Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign
[00:00:04] Speaker B: welcome to Hope for Today, a weekly Bible teaching program that will bring you hope for every day.
It is a privilege to be here and study God's Word together. These words are so much more than just words. Never has there been a book that has been so loved and so hated. Many right now would give their life for this message, and many right now want to destroy any influence of these words.
Today we will finish the lesson we started last time. Our title is Desire and Destiny, and we are looking at four examples from Mark 14.
We already looked at the example of the leaders and Mary. The leaders desire was to kill Jesus, but Mary desired to honor him. Their desires affected their behavior in a huge way, just like it still does for us.
The last two examples we will look at are Judas and the disciples. Again, one is good and the other is not. Let's go with J. Mark to mark 14 for a closer look at these two examples of desire
[00:01:14] Speaker A: and destiny as we resume our study from the previous episode, I'll read the text.
Mark 14:1 16 after two days it was the Passover and the feast of Unleavened bread, and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Jesus by trickery and put him to death.
But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar of the people.
And being in Bethany, at the house of Simon the Leper, as he reclined at the table, the a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard.
Then she broke the flask and poured it on his head.
But some were indignant among themselves and said, why was this fragrant oil wasted? For it might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor.
And they criticized her sharply.
But Jesus said, let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for me. For you have the poor with you always and whenever you wish. You may do them good, but me you do not have Always she has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint my body for burial.
Assuredly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them.
And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money.
M so he sought how he might conveniently betray him.
Now, on the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, where do you want us to go and prepare that you may eat the Passover?
And he sent out two of his disciples and said to them, go into the city and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water.
Follow him wherever he goes in. Say to the master of the house, the teacher says, where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with my disciples?
Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared there. Make ready for us.
So his disciples went out and came into the city and found it just as he had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.
The next illustration of desire and destiny is the desire of Judas.
Verse 10 makes a very tragic statement. It says, then Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, went to the chief priests to betray him to them. And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money.
So he sought how he might conveniently betray him.
And so we have to ask, how did this happen?
Did Satan all of a sudden decide to move in on Judas?
Well, first of all, we know that two views of the Messiah developed during the intertestamental period.
One view was of the conquering king who would come to set up his kingdom on earth, and he would restore the kingdom to Israel.
This is the prominent theme in major portions of prophetic scripture.
And the Gospel records show that the 12 expected Jesus to set up an earthly kingdom.
The other view of the Messiah was the suffering servant, the way it's described in Isaiah chapters 52 and 53, and also in some of the Messianic psalms.
And because these views seemed contradictory, reconciling them was difficult.
Eventually, the suffering servant concept was abandoned by the Jewish leaders.
The people of Jesus Day were looking for a Messiah, one who would set them free from the Roman yoke of bondage.
Judas Iscariot, who was he?
Well, you know, the Scriptures don't tell us a lot about him, but they do offer some clues that help us understand his actions.
John, chapter 12 tells us that Judas was a callous man who didn't care about the poor, even though he pretended to.
He was also a thief, and he was a treasurer for the group for Jesus and the 12.
Jesus knew all about Judas covetousness, and yet he entrusted him with the finances of their little group.
I have to ask, isn't God's grace amazing?
And then Iscariot identifies him as being from Kerioth, a small, nondescript town in the Judean hill country.
Interestingly, Judas was the only one of the 12 who was from outside of Galilee.
And like the other disciples. He must have seen Jesus as the one who could deliver Israel from their bondage.
But when it finally became apparent to Judas that Jesus would fulfill the suffering servant aspect of the Messiah rather than the king, Judas was disillusioned and he sought an opportunity to betray Jesus.
It's also possible that Judas expected Jesus to walk away from his enemies, as he had done previously.
Whatever his motives were, Judas desire for money became his undoing. It was the avenue that Satan used to enter into his heart and to affect his choices.
All the time he walked with Jesus and the disciples, he had opportunities to embrace his master's teaching, and he had opportunities to make the right choices.
But his life bears witness to Paul's words in 1 Timothy 6, 9 about the corrupting influence of money.
The desire to be rich leads to many snares and ultimately to destruction.
Judah's desires guided his choices, and those choices would ultimately determine his destiny.
He had just witnessed a graphic act of devotion to his master, but he didn't understand its significance.
Instead, he and the others complained about the waste of valuable perfume.
Jesus rebuke probably stung Judas.
