Judas’ False Repentance

Wherefore that field was called the field of blood unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, and they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value and gave them for the potter’s field as the Lord appointed me. Would you pray with me this morning?

Our Lord, thank you for the gospel and as we read this, Lord, we wanna read chapter 27 with a great deal of soberness and gravity knowing that Lord, all of history pivots around this one truth, this one event. And so Lord, we want to do it justice and we want to learn what you did for us and to appreciate it. And, Lord, as we look at these things this morning, we pray for your blessing and grace upon your word.

Lord, your word is blessed. We pray that you would bless us with hearts to receive it. And Lord, help me to say the things that the people here need to hear and need to know and understand how they can grow and be stronger and live for you better. So Lord, bless us in our time together. I pray that the name of Christ will be glorified, in Jesus name, amen.

Now as we go in chapter 27 and we’re winding up the book of Matthew, winding up the life of our Lord, I think the way that we’re gonna cover chapter 27 in our study is instead of just going from verse one to verse 66, I think we’re going to divide this chapter up based upon the various figures that are in the chapter and in this chapter, we have of course, we have this the first one mentioned is Pilate. He’s mentioned in verse number two but he’s mentioned a lot later after verse 11 and then, of course, you have Pilate’s wife who’s also mentioned in this passage as well and what we’ll look at today is Judas Iscariot and then, there’s also a figure by the name of Barabbas who occurs and of course, you have the Jews, the chief priest, the elders, the multitude, the mockers, all of those are present in this chapter in various spots and we’ll look at those as well. You have Roman soldiers and a Roman centurion who’s found at the cross and in the events leading up to that.

You have this unknown man, Simon of Cyrene, who is mentioned who helped helped Jesus by carrying the cross and lastly, the the the last two people you have are the two thieves that were on the cross on either side of the lord Jesus and so we’re going to look at each one of these as we go through Matthew twenty seven one at a time, and just focus on the the figures rather than the so much the events, and we’ll cover the events as we cover the figures. And so, today we’re gonna start in verse number three and look at Judas. We’ve already looked at Judas before a few weeks ago, and when when Judas went and betrayed the lord for 30 pieces of silver and we saw how that that was not a small sum. It was a fairly substantial sum. It was a it was a large enough sum to buy a plot of land but still nothing in comparison to the value of the lord Jesus. That was the that was the value that the chief priests and elders and and in fact, in this capitalistic capitalistic agreement between Judas and the chief priests and elders.

That was the agreed upon price for the lord Jesus. That was what he was worth both to Judas and to them and to the elders and chief priests And of course, we know that Judas brings this money back which we’ll see in a minute and so Judas value of the lord Jesus changes, dynamic. It starts at 30 pieces and then he brings it back and says, it wasn’t worth it after all. Now, I don’t know that he is intending to say that Jesus was far far more worthy than that or not, but the effect is he he he shows that the 30 pieces was not worthy of the Lord Jesus.

But what we read from verses three to verse number 10 is found only written in the Gospel of Matthew. This is the only place in scripture where this is detailed, that is where Judas comes back, gives the money back, and then his end. We do it is mentioned, which we’ll see in in Acts chapter one very briefly, but this is the only gospel writer that mentions the return of Judas.

And so in verse number three, if you’ll look at it with me, the Bible says this, then Judas which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. Now we know what Judas did was a high crime. It was it was treasonous, but not treasonous against an earthly king. It was treasonous against the god of heaven and if treason is grounds for capital punishment on Earth, what kind of punishment is Judas worthy of in this in the next life? It’s this bad, Jesus says, it were better for him to have not been born than to do what he did.

Judas is in big, big trouble. And we look at verse number three and we see that Judas is repenting himself and and that just simply means he he’s he’s changing. He’s what he intended to do before he is now trying to go back on that. He’s changing his mind. He is he’s had a change of heart in what is what he has done. And we look at that and we might because of the word repent there, which is generally a good thing, we might look at the word repent and think that Judas is doing something right, and maybe in a way it is a little bit better than what he has done.

But I’ll just say this, this is the first thing I want you to see this morning, that the repentance of Judas is a false repentance. Notice in verse number three, it says, then Judas which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned.

