Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 27. It is good to be home, but I want
to tell you, Janet and I had the best trip going down to celebrate
our nephew's graduation from rain boot camp. And that's all
I'm going to brag on him. Now's not the time, but we did.
We had a very, very good trip and it's good to be home. All
right, let's bow together for a week. begin looking into God's
word. Our father, how we thank you
for this opportunity that we can meet together with our brothers
and sisters and open your word, open it and read it, study and
have Christ preached to us from it. And father, I beg of you
that you send your spirit upon us this morning, that you would
enable us to truly worship from the heart. that you would enable
us to be able to understand what the things that we hear taught
and that you give us a heart to love them and to believe them,
to see our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, if you don't meet with
us, we know we've met in vain. Father, meet with us, I pray.
Enable the name of Christ our Savior to be exalted and us to
see and worship. Enable us from our weak stammering
tongues to be able to exalt the name of Christ our Savior. And
what we pray for ourselves in this hour, we pray for our children's
classes. And Father, we pray for your
people, wherever they might be found this morning, who are meeting
to worship you, to hear word from thee. Father, I pray in
this dark and difficult day that you cause your gospel to run
well, that you give us a revival, in the land, that you would send
out your word to reach your people and to accomplish your purpose
of mercy and grace for them. Father, we do pray blessing for
those that are in times of great difficulty. There are many spread
all around, but there are no cases too hard for thee. There's
no one so far away that you don't know and see them and aren't
with them. Father, we pray you bless your people, that you'd
heal, comfort, and if it could be thy will, that you deliver
them quickly. All these things we ask in that name which is
above every name, in the name of Christ our Savior, amen. Well, I've titled our lesson
this morning, The Fall of Judas. Last week, we looked at the fall
of Peter, how Peter fell and he denied he even knew the Lord,
and how Peter was preserved, how he was restored. This week
we're going to look at a very different story, the fall of
Judas. Now there's a difference between Peter and Judas, but
the difference is not something that lies internally in those
two men that comes from them. The difference between them is
not their strength. It's not some sort of faith that they
could generate. The difference between Peter and Judas is the
same difference that's between every saved person and every
lost person. It's the distinguishing electing,
preserving, redeeming, saving grace of God Almighty. So the
first difference that I see here between Peter and Judas is their
repentance. Look at verse three of Matthew
chapter 27. 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 saying, I've sinned and I betrayed the innocent blood.
And they said, what is that to us? See thou to that. And he
cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and
went and hanged himself. Now it says here Judas repented.
He had a form of repentance, didn't he? Judas's repentance
was born from sorrow. He was sorry. He was sorry for
what he had done. He was sorry for what he had
caused the Lord. I really don't think Judas ever
thought that if he betrayed the Lord, that the Lord would be
condemned. I think that Peter thought the Lord would just walk
away from his persecutors, just like he had every other time.
How many times have people come to lay hands on him and they
couldn't? He just walked away or suddenly
they couldn't see him, they couldn't find him. I really do think that
Judas just thought that that's what would happen again this
time. He'd just walk away. And this is what Judas thought.
He said, I'm tired of this. He thought all the Lord was doing,
was just trying to reform Israel. And Judas thought this isn't
working. I'm just going to get this money, take my money and
run. I really think that's as far as Judas ever thought that
it would get because he seems very surprised that the Lord
was condemned. He was surprised by that. He
was so sorry. He was so sorry that he'd done
something to cause that. But sorrow is not repentance. Sorrow never leads us to repentance
unto faith. or unto salvation. You know,
by nature, we've all done things that we're sorry for, aren't
we? Maybe we're sorry for what it
caused, like Jews did, or usually it's we're sorry we got caught,
or we're sorry that God is just and he's gonna punish us for
it. We're not really sorry we did it, we're just sorry we're
gonna get punished for it. But by nature, here's what we're
not sorry for. We're not sorry about the nature of our sin. We're not sorry about our sin
against God, that we've offended God. We're sorry, but repentance
is not being sorry. Repentance is a turning. It's
a turning to Christ from our idols. It's a turn away from
all those things that we used to trust in. We trust Christ. So we quit trusting in all of
our religious activity or our good works, and we don't trust
those things anymore. Because now I trust Christ to
be my all. That's repentance. And every believer has repented
that way. Turned to Christ. And we've done
it because God's turned us. Because God's given us faith
and repentance and He's turned us. But every believer has turned
like that, haven't we? We turn to trust Christ. But
you won't find a believer anywhere that tells you, I've done that
perfectly. You won't find a believer anywhere that'll tell you, I've
done that once and for all, now I don't have to do that again.
