We've been studying in John chapter
13 for a few Wednesday nights. And in John 13, and we'll be
going back there in just a few minutes, but there we find it
is Passover time. And our Lord meets with His disciples. There are 13 men who are eating
a Passover meal, the feast of the Passover. They're gathered
together there in an upper room, and it was a room that our Lord
had sovereignly arranged for them to meet in. And there they
observed the last Passover, and there He instituted what we know
to be the Lord's Supper. It is, as I said, Passover time. That's the greatest of the feasts
of Israel. Maybe you knew, if you didn't
know, I'll tell you. Today is Yom Kippur, which started
yesterday in the evening, sundown, and goes until this evening at
sundown. It lasts officially 25 hours. And that is the day of atonement
for Israel. And that's the greatest day of
the year for the Jews. And of course, what they don't
understand is our Lord has already fulfilled that because the Day
of Atonement really took place 2,000 years ago. When our Lord
Jesus gave His life's blood to save His people, to redeem us,
to reconcile us to the Father, And He, by His sacrifice, He
removed all of our sins and He brought in for us everlasting
righteousness. And that was the Day of Atonement.
That was the Day of Redemption. And so, there is no need to actually
observe a day as they do beginning yesterday and then continuing
and ending this evening. Our Lord Jesus has fulfilled
that, but as far as the day, that's the special day for Israel,
the Day of Atonement, but as far as the feasts, It is this
feast, the Feast of the Passover, that is the greatest of the feasts,
and was observed, of course, in the springtime. April, late
March, typically in April is when Passover was celebrated.
It was the greatest, the first and the greatest of the feasts
of Israel, and it was, of course, a memorial to God bringing the
Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt. And we know that all
of the Jewish men had to attend this feast, and it was very,
very special, a very special time. In fact, you're in Exodus
chapter 12, at least I hope you stayed there. Look at verse 25,
go over to verse 25. And it shall come to pass that
when ye become and to the land which the Lord will give you,
according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass when
your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service? What is the meaning of this Passover
feast? That ye shall say, it is the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed their head and worshiped. Now, two key words are to be found in verse 27.
Sacrifice. and delivered. Wherever there was in Israel,
among the Israelites, wherever there was a sacrifice, there
was a deliverance. The sacrifice was that of a male
lamb of the first year without spot and without blemish. That
was the sacrifice. The life was forfeited. was given up. It was sacrificed. It was a life laid down. It was
a life that was taken away from that land. It was a sacrifice. And it was for God. It was for God. And here's the
result of the sacrifice. Wherever there was a sacrifice,
there was deliverance. Now those two always went together. If there was a sacrifice, there
had to be a deliverance. If there was a deliverance, it
was on the basis of a sacrifice. There would be no deliverance,
no deliverance of the firstborn without a sacrifice. But where
there was a sacrifice, there had to be a deliverance. And
of course, this sends us into the future from this passage
of Scripture to Mount Calvary. where we see our Lord Jesus,
God's Lamb. John identified Him as being
the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God, John
said, that taketh away the sin of the world. And we see God's
Lamb being sacrificed. He was sacrificed. In fact, we
read in 1 Corinthians 6, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed
for us. Who gave Him? God gave Him. It's just like right here in
Exodus chapter 12. The father, the head of the household,
he took the lamb. He killed the lamb. He put the
blood on the side posts and over the center posts outside. And
God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Even so,
God gave His Son. God gave Him. God smoked Him. The Scripture says in Isaiah
chapter 53, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He put his soul
to grief. This was the sacrifice of the
Son of God. Who sacrificed Him? God sacrificed
Him. Well, what is the result? Deliverance. There had to be
the deliverance of everyone for whom Christ died. This is a biblical
established fact. Wherever there's a sacrifice,
there has to be a deliverance. Give you another illustration,
Genesis, the 22nd chapter, and most of you already know I'm
gonna be talking about Abraham and Isaac here. And God said,
to Abraham, take Isaac, your son that you love, your only
son, take him up on a mountain that I'll show you and offer
him as a burnt offering unto me, a sacrifice unto me. And
so here they go, and they go three days' journey. They had
a couple of servants that went along with them. Then Abraham
told the servants, he said, you two men stay here. I and the
lad will go yonder and worship. And of course, we know this is
a picture of what happened when our Lord Jesus was to be offered
for our sins. There were two who were there,
the thieves, one on each side. And yet they really couldn't
enter into the transaction between the Father and the Son because
of the darkness that came. And God told Abraham, you take
him on up on the mountain. And Abraham and Isaac go, and
Isaac says, okay, you've got the knife and the fire, and I've
got the wood strapped on my back. Where's the lamb? Where's the
lamb? Because he heard his father say
to those men, I and the lamb will go yonder and worship. And
Isaac knew what most religious people don't know today. There
cannot be any worship of God apart from the Lamb. We've got
to have the Lamb of God. And we know that He stands right
in the center. He is the one who is our mediator,
who is our go-between, who is our sacrifice. He's all of our
salvation. He's all of our redemption. He's
all of our sanctification. He's all of our justification.
