Would you once again take your Bibles now and turn to the book of Mark? As I said, we return to the study of Mark. And I broke it where I broke it, so to speak, so we could go through Christmas. And now we resume in our study, beginning at Mark chapter 14, verses 43 through 65. Now, as God's people, let us give attention to the reading of His Holy Word. And immediately while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priest and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard. When he came, he went up to him at once and said, Rabbi, and kissed him. And they laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me, but let the scriptures be fulfilled. And they all left him and fled. And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body, and they seized him. But he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together, and Peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself by the fire. Now the chief priest and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death. But they found none. For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands. Yet even about this their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, prophesy. And the guards received him with blows. May the Lord bless this reading as well as the hearing of His Holy Word. As I said, we begin today the last chapter in the earthly ministry of our Lord, and before Christmas we left Him in the Garden of Gethsemane praying. Today we find Him still in the Garden. It's still night, the dead of night, and He has already prayed to the Father, and His disciples had fallen asleep three times. But our passage today gives us many things that I could spend all day preaching on, but there are three things that are primary occurrences that we're going to discuss. We find in the other three Gospels much the same. For instance, we find in Matthew the words that Jesus spoke to Judas, which is probably the best known. Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? But he also said, friend, do what you came to do. And then we find, of course, Peter pulling out his short defensive sword and swinging. And, of course, that guard, which history tells us was perhaps named Malchus, did what any of us would do. He ducked. I always wondered how he could cut off just the ear. but he ducked and so Jesus ended up healing him of that and that made absolutely no impression on anybody. In the next few weeks we're going to look at other similarities as we examine the rest of Mark and I'll try to make those plain things plain but I would recommend to us that if we're just going through Mark and what we read there that you go home and you read the other three Gospels. and we get a fuller picture of what happened in that few days. The first thing we'll look at today, though, will be the betrayal of our Lord by Judas, and the second will be the trial of Jesus by the leaders of the Jews, and then the third will be the beginning of the physical, visible, and outward sufferings of Jesus that He underwent in our place. Everyone knows what a rat is, I would assume. We're not talking about the animal variety here, we're talking about the snitch variety. Judas was perhaps the most famous rat in history. His betrayal of Jesus was most despicable, for Jesus was the Savior, the Son of God, the one that God had sent to save His people from their sins. And the sad part is that Jesus, though betrayed as a criminal, had no sin Himself. And so He didn't deserve either to be betrayed or to suffer or to die. He didn't deserve any of that. And yet that's exactly what He got. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was prophesied, as we find in Psalm 41, 9. Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me. Those, of course, are the words of David, who has similar experiences, and all of us, perhaps, have had similar experiences, but done quite so heinous as the betrayal of Judas. His end was horrible, both in the manner of His death and His eternal destiny. Jesus called Him in John 17, the Son of Destruction. We find in Acts 1, the sad and gruesome end of Judas on this earth, but to this day and into eternity, Judas is in hell, for he was never a true disciple of Jesus. Let's for a moment consider what advantages that Judas enjoyed as he sat under the teaching of the Son of God for three years. Have you ever thought about that? He saw all the miracles. He saw all the miracles that Jesus did and even healed the sick and cast out demons with the other disciples. If there was ever a person that had an astounding opportunity to be an eyewitness to the glory of God that was personified in the person and work of Jesus, it was Judas. And you say, well, was he trusted by Jesus? Yes, even though Jesus knew all men's hearts, he was of the common purse with Jesus' permission. So outwardly to everybody else, Judas was a very trustworthy person. Let's remember what we read in Luke 12, 48. Jesus said, "...everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required. And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more." My mother would always say that when I come home from college, and she'd say, you've learned a lot. I'd say, yeah. And she'd say, to whom much is given, much is expected. That would be another way of putting what I just read. Judas was given much. The other disciples were given much. And God expected much of them. It might be good at this point to ask, OK, what have I been given? Every traitor in all of Christendom has been compared to Judas. His name remains synonymous with the vilest and most hated of betrayers to the point that we even call people who are betrayers, Judas's. Notice nobody names their children Judas or Benedict, right? which goes to prove the point in the visible body of believers on this earth that there always have been and remain to this day those who do not really belong to Jesus through faith. There are many in the church, the visible church, that though they can fool man, they