little bit and get a bit forward, but if you preach them that complacent stuff about the biggest thing being already done, they'll go away and they won't bother. Is that so really? Well, then it isn't I who say it, is it? Oh, you see, the Lord knew. The fight against sin, you'll find it will be tough enough. Somebody asked me this morning, but when then did the human responsibility come in? If I was talking about Christ and his overcoming, where does our human responsibility come in? It'll come in soon enough, if you dare come on Monday, perhaps even tomorrow. But you see, knowing my own heart, uh, perhaps I'd know a little bit of yours. Do you know, if I were in any doubt about the final outcome, I'd give up right now. The battle against sin, you'll be waging it tomorrow, you'll be waging it on Sunday, you'll be waging it even on Tuesday when the conference is finished, and if you come to ninety nine and a half, you'll still be waging it. Oh, I'm glad of our Lord's fundamental saying, if you have received Christ, the biggest thing has already been done. Bathed all over, clean every winter. So we have boldness to come, our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, our bodies bathed with pure water. It is because the biggest thing has already been done that you may have the courage and gladness to go in regularly for the cleansing of the feet. Now hear our Lord further. I have left you an example, says he. I am in fact your teacher and Lord, that's what you call me. In actual fact, I am your Lord and teacher. My lordship comes first, my teaching next. How graciously he corrected them. You know, if we want to make progress in spiritual life, we shall have to come round to the order he put it in, can't we? Some of us come to the Bible to first find out its teaching and then make up our minds whether we're going to do it or not. You won't get far like that. No, we best come first saying, Lord, I'm prepared to do whatever you say, or what you say. Be Lord first and teacher next. Though he be Lord first and teacher next, he's left us an example of how to teach. To do as he did, down at Folkfield. A servant is not greater than his lord, neither he that is sent greater than him that sent him. If you know these things, then happy are you if you do them. And then he added something, something so exceedingly important that he stressed it two or three times, and therefore we must take notice of it now. He said, I speak not of you all. I know whom I have chosen, but that the scripture may be fulfilled, he that eateth my bread lifteth up his heel against me. From henceforth I tell you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, you may believe that I am he. Why all this repeated emphasis on the fact that he knew the traitor? You're, you're clean, not all. He knew that who, the one that was going to betray him. I don't speak of you all, one of you is going to betray me. Troubled in spirit, one of you shall betray me. Why all this emphasis on the fact that he actually knew that there was a traitor there? Well, he says, I said it beforehand, so when it comes to pass, you're going to believe. You see, had our Lord washed their feet without indicating that he knew that there was an apostate traitor there, people would have said, ah yes, but you see, if only he'd known, he wouldn't have washed the man's feet, would he? If he'd have done it and then exhibited surprise when he was actually betrayed, people said, there you are, that's what we told you. There's some people you know you shouldn't waste your love on. You must be realistic. Now, had he known that he was a traitor, of course he wouldn't have watched. If he knew that the man was going to take his love and throw it all away, well, then he wouldn't have bothered. Sometimes we're tempted to think like that, aren't we? We love those from whom we think we've got likelihood of getting some response, but the others, why bother? Sometimes even we think it's a waste of love. Look, says our Lord, I'm telling you now, I know exactly about this man that's going to betray me. I've watched you speak, haven't I? I know him. I know that while he's eating my bread, he's lifting up his head against me. I know that. And what's more, gentlemen, I want to tell you something else. When I stooped just now towards your feet, I knew perfectly the disease from which men suffer. You haven't seen it yet. You haven't seen it in all its virulence. When When you you see it happen and come right out to the fore, then you'll remember what I said, and you'll say, goodness, he, he was right then. We thought his diagnosis a bit severe, but he was right. For we're now about to turn to a diagnosis of the trouble. We're coming to the second ceremony, if you can call it a ceremony. The first one showed our Lord's humility, this second one is shown, going to show his glory, but in what? His glory in the exposure of the traitor, in the exposure of the sin. Now, don't let us think that it was just a sort of an accidental happening that there happened to be a Judas. And so let us less, let us think that it's just a little bit of filling up of space that the record tells us of the story here. This too is an integral part, an integral lesson in the course on holiness. For if we have now seen our security, that if we have trusted Christ, we have been bathed all over, regenerate by his spirit, and need now constantly only to wash our feet. Yeah. Now let's turn with Christ, shall we, and and see what the trouble is. See it written as plainly and as largely as it ever could be written. See it in its darkest in Judas the apostate. And don't let's watch with any pride. See it remembering that this in essence is sin. If we are going to be holy, it will be as Christ saves us from this attitude of heart. What is it? He that eats my bread has lifted up his heel against me. You say, is that possible? For a man to sit at your table and eat your very bread, and all the while in his heart be tending to the tray. I'm afraid that has been done many times. But is it possible that a man shall sit at the very table of Christ and eat his bread? And be meditating, selling him. Yes, I'm afraid it is possible. Judas did it. What was he doing? He was prepared to take all the gifts that Christ had to give. Gave him a lot, didn't he? He held the money bags. He went out and preached. As far as we know, he cast out demons. And he was given, above all, the friendship of Christ, than which there is nothing greater on earth. Old Lord Nuffield could give you a million and a half, a lovely country estate, and five or six uh, ocean-going yachts, but that wouldn't necessarily make him interested in you. Christ gave himself, gave the man his friendship, took all the gifts. But in the end he decided he hadn't really much time for the person. And things and money and advantage were more important than