Jesus is alive! The resurrection has occurred. Death has been defeated. Sin has been conquered. Hell has been subdued. Jesus has appeared to His disciples. He will be with them for a further 40 days. He will instruct them. He will restore them. He will prepare them. He will have some very interesting encounters with individuals in these 40 days. Today I want to look at an encounter that never happened.

He was a beautiful baby, his mother’s darling son, his father’s pride and joy. His parents had great hopes for him. In those days parents named their children according to what they hoped they would become. The literal translation of his name is ‘Praise’. He was born in a village called Kerioth, a small town in southern Judah. The area was well known for its fruit farms. His father probably was a fruit farmer, and like so many men he probably wanted better for his son. So they called him Praise. Maybe they wanted him to be known as the Praise of Kerioth. As he grew, his parents could see his potential. He was good with numbers. Maybe he would be an accountant. Better than the backbreaking work of fruit farming.

One day a young preacher passed through their village and Praise told his parents he was going to follow this prophet. He became a follower of Jesus. Then one morning Jesus came to Praise and said, ‘I have been praying all night and I would like you to be one of my twelve disciples.’ Maybe he would fulfill his name in a way no one could have ever imagined. He was chosen to be a trusted friend of Jesus. He was selected to learn from Jesus, to pray like Jesus, to share in His spiritual mission. In Praise, all the hopes of his parents were being fulfilled.

But his life carries several warnings.

Close contact with holy things is no guarantee of personal salvation. The Praise of Kerioth, one of the twelve, spent three years with Jesus. He heard the greatest preacher that ever lived. He witnessed lives being changed through Jesus’ preaching. He observed empty religion exposed, and heard on a regular basis that men and women could have a personal relationship with God, the Father. He beheld some of the greatest miracles ever recorded in Scripture. Not only that, but Jesus gave the twelve authority and sent them out in twos to preach and teach, to heal and to release. He came back with the others full of excitement, when they reported how the demons were subject to the authority Jesus had given to them. But he also heard Jesus say, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). Unfortunately, the Praise of Kerioth never had his name entered in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

May I stop and ask you a direct question? Are you a born again Christian? I know a question like that can be very abrupt and some people do not like such direct questions. But some people here have been coming to church for years. You have been in close contact with holy things for some time. You have had the privilege of hearing the gospel preached every time you have come to the sanctuary. You have witnessed the difference between empty religion and genuine faith. You know people here who have a personal relationship with God through Jesus. You have heard some testify to answers to prayer and seen lives transformed by the power of Christ. You have been close to holy things but you know your name is not recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

G. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, said it was unfair for some people to hear the gospel twice when others have not even heard it once. How many times have you heard the Gospel of Good News and as yet you have never responded?

You can be present in body and absent in mind. Think of the events of the night Jesus was betrayed. In John 13 Jesus was with the disciples in the Upper Room. Before the meal Jesus wrapped a towel around himself and took a basin of water and washed the feet of each one in the room. Some objected; some felt uncomfortable that the Master would take the role of a servant. But He did it nonetheless. He did it to show them how much He loved them. He demonstrated His love for them in a way He had never done before. The Praise of Kerioth had his feet washed by Jesus. More was to follow. How proud his parents would have been had they seen what happened at the supper. There was Praise sitting in the seat of honour, right beside the Master. He was in the place of a trusted friend, as one who had the confidence of Jesus. He was also the one who held the money for the group. The Praise of Kerioth was Judas Iscariot. There he sat in the Upper Room. Jesus had just opened His heart and had demonstrated His love for all of them. What was Judas thinking about? What was on his mind? Was he thinking about 30 pieces of silver? What he could buy with his blood money? We know what was on his mind, for Jesus, the One who knows what is in us, turned to him and said, "What you are about to do, do quickly." Judas was separate from all that was happening; present in body only.

Can I ask you, where you have been since church started today? You sit with that interested expression on your face but in your mind you have been miles away. Some married men have developed the art of looking intensely interested in what their wives are saying, while in their mind they are somewhere else. Some people practice that art in church. Where have you been since the service began? You have been into next week, wondering how you can manage to fit everything that needs to be done into five working days. You have laid plans for the alterations that need to be done to the house. You have been working out how you afford the monthly payments on that new car you want. You have been away on a mental holiday. We have sung some of the most wonderful words today and they have slipped off your tongue with no thought. We have read Scripture together and prayed to God but you have not been with us.

Close proximity to holy things is no guarantee of conversion. Some people come to church faithfully every week. Sometimes they are more faithful than some church members. They sit through some of the most inspirational times of spiritual worship and they go out unchanged. They do not belong to Christ. Their lives are rooted in time and they give no thought to eternity.

The door to heaven is next to the door of hell. Verse 30 tells us Judas went out and it was night. How expressive that verse is. It tells us of the darkness of the night; the darkness of his soul; the darkness of his intention. Judas had heard Jesus preach. He had heard it was possible to leave this scene of time and end up in a place called outer darkness. But he chose to go into the darkness alone. After Judas left the room, the others sang a hymn, then they went out through the same door, passed over the Kidron Valley, and went to the Garden of Gethsemane. They went out the same door, but they went with Jesus and not without Him. What a contrast. They went out with the One known as the Light of the World. Judas left without Him, and went out into the darkness.

The tragedy was that when he got his payment for betraying Jesus, his 30 pieces of silver brought him no satisfaction. So much so, that he went and hanged himself. They took the 30 pieces of silver and purchased a field where they buried Judas. Scattered throughout Scripture are a number of epitaphs that could be ascribed to the Praise of Kerioth. But there is one in Matthew 24:26, where Jesus said it would have been better if he had not been born. It would have been much better for his parents to have remained childless than to give birth to one who would betray the Son of God. But the bigger tragedy was that Judas missed the resurrection. He missed an encounter with the Risen Christ. He was no longer around with the disciples when the Risen Christ said, “Peace, be still.” He did not know how the story ended. There could have been restoration for Judas the same as there was for Peter. Judas never had that walk along the seaside. He never heard the forgiving voice of the One with whom he had been in close contact for three years. Judas missed the resurrection!

As I think about the Praise of Kerioth and all of the hopes his parents had for him, I cannot but think of his tragic end. I read a testimony of an elderly man who was the in hospital. He was talking about going to heaven. He said he was a Christian for 45 years. He had sat through revival meetings almost every night for one month and heard the gospel. “It went in one ear and out the other,” he said. On the final Thursday night one of the evangelists sang a song and through one line of that song God really spoke to him. “What were the words?” He recited them with all the strength that his weak frame could muster, “When you pass the last milestone on earth, where will your soul be?” That night he stayed back and asked Jesus to forgive him and to come into his life. He’s nearing the last milestone but he knows where his soul will be when he ends his journey here.

It is possible to be in close contact with holy things and have no guarantee of personal salvation. It is possible to be present in body and absent in mind when you are in church. The door to heaven is next to the door of hell. We do not want anyone who has contact with this church to miss the final resurrection. We do not want anyone to miss that great reunion when the trumpet sounds. We want everyone to be there. In a few moments we will all leave church. When you leave through the door will you go with Jesus or will you leave without Him? There is too much to miss if you go without Him. Better to talk to Him now and make sure that it is well with your soul.