Thursday - Jesus Observes The Passover

All right, we are continuing on through our study of the life of Christ as you are well aware. If you're not aware of that, where have you been the last two years? Two and a half years anyway. It just turned into a much more lengthy study than I had anticipated. I really anticipated it to be a survey of the gospels. And once we got started, just could not just skip through great volumes of material but our Lord's life, it just didn't seem right. And so purposely changed the plan I had for Wednesday night so that we could just spend more time looking at the life of our Lord. And certainly that is a very fruitful and beneficial study. Anytime we can look at our Lord's life, there is much to be learned and much to be gleaned from Him. We are within hours of our Lord's death, where we are in the gospels now and where we are in His life story and His ministry. We are within 12 to 15 hours of our Lord being hung on the cross. And what amazes me is I think about that. And as we look and read and study what is happening with Christ and what He is doing and how He is approaching things. What amazes me is His absolute calmness, deliberateness. There is no anxiety, there is no panic at all. He demonstrates that He is totally in control of everything that is happening. He knows this is the Father's plan, we are going to see that in a number of ways this evening. And He is purposefully deliberately moving toward the completion of God's will for Him. And so that really does amaze me, it stands out to me, it just impresses me to no end about our Lord. That control over the events of what is happening around our Lord and all the things that are swirling around Him, His control of that is no better seen than in the Passover meal. That we have been looking at the last week and again tonight of four gospels cover this meal because it is so significant. We are in Mark's gospel, we will focus there but we will also spend some time in John's gospel and His explanation of this as well. But let's look at Mark chapter 14. We talked last week about the preparation for the Passover and again we see Jesus control and deliberate moving through the events of His life. Here at the end the great care taken for the preparation of this meal, the sending of the disciples in to Jerusalem, two of them to do exactly what He commanded them to do. And follow the detailed instructions He gave them about where to find the place where they would observe the Passover meal together. We know it as the upper room, it was a large room in the upper level of a home there in the city of Jerusalem. And the detailed instructions our Lord gives indicates that there is wise careful, forethought and planning in this whole thing. We saw that the reasons for that probably were to keep it hidden from Judas because Judas has already gone to the scribes, the chief priests and offered to betray Jesus. And He is going to look for an opportunity. Now remember that they do not want to arrest Him publicly because they are afraid of the crowds. They are looking for a way to arrest Him in secret. Judas offers to provide that. So there would be no better place than the upper room to do that, wherever they are going to be for the Passover meal. I think Jesus purposefully sent only two of the disciples in and this was kind of a covert operation. Remember they were instructed to find the man carrying a water pot and he would leave them to the place. This was kind of a cloaked agar type thing. And I believe the purpose was to keep it hidden from Judas because this was the most important meal that Jesus would ever observe with His disciples. This will be the meal that cannot be interrupted by an arrest or anything like that. This is the most important meal Jesus will have with them because of what He will do that evening. So we saw the preparation for the Passover. Then we saw last week or at least we began this part in verse 17, the awareness of a traitor. Jesus begins the meal. They are into the meal. We described a little bit about what the Passover meal would be like last week. They are into that meal and all of a sudden there is a shocking revelation. A revelation that something that Jesus drops on the disciples that they cannot believe, they can't even wrap their minds around it. Let's look again at verse 17. When evening came Jesus arrived with the twelve while they were reclining at the table eating. He said, truly I tell you one of you will betray me. One who is eating with me. Now that is the bombshell. That is the shocking revelation. One of you is going to betray me. And then Jesus appauses and almost for effect. And they would recognize this. He quotes Psalm 41 9 or refers to it at least. We looked at this verse last week. Even my close friend someone I trusted, one who shared my bread has turned against me. One of you, Jesus says, will betray me. One of you that I am eating with. One that I am sharing my bread with. That was in Psalm 41 a Psalm referring to David's chief counselor, a hithafel. A hithafel was David's closest counselor and advisor when he was king. But when Absalom his son betrayed him by sitting at the city gate, remember the story. There is too much there. But he betrayed him and kind of stole away the hearts of the people of Israel