Destructive Desires

Author: Joseph

Date: May 12, 2024

Yeshua prophesies to His disciples that in two days He will be handed over for crucifixion just after explaining all the matters about His return and the final judgment to come in the last days. Just after revealing all that is to come, He gives the immediately pressing message that He will be killed within a mere two days. What a shocking moment this must have been for the disciples who had just received so many words regarding the kingdom of God. Now the King was to be killed? How did this make sense?

Yet, there was indeed a plot conspiring among the chief priest and elders at that very moment in the court of the high priest, Caiaphas. The conspirators were planning to seize Him “by stealth and kill Him” (Matthew 26:4). Their only hindrance was that they did not want the people to cause a riot, so it had to be in secret, lest they would cause social or even political uproar from a public arrest. They were shrewdly evil in their conspiracy against Yeshua and they were not alone in their hatred of Yeshua.

Judas, following Yeshua and seemingly undecided on how he perceived Yeshua, but finally Judas’s greed convinced him to betray Him. An unnamed woman comes into the home where Yeshua is fellowshipping with a former leper, Simon, and anoints His head with costly perfume. The perfume is so valuable that it causes those who witness this act to be indignant and even scold the woman who did this for Yeshua, even though it is her own perfume to do so (Matthew 26:8-10; Mark 14:4-5). The perfume was worth about a years worth of wages and some of the guests in the house, including Judas, said that what the woman has done is “waste” and liken the act to neglecting the poor because its value could have been used to provide for them (Matthew 26:8-9). John notes that Judas, however, was not saying this out of a genuine desire for helping the poor, but rather, because Judas was greedy and a thief who would even steal from the money box of the disciples (John 12:6).

Yeshua does not see the woman’s act of anointing Him as waste, however, stating that the woman has prepared His body for burial, going along with the prophesy He gave regarding His crucifixion to come very soon (Matthew 26:12). Judas, however, is deeply disturbed by this act and his greed convinces him that Yeshua is a mad man who doesn’t mind wasting a years-worth of salary for being anointed. Judas thinks betraying Yeshua would at least draw a benefit for himself since he now saw Yeshua as no use for his greed. Judas, of course is mistaken and seeing through carnal eyes, but this doesn’t stop the evil in him from acting out in sin.

Immediately after this anointing, Judas goes to the chief priests to betray Yeshua and notice his question to them: “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” (Matthew 26:15). Judas speaks of his desires upfront and directly: money. The evil of Judas’s greed blinds him and is the unwavering source of his motives and dedication. Judas’s greed even brings him to betray God in the flesh! And he finds a wicked ally in the chief priests, whose desire is to kill Yeshua, the One who is disrupting their own worldly desire of pride and self-praise. Wicked men driven by different evils, working together because they hate God and desire their own pursuits more than the will of God.

Judas accepts their price for the betrayal of Yeshua, thirty pieces of silver, and from the moment of confirming his deal with the chief priests and elders, he seeks eagerly to betray Yeshua.

Being a disciple of God is about doing His will, no matter how His way contradicts what seems “worthy” and “good” from the perspective of the sinful world. Being a disciple is also about submitting to God’s will fully and letting our own will conform solely to what He desires rather than what our old desires were. Judas couldn’t let go of his desire for wealth and was willing to betray God for it. The chief priests and the elders didn’t even seek to learn from Yeshua or follow after Him because His teachings were so contrary to their desires for worldly power and influence. No matter what the source of evil is, it never allows someone to understand the will of God nor desire to understand it. Evil desires within a man only lead to betrayal of the Truth, even if serving God brings some selfish “advantage” for a short time, when the evil desire brings temptation, it will always draw away the one who is not willing to let it go for the will of God.

Judas, the chief priests, the elders reveal just a small glimpse into how evil betrays God and His will. No matter the amount of lip-service that is given prior to the choice of what will be forsaken for the other, if evil has any grip on the one being tempted, it will draw them away, often times without there ever being a second chance. For evil loves to lure its victims at the time when a decision doesn’t give a second chance, for the desire of evil is death and destruction.

"...forsake all else except for the will of God."

What do you desire? Would your desires lead you to betray God if you had to decide giving up on one of them? What desire do you still hold onto that causes you to waiver in your faith? This will be used against you in a time of temptation or testing and what will you do when that time comes? Seek now to forsake all else except for the will of God. If you make up your mind and set your heart on this now, when testing comes, you will be steadfast in your faith. Do not be misled like Judas, and do not seek the treasures of the world as the chief priests and elders did. They all met a miserable end apart from God and no desire is worth that eternal price.

Matthew 26:1-16

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org