cannot fool God. Judas fooled eleven other people, then some, but never Jesus. And we think that everybody in the church is just as well-intentioned as we are. No. How can we identify them? Well, frankly, we can't always. We can't. The best we can do is to make sure we're not one of them. And that would be a monumental task for anybody. Fortunately, we have the Holy Spirit to help. Remember how all the disciples responded when, at the Last Supper, Jesus informed them that one of them would betray Him. They all, including Judas, asked the Lord, is it I? Isn't that interesting? They understood the possibility that they could, and they asked, is it I? And we find later on that when Jesus was seized, that they all fled. We must look closely at our own hearts and ask this question, am I willing to be used by God to be His instrument for His purposes to be spent in His cause or lose all for His glory? Now, I upon occasion will have somebody that will bow their back up at that and say, I don't want to do that. Okay. You think God's going to do that? I don't know what God's going to do. And you don't know what God's going to do either. The question is not what God's going to do. The question is, are you willing to do whatever God would call you to do? And you must make that decision on a daily basis. Let's remember that the disciples had argued among themselves who would be the greatest in Jesus' kingdom. That James and John's mother had asked that they sit at his right hand and they had all asked Jesus when he was going to establish his kingdom on earth. Judas was not alone in this faulty view of what Jesus was there to do. It's interesting, the first time we see the name Judas in this respect, we see him along with Simon the Zealot. We see that the same way we see James and John who were brothers, or Peter and Andrew who were brothers. And so the assumption has been put forward, and it's not necessarily false, that Judas was what was known as a zealot. The zealots simply wanted the re-establishment of the throne of David, and they knew that Joseph before Jesus, and Jesus now as the eldest, was in the best position of anybody in all of Israel to be the next king on the re-established throne of David. And so they had high hopes for Jesus. They had all kinds of plans for Jesus. And that's why Jesus had to be very explicit. My kingdom is not of this world. He was not going to do what men told Him to do. He was going to do what God had sent Him there to do. And as Passover approached, Judas realized that Jesus was his own man and was not going to be used. And so, well, out of frustration, he went to the high priest. Now, I would have to think, that because of his end and the remorse that he showed, that he expected that Jesus would be, you know, beaten, released, and when he got back, he'd be as angry with the Romans and the high priest, and he would say, okay, I'm ready to go, much like the lead character in the movie, The Patriot, with Mel Gibson. But Jesus didn't do that, and the reason was that they didn't let Him go, because they had, well, they had some previous plans that we'll discuss in a moment. There are many in the church today that would seek worldly accomplishments and desire success in worldly terms, and they can play a part, the part of true believers very well. It must be, though, admitted that even true believers can have truly worldly views. So let's don't forget that. We have to be very careful that we don't establish the line and then put somebody here and there's only one person I know that separates the sheep from the goats and that ain't us. But their goals are usually very self-centered and worldly. They're not interested in bringing God glory. They're only interested in accomplishing those goals. as noble as they might be, but those goals are set by them for their glory as well as for what may appear to be wonderful reasons. I believe that the right things done for the wrong reasons are not always pleasing to God. We need to make sure that both the works that we desire to do and the reasons that we desire them to be done, be done according to God's will and for Him in submission to and dependence on His Holy Spirit. And that is what is good in God's eyes. This is where Judas and so many others, both true believers and fake Christians alike, fall down. Who is to be the center of our lives? God. Who is to be the center of the church's life? God. To what end? His glory. So the church is a fertile ground for those who want to be bringing glory to themselves. We must be on the lookout for that. We must be able to recognize that. We must be able to say, no, because this is not what God has led either our leadership to do, this is not what God has said in His Word, or we must be ready to say, that may sound good, but let's pray about it for a while and see what happens. And usually, over time, the truth always comes out. The term kangaroo court, believe it or not, I know you've heard that term originated in the Old West. uh... where there was much lawlessness you'll see some explanation of that In the bulletin today, some crimes were committed out in the open. There just wasn't much of a need to have investigative work when you've got 20 witnesses that see you stealing a man's cattle, you know, or something like that, or shooting someone in the back in the street. There just wasn't much investigation. But to fulfill the requirements of the law, trials were undertaken, though the outcomes were known not only by the court, but by the defendant themselves. They knew they had done wrong, and so the form was met. This justice situation was not always the case, however, and it could easily be turned into what turned out to be the abuse of and subversion of true justice. Now, you may remember, some of us, that the Soviet Union had what it called its show trials. Those were the way in which we normally today look at this term kangaroo court. Nazi Germany had the same thing and what defined those was