the person. An extreme case. Oh yes, extreme. Have you never found it in your own heart? Oh, I found it in mine. Take all that God has to give. At times I felt that God is a bore and I'd be happier outside his company. Taking all God's lovely gifts, health and home and food and everything else, yet leaving his word unread when God wanted to talk to him and not interested to be talked to. So many other lovely things to do, you see? Can't always be thinking about God, can you? I mean to say. You've got to enjoy yourself, haven't you? Good. I mean, God's all right on times, I suppose. Never known that feeling? You say to me, what is worldliness? You've got to be very careful when you define worldliness, haven't you? What is his opposite? Holiness. Try and do some basic thinking. Sometimes when we think of holiness, you know, we think of its opposite in one direction, uncleanness, and that's quite right. The opposite of holiness in one direction is uncleanness. So our Lord cleanses people. They're the horrible, nasty, dirty, filthy things. Yes, they are unholy, so holiness is getting rid of them. Yeah. But let me take another kind of example. In the Old Testament, there was a temple here. It stood on a bit of ground, of course it did, and around it there was a court part. Now this bit of ground here was holy, and that outside there was... well, it wasn't unclean, it was jolly good ground. No, it wasn't holy. It was just ordinary, common. Just a bit of ground. This bit of ground inside, what was the difference between that ground and this ground? Well, this ground inside here was devoted to God. And holiness is not just being cleansed from nasty, horrible things. Holiness on its poverty, on its positive side, is being devoted to the Lord. That's holiness. And you know you can be, uh, very religious and not be holy. Our Lord said some solemn words once. He said, in that day there are folks come knocking on the door of heaven, and they shall say, Lord, Lord, open to us. Did we not preach in thy name, and in thy name did we not cast out demons? Oh, well, so you may have done. I never knew you. You weren't devoted to me. Saul of Tarsus, before he got converted, was religious as a man can come. But he wasn't devoted to the person of Christ. Holiness? Oh, please, I'm not speaking against God's holy law. Holiness will involve the keeping of God's holy law. I'm not saying so long as you love Christ, you may do as you like. You can't. We shall need God's holy law to the very end to tell us what his standards are, and if we really love Christ, we shall keep his law. Ah, but let me put it the other way round. You can keep all the rules and regulations and not really love Christ. Holiness. Devotion to Christ. And Judas was prepared then to take the gifts. There's no time for the person. Prepared to sell him. Now, how will Christ expose it? It's got to come out. But now Judas knows. There he is across the table. There he is. He knows that Christ knows. Now they both know. Nobody else knows who it is. How will you find out? You see, you can't see this kind of thing, can you? It's a matter of the heart, and it was a man who was lying with his head on the Savior's heart that could know it. He was troubled in spirit. He who had been troubled at the grave of Lazarus and troubled at the thought of his own death was now intensely troubled at what this man was about to do. How will he expose it? How would you do it? Now, if it had been me, I should say, go on, Lord, while you've got him there, tell him straight. You can tell people straight. He could, couldn't he? Christ could. When it was a question of Pharisees injuring widows and under the pretense of religion, oh, I say I shouldn't have liked being on the other end of his tongue. Well, what majestic withering scorn did he denounce the Pharisees of Jerusalem, wow, when they were hurting other folks. Now this was a man who was hurting him. How would he expose the sin? Not with a withering denunciation on him. He's eaten my bread and lifting up his heel against me. Judas, is that what you're doing? I say, Judas. Here's a bit more of my bread. Won't you have it? For an Eastern man to dip a morsel of bread and give it to a person, this was a sign of honor, respect, and friendship. Judas, you're about to be trained. Old fellow, I offer you my friendship. Judas took the salt and went out, throwing away the profit friendship. And as he went, our Lord calmly said, well, do what you've got to do. And the disciples couldn't hear what he said quite. They didn't get the words. All they could go by was the tone of voice. They didn't quite catch what he said to Judas. Now, just you imagine it. A man going to sell the Lord. And as they listened to the Lord talking to him, they thought he said from the tone of his voice, um, give something to the poor Judas. Wow. In what tone of voice do you think our Lord would have told the treasurer to give something to the poor? Now is the Son of Man glorified, says Christ. I should think he was. For God was never more glorified than here in the exposure of human sin. God has got some hard things to say about sin, and this Satan thought was his trump card. If he could get God to denounce man's sin in such fashion that men thought God was a horrible old monster, a terrible old killjoy, then perhaps Satan had won. For he could represent God as being against the sinner and steal men's hearts against him. How will God expose their sin? With all the glory of divine love and wisdom, he's exposed it in a way that sin never looked worse, and in such a way as God never looked better. For here in Judas offering the son, can you not see what sin is? It's a taking of God's friendship and want it. And yet taking his gifts. Oh, but in Judas see it again, that when men do that, there's a God that loves them still. Amen. That's what Christ was saying on Calvary. That's what he'll be saying to the end of time. Well, why ever didn't Judas cast himself on God's Christ's mercy? Why ever didn't he say, oh Lord, you know I've got this terrible streak in me. I wish I hadn't, but I'm consumed with this love of money. I can't help myself, Lord, but have mercy on me. You know Christ would have taken him there. Oh no. And he stands forever as a dark warning of the disease from which we all suffer. We must face it. Don't you imagine that down in your heart of yourself you've got some very nice little disposition that only if only a little speck were cleared away you'd be a brilliant. There is none that seeketh after God, and pushed to your limit underneath, there is the rankest selfishness that would justify yourself and put yourself in God's plan. The disease we suffer from is more serious than we think. Let's face it. How can I face it? Face it in him and in his strength, who, knowing the worst, offers you the very mum, the sob of his everlasting. Thank you.