Good singing today, good music. Challenge our souls and delight us and we pray that it's delighted our Lord's heart as well. Matthew chapter 26, verse 14 through 16. Matthew chapter 26, verse 14 through 16. And we'll wait just a second while the orchestra gets to their seats. I think the children are pretty well gone already. All right? Matthew chapter 26, go with me if you would from 14 through 16 there in that chapter, beginning with verse 14. Then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot went on to the chief priest and said unto them, what will you give me? And I will deliver him unto you. They coveted with him for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the time that we have to come and worship you as a body of believers. Lord, I pray that if there's somebody here with us today who has not trusted Christ, that they would see very clearly today the price that was paid for their sin free offer of salvation if they will, but by faith, come to you. I pray, Lord, that every believer today, you will find us having already surrendered our hearts that you might change us and build us and help us to love you more and to trust you more and to proclaim you readily. Father, we thank you for your word. We ask your blessing upon it, pray that you would use it today in each of our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. You're there in Matthew chapter 26, flip over a page or so and look at verse 21 and we'll read verse 21 down through verse 25. And as they did eat, he said, verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of Man goeth as it is written unto him, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, Is it I? He said unto him, thou hast said. We see all of this transpiring. It's a familiar account. We know this as what is commonly known as the Last Supper. And the arrangements that had been made by Judas Iscariot to betray Christ, which he did, And later in the garden, as Christ was there, a huge number of soldiers and Jewish leaders arrived and Judas Iscariot came up and gave what has been commonly known since as the kiss of death. And he said, the one that I kiss and greet, he's the one you take. And they did. We know how Judas, I don't know that I would say Judas repented of that, But I would say that Judas was overwhelmed by guilt for what he had done. And ended his life as a result of that. All this is coming about at the end of a very short week. Go back just a couple of pages if you would. To Matthew chapter 21. And here in Matthew chapter 21, verse one. Says, and when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem and were come to Bethphage, unto the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, go into the village over against you. And straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her. Loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, the Lord hath need of them. and straightway he will send them. All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold, my king cometh unto thee, meek and sitting upon an ass, in a colt, the foal of an ass. And the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them and brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and they set him thereon. A very great multitude spread their garments in the way. Others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before and that followed cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, who is this? And the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. Today is what's commonly recognized as Palm Sunday. It's recognized as Palm Sunday because of what we read here, how they cut the branches off the trees and laid them in the way along with their coats. That was a sign of homage. It was a sign of honor. It was a sign of worship. I want you to notice a couple of things here in what we just read in chapter 21. They said, Hosanna to the son of David. It's a recognition of genealogy. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Every time you and I walk anywhere, go anywhere in our cars and contact people, we should be going in the name of the Lord. He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. The word Hosanna means save now. It's not a word that is used primarily in that culture in a spiritual sense, but in a physical sense. And we know that at this point, Jerusalem, Israel, was under Roman rule. They were subject to them. And the idea of save now is deliver us from this earthly heathen rule. When you look at verse 21, or verse 11 rather, chapter 21. And others said, who is this man? And this crowd said, this multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. Later on, And we know the account, we know how when Jesus stood before Pilate, and Richard talked about it today in Sunday school, and how he stood before Pilate, and three others were there, they are commonly referred to as thieves, they were insurrectionists, they were there with the intent of overthrowing, and thieving to do it, and murdering to do it, but they were there with the intent of overthrowing Rome. And so when Pilate cried out, because the custom was he would release a prisoner, And he cried out and he told him, I find no fault in this man. And he cried out and he said, who would you that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus, who's called the Christ. The Christ is Messiah. And the multitude of Jews, they'd been highly influenced, wrongly influenced by the leaders of that day, but they cried out, give us Barabbas. Well, there's a connection there. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of that little donkey, Colt, and they cried out to him, Hosanna, they were saying, he's coming to deliver us from Roman rule. And when it became evident, that's not what he was doing. They weren't interested in his role as Messiah. They weren't interested in the spiritual application of all that was transpiring. They wanted instant results from their suppression under Roman rule. And so they said, he's not gonna do it. Let him be crucified. Give us Barabbas. He'll lead us to victory. And that's the connection. Ever since, people have falsely identified Jesus, who he is, why he came. He's been deemed a great teacher, he's been deemed a religious leader, and various and sundry other applications to who he is. But he's Messiah. He is God the Son who came to dine our place. to pay the price for our sin, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Most of us, and I'll just do a little poll here. You know our Bibles, we all have the same Bible, but it's published by different publishers and has different notes at the end of it and so on. And in my Bible, chapter 21 is titled above it, short words that are italicized and it says, Jesus triumphal entry. How many of you have that above yours? Okay, a lot of you, okay. And that's normally what this is viewed as. It is viewed as his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But it wasn't. Because they didn't know who he was. They thought they did. They were excited because of what they thought they were going to get. You know, there are people who come to Jesus because they have problems in their life and they want those problems taken care of. There are songs, there are books, there are messages preached that pretty much propagate that idea that come to Jesus, he'll take away all your troubles. Now I'm going to do another little survey here. How many of you here that have been saved, no matter how long, but since that time, you've had no troubles? If that's your case, raise your hand. If that's your case, I wanna talk to you afterwards. Because you know something I don't. For eternity, we're saved. And here, he can give us strength and encouragement and purpose in our troubles. But the lie is told, and many people buy into the lie, and then when it doesn't pan out, they question the legitimacy of the gospel, they question the legitimacy of Christ, because all my troubles didn't go away. I still got sick. I still have heartache. I still have struggles in life. I have family issues, I have work issues, I have pain issues, I have all these different things that are issues of life, and hey, the rest of the world has that too. So this idea that Jesus is going to come triumphantly and take all that away, it's not true. It's not true. What has grown out of a lot of this? Again, today's what's commonly known as Palm Sunday. I was talking with somebody the other day, I think with Pastor Jones yesterday, in fact, I was talking about things that we just normally say that aren't in the Bible. I'm not talking about false doctrine or anything, but you don't find the term Palm Sunday in the Bible. Pastor Walker slipped over to Junior Church, no offense to him, but you don't find the office of an associate pastor in the Bible. You don't find youth director in the Bible. That doesn't mean those things are wrong, but I think we need to look at why we use some of those, and we're zeroing in today on this idea of, quote, Palm Sunday, close quote. several weeks ago, and I don't keep track of the dates, but several weeks ago as Mardi Gras ended and Fat Tuesday came. And I remember learning about that when I was a kid and wondering why people did what they did. And Fat Tuesday was that day when you got all the sins out of your system. I mean, you just went out, you went wild. You did everything on Fat Tuesday because on Ash Wednesday, All that ceased. And you got the little ashes on your head, which, by the way, we don't find in scripture, okay? Anywhere close to that. And today, all across our land and in churches all across our world, at varying time zones, obviously, but this being, quote, Palm Sunday, close quote, there will be all kinds of ceremonies taking place in churches to pay homage to the palm branches. And people will, in some churches, be handed the palm branch as they leave. I joke about Ash Wednesday. I go home after a day in the office and tell Debbie, nuts, I forgot to get ashes today. Debbie's not here this morning. She'll be here tonight, provided she gets a little bit of rest. Pray for her if you think to. Yesterday morning she got up at 1 a.m. and never went back to bed. At least that's what she told me, I was sleeping well. Last night she went to bed early and woke up at 12 and was up for a couple of hours. She's