Love in the Dark No.1 The Plot and The Masterplan

How good is the God we adore! How great for the sake of our prayer! Whose love is as great as His power, And whose light of length to our aid Is Jesus Christ and the Lord, Whose spirit shall guide us in awe, In praising for all that is God. Father, we're grateful to be here. We thank you for yourself, for the gift of salvation, through our Lord Jesus.

And we thank you for one another, the opportunity this morning of meeting afresh around your word and enjoying the friendship of Christian people. We thank you for our boys and girls, and their mums and dads, and everyone in the tab. And we just commit this RSO of worship to you, in the name of Jesus our Saviour.

Chapter 12 of Exodus. I was looking through my books at home yesterday and found a copy of the Bible dated 1911, celebrating 300 years of the English translation of the Scriptures. And somebody had written in the front, I began reading this book in 1928 and finished it in 1942.

Well, I hope it doesn't take you that long to get through the Scriptures. I hope it's your daily food, your daily joy, your daily delight. If you don't read the Scriptures every day, well, you're starving yourself.

So I'm not preaching, I've only come to read. Chapter 12. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, this month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for the whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the side and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire, head, legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning.

If some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it, with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover. On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn, both men and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.

The blood will be assigned for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. Luke chapter 22, verse 13 verses.

Now the feast of unleavened bread called the Passover was approaching, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the twelve, and Judas went to the chief priests and officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money.

He consented and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. Then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.

Where do you want us to prepare for it? they asked. He replied, As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters and say to the owner of the house, The teacher asks, Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? He will show you a large upper room, all furnished.

Make preparations there. They left. Well, if you were paying particular attention to the reading of the Word of God from Luke's Gospel, you will have noted that in the first 13 verses of the 22nd chapter, reference is made on several occasions to the one word Passover.

I've never been to Birmingham. Now I confess my deficiency in terms of exposure to English culture. I've passed over Birmingham, but I've never been through Birmingham.

It's a remarkable city, or so I'm informed. And one of the things that makes it quite outstanding is that it is possible to pass over it without going through it. In other words, there's an intersection of motorways known by the locals as Spaghetti Junction.

Provided you're vigilant, you can make your way over Birmingham without ever having the blessed experience of going through Birmingham. And as I say, I've done that on several occasions, moving into the more civilized areas of the north of England. I've passed over without going through.

The significance of that will become more obvious as we make our way through What's Upon My Heart to share this Lord's Day morning, because we're thinking of our Lord Jesus as he makes preparation to keep the Passover feast with his disciples. And here in this interesting piece of narrative that commands our attention, we are faced with those who were always hostile to our Lord Jesus, and indeed who plotted against him. And then later on in the passage, we are confronted with the plan that our Lord Jesus has to defeat the plot which was being brought together.

They plotted and he planned. They wanted to achieve evil, but God in his overarching sovereignty would use their plot within his plan for the salvation of the world. That's typical God.

That's the typical behavior of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. Two of the perhaps most ugly words in the English dictionary are the terms conspirator and traitor. And it's conspiracy and treachery that you come across in the opening verses.

Our Lord Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. This is the final chapter, actually, that deals with what theologians call the travel document in the Gospel of Luke. From the seventh chapter, you find our Lord meandering, but in a very deliberate fashion, from the northern territory of Galilee, ever coming towards Judea, and eventually to Jerusalem where there will be the Passover, the Last Supper, the betrayal, the arrest, and the crucifixion of our Lord.

And here in these opening verses, we're given some insight into the conspiracy that there was against the blessed Lord Jesus. There's a bunch of politicians. Politics and religion were wedded together almost inseparably in the day of our Savior.

And so references made in the second verse to the chief priests and the teachers of the law, they were coming together for what purpose? Well, they were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, looking for some way to get rid of Jesus. You see, the pollsters were saying in those days that the man who was attracting the largest crowds was none other than the untrained rabbi from Galilee. If you check the 37th and 38th verses of the previous chapter, you have there a description of his unusual success, unusual as far as they were concerned because they never attracted such numbers.

Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the morning to hear him at the temple, all the people. Remember, this is a festive occasion.

They're preparing for the Passover meal, the greatest celebration that there is in the history of Israel year by year. Jerusalem and its environs are thronged with people. And early in the morning, as was the custom of our blessed Lord when he's in the vicinity, he finds himself in the temple, and the people come, not in their ones or their twos, not in their hundreds but in their thousands, and to whom do they give attention? The Lord Jesus Christ.

And when the politicians hear and they see, they're filled with a measure of distaste. It's not the soldiers of Caesar that alarm them. It's the sermons of the Savior.

The man and his manifesto. He speaks in a way that other politicians and trained rabbis do not speak. There is no distinction between what he has to say and the way that he lives, and as a result, the ordinary come-the-garden people, they listen to him, and especially those from Galilee, they listen to him gladly.

And the politicians can't stomach it. And so there's a conspiracy. Not that it's a new thing.

They've been plotting in this area for quite some time. The second verse tells us that they were looking for a way to get rid of Jesus. But if you check the 19th chapter, and if you check the earlier chapters of the Gospel of Mark, you will discover that our Lord Jesus has always fallen foul of the religious-political aristocracy in Jerusalem.

Isn't it incredible that our blessed Lord, who came to help men and women, should suffer such a reaction in the holy city? They wanted to get rid of Jesus. And they won't be the first people, nor will they be the last people, who want to snuff out the voice of God. There are, perchance, some of you here who are involved, though you've never thought of it in this fashion before, in some sort of conspiracy to silence the voice of God, at least to mute it in your own life.

And I advise you from the pulpit not to follow the example of these conspirators who were so afraid of our Lord Jesus and the success that He was having that it was difficult for them to fix on one particular occasion when they can secrete Him away. So, to the word conspiracy is added the word treachery, at least by implication. As you read in the fourth verse, that one who is an accomplice of our Lord Jesus goes to the chief priests and the officers of the temple to discuss with them how he might betray Jesus.

If Jesus is to be felled in Jerusalem, it will have to be an insider job because of the crowds that are coming his way. And because there is talk against Rome in any case, and some of the Sanhedrin, some of the political party that tends to lean towards Rome because Rome, well, in one sense, courts their favor. They do not want to risk any insurrection.

So, when an accomplice, a disciple of Jesus, defacts and says, I can help you in Jerusalem or its environs to arrest and take this man away, then it's as honey to their taste. In fact, because people tend sometimes to distort the purposes of God, you can almost hear Annas and Caiaphas, the leading politicians stroke religious leaders, suggesting that all this has occurred in the providence of God. We've got him.

Judas, a friend of Jesus, a man who had listened to Jesus speak, who had watched the wonders that he performed, a man who had followed the Lord Jesus for years, at least for three. He is a traitor. Now, before you dismiss Judas from the horizon of your thought, ask yourself, is there a way, perhaps not in the same degree, yet nonetheless a fashion in which I deal treacherously with Jesus? Judas responded to his call three years before.

You have responded to the call of the Lord Jesus. Some of you three months ago, some of you three years ago, some of you 13 years ago, some of you 30 years ago. Now, here's the rub.

To what degree is the edge of your response as sharp now as it was then? Because if it's blunted in some measure, if there is a way in which you have diluted the initial response that was yours, then I say perhaps not in degree, but nonetheless in principle there is the element of treachery that's come into your life. You say you're dealing harshly with me. Yes, but nonetheless I'm dealing logically.

You see, if you have sung that hymn, take my silver and my gold, not the might will I behold. Take my intellect and use every power as thou shouldst choose. If you have said that or something to the same effect, if you in a meeting got up and went forward and offered your life to Christ, if you said, yes Lord, you can take all that I am and all that I have, and now you're in default on that initial commitment or that full commitment that you made later on in your Christian journey, then it seems to me that it is not wrong for me from Scripture to suggest to you that you ought to be cautious, that the default in which you find yourself at the moment doesn't become so exaggerated, that treachery and conspiracy and the parting of the ways between you and the Lord Jesus does not become your experience.

