Welcome to Rock Harbor Church's channel on Sermon Audio. We hope this message is a blessing to you and helps you in your daily walk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So please, settle in and grab your Bibles. Here's Pastor Brandon with this message. Let's move to now back in Genesis and our continued story with Joseph. And we are looking at the situation where Joseph is being sold into slavery and his own brothers are betraying him. And again, Joseph represents the ideal. And anytime people don't like the ideal, they hatch a plan and a scheme to get rid of the ideal. And so they're gonna get rid of Joseph by, they're thinking, well, we may kill him, or better yet, let's sell him in slavery so we don't have to kill him. And that's a fundamental principle in society, that when they don't like the ideal, they wanna get rid of that, whether that's free speech and the truth, or whether that's you and me, whether that's, you know, the guy who just got arrested for a telegram, you know, they don't like his free speech telegram, so you know what, we're gonna trump up charges, say he's a complicit, and all these activities are going on, on telegram and so we'll arrest him and put him in jail and it seems like they have bought Mark Zuckerberg off already because he's admitting his crocodile tears that yeah there were some interference last time and you know I'm sorry and that won't happen again but what that means is Mark Zuckerberg's already cut a deal with the government to so-called allow Facebook to have freedom of expression but it's really not. So what you're doing here is we're looking on a societal level to where our elites are betraying us. Okay? And they're betraying us at very high levels, right? You know, we've seen betrayals in the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service, State Department, Department of Justice. I mean, all the alphabets, soups of the federal government, we're seeing that. We see our own governor here in California betray us and, you know, do the most economically stupid things you could possibly imagine, which makes your life more difficult, because everything's more expensive for you, and they don't care. And so we're watching a betrayal happen to the American populace. We have people, especially the elites, that hate us. They hate our way of life, they hate Americana, they hate our values, which are Judeo-Christian, and they're trying to do a revolution without a fight by upending all of that. So, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty upset. I feel like I'm being betrayed. And unfortunately, I feel betrayed too by the church itself. And maybe you feel the same way because the churches are out to lunch on the whole cultural war. They're not even involved. I don't know what they're doing today. you know, tiptoeing through the tulips and messing around and saying how wonderful you are and you don't need to change, you're just good like you are and stay the same and that kind of motivational message is being preached but they don't say anything real, that's what's going on in the world and how you're supposed to deal with it. So I feel betrayed and when you're betrayed, you feel angry. Right? You feel angry. I get angry about this. You know, Kamala's dangerous dance with radical anti-Israel activists. We're very pro-Israel. We're trying to help them, but yet... These politicians are surrounding themselves with these radicals that hate Jews, wanna kill Jews. We're not talking about just, well, there's a little anti-Semitic. They're supporting October 7th, and yet these are the people they partner up with. And we've watched this over and over again, and I'm like, this election means so much to not only us, but to Israel. And I want to play you a clip of Glenn Beck, and he's talking about this, how serious of a matter this really is. Late last month, anti-Israel protest groups invaded Washington, D.C. to disrupt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official visit and speech to Congress. Among many other things, these gems of humanity ripped down the American flags, then burned them, and replaced them with Palestinian flags. They also dumped maggots and other bugs in the hotel where Netanyahu was staying. And among several examples of vandalizing federal property, they defaced the Columbus Memorial and fountain outside of Union Station, spray painting in big red letters, Hamas is coming. Yes, Hamas is indeed coming. But first, they're coming for the Democrats, and not in the sadistic way that Hamas is coming for Jews. They are coming for Democrats through countless intermediary support groups, because they know Democrats are most likely to give them what they want. Why? Work together to destroy Israel, capitalism, and the Western way of life. That's why. Despite all of their warm and fuzzy freedom talk at the DNC last week, Democrats are, and always have been, the haven for extremists in American politics. This is the party that played footsie with elite universities across the nation over the past year, as those universities encouraged and facilitated anti-Semitic student protests, encampments, and even the attempted takeover of administrative buildings. While there were major anti-Israel protests last week at the DNC in Chicago, the Chicago area has one of the largest Palestinian communities in the U.S., and thousands of activists poured in from all over the country. The destruction in Washington, D.C. last month was a preview. Many business owners in downtown Chicago boarded up their windows. They wanted no part of this. By day one of the DNC, the Hamas flag was out, just in case there's any doubt on whose side these protesters are on. And one of them had this to say to a Fox News reporter. Do you support Hamas? Every Palestinian supports Hamas, not just me. Every Palestinian supports Hamas. Do you support October 7th? Who? October 7th. October 7th? Yes, I do. What's wrong with October 7th? You tell me. Women and children came to murder. What is this bull****? Last Monday, protesters bashed their way through the perimeter fence outside the convention hall. On day two, protesters charged the police line outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago, and 72 people were arrested. Let's rush out into the streets of Chicago, waving Hamas flags. We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we Unlike the Vietnam War where people were ashamed of their nation, these people don't claim America as their nation. True. And yet they want to live here. But they hate us, and they hate the Jews, and they hate the Christians. Why are they here? Oh, it's called the takeover. That's what it's called. And that's a betrayal. So we're being betrayed at the highest levels in our government, and it's happening all over the West. I'll talk a little bit more in a little bit later on that, but let's go down to a personal level about betrayal itself. Betrayal is like one of the hardest things to deal with. As you can see, probably those kinds of images that you saw with these radicals that hate us incites hatred, incites anger, incites frustration, incites people, right? But then when it happens on a personal level, on a one-to-one level, someone you know and someone that you love and someone that you care about, it is like the lowest form of hurt you could possibly have. It's the most grievous hurt you can have when someone stabs you in the back that's supposed to love you. And that could be a parent, that could be a sibling, that could be somebody that was supposed