There is Christ Jesus. He's the Lamb of God. If we leave
the Lamb out, you've got no worship. If the Lamb isn't with us, if
He isn't presented during a service such as this, there can't be
any worship. There may be some religion, and
there may be even some good feelings, but there's no worship. There's
no adoration of God. There's no exaltation of God.
We must learn this if we haven't learned it already. God is only
well pleased with His Son. His Son who died for us. And
when we make much of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God
who was sacrificed, God is well pleased. And if we don't make
much of Him, the Spirit of God is not going to be here. I can
guarantee you that. He won't be here. So Abraham
and Isaac go and Isaac says, where's the lamb? And of course
Abraham says, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a
birth to offering. God will do the providing and
God himself will be the lamb because he's the son of God.
And so they go yonder to The mountain, the Lord showed him,
they arrive. Everything, the rocks are put
in place, and here's Isaac, he gets up on top of the altar,
up on top of the wood, and Abraham, he's ready to execute his son. He's ready to sacrifice Isaac. And then a voice says, the voice
says, I know that you fear God. I know that you believe God.
Because you're ready to offer your only Son to Me. This is
the Lord Jesus talking. This is the Son of God speaking
because we know this, God will not speak to nor be spoken to
by any of us or by anybody except through Christ Jesus. So it's
the Son of God who says, I see, you believe God. And Abraham lifted up his eyes
and he saw in a thicket a ram caught. And he took that ram and he sacrificed
him. God got a burnt offering, didn't
He? He got a burnt offering. It wasn't Isaac. It was a ram,
because the Lord said, offer the ram in his stead. That's substitution, my friends. In the stead of Isaac. God demanded
a sacrifice. There was the sacrifice. I'll
tell you, the one that animal was sacrificed for, He had to
be delivered. Isaac was delivered. I mean,
what kind of justice would it have been when the Lord said,
okay, kill the ram in his stead, and then Abraham killed the ram,
and then the Lord said, now kill Isaac too. Well, that wouldn't
have been any justice at all. But that's exactly what universal
redemption is all about. You say, what do you mean by
universal redemption? This idea that Jesus Christ laid
down His life, that He died for everybody. Everybody who's ever
lived. He died as much for Judas that
we're going to talk about tonight as He did for the Apostle Paul.
That He died as much for Cain as He did for Abel. That cannot
be true. What an insult to the justice
of God. Remember this, and this is why
I wanted to point this out here in Exodus chapter 12. Wherever
there is a sacrifice, there must be a deliverance. And you see,
the Lord Jesus was sacrificed for His people. And we're delivered. from the vengeance of God. Augustus' top lady said, twice
payment God cannot demand, first in my bleeding surety's hand,
and then again at mine. So this is the kind of setting
we find over here in John chapter 13. Here's the Passover feast. So go to John chapter 13. And
remembering, and I don't want you to forget this, and you'd
know this of course, where there's a sacrifice, there must be a
deliverance. And we can teach our children
that. Substitution is a long word, but it just means, as it
does there in Genesis 22, in the stead of. And where there
is a sacrifice offered to God, the one for whom it was offered,
must be delivered. There in Exodus, where the Lord
said to put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and over
the doorposts and side posts, God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. Or if I could just paraphrase
that, when I see the blood, the firstborn is delivered. He's
delivered. He can't die. He can't die, not
unless God ceases to be unjust. Not unless our God is found to
be a liar, and that can't happen. The very integrity of God is
at stake here. The glory of God. For that which God demands, where
it is accomplished, that which He promises, it will be accomplished
as well. When I see the blood, and I'll
tell you, you and I have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
And this is what we've already studied here, the washing of
the feet of these men. Our Lord Jesus has said to them,
look here in John chapter 13 and verse 10. You remember in
verse nine, Peter said, Lord, not my feet only, but my hands
and my, or my hands and my head in verse 10, Jesus saith unto
him, he that is washed, he that's completely bathed, washed in
the blood. We've been bathed in that royal
bath, that bath of the blood of our Lord Jesus, he that is
washed, he doesn't need. to wash anything but His feet. That's all He needs washing now.
