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I tell you that the
children of yesteryear are walking in the funeral of the era which
they created for themselves. They are pulling a rotting rope that
may break soon and cause them to drop into a forgotten abyss. I say
that they are living in homes with weak foundations. As the storm
blows - and it is about to blow - their homes will fall upon their
heads and thus become their tombs. I say that all their thoughts,
their sayings, their quarrels, their compositions, their books and
all their works are nothing but chains dragging them because they
are too weak to pull the load.
But the children of tomorrow are the
ones called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads
high. They are the dawn of the new frontiers; no smoke will veil
their eyes and no jingle of chains will drown out their voices. They
are few in number but the difference is as between a grain of wheat
and a stack of hay. No one knows them but they know each other. They
are like the summits, which can see and hear each other - not like
caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the
hand of God in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its
sapling leaves before the face of the sun. It shall grow into a
mighty tree; its roots in the heart of the Earth and its branches
high in the sky.
Kahlil Gibran
12.
JUDAS ISCARIOT
139:12.1
Judas Iscariot, the twelfth apostle, was chosen by Nathaniel. He was
born in Kerioth, a small town in southern Judea. When he was a lad,
his parents moved to Jericho, where he lived and had been employed
in his father's various business enterprises until he became
interested in the preaching and work of John the Baptist. Judas'
parents were Sadducees, and when their son joined John's disciples,
they disowned him.
139:12.2
When Nathaniel met Judas at Tarichea, he was seeking employment with
a fish-drying enterprise at the lower end of the Sea of Galilee. He
was thirty years of age and unmarried when he joined the apostles.
He was probably the best-educated man among the twelve and the only
Judean in the Master's apostolic family. Judas had no outstanding
trait of personal strength, though he had many outwardly appearing
traits of culture and habits of training. He was a good thinker but
not always a truly honest
thinker. Judas did not really understand himself; he was not really
sincere in dealing with himself.
139:12.3
Andrew appointed Judas treasurer of the twelve, a position which he
was eminently fitted to hold, and up to the time of the betrayal of
his Master he discharged the responsibilities of his office
honestly, faithfully, and most efficiently.
139:12.4
There was no special trait about Jesus which Judas admired above the
generally attractive and exquisitely charming personality of the
Master. Judas was never able to rise above his Judean prejudices
against his Galilean associates; he would even criticize in his mind
many things about Jesus. Him whom eleven of the apostles looked upon
as the perfect man, as the "one altogether lovely and the chiefest
among ten thousand," this self-satisfied Judean often dared to
criticize in his own heart. He really entertained the notion that
Jesus was timid and somewhat afraid to assert his own power and
authority.
139:12.5
Judas was a good business man. It required tact, ability, and
patience, as well as painstaking devotion, to manage the financial
affairs of such an idealist as Jesus, to say nothing of wrestling
with the helter-skelter business methods of some of his apostles.
Judas really was a great executive, a farseeing and able financier.
And he was a stickler for organization. None of the twelve ever
criticized Judas. As far as they could see, Judas Iscariot was a
matchless treasurer, a learned man, a loyal (though sometimes
critical) apostle, and in every sense of the word a great success.
The apostles loved Judas; he was really one of them. He must have
believed in Jesus, but we
doubt whether he really loved
the Master with a whole heart. The case of Judas illustrates the
truthfulness of that saying: "There is a way that seems right to a
man, but the end thereof is death." It is altogether possible to
fall victim to the peaceful deception of pleasant adjustment to the
paths of sin and death. Be assured that Judas was always financially
loyal to his Master and his fellow apostles. Money could never have
been the motive for his betrayal of the Master.
139:12.6
Judas was an only son of unwise parents. When very young, he was
pampered and petted; he was a spoiled child. As he grew up, he had
exaggerated ideas about his self-importance. He was a poor loser. He
had loose and distorted ideas about fairness; he was given to the
indulgence of hate and suspicion. He was an expert at
misinterpretation of the words and acts of his friends. All through
his life Judas had cultivated the habit of getting even with those
whom he fancied had mistreated him. His sense of values and
loyalties was defective.
139:12.7
To Jesus, Judas was a faith adventure. From the beginning the Master
fully understood the weakness of this apostle and well knew the
dangers of admitting him to fellowship. But it is the nature of the
Sons of God to give every created being a full and equal chance for
salvation and survival. Jesus wanted not only the mortals of this
world but the onlookers of innumerable other worlds to know that,
when doubts exist as to the sincerity and wholeheartedness of a
creature's devotion to the kingdom, it is the invariable practice of
the Judges of men fully to receive the doubtful candidate. The door
of eternal life is wide open to all; "whosoever will may come";
there are no restrictions or qualifications save the
faith of the one who
comes.
139:12.8
This is just the reason why Jesus permitted Judas to go on to the
very end, always doing everything possible to transform and save
this weak and confused apostle. But when light is not honestly
received and lived up to, it tends to become darkness within the
soul. Judas grew intellectually regarding Jesus' teachings about the
kingdom, but he did not make progress in the acquirement of
spiritual character as did the other apostles. He failed to make
satisfactory personal progress in spiritual experience.
139:12.9
Judas became increasingly a brooder over personal disappointment,
and finally he became a victim of resentment. His feelings had been
many times hurt, and he grew abnormally suspicious of his best
friends, even of the Master. Presently he became obsessed with the
idea of getting even, anything to avenge himself, yes, even betrayal
of his associates and his Master.
139:12.10
But these wicked and dangerous ideas did not take definite shape
until the day when a grateful woman broke an expensive box of
incense at Jesus' feet. This seemed wasteful to Judas, and when his
public protest was so sweepingly disallowed by Jesus right there in
the hearing of all, it was too much. That event determined the
mobilization of all the accumulated hate, hurt, malice, prejudice,
jealousy, and revenge of a lifetime, and he made up his mind to get
even with he knew not whom; but he crystallized all the evil of his
nature upon the one innocent person in all the sordid drama of his unfortunate life
just because Jesus happened to be the chief actor in the episode
which marked his passing from the progressive kingdom of light into
that self-chosen domain of darkness.
139:12.11
The Master many times, both privately and publicly, had warned Judas
that he was slipping, but divine warnings are usually useless in
dealing with embittered human nature. Jesus did everything possible,
consistent with man's moral freedom, to prevent Judas's choosing to
go the wrong way. The great test finally came. The son of resentment
failed; he yielded to the sour and sordid dictates of a proud and
vengeful mind of exaggerated self-importance and swiftly plunged on
down into confusion, despair, and depravity.
139:12.12
Judas then entered into the base and shameful intrigue to betray his
Lord and Master and quickly carried the nefarious scheme into
effect. During the outworking of his anger-conceived plans of
traitorous betrayal, he experienced moments of regret and shame, and
in these lucid intervals he faint-heartedly conceived, as a defense
in his own mind, the idea that Jesus might possibly exert his power
and deliver himself at the last moment.
139:12.13
When the sordid and sinful business was all over, this renegade
mortal, who thought lightly of selling his friend for thirty pieces
of silver to satisfy his long-nursed craving for revenge, rushed out
and committed the final act in the drama of fleeing from the
realities of mortal existence -- suicide.
139:12.14
The eleven apostles were horrified, stunned. Jesus regarded the
betrayer only with pity. The worlds have found it difficult to
forgive Judas, and his name has become eschewed throughout a
far-flung universe.
From
the
5th Epochal Revelation
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