Now we do need to repent of our repentance. Don't we? We need
to not trust our repentance. We need to trust Christ. So we
need to repent of our repentance. It's not, it's not perfect. It's
not good enough. The believer is constantly turning
to Christ. That's why Peter said to whom
coming is not just, I came to Christ once, you know, 25 years
ago, I'm all fixed up is to whom coming. I'm constantly coming
to Christ. I'm constantly trusting him. The issue is not whether
I trusted Christ 25 years ago. The issue is do I trust him right
now? Right now do I trust him? Right now am I coming to him?
So Judas was very sorry, but he never turned to Christ. Judas
was very sorry, but you'll notice he never came to Christ and begged
for mercy, begged for forgiveness. He never called out to God for
mercy. Judas, his repentance was just because he was afraid
of the wrath of God. He didn't turn to Christ because
he saw the glory of Christ, the redemptive glory of Christ. And
that's the difference between Judas and Peter. You know, every
one of us can understand a guilty conscience. I'm sure Judas had
a very guilty conscience. We've all done stuff we feel
guilty about. We knew the only thing, there's only one thing
that will quiet a guilty conscience. It's being made not guilty. And
that's what the blood of Christ does for his people. The blood
of Christ quiets the believer's conscience because he takes away
the sin we feel guilty about. In Christ, the believer has nothing
to feel guilty about because in Christ we have no sin. The
blood of Christ has taken away the sin of God's people. So everybody
who believes on Christ has a quiet conscience. As long as we look
to Christ, as long as we're trusting in his blood, To put my sin away,
I've got nothing to feel guilty about. So I have a quiet conscience,
because sin is gone. Now Peter's repentance, that
was real, wasn't it? Because when did Peter repent?
Peter went out and wept bitterly. He was very sorry for what he
did, but that's not his repentance. Peter repented when he saw the
Lord again. Remember Peter said, boys, I'm
going fishing. He went out there fishing, and
he didn't mean I'm He didn't mean I'm going up for weekend
Lake Erie rain. He meant I'm going back to professional fishing.
And as they're out there fishing, he saw the Lord on the shore. He said, boy, this is the Lord.
Peter jumped in the ocean or sea and swam to the Lord. He
went straight to the Savior as soon as he saw him. And very
shortly in the conversation that followed, Peter said, Lord, you
know, all things, you know, I love you. See, Peter showed that his
hope and his confidence was in Christ. He didn't say I didn't
do wrong. He said, you're my hope. You're
my confidence. That's what, that's what quiets
my conscience. You know, our good works and
our morality and our religious activity and all these, none
of that's going to quiet our conscience. And if you're trying
to quiet your conscience by your morality and your good works
and your religious activity, you're just going to make it
worse. I mean, how many good works do you got to do before
your conscience is quieted? How many good works do you have
to perform before you're perfect? Because the only way your conscience
is going to be quieted is if you're perfect. How many good
works do you got to do to be perfect? We can't do it. It's too late. If I could be
perfect from here on out, it's too late. Oh, the sin of my past
is too late. Trying to quiet our conscience
by our good works is just going to make our conscience worse.
And Judah's conscience was bothering him so bad, the only thing he
could think of to quiet his conscience was killing himself. Now that's
what man's works And man's religious logic will lead to every time.