to love you and be your friend or be your, you know, whatever family relationship. and they do that to you, it's devastating to the individual. It's absolutely devastating. The individual, when I counsel them, they struggle with trust the rest of their life. They can't trust the person, even if the person repents, even if the person asks for forgiveness, they really can't trust the person 100% anymore. That trust level's broken. Because the person who did it to them violated their openness to them. When we have relationships with people, we open ourselves up, and then when someone takes a dagger and uses that openness against us, that person will then close up. And then what starts happening in the cognitive abilities, the person's perception of reality starts getting distorted. They start not trusting anybody, right? There's almost a paranoia that starts developing in them when someone's been burned really bad. I've talked to people that have been burned by churches and churches really, did them wrong, dude, they never darken the door again of church at all. They will never come back because some stupid pastor was an idiot to them or something like that. But it disorients them to the past because when they look at this person, that relationship with that person, they're like, wait a second, I thought we loved each other. I thought we were on the same team. And so you really weren't on my team. Apparently you were playing a game because no one that was real would ever have done that to me. So it distorts their past, it distorts their future because they're like, well, who do I trust now? Creates a lot of inward chaos. Their self-worth is destroyed because how could someone do this to me? There must be something wrong with me for them to do that. Maybe I'm not pretty enough, maybe I'm not handsome enough, maybe I'm not smart enough. All kinds of weird stuff start happening. And of course, it's damaged the best part of the person and the best part of you really is the ability to trust other people. It's devastating, no doubt about it on a personal level. And if you've ever been betrayed, you know what I'm talking about. You know what you have felt, I know what I've felt. But what I wanna do then is I'm gonna show you the betrayal of Joseph by his own brothers, okay? And then I'm gonna segue to the typology that points forward to Messiah being betrayed by Israel. And the two go hand in hand. And the answer of how to handle betrayal is found in the story. So as I go through the story, I will point those things out as we go because It's a very difficult thing. When I counsel with people who have been betrayed, they are damaged. They are severely damaged because of what that person did to them. So I wanna show you how you can get some healing from that. How you can recover from that. You may not ever be 100%. Look, it is what it is, man. But maybe you can get to 80%. Maybe you can get to 85%. Maybe to 90%. but 100% probably won't happen because of the damage being done. Let's go to Joseph. So it came to pass when Joseph had come to his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. Obviously, we already, we studied this, and this is refreshing our mind. Joseph represents the ideal God, and his own dad has picked him out to be the leader of Israel, and the brothers are jealous of that and envious of that, and so, They're trying to find a way to get rid of him because of that. So they stripped him of his tunic. We talked about that. They stripped Jesus of his tunic, got the cross. There's a lot of parallels here. And then they took him and cast him into a pit. We talked about... that this pit was empty, there was no water in it, so basically a cistern. The same thing that happened to Joseph happened to Jesus. He was put into a pit, according to Psalm 88, and the pit was in a jail cell under Caiaphas's house the night of his arrest. And so it's a lot of parallels between Joseph and Jesus. So both were put in a pit. So here's what I want, the first thing that comes right out of the box. So these brothers who are supposed to love their brother, put him in a pit, and they're thinking about killing him, okay? And what's the next thing they do? They sit down and eat a meal. What is that, psychopathic behavior? Is that a sociopathic behavior? Yes, it is. That's exactly what you're seeing. What kind of psychopath puts someone in a pit, destined them to die, and then goes and sits and have a meal? The same psychopath that goes into an Israeli kibbutzim and throws a grenade inside one of the buildings of a Jewish family, and the father jumps on the grenade and becomes a sacrifice to protect his kids as he jumps on the grenade, and the grenade blows him up, and the kids are still alive, and they've seen their father blow up in front of them. They're walking around crying, disheveled, and the guy who threw the grenade goes to their refrigerator and starts eating. That's what I'm talking about. This psychopathic mentality, and I'm going to tell you right now, the psychopathic mentality is being bred and born into the United States. How so? When you can convince people psychologically to believe the absurd, and you can get them to think that a man can have a baby, okay? When you get them to believe the absurd, or the absurd that Hamas is the good guy and Israel is the bad guy, when you can convince someone of that, you're back to Nazi Germany and you can have those same people commit atrocities, and they will for you. That's what's happening in America. It's a repeat of Nazi Germany, and it's not just Americans all over the place. This is psychopathic behavior. Interesting enough, Genesis 42, 21, later on down the story, they relate that they saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us and we would not hear. So they're sitting there eating a meal, and he's pleading, let me go, let me go, let me free, and they just ignore him while they keep eating. That's psychopathic. This is what happens to people when the ideal confronts them, and they don't like the ideal, whether that's traditional marriage between a man and a woman, whether that's traditional sex inside the bounds of marriage. If you push the ideal on people, they will become so psychopathic, they will go after you. And they can even eat a meal while they went after you. Then they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with camels bearing spices, bombs, and myrrh on their way to carry them down to Egypt. So Judah said to his brothers, what profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? So I mean, who's thinking about killing their own brother? Wow, come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites. Well, thank God you're not gonna kill him, but they're gonna sell him into slavery. And let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother in our flesh. Well, there's some decency left in their psychopathic thinking, at least. And his brothers listened. The Midianite traders passed by, and so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. That's the price of a slave at that time. And they took Joseph to Egypt. So they sold them off. This is their own brother. Imagine your own siblings doing that. Well, some of you could raise your hand and say, yep, my brother and sister would do that to me. That's the kind of psychopaths I have in my family. Or maybe your mom and dad are psychopathic. Who knows? Maybe it's your own adult children that are psychopathic, right? That they would have no problem doing this, and no problem stabbing you in the back, okay? That didn't happen overnight. But anyway, I want to again focus in, what are they doing here? So here's a typology between Joseph and Jesus. Both are sold as a slave. Joseph for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus is sold for 30 pieces of silver. 