Because He'd clean every wit. And isn't it marvelous? Isn't
it wonderful? Those of us who are the people
of God, we've been brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We can, with confidence, with great confidence, based upon
the sure Word of God, we can say, we are every wit clean. We're clean. By nature, we're
like the lepers who must go around saying, unclean, unclean. Had to put a cloth over their
faces. Unclean, unclean. That's what
I am by nature, but by grace, I'm clean. Every whit, every
whit, clean. The Lord says, all you need is
your feet washed. But he says this in the end of
verse 10, and ye are clean. You men, here are 12 men in addition
to our Savior, 12 men He's speaking to. He says, you're clean, you're
clean, you're washed, but not all of you. Verse 11 says, for He knew who
should betray Him, therefore He said, you're not all clean. Here are 13 men sitting at a
table. One of them is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Savior, redeemer, friend of sinners. It's quite astounding to think
about this. Here's the creator. All things
were made by him and without him was not anything made, it
was made. And here He is, sitting at a
table with twelve ungodly men. Sinful men. That's what they
are by nature. There's the Lord of Glory. There's
the Master. There's God. The Sustainer. The Provider. And all along,
He is the one who's continually keeping everything in motion
throughout all the worlds. Throughout all of His universe.
He's providing for the birds of the air and everything else.
He's keeping all the planets in their positions in the sky,
the stars. Everything. And yet here's this
great, almighty, ever-living God sitting at a table with men. And this is amazing when you
think about this. The Lord says in Revelation chapter
22, He says, I'll come into you and I'll sup with you and you'll
sup with me. He says, I'll fellowship with
you. Isn't it amazing the Lord fellowshiped with folks like
us? He sat at a table with people like us? If we could see, if
we could see what we are by nature, even a little bit more than we
do, I know we see a little bit, but if we could see a little
bit more, it would just absolutely astound us that He'd have anything
to do with us at all. And yet He sits down at a table
and He eats with us. Here are 13 men sitting at a
table. Maybe, as they say, reclining
at a table, which was typical of a Jewish supper because it
lasted a long time. One of them is the Lord of Glory. And then 11 of the men who were
before Him, they believed Him. And they loved Him. They're sitting
at the table. Oh, to be sure, they're sinful
men, weak and frail. And there's a lot they don't
understand. But I tell you, their confidence
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. They believed Him. And their
faith like ours, not much to speak about, is it?
But they did believe Him. And they did love Him. Peter spoke to them and said,
we believe and we're sure. You're the Christ. You're the
Son of the living God. That's who you are. When all
the rest of the religious world said, no! He's a liar! He's a
fraud! He's a fake! He's not the Messiah! He's not the Christ? He's not
the real son of David? While almost all of Israel, and
certainly all of the religious leaders of Israel, they were
all saying, no, no, no, he's not who he professes to be. There
were eleven men who said, yes, he is. We believe him. That's
quite astounding. in the face of the religious
leaders who could just put you out and put you to death. And
you know what? Most of them would be put to
death for their faith in Christ Jesus. He's all of their confidence,
for their salvation, for their righteousness, for their acceptance,
for their forgiveness with God. They trust Him. And I know it's
a weak faith and a feeble faith, and sometimes we read some of
the things that they say and questions they ask, and we say,
how could these men ever, ever ask the kind of questions that
they ask? But then again, remember, they
didn't have the totality of the Word of God like we do. And they
didn't have the Spirit of God like we do. Remember we read last week in
chapter 16, the Lord said, there are many things that you need
to learn. They're a hard thing. You're not ready for them yet. They're still learning. But one
thing for certain, they believed Him. And they loved Him. But there's another man at the
table. He's Judas the betrayer. Look at verse 10 again. Right at the end, Christ said,
you are clean, but not all. Not all of you. Not all of you. Let me tell you something. Christ
came into this world to save the eleven, but he didn't come
to save Judas. He had no intention of saving
Judas. You see what you have at the
table, here's the Savior, here are the seed of God, and here's
one who's the seed of the serpent. Here's a group of people who
are the children of God, another one who's a child of the devil. One is reprobate, the other eleven
are the elect. One is a vessel of wrath, fitted
to destruction. Eleven are vessels of mercy prepared
afore and the glory. And our Lord has a special love
for these eleven. He has a distinguishing love
for them. He has a steadfast love for them.
But He doesn't have any love for Judas. He never did. Somehow or another, men have latched onto this falsehood
God loves everybody, but if you die in unbelief, then all of
a sudden He hates you. That's not right. There are some
people who believe God hates everybody, but when we believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, then His hate is turned to love. That's
not right either. Here is a fact. God's hatred
of some is as everlasting as His love for others. Isn't that
right? His hatred for some is as everlasting
as His love is for others. His love for the eleven was from
old eternity. And He came in love for them.
He came to seek and to save that which was lost. But He didn't
have any love for Judas. And that didn't bother Judas.
Judas didn't love him either. I'll tell you who Judas loves.
