Turning Point

Guest (Male): Have you ever felt the sting of betrayal? Sadly, it’s common even among Christians. And Jesus said it would become even more frequent in the last days. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah examines why betrayal is so uniquely painful with vivid examples from God’s word. With encouragement for standing strong, here’s David to introduce his message: In a World of Betrayal, Be Faithful.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Well, thanks for joining us today. We are studying from the Book of Matthew, the Olivet Discourse. The words of Jesus, which may be the most powerful prophetic words you will find in the Bible. And today we're going to move to a new part of this message and talk about what Jesus said concerning betrayal. How men betray us in the end times. There will be a time of betrayal.

You know, we have said more than once during this series that future events cast their shadows before them. So, we can see the shadows of this prophecy of Jesus taking place not only around the world, but right here in our own communities and, unfortunately for some of you, in your own homes. We live in a time of unfaithfulness and, as God's people, we need to reverse that process the best we can.

So today, we'll talk about that in just a moment. Before we do that, let me remind you again that Turning Point is headed to Alaska in July of this year, 12th through the 19th. We'll be sailing the beautiful waters and seeing the beautiful sights of Alaska, cruising the Inside Passage, Icy Strait Point, Hubbard Glacier, Juneau, Ketchikan, Victoria. And we'll have with us Michael Sanchez, Uriel Vega, great music, a great band, great worship, and we'll have a wonderful time. I hope you can come with us. We still have some rooms left, and you can find out about that at our website once again. It is davidjeremiah.org. Friends, here's part one of the next section of this material. This is called, "In a World of Betrayal, Be Faithful."

The man strolling through a public park in Fairfax County, Virginia, didn’t look like one of the world’s most dangerous spies. He was a middle-aged, middle-class, a bit out-of-shape guy. You could see he had a plastic bag in his hand. Now you see it, now you don’t. Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent with top-security clearance, had been betraying his country for almost two decades as a double agent. Starting in 1985, he sold thousands of US classified files to the Russians, including detailed military plans for responding to a nuclear war. He betrayed American operatives, some of whom were executed by the Russians.

He even told the Russians about a secret multi-million-dollar eavesdropping tunnel under the Soviet embassy. Unknown to Hanssen, the FBI was watching on that day, February 18, 2001, when he made a dead-drop delivery beneath the bridge in Foxstone Park. And they swarmed and cuffed him. Hanssen asked one question when he was caught: "What took you so long?" Between 1985 and 2001, Robert Hanssen had betrayed his country time and time again.

The FBI's official statement reveals the depth of his treachery. Here’s what they said: "A betrayal of trust by an FBI agent who was not only sworn to enforce the law but specifically to help protect our nation's security is particularly abhorrent. This kind of criminal conduct represents the most traitorous action imaginable against a country governed by the rule of law. It also strikes at the heart of everything the FBI represents: the commitment of over 28,000 honest and dedicated men and women in the FBI who work diligently to earn the trust and confidence of the American people every day."

What a bitter phrase that is, describing this man, a betrayal of trust. A man like Robert Hanssen makes the headlines and history books, but how many of you know that acts of betrayal happen every day? Every day in politics, in business, and in life. Maybe as I mentioned that subject, you’re thinking of the time when you were betrayed, when you were damaged by someone who broke trust with you and, in the process, broke your heart.

So what does this have to do with the world of the end? Well, let’s read what he says in Matthew 24:10: "And then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another." Jesus said as you get closer to the time when he comes back, the whole issue of betrayal will become a global event. It will become more and more prominent in our culture. Few things in life hurt worse than personal betrayal. If you asked me if anyone has ever betrayed me, I’d have to answer yes. Would you have to answer yes?

Betrayal is one of the strongest words on the emotional scale. We don’t use it lightly. What makes betrayal so raw and painful is that it comes not from our enemies, but from those we believe to be our friends, even from our family. People can’t betray us unless we’ve allowed them through the grid of defense into our life, unless we’ve let down our guard and trusted them. Betrayal exposes and exploits our vulnerability and it wounds us because it makes us subject to a double cross.

Les Parrott wrote this: "Backstabbers put on a front that appears accommodating, loyal, and even sacrificial. Then, without warning, they raise their knife. And by the time you see the glint of the blade, it’s almost always too late." Perhaps you’ve shared your most private thoughts with someone only to discover that they betrayed your confidence and told somebody else that you didn’t want to know. Maybe you paid someone in advance for work or equipment without getting what you’d bargained for.