simply that the defendants were brought in on trumped up charges, no connection here, but were brought in on trumped up charges and the outcome was already assured. Look on the faces of some of those in some of those pictures, and you'll find the look of men who already know they're condemned. As the history of Britain's Star Chamber reveals, any court, even legitimate ones, can begin for good purposes and quickly be turned to evil purposes. This happens when those who are charged with administering justice break the law in their own hearts and then secretly by their abuses of those positions subvert justice in actual practice. The Jewish Sanhedrin in Jesus' day was no exception. It had intended to carry out the judicial aspects of the Law of Moses when it was founded but had become a tool for the preservation of the power of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Legal scholars have determined that the full membership of the Sanhedrin was not present. Therefore, on that account alone, it was an illegal meeting of the court. That the full membership was not present and there were several others that they're not supposed to meet at night. Everybody was supposed to be able to come and to see the proceedings. This was held in secret. with a partial membership at night when most of the other members like, say, Nicodemus might have been at home asleep? What does this say about the leadership of God's people when the court meets together in the church and there's a predetermined outcome that's already there and the people there are simply trying to find a way to establish that outcome? Well, it doesn't say much other than the fact that the leadership of God's people had become very, very worldly in a sinful way. They no longer functioned, the Sanhedrin, as a representative of God's justice for His people, but only as the wielders of earthly power. God and His Word were only tools to a corpus's There was really no difference between the worldview of the Sanhedrin as a whole and the worldview of the Zealots or Judas. They both wanted what they wanted in an earthly sense. And asking God His opinion about the matter didn't even enter the equation. We see Jesus as the Savior. They saw Him only as a threat to their earthly influence and authority. They had dealt with earlier messiahs by open opposition or just letting the Romans deal with them as insurrectionists. They sought to deal with Jesus in much the same way, but this is the biggest, most dangerous challenge they had ever seen before. Jesus, because the people followed Him. What did they say at the triumphal entry? Look, the whole world is following after Him. They were very concerned. So as early as the very beginning of ministry, the ministry of Jesus in Galilee that we find in Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 4, He was opposed violently by their power. They were opposed to Him from the very beginning. And almost equally early, they sought to put Him to death. Just look at Matthew 12. By the time our Lord arrived at Holy Week, that last Passover, the leaders of the Jews were desperate. They were desperate, and they were seeking ways to do away with Him. And Judas gave them that long-awaited opportunity. They took full advantage of it, by the way, and they had no concern for the legality of their... They had already accomplished what they wanted to. They had given 30 pieces of silver to Judas, who basically threw it back. They ended up buying a field that was called the potter's field, and they used it as a common grave, which is interesting because Judas probably got buried in it. As our session has allowed me over the past two or three years to be involved in Vanguard Presbytery, and as I've spoken with others who, like me, have come from other denominations, I've discovered a disturbing trend in the church. Because sinners are involved in every human institution, it should come as no surprise that abuses of power are present almost everywhere. Okay? If we have not had an abuse of power in the past, then you don't know what's gone on. And if we don't have one now, it's only by God's grace. Keep praying that that would be the case. And it is true with the church at large, not just human institutions. Many of our ministers in Vanguard have horror stories about how their former denominations abused the sacred trust that God has given to them to represent Him and His Word to His people. both in their preaching and in their practices. And because they stand for what is right, they are pushed out. That is sad. Godly men have been hounded out of their churches and even out of active ministry, by the way, for centuries. So that's nothing new. But to see it done by those who otherwise are considered godly men in their own time is a real shame and it was an eye-opener for me. Sometimes going to a Presbyterian meeting would be very depressing because you'd hear all these horror stories and then you realize, wait a minute, God saved them out of those things and now they're together. Let's not get too defensive. Let's keep going forward with God's work. So let's take heart that only God can preserve His church. By the way, if this church is here in 50 years, it won't be because of me. It won't be because of you. It'll be because of God. If He wants us to be here in 50 years, we'll be here. Period. Okay? But that's His business. It's His church. Even the well-intentioned mechanisms of man can all be perverted, abused, and misused over time. So we cannot guarantee those kinds of things. Only God can preserve Godliness to His own glory in the hearts of His people, both those in the pews and those in the pulpits. But He has promised to do so where He wants. Our calling is to remain faithful in our own lives and efforts, seeking to be like our Savior in the power of His Spirit. There should be no kangaroo courts in the church of Jesus Christ. There should be a minimum need for any courts, actually, as the people submit themselves to His