having a lot of pain in her neck and her shoulders and it's keeping her awake at night. She'll be here this evening. But today I'm not going to go home and say, nuts, I forgot to get you palm leaves. here, you can have mine. And it becomes symbolism. But let's be honest about it, it almost takes on the tone off times of idolatry. Because this is what we're grasping to. Don't grasp to the poem. Please don't misunderstand me. If somebody Goes home today with palm leaves. If our kids in Sunday school today, colored palm leaves, if they do that over in children's church, I'm not saying that's all bad, but the emphasis becomes bad. Jesus rode into Jerusalem, fulfilled prophecy in the manner in which he rode into Jerusalem. but he rode into Jerusalem to die and he knew it. When you think of something termed a triumphal entry, you picture perhaps some distinguished person in a parade sitting on the back of a convertible and waving at everybody and smiling and everybody's cheering them and yelling hello to them. And they're thinking, wow, this is great, I'm really important. Now, I know that dims after the parade is over with. But that triumphant aspect of it is enjoyed by the recipient of it. Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem thinking, hey, I'm a pretty good guy. Man, look at all these people that have come out to greet me. Wow, they're throwing your coats down. That's an act of adoration. That's an act of worship. They're laying palm branches down, which holds that same connotation. They really think I'm something. No, he was coming to die for every one of those people that misunderstood why he was coming. And he was going there to die for you and for me. And he was going there to die for our neighbors and for our coworkers and for our family members and for people with whom we conduct business and we see on the street and we walk past in stores and we sit close to in restaurants and so on and so forth. That's why he was going into Jerusalem. And by God's perfect design, Judas Iscariot is part of this. that's transpiring. Jesus and the disciples gathered together for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That's in verse 17 and on. But in verse 14, we read this about Judas Iscariot, one of the 12. That's befuddling. Although I think sometimes we can see similar to that in other illustrations in our own lives and worlds and families. This is a man who for three and a half years walked with Jesus, watched Jesus, listened to Jesus, sat with the other apostles and learned from Jesus. And verse 14, then one of the 12 called Jesus Iscariot, went on to the chief priests and said unto them, what will ye give me? And I will deliver him unto you. And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver. From that time on, he sought opportunity to betray him. Look at several things in the text that are in the context of this today. We start out in verse 14, then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot went on to the chief priest. It was his choice. He chose to do that. Did God know he was going to do that? Did Jesus know that was going to happen? Yes, he did. But Iscariot, Judas Iscariot, just like so often in our own lives, he chose to do that. Judas Iscariot could not say, I didn't want to do it, but the devil made me. He didn't say, well, they drew me in and they deceived me. He went to them. And he said to them, I can deliver Jesus of Nazareth to you. How much will you pay me to do it? It was his choice. And you know the fact of the matter is, folks, is every time we, by our lives, deny Jesus, every time we deny his holiness by sinning in our lives, it's nobody's fault but our own. And we have chosen to do that. And that's what he does here. And Jesus will scare it. Could be viewed, I was reading a list one time a while back of of some of the most despised people in history. He was on the list. That's understandable, isn't it? At least ought to be understandable to a degree, although maybe the people who wrote the list didn't fully understand that. They just know that that name's nasty. And he was listed along with people like Attila the Hun, and Adolf Hitler, other notorious people down through the years. But remember something. He walked for three and a half years with Jesus Christ. And as that three and a half years drew to a close, he chose to betray him. He chose to deny him. He chose to do what he somehow thought maybe this wasn't good. Did you ever have somebody do that? Somebody comes up to you and they say something and they do something and then they say, well, I didn't want that to happen. Well, guess what? When you do this, it happens. You know, I mean. I don't think any of you are going to go home and put a fire in the fireplace today. It's not that season of the year. But if you went home and put a fire in the fireplace and said, I'm going to stick my hand in that flame. And you stick your hand in that flame and you pulled out and say, wow, I didn't want that to happen. Well, guess what? That's exactly what's going to happen. And he knew that. He knew when he made his choice to contact them, To offer to be the one who betrayed Jesus to