Far more painful is discovering your spouse is cheating on you or a sibling has lied to you. Many people feel betrayed by a dad or a mom who failed to love or respect them or by a business partner who did them dirty. Honestly, I don’t know if there is any other pain in life that is worse than being betrayed by someone close to you. My friend Phil Waldrep wrote this. He said, "It changes everything. After such an experience, the world is simply a different place, one far darker and crueler than you ever thought possible before."

Every evening, people all over the world go to bed with the feeling that they were burned by someone, and the pain lingers for a long time. Many of them seek to forgive and move on, but it’s hard, and it’s painful, and it’s a long process. The portraits of betrayal go way back. Let me tell you, there's nothing new about being burned by somebody, by someone doing you dirty, as we usually say it.

The sin of betrayal goes back to the beginning of human history when the archangel Lucifer turned against his creator. The Lord told him, "I ordained and anointed you as the mighty angelic guardian, and you have access to the holy mountain of God." But this mighty angel deserted his God, and a host of angels in rebellion followed him. Ever since that point, betrayal has cascaded through the human story like falling dominoes.

Adam and Eve were seduced by Satan. Cain betrayed his brother Abel. Jacob double-crossed his brother Esau. Think of how Joseph must have felt when his own brothers stripped off his colorful robe, threw him in a pit, and sold him into slavery. Delilah betrayed Samson. The Psalms of David are filled with anguish over various acts of betrayal, including an attempted coup by David’s own son Absalom.

Psalm 55:12 and 13 says this: "It is not an enemy who taunts me, then I could bear it. It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me, then I could hide from it. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend." There are many more examples in the Bible, but there’s only one that matches the horrendous betrayal of Satan against God the Father, and that is the betrayal of God the Son by Judas Iscariot.

Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. Luke 22:3 and 4 says, "Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him to them." When we study the character of Judas in the Bible, he’s almost always mentioned with this little phrase. I'll show you what I mean. Matthew 10:4: "Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him." Luke 6:16: "Judas Iscariot, who also became a traitor." John 13:2: "And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into his heart Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him."

Now, put yourself on the Mount of Olives, where this whole thing is happening, where Jesus is talking to his four disciples. The sun is descending in the western sky, and Jesus knew that within hours he would experience the most infamous act of betrayal in history. He must have known that as he quietly warned these that a spirit of betrayal was coming, that he himself would experience the sting of it before the day was over.

The pain of betrayal and the portraits of it, and the prophecy of betrayal, that brings us back to our verse, Matthew 24:10: "And then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another." Have you noticed how many of Jesus' prophetic promises in the Olivet Discourse are connected to emotional wounds? Prophecy is about more than earthquakes and pestilence and heavenly signs. It’s about offenses and betrayal and hatred, things that happen every day, even now.

Every word of Jesus is intentional, so we’re not going to leave any of them out. We’ll follow through the three things that he said are going to happen around betrayal. First of all, he said the time of the end will be a time of offense. This is a really interesting word in the language of the Greek. The word offend is the word *skandalizo*. It’s the word from which we get the word scandal or scandalize. The term is used 30 times in the New Testament, and it refers to a hidden foot trap in the ground that causes someone to stumble and fall.

I’m sure at some point in your life, you’ve been walking along and didn’t see a broken piece of concrete or a root in the ground and it tripped you up and sent you sprawling. That’s the picture Jesus painted with the term *skandalizo*. The idea has to do with Satan using other people around us to set traps for us. The Lexham English Bible says, "And then many will be led into sin." For example, when a Christian engages in some particular habit of sin, he or she tries to take others down the same road. Sin wants company. Sin doesn’t want to be alone because company gives it a kind of sense of being okay.

When preachers begin departing from sound teaching of scripture, others are tripped up. When a well-known Christian personality transgresses morally, it causes some to become cynical. When a Christian institution is exposed for ethical failure, it sends a number of believers stumbling forward and flailing the air with their arms. When a preacher, a church, or a denomination begins to minimize a sinful trend in society, it gives a weaker believer a license to engage in that sin.

He’s not talking to people outside the church. He’s saying in the end, people who are in the church are going to live so carelessly that by their actions they will cause other people to stumble. They will offend others, they will scandalize them, they will cause them to take the wrong direction. And you know, I don't want to get personal about anybody that you and I know that you’ve read about in recent days, but it just seems like we’ve lived through an awful lot of that in recent days. Everywhere you look.

