“And he came out, and went, as he was wont (usually did), to the mount of Olives, and his disciples also followed him.

And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.

And he was withdrawn from them; about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him,

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.

And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow,

And he said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise up and pray, lest you enter into temptation.

And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him.

But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” Luke 22:39-48

The disciples who had only earlier pledged that they would go to the grave with Jesus, are now so exhausted and so troubled that they cannot even stay awake.

As he urged them to pray that they would not enter into temptation, because alone knew what was to come and that once he was arrested that they as his flock would scatter, just as he had foretold.

He knew the terror that would overtake their hearts and the strength they would need to continue on.

His own answer coming as his sweat turned to blood and his strength came not through his friends but from heaven itself to help him through the ordeal which lie ahead.

Judas having already sold him now bringing about his arrest, giving up his identity with a kiss of death.

Once they had arrested him, he was taken to the high priest who arranged a secret trial and Peter followed all the while and in the course of those events, he did indeed deny Christ three times and the cock did surely crow.

We’ll pick it up here:

“And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.”

And Peter went out and wept bitterly.

And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote (hit) him.

And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophecy, who is it that smote thee?

And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.

And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into their council, saying,

Art thou (Are you) the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe.

And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go.

Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.

Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.”  Luke 22:61-70

I do wish I could give you all this, but please read or watch the Jesus movie, the 1979 version that was rereleased in 2000, it is biblically accurate, as many of those movies take “creative” license.

You can find it by searching, The Jesus Movie 1979.

My mother accepted Christ the night she watched that movie. It is a powerful movie and true to scripture.

We’ll be going on in the story next post. But I wanted to get a few things in this for sake of your reading time.

Peter and all of the disciples realized their human frailty.

Most have said things in the heat of the moment and later regretted what we had said.

We never truly know what we will or will not do until the situation arises and that was what we were being taught through Peter.

Peter was truly heartbroken, he truly loved Jesus and Jesus came to him later and helped him realize all these things and as we know, Peter went on to be used incredibly of God.

Which also tells us to never give up, if we mess up, get up and ask forgiveness and go on.

A wonderful child pointed out something about this story years ago. Peter asked forgiveness but Judas did not. 

Now for what became of Judas, in another verse we are told that Satan entered into Judas at the time he had hatched his plan, because it was ultimately the forces of hell trying to destroy Jesus.

Only they did not know that this was all part of a greater plan.

Judas was never right to begin with, he was wicked and not committed at all, this enabled the devil to work through him.

Jesus knew Judas would betray him, as he had stated in another passage “that he had chosen twelve and one was a devil.”

We’ll start at the verse after Satan had used him to betray Jesus and in his own mind again the reality of just what he had done began to set in.

“Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, (felt guilty), and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priest and elders,

Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to it (What’s it to us? That’s your problem)

And he cast (threw) down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself.”  Matthew 27:3-5

Those priests were something else, it goes on to tell us that they had to decide what to do with the money, they even said that they could not put it in the treasury because it was blood money.

So, they bought a field to make a graveyard for passersby.

He betrayed the Son of God, and it profited him absolutely nothing in the end.

Until next time! Love & Peace

NBJ 2024/ Rev, N Brown Johnson/ 2025