30 pieces of silver comes from Exodus 21, which is the price of a slave. So Israel considered Jesus and his ministry not worthy than any more than the price of a slave, okay? Both were betrayed, no doubt about that, and both groups believed they had nullified the prophecy by their actions ultimately fulfilled the prophecy. So again, the prophecy with Joseph is he's gonna lead Israel. So they tried to nullify that, even though that was coming down from God. You go to the religious leaders with Jesus, and what did they try to do? Nullify the prophecies about him, that we will not have this man to rule over us. So they tried to stop that. But in trying to stop it, They ended up fulfilling it. And this is what I want you to take away, as far as this application of what happens if you're betrayed. The very act of betrayal, because God is so powerful, can be used to fulfill His mission for your life. You have to see it. That's the first thing in your coping mechanism that is this, that God can bring good out of this and actually create in me a stronger character and a stronger relationship with Him and a stronger spirituality with Him if I will trust Him in this. That's the key. Okay, that's the idea. So what Joseph is doing and Jesus are doing are submitting to that principle and that's why they're not retaliating. That's why they're not fighting back. That's why they're allowing it to happen. Right? Because they know it will fulfill God's plan. Now, I'm not out here telling you not to defend yourself. I'm not saying that. Someone comes in your house and you need to defend yourself. Someone's attacking your family, you need to defend yourself. I'm talking about they trusted that once the betrayal has happened, they trusted that God would make good out of that. That's the idea. Okay? That's the road to healing right there. If you can keep that concept. Now there's more there and I'll show it to you in just a bit. Now here's verse 29. So Reuben, and he's been toying with the idea, well we shouldn't kill him. He's trying to back them off. He's still part of the problem. But Reuben returned to the pit, and indeed Joseph was not in the pit, and he tore his clothes, and he returned to his brothers and said, the lad is no more, and where shall I go? So Reuben represents the person that is going along with the crowd, and then he has somewhat of a conviction, and he says, no, we shouldn't do that. And so Reuben had planned that if they put him in the pit, he would come back and get him out of the pit and save him. So Reuben is not fully psychopathic, thank God. But what's Moses trying to say here? He's saying, look, Reuben goes back and the idea is to go get him out, but the problem is he's already been sold. You know what Reuben represents? He represents people waiting too long to act. He represents people saying, well, I'll get to that tomorrow, procrastinating their action of dealing with evil. And because he procrastinated, the deal was already set. They sold Joseph out. It's too late, Reuben. It's too late. And it's kind of what my clarion call to America or the clarion call to the church here in America If you don't act anytime soon, this whole thing is going to get away from you. Before you know it, you will be ran by a totalitarian regime. And people will say, well, I don't like it. Well, yeah, you know what? Five years ago, you should have done something about it. You should have pushed back. But you sat on your hands and pretended, well, it'll go away. Just let it pass. And it didn't. That's Reuben. Reuben is a picture of passivity. He's a picture of those who sit on their hands and watch the drama play out and think that someone else will get involved. They won't. If you don't see anyone get involved, that means you must get involved. You must push back. You must say, no, not on my watch, okay? And again, I'm not calling for revolt and take up and up arms or anything like that or a civil war, even though one is brewing already. I'm saying you have to start saying stuff. You have to say that's a lie. This is the truth of things about whether it's Israel or what's going on with Kamala Harris or Biden or whoever you're having to deal with. Don't be afraid to tell people the truth. If it offends them, it offends them. Don't be Reuben. So they took Joseph's tuna, killed the kid of goats. That's interesting. They killed a goat. Huh. I think I read somewhere where they deceive somebody with goat skin and a stew of goat and dip the tunic in blood. So they're gonna deceive their father. This is how they're gonna cover it up. They're gonna deceive their father by killing a goat, taking the blood, and putting it on Joseph's coat to deceive the father, Jacob. Does that sound familiar? A goat? Get to that. Then they sent the tunic of many colors and they brought it to their father. Wait a second, how come they didn't go? How come they themselves didn't go? How come they sent their little envoys? Why didn't they go? Because you know why? They're cowards. They're murderous cowards. You come and tell dad the lie. Sit there and lie straight to dad's face and tell him what you did. But no, no, liars are cowards. And so they hide behind other things, right? These people in politicians, they're a bunch of cowards and liars. They never sin themselves. It's just like this. Hey, Kamala, you gonna check out the border? Well, I've never been to Europe. What kind of response is that? You've never been to, well, I'll send my envoys over there and they'll do it for me. No, no, you need to go. You need to see what's going on at the border. Don't deflect and say, well, I've never been to Europe. Well, I've never been to Timbuktu. I've never been to Saskatchewan. Whatever, I've never been there. What does that have to do with the border? You get what I'm saying? It's the same mentality, guys. And then it says this, we have found this. Do you know whether it is your son's tunic or not? Excuse me, why are you distancing yourself from Joseph? Why did you say your son? Why didn't you say, is this Joseph's tunic or not? Do you know something? They hate him so bad. They hate him so bad, they won't even use his name. That's the problem, your son, not our brother, your son. That sounds eerily familiar. It should, because the religious leaders wouldn't use Jesus's name. They would say that man, this one. They would never use his name. That's a derision. But let me go back to Jacob real quick. The Bible says this, do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. What you had just seen with Jacob is getting a taste of what he dished out. When he deceived his own father Isaac, what did he do with goats? First of all, he had his mom, who was a schemer with him, make a goat stew. pretending that this was some type of wild game so he could pretend he was Esau. And oh, he went one more step, didn't he? He put on the skin of a goat that was hairy so that when his dad felt around, because his dad was blind, he would feel a hairy man and pretend he was Esau using a goat. And yet his own sons give him a taste of his own medicine by tricking him with a goat. and using the blood of a goat to deceive him. Oh, dude, ironic judgment works. It may be slow, and I will say this, the wheels of judgment grind slow, but they grind fine. And when