Soul-Searching during Supper, Part 1

Few things are better than gathering around a huge table to indulge in a meal with friends and family in that warm setting. We tend to satisfy our hunger and our hearts same time.

Well, today on Insight for living Chuck Swindoll will describe a mealtime scene unlike any other in history that occurred the night before Jesus crucifixion when he gathered with his best friends for what is commonly known as the Last Supper will begin by reading the passage together will hear the message Chuck titled soul-searching during some way through Matthew's gospel we come toward the end of 26 chapter I'll be reading for you versus 17 through 30, which take place in an unusual setting where you and I have never been, and with a body of people you and I have never met, so we will have to engage our imagination. We will do that during the reading and we will certainly do that as I get underway in my message so that we might picture in our minds what it must've been like and after doing that realize how directly it speaks to everyone of us, for God has given us his word not to satisfy idle curiosity, but to transform our lives, and even a passage like this, where there was a shocking statement made by one in the midst of these disciples. Matthew 26 only reading from the new living translation. Your Bible may read a little differently but you can follow along in Matthew 2617 begins on the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked for. Do you want us to prepare the Passover meal for you as you go into the city told him you will see a certain man. Tell him the teacher says my time has come, and I will eat the Passover meal with my disciples at your house so the disciples did as Jesus told him, and prepared the mess the Passover meal. There when it was evening Jesus sent down the table with the 12 disciples, it should read Jesus reclined at the table with the 12 disciples while they were eating, he said, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me greatly distressed.

Each one asked in turn am I the one Lord, he replied one of you who has just eaten from this bowl with me will betray me.

For the Son of Man must die as the Scriptures declared long ago, but how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born. Judas, the one who would betray him also asked Rabbi, am I the one in Jesus told him, you have said it is they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed.

Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, take this and eat it for this is my body, and he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. Then they sang a hymn and went out the mount study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll.

Be sure to download his searching the Scriptures by going to inside world.or/studies. Now the message from Chuck titled soul-searching during supper we have kind of a funny saying in our home when we talk about an imaginary desire, we refer to would like to have been a bug on the wall when that particular thing happened. Maybe you have the same saying that you grew up with. It has to do with being an unseen and uninvited observer in a setting that is significant. For example, when a surprising discovery was made. It would've been great to have been a bug on the wall and to hear what was said or to see how people acted, for example, when Columbus and his crew first sighted land after all those days of nothing but water.

What a great moment to have seen and heard what was said or maybe when some scientist makes a discovery or some Explorer comes across that moment.

He's been waiting for Lewis and Clark when they first got there glimpse of the blue Pacific as it spread out before them in that moment, how fabulous it would have been to have been there some time we have in mind those moments when something significant is announced over Dwight Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for the invasion of Normandy against the Council of the number of his fellow officers and and even those who told him of the weather on that June day in 1944 dripping there and you have heard what was said and to have seen how he felt, or how about you being in the capsule when it first touched down on the moons surface how bug would get into the capsule, but it would be nice to have gotten there and have been a bug in the wall of the capsule and heard what was said or when that first step was taken on the lunar surface.

How fabulous it would've been to have been right there and you had to have heard and seen that event go back far far back in time and on the posts of the stable. It would've been wonderful to have been a bug that watched Mary and Joseph when they first looked at God in the flesh we we don't have a record of those words surely very significant words were shared between the two of these godly Jewish teenagers as they realize the now it fits the awesome moment when that sacred head emerged from the womb agree to a been there.

Fast forward 33 years and and were on the wall of the second-story flat we would call it an upper room.

The 12 disciples along with her master have eaten a very special meal and then out of the blue, Jesus shocks them with one of you will betray me.

Unfortunately, those of us who have grown up in the church and heard sermons and teaching around the Last Supper, or were no longer shocked by that because were familiar with the with the setting, but trust me had I been a bug on the wall.

I would've looked to Judas, but I would've been the only one because no one else suspected Judas you know are you kidding, he's the treasurer of the group.

He's the trusted member of the 12. He, quite frankly, may have been the brightest of the bunch. The only one not a Galilean. Judas Iscariot, trader incognito like a terrorist today kept all of the evil in himself shared it with none of his close friends until ultimately in the garden of Gethsemane. He plants that fateful kiss and then everybody knew but not now. Strange strangers in it. Clarence McCartney for number of years, pastor of first Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh has written a number of biographical works in. I pulled one from my show. Just this last week and checked what he had written on Judas. He calls him a great mystery. I think that fits Cody LOL why would you be turn on Christ. He has seen everything Peter Saul and Andrew saw in Matthew, Saul, he's been around the room along with the other disciples petering and John and and and and Judas disease right there. It was that window before the storm was still in the wing stop howling and there in the boat with the master is no question that he is of God in bringing the labor healed and the blinder given site and determine zoning for 30 pieces of silver. This we can estimate probably about $19 were the Armani 19 books why is best I can figure and it McCartney thinks is a mystery but I don't disagree with that. I would say so. Also but if I try to prove the mystery and get it or that cryptic reasoning in that motive, I have to say the man is disillusioned.

I believe I believe Judas expected Jesus to overthrow Rome heavily when your teachings regarding the kingdom. Now this chance. I think it was a zealot. I think he was among those described by some writers as those who carried daggers and were given to assassinations. He was the type who was just waiting for the moment for Jesus to give the Romans the thumb down at the takeover, but he didn't even when the kingdom was offered and Judas saw this also. And Jesus slipped away into the crowd turning away the offer. Judas was there thinking game over. Was he going the crowds ready to crown him and that it isn't long before Jesus dialogue with them in his discourses drip with words regarding his – his death doesn't sound like a conquering king to me.

