Shall we open our Bibles please to the thirteen chapter of John's Gospel? John chapter thirteen. I think we better read from verse seventeen. Verse seventeen. That's about where we reached last Sunday. John thirteen, verse seventeen. If ye know these things, Happy are ye if he do them. I speak not of you all. 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. Now I tell you before it come that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in the Spirit, and testified and said, Verily, verily, I said to you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was, leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then, lying on Jesus' breast, said unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sock when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sock, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop satan entered into him, then said, Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the sop, went immediately out, and it was night. Therefore when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while am I with you. He shall seek me, and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come. So now I say to you, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one to another. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Will thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me Christ. May God bless you. reading of this wonderful portion from his precious word. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we bow before thee now. We are here in thy presence to wait upon thee and to hear thy voice. O God, we pray that none of us might go away untouched, unmoved by the reading of thy precious word. As we enter deeper into this solemn, solemn phase of thine earthly pilgrimage. And as we sit around this table in this upper room and hear thy blessed word, we pray, Lord, that they may come to us as fresh this morning as they came to disciples long ago. Yea, Lord, more than that, may we understand more than they understood, for they were so dull at understanding. Speak to our hearts, we pray thee, and do something in our hearts for thy glory. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Speak, Lord, in the stillness of this morning hour. May we hear thy voice, Lord, and fill thy touch of power. Amen. Remember last Sunday morning we talked about what we called the Lord Jesus. alone with his disciples. We reach this stage in the story of the Lord's life as recorded by the Apostle John. This stage when the Lord Jesus has withdrawn himself now, finally from the Jews, chapter twelve, verse thirty-six, these things beg Jesus and departed and hid himself from them. There he separated himself. He had been teaching and preaching and working among them, but they rejected him on every count. And now the Lord Jesus finally turns from them. And night fell upon Israel. Darkness fell upon Israel. And that darkness has not yet been broken. True. The Jews have got back. Wonder of wonders we've seen in our own time. The Jews go back into the land of Israel. as the Lord Jesus said they would in the last days, but still the light has not yet broken. They're in the darkness. Great events have taken place this very week, and we do trust that this treaty that's been made between Syria and Israel might be real, there might be some kind of peace anyhow, but we know that it's still dark for them until the Lord Jesus comes back and burst upon them, and suddenly their eyes will be open. and they'll see him whom they have fears. And then they'll say to him, Whence are these wounds in thy hand? And he'll say, These are the wounds that I received in the house of my friend. But that's a long, that when he spoke these things in the upper room, that was a long way off. For us it's near. It could be very near. It could be only just seven years from now when the Lord Jesus will come back and reveal himself to the Jews. But in the meantime, And for two thousand nearly years, the Lord is dealing with another people. He's dealing with those whom He's chosen out of this world, whom in these verses in the upper room He calls His own. Having loved His own, which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Of course, He came to the Jews and they were called His own. He came unto His own. His own received Him not. But as we said last week, there's a new group whom He calls His own. the church. Thank God most of us here this morning, probably all of us here this morning, are members of this group whom he calls his home. That's to say we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and we have eternal life. He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life. But in order to get that everlasting life there must be a moment in our lives, an experience in our lives when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior. Without that we have not got it. And the Lord Jesus now has gathered around him men who believed in him, his disciples. And he showed them, gave them that wonderful example. You see, in this upper room he's preparing them. The more I read that verse, and I've read it much this week, that verse twenty, verily, verily I say unto you, He that receiveth whosoever I send, receiveth me. And he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. It seems to me that deep in the Lord's mind in this upper room is the thought of preparing them for the service which he wanted them to do when he went back to the glory. Whosoever receiveth whosoever I send. He was