If you would turn with me and your Bibles to Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22, this morning we'll take as our text the first six verses of this chapter and consider the betrayal of Jesus. Luke 22, starting in verse 1. Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them. And they were glad and agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, we come before you and we need your grace. We need the truth of your word to give us strength and comfort and help us As we live our Christian lives in the midst of a world that is often hostile to our goals as Christian, it's not a help to us. God, a heart which still struggles with sin, and God is always a snare to us if we'll let it. And God, we pray that you'd help us to put off the old man and put on the new. And God, to put our flesh to death that we might not, as Judas did, betray you. And we pray that you keep us from the power of the evil one. And God, that you would accomplish your purposes in us. And God, that you would reassure us that you do have purposes that are oftentimes unseen in the midst of circumstances which we find very troubling and which we pray to be out from as quickly as possible. And yet you have brought us into circumstances that you mean to bless us even if we can't see how. And so God we pray that you'd help us to trust you and we pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. Well we come back to our study of Luke's gospel in chapter 22 here and we've been considering the final week of Jesus' life and his entrance into the city of Jerusalem and some of the opposition that's there and some of the opportunity that he has to teach. and to make himself known in public and so forth. Well, here in chapter 22, things really begin to pick up speed. And from here until Jesus' crucifixion, we will be in a section of Luke's gospel that is, in some ways, it's disheartening. It requires us to think very sober-mindedly about it at the very least because it ought to cause us a great deal of grief to see the way that Jesus was so poorly treated, the way that he was mocked and despised, the way that he suffered and died for our sake. And grieve not because, I mean, it was necessary and we give thanks to God for the blessing and salvation, but grieve that it was necessary. because it was our sin that made it necessary. And so when we look at a character like Judas, the temptation for us is to, or the leadership, the religious leadership and those who were the most important and influential men in society, who were responsible most directly for riling up the crowds, or even the crowds who called out and crucify him. We can distance ourselves from them and consider them to be more akin to the people that are in our day in opposition to the church and to Christians and who don't share our commitments and our experiences of saving grace. And yet we ought to be very careful in doing that that we don't fail to heed a warning here. Be careful to heed a warning like this one about the possibility of betraying the Lord. We need to make sure that we are aware of these dangers so that we can stand firm in the evil day and remain faithful to our Lord who has called us to salvation. So, Judas' warning to us And we can learn from him, I think. There's more going on here than just the example of Jesus, and we'll come to that in a moment. But I want to consider this morning the betrayal of Jesus that is described in these verses. And the way that it gives us insight into the temptations and dangers present as we respond to him ourselves. We'll consider this subject matter under three headings if you're taking notes this morning. We'll look at the sinful plotting of men, the spiritual power of the devil, and then finally the sovereign plan of God. That kind of gives you an idea of where we're heading this morning. But let's begin with the sinful plotting of men. First we find this in verse 2. where we read that the chief priest and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death for they feared the people. You have to understand their fear of man here is not leading them to sin. They're actually sinning in spite of their fear of man. Actually, we typically think about a fear of man as a negative. It's a fear of man rather than a fear of God. But a fear of man can be an instrument in God's hands or a tool that God uses to prevent us. I mean just think about the way that not all sin or wrongdoing is criminalized or punishable, but nevertheless that it's greatly restrained in society. Not everybody does every wicked thing that they could get away with because it perhaps is legal. And part of the reason is because things are stigmatized. Other people would think poorly of them, and rightly so, because these may be wicked sins. They might actually be celebrated in society, and that would be far worse, that society would applaud you for disobeying God. But there are times whenever we are incentivized to do the right thing because of this. It's not always the case, but I do see the work of God in this. Jesus has become, in his day, a popular teacher, a miracle worker, and so at least with a superficial popularity and response, crowds of people, they support Jesus. And now we can look at that and say, well these are fickle crowds and they may not be following him in true faith and Christian discipleship, but nevertheless his popularity restrains the evil intentions of these scribes and Pharisees and this chief priest and all of these leaders who oppose Jesus. And so they're seeking how to put him to death In other words, the reason why they're having to think about this together and seek for a way to put him to death rather than just to come out and do it is because they realize there will be repercussions. We see this at the end of verse 6. Judas