I did not mean to say that, and there is a sense in which I'm not too sure why I am saying it, and yet the spirit within me seems to suggest that it has to be said for some people here. There is more than one type of conspiracy. Are you hearing me? There is more than one sort of treachery.

You can fail the Lord Jesus in many ways without going to the same degree as did Judas. So the plot forms. They were delighted, verse 5, and agreed to give him money.

He consented and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. You see the point? They were so concerned that if they dared to arrest Jesus publicly, they would be in difficulty with the thousands of people in Jerusalem. But in their cowardice, they take the offer that Judas dangles in front of them.

I have an insight into his diary, and I can give you the signal when to move in and snuff him out. Do away with him. And in their thinking, get rid of all your problems by silencing God.

And there are people today who silence God. And if they don't, then why don't they write him into their manifestos? Well, there's not just a plot, which is an ugly word. There is a plan, which is a much better word.

And the plan now which unfurls is that which springs from the heart of our blessed Lord Jesus. Then, verse 7, Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus, who's been making his way slowly but inexorably towards Jerusalem, is back in the precincts of that city, and he's planning to keep the Passover meal with his disciples.

Our Lord is a filofax man in one sense. He's got time for everyone in another, but he always apportions his day well, and he plans out his life as you would expect from the person who, in the beginning, fashioned this world, which is a world of design and symmetry. So when he steps into it, you find in the orderly way in which he lives his life a reproduction of this.

Then came the day of unleavened bread. Two days have elapsed. I could prove that by taking you to Matthew's Gospel, but it would take me too much time, and I've lost quite a bit already this morning on that digression that I took, which I nonetheless think was important.

Two days have elapsed since the conspirators and the traitor have come together. Then came the day of unleavened bread. Now, the day of unleavened bread and the feast of the Passover, those terms are more or less subsumed, one within the other, in the way that the Jews approach this very special week.

And Jesus, always a man who's meticulous in detail, gives instructions to his disciples. And if you casually read through these verses, you'll see no more in it than that. But if you read it carefully, you will see this is the master strategist setting down his own plan, which will absorb the plot and bring about the thing for which he came into the world, to deal with the problem of sin and to bring salvation as a possibility in front of believing men and women.

If in the first few verses you see conspiracy and treachery, here, I argue, is perception and preparation. Then came the day of unleavened bread. The Jews would commence their months... Oh, let me approach that differently.

The way you find the Hebrew calendar was worked out was in terms of the new moon. When the new moon occurred, that was the beginning of the new month. And the new moon would be celebrated, the trumpets would sound, and sometimes signal fires would be lit.

Now, the month of Nisan, almost but not quite, corresponds to our month of March. Actually, it's about two or three weeks later. So it's around this period, March, April, as we're in it today, that all these events took place.

And our Lord Jesus is giving instructions, fairly detailed instructions, to his disciples to make preparation to eat the Passover. The lamb for the Passover was bought some two days before it was actually slain. And the Passover meal commenced, or the preparations for the meal commenced some ten days after you'd entered into the Jewish month of Nisan.

And although there's not time, again, to justify my comment, I came to the conclusion in the earlier hours of this morning that, agreeably, what commands our attention today is actually on the anniversary of the day that it happened. In other words, if my watch is indicating the date right, it was the 5th of April. And it seems, as far as I can work it out by relating it to the Jewish calendar, that it's on the 5th of April that Jesus sent Peter and John to go and make preparations to eat the Passover.

That means to say that they've got a lot to do during this coming day. They have to go to the temple with the lamb, the lamb will be slain in the temple, and then the meat will be prepared. They'll have to buy spices and all the various bits and pieces that are necessary to have the Passover prepared, the meal ready for them.

