Betrayed! - Part B

The betrayal of one person should not diminish our responsibility or our calling. You see, that's sort of what happens. People go, well there's so many hypocrites in the church. I've heard that for so long. Yeah, I went to church 40 years ago and one Sunday I met a hypocrite. That's all I needed.

I've never been back since. Are you nuts? Yeah, I agree. One hypocrite is one too many. But rather than seeing a hypocrite or somebody who would betray Jesus, rather than running away, what it should cause you to do is run toward him.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. Betrayal is one of the hardest things to bear and it was no easier for Jesus than it is for us. Jesus knew who his betrayer was and he loved him anyway. As we join Skip Heitzig for the conclusion of the message Betrayed, we'll see more of Jesus' final day as those closest to him begin to turn away from him. It's part of our current in-depth study through the book of John, Believe 879.

And be sure to stay tuned after the program for ordering information for this incredible study. We'll be joining Pastor Skip in John chapter 13 for the conclusion of this message, Betrayed. So if you have your Bible ready, let's join Skip now. Look at verse 19. Now I tell you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe. He's saying to his disciples around the table, you may believe that I am he. Most assuredly I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me and he who receives me receives him who sent me. Now these are amazing words. These are Romans 828 kind of words.

There's such tremendous lessons in this. There's three benefits Jesus would say to me telling you this in advance. Reason number one or benefit number one is that it will produce a greater trust in me, your Savior. Notice that Jesus said, when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am he. He didn't say, now I'm going to tell you who the betrayer is so that when you find out you can take him outside and beat the living daylights out of him.

Peter would have loved that. Now I'm going to tell you in advance so that when you understand and see this thing coming to pass before your very eyes, all of the claims that I have made about myself all of these years I've been with you, you'll know they're true. Basically this is exactly what God in the Old Testament does. God in the Old Testament challenges all of the false gods and goddesses the people were worshiping who were false gods and he basically says, okay, can you guys predict the future?

Because I can and people can know that I'm real because of my ability to predict the future before it happens. So listen to Isaiah chapter 41. God says to the false gods and goddesses, declare to us things that are to come. Tell us what the future holds so that we may know that you are gods. In other words, put your prophecy where your mouth is. If you think you're gods and we're to believe in you, you tell us the future because that's what I can do. And by the way, that's the purpose of prophecy. Purpose of prophecy isn't to satisfy curious minds about the future so they can draw colorful charts, eschatological charts at the end of books, but rather to drive us to trust God even more.

There's a second reason that sort of follows up on the first one. Not only will it produce a greater trust in the Savior, it produces a greater trust in the scripture. Jesus quotes Psalm 41, says, see, this has been predicted long before it happened. This happened to David with Ahithophel.

And as there was Ahithophel who betrayed David, so Judas will betray me, Jesus. Now this is what happened to the apostles. After all the smoke cleared, after Jesus' death and burial came his resurrection and then his ascension into heaven, and after all of that emotional smoke cleared, all of that confusion, you gotta know that those apostles went right back to their Old Testament scriptures and started studying them. Well, what else could be fulfilled?

Well, what else is written about? And as you start listening to their sermons in the book of Acts and reading their letters in the New Testament, that's exactly what they did. They start realizing that so much of this was spoken of in advance and their love for the scripture went sky high. And that's one of the side benefits here. Fulfilled prophecy transforms the way we look at the scripture.

It showcases its reliability. I think it's safe to say that everybody in this room right now realizes that we're in pretty unstable times in the world, right? If you've seen the news broadcast in the last month, even one of them, you realize that we've been an economic downturn in our country and around the world for some time, number one. Number two, there seems to be political free fall happening over in the Middle East, nation after nation after nation.

We can't even keep track of it. Then there's an earthquake and a tsunami in Japan and experts are saying, depending on what happens with those four reactors, it could become the worst catastrophe in our recorded history. It has that potential. So what do you do in unstable times like that? What enables you and I to marshal through these times with confidence and a smile, knowing where we're going? It's this book. It's the scriptures. It's the word of God. It drives us back to the scriptures.