The only way I can quiet my conscience is killing myself. It never occurred
to Judas's natural mind to beg for mercy. And I don't know a lot about
the subject, but the other reason that I hear of that people commit
suicide like Judas did, is they feel hopeless. I'm sure Jews
just felt completely hopeless. There's no way out of this. I've betrayed the innocent blood.
I've betrayed the Lord. And the only way he could see
out of it, the only way he could see to get out of this hopeless
feeling was to kill himself. Now, no believer, I hope you'll
listen to me. No believer is hopeless. No believer. We have a good hope
through the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And that hope is
not a wish, it's an expectation. You look it up in your Strong's
Concordance every time, I don't say every time, most times at
least, that word hope is used in the New Testament. It means
expectation. We have a good expectation through
the grace that's in Christ our Savior. The believer can have
a quiet conscience. when we look to Christ. Now we
can't have a quiet conscience looking at ourselves, but we
can have a quiet conscience in looking to Christ, can't we? And this is just kind of an aside,
but I do feel led to say this. I hope that nobody here, nobody
under the sound of my voice here in this recording later on, ever
feel so guilty and so hopeless that you take your own life.
Don't do it. Don't do it. Call somebody. Call me. Call one of these folks
here. We're no mental health expert,
but I can tell you two things. There's good hope to be found
in Christ. There's a quiet conscience found
looking to Him. And I know how to work my computer to look up
a number to call somebody that can help you with the rest of
it. But I know those two things. There's a good hope in Christ.
and there's a quiet conscience in looking to him. All right,
here's the second difference between Peter and Judas. It's
the price of their redemption. Judas brought those 30 pieces
of silver, and he tried to give them back. He tried to give them
back to the Pharisees, and they wouldn't take it, but it seems
like Judas thought, I can make restitution for this. If I just
give the money back, we'll all be square, and I've made restitution.
Now spiritually speaking, isn't that the way human nature thinks?
We want to make restitution. I know I've done something wrong.
I know it's not right between me and God. I want to do something
to make it better. Now we would never dream. Most people wouldn't
think this. They would never dream, I can
make myself perfect again. After I've sinned, after I've
let the horse out of the barn, nobody's going to really think
I can make myself perfect again. But man's religion is trying
to make restitution. Partial restitution. We know
that the debt is so large we can't pay it all. But if I can
make partial restitution and make the debt not so big, then
Christ will do the rest for me. I've taken the first step. I've
taken the first several steps. Now Christ will finish the work. I can't make payment in full,
but Christ will just pick up and pay the part that I can. Now that sounds so sweet, doesn't
it? That sounds so nice. It's kind of the American way.
I pull myself up on my bootstraps and I'll do a little bit and
somebody else helped me the rest of the way. That sounds so sweet,
but it's not true. No, it's not true. God is holy. God is just. God can only accept
full payment for the sin against him. His justice must be completely
satisfied for the sin that's been committed against him. God
cannot show mercy to anybody. until justice is satisfied. Well,
you and I can't satisfy God's justice. There's no restitution
to be made to God by giving the money back. There's no restitution
being made to God by straightening up and doing better than I did
before. The only restitution that God will accept is payment
in full by the blood of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The father,
see, we're not hopeless. The father has provided salvation
for his people. He will accept. He won't accept
anything we do, but he'll accept the blood of his son. He'll accept
the blood of the sacrifice of Christ as payment in full for
all of the sin of all of his elect. And this is the thing
I love about salvation in Christ. It takes all the pressure off.
The debt is paid in full. Now, we're going to serve the
Lord, aren't we? Every believer wants to serve
the Lord. But the pressure's off. It's a totally different
ballgame when you're working to pay off a debt and you're
working because you love somebody. Totally different ballgame. There's
no need for any believer, anyone here, to feel like you've got
to make restitution to God. Just look to Christ. Just believe
on His blood has paid the debt to his people. Quit working,
trying to please God, and rest in Christ. Just rest in Him. There's no worries for your soul
resting in Christ. Otherwise, we're going to have
this constant burden on us, thinking we've always got to do something
to make up for our sin. And that burden will be constantly
constant, because we'll never get it off our back. We'll never
be able to... But Christ did. So rest in Him. All right, the third difference
between Peter and Judas. It's their knowledge of Christ.
