Matthew 26:14-19

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14 Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, ``What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?'' And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. 16 From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus. 17 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ``Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?'' 18 And He said, ``Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, `The Teacher says, ``My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.''''' 19 The disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.

THE BETRAYAL DINNER IS SET. I love the thought-provoking words of Max Lucado in his writings, Shaped By God. He calls this section "Judas, the Man Who Never Knew":

"I've wondered at times what kind of man this Judas was like. What he looked like, how he acted, who his friends were.

I guess I've stereotyped him. I've always pictured him as a wiry, beady-eyed, sly, wormy fellow, pointed beard and all. I've pictured him as estranged from the other apostles. Friendless. Distant. Undoubtedly he was a traitor and a quisling. Probably the result of a broken home. A juvenile delinquent in his youth.

Yet I wonder if that is so true. We have no evidence (save Judas' silence) that would suggest that he was isolated. At the Last Supper, when Jesus said that his betrayer sat at the table, we don't find the apostles immediately turning to Judas as the logical traitor.

No, I think we've got Judas pegged wrong. Perhaps he was just the opposite. Instead of sly and wiry, maybe he was robust and jovial. Rather than quiet and introverted. He could have been outgoing and well meaning. I don't know.

But for all things we don't know about Judas, there is one thing we know for sure: He had no relationship with the Master. He had seen Jesus, but he did not know him. He had heard Jesus, but he did not understand him. He had a religion, but no relationship.

As Satan worked his way around the table in the upper room, he needed a special kind of man to betray our Lord. He needed a man who had seen Jesus but did not know him. He needed a man who knew the actions of Jesus but had missed out on the mission of Jesus. Judas was this man. He knew the empire but had never known the Man.

We learn this timeless lesson from the betrayer. Satan's best tools of destruction are not from outside the church; they are within the church. A church will never die from the immorality in Hollywood or the corruption in Washington. But it will die from corrosion within-from those who bear the name of Jesus but have never met him and from those who have religion but no relationship.

Judas bore the cloak of religion, but he never knew the heart of Christ. Let's make it our goal to know. JESUS.