from David. And a hithafel capitulated over to Absalom and became his advisor. And there is an interesting story of intrigue there. David has another friend who becomes kind of a covert spy called Hushai. He is also in Absalom's court but he is actually trying to help David. It is a fascinating story when you read it. But a hithafel is the reference in Psalm 41. A hithafel was bold in his betrayal of King David. Judas will be bold in his betrayal of the son of David, the one who will rule on David's throne. Christ. So there is a very close parallel there. But notice how the disciples respond. First 19 says they were saddened and one by one they said to him, surely you don't mean me. All 12 of them, one by one, they are shocked at this statement. They cannot believe that one of them would be a traitor which tells you what. What does that tell you? They had no idea. Judas was a traitor. So Judas has been putting on a pretty good act and we are going to see that reference again in the story in John's Gospel. But they had no clue. In fact, they are questioning themselves. They are wondering, Lord is it me? You are not saying I would do that. Would you? Or are you? Now they are completely dumbfounded this. And so this really is a shocking revelation. Let's go ahead and finish this before we jump to John in verse 20. It is one of the 12 he replied, one who dips bread into the bowl with me. Now there again is a reference to a traitor being one who is a close friend because in the Passover meal everybody dipped bread in the bowl. And they were all sharing that. So it is not like at least at this point Jesus is identifying one person. What he is saying here basically is this is someone who is close. Someone who is a friend. Someone who is sharing this meal with me who is dipping bread with me in this bowl of stewed fruit which was what they would use to dip the bread in in the Passover meal. So it is the friend. It is someone close. It is one of you. One of you who is here with me dipping bread in the same bowl as I am. Verse 21, the Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. In other words, everything is going to happen to me in these next few hours has been prophesied in the Old Testament. It has already been written. And I am going to fulfill that. But, woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man. It would be better for him if he had not been born. This is kind of a back door way of understanding this but there is a beautiful balance here between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Everything is going to happen to Jesus. It has already been foretold that it is in God's plan. It is in God's sovereign plan. It cannot be changed. It will move according to God's purpose and plan. But Judas bears responsibility for his part in that plan. Jesus says, woe to the one who betrays me. It would be better for him if he had never been born. In other words, he is not just a pawn being moved by God against his will. He willingly, with his own responsibility, chose to betray Christ and he is held responsible for that. It is kind of an illustration of the whole difficulty of the meshing between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. And those two are always in tension in the Scriptures. I love what C.H. Spurgeon often said about that. There are two rails of the railroad track. Try to bring them together. You will wreck the train. Just let them be parallel. And he would often say, somewhere out in the horizon, you can see them come together. When we get to heaven, we will understand how they fit. But if you try to logically figure all that out, you run into Ditch on one side or the other. So, you know, they are in tension. They are designed to be in tension. I don't understand them. Nobody else does either. And some people say they do. And we have got it all figured out. And we have got the mind of God figured out to the tee. Well, that is not possible. But here is a beautiful example of it. How can those two fit together? I don't know, but they do. They do. It is all happening in God's sovereign plan. But Judas is responsible for his part and will be judged for what he did. So, just kind of an example of that. Now, what I want us to do is jump to John 13. Any questions while we turn there? Questions or comments? Did Judas have done anything up to this point? Is there any indication of these about God? Not to anyone else, evidently. No one else understood it among the disciples. Jesus knew it. He had done some things, but evidently nobody knew it. And we know two things that the Scriptures have already told us he has done. First of all, remember in John 12, when Mary annoyed at Jesus, Judas is identified as the one who has been stealing from the treasury. So, he had been doing that, but evidently nobody knew it. Nobody knew it except Jesus. And he also had already made an agreement with the chief priest to betray Christ. Nobody else knew that either except Jesus. So, everything he's done as far as we know, he has already demonstrated the wickedness of his heart. Just nobody knows about it yet. Nobody has discovered it. Okay, good question, John. Any others? So, is he condemned from birth to do this? Question was, was he condemned from birth to do this? Not in the sense that he was not responsible. Again, there's