Judas says here in verse four, I've sinned, and then I have
betrayed the innocent blood. Now there's a lot of similarities
between Peter and Judas. When you look at them outwardly,
when you look at them in those three and a half years that they
spent with the Lord in his earthly ministry. Many similarities,
aren't there? Judas preached the same way that
Peter preached. He went out and preached, he
preached the same message that Peter preached. If he didn't,
all the other disciples would have noticed the difference.
He's preaching the same message that Peter preached. But being
a preacher, that doesn't save anybody. I tell you where there's
salvation though, it's believing the Christ we preach. See, it's
in him, it's in Christ, it's not in us preaching. Judas had
some knowledge of the Lord Jesus. He knew who the Lord Jesus was. He could come up in the dark
and he could pick the Lord out of a crowd of people. And he
could go up and kiss him on the cheek and identify him. But by
God given faith, Peter knew the Lord different. He knew that
the Lord Jesus was the son of God, the Messiah that should
come. Peter knew him and believed him. Judas just knew who he was physically. And Judas knew some good doctrine.
He really did, Judas knew some good doctrine. He shows it here,
I betrayed the innocent blood. He knew that the Lord was innocent. He knew it. That's the reason, I'm sure,
that we never read about Judas being called as a witness at
our Lord's mock trial. I mean, you'd think that the
one that betrayed him would also be a witness, wouldn't you think?
But there's no record of him being a witness against the Lord
because he knew the facts. Judas knew the facts. He knew
that the Lord Jesus is the sinless sacrifice. He did no sin. He knew no sin. He knew he was
innocent, but here's what Judas didn't know. What he didn't believe.
He didn't believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless sacrifice
could put away his sin. He didn't come begging for mercy.
Judas didn't know there's cleansing for sin in this sinless blood
of Christ and this perfect blood of Christ. But by faith, Peter
knew that and he was seeking forgiveness. That's where he
came with. Peter knew there's forgiveness to be found in Christ.
Peter was the one that said, remember that whole big crowd
had been following the Lord and they all went away. They said,
this is a hard saying who can hear it. And the Lord told the
12, you're free to go. You can go away too. And Peter
said, no Lord, we're not going to go away. To whom shall we
go? To whom shall we go? You're the
one who has the words of eternal life. We believe and we're sure
that thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. How did
Peter know that? And he knew some things. He knew
that, but he also trusted his soul to him. Why? God gave him faith and he left
Judas alone. That's the difference. Now, I
want us to know the right facts. I mean, we have to know the right
facts about the Savior. Otherwise, we're gonna trust
the wrong one and our souls will be damned because we're trusting
the wrong one. I want us to know the right facts, the true facts
about the Savior and who he is so we trust the right Jesus.
I mean, you're not saved just by saying, well, I trust Jesus.
I mean, let's find out which one you're trusting in. Is it
this Jesus? Is it the God of the Bible? I
want us to know the right facts. But there's a big, big difference
between knowing the right facts and having a saving knowledge
of Christ. A saving knowledge of Christ makes us run to him
and trust our souls to him. We've got to know the right facts,
but oh, we need much more than that. Listen to what Brother
Fortner wrote in his commentary on this. He said, Judas came
to the very door of heaven. He handled the door. He showed
others the door. But he went to hell when he died,
because he never went through the door. Judas never entered
that door by faith. He knew all about the door. He
knew how the door worked. You know that door back there,
about the hinges on it, and the weight of it, and what it's all
made of. Brother, if you're going to leave
this room, you've got to go out the door. That's what Judas never
did. He never entered in by the door.
And here's another thing. I don't know what good Judas
thought it would do to kill himself. He probably just thought it's
the only way he could quiet his conscience. It's the only way
he could end this hopeless feeling, because he just can't deal with
it. I don't think he really thought there's any real benefit in his
death. But you and I need to remember
this. There's no merit. in our suffering. There's no
merit in our blood. There's no merit in our death.
