FBC Daily Devotional – October 14, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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00:06

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Hope you got a good night of rest and that your week has been going well, and that your day is off to a good start today.

00:16

Let me ask you something. Have you ever known someone who you thought you knew really well, or at least fairly well, and then they did something that just totally,

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I mean, just completely startled you? And you thought, I never had any idea the person was like that.

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I never knew he could do such a thing as that, or I never knew that she would be like that to somebody, or whatever.

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But they just completely left you dumbstruck because of what they did or said.

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Well, what they're doing is exhibiting the same kind of thing that Judas Iscariot was very good at, which was hiding what's going on, really going on, in his heart.

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And he had a lot of people to see. So here's this scene in John chapter 13. There in that upper room,

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Jesus and then the twelve are reclining at the table. And that's the way you should understand this.

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This is different from the way we eat supper, you know. At least in my home, we have a table and chairs, and we're sitting in the chairs, sitting at the table, and sitting around the table when we're eating dinner.

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But in the culture of the day, that first century culture in the Middle East, and still practiced in some places today, the diners would recline at the table.

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So in the middle of everybody was the table, and generally it was a more rounded table, and pillows.

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The table was only maybe six, eight inches off the floor. And then there were pillows on the floor all around that table.

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And you would lie down and put your elbow on the pillow.

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So your left arm is in a pillow, and your right hand, you use your right hand to eat.

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And that's the way it was. So your face or head is toward the table, and your feet are extended out away from the table.

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So that gives you a little insight, by the way, when you read here in John 13, where verse 25 says that John was leaning back on Jesus' breast and asked

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Jesus, Lord, who is it? So what happened? Of course, all the disciples reclined at the table, they're having this meal, and Jesus utters this startling statement, basically, one of you is going to betray me.

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One of you is going to betray me. And it's interesting that nobody looked at Judas and said, yeah,

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I knew that scoundrel would be a traitor. No, they didn't think

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Judas was going to be the traitor. They didn't know. They wondered among themselves, is it

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I? And they asked, is it I? And Peter, it's like maybe he's sitting across the table, we're not exactly sure, reclined at another angle across the table, we're not exactly sure.

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Perhaps, probably, he was right next to John. And Peter turns to John, and you can see him maybe leaning back and saying to John, John, ask

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Jesus who it is. Ask Jesus who it is. And John was reclining right next to Jesus.

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So Jesus is reclining on his left shoulder, and right in front of Jesus at the table is

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John. And John leans back against Jesus' breast and asks, who is it?

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Who is it? And he could have asked the question in a whisper.

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Jesus would hear, and nobody else would. And Jesus could respond to John, and not anybody else really get it, and hear what

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Jesus was saying. So Jesus replies and says, it is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when

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I have dipped it. And having dipped it, he gave it to Judas Iscariot. And it is likely that Judas Iscariot was reclining at the table right next to Jesus.

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So Jesus dipped the bread and just handed it back over his shoulder to Judas. And then we read that after this piece of bread was given to him,

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Satan entered into Judas, and Jesus said to him, what you do, do it quickly. And then it says no one at the table knew for what reason

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Jesus said this to him. Nobody got it. Nobody had a clue. Judas was so skilled at cloaking his opposition, his animosity toward Jesus at this point, that nobody else knew.

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They just thought he's going out to get something else to eat, maybe some dessert or something. They didn't have any idea what he was up to.

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So it shouldn't surprise us at times when people surprise us like this. They startle us.

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They shock us. And we think, man, we never knew he could be like this. You hear this sometimes when some crime, terrible crime has been committed and the criminal has been apprehended.

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And the neighbors who lived around this guy all this time, all these years, said, we had no idea.

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We had no idea that he was capable of such a thing. Well, the disciples had no idea that Judas was capable of such a thing.

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And how did they not know? Well, because we can be very adept, we sinners, at hiding our sin, at being the hypocrite, at putting on a mask, at covering the way things really are.

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Let's be sure that we're not playing that role. And let's not be surprised, though, when we see it played out somewhere else.

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Judas didn't, Judas didn't cease existing when he died. The Judas complex is alive and well.

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Father, deliver us from it, we pray. Help us to be genuine. Help us to be real.

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Help us to not be the kind of people that cloak who we really are and shroud the truth.

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Our animosity in some kind of cloak of deception.

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Lord, may we be genuine. May we be real. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

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Well, I hope you have a good rest of your Thursday and that God will bless these thoughts to your heart today.