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What makes for great drama? When you read a story or you're watching a show or you're watching a movie, what kind of really grabs your attention as you're watching something dramatic unfold? Well, it has to have a compelling storyline, right?
I mean, if it's boring, you're not gonna watch it. It has to have interesting, well-drawn characters. Probably also needs to have a plot twist, some kind of unexpected turn that you didn't see coming.
And of course, you've gotta have heroes and villains. And maybe it helps if your hero has some kind of silly flaw, like he's invulnerable except for something from his home planet. But there's no more shocking, kind of outrageous development when you're watching something, when you're reading something, than when there's betrayal, treachery.
Someone who's on the inner circle then turns on the hero, the protagonist, and stabs him in the back, either figuratively or literally. Et tu, Brute? Those are the moments where we just, we're shocked, we're stunned.
And we think, I didn't see that coming. I had no idea that was gonna take place. And today, our text leads right up to the worst act of treachery in all of human history. Let's open our Bibles to John chapter 13.
We're going to be studying verses 21 to 30 today, but I'm going to start with reading in verse 16 to give us a little context. John 13, verse 16. And these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I'm not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.
I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified. Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of the disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining a table at Jesus' side.
So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.
So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now, no one at the table knew why he said that or said this to him.
Some thought that was, or some thought that because Judas had the money bag, Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out and it was night.
Now, last week we saw the Messiah, Jesus. We saw him exhibit true love when he stooped to serve his disciples. When he took on the task that was usually given to the lowest slave, I wanna say on the totem pole, but there's no totem pole of slaves.
If there's a depth chart, I guess I can use a football analogy. If there's a ranking, there we go, a ranking of slaves, the lowest slave would be the one who had to do the foot washing before a meal because it was the nastiest, filthiest, least desirable job.
As you can imagine, as we talked about last week, you walk through the dusty and dirty and muddy streets of Jerusalem, and then you sit down for a meal, your feet only wearing sandals are going to be filthy.
And Jesus does that. Why? Because none of the disciples stepped forward to do it. Really a lesson in humility and in love and service. And this washing occurred at the beginning of the last supper, what we call the last supper, which took place in the upper room.
Peter objected at the very idea of having this done by Jesus. If you recall, he said, you know, I'm not, you know, you are going to do this for me? No way. Until Jesus told Peter that this was more than just a washing, that it stood, it was a metaphor, spiritual metaphor, and that if Jesus didn't wash you spiritually, that you had no place in him.
And when Peter understood that, of course, then he wants everything washed. He's just like, just scrub away, feel free. Not just my feet, but my head and my hands. Jesus also wanted his service to them, his humility before them to be an example that they might serve one another.
But the Lord had another message for them. And that message was that there was a traitor among them, a betrayer. And he made it clear that this man would be of a type with the Old Testament figure Ahithophel.
And that's going to be, make me sneeze, excuse me. Anytime I say Ahithophel, I have to sneeze, that's not true. Ahithophel had betrayed David and then ultimately hanged himself in disgrace and shame. And this morning, we're going to have four questions as we go through this text, four questions to kind of help us as we measure this text, as we walk through it.
Four questions that are drawn from the text and really kind of frame this for us. The first question is, who will do it? Not a whodunit, right? Because it hasn't happened yet. Who's the betrayer? Who is going to do this horrible thing?
First, we notice that Jesus is suffering. When I said love hurts, when I entitled the message Love Hurts, this is true. He is still, we're still in the context of him displaying his love to those who are his until the end.
But even so, even though Judas is not one of his, this is a painful experience for him. Look at verse 21, after saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit. This isn't a prosecutor, okay? This isn't the district attorney getting up and saying, you know, this is the man who did whatever the crime is.
This is someone, Judas Iscariot is someone that Jesus loved. He was his friend. Leon Morris, a biblical scholar, says this. He says, though John pictures Jesus as in control of the situation, he's sovereign.
He does not let us think of him as unmoved by the events of, or through which he was passing. This morning in Sunday school, I just briefly mentioned at the end of Sunday school, this term impassibility.
That God is impassible. And no, that's not impossible. There's an A in there instead of an O. Impassible meaning God does not have human emotions. He doesn't suffer the changes and the emotions that we go through.
But in his humanity, in the person of Jesus Christ, he experiences everything just as we would. He's fully human. And there was one in this room, in this upper room, one of the 12 who was going to betray him.
And this very thought was painful to the man, Christ Jesus. In fact, we could say the whole situation troubled him to his core. That's what it means when it says he was troubled in his spirit. When we typically think of the suffering of Jesus, we think maybe of the beating he took, of the fact that he was horribly disfigured throughout all this, of the fact that he had to carry the cross through the streets of Jerusalem, the crucifixion.
All these things are painful, but this is painful too. Betrayal is always, always painful. When I was entering the final year of seminary, Dr. MacArthur wasn't there on this occasion. It was the commencement of the year.
Dr. Mayhew, who's the Dean of the seminary, gets up and he's normally just so pleasant and, you know, men, you know, he just has this way about him that's very affable. And on this occasion, he gets up and he says, men, when you get to your first ministry, he says, you're going to land at the airport.
And he says, there's going to be a couple there and they're going to greet you and they're going to hug you. And they're going to take you to your house and your house is going to be stocked with all kinds of nice goodies.
And it's just going to be wonderful. You're going to have a wonderful time with them. And he says, that's the couple that's going to stab you in the back. And we're all just like, what is he doing? What is he talking about?
And he was talking about betrayal in ministry. When I came here, when we came here, see, 13 years ago, we were met at the airport and brought home by none other than Dan Rathbun and Guido DiPietro. And they're still here and they haven't betrayed us.
Yeah. Okay. So we're blessed in that sense. So, you know, Dr. Mayhew was wrong. No, that's not the point. The point is that you almost expect that. And I know so many men in ministry who've experienced this kind of thing.
Betrayal hurts. It's painful. And that's what Jesus was experiencing. Look at verse 21 again, the second half of it. And he testified, which is to say that he was, he was being not just authentic, but he was saying something that was absolutely going to be true.
And he even qualifies it by his first words, truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. When we see that truly, truly, we've seen it many times in the gospel of John. Verily, verily, the King James says, and really the Greek is amen, amen.
You should know that by now. And that verb testified is used to speak often in the gospel of John of people will testify of their faith in Jesus. Well, here he's using it to testify of something that's going to be objectively true.
And here we are in the upper room in the last supper with 12 of his closest friends, those he spent three plus years with, his disciples, his followers. And he tells them that one of them is a traitor, that one of them is going to betray him.
And this verb, this translated betray here, it doesn't always have a negative context. When Paul talks about handing over doctrine, handing over the deposit of truth from one man to another, it's the same verb, paradidomi, and it means just to turn something over.
So it could be good. You want to be faithful in handing over the truth to the next generation, right? You want to teach your children faithfully. You want to hand them the truth. But in this context, it means they're going to, Judas is going to hand over Jesus, that he's going to turn him over to the authorities, that he's going to give them, he's going to give Jesus to the ones who want him, the ones who have been chasing him, the ones who have been wanting to arrest him and put him on trial, the ones who want to put an end to the threat that he represents to their authority.
This translation betray is spot on. Someone in his inner circle, someone, as we're going to see, someone that no one suspects, someone that no one has a clue, is going to metaphorically stab him in the back.
He's going to give Jesus to the Pharisees, to the Sanhedrin, to those spiritual authorities. And really it is nothing less than cosmic treason, betraying the Lord of the universe. Our second question, who is the traitor?
Well, we know, but the way it's revealed really is stunning it. It just sort of, it's one of those moments where the oxygen just kind of vacates the room. Look at verse 22. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.
It's as if they got together to celebrate this holiday, Passover. They're all joyous, they're all excited. They're going to be with the master in the upper room and they're going to celebrate Passover.
And now they're looking at it with suspicion and curiosity and fear at one another, like who's the traitor? Who's the bad guy? You know, the old joke that I went to a fight in a hockey game, broke out.
This is, we went to a holiday feast and a murder mystery kind of dinner broke out. This is a mystery dinner. And the picture, the word picture here is that they were constantly looking at one another, just like looking at one.
It's like as if they were evaluating them and just kind of deciding, well, no, that can't be the guy. One after another, after another. And we don't know how long this went on, but we can imagine that it was very uncomfortable.
In fact, Mark adds this, Mark written basically on the testimony of Simon Peter. Mark 14, 19 says this, says, they began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, is it I? In other words, after they look around, they're looking around at everybody and they're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, none of these men, none of these men would betray Jesus.
So then they each take a turn looking at Jesus and just saying, is it me? Am I the traitor? It can't be any of these men. It must be me. They're convinced that none of these other men could be the man.
