The Betrayal of Jesus! Weds Night Edison Corps 4-4-1 By Kelly Durant  Matthew 27:22

22Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.

How many of you love Jesus? How many of you have shared with someone else about Jesus’ life, birth, betrayal, death & resurrection? This is a true story. In the 1800’s there was a missionary sent to Africa to preach Jesus to a tribe that had never heard about Jesus. He got to know the people and lived with them several months. Then the day came that he was telling the story of Jesus’ life, with all eyes on him he continued all the story, about how Jesus was eating with the disciples in the last supper. The anxious missionary expected to pray the sinner’s prayer and get souls saved at the end of the story. Then, however, when he came to the part about Jesus being betrayed by Judas at the last supper, all the people got up. Suddenly, to his surprise and despair all the people started cheering as if that was the end of the story!

What? What was going on? He asked the interpreter, why do they cheer? He said that in their culture, if you betray someone, it means you had more power, so you are considered the new powerful one to be honored. Imagine how horrible, these people thought it was good that Jesus was betrayed! How crazy, right? It took a lot preaching & teaching to help this African tribe to grasp what sin is and what real virtues of loyalty and compassion are!

Today, thank God there are not many cultures quite this bad! In the Salvation Army in all the 123 countries where there are evil gangs controlling huge neighborhoods, most of the gang leaders at least have the decency to respect the Salvation Army children’s schools or health clinics because they do good! Right? Even evil people most of the time respect others who are good!

How do we define betrayal?  Dictionary:  1. to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty 2. to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling: ... In the end, the results of a betrayal are that someone will suffer greatly due to the sin of someone close by that had their trust!

Let’s seriously examine what betrayal meant for Jesus. This is what is happening in this verse 22. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. This verse exposes the embodiment of pure evil of man’s injustice to another, of envy and violence, of paying evil for good, of one day praising and honoring Jesus in the city, to the next day of crying out, “Crucify him to death”!

How is it that there existed (and exist) people so full of maliciousness? This was more evil than what the dictator Pilate practiced! Not even Pilate was so bad that he wanted to kill Jesus. Looking at Pilate’s life we may be reminded of James 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

In the case of Pilate, he was a devil, the judge who could deliver up for torture and execution anyone, but he respected the fact that Jesus had done no wrong.  Vs. 23And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.  In the end though, He was guilty by being an accomplice, an unwilling one but still a betrayer.

Recall that Pilate is a pagan Roman and he worshipped many gods, he was an unrepentant idolatrous, adulterous, murderous dictator and he was accustomed to putting to death anyone as he pleased. His law was usually under his control, but in this case, the Jews were interjecting their police force to bring Jesus to trial so they can kill Jesus.

The shocking reality is, not even this horrible devil of a dictator Pilate was so callous that he wanted to kill a good man that was no threat to anyone.

He even had his second conscious, his wife, and what was her opinion on the matter? Matt 27: 19 When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. 

But Pilate had it confirmed that Jesus was good & just and he must have feared him and he hated how he was in the middle of his betrayal. Men, aren’t you glad your wives are always there to confirm you in your feelings and convictions? And this verse confirms we all should pay closer attention to our mates advice and to our disturbing dreams as it may be God through the Holy Spirit sending us a message! We need to listen to each other and God more! Right? Amen?

Today, betrayal amongst family members, in corporate America, in politics is too commonplace! How many of you have ever helped a friend and then later the friend does something very wrong that violates you, like they borrow a large sum of money and then don’t pay you back? Or how many of you have ever been full of hope that a person you are helping someone to come to know God but then suddenly they disappear out of your life with no gratitude? It hurts doesn’t it? This is betrayal.

I have discovered in my lifetime that all families have had in them betrayers of some kind in them, fathers or mothers that abandon their kids, or brothers or sisters that backstab. Betrayal is a great sin; a heartless, cold, selfish act that destroys greatly and it even murders!

Most agree Pilate wanted to do right. He thought he could torture Jesus just enough to satisfy the people’s maliciousness with the 39 lashes to please the crowd and then let him go. He schemed that he would hurt Jesus just enough to please the people hoping they would decide to release Jesus from execution, but his plan backfired!

Vs 17Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? 18For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. 20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask for Barabbas, and ask to kill Jesus.

So what have we observed with all of this? That leaders in the world, like Pilate, are willing victims of their own systems of evil, and they are puppets. I am sure they hate the fact that they are trapped in condemnation and guilt that they know God will punish them. Pilot washed his hands remember? He was trying to persuade himself that he really did not have any guilt for the death of Jesus. But end then, he did not defend Jesus and he was a man-pleaser for evil men fulfilling prophesy.

In a court of law, if you see a crime happening, and you comply by not doing something about it, then you are considered an accomplice, right? In the world today there are many who are like Pilate, weak and fearful of others who do evil and they succumb to them. Today people consider “snitching” bad when actually it is making you guilty to being an accomplice to a crime.

Pilate was one man, but now let’s take a look at the aggressive betrayers, the “They” in 22 verse. Who were they? They refers to the crowd of the townspeople people! It was the people who wanted his death! But who persuaded them of doing this? Amongst the “They” were the jealous religious leaders of the day.

