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Bible Questions with Michael Pearl
Episode 034: Did Judas repent? If so, why was he condemned to hell?

By Michael Pearl

Episode Transcription:

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 all 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.

Announcer:  If you would like to ask a Bible question, email us at [email protected] or call at 931‑805‑4820.

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