So our Lord says, go to Peter and John, make preparations to eat the Passover. Oh, they say, well, if that's the case, where do you want us to prepare for it? And our Lord gives them a guarded answer. It's specific, and yet it's brilliantly clever, because it doesn't quite identify where the Passover meal will be held.

Now remember, Judas is in on all this, and our Lord knows what he doesn't know, and that is that he has some idea that Judas has conspired to betray him. Now the last thing Jesus wants is for that arrest to come about prior to him keeping the Passover. You see, there's a lot to do, not only for Peter and John, but he's got a lot to do, has he not? I mean, he's going to lift the Passover, as Tim will be teaching us this evening, from the significance that it had in recalling the historic deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt and the opening of the waters of the Red Sea and their safe arrival in Sinai.

He's going to lift it from this, and he's going to be telling us about a far greater deliverance that is just round the corner when he will die for the sins of the world. So all that has to happen, and what's more, our Lord has got to put his greatest teaching on the person of the Holy Spirit and preach his longest sermon to the disciples prior to him being arrested. And what's more, he wants to pray that majestic high priestly prayer.

So it's important that Judas does not know where the room is where the Passover meal will be held. Now, with that bit of information, this becomes far more exciting than any detective novel. This is why I fail to understand why people aren't glued to their Bibles, because once you start to think it through, and not just to read it in a casual, cosmetic fashion, it is indeed one of the most exciting and thrilling books.

It is the most exciting and the most thrilling book in the world. Where do you want us to prepare for it? Well, he says, as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that enters and say to the owner of the house, and so forth.

Men did not normally carry water. In fact, if they did carry water, they didn't carry water in a jar. They carried it in a skin.

Ladies carried the water, and they would have the pots on their heads. So for a man to carry water in a jar would make him stand out as much as a man wearing a skirt here in the tabernacle congregation. Follow that man.

Now, you see, it's clear to Peter and John, the instructions, but the location has not yet been revealed. And when you follow that man, he will lead you to a house. And that is where the Passover meal will be held.

The teacher asks, say to the owner of the house, the teacher asks, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room, all furnished, all kitted out for the meal. Therefore, that we will have together and make your preparations there. See how brilliant, yet how simple it was.

Judas is not to know the location, not at that point, but he is to know that something is going to happen that evening in keeping with what he expects, the Passover meal being enjoyed by the disciples. Well, verse 13, they left and found things just as Jesus had told them. Surprise, surprise.

Our blessed Lord has not only a sense of wanting to make preparation, but he has perception. Now, they know he's got this sort of gift because, well, a little bit further down the road, so to speak, historically, he directed them to go and ask a man for the loan of his colts, of his donkeys. You will find these two donkeys and you will ask for them.

And it happened just as Jesus had said. There was an occasion when our Lord was passing through one of the cities or one of the towns and there's a little man who's hiding, well, not so much hiding, but he's up a tree because from that vantage, he wants to see Jesus. And Jesus walks almost as though he hasn't noticed anything particular.

And then he looks up and says, Zacchaeus, I'll zap you. That's my translation. I will deal with your life as he does.

But the point is, our blessed Lord, he knows. See, his life is so orderly and there are occasions when he will use he will use the omniscience, the all knowledge that God has. And he does on this occasion.

For what reason? Well, so that they can go and prepare the Passover. So that brings me to my final few comments. And this is taking the whole text, the whole of the 13 verses together.

We've looked at the plot and we've looked at the plan. I've talked to you about conspiracy and treachery. And I've also talked to you about perception and preparation.

I meant to say more, but I've lost time. Here, in closing down, is responsibility and sovereignty. You see, what you have are two men, Judas and Jesus.

Or if you like, you have two representative groups. One representing the purposes of Satan. Satan enters into Judas.

And he's with these people who want to do Jesus an injury. And on the other hand, you've got Jesus, the blessed son of God. You've got the son of perdition.

And you've got the son of the Father. And they're on a collision course. You've got human responsibility, his Caiaphas and Annas.

Here are all these men who are plotting the death of Jesus. You cannot in any way free them from the responsibility that is theirs. Neither can I free you, though I would like to, from the responsibility that is yours.