them. To set up his arrest. He knew what the outcome was going to be. So you go to the back end of this account and Jesus now has been crucified and we know that Judas Iscariot took his own life. He was distraught. He threw the silver at the feet of those who had given it to them, or to him, as if somehow that was going to rectify things. But he chose to do it knowing full well what the outcome would be. Folks, aren't we matured enough, I'll put it that way, as believers, to know that when we sin there's a consequence? In fact, let me rephrase that. When we sin, there are consequences. And we often think in terms of the cause and effect. Okay, I sinned in this way and this is what happened to me as a result of that. I'm in prison because I robbed a bank kind of thing. You know the greatest consequence every time we sin? Even if nobody else knows about it. Even if there's no evident, tangible consequence seen, the greatest consequence is we have denied our Lord. We have, in effect, at that point, turned our back on Him. And though the words may never cross our lips, but in essence, what we have said by our actions, by our sinful deeds, I don't care if God likes this or not. Judas Iscariot made a choice. You go to verse 15, and said unto them, what will ye give me? Here's his desire. His desire is for earthly gain at the cost of anything. He wants earthly gain. He's going to deny Jesus Christ so that they can give him something for it. And he said, what are you willing to pay me for this? There's no negotiation recorded here. They didn't say, we'll give you 10 pieces of silver, and he said, make it 50, and they agreed on 30. What is evident here is that he had the desire to get something for himself that was surely temporal, that was temporary, that would soon be gone, but he wanted that, And he wanted that to the point where he would deny Jesus Christ to get it. We look at that and we say, whoa, my. How could somebody be that cold, that heartless to do such a thing? How cheaply do we sell out Jesus Christ? And when we do it, it demonstrates our desire. We might sell him out for acceptance. So somebody doesn't think we're weird or odd or somehow off the wall. Some may sell him out for material gain and advancement in the business world, in the workforce. Well, if I don't laugh at the jokes, if I don't go along with the sin, I'm not going to get the advancement and then I won't make the money that I want to make. And so we sell him out for that same gain. His desire here was to get something. And in his case, it specifically was money. He says here, what will ye give me and I will deliver him onto you. His plan is set. His plan is you're gonna give me something and I'm gonna hand Jesus over to you and you can do what you want with him. That's his plan. Again, I look, and we mentioned it a moment ago, we see that at the end of all of this, he no doubt thought to himself that was, I'm gonna try to be minimal here, but that was not the right thing to do, that was dumb. But he did it, and his plan was set. He walked in to meet with those religious leaders, the chief priest. He went in to talk with them with the intent of saying, we're going to come to a point where they're going to give me what I want and here's what I'm going to do and here's what I'm going to present to them because that's my plan. His plan was not to glorify God. His plan was to enrich and glorify himself. And if being the one who betrayed Jesus to the death was how he had to do that, well then so be it. That ought to cause us to look at our lives and say, what's my plan? I don't mean, well, my plan is is that today after church we're gonna go home and there's a roast in the oven and we're gonna eat it and probably take a nap and maybe watch the masters through one eye and then we'll be back tonight and that's my plan. No, no, no. What is our goal in life? What is our plan in life? What is it that we look at in life and say, well, if I do this, I'll get this. And again, it ought to be if I glorify and honor Jesus Christ with everything that I do, Maybe today you've never trusted Christ. And so your plan ought to be if I'll trust Him, He'll make me God's child and then I have the opportunity to live for Him and to bring glory to Him and do what He would have me to do so that Christ is seen in me and to point others to the Savior. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Is that our plan? Is our plan to go ahead and maybe we're not involved in any nefarious activities. We're not out doing criminal things. We're working honest jobs. We enjoy honest activities. But somehow we just fit Jesus into that. Is that our plan? We know what Iscariot's plan was. And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver. He thinks that's his reward. 