It drives us back to the word of God and we see, hey, this was talked about and we're seeing a fulfillment of it around us. Parents, let me encourage you, if you're going to leave something to your children, leave them the confident lifestyle that comes from believing the book that God has given. Leave them that. Pass that on to them. Well, I want to make sure they have a good education and a healthy bank account.

Okay, cool. That could be lost tomorrow. But give them something that will outlast and that is a confidence in the word of God. One of my favorite stories is about John Newton. John Newton, raised in a Christian home. His parents died when he was a child, six years of age. Both parents died.

His parents, up until age six, had been giving him scriptures, helping him memorize scripture. Parents dies at age six. At age six, he goes to live with a relative. Doesn't get along with the relative. Has a hard teenage life.

As you can imagine, the loss of both parents is a lot of parents. He decides to join the British Navy as a teenager. So he's in the British Navy.

He's really not good. He went AWOL, left the Navy, joins the slave trade. Now he's trafficking in human slave trade around the world, making money off of them. Long story short, after years of working with slaves, he's coming home to England on a boat.

The boat encounters a storm. He thinks he's going to die as he's going under all of those scriptures that his parents taught him as a young child come flashing into his mind. He hadn't thought about them for years. Not only do those scriptures come to mind, but he understood what they meant for the first time. And he cries out to God. God spares his life. He gets home to England, gives his life to Christ. And John Newton gave us one of the most amazing songs, Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. What his parents planted in that young man's heart blossomed later on. Greater trust in the Savior. It'll give you a greater trust in the scripture. And number three, the paradox of this betrayal.

The side benefit, the third one, a greater thrust in their service. Look at verse 20. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me and he who receives me receives him who sent me. What on earth is that statement doing there? That's what I said when I first read it this week. I thought that didn't seem to fit here. This is sort of disconnected.

It doesn't seem to fit what has gone on before and what comes afterwards. I mean, he's just predicted who's going to betray him. And then he says, now, whoever I send, he's like, excuse me?

What's going on here? Now follow this. Jesus has been announcing his death. That didn't settle well with the disciples. Now he announces his betrayal among that group. That casts a discouragement upon the group, a wet blanket of emotional discouragement.

And they're probably thinking, oh man, there's a betrayer in our group? Well, this whole thing then is going down. I mean, maybe there's no future. There's no hope at all.

I mean, there's no chance at all for any kind of service beyond this. We're going down. And if one man, if one person among us can betray Jesus, maybe all of us could do that.

Maybe it's all over. And what Jesus is saying to them is, oh no, this doesn't change things one bit. In fact, I'm going to send you out so that anybody who receives you, it's as if they have received me personally and my father personally. Your position is so important, Jesus lifts them up right before their eyes and says, your position, your importance to my plan is so valued that if people receive you, it's as if they receive God himself.

The betrayal of one person should not diminish our responsibility or our calling. You see, that's sort of what happens. People go, well, there's so many hypocrites in the church. I've heard that for so long. Yeah, I went to church 40 years ago and one Sunday I met a hypocrite. That's all I needed. I've never been back since. Are you nuts?

Yeah, I agree. One hypocrite is one too many. But rather than seeing a hypocrite or somebody who would betray Jesus, rather than running away, what it should cause you to do is run toward him to sort of dig your heels in and go, man, I want to serve the Lord with even greater trust than ever before. Let me tell you a little personal story. When I was going to college for radiology, I had a friend who went to seminary, shows up at my house one day, my apartment, knocks on the door, opens his trunk, pulls out a bunch of books that he had gotten in seminary and decides he's going to give them to me.

Well, I was stoked. I wanted all the books that he had to offer. But I said, now, why are you giving them to me? Is it that you're done with them? He goes, I don't believe anymore. You mean you don't believe anymore? He had gone to this liberal seminary that told him why he shouldn't believe all the books he was reading and why he shouldn't believe the Bible and why he shouldn't believe Christ. And he emerged from that liberal institution not knowing what he believed and so confused, he just said, I don't believe anymore.