When you are presented with the fact of the gospel, as a human agent, we demand of your response. It is your responsibility. We appeal to your reason.

We appeal to your logic, not just to your emotion. If we go for your emotion, it's as a secondary thing. We go first for your mind.

And here is human responsibility. And they want the elimination of Jesus. And here is divine sovereignty.

Jesus wants the salvation of the world. Judas, the representative of Satan. Jesus, the representative of the Lord.

Judas, the traitor. Jesus, the Savior. Judas, who was bought for money.

Jesus, who was offered the world and turned it down in favor of the purposes of God and fulfilling the same. And the timing? The timing is immaculate. You see, it's the Passover.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you. That's why we went to Exodus 12 and why John read for that. Read that chapter.

The whole of God's scenario is to bring these events together so that it will coincide with the slaying of the Passover lamb and the eating of the meal. So that when our blessed Lord Jesus is later arrested, when he is placed on the cross and the cross is lifted high for all to see, men and women will realize that God is speaking to this world of an even greater salvation than that which the historic Passover feast commemorated. It will not be so much the slaying of the lamb and the daubing of the lintels of the Hebrew houses, so that the angel of death, when he passes over them and judges the Egyptians, will cause the Israelites to thank God for their physical salvation.

That itself is wonderful. But there's something even far more wonderful. Don't you know the Apostle Paul says, Our Lord Jesus Christ, he is our Passover lamb.

Don't you know the Apostle Peter talks about the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Don't you know that the Apostle John, when he writes the book of Revelation and he talks about the scene that he sees in the heavenlies, reckons that all the accolade, all the praise goes to the lamb who is seated on the throne? What happens on this occasion, during this whole period of our blessed Lord with the disciples keeping the Passover feast, is the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament sacrificial system stood for. Judas is not to have Jesus arrested until the full purposes of God have been fulfilled.

So he has the meal, and he preaches his address, and he brings out marvelous prayer before the Lord. Then he goes down into the garden. Then Judas comes, betrays him with a kiss.

And Caiaphas and Annas, the mob who are representative of them, take him away. And they think the plot was brilliant. What they don't realize is that subsumed the plot would be into the overarching purposes of the great plan of God and the blessed Christ on the cross of Calvary would die for the sins of the world.

And it will be preached around the globe. When I see the blood, when I see the value of the cross of Christ exhibited in the hearts of men and women, I will pass over you. I will forgive you your sins.

You will pass over the judgment of God. I've never been through Birmingham. I've gone over Birmingham.

I've never gone through the judgment of God. I go over the judgment of God. And that comes about by our blessed Lord and the fact that he fulfilled all that the Passover meal represents.

And he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. My friend, do you appreciate this? This is the greatest news in the whole world. Evil men delivered Jesus to Pontius Pilate and the rest.

But when Peter is preaching in Acts 2, when he's preaching in Acts 3, he says, No, it wasn't evil men. They were responsible for their actions. But beyond overarching, the evil of these men is the predeterminate counsel of this God who before this world came into existence had contrived a plan whereby the fallen sons of Adam might come to a position of reconciliation and being made one with him.

And that's Christianity. In effect, Christianity is the gospel of the Passover. And our God is the God who has passed over the sins of believing people through the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's sing the praise of our beloved Savior in a new modern hymn, Meekness and Majesty. 77 in the White Supplement. God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.

You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murder be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.

Father, we thank you that all that happened to our blessed Lord happened according to your will and your purpose. We thank you that though the plot was diabolical, the plan was masterly. And we praise you for the salvation that is ours.

Send us on our way rejoicing. Help us never to be among the ranks of the conspirators or those who deal treacherously with our beloved Lord. Help us to stay close to him, we pray.

And may the blessings of this Easter attract us as we move towards that great day of remembering especially his death and his mighty resurrection. So keep us in your fear and in your favor. And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest and remain with each one of us always.

Amen. Amen.