You know the Bible says that Satan goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And one day I realized what that really means is this: he’s not going to devour you physically, not going to eat you up, but the word devour there is a reference to Satan’s desire to destroy your influence. Why does Satan go after people in leadership? Because if he takes them down, he takes down their influence and it affects a lot of people. It’s a scandal. That’s what we call it, isn’t it? It’s a scandal. Satan loves to scandalize people because when he takes down someone with influence, he not only gets that person, but he gets all the other people over whom he has influence. That’s why as leaders, as preachers, as teachers, we should pray every day that God would protect us from the enemy. I know that many of you pray for me like that and I’m so very thankful because it means a lot.

So to offend someone in the biblical sense of scandalize means to allow the spiritual failure of another person to affect you. Jesus warned that this trend would grow and increase as we move toward the end. There would be this birth pain thing where it’s more frequency, more intensity, more of this is going to happen. And we’re watching it. It’s happening more and you say, "Well, no, that’s just because we have internet and we have better communication." I don’t think so. I think it’s just where we are. And the Bible says that’s what’s going to happen.

A world of offense. Then Jesus says in the same verse, a world of betrayal. Now, the word betrayal is a common word in the New Testament used 121 times. It’s translated into a lot of English words like deliver, betray, give over. In the context of Matthew 24, it paints the picture of Christians trying to escape persecution or justify themselves by delivering or handing over other Christians to be judged. In other words, you give up your friends so you can be safe. You betray your friend in order to protect yourself.

The saddest part of Matthew 24:10 is the phrase, one another. You say, why is that so sad? Well, this is not people outside of the church betraying Christians. No, this is Christians betraying Christians, Christians betraying one another, more accurately people who claim to be Christians betraying those who really are.

Earlier, I listed some infamous examples of betrayal in the Bible, but there’s one more that you probably don’t know about that’s kind of hidden in Paul’s writings, but it’s pretty insightful. It’s about a guy named Alexander. He was called Alexander the Coppersmith. Many commentators believe we first meet this guy in 1 Timothy 1:20 when he was saying untruthful things about God among the churchgoers in Ephesus. Paul removed him from the church along with another heretic named Hymenaeus. Paul delivered them according to 1 Timothy 1:20 to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme. Boy, you don’t want to be delivered to Satan, but Paul did that to these two dudes.

What happened next isn’t certain, but many commentators believe Alexander harbored a deep bitterness toward Paul and at some point betrayed Paul’s whereabouts to the Roman authorities, and this led to Paul’s final arrest, perhaps in Troas. And all this took place during the most dangerous days the church had yet experienced, when Emperor Nero declared Christians as public enemies of the Roman government.

If this scenario is correct, Alexander's betrayal led to the imprisonment, the trial, the execution of the greatest evangelist and missionary in Christian history. In the final chapter known to be written by Paul, which is in 2 Timothy, here’s what he said: "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you for he is useful to me for ministry. Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come, and the books, especially the parchments. Now watch: Alexander the Coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. You also must be beware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. At my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them."

Paul never forgot what Alexander did. I don’t know what he did. He hurt him deeply. He undercut his ministry and, as we’ve already mentioned, he betrayed Paul and got him arrested and ultimately got him killed. Now, you say, "Well, that was all in the plan of God." Yeah, you don’t want to go to sovereignty of God to explain your evil deeds. He was a vicious, betraying man. I don’t know if he ever got it right or not, but I do know he hurt Paul. He betrayed him.

And we see current evidence of Christians being betrayed by family members and neighbors, even by so-called Christian brothers and sisters. We’ve seen terrible persecution as afflicting the church. Intense pressure is sometimes placed on believers to give up the names of other Christians. Sounds like what may happen during the tribulation when raw evil will operate on steroids. The machinery of the Antichrist will seek to track down every new believer and force from them the names of other converts. But as we’ve seen, the birth pains are already occurring. Some of that is beginning to start and we watch it. We see it. It’s like in the distance, maybe even with a pair of binoculars, you see the truth that Jesus is speaking here beginning to happen.

And then he says it will be a world of offense and a world of betrayal, and third, a world of hatred. As appalling as betrayal is, hatred is even worse. You say, "Well, Pastor, what do you mean by that?" Someone may be tricked into betraying you or they may do so out of weakness, but when the motivation is hatred for you, it’s a new level of evil. Jesus said, "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other."

Now, this is the second time Jesus has mentioned hate. Back in verse 9, he warned that the world would hate us. We don’t like that, but we can almost understand it because the Bible says if it hated Jesus, it would hate us if we’re Jesus followers. But in verse 10, he warned Christians, or so-called Christians, that there would be hatred by other Christians toward them. Hatred within the body of Christ.