Judas loves Judas. And he hated Christ. And I know
you say, well, he sold him out for 30 pieces of silver. 30 pieces
of silver was little or nothing to Judas. He just hated Christ. Because he's the seed of Satan. That's right. Does Satan hate Christ Jesus? Well, absolutely. What do you
think his children do too? Absolutely. He's a child of hell. He's a child of darkness. In
fact, our Lord Jesus Christ even said of this man, it'd been better
for him if he'd never been born. Christ said, the Son of Man goeth
as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom he's betrayed. That's Luke 22, 22. Look at verse
18. He's continuing to speak to these
men. Here, these 12 men, He's speaking
to all of them. He said, I speak not of you all.
What does He mean by that? I speak not of you all. Look
back in verse 17. If you know these things, happy
are you if you do them. Remember, I define happy for
you. It's the same word as blessed. You're blessed. You're happy. You're highly favored. But I'm
not speaking of all of you." In other words, he said, here
are you men, you're not all blessed. You're not all highly favored.
Eleven of you are, but one of you is not blessed. Preacher, I thought God blesses
everybody. He has blessed His people with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus before
the world began. That's the people God's blessed.
And I know sometimes we say to people, God bless you. I tell
you, He has blessed us. And we come to new realizations
of those blessings, but the blessings themselves were purposed by God
in old eternity. He said, I speak not of you all.
I'm not talking about all of you. You're not all happy men. You're not all blessed men. But
he says, I know whom I have chosen. I know whom I've chosen. Back
in John chapter 10, he said, I know my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I
what? I know them. I know then, here
are these twelve men sitting at the table. He knew eleven
of them, but one of them said, I don't know you. In Matthew, our Lord Jesus He
says at the last day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we
done all these things in Thy name, in Thy name prophesied,
in Thy name cast out devils? He said, I'm going to say them,
depart from me. I never what? I never knew you. I never knew you. And here He says, I'm not talking
about all of you. I know whom I've chosen. I know
my people. The foundation of the Lord standeth
sure. The Lord knoweth them that are
His. He knows us. He knows whom He's
chosen. Now, Judas was chosen as an apostle,
but he wasn't chosen as a vessel of mercy. He was chosen to an
office, but he wasn't chosen unto salvation. And this was
done, watch it, in verse 18, that the scripture may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me
hath lifted up his heel against me. He supplanted me. Like Jacob grabbed hold of the
heel of Esau. He supplanted me. He's trying
to deceive me, trying to trip me up. But look at verse 19. Now I tell
you before it comes, before it ever comes to pass, that when
it is come to pass, that you might believe. That you might
believe what? That I am. I'm telling you all this ahead
of time. These men, as we get in next
Wednesday night, we'll find out, when he's talking about somebody's
going to betray him, they didn't have a clue who he's talking
about, did they Ron? They didn't know. They didn't
know. Is it me? Is he talking about
me? None of the guys said, I know
who he's talking about, he's talking about Judas. Nobody said
that. Nobody suspected him. But our
Lord Jesus, He knew from the beginning who would betray Him.
Go back over to John chapter six real quick. Let me show you
two verses. John chapter six. Two verses. 64 first. Our Lord's speaking
to the multitudes who were leaving Him. He says, but there are There
are some of you that believe not. Now, watch this. The Spirit
of God leads John to write this. For Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believed not and who should betray Him. He
knew, because I'll tell you in a mysterious
way, this is all according to His will. He uses Judas. But he didn't
have to nudge Judas, he didn't have to push Judas, he didn't
have to force Judas to do something he didn't want to do. Judas did
exactly what he wanted to do, and doing exactly what he wanted
to do, he fulfilled the will of God. And then, look down at verse
70 and 71. Jesus answered them, have not
I chosen you twelve? And one of you is a devil? Wonder
how that shocked them. One of you is a devil? And again,
the Spirit of God tells us, He spake of Judas Iscariot, the
son of Simon, for he it was that should betray Him, being one
of them twelve. And our Lord, He reveals, He
says, this is going to happen. So that when it does happen,
you'll have an even better understanding of the fact that I am. That I'm Jehovah. That I'm the
God who doesn't change. I'm the God who's ordained all
things. I'm the one that spoke to Moses
back there from that bush that burned but wasn't consumed. I
am that I am. And when all of these things
I'm telling you that have not happened yet, but they will happen
when they do happen, then you'll be even more confident in this
fact. The one who speaks to you right
now is the great I Am. I Am. Well, we'll continue this
next Wednesday, the Lord willing. Let's sing a closing song. Oh, I think you'll know this.
Amazing Grace, 236. 236. Amazing Grace, how sweet the
sound. Isn't it amazing grace that He
would fellowship with us, He'd suck with us,