They knew two things. They knew that the Lord was right. They knew it was true. They knew that there was a traitor and they were confident, each of them in their own minds, that none of these other men were the man.
So did I maybe do something I didn't even know about? Something accidental that kind of is going to lead to you getting arrested? Did I accidentally betray you? They go from celebration to mourning in no time.
But this betrayal is no accident. It's not somebody, you know, they didn't leave a slip of paper behind that the authorities picked up and figured out. They didn't use their charge card somewhere they shouldn't have and got tracked down.
This is a picture of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Jesus knew he would be betrayed. It was part of the divine plan. And yet the act of betrayal itself was an act of human will. Step-by-step, Judas had hardened his heart.
As he heard more and more truth, he maintained what a veneer of outward loyalty. He was just like all the other guys. Again, as they're sitting in this room, nobody had any reason to suspect Judas. They all believe that he's as innocent as anybody else.
Matthew, similar to Mark, relays that they all asked if they were the traitor. But it also has, Matthew has Judas asking separately, it's not I, is it? As if there was a little pause before Judas did it.
Judas had already planned the betrayal out, but he was looking for an opportune moment, the right moment to make sure that the arrest was made, to make sure that he got his money. And he'd played his part to such perfection that no one suspected him.
Now, typical of Peter, he's not just gonna let things sit where they are. He's gonna get to the bottom of this mystery. Look at verse 23. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side.
So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. Now, again, the way they would have been sitting, John, that's the disciple that Jesus loved, would have been to his right. And so his feet, it's kind of hard to do.
I mean, let's just figure that Jesus is sort of facing you. That's convenient. And John would have had his feet facing away from the table and he would be like leaning back on Jesus. Make sure you don't fall over.
Leaning back on Jesus. So for him to ask Jesus, all he had to do was just kind of cock his head back and he'd be basically right in Jesus' ear. So that's the picture there. And Peter had to be somewhat distant.
I mean, there are all sorts of speculations about where all the disciples were sitting in the upper room and don't look at the famous portrait because that won't work at all. But the idea that John's on his right side and then Peter must be on his left side, well, that'd be really weird because then how does Peter signal John and how does that all work?
So Peter's probably somewhere across the room. There's all kinds of speculation we don't need to get into. But he's probably a little bit distant anyway so that he can make eye contact with him but they probably can't hear one another.
I mentioned earlier how painful this was for Jesus. I think it's also painful for John because here we are, we're 45, 50, even probably 60 years later, close to 60 years later. And it's as if it just happened.
He remembers it so clearly. John sees the head nod. That's what that word motion means. It's not like this. It would have just been like, come on, can you give me some info? And so he asked, look at verse 25.
So that disciple, notice how he never mentioned his name. That's just humility. So that disciple leaning back against Jesus said to him, and again, when I read it initially, I sort of whispered it because I think that's how it was.
It wasn't like we're in a big room like this and John's over there saying, Lord, who is it? He just whispers in his ear. He said, Lord, who is it? Inches from Jesus. Now think about this for a moment.
If Peter and John, and they're kind of like on the inner circle. I mean, they're Jesus' closest disciples. If they don't know who it is, if they don't know who the traitor is, then no one but Jesus knows.
But John knows that if he asked Jesus, the Lord will tell him who it is. So we've seen two questions so far. Number one, who will do it? Who's the traitor? Well, actually, who will betray Jesus? And then number two, who is it?
So kind of the same question. I just framed them different ways. Number three, what is the twist? Was the plot twist? Well, the twist ultimately is that it's somebody that they would not suspect. He was somebody that they trusted.
Look at verse 26. Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it. So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Why didn't Jesus just say, just right in the middle of this banquet, just stand up and say, it's Judas.
He's the guy. Why didn't he do that? The most plausible explanation for that, most plausible explanation for Jesus not standing up and saying he's the traitor is because he wanted to make sure that everybody understood the depth of the treachery involved here.
But getting back to this idea of Jesus just whispering it to him, John heard Jesus, but it seems like nobody else did. Seems very likely that John might have given some kind of signal to Peter. I mean, after all, Peter had requested the information.
So John probably in some way sort of gave him another head nod back to tell him that it was Judas. Seems somewhat plausible that Judas might've been immediately to the left of Jesus. He had to be close because Jesus just hands him the morsel and it's not like, you know, he doesn't have to make a big show out of it.
He just hands it to him. But you remember when I said last week, and I read it earlier in verse 18, that this was a reference to when he talks about dipping the morsel, dipping the bread or that the one who betrayed him is going to eat the morsel and has lifted his heel.
