pieces of silver to condemn
him, and his awful conscience constantly to accuse him. It is indeed
enough to make our faces pale to realize that, whatever we may be
to-day in the service of God, we can be set aside in less than a week,
and God will cease to use us if we have anything of the spirit of Judas.

Second: I learn also from Judas that environment is not enough for the
unregenerate. It is folly to state that a poor lost sinner simply by
changing his environment may have his nature changed. As John G.
Woolley has said, "it is like a man with a stubborn horse saying, 'I
will paint the outside of the barn a nice mild color to influence the
horse within.'"

The well on my place in the country some years ago had in it poisoned
water. It was an attractive well with a house built around about it,
and the neighbors came to me to say that I must under no circumstances
drink from it. What if I had said, "I will decorate the well house
that I may change the water?" It would have been as nonsensical as to
say, "I will change the environment of a man who is wicked by nature,
and thereby make him good." Judas had lived close to Jesus, he had
been with him on the mountain, walked with him by the sea, was
frequently with him, I am sure, in Gethsemane, for we read in John the
eighteenth chapter and the second verse, "And Judas also, which
betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with
his disciples." He was also with him at the Supper. But after all
this uplifting, heavenly influence of the Son of God he sold him for
silver and betrayed him with a kiss. Nothing can answer for the sinner
but regeneration. His case is hopeless without that.

Third: Hypocrisy is an awful thing. The text in Galatians is for all
such. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Those words in Matthew in
connection with the sermon on the Mount are for such, when men in the
great day shall say, "Have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy
name have cast out Devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?"
Jesus will say, "I never knew you." If we read the commission in
Matthew the tenth chapter the fifth to the twentieth verses inclusive,
we shall understand that these Apostles were sent forth to do a mighty
work, and evidently they did it. Judas had that commission, and he may
have fulfilled it in a sense, but he is lost to-day because he was a
hypocrite. The disciples may not have known his true nature. In