Vs. 1When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: 2And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

This branch of Jewish chief priests premeditatedly plotted to kill Jesus! This is the worst type of betrayal there is, to be betrayed by those of your own kind! Wasn’t Jesus a Jew? Wasn’t Jesus a studious teacher of the Torah, their sacred law? Wasn’t Jesus considered a spiritual respected Rabbi in the community? A miracle worker praised for his good works? Wasn’t he born and raised in the same region? You would think they would have protected him from the enemy, the Romans but they did not!

In the end, this aggressive betrayal, this arrest done by the guards of the Jewish temple, exposes of one of the worst back-stabbings of all history! Judas had his hand in it but the priests even paid him money to be sure he would deliver Jesus into their hands.  Amongst those guilty in the crowd, the scriptures make it clear that it is the ones who hated Jesus and cried out to crucify Him!

What happens today if a killer by trickery gets the court to execute an innocent person when they are the guilty one? Does the law let them go free to kill again and again? No, they execute them too, right? Jesus made it clear the fate of those who would reject him.  Matt. 13:49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just. 50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Anyone who aggressive rejects and betrays Jesus in this life will be severely punished by God in the final judgment!

Today we live in a world where people have taken the freedom to aggressively reject Jesus and these people continue to betray Him and crucify him a fresh by their sinful actions on Jesus followers. In Africa Muslims have killed Christians by the hundreds of thousands with no punishment by their laws; communists too have killed Christians by the millions with no consequence. But these who kill will face Jesus Himself one day for judgment!

Those who actively persecute Jesus followers today are guilty of betraying the God who made them and wants to save them, and it is not God’s fault they choose for themselves eternal death and separation from Him. How horrifying that this rejection of Jesus keeps happening!

The people cried out to crucify him! Imagine, this was one of the most horrible forms of death known to man, one of days of suffering, and the people did not just say, “off with his head” for a quick death, they said to crucify him! Why such extreme hate? Satan, our enemy still uses people to destroy all the good he can! He is cruel and wants extreme suffering for all!

Let’s look at Jesus record while on earth. He healed the sick, he made the blind to see, and the deaf to hear and he fed the people by the thousands! He was like an alien from another planet with superpowers! If he would have lived longer, he could have healed every sick person in all Israel! He was like no other person ever, and there has never been any one with all his powers ever since! It made no sense to kill Him! It was pure extreme jealousy and betrayal!

If we were to go back just a week earlier, when He entered into Jerusalem, you will recall thousands worshipped and praised Him! The reason He was betrayed was that His preaching exposed the truth of the evil in others. He seemed to always have a tough word for the hypocrites who used the church only for their own gain of power and money.

Everyone who lives in sin and does not change becomes a hater of the good and they basically in the spirit are yelling out to crucify Jesus all over again! Sin in people always leads to betrayal of those who do good to them and this can lead to murder, and a horrific crime is committed!

So why do I talk so much about betrayal? So each of us search our hearts to see if you or I have been sinful and disloyal to Jesus or to his people anytime in the past!

I will admit I was a betrayer to Jesus once! I grew up in the church and I knew about sin but in my teen years I strayed away. I recall in my days in college when I smoked marijuana, I was just your regular carnal selfish Joe trying to enjoy pleasure without guilt. But one day I made friends with some missionaries that invited me to serve Jesus with them. I thought they were crazy to invite me to live abroad and give up all my comforts and go! I was cool, had my life my way but God was shaking up my world. I had a dream one night that changed my life!

In the dream I was in a rock concert that turned out to be a disillusionment because the artist was not showing up for hours and in the meantime my body was getting numb due to breathing all the marijuana smoke. I felt like I was going become glued to the chair and die there! My heart was beating hard! Then suddenly some strange people just appeared in the aisle as doing some crazy skit or drama. A person came up to me and put a hammer and nail in my hand and said, “Here we need you to help us crucify this man! Nail this hand on this piece of wood!” (and Jesus was laying there looking up at me) I panicked! I threw the hammer and nail down and ran out of the concert’s back door as fast as I could! Outside there were thousands of police ready to arrest all the people inside and I barely escaped!

To interpret it, the police were like God’s angles at the end of the world ready to capture and punish everyone for their sins. If I would have stayed in my sins, after knowing about the sacrifice and love Jesus gave to me I would have been guilty with no chance of redemption by betraying Him in a horrible way. I repented and gave my life to Him at age 21! And this is why I know Spanish and Portuguese, because I lived 14 years abroad evangelizing.

Here is the message: Don’t become a victim in the world like Pilate became trapped in a system that caused Him to allow Jesus suffering. Don’t be persuaded by the evil crowd that yelled out, “Crucify him”. Mark 8:37-38  37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?  38Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.  If you continue in your sin you will be a betrayer of the most holy, innocent amazing loving kind person that ever walked the earth who was God in the flesh, Jesus! He even conquered death by resurrecting and coming out of the grave and He wants to take you out of the grave too and give you eternal life!

 And the most amazing thing is the peace He gives you because He takes away your sin, and guilt, shame, and pain! He even will forgive you for betrayal, denial, and abandonment if only you will just go back and obey Him and love Him! Pray for Him to forgive you right now, and your life will be re-created like you never have imagined! Has someone wrong you, pray for them now!