the tension. He was in God's plan the one who would betray Jesus. But he did not do so unwillingly. It's not like God pushed him into it. He chose to do it. Pardon me? Was that his purpose? I guess you can say that. Yeah. Looking at it strictly from the sovereignty of God, yes, that was his purpose. Did God create him so that he would do that as a puppet or a pawn with no feeling or active involvement on Judas' part? No. And that's where you have to be careful with this whole thing of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Once you start gravitating either direction and shunning the other one, you are going to run yourself into the ditch. I've seen it happen a thousand times. Yes, Amanda? Yeah, we're going to get there in just a minute. No, no, you're thinking ahead, which is great. There are a lot of factors here. There is Judas' will. There is the divine sovereign plan of God into which he fits. And there is also the power of Satan. Satan will actually indwell him and motivate him at that moment to reject an overture by Jesus. Okay, and that's what we'll get to that in just a minute. Pardon me? It was Judas' choice. And it was God's divine plan, too. Do you have a... Do you support the offer to God that God gives you that thing in the same divine? Yes, he could have. But if he had, we would look back on it and say that wasn't God's plan, because none of us knows God's plan ahead of time. Not his sovereign plan. There are two ways that the Bible were getting into a lot of stuff here, and that's great. But there are two ways the Bible uses the term will of God. One is of God's sovereign purpose that will never change. God has established that from eternity past. Everything in the universe that happens is already planned out by God. But none of us can know that ahead of time. No where in the Bible does it indicate we know God's sovereign will ahead of time. The second way the term will of God is used in the Bible is of God's moral will, which is his desire communicated to us in the Word of God. What he wants us to do, and that's obedience to his commands and so forth. We can know ahead of time what that is by reading the Word. Only by looking back at what has happened do we know his sovereign will. So when we start asking questions about could Judas have changed God's sovereign will? No, Judas could have changed the direction he took, yes. Because that's part of being moral beings created in the image of God. We do have choices. And if you back away from that and say no he couldn't have, then you've automatically locked us into automatons. We do not have any choice or will. And say so God's sovereign will is only seeing looking back on it. If Judas had made a different choice and gone a different way and Jesus reaches out to him. There's so much I want to get into here. Let me back up. Let me just stick with this. God's sovereign will is determined from eternity past and it will be done. If Judas had taken a different direction, then we would looking back know that that was not God's sovereign will. It's not that it would have changed. It's not that Judas would have changed God's sovereign will. It's that Judas would have been in plan with God's will. It's just different than what we know actually happened. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. No, that's not enough. That's not enough. It's not that God just knows what's going to happen. So he makes his decisions based on what we're going to do. That puts humans in the driver's seat. The reason many people believe that is because of the verse in 1 Peter 1 2. We are elect according to the foreknowledge of God. What a lot of people say that means is that God knew we were going to get saved so he chose us. We're the ones that determine it, not God. God responds to what we do. That is not what foreknowledge means. The Greek word for foreknowledge is a word which means to set one's love on ahead of time. Foreknowledge is not just God knowing ahead of time what will happen. And since he knows what's going to happen, oh, I think that's what we'll do. No. Foreknowledge God chose us because he set his love on us to begin with. Now, do I understand that? Do I understand how that works with my freedom to choose? I don't understand how those two go together. But I don't have to. I don't have to. I don't understand God. Okay? Maybe I understand it better when I get to heaven. Just need to believe it. And again, like Spurgeon said, just keep the two tracks of the railroad track parallel. Don't try to make them fit. The problem with many theologians is they jump to logic rather than what the Scriptures teach. And when they start jumping to logic, they try to figure out, okay, how does this work? logically end up being a hyper-cavenist. That makes great logical sense. It's just not biblical. Or you just jettison completely God's sobriety and man ends up controlling the whole thing. That's the other option. That's not biblical either. The only biblical solution is to believe both and hold them in tension. And God's sovereign will can only be seen by looking back. So again, let me say it. If Judas had chosen a different path than looking back, we would have said that was God's sovereign will. That's what God determined from eternity past. Because of what