30 pieces of silver. Some say that 30 pieces of silver might have been the average monthly salary income for a family at that point. Many attest that 30 pieces of silver was the price of a common slave. This is God the Son. This is the one who came and took on human form to pay the price for all of our sin. This is God the Son. And he sells him off. for the price of a common slave. And I go back to the question we posed a few moments ago. How cheaply do we sell him off? And when we do, do we consider who we're selling? His reward is clear here. And we see in verse 16, his goal now is set. And from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him. That would indicate that from that time when he received those 30 pieces of silver and put them in a little bag on his belt, and every time he heard those jingle on his belt, all he thought about is how am I gonna accomplish this? I've got to look for the right opportunity. I've got to look for the right time. And it says here that from that time, he sought opportunity to betray Him. And in his case, the betrayal of Christ became his sole goal in life. Something that I think is important for us to recognize, that if our sole goal in life is not to glorify Him in all that we do, It can't be a partial goal that somehow is gonna work. The guy wants to make it big in sports. And so he's the one that's up at four o'clock every morning in the gym, shooting 500 foul shots, running sprints, goes to the gym and lifts weights and strengthens every aspect of his body that's gonna be vital in his goal. His sole goal in life is such that, some of you may have seen the film a ways back on Pistol Pete Maravich. Everywhere Maravich went, he dribbled a basketball. As a kid he would go to the movies and he'd always get an aisle seat so he could sit and have a basketball out here in the aisle. He'd go into a restaurant, his dad was a coach, he goes into a restaurant and he's sitting there dribbling a basketball. Would you like to have him at the table next to you? I think at some point somebody's gonna reach over and flip that thing away, okay? But you know why he did that? Because his goal, his sole goal, was to be the greatest at the game of basketball. Now, did he make it? He made it big. Greatest, that's always debatable. But in that goal, there wasn't room for anything else. I love playing basketball. I had aspirations. But I will confess, I thought of other things too. And talent is very much a limit to this. But I didn't achieve the greatness he did. And I'm not saying that if I had worked hard enough at it, I would have. I joke about it when it comes to basketball that the older I get, the better I was. And I'm getting older and older, and so I'm getting better and better. But when the sole goal is there, it can't be interrupted by anything else. And when you read here about Judas Iscariot, and it says from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him. That was his sole goal. That was his focus. That was all he thought about. The Bible tells us we're to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts. all of our soul and all of our mind, all of our mights. Pleasing Him is to be our sole goal. What do we let interrupt that? Somebody looks in the mirror and they're tugging on their clothes and they say, you know, I need to drop about 30 pounds. And so they start a diet, and they say, this is my goal, I wanna lose 10 pounds by this point, and 20 by this, and 30 by that, and that's my goal. And every now and again, they interrupt that goal with a big slice of banana cream pie. And well, you know, some French fries today won't hurt. And I don't understand why I can't lose this weight. Because it's not their sole goal. It's interrupted by what they want. You and I purpose in our hearts and dedicate our lives that our sole goal is gonna be pleasing and glorifying God in everything that we do. As Paul said, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If that's the sole goal, we don't make provision for the flesh. His sole goal was to betray Jesus Christ. And from what we read here, from that time he sought opportunity to betray him, there probably wasn't another thought that Jesus Iscariot had that wasn't involved in that. And jump over then, if you would, to what we read in verse 25. We'll go back up. We started in verse 21 and Jesus is speaking here, and as they did eat, he said, verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. I'm not trying to be silly about this, but you can almost picture Iscariot saying, how'd he know that? How'd he know that? You know, as parents, particularly as mothers, But sometimes you know, and I can remember being told this and hearing my wife say this, when one of the kids would say, Mom, how'd you know that? Because I'm a mother. But the question is, how did they know that? He says, one of you shall betray me. I didn't tell anybody. How does he know? Because he's God. And they were exceeding sorrowful. Who? The rest of the apostles. And began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? They were sensitive enough to know that whatever was going on, they were capable of. You ever think about that? There's not a sin that's committed that every one of us in this room are not capable of committing. Well, I would never do that. Given the right set of circumstances, wrong set of circumstances, if you will, we very well could do whatever that is. And these men are saying to him, am I the one that's gonna betray you? I don't want to. I mean, Peter was very bold and