ever ended in such dismal failure. God's plan for the man had
failed.

Jesus' plan for Judas failed. The sharpest contrasts of possible good and
actual bad came together in his career in the most startling way. He
failed at the very point where he should have been strongest--his personal
loyalty to his Chief.

There can be no doubt that Jesus picked him out for one of His inner
circle because of his strong attractive traits. He had in him the making
of a John, the intimate, the writer of the great fourth Gospel. He might
have been a Peter, rugged in his bold leadership of the early Church.

But, though coached and companioned with, loved and wooed, up to the very
hour of the cowardly contemptible betrayal, he failed to respond even to
such influence as a Jesus could exert. Jesus planned Judas the apostle. He
became Judas the apostate, the traitor. He was to be a leader and teacher
of the Gospel. He became a miserable reproach and by-word of execration to
all men. Jesus' plan failed.

<u>Where the Reproach of Failure Lies.</u>

Will you please mark very keenly that the failure always comes because of
man's unwillingness to work with God? It always takes two for God's
plan--Himself and a man. All His working is through human partnership. In
all His working among men He needs to work <i>with</i> men.

Some good earnest people don't like, and won't like, that blunt statement
that God fails sometimes. It seems to them to cast a reproach upon God.
They may likely think it lacking in due reverence. But if these kind
friends will sink the shaft of their thinking just a little deeper down
into the mine of truth, they will find that the reproach is somewhere
else.

There <i>is</i> reproach. Every failure that could have been prevented by
honest work and earnest faithfulness spells reproach. And there is
reproach here. But it isn't upon God; it is upon man. God's plan depends
upon man. It is always man's failure to do his simple part faithfully that
causes God's plan to fail.

There is a false reverence that fears to speak plainly of God. It seeks by
holding back some things, and speaking of others with very carefully
thought-out phrase, to bolster up God's side. True love has two marked
traits: it is always plain-spoken in telling all the truth when it should
be known; and it is always reverential. It can't be otherwise. The
bluntest words on the lips combine with the deepest reverence of spirit.
God doesn't need