I just caught myself, as I said,
that's where we are going to be preaching from this morning.
Kind of faux pas, kind of not. I was studying this week, and
I tend to go through a lot of Joe's stuff when I do that. And
this is basically Joe's sermon. So when I say we, it kind of
is. This is Joe. And I read it, and it was just
amazing. And it was a blessing to me.
And I pray it's a blessing to everybody. But we're going to
be talking about Judas today, and it's interesting. We're going
to be talking about the fact that when he realized what he
had done, realized his guilt and the sin that he had carried
out, what's the first thing he looked for? It's the first thing
we should look for, too, when we are shown who we are, is mercy. We look for mercy. We look for
forgiveness. But where do you go? That's everything. That's everything. You go to
the law, you will find no mercy. And that's what he did. So, we'll
start here. Again, we'll be back in Matthew
27, verses 1 through 7. So again, this message this morning
is entitled, See To It For Yourself. And it's from Matthew chapter
27. Again, I'll just read it one more time. Starting in verse
1, we read this story. Early in the morning, all the
chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision
to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away,
and handed him over to Pilate, the governor. When Judas, who
had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized
with remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver, 30 silver
coins, to the chief priests and the elders. I have sinned, he
said, for I have betrayed innocent blood. What is that to us? said the religious leaders of
that day. We don't care. What can we do for you? They
replied, that's your responsibility. See to it yourself. So Judas
threw the money into the temple and left, and then went away
and hanged himself. And the chief priest picked up
the coins and said, well, It is against the law to put this
into the treasury since it's blood money, so they decided
to use the money to buy the potter's field, a burial place for foreigners. That is why it is called the
field of blood to this day. That what was spoken by Jeremiah
the prophet was fulfilled. They took 30 silver coins, the
price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them
to buy the potter's field as the Lord commanded me. Of all the sad stories ever told,
the story of Judas must be among the saddest. He had so many blessings. He was a member of the covenant
people of the day, the Jewish nation. He had the advantage
of scripture from the prophets to learn from. He had the advantage of worshiping
at the temple. He had the promise of the Messiah
of Christ. He had the hope of Christ, and
he knew Christ. He knew the true and living God. He had a good name. The name
Judas is just Greek for Judah. This is the name that our Lord
came from, the tribe of Judah. Judah means praise, and it is
the tribal name from which the ethnic name Jew is derived. When we say Jew, we are just
sounding out the first syllable of Judah. Judas had the glorious privilege
of being chosen and called to be the disciple of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was one of the only 12 whom
the Lord chose to be within the inner circle of his teaching
and of his work. Judas was good in his outward
conduct. So good, in fact, that the only one who knew what a
monster Judas was was Jesus Christ himself. Not even Judas realized what
a scoundrel he was. even though he actually stole
out of the treasury of the disciples in John 12. Actually, let's turn
to John 12. John 12, 4 through 6, it says,
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray
him, objected, Why wasn't this perfume sold in the money given
to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because
he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As a
keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put
into it. He stole. He was like the disciple's
treasurer. He kept the money bag, and he
regularly helped himself to it. But I'm sure, just as all of
us, he had a way to justify those actions. I justify my actions all the
time. I'm sure he said things like, well, I do all the work
that all the other disciples do, and I also have to be the
treasurer, so I should be able to get a little bit more. makes
sense to our human minds. Only the Lord knew that inside,
Judas was a devil. Yes, Judas had all these great
privileges, yet notice how his life turns out as described in
Acts. Turn to Acts. Acts chapter 1, beginning with
verse 18. It said, with the reward he got
for wickedness, Judas bought a field. There he fell headlong,
his body burst open with all his intestines spilled out. Now
the two accounts of Judas' death that we just read, one in Matthew
and the one we just read in Acts, seem to be contradictory. but
really they're just describing different aspects of different
parts of the same story. If you put them together, here's
what happened. Judas agreed to betray the Lord for 30 pieces
of silver. Once he had done that evil deed,
then he saw it was going to bring Christ into condemnation and
crucifixion. He felt great remorse for his
evil deed. And he went back to the people
who had hired him in the first place and tried to undo what
he had done. He said to them, I'm a sinner. I have sinned against
innocent blood. And they said, what is this to
us? Go see to it yourself. So Judas did exactly that. He
took care of the matter himself. He went out and he hanged himself. He threw those 30 pieces of silver
back in the temple and went out and hanged himself. The priests
took that money, that is Judas's money, and they took it and bought
a field. Later on, they must have noticed
that he had hanged himself. Evidently, he had been there
for quite a while, long enough for his body to start to decay.