When he saw that he was condemned. Now, here’s the thing, when you read this passage, you might assume that verse three happens immediately after verse number two, but we don’t really know exactly when this happens. Because this whole process of Judas coming back to the chief priest, in fact, think about it, they are the trial before the council has just happened, they’re occupied with that, right? That that happened overnight.

It’s it’s dawning now toward the beginning of the day. Pilate now is up and about, and he’s the one that’s going to have to make the ultimate decision as to the fate of Jesus, and so they’re they are hastily taking Jesus from place to place. We know later that they take him to Pilate. He spends some time there. And this is very early because he’s on the cross by nine.

And so so they’re they’re going from place to place and they’re at Pilate early early in the morning. Pilate sends them to Herod, then he comes back to Pilate before the the judgment is actually given, and then he is whipped, and then he goes to the cross which is at 09:00. And so, there’s a lot going on in probably about three hours time. In other words, these chief priests and elders probably don’t have a lot of time to deal with Judas right now.

When he comes back into the temple and he throws the money down, they’re probably occupied. This is one of the reasons why it’s likely that this happen sometime later. Now, we don’t know when. But we do know that it happened after Jesus was condemned because it says, when he saw that he was condemned. Now, that tells us something about about Judas and about his so called repentance.

Judas up at any point after his truly, at any point after he had taken the money and conspired with the the the leaders of the Jews to to lead them to Jesus in secret. At any point, he could have repented. At any point, he could have come to his senses and realized, this is a really dumb idea. This is ungodly. This is wicked. At any point, he could have done that but he didn’t. He, Judas was full of the devil. Now, that does not mean he was totally controlled or possessed of the devil but he was absolutely controlled by the devil but we saw last when we studied the the the betrayal, we saw how that it wasn’t like the devil was moving his arms and legs. No, the devil was dangling money out in front of Judas and his covetous own his own covetous heart was was what was leading him but that that was being held by the devil.

And so and so at any point up to this moment, up to the time Jesus is arrested, he could have repented. In fact, even after Jesus has is arrested, he could have repented but he didn’t. He waited until Jesus was condemned which is to say, he he his repentance, this thought, this change of heart did not come up in Judas until he saw that Jesus wasn’t getting away And that leads us to to an interesting maybe hypothesis, which this is not original with me.

You know, there were other times in the life of Christ where he got in trouble and escaped. Right? When he went to Nazareth the first time, remember? He said, you you know, he he’s taught in the synagogue and they got so angry at him that they took that they they led him out to the brow of the hill. We’re going to throw him over the cliff to kill him. Remember that? And Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way and there were others who wanted, there were various other times during his ministry where they wanted to lay hands on him and he escaped out of their hands because his time had not yet come. If you remember, And so maybe Judas thought that this would be another time that the Lord would escape the danger as he had at other times.

He, if that’s the case, he could just pocket the money and it’s my personal opinion that I don’t think at this point, I don’t think at this point the disciples are even fully aware of what Judas has done because remember, he comes when he when he comes up to Jesus to at the arrest, he kisses him and says, hail master. Remember, maintaining that front. And so, I don’t even know that the disciples are aware that Judas is a traitor at this moment or fully aware anyway.

So, he could have pocketed that money and perhaps gone on his merry way maybe without anybody knowing what he had done. But he waits till Jesus is condemned. He’s not getting away. He’s not trying to get away. It is evident that by an act of Christ’s will, he is yielding himself to all that’s about to happen to him. In other words, he’s not going to escape this. And it is at that point, it is at that point where Judas says, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. That is a strong indicator that Judas, his his repentance was not real. Let me tell you something, if if you and I, if we have done wrong and we wait until the outcome of the thing and then say, oh, that was a bad move. Oh, oh, maybe I shouldn’t have done that. That makes it very very suspicious that our repentance and our sorrow and our regret is not based upon the evil of the thing but upon the bad outcome that that thing produced to us.

And that the repentance that is based upon the the the sorrow and repentance that’s based not out of the evil of the thing but is based upon the bad outcome is itself not true sorrow, not true repentance. Look if you would at second Corinthians chapter number seven.

Verse number nine. Now in the text we see the word repent, he repented himself. Interestingly enough, which is the same word that the scripture uses to describe God when he made world and then the world was in sin and then he repented himself, he made man upon the earth in the days of Noah.