Thanks Judas exactly what Satan would want in one who would carry his message, but before we get there, were ever seen in this Last Supper that we think were familiar with because we've all seen the picture. We are all sitting in chairs on one side of the table, posing for the artist is not the way it was recovered that before. It wasn't a table like our table.

It wasn't chairs like our chairs. Meals were eaten loner. The floor, the table is a wooden block like a very low coffee table and often it is in a U shape a U shape for those who are eating at the table recline the recline on a pillow handlebar or elbow on the pillow. They are using the right hand to manage the food in there leaning which means there there there feed around to the side as you would be in a reclining position. Try to imagine. I thought about doing it… This on to go there you can get it you're leaning on a pillow when get this the one who is leaning our reclining agency. The wonders reclining to your right is in your chest area is hideous right he's reclining and he's right here, your head is in the chest area of the one on her left. Got it in the host of the meal was usually in the crook of the you right in the center so work were able to place who was reclining where when we arrange the table as it may very well have been the first. The meal itself because you in our Gentiles.

We we were not familiar with Passover meals or you may have attended one word was set for you, but you've not prepared it and chances are good you've not even been were it was served, but if you were Jewish you would be in every year experience as familiar as a Thanksgiving meal is to Americans a Passover meal consisted of a roasted lamb.

Every part of the Lamb leg spoofs, head, tail, every part of it is most and every part of it is to be eaten. None of it left because it is a commemoration of deliverance that goes all the way back to Egyptian slavery in the days of Moses when it was first inaugurated all of the things that were served at the meal, symbolically reflect on something related to the Egyptian slavery, the one who would ultimately calm and deliver them would be the Messiah, represented by the Lamb. And then there was the dip called the current OSHA. It was a priest like our dip mixture of apples and dates and pomegranates and nuts mixed altogether. We would call blending together and that would be like a dip that consistency that represented the claimant from which the bricks were made in ancient days by the Hebrews, while slaves of Egypt. As they ate from that goal, they would remember and would talk about the slavery and what they had gone through their forefathers have endured under Egyptian slavery and then there were those loaves called unleavened bread simply means bread made without yeast so their flat and their brittle and you didn't cut them or slice them. You snap the when you broke you would break the bread and it would snap and it would make little flat pieces not unlike our chips today that are often in in the shape like that and they snap you break and then there would be the bitter herbs.

The unleavened bread would refer to that that need for them to cleanse the house of all 11 which is a picture of sin. Get rid of all that, so that none of that would be in the house and and the bread would be made but it is I just described ended forth would be the bitter herbs composed of such ingredients as endive and horseradish and lettuce and and a similar of foods that represented the bitterness of slavery. Everything had a meaning that a simple editor Jewish all of that is significant when we have our Thanksgiving meal. We often refer back to the pilgrims. We go back to those early days when they endured the bitter winters, having just come to the new England area of our country so so the Jews reclined at the table and they knew how to prepare the meal and they did. And these disciples all Jewish with Jesus or around the table and words are shared among different ones. But while there eating the meal and no doubt discussing the things of of recent days, Jesus breaks in with this shocking statement. There's a there's a traitor among us. It was the among us part that was so shocked. I think it would be helpful if we left Matthew 26 and went to John 13 because in John 13. More details are given that Matthew includes so Turner would you. John 13 beginning in verse 21 will take up right where we were in Matthew 26, John writes, who was at the table. He's writing 60 years later. Matthew wrote rather soon after Jesus had died, risen from the dead and ascended. Matthew wrote, but not before Mark was the first one to write but but John waited a long time before he wrote and having thought on it all. He writes this. John 1321 Jesus is deeply troubled, and he exclaimed I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.

The disciples looked at each other wondering whom he could mean now look closely, the disciple Jesus loved was reclining next to Jesus at the table. Okay what I described. I take it that John is on Jesus immediate right. His head is right here. He can look up into the face of Jesus as he reclined at the table.

So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask who is he talking about how we do that when we don't want anybody here us. We go we go we we shape the words. Who is it with our lips. Peter does this to John so John just the signal from Peter the course.

Jesus sees it, and he knows all things. So Jesus says in verse 26.

It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl with set about.

I listen carefully. It wasn't uncommon to have a guest of honor at the Passover meal who would be at the left of the host and one of the traditions was that the host would prepare a little tidbit breaking off a couple of pieces of the unleavened bread and putting some of the bitter herb in between Michelob sandwich and the dipping that into the countershaft. The dip and would give that to the guest of honor on suggesting it's Judas, while it suggests that it's his last appeal is Jesus way of saying it isn't too late I know what you been doing I know what you're up to, but Judas listen, this is all without words. This is my my last offer for you to repent. Don't go there and we read that he he took that took that little sandwich if you will, and he gave it to to chewed up Simon Iscariot, Judas had eaten bread look closely. No miss this, Satan entered into him and Jesus told him, he realizes over is no more appealing when Satan enters a life. He's an embodiment of the enemy himself. So Jesus says, hurrying to what you're going to do not notice carefully. None of the others at the table knew what Jesus meant to bring since Judas was there treasurer. Some thought Jesus was telling him to go on paper, the food Artie gives the money to the poor. Judas left and once it was nine when he sits out into the night.

They thought he was running an errand. Not even then the benefit of those who came our way late in the program you're listening to a message from pastor and Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll were in Matthew chapter 26, Chuck titled his message soul-searching during supper. No please keep listening to Insight for living because there's much more we need to learn about this emotion filled evening when Jesus gathered his disciples around the table and to discover a variety of resources available on this topic, please visit us online@insightworld.org just of our time is entirely gone for today. I'm eager to remind you that Chuck Swindoll writes a daily devotional sent by email.

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The preceding message soul-searching during supper was copyrighted in 2017 and 2021 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited