Behind the Betrayal: Judas Iscariot's Motives Revealed

Show Notes

Episode 373:
We explore the events leading up to Jesus' arrest, pondering Judas Iscariot's motives and the complexities of his betrayal. Drawing parallels to personal experiences, we reflect on the dynamics of relationships and the impact of disillusionment on one's actions. Discussing the role of Satan in Judas' betrayal, we touch on the spiritual battles at play and the need for vigilance against unseen forces. We emphasize the importance of genuine faith and repentance, noting that even witnessing miracles may not guarantee belief without a true transformation of the heart.

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You're listening to the Bible guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. I love that rolling Yeah, it says that they're listening, right, Well, that's pretty great. I didn't know if anybody actually listens, right, they play it. It says you're listening to the Bible. That's right, so they I know they play it because we get lots of people who can't, But I didn't know if they would listen. If a tree falls in a forest, does it still make a noise? Yeah? Yeah, well that's the question, right right, I mean, would anybody really be listening had Connor out said it, I don't know. That's what I'm saying. He made it happen. Hey, listen up, let's give me the new roll in. You have to listen to something if it's being played, Jeff, you don't have to. Do you ever have your radio on and not actually hear anything that's being said? My mind is twisted right now. I've just I just think it's wonderful. Jersey Brian Reagan, he goes, he goes where his mind explodes. That's funny. Hey, So, first of all, welcome to the Bible guys, and hopefully if you're listening right now, then you are the ones Connor is talking about. That's correct. Welcome, not your neighbor, wake them up, that's right. We are going to start off with a segment that Desiree has called social media minutes. These are so nice, and this is not. This is not the segment where we try to guess where people are listening from. This is the segment where we are actually taking feedback from people. And by the way, she only chooses the good feedback. Well, we don't get a lot of bad feedback. No, no, no. Remember that one that talked about you being ugly. Yeah, well there's that one. And then you know, somebody did say the come on the guy that says next to Chris, Yeah, he's constantly saying uh huh h I hate that too. Did they really say that? Yeah they did, Yes, they know they did. Well, nobody said you were ugly. I just made something up. Well I believed it though, because and you said something you just hurt You said something hurtful, you just hurt me. I thought it was true, which, by the way, I say, I say, uh huh, because I agree with you. No, no, it's me. They were complaining about me sitting next to Chris and going uh huh uh. They just said it drives some nuts. Oh, okay, all right, so you weren't You weren't making fun of me? Yes, all right, because I because again nobody said you were ugly. I was gonna make another joke today, but I decided not to you. You just mean no, I was trying to think of something funny. It just okay, let's move on. Okay, So social media minutes and this is actually, uh, there's what. There's three comments here. Uh, here's the first one. I find it amazing that you two are able to read a verse and state how it applies to our lives. Absolutely remarkable, says Cliff. That's really nice that it's by the way. H Again, I think I said this just a few days ago. But that's the reason, one of the reasons why I was attracted and drawn to becoming a communicator, because I was absolutely blown away the first time I heard anybody take scripture and make it relevant and applicable and understandable. Yeah, and I thought that was It's amazing. It's one of the most beneficial things you can do for a person. Right. Right. I was just talking with a professor who teaches and works with training seminary students to be preachers, and we were we were laughing about the fact that how many seminary graduates then come out and sound like professors and not preachers, right, And so we were talking about what is the point of preaching, And the point of preaching is to make the Bible as clear as possible, to take God's words and from Heaven down to earth and then translate them so hopefully you're educated enough to be able to understand it on a level that others who haven't studied as long wouldn't know. Right, they'd be a master of the content, but then be able to translate it so that the average person, every day person who maybe hasn't become a master yet, could understand it easily. Because I believe you can read the pages, the words on the page and basely understand the Bible, right if if you understand the right questions to ask. But oftentimes we get educated pastors get educated and then talk like professors rather than translating it and making it more approachable, right. And so I think that that's been maybe one of the hardest things to do is to make it approachable. The other side of it is and we did this for a while, right was it on when we were doing the old podcast HC Daily when we did the Discovery Bible Study. Oh yeah, remember, And we were just asking a few questions. So if you want to be able to do what we do, so we don't prepare these things. We're just reading on the reading on the page. And then we've read a lot of the Bible lots of times, and so we're able to kind of cross the reference. But we basically every time I'm reading a pasty, I'm asking what was to say about God? What does it say about people or you know, humanity? Is there a command to obey? Is there a a promise to claim? Is there a sin to avoid? Is there an example to follow? That's really you asked those five or six questions, and you can pretty much read a page of the Bible and find a thing, right, Yeah, you can find something like what we're doing because we're doing this on a This isn't deep Bible study. This is a devotional kind of a thing, right, and so making it approachable is a big deal. That's awesome. The reason why talk long is the third one I already read before, so we really have to to do Okay, well, go ahead. Yeah. So the second one is I love your podcast. This is from Anna. So thank you Cliff for your great comment. This is from Anna. Anna says, I love your podcast. It's fascinating to hear all these things, like because of Philip's name, he was able to reach the Greeks. I didn't know that, right, Yeah, so it's the little things that that's awesome. He like, So thank you Anna. Well, the third one that you already read, Yeah, yeah, I wonder if people are just gonna wonder what it is so tru to just read it real quick. Sure, so this person I read what last week? Or I think so because Desiree didn't realize that you had taken it from this one. You actually put out your phone and read it. That's right, right, from an actual Okay, I'm just an okie who has been a faithful listener for a couple of years now. Scripture can one hundred percent change your life. Christian Jeff do an outstanding job of communicating God's word in a fun and informative way. I cannot begin to describe the impact these men have had on me, which has trickled down to my family friends, coworkers. Christian Jeff, if you're reading this, thank you from the bottom of my reborn hart. Thank you, says Alan R. That's amazing, which is amazing, which is why I can see now why you went out of your way to find it and read it. That's right, that's amazing, Thank you Alan. Yeah. And hey, even people from Oklahoma can listen. That's right. I get something from it. Well, he doesn't say he lives in Oklahoma. He just says he's an Oki, which means he was from Oklahoma from Yeah, yeah, he doesn't. Don't have to live there to be from there. Okay, you're from where Youngstown? Okay. So, which, by the way, is the according to this famous sports podcast, the Grit Capital of the World, the great capital of the world is Youngster. Yeah, okay, yeah, it's just Detroit's got a corner on the grit market. Well yeah, I mean it's your slogan, right, Okay, maybe you brought it here. I did say, Hey, it's grit because I'm here. You're welcome. Well good, it's really really nice. Thank you guys for sharing the nice compliments. It feels weird to read them though, doesn't it. Yeah, because it's super humbling, well to read them aloud, but to read them back to the people who wrote them feels weird. Well, you know, I'm just you know, the same as you. Right, it's super humbling. But at the same time, it really is. It's a lot of work. So we recorded yesterday. Yeah right, it's like four hours yesterday, four hours today. Sure, that's a big part of the week, right, And so those are the kind of comments that say, hey man, we are making it there. It's worth it. It's worth it to me. So I'm glad that you guys are part of that. So we were talking about this passover festival of unloving bread. Yeah right, kind of getting tangled up a little bit. We know these things and still have a hard time tracking with it. So by this point now two days from the passover passover would have been the passover meal would have been Thursday night, is that correct? Yeah? Yeah, which there, which they're not there yet, right right, right, So they're probably right around Wednesday ish or Wednesday or Tuesday, because you said two days before, right right, yeah, yeah, so it's he's probably Tuesday evening. It is probably when he yesday would have been Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, I think today could have been Wednesday. I mean, doesn't specifically say tough, right, right, we're trying to piece it together, yeah, because because tradition holds that Jesus entered in to Jerusalem at the beginning of the feast, and uh no, no, the fact, no, no, no, he was he was entering into Jerusalem on Sunday. And then there's events that happened that we've unpacked, and then the actual Passover, which happens from Friday to Saturday. All these events are leading up to that, right. And by the way, they said we dare not yesterday said they said, we dare not have him killed during Passover because the people will riot, right, But it turns out that they do kill him on Passover, Yes, right on the actual Sabbath, right Passover. So this is what we're trying to say, is we're within a couple of days that Jesus getting arrested. That's right, That's where we are in this last week. Now, it's lots of chapters still left in the Bible, lots of verses are left in the Gospels over this because the Gospels spend a lot of time in this last week. So all of this time that we've all, this last teaching we've done over the last couple of weeks, has been teaching in the last week of jesus life before he is crucified. And then the Yeah, anyways, so let's pick up Matthew chapter twenty No No, No, Matthew. Chapter twenty six, verse fourteen is where I'm at. It says, then Judas is Scariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, how much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you? And they gave him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. In Mark chapter fourteen ten, it says, then Judas is Scariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests to arrange to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted when they heard why he had come, and they promised to give him money. So he began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. And then in Luke chapter twenty two says, then Satan entered into Judas Is Scariot who was one of the twelve Disciples, and he went to the leading priests and captains of the Temple guard to discuss the best way to betray Jesus to them, and they were delighted and they promised to give him money. So he agreed and began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus so they could arrest him when the crowds weren't around. You know, it doesn't really give us a lot of insight behind Judas's mentality. I mean, we do know earlier that it said he didn't care remember when the woman broke the albaster box and he said, why wasn't this money sold for the poor? And then he gave us insight there because it said not that he cared for the poor, because he often dipped into the treasury and stole money from time to time for himself. So it's telling us he's a pretty cold hearted person who loves money and was stealing from the ministry. And even as he was saying, you know something to this woman, he literally could care less. So we know that about him, right, but we don't really know, like you know, so you know, was he was he a person who originally started following Jesus with the intent to betray or was it the intent to like just get rich, like I'm gonna get rich here, right? Or or was it more like Matthew where he had this conflicting thing happening with his whole life, you know, you know, Matthew obviously loved wealth so much that he betrayed his own people. But then when Jesus, you know, redeemed Matthew, Matthew abandoned that life and and was so thankful for the opportunity to be loved and redeemed and forgiven. So did Jesus have did Judas have a struggle with that? And he originally joined with good intent but then caught up with being the treasure of the whole ordeal with money coming in, you know, like what was it? It doesn't really say but you know, but but it does say that Judas was one who initiated it, right, Yeah, Judas started it, not the not the priests, right, which, which, by the way, that's that could be a piece of new information. It's in my mind, it's it's I can envision Judas being an enthusiastic, uh follower of Jesus in wonderment early on and then becoming disillusioned and frustrated because we all joined Jesus with our own agendas too, and if we don't eventually learn to render our agenda to Jesus, we're going to beet frustrated with Jesus too. And so I can see how there is kind of a moment where he finally goes forget it, it's never going to turn out the way I want it, and give up on the idea of what he thought Jesus was. And then at that point, because he is greedy, because he is kind of the money obsessed guy, he goes and says, I wonder how much I could get out of this if it's all going to fall apart, And clearly he could see he knew he probably heard the priests whispering and talking there's a chance maybe Jesus, Yeah, And he heard Jesus squaring off with him, and he heard Jesus say they're going to kill me, and almost everything Jesus said, everything Jesus said had happened. Everything he said he was going to do he did right. So somehow Jesus pulls off the stuff he's talking about, and now it looks like Jesus is a little suicidal. So if you've decided you don't think he's really the Messiah, the Messiah you thought your disillusion, then Jesus just sounds suicidal. So you're watching the priests whisper over there, you see Jesus threatening them, and then you see Jesus and they're going to kill me. And then you know, man, there's a crowd. You know that pilot often winds up doing some pretty you know, killing people or whatever, and so you just kind of maybe he could see the writing on the wall, and he was the first guy to bail. Right, he's jumping ship in this moment, and he's thinking, Okay, how can I ingratiate myself to them to protect myself and make a little cash on the side. Right, I can totally envision that whole thing was. I had a person that was important in my life, that I worked with for a long time that for the first significant two thirds three quarters of our time together was incredible, incredible, And then I just started sensing his heart was leaving me, and I couldn't figure out why. Right, finally he determined I was a false teacher and that my ministry strategy was wrong and all these things. Finally I'll come up. But it blew up one day where I was like, what happened? And it was like he just flipped a switch and going I'm done and decided to burn the whole thing down, burn the relationship down right, all that kind of stuff. And I remember going, what in the world, And so I can see what where some people would say he never was with you, I would say he was. We were together, We were The difference was his desire and direction. What he thought the final outcome was going to be was different than what I thought the final outcome was going to be right, and so I was deeply hurt by it. I was surprised by it, but I don't doubt his original intentions I think were good, and then got disillusion that he wasn't going to get what he wanted and then decided to destroy it. I wonder if that's not what happened with Judas. I can see how it how it could have happened that way. And then now he's just trying to cover his own hide and make a little money on the side. Yeah, So there's a there's a little thing in the New app or the Life Application Study Bible about