It finalized a rift that had been growing between them.
Judas could now retaliate against Jesus, and he would make some money in the process.
And what was his price?
According to Exodus 21:32, 30 shekels of silver were the price you paid if a male or a female servant were accidentally killed.
But what was such a small sum compared to what Jesus had promised him and the other disciples?
Jesus said in his kingdom, the twelve would sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
So what kind of bargain was Judas making?
It was a sad bargain. A, uh, deal with the devil.
He traded his moral integrity for a small amount of money.
He betrayed a friend for a small amount of money. That's what covetousness does. It focuses on the immediate and it closes our eyes to eternal realities.
Judah's goals and the goals of the religious leaders met because of their desires. And then their destinies were similar too.
Until now, the leaders didn't know how to arrest Jesus.
Remember, they feared the people.
Jerusalem was bursting at the seams with Passover crowds.
Then there were the recent events of the triumphal entry and Jesus cleansing of the temple. And the leaders didn't know which way to turn.
And then Judas shows up.
They had what Judas wanted, which was money. And Judas had what they wanted.
Someone who knew the details of Jesus private life well enough and could arrange his arrest privately, away from the prying eyes of the crowd.
What kind of desires do you have?
Are you motivated by covetousness?
You know, this desire has many different forms, and we see it in both the religious leaders and in Judas.
I don't want to be cynical, but I've observed this connection between money and spiritual leaders.
Money often purchases access, just like it did here in our text.
It closes the mouths of those who know the truth.
Either way, it leads to destruction and woe to you or me if we allow this desire to control us.
Are you, like Judas, disillusioned with God?
Has he failed to meet your expectations in some area of life?
If so, then we need to watch out, because Satan will suggest that God is neither fair nor just.
If he were, he would give us what we want.
We need to reject those kind of thoughts immediately because we don't want to turn out like Judas.
The evil desires of Judas are contrasted with the final illustration in our text.
And that final illustration of desire and destiny is the desire of the disciples.
The first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread was when they killed the Passover lamb.
So the disciples knew Jesus would celebrate the Passover. He was an observant Jew, and they had kept the feast with him before.
Naturally, they were curious about where they were going to gather, and so they asked him about it.
In response, he sent his two most trusted disciples, Luke tells us they were Peter and John, to prepare the place for the Passover meal.
And he gave them some very unique but specific instructions. He said, go into the city, and there you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water.
Follow him to the house that he enters and say to the owner, the Master asks, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?
He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready.
The rest of the 12 didn't know where they would gather.
And whether Jesus had decided beforehand with the homeowner or relied on his divine foreknowledge, we don't know that either.
What we do know is that the place was waiting for them.
And that would have been highly unusual in the city, which was so crowded during these feast days.
Yet the two disciples followed Jesus instructions, and it worked out just like Jesus had foretold.
So According to verse 16, they prepared the upper room for the Passover celebration.
Little did they know that this Passover would be unlike any other they had ever celebrated before.
Their desire would lead to a destiny they could not have imagined.
Each individual or group in this narrative had desires.
Some were honorable, like those of Mary and the disciples Some were evil, like those of the religious leaders and Judas.
Each had choices to make that would affect their destiny immediately and into eternity.
We know how their choices turned out.
We too face similar decisions every day.
These illustrations should motivate us to choose wisely in our relationship with Jesus because our eternal destiny is at stake.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Thanks J. Mark for this teaching and thank you for being with us. J. Mark gave a good summary of these two lessons here at the end. I couldn't agree more. Our choices are so very important.
As a schoolteacher, I've interacted with many young people many times. I wished I could communicate to them the power of their decisions.
Obviously, our choices at every stage in life are important, but the choices we make as a young person have such a large impact on the rest of our lives.
From these four examples, we can see a range of consequences.
God help us consider carefully our current desires and choices. Thanks again for being with us today. If you have any comments or feedback from these lessons, here is how you can reach us. Our email address is hopeheraldsofhopeuh.org or you can contact us via our website. Go to heraldsofhope.org There you will find Contact Us under the Partner tab on the top right. Click on that to message us directly. In closing, think about the decision Moses put in front of the Israelites in Exodus 32. He stood before the camp and asked, who is on the Lord's side? This was a defining moment for everyone who was there.
In a similar way, our choices define who we are.
We must be wise and think carefully about our decisions.