Remember we talked about that being from Psalm 41 and a reference to Ahithophel. The act of identifying Judas in this way really just underscores how vile this treachery is. How, you know, in their culture to do this, as I said last week, would just be unthinkable.
To betray your host in such a way, to betray somebody who gave you food and really to betray somebody who was your close friend would be just unimaginable to the ancient Middle Eastern mind. But Judas had been hardening his heart for quite some time.
And now the moment had come to yield his heart fully to his true King, to the one he actually was in allegiance with. Verse 27, then after he had taken the morsel, talking about Judas, Satan entered into him.
That's pretty dramatic right there. This is the only time in the Gospel of John that Satan is mentioned by name. Satan entered in to Judas. Judas had sat there during this meal. He kind of had had warnings, right?
Jesus is saying there's a betrayer here. You know, you could just imagine. I mean, it's not hard to imagine being, why is it not hard to imagine being Judas? It's kind of scary to think about, but he's sitting there and he's listening to Jesus say, you know, there's a betrayer.
One of you is going to betray me. So all the time, if I were him, I'd be getting kind of edgy. Judas knew, you know, in a kind of a Nathan sort of way that he could point at himself. He knew he was the man.
He knew that he had already agreed to the price for betraying his master. He hadn't made the final arrangements yet. He will do that here shortly, but he had done nothing in all this time to make himself appear guilty.
In fact, when they were going around saying, it's not I, is it Lord? He joined right in. He is probably the greatest wolf in sheep's clothing of all time. The greatest undercover faker, fraud, spiritual swindler of all time.
He ate with the disciples, spent all of his time with them for almost, or for more than three years. He had them all fooled. And there were many times that Judas could have left. If you recall the end of John chapter six, I want to just turn there for a moment.
John chapter six, verse 67. Jesus has just given this really kind of sermon, this teaching about the sovereignty of God and talked about how if you didn't eat his flesh and drink his blood, you couldn't be his disciple.
Talked about the high bar for being his disciple. And he talked, I mean, this all started out when he said, no one can come to me, but the father draws him and he says something similar again. And then he talks about the high cost of discipleship and many, many leave.
And this is shortly after he's done the miracle where he's fed the 5 ,000 men, so probably 20 ,000 in all. And they're after him. They want to take him to make him king. But listen to verse 67 and following here.
So Jesus said to the 12, this is after all the multitude leaves here because they can't take all this. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy one of God. Well, there was one there that didn't believe that, right? Jesus answered them, did I not choose you, the 12?
And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the 12, was going to betray him. John didn't know that when it happened in John chapter six, but he found out later.
And so as he wrote John chapter six, in retrospect, he put that in there. But Jesus did say, did I not choose you, the 12? And yet one of you is a devil. Now, if I were sitting there, I would have thought, okay, we need to figure out who this devil is.
That doesn't take place. And so finally, the unmasking takes place in the upper room. You can go back to John chapter 13. Jesus knew that Judas would betray him. Why do I think it was hard? Well, first of all, betrayal is always hard, but I think there was some kind of faint hope that he, in spite of the fact that Jesus in his deity knows that this has to take place.
He knows that he has to be betrayed and he knows that Judas is gonna do it. I think there's a part of him because he loves Judas who doesn't want this to happen. That maybe Judas will come to his senses.
But again, at every possible decision point, Judas steadfastly refuses to repent of his plan. Certainly seems that if Judas was not going to get the power he desired via Jesus becoming king, he would settle for a cash settlement.
He had to get something to show for his three years. Now, Jesus pushes Judas to get the job done. Look at verse 27. Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now, how many times, I've said this many times to the kids or whatever, when they were younger, I'd say, now what you do, do quickly, right?
Wanting them to just kind of pick up the pace or whatever. And it's funny because the word there translated quickly probably should be understood as faster. Because when Peter and John are running to the tomb after the resurrection, it's mentioned there that Peter goes faster.
And that's the idea, that he wants them to do this faster. That Judas' timeline, whatever it is, and we don't know what it was, but that his timeline may not have been God's timeline because God's timeline was exactly what happened for Jesus to be crucified on Friday.
Hedrickson writes this, he says, Judas does work faster, probably because he knew that he had been discovered. He was outed. He was probably afraid lest the whole plot would fail if he did not act quickly.
