Overcoming the Temptation to Betray Jesus

(John 13:2 NKJV) And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him.

Jesus is in the upper room with his apprentices for their final Passover meal while physically all together, the Last Supper. He is just about to begin his final impartation to them, by washing their feet. But before describing that scene, our faithful narrator—God’s wonderful Spirit of Holiness—strategically mentions “the devil”: he had “already” put it into the “heart” of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to “betray him.”

The name “Judas Iscariot” has become synonymous for underhanded betrayal, selling out, and backstabbing. But it’s less well quoted that he was “Simon’s son.” In other words, he was an imitator—a replicate—of his father, Simon—whose name means, “hearing.” And seeing that the name, “Judas,” comes from the Hebrew word for holding up the hands in praise or [outward] worship, we see that Judas’s name and fathering implies that his gifting was intuitive; he was created for praise, worship, and hearing in the spirit.

As with all people with this type of gifting, it can be used for great good—leading people to God’s secret place in worship, operating in the gifts of the Spirit, and/or hearing insightful revelation from God. However, when perverted, it can be used for all the same functions in Satan’s counterfeit kingdom. For example, fallen people with this gifting could be clairvoyants, mediums, or crowd-stirring, heart-moving entertainers, etc.

In Judas’s case, his gifting enabled him to easily hear from the devil, given the right circumstance. This is a huge challenge for all creative, intuitive people who are gifted to bring forth revelation from the spirit realm. Unless they exercise the parallel gifting of expressing constant praise to God—the type of praise that he inhabits (See: Psalm 22:3)—they can just as easily perceive what the devil is saying, and bring forth devastating fruit for him.

God’s word says that the devil had “already” put it into the “heart” of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him (Jesus). In other words, the enemy had used Judas’s gifting to plant a deceitful, deadly vision into the soil of Judas’s heart. Because he was deceived into stealing from Jesus’s offerings, his guilty conscience would have disrupted his God-assigned calling of constant praise. This left his heart open and unprotected from the enemy’s plot to impregnate it with satanic seed. Thus, Judas kept picturing a way to get more money.

Perhaps Judas thought the thirty pieces of silver that he would receive for betraying Jesus, would make up the shortfall for what he had stolen from the moneybag. After all, selling out Jesus should not result in any bad outcome for Jesus, just another opportunity to see God’s miraculous protection; whenever they had tried to arrest Jesus previously, divine protection enabled him to escape from their hands. Or maybe Judas just wanted more for himself. Either way, Satan had groomed him for his part in the evil plan to murder Jesus. Judas had taken the bait of Satan—hook, line, and sinker.

Today, we can learn several lessons from this one crucial Bible verse:

Do not allow any compromise into your heart. Judas’s demise began with the idea of stealing. Once he allowed that into his heart without challenging it, he inevitably gave in to it. This is the way all temptation works:

(James 1:14–15 GNT) But we are tempted when we are drawn away and trapped by our own evil desires. (15) Then our evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Temptation and sin work as an exact counterfeit to Jesus’s kingdom: “the sower sows the word.” Like God, the enemy tries to sow his seed-ideas and visions into the soil of our hearts. If his deadly seeds are nurtured and watered instead of God’s seeds, they grow there. When mature, they are harvested in multiplied sin. Our job is to be vigilant to the devil’s activity, and deracinate every one of his seed ideas by challenging them, uprooting them, and replacing them with holy seed from God’s word. After all, our heart is our responsibility.

If we yield to even tiny amounts of sin, not only does it grow; but it darkens our conscience, cutting off the flow of life from God. The shame we experience from this—even if we deny it—hinders and finally stops the constant stream of praise that would otherwise overflow from our hearts to God:

(Ephesians 5:19–20 NKJV) Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, (20) giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Without the sacrifice of praise constantly flowing from our hearts through our lips, we lose the covering of God’s glory. (According to Psalm 22:3, God inhabits heartfelt, verbalized praise.) Once we are isolated from God like this, we don’t come to his throne with boldness, and we no longer “abide” in his “secret place” (See: Psalm 91:1). Our Father seems distant, and we begin to “pick up” on any and every spiritual “voice” that is out there.

Next, an intellectual counterfeit for true relationship with God and Bible faith takes over. This is what had happened to the people who plotted Jesus’s murder. Without realizing it, what looks like pious religion on the outside is actually an intellectually satisfying religious emollient to overcome the alarm bells of the conscience. Self-justification through intellectually partaking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil continues, until the conscience is “seared” completely. Religion like this truly is the opium of the people—a conscience-numbing drug that stupefies its participants into a deceptive, self-justifying belief that they are right with God. But theirs is a god they invented; he is not the God of the Bible.

(1 Timothy 4:1–2 NKJV) Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, (2) speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.

This type of religion will always find an intellectually satisfying argument to justify killing off Jesus—the living Word of God. The Jewish religion fanatics wanted him dead; Judas agreed to it—for financial gain; and many today readily kill off the life-giving, living rhema of God’s revealed word. Intellectually, it is easy to shoot down what the Holy Spirit whispers to our spirits—especially when he challenges us to sow, or to give up our [pseudo] financial security. But we must always remember that Jesus was crucified at Golgotha—the place of the skull (Mark 15:22). When a living Word from God is whipped in our intellect and compelled to go to the place of the skull (intellectual debate), he will always come there carrying his cross; he knows that he will be crucified in that arena.

Thankfully, he alone has the power of resurrection. Even though we may have killed off many of God’s illogical commands, audacious visions, and startling truths in the place of our skull, he can and will resurrect to life. That is, if we repent, allow his precious blood to cleanse our conscience, and return to our first love: constant praise, prayer without ceasing, rejoicing in him, and worshipful surrender to his will; all of which leads us to believe the unbelievable, and instantly obey his illogical commands.

Today, I encourage you; don’t allow even the slightest compromise with sin. Dig it out, receive forgiveness, and resume the river of praise from your heart. That way, you can truly be in Christ—in the anointing—clothed in the glorious cloud of his manifest presence 24–7. As you walk this way, you will receive fresh manna daily and revelation from heaven—along with all the faith, life, healing, insight, light, and love that comes with it. As a result, your gifts will be used for good, and the temptation to betray Jesus will be overcome.