it happens, it happens, and you're deceived, Jacob, just the same way you deceived your own father. Mm. So both were lied about, both involved in a cover-up of what happened to them, and both of them were not named by their brethren. So interesting, to this very day, to this very day, if you go to the Hasidic, the ultra-Orthodox, the Orthodox in Israel, they refuse to name the name of Jesus. They won't use his name. So I used to get these publications from Israel in my glory, And they would have these articles with Zvi Kalisher, he was a Messianic Jew, and he would go and debate these guys, these ultra-Orthodox guys, and he would just wrap them in a theological pretzel they couldn't get out because they didn't know the scripture. All they knew was the Talmud and the Mishnah, but they didn't know the scriptures. So Zvi would just take them to task. But when he talked to them, they would always say, we spoke about this man. This man, they would never name him, right? They would never name him. To this day, they won't name him in Orthodox religion. Isn't that weird? It's the same thing in the first century. One day they will though. And he recognized it and said, it is my son's tunic, a wild beast has devoured. You're partly right, Jacob, because your kids who are psychopathic are like beasts. So there's an idea of them acting like an animal because they're so psychopathic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt, Joseph is torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. And all of his sons and his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, for I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning. Thus his father wept for him. When someone is lied to like that and betrayed, They don't care who it affects. They eat a meal, right? And they don't care that they put their father in perpetual depression for the rest of his life until he sees Joseph again. He'll mourn and wail and weep. Psychopaths don't care. They don't care that you're paying more money. They don't care. They don't care what you say. They're going to do it. And that's the idea of seeing his brothers like seeing our political elite. They don't care if you're suffering. They don't care that your gas bill's going higher. They don't care that your electricity's going higher. They don't care. So what? You're the peasants. You're the little peons. If you die, you die. We need to depopulate the planet anyway. It's that kind of their mentality here, man. Now, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard. And so he'll go into Egypt. Things will even get worse for Joseph, okay, in this betrayal. So it doesn't get any better, it gets worse. Now, a couple of typologies, and I'm gonna shift to the Messiah. Both Joseph and Jesus are taken into Egypt. You remember when Jesus was taken into Egypt? when he was a baby, right? Angel Gabriel warned Joseph in a dream, Herod seeks to kill the life of the child, get them into Egypt, and they went into Egypt. How long did they stay in Egypt? Two years. Where did they get the money to stay for two years without having to work? The Magi, thank you. The Magi is the one who paid the foot, the bill, because they came with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So Mary and Joseph used that to go into Egypt to travel and to sing themselves for two years based on the frankincense, gold, and myrrh that they used. And then they came back by the dream, okay? So both were in the Egypt. There was weeping around them which the mourner said had refused to comfort. So Jacob is refusing to be comforted. There's another scene when Herod sends out the party to kill all the babies under two in Bethlehem, where Matthew will record that Rachel weeping for her children because they are no more refusing to be comforted. He's quoting a passage, but again, there's another scene where people are refusing to be comforted based on the tragedy. There was a tearing of the clothes, right? And so Jacob tears his clothes. Someone else tore their clothes when Jesus said, and you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of glory. What did the high priest do? Tear his clothes. You have tearing clothes in Joseph, tearing clothes with Jesus. And that was illegal for the high priest to tear his clothes. Jesus did not commit blasphemy and the high priest was not allowed to tear his clothes. The perpetrators are inferred to as beast based on their cruelty. So there's an insinuation that Moses is putting in the text that they're a wild beast killed them. And then before that, there's other references to them acting like animals. And that's what you have to understand. When someone gets to that level to where they have to take out the ideal, they will turn into an animal type of creature like the rioters you see going through our streets protesting Israel or Antifa or whatever, and they become animal-like, don't they? Or what you're seeing in Europe, and they become animal-like, right? The Muslim groups going through London, going through Paris, going through all the Europe, you know, just going crazy. That's what I'm talking about. It's animal-like. Okay, well, how did the animal-like happen around Jesus? Well, you don't see it in the Gospels, but you see it in Psalm 22. In Psalm 22, Jesus actually quotes it. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When he said that on the cross. But when he does that, that's a rabbinical way of referring to the entire psalm. And when you read the entire psalm, interesting enough, it refers to animal-like creatures being around the cross. Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They gape at me with their mouths like a raging and roaring lion." Let's talk about that first of all. When Psalm 22 refers to bulls or the great bulls of Bashan surrounding Jesus, it is a reference to fallen angels and demons that are surrounding the cross while he's on the cross. So it's not just human beings around the cross, it's these other creatures, these spirit creatures, these demons and fallen angels that are all encircling him because the strong bulls of Bashan is where the center of demonic activity happened outside of Mount Hermon. In that area was high demonic activity. And so the bulls of Bashan is a metaphor for demonic activity. So there's tons of demonic activity encircling Christ while he's on the cross. taunting him, okay? Then he says, for dogs have surrounded me, the congregation of the wicked have enclosed me. So in the parallelism, the congregation of the wicked, these wicked people have done this to me, he's relating to them as dogs. The psalmist is saying they're acting like animal, dogs, wild raging dogs, not like a pet dog, but a scavenger raging dog that's hungry, a mongrel. And so the psalmist is also relating that the beast activity that's happening to Joseph is what happened around Jesus. They acted like animals around him. They just went into a mob frenzy is the idea. But before we go further, let's deal with the principle then. So human rebellion of God's will, whether it's Joseph's brothers or the religious leaders with Jesus or it's people betraying you, okay, will only serve to improve God's glory because God will use what they're doing as part of his plan to bring about good. Joseph said it himself. You meant it for evil, God meant it for good. They're going to put to death a Messiah And God knows this, it's foretold, but God is gonna orchestrate this perfectly according to his plan, and you're gonna see in Jesus him completely in control of when and where and how