has consented in this agreement he's made with them and he's seeking an opportunity to betray him, that is Jesus, to these religious leaders in the absence of a crowd. So they've got to do this sort of under the cover of darkness, and that's exactly what we find happening. But what we see illustrated here, I think, is there really are three great enemies of our souls. And if we're going to, it's a part of a Christian understanding of the spiritual warfare, that we understand who our enemies are. You know, if you, sometimes I watch videos where they'll have interviews with ex-military guys. And, you know, it's always just interesting to hear their stories, especially the ones who've had particularly exciting careers in something like special forces. And they'll talk about the need for situational awareness, knowing your enemy, and always being aware of what's going on around you. Well, spiritually speaking, If we're to engage in this kind of warfare for which our bodies, our actual physical life is not what's at stake, but our souls and our eternal life, very important warfare, far more important than anything else, any kind of self-defense or warfare here on earth, we need to know our enemies, who they are, and to be aware of how they work and what's going on around us as we seek to live our Christian life. And there are really three great enemies of our souls and the first of these are what we might call the world. Now not everything about the world, we're not talking about just everything about the world when we say the world because this is God's world. But the Bible also talks about it being under the dominion of the power of Satan and under the dominion of evil powers and in darkness and so that's true this world is a fallen world but this one is made by God and it's not irredeemable because after all in in the end God is going to make a new heavens and a new earth and and so there there is this is God's creation and God originally, when he created all that is, he pronounced over it his blessing. He said it is good, and it is very good. So we need to not dismiss our earthly existence or the physical world or our bodies or anything so very lightly because it's God who made them and ultimately we are gods. But when we talk about the world as our spiritual enemy, we're talking about, in particular, the way of people in the world. who go against God and encourage us to go against Him as well. And so the way that the people of the world go against God and they live contrary to His will and just the cumulative effect and the overwhelming force of living in a world where most people go against God, dishonor Him, and live for themselves or for other things rather than for God makes it that much harder. concepts like this that we're familiar with, like peer pressure. Well, that's really, peer pressure is a variety of, it's a particular feature of the world as our great spiritual enemy. Peer pressure is one way that this manifests. And I would include with the world the fear of man. the fear of other people's opinions of us, and also the love of riches or comforts, the love of just the things of earth. And all of this is what allures us or attracts us to this present life and away from God, or it threatens us. You know, people can threaten us if you continue to live out your Christian convictions and and to do so, you know, professing your faith publicly and all this, that there are professional or financial or even maybe bodily consequences as we're punished or as we face persecution of some kind. And so the world is all of these things and more, but it is whatever, in essence, it is whatever makes it difficult to love and obey God in this world. And it's often not a conscious choice that we make to go along with the world. That's part of the danger of the world as our enemy is that it's sort of an invisible enemy. It's not this one person in particular. But again, it's just the air that we breathe in a fallen world. where you turn on the television and you don't realize that even in the commercials, the priorities and the lifestyles and the things that people fill their days with and think about are not, perhaps they're not compatible with a Christian life and worldview or Christian priorities. And so it's not always a conscious choice as if we wake up and someone asks us, don't you want to put something above God today? It's more often the unquestioned way of things. So that if we just go along with what others think and do, if we love what they love, it may not just be gross evil. It may just be enjoying family life, and a career, and going to the lake on the weekends. But all of it just focused on the here and now, and all of it sort of, I shouldn't have said that word, I knew I wasn't gonna be able to say it. numbing us to the spiritual realities of things and we're just content with the things of earth and we are prevented from really being heavenly minded or focusing on the things of heaven. And so we'll find it challenging to serve the Lord in this environment. But notice the way that the world functions in our text to encourage men to betray the Savior. So in verse 2 we read that the chief priest and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death for they feared the people. So, in other words, the most important and influential men in society, they don't accept Jesus and they scheme to destroy him. We see this in our day. Some of the most influential people and important people, so-called, in society, not only do they themselves reject Jesus, but they seek to reduce the influence of religion to, if possible, strip away the rights of believers to express themselves or to live out their faith. There are times when they won't come out right out and say it, or they'll lie about their intentions, but the truth