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Spy Wednesday | Holy Week Day 4
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Most people have never heard of Spy Wednesday — but it's one of the most sobering days of Holy Week. This is the day Judas began plotting to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. In this episode, I walk through what happened, how it fulfilled prophecy written hundreds of years earlier, and why even the darkest betrayal couldn't stop God's redemption.
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Transcript
Introduction to Spy Wednesday
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello friends, welcome back to Verity Podcast's Holy Week series. Today is Spy Wednesday.
Childhood Spy Games and Biblical Parallels
00:00:09
Speaker
I bet I have some kids watching this. Are any of you expert spies in your family? Do you like to pretend to be a spy? I loved to be a spy when I was a kid. My siblings and I even had our own spy club to spy on our mom and dad.
Origin of Spy Wednesday's Name
00:00:27
Speaker
I don't know if you are like me, if you have a spy club, but we do know that there was a spy in the Bible and his name was Judas. You might be surprised to know that today is actually called Spy Wednesday. Some people call it Holy Wednesday, but on the church calendar around the 1800s is when it became called
Judas' Betrayal and Prophecy Fulfillment
00:00:49
Speaker
Spy Wednesday. And it's referring to what Judas did in betraying Jesus.
00:00:56
Speaker
He began to spy out a time. when he could betray Jesus into the hands of the religious leaders that we talked about yesterday on Holy Tuesday. They've been plotting and planning for how to capture Jesus and to kill him because he's upsetting their plans and he's he's not following their super secret way of of getting God's will to happen on earth.
00:01:23
Speaker
And instead, he's actually accomplishing God's will according to what the Old Testament prophesied. And so the Jewish leaders, they want to kill Jesus. And Judas, he's decided that instead of being one of Jesus' 12 closest friends, he's going to play Jesus into their hands.
00:01:43
Speaker
Why might Judas have wanted to do this? Well, some people think that it's because he actually thought that Jesus was going to overthrow the Roman Empire, which was currently overpowering Israel.
00:01:56
Speaker
And so he became a disciple because he thought Jesus was going to give them physical rescue. He didn't know that Jesus had come to bring spiritual rescue. And then when he learned that, he was so disappointed that he decided to betray Jesus.
00:02:11
Speaker
Ultimately, we don't know what Judas' motivations were, but we do know that in Matthew 26, 14 through 16, he begins to look for an opportunity to betray Jesus.
Dual Prophecy Fulfillment in Judas' Actions
00:02:26
Speaker
Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, What are you willing to give me to betray him to you? And they set out for him thirty pieces of silver. And from then on, he looked for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.
00:02:42
Speaker
It's heartbreaking that Judas thought to do this. But did you know that this was actually a fulfillment of prophecy? In Zechariah 11, 12-13, it says this,
00:02:53
Speaker
I told them, If you think it best, give me my pay, but if not, keep it. So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, Throw it to the potter, the handsome price at which they valued me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord.
00:03:11
Speaker
Now prophetic literature in the Bible often has something called a dual fulfillment or dual dual prophetic reality. And what that means is it can have a meaning for the short term.
00:03:26
Speaker
For the time in which it's written, when Zechariah's words were written, they had a prophetic meaning, but they also have a long-term prophetic fulfillment. And we see this particular passage fulfilled in the story of Judas that we see in Matthew 26 and John 13.
Judas' Remorse and Prophecy Connection
00:03:44
Speaker
This particular event is happening before the Last Supper. So Jesus is going to gather with his disciples on Thursday, tomorrow, and we're going to learn more about that. But the Last Supper um hasn't happened yet.
00:03:59
Speaker
Judas is right now planning for how he's going to betray Jesus. And he receives these 30 pieces of silver in exchange for betraying him.
00:04:12
Speaker
But what is so interesting is if we go over to Matthew 27, 1 through 10, and we fast forward a little bit in time to after Jesus is betrayed by Judas, we learn something really interesting that connects back to this Zechariah passage.
00:04:32
Speaker
Now, when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to put him to death. They bound him and led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor. Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw he'd been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.
00:04:54
Speaker
But they said, What is that to us? You shall see to it yourself. And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and left, and he went away, and he killed himself. The chief priest took the pieces of silver and said, It is not lawful to put them in the temple treasury, since it is money paid for with blood.
00:05:11
Speaker
And they conferred together, and with the money, they bought the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For this reason, that field has been called the field of blood to this day, And then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled. And they took thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, just as the Lord directed me.
00:05:37
Speaker
Isn't that fascinating that the 30 pieces of silver that Judas returned was used to buy a field called the potter's field, which fu fulfills this phrase that
Redemption Through Jesus' Sacrifice
00:05:52
Speaker
was written hundreds of years prior in the book of Zechariah.
00:05:58
Speaker
While we know that this that this is not God's perfect will, as in God did not want Judas to kill himself, God did not want Judas to make this decision. He did not want Judas to to betray Jesus. he He made these choices himself. They were wicked choices. God used those choices to bring great redemption.
00:06:23
Speaker
through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross to you and me today. Jesus loved Judas.
Forgiveness and Redemption in Light of Jesus
00:06:31
Speaker
He wanted him to know the truth, but Judas was deceived and he made these decisions that sadly resulted in his own death, but also resulted in the fulfillment of prophecy around Jesus' life and ministry.
00:06:52
Speaker
And so the theme for today, even though it's very sobering, is fulfilled prophecy in the life of Jesus. See, Jesus wasn't just a good example or a moral man or somebody that we want to be like. Jesus was fulfilling thousands of years of prophecy about his life, his death, his ministry, and his deity, his kingship.
00:07:17
Speaker
And so through the excruciatingly painful circumstances of of Holy Wednesday or Spy Wednesday, we also learn the kindness of God's redemption and that he is willing to work in the lives of anyone who will call upon his name.
00:07:37
Speaker
So maybe you feel like you've gone too far or you've sinned too much. or Maybe you feel like you've betrayed someone or even betrayed God's heart. Don't give up like Judas did.
00:07:52
Speaker
Don't think there's no turning back. You know, I wonder what would have happened if Judas had run to Jesus and asked forgiveness instead of becoming so hopeless We don't have to live hopeless.
00:08:07
Speaker
We get to turn towards Jesus. We get to bring everything into the light. See, spies sneak around in the dark. They want to be where the darkness is.
00:08:19
Speaker
But Jesus invites us to come into the light, to bring everything we've ever done, all our betrayals, all of our sins, even the darkest deeds to him so that he can cover over them.
Conclusion and Invitation to Maundy Thursday
00:08:31
Speaker
He can forgive us and set us free.
00:08:34
Speaker
Thank you for following along as we study Spy Wednesday. I will see you tomorrow in this series as we look at Maundy Thursday.