And that kind of extreme hating will become commonplace in the world of the end. Even within the established church, some Christians or fraudulent Christians during that time will fulfill the words of John: "But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes." The pain of betrayal, the portraits of it, the prophecy of it. That’s what’s going to happen in the future, that’s going to be a part of the culture in the future. You see little pieces of it here and there. Don’t get surprised, the Bible says this is going to happen. It will be full-blown in the future even though we’re only seeing little bits and pieces of it now.

But I don’t want ever to leave these messages without answering the question: So, what do we do? If we realize that we’re living in a world where betrayal happens, well, I’ve got some ideas for you, all right? First of all, choose your friends carefully. It’s amazing how we’re influenced by the friends we choose when we’re 13 or 19 or any other age. How easily we’re drawn into unhealthy relationships.

Young people in junior high and high school and college, one of the worst things that happens in our culture today is bullying. And people being destroyed by folks they trusted, you know, so many stories of people who share pictures that should never have been taken, but they share those pictures with friends, only to discover their friends delight in betraying them and destroying their lives.

I just would say to you, make sure your friends are really your friends. I mean, I know friendships go through ups and downs, but we need friends who will remain loyal to God and to us when all is said and done. I’m going to give you some verses about friendship that I think are really healthy. These are tucked away in the book of Proverbs and you wouldn’t find them unless somebody pointed them out to you, but listen to this.

Proverbs 12:26 says, "The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray." Do your friends help you draw closer to God or do they push you away from God? That’s the question you need to ask. When I’m with my friends, do they make me want to love God more and be a better Christian, or are they pulling me away from my love for God and being a Christian?

If you have friends that are taking you in the wrong direction and you follow them, guess what? You’re going to end up where they end up. In the wrong place, destroyed, betrayed, and they don’t care. And you know, you can have a friendship with somebody who is not a Christian if you’re leading them toward Christ and not being led by them away from Christ. But that’s the key. Where is the influence and which direction are you going in this relationship?

You say, "Well, Pastor Jeremiah, I have this friend, I like this friend, but they hate Jesus, they don’t like the church and all that. Well, I’m going to be their friend so I can lead them to Jesus." How's that going? Yeah, I mean, that’s the question you should ask: how's that going? If you’re not leading them to Jesus, they’re leading you away from Jesus and you’d be better off just to say, "Lord, I need a new friend."

Here’s another verse in Proverbs that says this: "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." What happens with your friend when you’re going through a tough time? Are they there helping you, are they there encouraging, or are they off to play games somewhere else? Take a moment and recall a recent time of pain or difficulty in your life. Who was there to help you, who was present with you, and with whom have stood during this time of struggle that you’re going through right now? Do you really have friends?

You know what I discovered? When you go through a really difficult time in your life, you find out who your friends are. When I had cancer, I found out I had some friends I didn’t know, and I had some that I thought were that weren’t. Difficulty sorts things out, doesn’t it? You look up and say, "Oh, look who's still here. And whatever happened to old Joe?"

We need friends who will be honest with us. Friends who will tell us the truth, friends who will keep us from mistakes or missteps. Here’s another Proverb: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." The best way to avoid people who are stumbling blocks or betrayers or hateful is to nurture a handful of rich relationships with people who are sold out to Jesus Christ. If they are loyal to him, guess what? They’ll be loyal to you. That’s the key. That’s the test. Find people who are loyal to Jesus, connect with those people, and they’ll be loyal to you. Amen.

Well, have more of this when we meet together tomorrow. I hope you’ll join us then as we continue to work our way through these words that came from the lips of Jesus as he sat on the Mount of Olives outside the city of Jerusalem, talking to his disciples about things to come. During this month, we are making available a resource that will, well, it will capture everything we’ve been talking about throughout all these days, all these words of our Lord and all of the things that, well, we’ve talked about. We’ve said that the Jesus prophecy shapes our priorities, and that’s true.

So, you can get a copy of this book, "The World of the End." It’s 241 pages of information that help you understand the words of Jesus. This book is available during this month only, and it’s available for a gift of any size to Turning Point. Please get your gift in the mail as soon as possible, and when you do, simply say, "Send me the book, The World of the End," and it’s on its way. And we’ll see you right here tomorrow for the next edition of Turning Point.

Guest (Male): For more information on Dr. Jeremiah’s series, The World of the End, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That’s davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David’s informative and insightful book, The World of the End, with a special Be the Answer bookmark. Yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah’s decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, The World of the End, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.