does become clear by their actions, or perhaps they will eventually admit to how just openly opposed they are to the things of God. And they're even willing to incentivize others to go along with them. Look at verse 5. And in verse five we read that they were glad and they agreed to give him money, Judas money. So they were willing to incentivize other people to betray him. Listen, the world will incentivize you to abandon your religious commitments and to walk away from the church. And there are all kinds of rationalizations that the world will let you do that and feel good about yourself. You don't have to feel like all at once you're abandoning Christ. It'll give you a reason for saying that you can be a Christian without going to church, and these people have all these... someone's hurt your feelings, or they're religious hypocrites, or believe some lie, or some reason for walking away from the church. And just over time, gradually, your focus will, outside of the means of grace which God has ordained for our growth in the body of Christ, outside of the fellowship that we enjoy with other Christians, we just begin, our priorities begin to shift. Our friendships are more worldly, our pursuits and pastimes and just what we fill our days with and spend our money on, all of this stuff will become more and more worldly. And before you know it, it'll happen very quickly, I think. It oftentimes does. Our lives are indistinguishable from those of people in the world who don't profess Christ. And so the world will make it not only easy for you to betray Christ, but attractive for you to do so, and maybe even rewarding, at least in a temporal, earthly sense. And this is the setting for Judas's choice, as we're told in verse 4, that he conferred with the chief priests and the officers. Look, we can't get out of the world. It's not possible that we would, you know, live some... There are some groups of Christians, I think, that wrongly or It's a misunderstanding of the Bible and its teaching who seek to live totally cloistered off from the rest of the world in a sort of monastic existence or the Amish sort of live this way and they're groups of people who separate themselves from the world. Well how you do that and also are salt and light and bear witness to the gospel of Christ in the midst of unbelievers, I don't know. It's impractical and it's really unbiblical to live totally separated from the world, but we can be in the world without the world being in us. And that is, I think, the trick. The problem with Judas is not that he is around. After all, Jesus himself is around the chief priests and the scribes, but Judas is conferring with them, and he is sympathizing with them, and he's agreeing with them, and he's seeking the reward that they offer, the applause that they'll give him, and so forth. Well brothers and sisters, the world is not a friend to help you on to God. As the hymn we sang earlier says, there are people in the world who will help you, but the mighty current of the world flows in the opposite direction away from God. And you and I must resist. In his excellent book entitled Holiness, really, I think there's some copies actually out here. It's a big book, but it's I think very readable and it's worth reading. J.C. Ryle talks about holiness and the need for us to be holy. And he states there in that book that Christians must fight the world. And this is what he says. He writes, the subtle influence of that mighty enemy must be daily resisted and without a daily battle can never be overcome. the love of the world's good things, the fear of the world's laughter or blame, the secret desire to keep in with the world, the secret wish to do as others in the world do, and not to run into extremes. All these are spiritual foes which beset the Christian continually on his way to heaven and must be conquered. The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The world is crucified to me, and I unto the world. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. Be not conformed to this world." So he quotes scripture to drive this point home. So, let's resolve to resist the influence of the world and to do what Christian did. Remember the Pilgrim's Progress? We studied this on Wednesday nights in the past few years. You remember what Christian did as he was leaving the city of destruction? You know, Charles Spurgeon read Pilgrim's Progress every year. I'd like to do that. It's such an encouraging book. I mean, just, the encouragement there is unreal. And I'd encourage you to pick it up and read it again if you don't remember these things. But Christian, when he was leaving the city of destruction, his friends called after him to return. That's the influence of the world. What did Christian do? He plugged his ears and he cried out, life, life, eternal life. He reminded himself of what was before him. And so he wasn't allured by what was behind. Now, another of the soul's great enemies is Satan, the evil one, the accuser of the brethren. And this is what we see secondly in our text, the spiritual power of the devil in verse 3. You know, from a human perspective, if you're there, you don't see Satan. You don't know that Satan has come into Judas or is influencing him in a powerful way. It just looks like a man has betrayed, and perhaps even Judas was unaware of the influence of Satan or the full extent of Satan's influence in his life. This is the way things go. But we have God's Word to tell us, here's what's really happening. It looks like just only the sinful plotting of men, but there's also here this dark spiritual power that's at work, and we need to take seriously the reality of spiritual warfare in this sense that there is real personal spiritual evil. Not just general, there's evil in the world, there's temptations