He had seen Jesus elude the authorities before and now he, Jesus, was onto Judas and speed was of the essence. It had to get done and it had to get done now. And that's what Jesus wanted. Question number four, how did the story change?
How did this twist impact the story? Well, we have ample evidence that the disciples remained largely ignorant that Judas was the traitor. Look at verse 28. Now, no one at the table knew why he said this to him when he tells them to do it quickly.
They don't know. Some thought because Judas had the money bag. Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor. Now, how's it possible that no one knew what Jesus or why Jesus said this to Judas?
What's probable, most of the disciples didn't hear what Jesus had said to John when he whispered in his ear, you know, I'm going to dip this morsel. Peter knew, right? But it says here that no one at the table knew, not John, not Peter, none of them knew why he said this to Judas.
Well, why not? Have you ever received news that was so shocking that people start talking to you and you don't even know what they're talking about. You can't even process it because you're just so absorbed by trying to sort out what you've just heard.
I remember when I called after my dad died and I talked to my brother and I told him that. And then I was talking to him about some other things and he said, I can't even process that right now. And that's exactly what happens, I think, with Peter and John.
They've just heard, they're stunned. So when they hear this, they're like, they can't even process this. And the other men don't even hear it because Jesus is right next to John and no one else hears what he says.
He would have been literally a couple of inches away from John's ear when he says this. So the others think that Jesus is telling Judas to take care of some errand to make sure that he takes care of that quickly.
Whatever it is we need for the feast, buy it quickly. Give some to the poor and just get it done. But Judas' trek, his trip to the dark side is complete. Verse 30, so after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out and it was night.
Judas went about making the final arrangement to betray his master. And when John writes that it was night, well, that's not all that helpful, right? They're having supper. This is the evening, beginning of the evening under which Jesus is gonna become, that he's gonna be arrested and everything else.
But if we take that just literally and not figuratively, we sort of miss it. It's both literal and figurative. If you look back at John chapter 12, John chapter 12, verse 44, and Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me. Verse 46, I've come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge. The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day. Listen, Judas was in the presence of light and what did he do? He fled the light and it was dark.
He went into the darkness and it's not just a literal darkness. It is a metaphorical, a spiritual darkness. He left the presence of the light of the world. He went out into the darkness and he was indwelt by the prince of darkness.
Satan had entered him. I'm gonna read from Matthew 26, verse 22 and multiple sources here talking about the last supper. Matthew 26, verse 22 to 24. This is when he announces that there's a traitor among them and they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, is it I Lord he, or is it I Lord?
He answered, he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The son of man goes as it is written of him. In other words, his fate as it were is sealed. But woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.
It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. He says of Judas Iscariot, it would have been better for him if he had not been born. Why? Because he betrayed the light of the world. He betrayed the creator.
He betrayed his master. What started as an evening of glorious celebration of holiday celebration had turned into an evening of teaching by Jesus and then it ended in the tragic revelation of the true nature of Judas Iscariot.
Thinking about Jesus. Now, what have we seen? We've seen him persecuted by the religious authorities. They wanted to arrest him. We've seen him rejected by Israel as he closed his public ministry to the nation.
And now we see him betrayed and not just betrayed by anyone, but by one of his 12 close friends. Jesus had humbled himself, served his disciples and now he had sent the Satan infested Judas off to betray him and to do it quickly.
Is it any wonder that he was troubled in his spirits that there was pain in his soul? Now this morning, no one here obviously is Judas Iscariot, but everyone here has sinned. The only question is if those sins have been forgiven, if the Lord Jesus Christ paid for your sins on the cross, what is sin?
Just briefly. It's failing to do what we know we should. Today being Mother's Day, it's failing to honor your mother and your father, but it's also doing what we should not do. So it's both failing to obey and then disobeying.
Both are sin and either one of those categories is enough to merit eternity in hell. And that scripture could well be said of you if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it will be better for you if you had not been born.
My prayer for you that today would be the day that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you repent, that you flee from unbelief, that you yield to the Lord and the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the humility, for the love and for the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even as we think of the disobedience, the hatred of Judas Iscariot, how he disobeyed. Father, we are sinners.
We come into this world sinners. We are sinners by nature and by desire. And Father, we would have no hope apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us not be those of whom it would be better for us if we'd never been created.
Father, I pray for each one here that they would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, his life, his death, his resurrection. You are a God of love and a God of justice. You will do what's right, but you extend the opportunity of forgiveness to all who believe in Jesus.
I pray that that would be the case for each one here in Jesus' name. Amen.