happened, we know that God determined something else. Okay? Wow. I didn't know we'd get stuck here in this. I think you think that this might be a question for sales. Why don't we make an all-off question for sales? The reason why all of them question themselves is because nobody had a clue as to who it would be. Again, that shows the genius of Judas in covering his tracks and how good an imposter he was. Because none of them looked at someone and saw it. It's got to be him. They could not pinpoint anybody in the group that would do such a thing. And so whenever that's the case, you begin to question yourself. Could it be me? I can't think of anybody else. Could it be me? I think that was why they did it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point, Robin. They have seen him in action so many times, reveal the hidden secrets of people's hearts. And they're sitting there thinking, is he going to reveal the hidden secret that I'm not even sure about in my heart? Yeah. That's that. No doubt it's a part of it. Okay. Believe it or not, we are not going to solve the dilemma of God's sovereign and human responsibility tonight. That's been debated for 20 centuries in theology. And you go to seminary classes and you'll find it hotly debated now. So we're not going to solve that. We're not supposed to solve it. That's my whole point. It's not solvable. It is simply something we hold in tension. If there's one thing, my theology professor in seminary taught me is forget your theological systems. Just go by the book. And if the book says Christ died for all people, including false teachers are going to end up in hell. Second Peter 2, believe that. Okay. He didn't just die for the elect. Believe that. If the Bible stresses God's sovereignty in Romans 9 to the point that that looks like that's all it is, believe that. Because that's what Romans 9 says. Okay. And sometimes you end up with two truths that sound like their contradictory, but they're designed to be held in tension in balance. Okay. It's the best I can do. Yes. Okay. God's sovereign will. Theologians sometimes refer to it as God's decree. It is the plan of God that the Bible says Ephesians 1 includes all things. And it has been planned from eternity past. That's God's sovereign will. That is everything that will happen in the universe. It has been decreed by God in eternity past. If Ephesians 1 talks about that, God does all things after the counsel of his own will. Okay. Now, we can only see what that was by looking back on it. There's no way we know that ahead of time. Okay. Hope I haven't thoroughly confused you. There's tension here in these truths. Okay. Bob and then we'll come over here. The conflict in the upper room leading to the cross exactly. Yes. Ultimately, it is and it will come to a head in the garden. Yes, ma'am. That's a great question. I do agree with part of it. Yes. Jesus knew from the beginning. John 6 tells us he knew from the beginning that Judas was a deceiver. He knew when he chose him. But I don't think he chose him because the others hearts were so pure. Again, the Bible teaches all of our hearts are dark with sin. So there's a sense in which at least on a human level any of the disciples were capable of betraying Christ. Jesus knew from the beginning it would be Judas. And yes, in God's sovereign plan and will, he chose him for that reason because he knew that. Okay. Okay. Got it clear now? Do you understand what I'm talking about? The more you try to bring this all together, the more confusing it gets. And that's the reason why you have to go back to the word and say, okay, this is what the Bible says. I believe that. The Bible also says this. I believe that. Do they fit together? No. They're not supposed to. Okay. Makes perfect sense in the mind of God. No question. Just not in ours. By the way, let me while we're on this topic, I might as well just throw it all out. I'm near retirement age anyway. We talk about man's freedom to choose. Man does not have a free will. Okay. Now, boy, I really dropped one that time, didn't I? We do have a will and we do have the capacity to choose. But it is not entirely free. We are born with a will that is in bondage to sin. And it is not free. Okay. Now, a lot of people say, well, don't we have free will? Don't we have free will? And I usually say, I understand that. And because I don't want to go into the whole theological debate, we do have a will. I understand that's really what they're talking about. We have the God given capacity to choose to make choices. Yes, that we do. Do we have a free will? No. It is not free. It is not completely under my control. From the moment I'm born, from the moment I'm conceived, it is bound to sin. And then up to the moment I get saved, and the moment I get saved, it is bound to Christ. It's not mine to be free with. Okay. Roman six teaches that. Okay. So yes, we have a will. And I understand most people when they're saying, we have free will. Don't we free will? That's what they're talking about. But in the strict theological sense, in the strict biblical sense, none of us has a free will. All right. Now we're thoroughly confused, but I don't see any tomatoes coming this way. So are we free to go on? Okay. I was just looking for a tomato. I think that's, I think that's okay. Yeah. As long as by that, we just understand that God has given us as human beings a will that can choose. We do have freedom of choice. Yes. Our human will is not free in and of itself, but we do have the freedom to choose. Yes. I would, I would go with that. It's, it's splitting hairs a little bit and very fine, but I think it's a legitimate distinction. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Yeah. The choice is the action. Will is the part of our being that makes that choice, that action. See, the will is a part of our immaterial part. Okay. Here we get into a little anthropology doctrine of man. Man is made up of two parts. Material part, the body, immaterial part, which is everything we are on the inside. Some people say three parts, body, soul and spirit. But if you know both the Greek and Hebrew words for soul and spirit are used interchangeably, both Old Testament, New Testament. So there's not as fine and sharp a distinction between soul and spirit is like some, some people like to make it. That's why I'm, I'm what theologians call a dichotomous that basically we have two parts. Material immaterial body and then everything else that we are on the inside. On the inside, there are many functions of our immaterial part. Soul, spirit, mind, will, emotion, lots of different things. Compose our immaterial part. Okay. So the will is a part of our immaterial part that gives us the capacity to choose. The emotions are part of our immaterial part, it gives us the capacity to feel. The mind is a part of our immaterial part that gives us the capacity to think. The spirit is part of our immaterial part that gives us the capacity to relate to God. The soul is a part of our immaterial part that gives us the capacity to relate to ourselves. Self-awareness. Soul is a Greek word, psuke. We get our word psychology from it. Self-awareness. So all of those are functions of our immaterial part. And the will then is the function of our immaterial part that enables us to choose. So the difference is the will is a part of our being. Choice is the action that the will does. It makes choices. Okay, that's the difference. Very? Yes. Before the fall. Every man's will is bound because of sin at conception. But Adam and Eve had the capacity to choose. They had a... I guess you could say they had a free will. Yeah, I guess you could use that term. What I would rather say, though, theologically, is they had a perfect human will. Theologically, that fits better. They had a perfect human will. None of us has a perfect human will. And that's what makes it not free. All of ours is bound by sin. But Adam and Eve was a perfect human will. But they made the wrong choice, obviously. And sin entered in and that corrupted everything. Okay. Just promise me this. Before any of you leave the church, call me first. Okay, maybe we can talk that through. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. Okay. We're getting into some very deep theological issues that typically, you know, are confusing. I admit that, confusing to people. But again, I want to stress the emphasis on balance. It has to be kept. Well, there are 100 thoughts running through my mind. I'd like to expand on, but we can't. We can't. Steve, real quick, please. Real quick. Great analogy. Straight from Roman six. And so, yeah, so he still makes choices, but is not completely free to choose his own direction. And that's a good analogy. And that's what Paul uses in Roman six. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. This is fun. I love that kind of thing. It's kind of thing I did at ABC. It's fun. All right. Where were we anyway? Awareness of a traitor, shocking revelation. Okay. Let's jump to John 13. At least we'll get through some of this John's explanation of the same scenario, the same scene. And again, I want you to see how shocked the disciples were at this, this statement by Jesus, verse 20, no, verse 21 of John 13, after he had said this, okay, there are already in the upper room, the meal is there in the middle of the meal, Jesus was troubled in spirit, testified very truly. I tell you, one of you is going to betray me. Now, look at verse 22. Jesus disciples stared at one another at a loss to know which of them he meant. Okay. You see, see where I was coming from earlier when I said they had no clue who it would be. That's why they began questioning themselves because none of them could look at anybody else in the room and say, it's got to be him. They had no clue who Jesus could be talking about. Now, that's amazing, isn't it? It's so easy for us looking back knowing the whole story to say, surely they could have spotted Judas, right? I mean, what we know about him is pretty wicked guy to be that good of an imposter, but that's the whole point. He was that good of an imposter. And they, I mean, they're sitting there staring at each other like, did I just hear what I heard? Who's he talking about? And that's when they begin asking then, Lord, you tell him that me? Could it be me? They're thoroughly confused. Now, notice what happens next in John's account. Remember all, no one gospel gives all the information. And so you got to put it all together. Verse 23, one of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved was reclining next to him. Again, remember the way they were eating was not sitting at a table, regardless of all the pictures. Just throw all the pictures away the last supper you've ever seen. I don't think you've ever seen one that's accurate. I haven't. They were reclining on their left arm, propping up their head on their left elbow with their feet out from the table. The table is a low table, only about, you know, a foot off the floor. And they're reclining there and reaching over with the right hand, getting the food. So there, Jesus has someone to his back and someone who's in front of him. And the one who is evidently in front of him is John. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, that's John's way of referring to himself. He does that several times in his gospel, was reclining next to him, Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, ask him which one he means, leaning back against Jesus. Okay, you got that in your mind? Jesus is leaning on his left elbow facing this direction. So John has got to be in front of him. So he leans back to ask Jesus this question, leaning back against Jesus. He asks, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish, then dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon and his chariot, as soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him what you were about to do quickly. Now there's a whole lot going on here. Okay, you got the picture in your mind. Jesus is reclining, John is in front of him, leans back and asks him, who is it? Who are you talking about? Judas is evidently on the other side of Jesus. He's back. The two places on either side of Jesus are the places of honor at a meal. Okay, you get in the picture? Jesus says to John, the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish, and he hands it to Judas, who is right behind him. It's easy for us to think at this point, everybody now knows it's Judas, right? No. Well surely John knows it's Judas at this point. Maybe not. There's a little bit of mystery about what always going on here, and commentators and theologians that go all over the map as to exactly what was happening. It's a little hard to tell. John may have recognized that it was Judas, but he doesn't let on at this time that he did. Remember John is writing this account 60 years after it happened. So he knows as he writes it, who it was, but that night in the up room that he know for sure, it's possible that, I mean, there's a lot going on here, the disciples are misunderstanding what Jesus is saying anyway. He's going to tell Judas to go quickly, and everybody heard that, but nobody understood what it meant. You see it in verse 28, no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charged the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, the feast of unleavened bread was going to happen now for seven days, or to give something to the poor as soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out and it was night. So you've got a lot going on here that's a little difficult to put together. Jesus hands the piece of bread to Judas. Did John hear everything Jesus said? Maybe not. Did he understand everything Jesus said? Maybe not. So maybe even John still doesn't recognize that Jesus has just pointed out Judas. Obviously, all of the disciples will understand that soon enough. But when he tells Judas to go ahead and do what you're going to do quickly, Judas gets up in the leaves, none of the disciples, none of them, and that evidently includes John. It says no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him, didn't understand why he went out. So evidently even John does not grasp yet what's happening and that what Judas is doing. This is really high suspense, isn't it? It's fascinating what's going on here. But not fascinating in a morbid way. What fascinates me is our Lord's control over the whole thing. And here's something we just got two or three minutes. Here's something that I don't want us to miss. And that is that in three or four different ways, Jesus is reaching out to Judas. Now, you talk about complicating the whole issue of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. Jesus reaches out to Judas at the very last moment. And the gestures that he's doing are gestures of allowing him to repent, even at this last moment, if he will. He said, wait a second. I thought it was all predetermined. That's the whole point. None of us knows what's predetermined till after it happens. Then we can look back and see what God has predetermined. If Judas had taken another course, then we would look back on it and say, that's what God predetermined. And that's why Jesus, Jesus knowing what God has predetermined still reaches out to him with an offer to repentance. He said, how does that happen? Well, in several different ways. First of all, the very fact that he had Judas seated at his side was a place of honor. John on one side, Judas on the other, where he could talk with him privately through the meal. Secondly, he washed their feet. Now, we're not going to get to that tonight, obviously. And again, it's a little difficult to know exactly when that happened in the meal. It was during the meal. I will say this much. It was not at the beginning of the meal. John's gospel makes it clear. It was during the meal that Jesus got up. Exactly when it