I'm sure they wouldn't touch his body, so they hired somebody
to take it down, dig a grave in the field that they had bought
with Judas's money, and bury him in it. since his body was
already rotten, when it hit the ground, the bottom of the grave,
it burst apart. So in just a few days, Judas
goes from a very privileged and blessed man to a pile of rotting
flesh in the bottom of a grave that he purchased with blood
money. Now the point I want to focus
on this morning is the response of the chief priests and the
elders, the religious rulers that Judas went to with an attempt
for repentance. Even though the men Judas spoke
to were as wicked as he was, they stood as symbols of God's
law. So they show us how the law responds
to our attempts to find mercy. our attempts at repentance and
trying to amend our ways, trying to amend for the sins that we
have all of a sudden realized that we've done. The law has
a twofold message for every sinner that approaches God through the
law on the basis of his sorrow over his sin. The law says to
every sinner, what is that to me? Go see to it yourself. What is that to me? This may
surprise some of you, but the law has no interest in repentance. It has no interest in your sorrow
or your sadness over your sin. The law only notes two things,
perfect obedience and disobedience. Perfection or sinner. Those are the only two things
the law notices and blesses perfect obedience with eternal life and
punishes the smallest infraction with eternal death. Therefore
repentance means nothing to the law. Being sad about your sin
means nothing to the law. You see, repentance doesn't put
away sin. Repentance does not undo what
has been done. When Judas went back to the men
who had put him up to betray Jesus, he was actually trying
to undo his sin in the presence of these men. They have given him money. He
tried to give it back. Those 30 pieces of silver stood
as a symbol of his great evil, and you can imagine how awful
they would feel in your hands. We've all sinned, some bigger
than others. To God, they're all the same,
but to us, some way heavier. And we understand the guilt that
can come with those things. the way you look at yourself,
the way you feel about yourself, and any evidence that you have
of that you want to get rid of. Things come to my mind, I would
imagine things come to your mind. That's exactly what he was dealing
with on a macro level. He had He had those 30 pieces of silver
and that represented everything he could have ever done wrong.
And it ate at him. And he needed to get rid of them.
Not that it would help, but that's what he wanted. He needed to
get rid of them. So he threw them away from himself,
trying to separate himself from his sin. But he couldn't. We can't separate ourselves from
our sin. We try. He tried. But we can't. Why? Because even
though Matthew says it was, says it was the chief priests who
brought that field, or bought that field, that just meant they
were out like real estate agents and used Judah's money to buy
that field. He may have thrown it into the
temple, but that money still belonged to Judas. You see, no matter what Judas
did with that money, he could not make it not be his money. No matter what he did, he could
not separate himself from what he had done. And a lot of us try to do the
same thing, don't we? We try to cast our sin away from
us. We hear that our sin has separated us from God, so we
try to separate ourselves from our sin. hoping by that to draw
nearer to God. That's what Judas was doing.
That's exactly what Judas was doing. But you see, even though
Judas threw that money into the temple and the priests were the
ones who made the transaction, the book of Acts says it was
Judas who bought that field. We just read that. It says, he got for his wickedness,
Judas bought a field. There he fell headlong and his
body burst open and his intestines spilled out. How did Judas, who
was dead, buy the field? Judas was already dead when the
field was purchased. How in the world could Judas
buy the field if he's dead? That money, no matter how much
he tried to cast it away, was still his money. And brethren, your sin, no matter
how hard you try to cast it away from yourself, is still your
sin. No matter how hard you try. And
it will do for you only what Judas' money did for him. It will purchase you a grave. You know, it was said of Judas
there in Acts chapter 1 verse 18, it says that this man, Judas,
with the wages of unrighteousness bought a field, fell headlong
and his bowels gushed out. The wages of sin, of unrighteousness,
is death. Right? And that's exactly what
Judas got for his 30 pieces of silver. Death. It's exactly what he got for
his supposed repentance. For the sorrow and sadness he
felt for what he had done got him nothing but death. Sorrow and sadness going to the
law gets you nothing. There are many who think that
God, the judge of all, is impressed with the demonstrations of guilt,
sorrow, tears, misery, and grief. You know, when we speak of coming
before the law, we really mean coming before God through the
law. And many people think that a
period of grief and misery over sin, coupled with an effort to
get better, to reforming one's life is at
least partially responsible for gaining God's mercy. Because
that's where we're going there, for mercy. But you see, the law
has no mercy. Understand that. The law has
no mercy. The law says, he that does these
things will live by them. not the one who tries to do them,
not the one who thinks it would be a good idea if he could do
them, but the one who actually does them. And that's all the
law takes into account. That's all the law takes note
of. Did you live righteously? Did you live perfectly? actually doing what the law says. And that all your sorrows and
tears and misery and attempts for reformation, all they actually
do is prove that you didn't live by the law. All your sorrow,
all your begging to these religious leaders, to the law, saying,
please take my silver back. I have sinned. They say, what
is that to us? There's no mercy here. All you're doing is proving that
you're guilty. But God already knows you're
guilty. So all those things mean nothing
to Him. If you come to Him in tears and
your misery, thinking that your tears and misery are going to
move God, that is not how this works. The old hymn, Rock of Ages, says,
not the labor of my hands could fulfill the law's demands. Could
my tears forever flow? Could my zeal, the highs, no
respite? No. So I could cry forever. I could have the ultimate in
zeal. Therefore, sin could not atone. I could be the saddest
person about the things I've done and it would mean nothing
for my salvation. Thou must save and thou alone,
it says at the end. So the law says when you come
to it and say, I have sinned, I have sinned against innocent
blood, please take my money back, and it says, what is that to
us? See to it yourself. The chief priests and the elders
rightly said that is what Judas's responsibility was. It was not
theirs. It is not the law's responsibility
to clear the innocent. It is the law's responsibility
to prove the guilty. Except for one. He must make atonement. That
was Judas's responsibility. He must see to satisfying God's
justice for sin. He must bear the curse. It was
all on him. And Judas did what he was told.