of sin, but there are persons who are straight evil. There are human persons that are so full of sin that they're great dangers to us. We ourselves have to wrestle with our own you know, sinful agency, but what I'm talking about is the fallen angels who are spiritual beings and personal spiritual beings. They have personalities and they're aimed at us and against us to destroy us. We need to take this very seriously. Recently we've had sermons on heaven and hell and In them, I made the point that heaven is a real place. It's a real place. We forget that sometimes. We just think because we can't see it or touch it, it's not real. That's the mistake of our times, I think, is that if something isn't material, if it's not made up of matter, then it's not real. But there's more to reality than that. Heaven is not a material or a physical place. It's spiritual, but it is real. It's a real place. And the point we have to understand is that real does not equal physical. And this is where, if you're thinking through, how do I think as a Christian, and you're trying to make sure that your mindset and the way that you think about things is informed by the Bible and the truth of God, then you need to understand that the world does not think this way. at least at current. At one time, everybody thought, everybody knew there were spirits and spiritual realities, say back in the so-called dark ages, which I think we're actually pretty enlightened compared to modern times. But in modern times, the current scientific consensus and the worldview and perspective of secular people is what we call materialism. And what that means is that reality consists entirely of matter, what we can see and what we can touch. But the Bible reveals that there's more to reality than just what we can see and touch. There's the stuff that we can see. There's the stuff that we can touch. But there's also invisible and immaterial things also. The human soul is one. It's real. You have a soul. It's a real thing. And there's only one of them. You have it. There's one thing, but it's spiritual and it's not material. It's immaterial and invisible. Angels are another that are in this category. Angels are spiritual beings, meaning what they are is all spiritual and not at all physical. And there are fallen angels who are evil and the leader among them is the devil. And if there really are unseen evil beings who work against you and seek to influence you to turn from God, then you must beware. Lauren and I used to, we were in high school and college, watched horror movies. I can't remember the last time I watched a horror movie. And I think I know the next time I watch a horror movie is never. I don't like them, but we used to watch them. And the reason I don't watch them anymore is because I still remember them vividly. But there's one in particular I think of, and it's not The Exorcist, but it's a movie about exorcism, and it's terrifying in the depictions of demons and demonic possession. I don't recommend anybody go out and watch a movie like that, but perhaps I can say there's a little value in that, and it's this, that it helps us to have a proper appreciation for the evil that's out there. It's really out there, and we need to take this very seriously. And these things are not out there, you know, in this sensational, always working in this sensational way. You can read C.S. Lewis' book, The Screwtape Letters, for sort of, a lot of it's just sort of speculation, but it helps you appreciate how that demons may work more subtly by not showing themselves to us, to terrify us, but nevertheless their work is influencing our lives in such a way that we reject Jesus and respond to him with the kind of betrayal that we see here. So there are dark, evil, unseen beings who work against you and seek to influence you to turn from God, and you must beware. Now, understand that the dark influence and the spiritual power of Satan is such that it doesn't absolutely remove our human responsibility or choice or agency. And we see here, I mean, for example, in John 12, 6, we see that Judas was already... Judas could not lay all the blame with Satan. influencing him in this. Judas was already on this path. John tells us in his gospel in John 12 6 that Judas said something not because he cared about the poor, you know this is whenever he's complaining about the way that money is being spent, and he said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and having charge of the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it. But here in Luke 22, we read in verse 3 that Satan entered into Judas Iscariot, but also we have a lot of language that is active. It's not passive. Judas was not led away, he went away, in other words. He wasn't sort of out of his mind when he conferred with the scribes, the chief priests and officers. about how he might betray him. And in verse 6 in particular we have here, I think, the clearest evidence that this was a conscious choice and not at all compelled by Satan. In verse 6 we see that he consented. So, Satan will influence us in such a way that we may be unaware of his influence. We may be making a decision that we feel like is justified, or at the very least we've made up our mind to do with no knowledge that Satan is at work We are ultimately responsible for it, but because we're responsible for our actions, even those that are influenced by Satan, we need to be aware of the influence of Satan in our lives. You know, and as we talk to our children about, you know, especially not something a conversation we've had to have with them, I don't think to date, but, you know, especially as they get older and spend more time with friends, we have to remind them of things like, you know, bad company ruins good morals. And you need to be careful of