going to send these disciples. As we know later on, he said, Ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the other most parts of the earth. And these were the men. These twelve men, only eleven really, whom God, whom the Lord was going to send out. And he seems to be preparing them in the quietness of the upper group. And so he says in verse seventeen, If ye know these things, Happy are ye if he do them. What thing? He just told them, shown them a wonderful example. How he, the Lord of Glory, became the slave that washed their feet. As we said last week, there were twelve men sitting around the table. One of those could have been the slave, had taken the slave's job and washed their feet. But they were all too proud to do that. And the Lord of Glory himself stooped down. and washed their feet. And now he says, He called me Master and Lord, so I am. If I then, Your Lord and Master, washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. If ye know these things, happy are ye, if ye do them. Oh, beloved, if we're going to have joy and peace and blessing, Hear it, park it upon us. This is what we need most of all. Humility of spirit. We need to be men and women that are prepared to get down on our knees and serve one another in that lonely place. This is the great basic teaching principle the Lord is teaching them here, first of all, in the upper room. I am your Lord and Master, and I have laid aside my garments, and I have stood down, and I have taken the water. and wash your feet. Now then he says, that's the example, now you do that. And if you know these things, happy ideas, if you do them. I sometimes wonder as we go through life and we all have our ups and downs, some days are bright, happy days. Other days we don't know what it is, but there seems to be something that worries us and keeps us down and we don't feel effervescent like we should. I sometimes wonder, perhaps this is it. Perhaps we're not spending enough time on one another. Perhaps we're not helping one another. Perhaps we're not expressing the humility the Lord Jesus wanted us to do. I believe joy comes in doing this, what he taught us to do. Then he introduces the question of Judas, verse eighteen. I speak not of you all. I know whom I have chosen, but that the Scripture may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me, lift it up, is healed against me. Look a moment at Psalm forty-one. Psalm forty-one. I noticed Schofield calls it the Psalm of the Betrayal, the Psalm of the Betrayal. Psalm forty-one. Verse nine, yea, this is a Messianic Psalm. Now what is a Messianic Psalm? A Messianic Psalm is a Psalm which is writing about the Lord Jesus and is quoted as referring to him is quoted in the New Testament. Take Psalm two. It's mentioned in several places in the New Testament as being written about the Lord Jesus. For you think, as you read it, it was written about David. So it was. Ah, but there was a secondary meaning, and really it was a primary meaning. It was about the Son of God. It's quoted several times in the New Testament. Now here's a Psalm which the Lord Jesus himself quotes. about himself, therefore it is a messianic sound. It's about the Messiah. And so he says, Ye my own familiar friend, these are the words of the Lord Jesus, spoken prophetically one thousand years before he came. Ye my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. That's referring to Judas. There's always been a question in our minds, and I don't think we'll ever be able to settle it till we get to heaven. Some are dogmatic about it. How they say, well, I don't know. Was Judas there when the Lord gave him the bread and the wine? Was he there? I know some of you say, no, he was gone out before that. I don't know whether he was. It says, he that has, which did eat of my bread, he's lifted up his heel again. The Lord was infinitely gracious to Judas. The Lord loved him to their very end. He called him mine own familiar friend. In another Psalm it says, we went to the house of God together. And this is the one that's lifted up his heel against me. Therefore I think, beloved, we need to be very gracious and very loving and very kind about receiving people to the Lord's table. The Scripture is very clear. The whosoever eateth and drinketh of this bread in this cup unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. We know that. And it says, A man should examine himself and so eat, for that refers to me as well as everybody else. He should all examine ourselves before we come to the Lord's table. And I have never been able in my own mind, perhaps you were definite and dogmatic and specific, that Judas went out before they break in the bread. But you see, This is the one scripture that tells us when he went out. Verse thirty, Judas immediately went out and it was night. But John doesn't mention the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup. So we can't tell where it is. So he's referring now, and the Lord all through his life, you remember, refers to the scriptures. All that he did was in accordance with what was written of him. And he came... one thing to fulfill the scriptures. And when he said, Upon the cross it is finished, one of the things he meant was that all scriptures written about him were fulfilled. There was one scripture not fulfilled. It says, I thirst. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink, and that had not been fulfilled, and the Lord knew that. So he said, I thirst, and then they gave him the vinegar. And then all scripture was fulfilled. There wasn't another one to be fulfilled. He said, It's finished. Now I'm not confining the words it is finished only to that. I believe our salvation was finished when he died upon the cross. Let's go to the next verse. Now I tell you before it comes to pass, before it comes, that when it did come to pass, he may believe. John tells us that his Gospel was written with one specific purpose. John twenty, verse thirty, these things are written that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing he might have life through his name. And the Lord Jesus says the same thing here. He says, I tell you before it comes to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe. That's why the gospel was written. And he's quoting this about Judas, so that when it took place and when Judas actually betrayed him, they would believe that he was the Messiah, because this was written about the Messiah. And he's getting into their dull heart. that he is the Son of God. How true, Peter had said long ago, to whom shall we go? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And we believe and are sure, he says, art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We know that. And yet his heart was very slow to really comprehend it. When Jesus, oh, let's look at verse twenty again. Verily, verily, I said, you he that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me. The Lord was going to send these out. Now this little party of men, they soon passed off the scene a few years passed. And the older we get, the more we realize how transient and how brief and how short life is. And these men, all of them were martyred for Christ's sake, except perhaps John. They were all martyred. They all died of violent death. They were soon gone, but... Their job, as long as they lived, was to go out with the gospel. And he said, I'm going to send you out. And then he says this, He that receives whomsoever I send receiveth me. So whoever received them received the Lord Jesus. And in receiving them they received their message, the message of the Son of God. And whosoever receives the Son of God receives against eternal life. And he says, not only does he receive me, he receives him that sends me, receives God himself. Verse twenty-one, when Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in the spirit. Now he comes back to Judas again. He was troubled in the spirit and testified and said, Verily, verily, I shunned you. One of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked on one another, doubted of whom he spake. You know, it says that in the other scriptures they said, is he died? Is he died? That they didn't know themselves whether they were going to be saved. They didn't know their own heart. They weren't so sure. Oh, Peter, he was so sure, you know, but listen. Peter said to him, he beckoned to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was leaning upon his bosom, he beckoned to him that he should ask Who it should be and whom he sits. Twelve men sitting around the table. And the Lord says, one of you is going to betray me. And each one asked himself the question, could I do a thing like that? Could I betray the Lord? It is something that it is possible To go to the house of the Lord together, as it's written about Judas, to break the bread and to take the bread together. He said, he ate of my bread. It's possible to do that. And I have known cases of men and women who have done this and they were never saved at all. We can deceive one another. You can't deceive the Lord. He knew. It says he knew who it was. All the others were deceived. I think we should search our hearts today. I do really examine ourselves and make sure. First, when I have the shadow of a doubt for what I've got eternal life. And the moment I accepted Christ as my Savior when I was a boy of ten, God gave me eternal life and I'll be in heaven for all eternity. I'm sure of it. but they weren't too sure and they were wondering. Let's ask our hearts this morning. I remember a case of a young lady brought up in a Christian family, received into fellowship, baptized, received into fellowship, sat at the Lord's table for years, married a Christian man and was going on so well. One day in a preaching service God spoke to her heart. She went home to her mother and broke down. She said, Mother, I'm the greatest deceiver you ever know. I am not saved. And all these long years I've been telling you I'm saved, and I sat at the Lord's table, and I am not saved. And I said, if I mentioned the name, you'd know her mother and her father. She is saved now, thank God. But you see how possible it is to deceive one another. But we can't deceive him. Then he lying on Jesus' breast said, Lord, who is it? And Jesus says, He it is to whom I should give a sot. Now apparently, as far as I can understand by reading, this sot was a kind of a special paver, which was given to a very special friend, the sot. And the Lord gave it to Judas. What wondrous grace. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He knew what was going to happen. And he gave him the sot. And no man at the table, he said, What thou doest do quickly, And no man at the table knew what he meant. They thought he's going out to give something to the poor, buy something for the feast they didn't want. And oh Judas, he'd arranged all these days before him. He'd gone and met them and talked to those parishes and planned the whole thing long before. And nobody knew that he was working against the Lord. Look at that solemn verse. Verse thirty. One of the most solemn verses in Scripture, He then, having received the soft, went immediately out. And it was night. It was night in Judas' soul, the blackest, darkest night in history, the night when the Son of God was betrayed and taken out to be crucified. He went out into that dark, dark night. I can't think of a deeper, darker night than the night when the Lord Jesus was betrayed. And he went out and it was night. And I tell you what, the Son never rose for Jesus. He went out to eternal night. He's lost forever. Has it ever struck you that sitting around that table that night there were those men? Has it ever struck you that... Judas died before the Lord died? How quickly God dealt with him? Judas was gone before the Lord died. He went out and hanged him. He went out through an eternal dark night. I don't suppose there's anyone here this morning that could be in a category like this. that's heard the gospel many, many, many years as being the church, perhaps taking the bread and the wine and eating the bread like Judas did. And yet if you passed into eternity this morning or today, it could be said of you, he went immediately out and it was night, eternal night. Let me tell you, dear friend, whoever you are here, not saved. You can deceive us, but you can't deceive the Lord. Judas deceived the disciples. He didn't deceive the Lord. But if you have never yet received the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior, if you are not born again, the Bible says, except the man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of heaven, much less enter it. He cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And if you pass out into eternity today without Christ, it'll be night, eternal night, shut out from God forever. Oh, may God grant, it may not be so, but I don't know the heart. We don't know one another. You can deceive me. You can't deceive God. Maybe it could be that someone here tonight, today, who's never yet accepted Christ as Savior. Look at these solemn words. He then, having received the stop, went immediately out. And it was night. Dark darkness. Now look at the next verse. The Lord had waited for this moment. We spoke last week about being alone with his own. It wasn't quite true, you know, as long as Judas was there. Because Judas didn't belong to him. The Lord said of those Jews, ye are of your father the devil. And Satan ended with Judas. And Judas belonged to the devil. He didn't belong to the Lord. But now at last, Judas has gone out and looked at the next verse. Verse, and emphasized the word now. I put up a line all around it in my Bible now. Put a frame around it. Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, now. Now is the Son of God's Lord. Now he knows who's there. Everyone is a true one. Oh, they were going to fail. Oh, they were going to be disappointments. Oh, they were going to be those that would deny him and fail so much. But he knew that they really believed in him. They didn't understand fully. They still thought he was going to set up a kingdom. They couldn't understand that he was going to be crucified, even though it was so near. And even though he told them so many, many times right from the very beginning that he was going to be crucified and he was going to die, why he told them in the second chapter, destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it again. It says there. The disciples didn't understand. But after he was raised from the dead, then they understood. They didn't understand this, though it was so near. But the Lord knew their heart. And these were real men. These were disciples. And he says to them, Now is the Son of Man glorified. And God is glorified in him. But, David, can it be possible when you think of this? What does he mean now is the Son of God's glory? He meant to say that that ugly, awful, cruel cross, with all its shame, with all its pain, with all its darkness, with all its ignominy, That cross was going to be the greatest glory that the Son of God could have. Can you understand? They're hanging nakedness. I was thinking in our meeting this morning of that word. And sitting down, they watched him there. You ever do that? I do very often. In fact, I don't think it's a day goes by, but somehow the Lord brings to me the awful agony and the awful pain and suffering of a cross. I can't get it out of my soul lately. What it must have cost to be crucified. The agony, the pain. You hang on a door, just hang on a door with your hands. Jump up and hang on for a few, you can't see them, and you should merely cut your hands just the weight of your body. But think of the weight of your body hanging on two great holes with great nails. The agony must have been appreciated. The bleeding scourged back. You go in a garden and get a little thorn in your finger, but I saw a crown of thorns. They showed me when I was introduced them, cladded together. The thorns were two inches long, and they put that on his head, and then they beat him on the head with a reed. The agony and the pain and the shame. And the Lord says, This is how I'm going to be glorified in this awful, awful thing called the cross. They couldn't understand it. But that's why he said, Now is the Son of God glorified? Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. Why, at that cross of Christ, God was glorified. There's one black blot on God's creation. That blot is called sin. God hates it. God hates sin. But in that place called Calvary, God dealt with sin. God's righteous throne, which demanded... punishment on account of sin, God's throne was satisfied, and God's name was vindicated and glorified. And now, he says, not only was the Son of man glory, but God is glorified too in that cross. And if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightly glorify him. Oh, what a wonderful day is coming for the Son of God. When he took him out of the tomb and raised him and later put him at his own right hand amid the glory of heaven. And God is glorifying his son for all he did at the place called Calvary. And here we are just a few hours before. And he's contemplating that awful shame, that awful pain, that awful agony, the place called Calvary. And he talked about glory. Little children, yet a little while am I with you. Oh, how slow they were. How long? He could have said, little children, just about another three hours, I'm with you perhaps. Whilst I talk to you in the upper room, whilst I walk down to the Brooksy Drone, whilst I go into the Garden of Gethsemane, and then they're going to arrest me and take me from you, and we're separated. Oh, what a short while he's going to be with me. Yet a little while I'm with you. You shall seek me. And as I said unto the Jews, whither I go, ye cannot come. So now I say to you, a new commandment I give unto you. This is the burden of the Lord's heart. He knew their heart, Lord's heart. He knew their heart. He knew how they wanted position and fame and place and power and they wanted to be officers in the church. You know, they want to be great men. That's what they want. Lord, let me sit at thy right hand in the kingdom, and let me be at thy left hand in the kingdom. This is what he says. The last, the new commandment, the eleventh commandment. A new commandment I give unto you, did he love one another? As I have loved you, did he also have love for one another? By this shall all may know that he are my disciples, if he have loved one for another. Beloved, this is where we failed most of all. The Lord, you'll find when we get to the seventeenth chapter, he kept praying that they all may be one, that they all may be one. And Satan said, if I can smash that up, I can break the church. And that's what he did. And today we have denomination after denomination after denomination all around us. The Church of God all split up, split up. And this one doesn't have anything to do with that one. The Lord said, love one another. We ought to love every child of God. I don't care what he belongs to. I do care what he belongs to, because I think you ought to come out of these things, but I think I should love him wherever he is in. A new commandment I give unto you that he loved one another as I have loved you. How did he love them? Look at verse one. Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. unto Calvary with all its pain and shame. I'm on that. He loved me under the end with all my failing, with all my failure, with all my denying him, with all my lack of love for him. He loved me under the end. And perhaps you say, well, that brother is hard to get on with, that sister is hard to get on with. Listen. This is the commandment that he loved one another, as I have loved you unto the end. Whether it's hard to get on with them or not, love them, yes or no. That's what he said, unto the end. That he loved one another as I have loved you. And by this shall all men know that they are my disciples if he have loved one or another. And we can't go any further because it's time. There's just two verses there about Simon Peter. He said, where the goings thou? The Lord said, where I go, you can't follow me now, but you shall afterwards. He was going to the cross. Peter, I've told you a thousand times I'm going to the cross if I... Peter didn't know. But he said, one day, Peter, you're going there yourself. No, no. No, no. But in the meantime, Peter, Peter said, if all men forsake me, I will lay down my life for thee. Jesus said, wait a minute, Peter. Will thou lay down thy life for me? Verily, verily, and that verily, verily comes two, four times in this chapter. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, before the cop crow, thou shalt deny me that I, poor Peter. But we can't boast either. If we were put to it, would we stand for him? You know, beloved, we might have to. The next closing in, the days are getting darker, and we may yet have to stand. and be counted in these last days. Don't let us be too proud and don't let us be too old. Let's remember Peter fell and we could fall, but let's remember this. We belong to the Lord Jesus. May God help us to go on for him. Amen. So we pray. Blessed God, our Father, we bow before thee and thank thee for these wonderful pictures in the upper room. We thank thee for the love of thy beloved son. manifested at the cross of Calvary. We thank you for his wonderful words in the upper room. And we pray, Lord, we might take them to heart. And may we put into practice this eleventh commandment. A new commandment I give unto you, that he loved one another. Even as I have loved you, that ye love one another. No wonder he said, no man has greater love than this, that a man laid down his life. for his friends. This is what thou art asking us to do, Lord. Help us to love one another as we go on together here at Park of the Palm. For thy glory we ask you to now save this precious name. Amen.