You can have all this stuff. When he left, I bowed my head and I said, Lord, I want to stay closer to Jesus and serve him more and tell more people because I don't want to end up like that. And so what Jesus is telling them after he says, there's a betrayer here and the scripture even predicts it. Before they can go, oh man, he just lifts them up and says, ah, but in the midst of a betrayer, there are ambassadors that I will send out and he acknowledges the importance of that position.

Now let me close with one final piece of this. We've seen the prediction of betrayal, the paradox of betrayal, and I want to close with this, the proximity of the betrayer. Now watch this, verse 21. When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit and testified and said, most assuredly I say to you, one of you will betray me, one of you. According to Matthew, when they heard that, they started asking, is it I? Is it I? Lord, is it I? Even Judas said, is it I?

Hypocrite. And the disciples looked at one another perplexed about whom he spoke. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved.

Who's that? That's John. He's the author of the book. I'm the guy that Jesus loved. Not saying Jesus didn't love anybody else. He's just thrilled that Jesus loved him. Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom he spoke. Sounds just like Peter.

Find out who it is. Then leaning back on Jesus' breast, he said to him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I've dipped it. And having dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. Jesus said to him, what you do, do quickly. But no one at the table knew for what reason he said this to him. Nobody suspected Judas. For some thought that because Judas had the money box that Jesus had said to him, buy those things we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor.

Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately and it was night. Now to understand this, do you remember where I told you last week and maybe a couple weeks before that, that rather than thinking of the Last Supper like Leonardo da Vinci painted it with Jesus standing or sitting there in a chair and all the disciples sitting next to him on these chairs, that they reclined when they ate. They laid on the left side on a pillow or on a couch of some kind. So they were leaning on the left arm. The head would be leaning toward the left.

Their right hand would be free to eat. And they were all around a U-shaped table known as a triclinium, a triclinium. The host, Jesus, would have been right in the middle of that U at the bottom or the top, depending on how you want to look at it.

He'd be right there in the middle. On his right hand side was John. Now whoever sat at the right hand and the left hand of a host at the Passover were the guests of honor. Now John, his mother, a couple days before that said, Jesus, I want to make sure my two boys sit one at your right hand and one at your left hand in the kingdom. They might not get that wish, but at least John is sitting at the right hand at the Last Supper. And so John is leaning on his left toward Jesus. And if you were at one end of the table looking down, it would appear as if John's head was leaning against Jesus' breast. That's why when John wanted to talk to Jesus, all he had to do is do this. And he was right at his heart, right at his face, real close.

They were leaning toward each other. So here's Jesus. On his right hand is John. Next to John is Peter because Peter whispers to John, find out who it is.

Well, that would have been a scene. We find out what Peter did when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and he cut off the guy's ear. He'd have been all over Judas that night.

He had jumped over the table and been all over him like white on rice. Peter wants to find out who it is. John says, Lord, who is it? Jesus says, the one that I dip the morsel and give it to.

Who would that be? Verse 26. It is he to whom I give a piece of bread when I have dipped it. And he dipped the bread and gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. What that means is that Simon or is that Judas was sitting at the left hand of Jesus. If John was leaning in toward Jesus' breast, Jesus was leaning his head in toward Judas' breast.

Now, those two places of honor had to be given by the host. So I presume before the dinner began, Jesus walks up to John and says, Johnny, I want you sitting in my right hand tonight. I know your mom wants you to have that in the kingdom, but tonight you're going to sit next to me in the Last Supper. And he walked over to Judas. Judas, he knew all about Judas.

He knew all about the betrayal. Judas, I want you in this place of honor at my left hand right next to me. So that Jesus Christ was leaning in toward Judas' heart, which is where he wanted to be, it was Jesus' way of reaching out to Judas all the way until the end, giving him his love, his mercy, his forgiveness.