was, we don't know. It's hard to tell. But Judas appears to have still been in the room when Jesus washed their feet. Because Jesus will say, and we'll look at this next week, Jesus will say, not all of you are clean. I'm washing all of your feet, but not all of your are clean. And it's in the context of not all of you are believers. And there's a sense in which even that is reaching out to Judas. To prick his conscience, to help him see that he's in dangerous position. Jesus knows that one of them is not clean. Third way, I think Jesus is reaching out to him, is the whole reference to Psalm 41 and a hit the fell. That's the reason I focused on that so much. I think Jesus pausing for effect and saying one who eats with me, bringing back to their minds, Psalm 41, 9, a hit the fell. They would know the story well. They would make the connection much easier than us Gentile would, knowing their Old Testament scriptures, knowing the setting, knowing what Jesus is talking about, one who eats bread with me. I mean, they would automatically think of that passage and a hit the fell. And I think that's another attempt to reach Judas's conscience. Because do you know what happened to a hit the fell after Absalom started accepting Hushai's counsel instead of his? He committed suicide. How did he do it? Do you remember? He hung himself. A hit the fell hung himself. Quick, violent death. And I think Jesus is warning Judas. He's in a very precarious position. Remember a hit the fell Judas. Remember? He betrayed Absalom. Do you remember what happened to him? I think there is in every sense of the word a very real reference to that. And Jesus is reaching out to Judas. But the most clear thing is Jesus handing him the bread, dipping the bread and offering it to Judas. That would typically be seen at a meal of that kind. When you, you know, everybody is going to dip their bread in the same stewed fruit. But to dip yours and hand it to someone was a gesture of friendship. It was a gesture of closeness. It was a gesture of reaching out to someone. And Jesus is basically saying, Judas, I'm offering you even at this last moment my friendship. And my forgiveness if you will accept it and repent. I think that's very clear in what Jesus is doing. That's why the text says, where I'm at verse 26, dipping the piece of bread and giving it to Judas. The son of Simon is scary. That would be obvious to everybody who was looking at it. That it was a gesture of friendship. That's part of the reason why they didn't understand what was happening. Verse 27, as soon as Judas took the bread, he's teetering right here, which was going to go Satan entered into him. I think, could you say, Satan personally seems to be through one of his demons maybe, but I think Satan actually indwelt at this point. And Judas, Judas does not accept the offer of friendship and forgiveness. Jesus knows that. Jesus knows what's going on in his mind and heart. And so Jesus, that's why Jesus then says to him, what you're about to do, do quickly. I offered you repentance, forgiveness, offered you my friendship. You've made your choice. Go ahead, do it quickly. Wow. And then we see no one, no one understood what was going on. See, would Judas got up and left? Judas knows now's the time. I'm going to, I'm going to go get the chief priests and the palace guard. I'm going to go get him now. Wow. What, what intense spiritual drama is going on here? But you know what still amazes me the most? Jesus is completely in control. There are no fervive glances like, can I escape this somehow? Can there's just somebody to get out of this? There's none of that. There's no panic. There's no anxiety. He is calmly progressing through the meal, reaching out to Judas when it becomes clear Judas will not respond. He does him to go ahead and do quickly. And then he's going to institute the Lord's Supper. Wow. Now if it were any of us, we would be absolutely panicked stricken by this point knowing we're going to die in about 12 hours. Knowing that. Not Jesus. He calmly introduces the whole reason for the meal that night. And that is the Lord's Supper. And then he will talk to them about how they will deny him. It's an incredible scene of much greater pathos and depth of feeling than anyone could ever capture in a movie. Okay, there's just so much going on here. So much going on with that clock too. It's telling me we're five minutes beyond. We better close. Father, we once again marvel at our Savior. And we really marvel at the fact that he was doing all of this because of us. Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He's moving carefully, calmly, purposefully in line with your plan because he loved us and he wanted to die for us. Lord, I thank you for that truth. And in the midst of all of the theology we've talked about tonight and all of the hard, difficult understand truths, certainly impossible to reconcile with each other. In the midst of all that, help us not to get hung up on that, Lord. Help us to come back to the simplicity of your love for us. And why Jesus was doing what he was doing because he loved all of us and he died for all of us. Help us to set aside all the other questions and grasp what we know clearly. And that is that Jesus died for us. We thank you for that. And his name we pray. Amen.