Friday 3/28/14 Betrayed 4

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You.  Please forgive me of my sins, dear Lord, and help me with the message of this day.  Thanks for watching over family and friends this day.  Lord, please, please be with our nation's leaders as our president travels and they deal with what is going on with Russia.  Lord, please be with the families of those who have loved ones missing in the missing airplane.  Please be with all those families that lost their homes in the big fire in Lewistown.  Lord, please be with Dave and please, Lord, turn him around.  Lord, be with Patsy and clear her of this sickness she has.  Be also with Burt.  Lord, help me to heal from the fall and get up and get things done.  Lord, be with Dolores also.  Lord, I want to work each day for Jesus and to get His word out.  I feel I have been slacking, Lord, and I need Your help.  After the message today, help me to get it dispatched and then, Lord, help us get caught up on our daily Bible study.  In the blessed name of Jesus, my Lord and Savior.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters.  Please keep Dolores and me on your prayer lists for awhile.  She is hurting from the twisting and turning of her body, and I guess on me, the fall hit me harder than I figured.  Also please keep prying for Dave.  Pray also for his wife and family.  And pray for our nation, for I think we are indeed in big "do-do" and our president needs all the prayers we can give him.  Patsy and her friend Barb are also very sick.  Keep Burt in your prayers also.  Now, brothers and sisters, I want to get moving on the message and finish the series o Betrayed.

Friday:  March 28, 2014, Betrayed (Day Four).

Luke 22:47 - While He was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them.  He approached Jesus to kiss Him, 48 but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?"  49 When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?"  (NIV)

The more I read the Bible and take a close look at the scriptures the more the Lord Jesus opens them up to me.  The other day we took a look at how Judas betrayed Jesus as recorded in the gospel of Matthew.  Today we take a look at the same scriptures as recorded in the book of Luke.  We find in this scripture Judas was called out by Jesus before he had the chance to give Jesus a kiss.  Now Judas had already betrayed Jesus and did that when he took the silver coins and made the deal.

Let me look at the "kiss of betrayal" (my term) and see if we can find other times a kiss is used to seal a deal.  When a couple gets married one of the last official acts of that pastor or other official who does the service is to tell the groom, "You may kiss your bride."  When I perform the wedding service I will say at the end of the service, "By the authority trusted to me by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and our Lord Jesus Christ, I now pronounce you husband and wife."  While I WILL NEVER MARRY A MAN TO A MAN OR A WOMAN TO A WOMAN, think about who all one would need to BETRAY to do that act.  First of all it is not legal in Pennsylvania, and if it was, that would NOT make it legal in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So who would I be betraying if I performed a gay marriage?  First, I would be BETRAYING our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who died for me on the tree would be betrayed.  When I would say I now pronounce you husband and husband or wife and wife and say you may kiss, well, how would you say it?  Anyway, I do not need to worry about this, because I will never officiate at a gay wedding.  Anyway, there is at least one other person that I would be betraying besides my dear sweet Jesus, and would any one of you like to know who that other person might be?

The other person who would have been BETRAYED would have been me, Daniel W. Lehman.  Yes, brothers and sisters, if I were to break the laws of the state, and more so the laws of our Lord Jesus, I would be betraying myself. Yes, brothers and sisters, when we break laws and when we do things against the will of God, we are not just betraying our Lord, but we are also doing some "SELF-BETRAYAL."  Up until now we talked about betraying others, about betraying God, about others betraying us, but we have not mentioned one bit about how we can betray out very own selves.  A lot of self-betrayal can be tied right into your own worth and what you think about yourself.  I am sure you have heard that saying, "let your conscience be your guide."  I think, dear brothers and sisters, if we would not betray God and not betray our own selves, we would not betray others.  So remember the heart of this lesson is to love your Lord, love your neighbor and yes, love yourself.  Now go forth and try your best not to betray others and not betray God and yourself.

Now please remember to share your blessings and know this.  I love ya, and please pass on the love of Jesus and my love to others.

Pastor Dan