Monday, March 25, 2024

HOW THE DEVIL GETS IN

The apostles just could not stay awake at the ‘midnight hour.’ Their assignment was to watch over Jesus while He prayed. Jesus agonized, not about His death, but about why He was elected to die. It was His ‘cup’ that would hold the communal ‘wine’ that is the Holy Spirit. After He suffered and died, all who would, would drink of His cup.

They had all done so at the Last Supper, but soon they would drink, not from a silver chalice, but the ‘Vessel’ of God who He had named, ‘Jesus.’ With that thought, in search of the Holy Grail is finding Jesus as the ‘cup’ and drinking of Him. (I have found the ‘Holy Grail’ and it was not hidden away in some cathedral’s archives, but on the throne where ‘It’ belongs in Paradise in heaven.)

With such heavy eyes, Jesus encouraged the apostles to sleep on, knowing their eyes were heavy:

Then came He to His disciples, and said unto them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that does betray Me. (Mat 26:45-46)

 Then came Judas with Satan in him who betrayed Jesus as he kissed Him. Jesus then called Judas, ‘friend’ just as King David foresaw when he wrote Psalm 41:9.

A friend betrayed Jesus… one who loved Him before. Judas, who once had affection for Jesus, defected from Him for the love of money. What Jesus preserved Satan spoiled. Somehow Satan got past the seal that kept Judas safe and what Jesus preserved was spoiled from within.

That had happened before. Adam and his woman were preserved within the boundaries of the Garden of Evil whose way was guarded by cherubim… who were apparently asleep at their post along the way to the Tree of Life. (Gen 3:24).

Judas was a “familiar friend,” but temptation overwhelmed him. His stronghold was his job. He held the finances of the ministry and was a miser who did not even want it spent on Jesus. He must have thought that he was the apostle who would be greatest in the Kingdom of God!

Just as Satan got into the Garden by using lustrous fruits to tempt Eve, Satan got into the ministry of Jesus by the lusts of Judas. Judas was the ‘adulterous’ in that Jesus was once his love, and then not so!

(Mother Eve was the “wife” of the man Adam. Wife in the Hebrew is ‘Issa which means among other things ‘adulteress.’ The plural of which is “nashiym.” Compare that to the image [nahas] called the ‘Serpent.’ Some linguists believes that Eve, the ‘adulteress,’ was another kind of being akin to the Serpent. In other words, the woman in the Image of God was made into another being.)

Satan got into the Garden of Eden via Eve who was tempted. She still looked like a woman, but sin apparently mutated her genetics. If the same is applied to Judas, then even he became another kind that would require destruction. That raises the question; Did Judas commit suicide because he was guilty of breaking the Law, or was it because he had been altered into new kind… the Antichrist?

Think about that. If Satan or a demon got into you, indeed you would be another creature, an “old creature” from millennia ago.

Judas, if he was the Antichrist, and it seems he was, then he would be against Christ. He was against Him. Somehow Satan in Judas made him the “Adversary.” Before, while he was in Christ, he was something else; Paul wrote, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17).

In Christ is a new creature, implying in Satan is the old creature. As such, Judas was as great a sinner as Eve.

If any one of us woke up and realized that we were devils, suicide would be a logical and reasonable response. Judas did just that! Rather than wait on Jesus to destroy the Beast within, the next day, Judas could not sleep, so he became his own god and resolved his fallen state himself. He acted as if he was the Savior God; and it was him that should have been on the Cross instead of Jesus!

Satan had become active in the world after he entered Judas, but all the while Judas was planning on killing God, the apostles slept.

Jesus, as well as the apostles, were facing great peril; Jesus had warned them about His death. There is much meaning in that if you think about it. Just as Paul warned us in his letter to Peter, he said to, “be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8).

As a faithful friend of Jesus, Judas would have thought of himself as safe. He was wide awake when Satan entered him, yet he did not realize it for quite some time. While he was roaming around seeking Jesus to perish him, the others just slept. With Jesus gone; it would be them that was in peril and as written in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, all but John perished just because they were disciples of Jesus. Many believe that Emperor Nero had Satan in him, and as there are many Antichrists and Satan is one existence, Satan selects one after another to go into.

With them asleep and unaware, Satan could have gotten into any one of them if not for the grace of Jesus who prayed that it be His cup that passed, not any of the others.

The lesson for Christians should be that you may feel safe because you follow Jesus but all the while, like Judas, even those wide awake are in danger. To be sober and vigilant means that the Devil or his demons may even get into you if you sleep.

Oftentimes Christians ‘sleep’ while wide awake, in the manner of Judas. The unexpected happened; the Devil got into even him — one who loved Jesus — because Satan persuaded him to believe that just because he was with Jesus, then he could not be harmed. If it can happen to the ‘familiar friend’ of Jesus, it can happen to any of us who barely know Him!

We should always beware of the Devil in disguise until he is destroyed in the Lake of Fire in the end. So long as Satan and his demons roam, looking for an innocent being to enter, anyone of us is in danger!

 


 picture credit; Greta van der Rol

 

 

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