Second Corinthians seven verse number nine, the Bible says this, now I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance. I’ll stop there a second. Now, Paul has written a letter, a scathing letter to the church at Corinth to rebuke them for all their evil. And they feel badly about it. They he has shamed them. He has nailed them. He has called them out and they feel sorry but notice, Paul is not sorry that they’re sorry.

Notice, he says this, he says, I rejoice not that you were made sorry. So, he’s not happy about their sorrow because that’s not good enough. Judas had sorrow over what he had done. Sorrow alone is not the same as repentance. It says, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. That tells us that sorrow and repentance are not the same thing. One leads to the other or should, but they’re not the same thing.

For for you were made sorry after a godly manners. That tells us there’s godly sorrow, which we’ll see in just a minute, and then there’s ungodly sorrow. That you might receive damage by us nothing. Verse number 10, for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. See these two kinds of sorrow. There’s in the the in this these two verses, there’s a sorrow described as godly sorrow and there’s a sorrow that’s the opposite of that which we would call ungodly sorrow.

One leads to repentance, the other leads to death. But both have sorrow. Both express emotions. Sorrow is an emotion. So, in both cases, in other words, just because someone expresses regret, just because someone cries tears, just because someone is sorry, does not does not by itself indicate that that person is truly repentant in a godly way. Judas probably wept. Judas expressed sorrow. Judas expressed regret. Judas expressed emotion over what he had done, but Judas was not truly repentant.

His repentance was false. So, gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. Not just not just in maybe others as you deal with others and you see people who have egg on their face after they’ve been found out for whatever they’ve been doing and then they’re weeping and crying. I’m just saying, you need to take that with a grain of salt. That’s not all, that’s not the whole story.

But not only others, forget about others, turn the turn the camera inward. Sometimes when we have been found out, when we have sinned, and we feel sorry, sometimes we need to test our own repentance. Is this real? Or am I sad or am I sorry that I just got caught? Or am I sorry that it’s ruined my life or it’s ruined my testimony, it’s ruined my job? Which is it?

Because here’s one of the key ways you can tell the difference is, if you wait until the matter produces the pain, that’s a good indicator that repentance might not be real. Now, that’s not a, it’s not absolute. Sometimes, the lord lets us feel the pain and reap the the the whirlwind if you will. That wakes us up to the reality but if that’s all we’re concerned about and the evil of the sin is not our concern, the repentance is not real.

Just you have to be careful with the the classic, I’m sorry because it went the wrong way. I’m sorry because it caused me pain. I’m sorry because of the outcome, not rather than what is true what is the beginning of true repentance, which is I’m sorry because of the evil of this of this act. I’m sorry that it transgressed God’s law. And see, this is why it matters, because true repentance leads true repentance will lead to, as we saw in in second Corinthians, leads to salvation not to be repented of.

True repentance is what leads to restoration. It’s what leads to someone not just sorry for the bad outcome but someone that’s willing to own the thing entirely, including the outcome. You know, I’ve seen, you know, and I’m sure you have too. I’ve seen people that express words of repentance but when it came down to owning the effects of their sin, they wanted had no they wanted nothing to do with it.

You see, when a person is truly repentant, not only do they say I’m sorry, not only do they have all of that but the effects they own that too. They own that too because they produced it. Now, go back if you would to to Matthew 27, notice verse three again, then Judas which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned. So his timing is off.

He repented himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. So he’s he’s in addition to his obvious visible sorrow, he actually goes and confesses. And he says, I have sinned and that I have betrayed the innocent blood. So, here’s confession. You might say, well, I mean, he’s sorry. Well, that’s he he’s sorry. That’s one thing. Well, now, he’s confessing to boot but his repentance is still not real.

Not only does he confess, he then also goes the extra step of trying to make amends. What was valuable, what’s valuable to him? He puts he puts back and he says, I don’t want this and they don’t want it either and they throw it down.

And so, look at look at these things. To look at outwardly to the life of Judas, what you see is, you see a man who is visibly upset and sorry for what has happened, he has confessed the thing, and he has attempted to make amends. All of those things, and listen, all of those things are elements of true repentance. If someone say, you know, if someone says this, if someone says, I’m sorry that you were offended.