they kill him. He's in full control of the whole situation, and I'll show you in a bit. And that right there is what you need to take when you've been betrayed to realize he's in full control of the situation. even though it's bad, it's awful, what's happened to you, being betrayed, no doubt about that, but to get you back on track is to realize, wait a second, there's someone else that's super intervening into the situation, and that is God. Okay. So let's go to the worst betrayal of human history. Because you can't get more deeper than this kind of betrayal. Because the betrayal of the Messiah is betraying God Himself. is betraying the Alpha and the Omega. It's betraying an innocent party, a truly innocent party, 100% pure, without sin. So the betrayal is that much deeper than ours. It is actually an eternal betrayal. That's what it is, an eternal betrayal of God himself because Jesus is eternal. So one of the healing aspects in all of us that have been betrayed is to realize our own God has been betrayed. Then he has felt this kind of pain at an infinite level more than you and I could feel, but that alone helps us theologically. So what you don't need sometimes is someone to, when you've been betrayed, someone give you some type of theological treaties. All you need to hear is our own God, our own Savior was betrayed too and knows your pain. That right there actually brings healing to people, to know that our God can relate to us, that he can cry with us and feel our emotions and our pain when we betray. That actually is very, very healing to people. We don't have a distant God that can't relate to us. But let's go through this. Let's understand the depths of this type of betrayal so that we can relate to ourselves and how to be healing, get healing from it. So Judas, obviously you need a betrayer. So Judas is needed for three things because the religious leaders want to kill him. Already, early on, they wanted to kill him. So first of all, we need somebody. that can locate him when he's away from the multitudes because there's too many people around him. If we try to arrest him when the multitude's around him, the multitudes will fight against us. We don't have enough guards to take him because there's thousands upon thousands upon thousands around him. So there's no way we can take him. We gotta get him when he's alone. Okay, so Judas becomes the right guy to figure out when Messiah's gonna be alone. Two, they need Judas to accuse him civilly so that he can be arrested. So what you end up having is Judas apparently meets with Pilate that night, the night of the arrest. That's the only reason he shows up with a cohort. And that's the term in the Greek, he shows up with a cohort. A cohort is a Roman cohort. It's not a Jewish cohort, it's a Roman cohort. And it could include maybe up to 200 to 600 soldiers. I mean, I think that's a little overkill, don't you think? 600 soldiers to arrest Jesus? It's a little overkill. But anyway, not only does a cohort come, but the religious leaders come, which is forbidden for them. They break the Mishnah laws by doing that. And then furthermore, the temple guard is with them as well. Wow, you must be really afraid of this guy. You're bringing everybody. But anyway, they need Judas to accuse him in order to get a cohort. Well, apparently he does. So at some point in the night, Judas was taken to Pilate and made a formal accusation against Jesus, and it had to be a formal accusation that would get him civilly in trouble. It couldn't be a religious accusation where he claims to be God. They would have just said, get out of here. Judas had to make the claim, just like the religious leaders did, he claims to be king, which is a rival to Caesar. This is sedition. So Pilate allows the cohort to go with Judas and that's what goes to arrest Jesus. Okay, so we know that happened. And number three, they need, once he's brought before Pilate, they need Judas to be a testifying witness against Jesus that he's a seditionist against Caesar. Okay, here's the problem though. Between number two and number three, Judas will commit suicide. So they don't ever get a witness from him in front of Pilate. So Pilate, because he doesn't have a witness, what does Pilate do? He actually brings in Jesus and questions him himself. Remember that? So you can see all the dynamics. So again, so I'm delving into this whole thing. I'm gonna show you something very important for us. So let's go to the actual betrayer and I want you to see that Jesus is in full control of the betraying. And if he's in control of his betraying, that means he's in control of your betraying. He answered and said, he who dipped his hand with me in the dish will betray me. The son of man indeed goes just as it is written of him. But woe to that man to whom the son of man is betrayed. It would have been good for him, that that man, if he had not been born. That's saying a lot. You betray God. What God is saying, it would have been better if I never had created you. Because you will be so in torment in the lake of fire because of what you did. You betrayed innocent blood. And not just human blood, but divine. You handed over God to the enemies. It would have been better if you had never been born. It's speaking to the justice of things, okay? When people betray you, justice is coming. So hang on. Then Judas, who was betraying him, answered and said, Rabbi, is it I? And he said to him, you have said it. It is you, Judas, and I know it. So what Messiah is saying is I know who you are, I know what you've been doing, I've known you all the whole time. And then later on he says, what you plan to do, do it quickly. He's in full control of the situation. He actually wants to be arrested on Passover. They don't want to arrest him on Passover. Do you know why? They can't have a trial during Passover. It will disrupt everything. They can't do the morning sacrifice. The high priest definitely can't if they start a trial going on and they can't have a trial during Passover. They would have to wait. They would arrest Jesus if they had their way, arrest Jesus and wait till all the holidays are over and then deal with him. But he's forcing their hand. So when he tells Judas, do what you need to do right now, he sends them on his way. And then Satan errors Judas at that time. Again, showing full control of the betrayal. Then one of the 12, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, what are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you? And they counted out 30 pieces of silver. Again, according to Exodus, that's the price of a slave. So from that time, he sought an opportunity to betray him. So what Judas is looking for is a time when Jesus will be by himself, or at least with the 12 disciples, and not the crowds around him. So this, by the way, I want to point something out. There are about 22 Sanhedrin laws, or Mishnaic laws, that are violated during the trial. And it's a kangaroo court, it shouldn't have ever happened. You can't have a trial at night, you have to have all the guys there, and they didn't. So the first thing they violated, according to Mishnaic law, was that there was to be no arrest by religious authorities that was affected by a bribe. And that's the first thing out of the box they violated. But what's my point of showing you that? It's not that you can know Mishnaic law, it's to show you the same principle. When people want to get rid of the ideal Judeo-Christian ethics and morality, or they want to get rid of the West, or they want to get rid of Christianity, they will do it in a lawless way. They don't care what the law says. They don't care what the constitution says. They don't even care what the Bible says. They will do it anyway. And that's what these creeps are doing. Again, just to show you, again, let's make an application to the world of what's happening around us. What is happening now, if you haven't picked up on this, is a double standard in our legal system. The double standards here, some people get prosecuted and criminals don't. In Europe, they're in almost riot, well, they are in riot mode. They're almost in a civil war because they've let so many Muslims come into their country and it's causing a cultural revolution with Islam and they're clashing. But here's the thing, the double standard is that if you say anything about the Muslims, you say anything about this immigration, you're a racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic. and yet you get arrested as some type of Nazi skinhead, that's what they say about you, but the Muslim doesn't ever get prosecuted. And there's gangs of Muslims roaming the streets, raping women, trashing the place, going crazy. Police won't do anything about it. That's what I'm talking about. Listen to Tommy speak on Jordan Peterson's interview. What's Tommy's last name? I forgot it. Robinson, thank you. Tommy Robinson. Explain what's happening in Europe. Again, as an example of no one's obeying the law anymore. And what you will witness now in the last two weeks is what I've known. They have weaponized the judiciary. Within seven days, some people were arrested and some people committed a crime. And within two or three days, it was televised to the British public as they were sent to prison for years for things they'd said on Facebook. What this has been an attempt to do is to scare the British public, intimidate them into silence. The reason being, we are on the verge of a cultural revolution in Great Britain. The problem they have They can't stop people viewing or restrict the comments on X because they don't have control of Elon Musk. That is why they're upset with Elon Musk. It's why Elon Musk is now being called a danger to our country. It's why he's now being labelled as far right, as an extremist. All the same labelling they give to us is now what he faces because they don't have control. They were issues that bring about the failures of open border mass immigration, the effect it has on society, and the reality of living in a town that they've flooded with people of all different cultures. So what's failed? If we want to admit what's failed, Sikhism hasn't failed to integrate or assimilate into British society. The Jews haven't failed. Solutions haven't failed. Everyone else, they haven't failed. What's failed, and I just speak about my experience from growing up in Luton, not every Muslim, okay? I'm not saying every Muslim. Some of the best people I've met growing up are Muslim. Some of the people I love and still have relationships are Muslim. And I challenge any journalist, any journalist, you walk through the town and you try and find me Muslims or non-Muslims, you won't find them. You'll have the Muslims and the non-Muslims. Now, we didn't create that. We can't be, on our school, it was the Muslim playground and the non-Muslim playground. So I grew up experiencing this. I experienced the separation, the segregation, the zero assimilation. And I knew something was very, very different. So I took the Quran and thought, right, let's look at this. And I opened it, and I challenged any of you to do this. And every time it says, do not be friends with Christians or Jews, just write the verse number. you will have pages and pages of verse numbers. So then what you have is children being brought up. And if I brought my children up, and all of us as white people brought our children up, to do not be friends with black children, we would see hostility and violence sooner. And all of a sudden when I started dissecting this book, Everything I'd seen my entire life growing up made sense. Everything. And these Muslims are being brought up to believe this, to believe that this is the word of God, that this is what they want. That's why we don't have assimilation or integration. So when I talk about the problems, I've only ever spoke. I haven't spoke against immigration, which is why I'm under attack by people who are against total immigration. Currently, right now, I believe we need to end immigration. But the whole time I led the English Defence League, I said, no, I'm against Islamic immigration. and that's because you're mixing oil and water and it doesn't work and I can only speak from experience of what I've seen because we have within that Islamic within that confined Islamic community and we've had documentaries go down and speak to Muslims in Luton who said I've never met a non-Muslim I've never met one yeah they've grown up in Luton they've never met a non-Muslim so they're going to go through inward looking and within that community It's a problem anyway for integration and assimilation, but within that community, and again I bring on our last episode I spoke about al-Majridin. Al-Majridin are now a prescribed terrorist organisation, but they never were. And I tried to explain it to members of the Muslim community like this. You've got a close-knit Islamic community, and within that close-knit Islamic community there's a bunch of activists who who are active every day, 25 hours a day, seven days a week, this group are active. And they're teaching all the non-Muslims that they're teaching supremacy and violence against non-Muslims. Because within that community, that's what's happening. Al-Majroodin, 60% are terrorists, UK, Muslims on terrorism charges or in jail for terrorism are ex-members of this group. We've experienced something we never even understood. We had to learn about jihad before anyone knew what jihad was, because it was being taught. Jihad was being taught as part and parcel of the Islamic community within my town. So all of these problems, and that's not just that, there's so many problems that come from the community. The hostile view, the mainstream hostile view against women, especially non-Muslim women. Well those non-Muslim women are my daughter, they're my mum, and they're walking through the streets of Luton. And you've got a community that's promoting a negative view of women, but especially our women. And we look at the Quran, we might understand why, but unfortunately, as soon as you try and have that discussion, you're far right, you're racist, or you're extremist. And the people that are calling you that have no knowledge of Islam. They don't know anything like they're talking about. They don't know Muhammad's teachings. And you're not even allowed to talk about Muhammad's teachings. So again, he's making the point, look, there's a set of rules for one group and another set of rules on another and they're not being equally distributed in law and justice. And again, you have to ask yourself then this, why are European leaders violating their own laws for a particular group called Islam and not doing anything about them? You have to answer that question. It's the same answer that you get for that is the answer of why the religious leaders would violate their own laws to get Jesus killed, okay? It's the same answer. Then he came to his disciples and said to them, are you sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand. The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go, let's be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Now watch this very closely. And Judas who betrayed him also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas knows he typically goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and prays. That's where we can find him alone without the crowds, right? That's what the scripture's trying to tell you. Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops, there's the Spira, the Roman cohort, two to 600 Roman soldiers are accompanying Judas. So that means he already went to Pilate. This is why Pilate's dressed and ready to go at the trial early in the morning, because this is already going down during the night. And officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees came with the lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward, and what does that mean? He's controlling the situation. He's not out of control. God's in control. And said to them, whom are you seeking? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am he. And Judas who betrayed him also stood with him. Jesus is self-identifying himself to them. But remember, remember though, The deal that Judas worked out with them for 30 pieces of silver is that he would go and identify the Messiah by kissing him. But what did Jesus do? He didn't wait for that. I'm him. I'm him. What is he trying to do? What is he doing for Judas? I'm him. Now when he has said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell on the ground. And what happens is this is an instant flash of his deity. It's an instant flash of his deity. He's in full control. Don't you know, Peter, I can bring 12 legions of angels to defend myself? I don't need you picking up your sword. Because instantly he says, I am. And when he said I am, that harkens back to the burning bush. Who should I say is going, Moses said. I am that I am. When he says I am he, it's the ego aiming. It's the I am, it's the great I am. And immediately when he says it, a flash of divinity strikes them back. They fall to his feet because of that strike of divinity. Why is he doing that? To prove to you and I, he's in full control of the situation. Judas may think he's controlling things. The religious leaders may think they're controlling things. But he's saying, if I wanted to, I could show my deity and kill everybody here. I can call down 12 legions and kill everybody here. I'm actually allowing this to happen. I'm forcing their hand. I'm forcing it to happen. Interesting enough, there's a typology here, and I don't want you to miss this. You ready? I don't wanna lose you like a wet bar of soap in the shower, because here it comes. You ready? There's a cohort of Romans there, which means Rome is represented, okay? So not only the Jews falling down, but the Romans are falling down to his feet, because they're blown back by I Am. They're blown back. They're at his feet, okay? They have to get back up. It's a picture of the second coming. How so? Well, not only will the Jews bow a knee, because they will eventually accept Messiah, they will be on their knees, but the Roman government will be on their knees at the second coming. How so? Well, remember, the Roman government is in five phases. This is in the stage of the unified stage. It's now in the two-division stage. It will morph into the one-world government, then it will morph to the 10 kings, and then it will morph to an antichrist. So Rome is still with us. And at the end, Rome will be ran by the Antichrist. So at the second coming, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess and bow to the Shekinah glory of the Messiah, and Rome will be shattered, as Daniel predicted in Daniel chapter two, by the stone cut out without human hands. He will utterly shatter Rome, and they will all be at their feet, at his feet. That's what the picture of the Garden of Gethsemane is showing. In an instant, they will all hit the deck. He's in full control of the whole situation. Then he asked them again, whom are you seeking? And they said, Jesus and Nazareth. He's twice now. And yet the signal is Judas is supposed to kiss him. But what is Jesus doing for Judas? Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he, therefore if you seek me, let these go their way, that the same might be fulfilled which he spoke of those whom he gave me, I have lost none. So he's protecting the disciples from being arrested, right? Now his betrayer had given him a sign saying, whomever I kiss, he is the one, seize him. Let's stop right there. Between that verse, Luke inserts in verse 48, this saying to Judas personally. But Jesus said to him, Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss? This is before he kissed him. Judas is coming forward. Jesus has identified himself twice. And Judas is coming forward. Jesus knows he's gonna betray him with a kiss. And he says, Judas, you're gonna betray the Son of Man with a kiss? Stop! I've already identified myself, Judas. You don't need to do this. Stop. I'm already saying I'm Him. Arrest me. Don't arrest anyone else. What is He doing for Judas? He's protecting Judas. His own betrayer, He's protecting them. Don't do this. You don't have to. I'll identify myself. You don't need to do the kiss. I'll protect you from betraying the Son of Man. I want this to happen, Judas. He did that for Judas, his own betrayer. Oh, wow. Would you do that for your own betrayer? Would you prevent them from betraying? Don't do it, don't do it. And what does Judas do? Verse 49, jump back up to Matthew 20, immediately went up to Jesus, greetings rabbi, and kissed him. Kiss of death. at that point in time. And in the Greek, it says he kissed him vigorously. He kept kissing him, kept kissing him to identify him. Well, he'd already identified himself. Hold on. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the captains of the temple and the elders who had come to him, have you come out against the robber with swords and clubs when I was with you daily in the temple? You did not try to seize me, but this is your hour and the power of darkness. So now you're gonna do it under the cloak of darkness and deception, not in full light. That's exactly how your father, the devil works. But all of this was done that scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him and fled. So he, Judas went ahead and betrayed him, but then he got abandoned by his disciples. You understand those two things, betrayal and abandonment will crush the spirit of any human being. Absolutely brings them to their knees that they're abandoned and betrayed. It's like the worst thing you could do to an individual. And if you've been at the end of that, you know what I'm talking about, right? It's horrible to be abandoned, horrible to be betrayed. It's awful. But I wanna show you something. I wanna show you the justice of God. And you must understand this in order to process your own abandonment. You must understand this to process your own grief for the betrayal that happened to you. Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. Too late, this is not real repentance, he just feels guilty for what he did, okay? He got busted and got caught. And they said, what is that to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. So he commits suicide. The typology, you can see this in David's life, Ahithophel will betray David the same way Judas betrays Jesus and they both end up hanging. So Ahithophel is a typology for Judas. But anyway, so pay attention to this. This is extremely important if you wanna see the justice of God. But the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, it is not lawful to put them into the treasury. That's true, because they are the price of blood. That's true. And they consulted together and brought with them the potter's field to bury strangers therein. So they're gonna create a cemetery. And it's called the potter's field. And in a cemetery, they're gonna bury strangers there that can't afford graves or whatnot. They're gonna bury there. That's what they're gonna use the money for. Therefore, that field has been called the field of blood to this day, akeldama, because Judas is gonna end up there. Thus, then it was fulfilled, but spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, and they took the 30 pieces of silver and the value who was priced, and whom the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me. Now this is interesting. So Matthew's using a sod in his interpretation. He's combining Old Testament prophecies, Jeremiah's prophecies, and he's combining Zacharias' prophecies all together. It's called a sod interpretation. And so what he's doing is trying to make a point. with the very money that was given to Judas, Judas gave it back to them, they can't use it, they use that money to buy the potter's field, a Keldama. But you know what? The area that they bought, called the Keldama, or the potter's field, has a curse on it from God. Did you know that? Acts 1.18 talks about what happens to Judas's body. Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity. Now they didn't use, he was dead, but they used the wages in the name of Judas to buy this field, okay? Stay with me. So, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all of his entrails gushed out. And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem, so that the field is called in their own language, akeldama, that is the field of blood. Wait, I thought Judas hung himself. He did, he hung himself. But here's what you have to understand about purification in the city of Jerusalem. If you had a dead body in Jerusalem before the 9 o'clock Passover sacrifice, you had to get that body out of the city. And typically what they did is they took that dead body and they flew it over the wall of Jerusalem. So what happens is they see Judas hung himself. Judas is defiling. He is actually defiling Jerusalem by hanging their dead. So the religious leaders get his body and take him to an edge of the city, to a wall, and they throw his body over, and it goes down over, and when it hits, it busts in two, and his entrails all come out. But here's the thing, where did they throw his body? At Keldama, which is exactly what they used the money to buy the property for. Wait a second, there's something going on here. Now this is Zechariah 11, and they said to him, it is agreeable to you, give me my wages, if not, remain. So they weighed out my wages for 30 pieces of silver. Zechariah predicted that, that's what they would give Jesus, right? And the Lord said to me, throw it to the potter, that princely price that was set on me. So I took the 30 pieces of silver and I threw it into the house of the Lord for the potter, the potter's field, akeldama, where Judas is being thrown out. Here's a map. Here's what I want you to see. The curse of Jeremiah is on this area because Israel, in Jeremiah's day, was burning people alive for sacrifice there in the Valley of Hamnon, which you can see on the very Hamnon Valley, and then you see the Kidron Valley that comes. So where, you see where this Keldama is? This is Topeth. And that is the potter's field right there. It's on the very tip of David's city, Zion. That's where they threw Judas over the wall into this area. That's where they have bought the potter's field. This is where they will bury people, strangers on the land. You're like, so what? Let me add Jeremiah. Jeremiah, the reason why Matthew references Jeremiah is because Jeremiah has pronounced a curse on this field. That one day, there will be so many dead bodies, they will not have enough land in the potter's field to bury the inhabitants of Israel. Because they're going to do something. And what they're going to do is so grievous, it's gonna bring on the unpardonable sin or the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And they will try to bury their own people in this field, but there won't be any room there for it. So, When the religious leaders uses the money that Judas gave back to them, and they purchased the potter's field, they purchased Jeremiah's curse. And when they purchased Jeremiah's curse, it came as a result of the rejection of Jesus and the betrayal of Jesus by the religious leaders to where in 70 AD, Rome came in and killed 1,100,000 Jews destroyed the temple, and when they were burying the bodies according to Josephus, they ran out of room to bury people in the potter's field. And so what did they do? They just stacked them up high. And just as Jeremiah predicted, the birds ate their flesh because there was nowhere else to bury these people that had been slaughtered by the Roman legion. One million people killed. Now what am I going at? What is this whole thing with Judas and all this? It's this. Justice was served. You betray the Son of Man, Israel. then the unpardonable sin will come. You have bought the curse yourself. And it may not come, yes, tomorrow. It may not come in five years. It may not come in 20 years. But it came in 40 years. It came in 70 A.D. They had betrayed the Messiah in 30 A.D. In 40 years, the curse took its effect. And justice was served for the rejection of the Son of Man at the potter's field where Judas was buried, or thrown there. Where am I going with this? in whatever betrayal any of you have ever suffered, in any abandonment you have ever suffered, what God is promising you, which gives you hope, but you have to believe this, that justice will come to you one day. that he will make everything right. As I have demonstrated the justice for the rejection of the Messiah came to Israel. No doubt about that. You saw it. I just illustrated it to you. And Josephus noted it. So you take that principle and God's saying, you've ever been betrayed? You've ever been abandoned? Trust me and wait on me, and I will bring justice to your situation. It may not happen tomorrow, it may not happen next year, but if you just wait on me, it will happen, I guarantee it. But it requires faith. And I hope you can trust him for that. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, for what we can learn from the betrayal of Joseph and the betrayal of our Lord and Savior. Unbelievable. but it was perfect according to your plan. You turned evil into good, and you can do that for us, even though we have been betrayed and lied about or whatever, you can turn that for good. We trust that. We can trust that, Father. Increase our faith to believe that, Father. And Father, if there's anyone here, before we go, they have not come to faith in Messiah, they would believe on him today for everlasting life, that he died on a cross for their sins, was buried and rose on the third day, to give everlasting life to anyone who would just simply believe him. Speak now to our hearts as we go, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for joining us for another lesson. We hope that this message is a blessing for you and helps you grow towards a more mature understanding of God's Word. For more information about our ministry, we invite you to check out our website at rockharborchurch.net. Until next time, remember, keep looking up for our redemption draws near.