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1. No event in the history of science more widely known as that of Sir I. Newton and the fall of the apple. From thence the law of gravitation in the law of matter.

2. Similar law in the world of mind.

3. The text teaches us that there is such a law in the world of spirit.

I. IT IS INDEPENDENT OF A MAN'S POSITION. There is no royal road in gravitation by which the delicate flower shall need no support because of its beauty; or by which success shall be secured to an idle man; or in the spiritual life a man be kept secure because his privileges are great. Law is inexorable. The higher the privilege the greater the fall, if the conditions are not observed.

1. The high position of Judas did not save him. Think of the probable effects of such a position as that of apostle, companion of Christ. But behold the actual effects. His advantages were but the instruments of his fall.

2. It is so with us. No man is out of the reach of law. In the matter of privilege our case in many respects analogous. Trace the history of a soul; let it hate what God loves and love what God hates: during all that time it is gravitating to its own place, with all the certainty of law. And when he dies the man does not leave himself behind, the man and his character constitute the undying self.

II. IT IS ACCELERATING IN ITS PROGRESS. Nature is full of instances of this. Things and events tend to a climax; the sun passes on to its meridian, the river to the full, the avalanche to its final crash.

1. Watch this with Judas. His downward course was hastened by his reigning sin (John 12:4; John 13:2, 27; Matthew 27:15), and by the feeling of isolation (Matthew 27:3-5), for he was cut off from the good and spurned by the evil.

2. It is so with all men similarly placed. By the growing strength of a given tendency, and by its power to employ all the mind. For life tends to a unity. More and more one purpose or passion or set of purposes or passions govern the life. Let the backslider and impenitent lay this to heart.

III. IT DETERMINES THE FUTURE BY THE PRESENT. You can see the ill effects of some things, but this great law works more quietly. In Judas it is worked before our eyes. His use of opportunity and position made his place for him. "He was a thief," and that is the cause "he went to his own place"; that is the effect. We are architects of our own fortunes. Apart from repentance and faith there is no cleansing, and it is worse than madness to think that life hereafter will be other than the outcome of the life here.

IV. IT LEADS TO A SELF-MADE DESTINY. He was not doomed to sin, and his destiny was but the natural outcome of such a life. It did not need a Judas to save the world, though his is but the greatest out of a thousand cases in which man's evil is made to work out the saving purposes of God. The destiny of Judas was of his own making, and not of Christ's. It is so with ourselves (note difference between Matthew 25:34 and Matthew 25:41).

(G. T. Keeble.)

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KJV: And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.

WEB: They put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.