They’re not, there there is no repentance there. If someone will not confess the thing that they have done, there’s no repentance there. If someone is unwilling to do do to the to their power to make amends for the thing, that’s not true repentance. If someone is not willing to own the effect, it’s not true repentance.

But all of that is still short. Here’s why. Judas did all that. He did all of those things. And Judas went and hanged himself and went to hell. So, we have the benefit of the retrospect with Judas. We know his repentance wasn’t real, because if it was real, that wouldn’t have happened. Judas would have been reconciled, he would have been forgiven, but he wasn’t. And the reason he wasn’t is found both in this passage and in second Corinthians seven we read a minute ago. The Bible says, Godly sorrow, that’s the first key, the word godly, worketh repentance to, what does it say, salvation.

You see, here’s the here’s the crux of this, despite all the outward signs that he was sincere, is that Judas repentance was not facing God. What do I mean by that? What I mean is, he wasn’t trying to get right with God. He wasn’t pointing at the Lord in this matter. When he was when he was sorry, he wasn’t sorry to God. When he wanted to make things right, when he wanted to confess, he wasn’t confessing to God. In fact, there’s no record that he confessed anything to God. He confessed it to the priest, that’s that’s that’s not good enough, not then, not now.

But it’s and then so so after he had done those things, he tried to make amends, he threw it down the best he could to them, But at no point, was it godly sorrow? That is sorrow, that is god word. It is sorrow that faces the lord and leads to him because it is that sorrow and that repentance that leads to salvation because it is related to god.

Listen, ultimately, if if we find ourselves on, you know, in in this kind of case where we’ve sinned against god, yeah, our sin might affect other people. It might harm our family. It will harm our family. It will harm those around us, but that we might lose money over. Whatever the case might be, but that is not the biggest deal. And that alone is not repentance. It’s the point when we face God and we see, see at the end of the tunnel, if you will, of repentance, is the hope and the faith that there is forgiveness found at the Lord.

If you don’t get there, what’s the purpose of the repentance? What’s the purpose of fake repentance? He still dies and goes to hell. If it doesn’t go to God, if there’s not reconciliation and forgiveness with God, it’s useless, it’s vain. We can crawl up stairs on our hands and knees, we can perform all kind of penance, we can say all kinds of prayers, we can try to make up for it, we can try to reconcile, we can do all of that. But if our repentance is not facing God, it’s not godly.

Repentance, godly sorrow. By contrast, the sorrow of the world is what we see in Judas. In fact, Judas Iscariot is probably the best biblical illustration of ungodly sorrow and ungodly repentance. It is, as second Corinthians seven describes, it is the sorrow that we often see in the world, the sorrow of the world, it is not godly. People call it sorrow because he cried. I mean, you you see this in Hollywood, you see it in you see it in politics so often.

But that sorrow ends in death. Judas confessed, Judas made amends, Judas sought to undo his sin by returning the silver, and although all of those things are elements of true repentance, it fell short because he wasn’t looking at God. He wasn’t seeking forgiveness from God, he wasn’t thinking about forgiveness from God, Judas.

In other words, the way Judas viewed his sin was like, was darkness enclosing him. There was no hope, there was no faith. You see, you and I, when we sin against God and we get out of the way and we go wayward, and then we, you know, the Lord convicts us and we start to turn back to him like the prodigal. What was the prodigal thinking? The prodigal wasn’t thinking, man, I’ve lost my inheritance. No, the prodigal son in Luke 15, you know what he was thinking about? He was thinking about his father.

His father in that parable representing God. You see, that is what that is what is ultimately important in the matter of repentance, and that is the thing Judas was missing. So Judas goes back, if you see in verse number four, Judas goes back to the chief priests and elders, he says, I have sinned and that I have betrayed the innocent blood and they said, what is that thus, see thou to that? And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself.

The kind of sorrow, tears, confession, making of amends that is not pointed at the lord ultimately leads to despair. You see, the God’s promise and offer of forgiveness is the thing that keeps a person who has erred out of despair. Because we’re looking at that and hoping for that. But imagine, listen, imagine you do all this to try to get right, and at the end there’s no forgiveness, because you’re not paying attention, you’re not looking toward the Lord.

It leads to despair, because despair is the sorrow without the horizon of forgiveness against the one, from the one against whom we have ultimately sinned. Godly sorrow on the other hand has the faith and the hope of a God who forgives.

And so the repentance of Judas ended in despair. He despaired because he thought he could never be forgiven, he didn’t even try. And what’d he do? The Bible says in second Corinthians seven, but the sorrow of the world worketh, what? Death. You see Judas’ despair resulted in his death, where he murdered himself. Now we looked at the life of Judas and we saw step by step how he got to where he was. It wasn’t a one time thing, it was a long process we saw as we studied the life of Judas.

And we know that he was under the influence of the devil, but man, what a good reminder. A good, listen, what a good reminder to the older people as well as to the younger people.

Because you have the whole picture. We know the devil was using Judas. We know that how the devil was using Judas. We know the method and the means that he was using to to influence Judas. But once the devil has used him as he wished, to get Jesus into the hands of men.

Once the devil is done with you, once he is done with me, once we have served his purposes, even though we might not even know we’re serving the purposes of the devil, like probably Judas didn’t know. But once he has done with us, he will activate self destruction mode in us and leave us and leave us to die. This is always the end of those who out of the love of money or of some other sin like Judas took a reward for iniquity because the devil is dangling a carrot of temptation in front of us. It looks appetizing. It looks appealing and so we’re chasing after it following the lust of the flesh being controlled entirely by the devil but once it’s all done and his purposes are accomplished, It will always be the same end.

Serving the devil always has this end. We do his bidding and then he kills us. And that’s it. And you think, well, no, no, well, I’m not actually, I’m not using Ouija boards, I’m not listening to heavy metal music that is actively and intentionally worshiping the devil. Judas wasn’t either. Judas didn’t listen to heavy metal music or play with Ouija boards as far as we know. He wasn’t visiting astrologers.

He wasn’t practicing some sort of witchcraft. You know what? Listen now. You know what Judas was doing? He was just following the lust of his flesh, sinning, betraying, violating God’s commandments, doing what, listen, just normal things that all human beings do, that’s what he was doing. He was just doing normal stuff, Nothing outlandish and nothing overtly for the devil and yet the devil had him completely in his control.

The warning to us is this, once He’s done with us, He’ll kill us. He’ll kill us. Suicide, suicide is a work of the devil. Anybody who’s whoever contemplates that, or that flies through anybody’s mind, know for certain that is not from God. And very often people who contemplate suicide think it’s God talking to them.

It’s the voice of the devil. But oftentimes that thought comes at the tail end of giving oneself to His service, to His lusts. And this is why Judas did not have repentance.

The sorrow that Judas had led to death. The second thing I want you to see in these, I have two more and they’ll be brief. Verse number four, the Bible says, speaking to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned and that I have betrayed the innocent blood. Think about Judas a minute. Was Judas a friend to the lord Jesus Christ? I mean, maybe on his on his face but certainly not in truth. He was not a friend of Jesus. In fact, he was the betrayer of the lord and unlike the other people you see in this chapter, you see various other people I mentioned, you see Pilate, Pilate’s wife, you see the Jews, you see other Herod’s going to going to be mentioned not in Matthew but in other parts of scripture. You see the centurion. You see the soldiers. You know what’s true of all of those people? They don’t none of them know Jesus.

Judas stands unique and alone in that Judas unlike all the others in the narrative of this chapter, Judas has a unique insight into Jesus Christ and his life. Judas was chosen to be one of the 12 disciples of Christ. Judas had been with Jesus since the beginning of his ministry. We know that because of Acts chapter number one. The Bible says, that Judas was numbered with us, Peter speaking, and had obtained part of his ministry. Verse 21 says this, wherefore, of these men which have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, which says, Judas was a follower and a disciple of Christ all the way back at the baptism of John.

That was one of the requirements for the for to to be one of the apostles, and Judas was. Judas had lived and lived with and walked with Jesus both in public and in private. Like all the rest of the disciples. Judas had seen Jesus and observed him in his ministry and among his inner circle.