He took matters into his own hands. He saw to his own execution
and made himself a curse. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that is hanged upon a tree. Judas's sin, his attempt
to undo his sin, did nothing more than buy him a grave, for the wages of sin is death. Satan lays traps wherever he
can in order to trip us up. And one of these traps that he
has damned the soul of many a religious person is the belief that his
sadness over sin and his efforts to stop sinning are pleasing
to God, and move God to show mercy. God has said he will by
no means clear the guilty, and tears over sin do not remove
our guilt. When Judas was stricken with
remorse over his sin, he came to a crossroads. One was a broad road with many
people on it. It was the way that seemed right
to him and to many others, but the end was death and destruction
in a grave that he paid for. The other way was narrow, a winding
path. Few find it. Few walk on it. There's nothing about it to attract
the flesh, but it leads to life. Judas chose the broad road, the
road of doing things for yourself. He tried to get rid of his sin.
He tried to offer his own sacrifice, and all that got him was cursed,
dead, rotted, and damned. You can try all you want. That's
what he was doing, trying. looked to himself, tried to separate himself, tried
to find mercy where there was none, tried to atone for himself. Trying got him cursed, dead, rotted,
and damned. Any religion that puts you on the path of taking
care of things for yourself is a broad road that leads to destruction. Now go back 2,000 years before
that. There's a very old man, over
100 years old, and he's climbing a mountain with his son. They're
going to worship God. The son understands what's needed
for worship. So he says to his father, Father,
I have wood, you have fire, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
The father says, God will provide for himself a lamb for the offering. Now the word provide means to
see to it. The pro part means to and the
vid part means see. We get our word video from the
vid part. What Abraham actually told his son was God will see
to it. And this is what the gospel tells
us. You approach the law with guilt and shame. And the law
will say, see to it yourself. Those are awful words because
we cannot. The only way we can see to it
ourselves is to die eternally forever because that's what we
deserve. That's what we have earned on our own. See to it
yourself. And in the gospel, We approach
God in Christ and he looks to his son and says, see to it. God will see to it. One leads
to death, absolute. One leads to life, absolute. You realize that you are a sinner. Go before God and tell him that's
what you are and that you need righteousness. And he will say, I'll see to
it. Tell him that you are a criminal
against him and that you need a sacrifice. And he will say,
I will see to it. Tell him that you're dead in
your trespasses and sins. You're so dead, all you can do
is say, I'm dead. Show me mercy. Tell him you need
life, and he will tell you, I will see to it. And over and over, let him know
not how good you are, not how sad and sorrowful you are about
your sin, Let Him know how wretched you are, and how worthy of condemnation
you are, and how you need Christ. And in His mercy, He will say,
I'll see to it. And when you're all done with
a prayer like that, when God is all done telling you by the
gospel that He's see to everything, He will turn to His Son and say,
see to it. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus has already done. He came and saw to everything
necessary for the salvation of God's people. In your approaches to God, what
are you hearing? Are you hearing see to it yourself? Then, my friend, you're on the
wrong road. But if you're hearing the wonderful
words of the gospel by which God says, I'll see to it, I will
provide everything you need, then you are on the road that
leads to life. God grant you that grace. Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you
so much for your gospel. Our English language, calling
it good news, does not do it justice. What you have done for us is
indescribable. And at this point for us, it's
unfathomable. We are so thankful, Lord, that
we don't have to see to anything. Everything that is needed for
us to be saved from the sins that we are guilty of, exact
same situation Judas was in, has already been seen to. Those 30 silver pieces no longer
belong to us. We have been separated from them.
We have been separated from our sin. Because you have seen to
it. We thank you so much. We pray this in Jesus' perfect
name. Amen. You can take out your Hymnals
once again and turn them to number 690.