Judas is scurit and says it's easy to overlook the fact that Jesus chose Judas to be his disciple. With the other disciples, Judas shared a persistent understanding of jesus mission. They all accepted Jesus to make the right political moves. When he was talking about dying, they all felt varying degrees of anger, fear, and disappointment. The exact motivation behind jesus judas Is betrayal is unknown. He accepted payment that said, it just goes on about you know, about Judas. I guess, But again, I guess that wasn't very insightful other than the fact that it's just unknown. Yeah, yeah, but you can imagine how it could get to that point, yeah, right, imagine it. It's been a long time, nothing really turned out the way he wanted it to. So yeah, and you know, he doesn't even realize at this point. Most likely that for agreeing to sell Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver, that actually he is fulfilling prophecy. Right, there's an actual prophecy that talks about this, and so Judas is fulfilling this prophecy. And by the way, Luke is the only one out of the Matthew passage, the Mark passage, and the Luke passage, it's the only one that starts with Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot, right, So that's the definition of the devil made me do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say that Satan's part in the betrayal doesn't absolve Judas, right. Judas was clearly the one Satan didn't enter into John. Satan didn't enter into Bartholomew or Thomas. So Satan uses us because the Bible says that we sin because of our own desires. So Satan took advantage of his circumstances, his desire at that point, yeah, and then used him because I don't think Satan understood what was going to happen. I think Satan genuinely believed if he could kill Jesus that ended the situation. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, think of the forty days being tempted in the wilderness. He was wanting Jesus to blow his mission from the beginning, right, thinking, Hey, my goal is to you know, to stop or trip up or you know, thwart the mission of why Jesus was here, and I'm not sure if Satan understood why. Yeah, I don't think that Satan had a concept that the death and resurrection at Passover was the plan all along. Yeah, right, So I think Satan thinks he's winning here and has no idea because if Satan knew that all Jesus had to do was die and rise again at Passover, and that would make it possible for us, since be forgiven, he would not have entered into Judas. Right, So it lets you know the limitations of our enemy. So he is very smart, he is very violent and aggressive towards us, but the reality is he's very He's also very limited. Right. God had a plan that was so far above Satan's plan. It was like it was Satan's playing checkers and God was playing check chess y. Yeah right, Well you remember the old you know, we're fifties, so we remember Carmen the champion. Yeah yeah, yeah, nomber. So it talks about the battle of Jesus and Satan being like a boxing match, and uh and and this this isn't old. And by the way, if you if you want to be amused, google us right now. Okay, when we get when you get done listening, to the podcast because uh, it's it's actually a pretty dramatic uh song, you know. And then it says, uh, Satan throws the final blow and Jesus goes down for the count, he says, and then God the Father, you know, and he this real dramatic scene. He says, he begins to count, and you know what he does. He counts, He's counts starting at ten. He says ten, and he goes Wait, he imitates Satan. They're talking, you're counting the wrong way. Nine. Wait, what are you doing? God? Eight? Right? That's it. That's really funny. So, you know, there's not too much other, you know, else to unpack. I don't think in this scripture other than just talking about the motives of of Judas, uh, you know, the fulfillment of scripture. That's one, and then other than you know, let's not let's be weary about, you know, Satan taking advantage of our desires in other words, like just remember we're teaching on it next series, right, that that our weapons aren't our enemies, not flesh and blood. That's right, it's it's it's the spiritual forces in the world. We believe that there are active spiritual forces that work against us, and that there's a battle raging in the unseen world for our very souls. And we believe that that is very real, and Jesus talked about it and and and there's evidence of it, and so that that's a that's something we can grab from this passage. Well, you'll have somebody say, Man, if I could just see Jesus do a miracle, I would believe. I don't know. I think that's true. Yeah, Judas saw all the miracles, he didn't believe. Well, and then it still requires a certain amount of faith. Well, Jesus even said himself, he said, even if even if Abraham and the prophets, what do you say? He said? He said, they still wouldn't believe, right, right, right, they still wouldn't believe, right, because you've you've seen everything I can do, and you stoodn't believe. Right. So, you know, as close as sometimes we get in close around Jesus, but we don't actually have a saving relationship with Jesus. We've never repented of our sins and turned to Christ. And so as a result, we got close, but we never did actually have him change our lives. And I think that's what you have with with Judas here is. He was close, but he never yeah, never embraced Christ, missing heaven by eighteen inches yep, distance between your brain and your heart. That's right. So well, hey, that is our time, so we will see you tomorrow on the Bible goysh