Word and will. Think about that. But recognizing that God's people are not just saved by His grace, but they are sinners saved by His grace, we have provisions in the Scripture given to us by which we can then address these kinds of problems. Let our prayer be that all church courts and all civil and criminal courts as well be fair and just, reflecting the justice of God and the rightness of His law. Over the centuries since the first Holy Week, Many have concentrated on the only thing they could see and understand from a human and physical basis, and I understand that. We've perhaps seen those exposés of the physical causes of Jesus' death, how He suffered physically, and that is a good thing to see. We need to be reminded of it. We can hardly see any kind of depiction of the crucifixion, the beating, the death of Jesus without really turning away. But the suffering of Jesus was much deeper than we can possibly imagine. We can only begin to contemplate the depth of His suffering. How deep does our sin go? That's a good question to start with. If you consider that our sin is such that we deserve an infinite punishment, then the suffering of Jesus had to be equally as infinite. The miracle of the atonement, or His sacrificial death, is that Jesus, in the space of only six hours, suffered an eternity of hell. Now, we need to unpack that, and those of you who regularly come to Bible studies have heard this several times, but we need to recognize some of the things about the coming crucifixion. First of all, no mere man could have suffered in six hours the eternity of hells that Jesus suffered. This is because it was too great for any one man to do. No mere man could do it. We read in Romans 8, 3, "...For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Jesus is the one that took the punishment. Only an infinite God could have pulled off such an astounding miracle. I couldn't have. You couldn't have. But it had to be a man. Why did it have to be a man? Because Adam sinned as a man. Mankind is who owes the debt to God, not God. Adam was our representative and the curse of God was given to man. So Jesus came, remaining God, but becoming man. And that's why we call Him the God 100% God, 100% man. This is the real miracle of Christmas, by the way, which we just celebrated. Let's keep this in mind as we work our way through this last work of Jesus in redeeming us. But let me remind us of the depth of the suffering of Jesus. We deserve an eternity of God's just punishment for each one of our sins. Okay, think about this. I don't know about you, but I've sinned today. And it's only 20 after 11. It's still in the morning and I've sinned. Okay? But I've sinned so much more than that. So, Jesus came to pay an eternity for one sin, but all of them. And each one of our sin falls into one of six categories or more. Think about this for a moment. We have spoken words that we were told not to speak. We have neglected to speak the words that we were told to speak. We have thought the things that we should not have thought. We have not thought the things that we should have thought. We have done those things that we were commanded not to do, and we have neglected to do those things that we were commanded to do. Jesus perfectly obeyed His heavenly Father in every one of those areas. Perfect obedience. He did not deserve to die at all, yet He chose to die in our place and the price He paid. was infinitely more than we can possibly fathom. Yet we are to contemplate it in order to make us humble before God and thankful to God for His great love for us. His love is a basis for His salvation so freely offered to us. I've had some conversations with some folks in the past that just couldn't get their handle or their arms around God's love. And I probably frustrated him because I said, well that's funny, I can't either. Now I understand the beginning of it, but I cannot understand it in its fullness. I can understand its direction, I can't understand its scope. Because I'm finite, as are we all. But let us rest assured, God did everything that He did for one purpose, for His glory. What brings Him glory is loving somebody that's unlovable. And thank Him that He chose us to love Him and be loved by Him. The suffering of Jesus should have been our suffering. The death of Jesus should have been our death. The words of Isaiah, written so many years before the birth of Christ in the manger, were so wonderfully fulfilled in Jesus. Surely He has borne our griefs and our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him smitten, stricken by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. No one else in all of history said about them but Jesus. The story of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus can be a depressing one, granted. But in the light of the wonderful salvation He purchased for God's people, it should be great cause for joy. It matters not if there are more rats in the church. All the kangaroo courts of men cannot thwart the purposes of God. As we progress toward the end of Mark, let us have a deep-seated joy in the love that God has for us in Christ. It should not be a depressing time from the pulpit or in the pews. It should be a rejoicing time. He is by virtue of His love for us, our God. Think about this. If you are saved, you can say, of Almighty God, He is my God. But we can then turn around and say, I am His child. He belongs to me. I belong to Him. Praise His name. Let's pray together, shall we? Father, thank You that we are the sheep of Your pasture. Thank You that even as we study this horrible, horrible time in the life of Jesus, let us realize that Good Friday is called Good Friday because it was a wonderful day for us, for our sins were judged, the guilt of our lives was done away with. And as we begin the study of those things, we pray that we would be deeply, deeply humble and thankful people. Thank you for loving us, even us. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.