And because of that, Judah’s testimony of Jesus in verse four is unlike Pilate’s, unlike Herod’s, unlike the Jews, unlike Pilate’s wife, unlike the soldiers, unlike everyone else. Especially knowing the fact that he was not friendly to Jesus. Judah’s testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ is very believable.

If anyone had seen any kind of fault in Jesus, whether large or small, it would have been those 12 disciples. If if anyone heard him say a word, catch an attitude that wasn’t godlike, anything, any word, any deed in private, in the secret place when he woke up in the morning, whatever. It would have been Judas Iscariot. Especially being an enemy. I mean, if if there’s any point where Judas should say, yeah, maybe you don’t deserve this but he’s, you know, he I saw him do a few things.

This would be the point where he could soothe his own conscience over what he had done in betraying Jesus. This would be the point to remind himself of that and he doesn’t. Verse four, he says publicly to them, he says, I have betrayed the innocent blood.

Think about yourself. Think about those in your life. Many of you are sitting next to your husband, next to your wife. Some of you are sitting next to your children, And I could go to a person, to a man, to a woman, to a child. I could go to, I I could I could I could look at Joshua. I wanna pick on Josh because he’s my son.

I could go to Joshua and I could say, now Martha, Have you seen Josh act out? Have you seen him do things that aren’t right? Would you call Josh totally innocent?

Of course, she’s gonna say no. And I know she’s gonna say no because I lived with him too. But that sword cuts both ways. My children have seen the the worst of me.

The ones closest to me have seen the worst of me. My wife, my children have seen that, and I’ve seen the worst of them. And your spouse has seen the worst of you, your children have seen the worst of you, you’ve seen the worst of them. The people who are closest to us are the best judges of character. That’s what listen, just as a side note, I know we’re not in August yet. That’s why what your children think of you is so important, way more important than the estimation of complete strangers.

Because they know you. We we went to the, I I went to the, the funeral for pastor Melvin Aiken, his pastor of Tabernacle. He passed away. He’s a former pastor. You know, he passed away on Monday, I think, Tuesday and he had it. They had his funeral at Tabernacle on Friday. Probably the best funeral I’ve ever been to if that if that’s the thing.

But I’ve been to other funerals where it was very much the funeral of Mrs. Muxlow and others were very similar. But this funeral was like this, pastor Aiken, of course, he’s in the casket and his grandson Anthony was the preacher, he’s a pastor himself. And he was the preacher for the funeral. And what I heard from Anthony was the greatest testimony that that man got more than what all the preacher said, more than what they said about his preaching, more than what they said about, you know, his wisdom or his bible knowledge or all that stuff. What I heard was a grandson who spent time with his grandfather when he was watching the Braves game, when he was at home, in his jammies, when he was just being himself as he was in private and I heard a grandson say, this man was the real deal. He said, this was the most consistent man I’d ever met.

He was behind closed doors as he was outside. He was the real deal. He really did love Jesus. Listen, want tell you something, there is no greater, no greater testimony of your life than those who know you best.

Who cares what everybody else thinks, so long as those closest to us, what they see is the real thing. Judas was in that place because Jesus, didn’t have any wife or children despite what they say.

If anybody could have thrown a stone at Jesus and had made an accusation stick, it would have been Judas and yet he had none. He had none. He says, I’ve betrayed the innocent blood. And once again, like I said last week, once again, and we’ll see this over and over again, the sinlessness of Christ comes to the forefront. It stands out in relief. And how fitting, because Jesus is going to the cross.

He is going as a lamb to the slaughter to die in the place of sinners. And the only way that that can be is if he himself is proven without any doubt to be absolutely and perfectly sinless because his fitness and his qualification to be that substitute requires that he himself be sinless and this is why we see it over and over and over as we approach the cross is because the lord is reminding us the sinless, spotless lamb of god is going to bear the sin of mankind though he knew no sin And the most unlikely testimony of that is Judas, who is not his friend, who is his enemy in fact, but who knew him best and is best able to give a believable testimony as to Jesus’ perfection. You know, Judas was there when Jesus turned those tables over in anger in the temple. He was there and he still says, no fault.

I wanna say, anybody who knows me knows that nobody can say that about me that knows me. It’s kind of, in fact, it’s kind of comical the way people have Google eyes about pastors. It’s like, oh, well, pastor this and pastor that. Yeah, and I I just kinda laugh inwardly. Because you don’t know me. But they know me. A few of you know me better than maybe a few of the others.