boastful, I'll die first. But he did ask the question with the rest of them, is it I? Am I going to be the one to betray you? And Peter did deny him. Every sin that's out there, as abhorrent as we may find it, we're capable of committing it. And they all began to answer him by saying, Lord, is it I? Verse 23, and he answered and said, he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. They had, people today think this is a new phenomenon that you have a little dish with oil in it and some spices and you dip your bread in it. Makes me laugh when somebody says, that's Italian butter. No, it's not. It's olive oil with spices in it. It's not Italian butter. But anyway, you go to a restaurant and they bring that little dish out and they pour the olive oil in it and they already have the herbs in there and you break off your bread and dunk it in and eat it. And hopefully you're with people who don't double dip. That was what they were doing here. And Jesus said, he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. We're all familiar with a very famous painting, The Last Supper. It's not a snapshot. And I think this would indicate that probably Jesus Iscariot was sitting pretty close. Because he would have been dipping into the same cup. Jesus says in verse 24, the son of man goeth as it is written of him. But woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Stay there for just a moment, we see the beginning of that verse, the son of man goeth as it is written of him. And Jesus is simply saying there that the plan of the heavenly father for my life is going to be accomplished. I'm going to the cross, I'm going to the tomb, I will come out of the tomb alive, I will ascend into heaven, I will come back again, and all the aspects of that. And when he says that, he said, the son of man goeth as it is written of him. And in essence, what he's saying here is, no matter who you are in this room talking to the apostles, you cannot either expedite it or stop it. But in your heart, and he doesn't call his name, but in your heart, Jesus is scared, you have purposed to bring it about. And that's why Jesus says then, woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Now I've heard some try to take that out of the context of the specific time. Is it sin when we do something in our lives even as a believer that denies Christ? Yes, it is. Is it sin in our life when we live our lives in such a way, even sporadically perhaps, but we live our lives in such a way that people don't see Christ in us, they see no difference in the world, and we at that point are betraying Him. That's what we're doing. He is specifically here, contextually here, talking about Judas Iscariot. He's not saying that if you and I have done that, and maybe as we sit here right now and God is convicting us because there are things in our lives by the which we betray Him, by the which we deny Him. He's not saying, you're better off if you've never been born. Because our loving, gracious, merciful God forgives. But with Judas Iscariot, He said it would be good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. Thou hast said. I want to look and we've looked at his goal and his plan and his So on and so forth. And we look at verse 25, he says, masters that I and here we very glaringly see his hypocrisy. We see his hypocrisy. He's sitting there with the other 11 apostles. He's sitting there at the Passover meal with Jesus. He is sitting there going through all of that as if everything's okay. is if everything is all right. And when he is confronted with the reality of it, and I don't know that we can honestly say that all the other apostles heard the give and take at this point. But when he was presented with this fact that one of you shall betray me and whoever it is that dips his bread in the cup with me, that's the one it will be. And Judas Iscariot knows that he's already collected the 30 pieces of silver. He knows that he's already made a covenant with the high priest that he's gonna deliver Christ and they can do whatever they wish with him. And he knew what it was. They weren't gonna run him out of town on a rail. They weren't gonna put him back on the donkey and send him in the other direction. They sought to kill him. That's evident. Iscariot knew that. And hypocritically, as he sits there, he said, me? Would I do that? I don't know why I'm putting words in his mouth, but in essence, he's saying, is it I? Are you serious? This is a man who others who had watched Jesus move about in that area and preach the truth and heal people and feed the, feed the hungry and raise the dead and all those things, and all of them would have looked and said, hey, he's one of them. This morning when we walked out of our house, Bible in hand and got in our car, as we do every Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. Maybe our neighbors look at us and say, you know, they go to church all the time. Hold that thought for a moment. Judas Iscariot was known as one of the 12. He came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now he, verse 48, now he that betrayed him gave them a sign saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same as he, hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus and said, Hail, master. You talk about hypocrisy. Hail, master, and kissed him. Jesus asked a rhetorical question. Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they and laid hands on Jesus and took him. And people that had watched Judas Iscariot Some of them had, certainly the other 11, but others who perhaps beheld much of this would say, wait a minute, he was one of them. Matter of fact, when you consider it, Jesus Iscariot made his pact, if you will, he made that with the high priest. All these others who are in this entourage that comes to the garden to capture him, they don't know what deal's been cut. They're just following orders. And they're told that one man is gonna kiss this other man on the cheek, and when he does, that one who has received the kiss, that's the one you take. And I've often wondered how many of them looked at that and thought, wait a minute, he was one of them. Tragedy of tragedy is when people in our world, people in our lives, people in our sphere, see things in our lives and say, wait a minute, I thought you were a Christian. I see you go to church all the time. I see you carrying your Bible. I see you come into the restaurant and sit down and you and your wife, you and your family, you always hold hands around the table and pray. And this is what you do. When we look at the events of this week, We start again with Palm Sunday, and by the end of the week, Jesus has been crucified. He's been denied, he's been beaten, he's been scourged, he's been mocked. He was hung upon a cross and died. And there are those who go through this week Making the whole week a holy event. The wonderful holy event is when he died on the cross and he rose from the tomb. And the circumstances that led up to that, that's where we need to look and do we see ourselves. Let's bow our heads. Her head's bowed, her eyes closed, nobody looking around. Couple of very simple questions. First of all, we must focus on what we've done with Jesus Christ ourselves. Do you know Him as your Savior? Have you accepted Christ and His payment for your sin on the cross and believed His resurrection and allowed Him to save you, gave yourself to Him, accepted His gift of salvation by His grace and alone by His grace? You're not saying, well, I try to be good, I try to do good things. But maybe today you've not come to a point where you've said, I've accepted Christ. I know today by Him and by Him alone, my sins are forgiven and I'm a child of God. Nobody's looking around. I'm not gonna call your name out. I'm not gonna come and get you. But you say with a raised hand, Pastor, that's not really settled in my heart. Maybe you would say, I'm not sure that's settled. Maybe you would say, I know it's not. But with all of our heads bowed and nobody at all looking on, you'd quietly and quickly raise a hand and say, Pastor, that's not settled. Would you pray for me? It needs to be. Here's my hand. Is there anyone like that today? Anyone at all? Second question. The specifics of it. varied and wide. But just for a moment, on the matter of denying him, of betraying him, put yourself at that table and say, Lord is it I? Out of the scope of what we're looking at, but the Lord speaks of betrayal. Lord, is it I? Search me, Lord. Show me my hearts. Show me my sin. Lord, is it I? Or is my soul gold? honor, to glorify God in every, every, everything I say and do and think. Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed as Christians today. There are those who would slip a hand up and say, pray for me, Pastor, God's dealing with my heart about some things today. Here's my hand. Is there anyone like that today? God bless you. I see your hand there, I see it here as well. I see your hand, God bless you. Are there others who would say, I see your hand, God bless you also? Are there others who would say with a raised hand, four or five, I've slipped them up, and you would say, just pray for me. I don't need to know the specifics, but you do. And God does. And God's dealing with your heart, it must be dealt with. Pray for me that I will respond rightly and allow God to have his way. Here's my hand as well, anyone else? Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the truth of it. And thank you, Lord, for going into Jerusalem with the intent of dying on the cross for each of us. And Lord, work in our hearts, change us. If there's anyone here today that's never been saved, they're not certain that they're a child of God. I pray, Lord, that before they leave this place, that will have been settled. If they would talk with somebody, Pastor and Mrs. Walkers are up front after the service, that they would come to them and somebody can quietly and privately show them how to leave here, a new creature in Christ. Lord, you not only saw hands as we did, but you know the hearts behind them. You know hearts that didn't slip a hand up, but you're dealing with them. I pray that there would be a repentance, a confession, and a surrender. That we would not deny or betray you in any way. That we would live to your honor and glory.