Hello and welcome to our broadcast again. We're in John chapter 13. Have your Bibles ready. We'll look at it in just a minute. Well, it's been about 50 years since Jesus chose John to be one of his disciples. John is now an old man. He's looking back, and one thing that we know about John was that he really did love the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the theme of everything he wrote. The book of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and of course the Revelation. Everything that John wrote about, it had to do with the love of Christ. We have four Gospels here, what we call Gospels. The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And Matthew presents Jesus as the King of the Jews. Mark presents Jesus as a servant. That's why there's no genealogy there in the book of Mark. Luke presents Jesus as the perfect man, and John presents Jesus as God. We see in John chapter 20 and verse number 31 that the main reason that this book is written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus is the Christ, that's the title for Messiah, and the Son of God, that's the title for Savior. Reading in Chapter 13, we read now, before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God. Now it starts off with now. It's interesting that John uses that word quite a bit. He's always focusing on the time and he is saying now before the Feast of the Passover. Not only are we looking at a different time, but we're looking at a new subject. This is going to be the final time when Jesus will be with His disciples. And it says here in verse number 1 that He loved them unto the end. Unto the end. Now that word means that He loved them to the furthest point that it was possible to love anybody. In John chapter 15 and verse number 13 we read that Jesus said, Greater love has no man than this. that a man lay down his life for his friends. Well, he is about to lay down his life for his friends in the sense that he is going to go to the cross and he is going to die for them. And he says here in this portion of Scripture, I don't call you servants anymore, I call you friends. And he's laying down his life for his friends. But not only is he laying down his life in the sense that he would die for them, but he has laid down his entire life for his friends. All the time that he was here, he lived his life for his friends. And so, yeah, we can love someone enough to die for them. I think it's harder to love someone enough to live for them. That is, you live your whole life for other people. That is the kind of love that Jesus is talking about here. Well, it says in verse 2, "...and supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simon's son, to betray him. Supper being ended. Now this is the Passover supper and we find here that at the end of the Passover supper, very interesting play on words here, it is the end of the Passover. We will see here that this is the last Passover supper And then, in the middle of this Passover supper, it switches over to what we would call the first local church communion. And we'll see that as we go down through this chapter. Supper being ended, that is the end of the Passover, the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him. The heart of Judas. At the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. Judas has had a problem with his heart all his life. We'll see that as we go through this chapter as well. Well, it says in verse number three, Jesus knowing. Very interesting. It says in verse one, Jesus knew that his hour was come. That phrase, Jesus knew, is in the New Testament seven times. Here in verse three, it says, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand and that he was come from God and went to God, he rises from supper, and laid aside his garment, and took a towel, and girded himself, Jesus knowing, he said, In verse number 70, back in John chapter 6, he said, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He's not surprised by anything that's going on here in the heart of Judas Iscariot. In John 6 and 64 it says, Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him. This was no secret to Him. He knew exactly what was happening here. Now if you read the other accounts in the other Gospels about this particular situation here, we find that the disciples were all arguing amongst themselves who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom. Can you imagine? Hours before Christ is going to be crucified, they are arguing who's the greatest. So in that context we read in verse 4, he rises from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with a towel wherewith he was girded." You can only imagine, as these self-centered disciples have been arguing about who's the greatest, that Jesus took on the role of a servant. When someone came to someone's house in those days, they were wearing sandals, the roads were dusty, sometimes even muddy, and it was the responsibility of the servant to wash the feet of the guests. Well, Jesus takes on this role, and he is trying to teach them that we need to be servants for the Master. Well, he then cometh to Simon Peter, verse 6, and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now. but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head, if that's what it takes for me to have a part with you. One thing about Peter, he was always talking when he should have been listening. He's always speaking out of turn and speaking too quickly. But one thing we know about Peter is he really did love the Lord. needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit, and ye are clean, but not all, for he knew who should betray him, therefore said he, ye are not all clean." Once again we read that Jesus knew. So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. He said, for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. He said, I have given you an example. He did not say, I've given you a church ordinance. He said, I have given you an example. And the example is, you need to learn to be servants one to another, and if once we learn how to be servants, and we learn how to love, we find that love and humility go together. They are one and the same. There's not going to be some genuine love without some genuine humility. We'll see that as we go through this chapter. Jesus said in verse number 16, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither is he that is sent greater than he that Sent him so he said and I you know, I'm going to be sending you I'm going back to heaven I'm sending you to do the job You're not greater than I am since I had washed your feet since I have taken on the form of a servant You go out there and be a servant and then he said very important verse 17 if you know these things Happy are ye that do them? Oh, we go to church every week and we learn a lot of stuff and we know a lot of stuff He said, no, you're going to be happy if you do them. And now Jesus focuses on the situation that they are facing that day and he is preparing his disciples so that in the next few hours their faith will not be shattered. He said in verse 17, happy are ye, but then in verse 18 he said, I speak not of you all. You're not all going to be happy. Keep in mind that Judas Iscariot is sitting there. He said, I know whom I have chosen but that the scripture may be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. And he said to his disciples here, I want you to know what is going on here. Verse 19, he said, Now I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, that you may believe that I am he. You're going to have your faith shaken to the uttermost if you do not understand what is happening here. He said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. Now, he said, I am telling you this, this is what is getting these disciples to understand. You're going to face the most discouraging time of your life in the next few hours, but I have sent you, and you have a job to do, and you cannot be knocked over by what what Judas Iscariot is about to do. We're going to have these hypocrites among us today too, and the lesson is that we cannot be knocked over by what they do. And so the Lord says in verse 19, Now I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Don't let Judas Iscariot and his type of hypocrites get you off the battle lines. We need to understand that Judas Iscariot was making choices and having to face the consequences of those choices long before he met up with the Lord and decided to travel with that group. That was a choice. He decided to do that because he thought, in his mind, he's going to take over, he's going to set up the kingdom, and I'm going to be very wealthy here. That was his whole goal. He was a hypocrite. But Judas was making decisions when he was a teenager. He said, I have chosen Jesus said, I have chosen Judas, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. And why did he choose Judas? Because choices that he was making when he was a young person. He was making choices that were leading him on the path to hell, and Jesus knew that. He needed someone to play the part of Judas, and so he took someone who was already on the road to hell, and he used him. He said, I have chosen him for this job. We look in the Old Testament and we see that Pharaoh and how he acted. He was acting crazy and against God a long time before he became the Pharaoh. We look at Herod, and we look at Judas, and we look at people today. We make our own choices, and we face the consequences of those choices. And if we decide in our young lives, especially as teenagers, what direction we're going to go, those are choices, and with those choices come consequences. And so the Lord wanted his disciples to understand that. He had said back in John chapter 6 and verse number 70, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil. One of the greatest problems we have today in our so-called fundamental churches is not what is being said and not what is being preached, but what is not being preached. We are not letting our young people know what apostasy is and who in our ranks are promoting it. And the devil will always have someone, like he had Judas Iscariot amongst those faithful eleven. He will always have someone in our local churches who are going to lead our young people astray. And what we need to do is to do what Jesus did here. He said, I tell you before it comes that you might believe. Otherwise, we're going to lose our young people. Well, in verse 21 we read, When Jesus had thus said he was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Can you imagine the disciples looking at each other? You know, their hands going up in a gesture of question, like who in the world would betray anybody? Who would betray the Lord? And the last one they would have guessed was Judas. They thought he was the most trustworthy of them all. They made him the treasurer. He carried the bag, you remember, and was stealing out of it all the time. But we're out of time again. Tune in again tomorrow. We'll try to make it plain and simple as we continue in John chapter 13. so