But anybody who knows me would be able to say, look, there’s fault there, there’s fault there, it’s not hard to find. It’s true of you as well, not true of Jesus. Judas had none.

The last thing I want you to see as we finish is the hypocrisy. Verse five says this, And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. And the chief priest took the silver pieces, now notice what they said, it is not lawful for to put them in the treasury because it is the price of blood. Where did they get that?

They get it from Deuteronomy 23 verse 18, I’ll read it to you. Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow. For even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God. You think what? The price of a whore, prostitute, or the price of a dog?

So here’s what this is saying in plain language, it’s pretty plain, but in plain language, here’s what it’s saying. If you were a person who sold an unclean animal like a dog and that was your method of making money and you’d earned a profit from that kind of commerce, because that animal was unclean, it was not fit to be brought into the temple. Okay, that’s the first thing it says, the second thing actually.

The first thing it says, if a woman was a prostitute and she was paid for that, for what she did, she was not allowed to bring that into the temple. It was corrupt, it was unclean money. It was it was unrighteous, it was it was outside of the of the boundaries of the law of God. God did not allow that. That’s exactly what they’re saying here. They’re saying, well, we can’t put this in the treasury of the temple, because it is the price of blood.

This money was paid to Judas as his hire, as his salary, if you will, for betraying Jesus, for turning him over, blood money. So therefore, this money is unclean and unfit to be put into the treasury. And this is the whole reason that they bought the field. That’s it it was it was it was it was their own scruples.

But it actually worked out worked out as an as an interesting fact. Now, the amazing thing about their hypocrisy is they’re they’re so scrupulous over how this money is spent whether it can be put in the temple, whether it’s lawful and all of that. And they completely miss the elephant. They strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, and the camel is this. The camel is that they have this, they they won’t put this money that that was paid to Judas into the temple but they are the ones who gave him the money. If it’s wrong to take that money because it’s dirty and put it into the temple, how much more wicked is it to pay someone that money?

The gnat was the money put into the treasury. The camel was the very people who gave him that money to kill Jesus. And it also says one other thing, they don’t know it, but they are actually unknowingly acknowledging their own wickedness.

Because if Jesus was actually guilty of the crime, it wouldn’t be dirty money, and therefore would have been able to go into the treasury. They know it’s dirty money. Their conscience is bearing witness, and the Lord is pulling that back.

It is an admission of their own guilt. Now if you would go to Acts chapter one and this is where we’ll finish. They took that money, what did they do?

They took that money that was Judas’ money and they they didn’t go they didn’t go out and buy food with it or whatever. What they chose to do with it is to buy a field which is actually a really interesting fact because but because they, if they had taken that same money and they had bought, I don’t know, fish, distributed the fish to people, you know, then that money would have been gone and there would have been no lasting testimony for what they had done.

But what they chose to do is they chose to buy a piece of real estate. You know the problem with real estate, brother Phil? The problem with real estate is no matter what you do, it is always there.

And so therefore, their hypocrisy is now on display to everybody in Jerusalem, because it’s tied up in a piece of land that can’t be moved. Not only that, but Judas’ shame is also on permanent display. Did you know you can go right now to Jerusalem? Nobody knows exactly where it is. They have an idea of what this where this piece of land is. They believe it’s on the South Side, the South Hill going down to the the valley of the son of Hinnom. Gehenna, on that on that slope, they think that’s where it is. Tophet in in the book of Jeremiah.

Maybe it is, maybe it’s not, but here’s the fact, it’s still there. And a testimony to the hypocrisy of the Jews, and the testimony to the betrayer, and the man who was under the control of the devil stands to this day. Acts chapter one, verse number 18, notice what it says. Speaking of Judas, verse 17 says, for he was numbered with us and had obtained part of this ministry.

Now this man purchased, Judas now, a field with the reward of iniquity and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem insomuch that that field is called in their proper tongue, Acheledama, that is to say, the field of blood. The shame is scattered through the ages now, locked in, anchored in to one piece of land.

All the things that Judas did and how he came that close to real repentance but completely missed it. Let’s pray.