the company you keep and the influence of your peers on you. Because if your peers influence you to do something, you're going to be the one that's holding the bag. You're the one that's got to face the consequences for the things you've done. And because of that, you've got to be extra careful of the people who are influencing you to perhaps do evil. Well, that is greatly intensified in our spiritual warfare as our enemy is none other than Satan himself. So you see that this is no walk in the park. The Christian life is fraught with many perils, and we need to be conscious of these things. And so we see the world here, the devil, and then also again, of course, it's the flesh. This is Judas' choice. It's his sin. We see already in John 12, in an earlier account, earlier to the betrayal of... that Judas betrayed Jesus, he's already made up his mind to to take advantage of him for gain, which is exactly what he does here. And so the flesh is the other of our great enemies. But I want you to see here also the sovereign plan of God at work. Because even in the darkest moments in redemptive history and in your story, in your testimony, God is at work. And we see this, we can look back for clear examples all the way back to Genesis with Joseph. I mean, and who in the Old Testament is a clear picture of Christ with this betrayal at the hands of his brothers, his twelve brothers? And there's these the sufferings that he faces and the temptations that he overcomes. And there's so much that points us to Jesus in the story of Joseph. But he was poorly treated and he was abused and he was betrayed. But how does he think about and process this betrayal where he tells his brothers this. He says to them, not to be alarmed or afraid of retribution, but he says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And in Acts 2, I think it's 23, Acts 2, 23, when Peter at Pentecost was preaching in Jerusalem, he says, this Jesus, whom you crucified, he was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. So always the Bible's holding both of these things together, which we maybe have a hard time understanding how they go together. And that's fine, it's fine to have a hard time, but it's not fine to separate them. And the two things are our responsibility for the things that we've done, and the world's responsibility, and the devil's responsibility for the evil in the world, the betrayal of Christ, and the response that's made to Christ, whether to submit to him and to trust in him or not. There's that on the one hand, but also there's the plan of God, the sovereignty of God. God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Where do we see that in these verses? I think we can see it here in verse 1. The context or the setting in which this betrayal takes place, and Luke knows, that's why he begins this, As he recalls the betrayal of Christ, he begins this with, in verse 1, setting the scene. Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover. This was a feast that was ordained by God to commemorate His great saving work in the Exodus. To always remind God's people that they were saved, but specifically, how were they saved? It was by the slaughter of an innocent lamb. And throughout the New Testament, there's this imagery that connects Jesus to this Passover lamb. I think about how in John's gospel, John the Baptist, upon seeing Christ in his public ministry, coming to him for baptism, he calls out, behold, the lamb of God. And what does the Lamb of God do? He takes away the sins of the world. So in verse 6, Judas consented, and along with the world, who supports him essentially, and the devil who's at work within him, he betrays Christ, or he seeks an opportunity to betray Christ. But the Father is at work, because the Father is fulfilling a promise that he made long ago. The Passover was not an in and of itself. It was a kind of event and a kind of feast and religious observance that was always promising God's people, every time that they kept it, to look for the perfect sacrifice that God would someday provide for the sins of God's people. The author of Hebrews makes this very clear when he says that the blood of animals could never take away sin. And that wasn't ever the point. but to point towards the one whose blood does take away sin. And so we need all the help that we can get to live faithfully for Christ, to avoid the temptations to turn from him. As we survey, though, the betrayal that we undoubtedly have seen in our own lives, because who among us has not betrayed Christ in some sense or another? has not betrayed him to the Lord, has called him Lord, but then has essentially abandoned him. If we were there, would we find ourselves in support of Christ? Or would we find ourselves, hopefully, at worst like Peter, who betrayed him, but was moved to tears by that betrayal? And not like Judas, whose end was far worse. We've all betrayed Christ, but the good news of the gospel is that it's that very betrayal that brings us to receive the grace. Knowing that we've betrayed him and acknowledging our sin, we're brought to receive the grace that comes to us through him as we pray together. Father God, we thank you for what you've done for us in Christ in spite of our own betrayal. We pray that you would keep us from betraying you as Judas did, from denying you as Peter did. God, that grieves our hearts to know that we have or that we might. But God, we do thank you that in spite of all of our sin, past, present, and future, that you have dealt with us, not according to how our sins deserve, but God, you've dealt with us in grace. and you have pardoned our sins and you have drawn us to yourself and given us eternal life and blessing upon blessing. We thank you for this. We praise Jesus for it. We pray it all in his name. Amen.