Friend, I want you next to me tonight. And he would have, as a token of honor, given him the morsel, and Judas would have taken it and then passed it down the line. If you were to describe where you are with God right now, would you say that you're like John leaning toward Jesus, or you're like Judas leaning away from Jesus?

Where are you at? Notice how it ends, this paragraph. Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately, and it was night. I don't think John just threw that and it was night in because he wants you to know that the sun had set, and if you're going to go outside tonight, bring a torch with you. Knowing the way John writes, he uses the metaphor of light and darkness a lot, right? Chapter one, in him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

And he uses this, he's the only one who points out that Jesus said, I'm the light of the world. So for John to say, and it was night, I think what John wants you to know is that darkness had settled on Judas' soul, and that any movement away from Christ is stepping into darkness. Satan had entered him, he left the room, and it was night. Question as we close, is darkness creeping over your heart, over your soul?

Is it night in your soul? If so, let me just say that Jesus, like with Judas, is still reaching out and will ever reach out until the very bitter end. I close with a story I read this week. It comes from the Revolutionary War. There was a preacher during the Revolutionary War named Peter Miller, a very effective, godly man. Well, he had an enemy. He had several, but there was one that stood out. He was an unbelieving man who hated Peter Miller's preaching, hated his testimony, and this unbeliever was eventually arrested and charged with treason and sentenced to hang. When Peter Miller found out about this, he walked 60 miles, six zero miles, to appeal that man's case before the president, President George Washington. Washington looked over the appeal and he says, I'm sorry, based on the evidence for treason, I cannot release your friend. Peter Miller said, my friend?

He's my worst living enemy. Washington put his pen down, looked up, and said, you mean to tell me you walked 60 miles for the release, not of your friend, but of your enemy? The reverend said, that's right. The reverend said, that's right. Washington said, well, that puts it in a whole different light.

I'll grant your request. I release him into your recognizance. Miller went to the place where the execution was about to take place, got there just in time. They were putting the man up on the scaffolding. The noose was set. And when that unbelieving man saw that preacher out in the crowd, he said, ah, old Peter Miller, come to take revenge and watch his enemy die, not knowing that in his hand was a signed pardon for his release. And he walked up on that scaffold and gave it to him. Whatever you think of Jesus Christ, oh, he wants to just sort of mess my life up and ruin everything.

I'm all about my fun. Know that in his hand is your pardon and it could change your life, but you've got to receive it. And I don't know if you're leaning toward him today, if you're leaning away from him, but if you're leaning away from him, he so seeks to draw you into his heart and get inside your heart. Well, we all have that choice to make, whether we'll come close to Jesus or push him away. And if you've been listening to Pastor Skip today and want to enter into a relationship with Jesus, could I encourage you not to wait, but do it now. And if you'd like to talk about this some more and pray together with someone, be sure to call us at 1-800-922-1888.

Now let's find out more about this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. The book of Acts says we need to understand the days we live in and how we should be spending our time, energy, and finances. The first step is information, and this month to complement Skip's series, The End is Near, we're offering the excellent Harvest Handbook of Bible Prophecy by Tim LaHaye and Mark Hitchcock. This 450 page hardcover book is a reference guide to what the Bible says about the end times, covering over 150 topics from Armageddon to the wrath of the lamb. The Harvest Handbook of Bible Prophecy is a comprehensive survey from the world's foremost experts on biblical prophecy. Here is what Tim LaHaye said about the importance of understanding what the Bible says concerning the future. To me, the signs of the times are evident that we're in the last days.

In fact, I call them the last days of the last days. I believe that the people that had a great deal to do with the early church were the expositors of the scripture, but gave Christian evidences. Why do we believe what we believe? And one of the reasons we believe what we believe is because of prophecy. This Harvest Handbook of Bible Prophecy is our gift to you this month when you encourage the growth of Connect with Skip with a gift of $50 or more. Make your financial vote of support at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888.

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Each copy is just $4 plus shipping. We'll continue through our series Believe 879 with more from the Gospel of John next time. So I hope you can join us right here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.