I've heard people say this about someone that died, and they lived
a tough, tough, tough life. I mean, they lived a tough life.
They were in poverty or in ill health or just being persecuted
for being a good person or whatever. And they say, well, if anybody
deserves to go to heaven, it's them. They've already suffered
hell here on Earth. No. No, they haven't. No, they haven't.
There's no merit to our suffering here on earth. There's no merit
to our death. All our death will be, if the Lord tarries, every
one of us here is gonna die, lay in a casket, we're all gonna
walk by and say, well, I'm gonna miss him. All that death will
be is the natural result of sin in our bodies. Sin, when it's
finished, bring it forth. One thing, death. No merit to
it whatsoever. There's nothing in our death,
nothing in our suffering that's gonna satisfy God's justice,
even a little bit of it. There's merit in one death, in
the death of Christ our Savior. It's his death, the merit of
his death and his blood that we're hoping in. But Judas went
to hell when he died, because there's no ransom for his sin.
Nobody satisfied justice on his behalf. Christ didn't die for
Judas. He didn't make restitution for
Judas and pay his sin debt. So him suffering, that's not
gonna get the job done either. Just give him 30 pieces of silver
back, that's not gonna get the job done either. There's merit
in the death of Christ. It's his blood that pays our
sin debt. Then here's something else, this
thing is the same for Peter and Judas. In both cases, the scriptures
were fulfilled. When Peter sinned against the
Lord, he denied him, Peter was not cast off. The scripture says
the Lord came to save sinners. Peter's a sinner, Lord saved
him. The death of Christ is no random occurrence. The death
of Christ is the purpose of God. The whole Old Testament gives
us a picture, many different pictures of that. The death of
Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, was ordained by the Father. That's
why all this is happening. Look over at Acts 2. After Christ died, now Peter's
become the spokesman, hasn't he? Acts 2, verse 22. You men of
Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which
God did buy him in the midst of you. As you yourselves also
know him being delivered by the determinant council and foreknowledge
of God, not the council of the Jews, not, not the council of
the Romans, not, not the advice of pilot, the determinant council
and foreknowledge of God. That's why you've taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain him. Look over to Acts
chapter four. See, this is the sacrifice of
Christ is fulfilling the old Testament scriptures, the old
Testament prophecies. Even David prophesied of the
death of Christ. Acts four verse 25 who by the
mouth of thy servant, David has said, why did the heathen rage
and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood
up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Christ for of a truth. against thy holy child Jesus,
whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with
the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel, not their hand,
not their counsel, God's hand and God's counsel determined
before to be done. The death of Christ fulfilled
all those Old Testament pictures and prophecies of the Messiah,
of the sacrifice, The death of Christ, his sacrifice for sin,
that's the subject of all of the Old Testament. And that was
fulfilled on this day, the day that Judas hung himself. Look
back here at verse one of Matthew 27. When the morning was come, all
the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against
Jesus to put him to death. And when they bound him, they
led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor,
Christ, the savior was led away, bound. They bound him with ropes
and chains or whatever they bound him with because he's such a
dangerous criminal. They thought he'd escape and
cause all this problem to their society. And that seems very
offensive to us that they would bind our savior. But he had to
be, he had to be bound to fulfill the old Testament picture of
the sacrifice. Abraham bound Isaac to the altar
as he was getting ready to slay him. And when he took him off
and found that substitute, the ram, Abraham bound the ram to
the altar. All those sacrifices were bound
to the horns of the altar. Christ the Savior had to be bound
to fulfill that type and that picture. But listen, he wasn't
bound by ropes or chains, whatever they used to bound him with.
because somebody overpowered his will. It's not like he didn't
want to be bound and I've seen people not want to be handcuffed
and the police are arresting them. They wind up being handcuffed. That's not how our Lord ended
up being bound. Those things couldn't hold him.
You know what held him? The bands of love that he had
for his father to fulfill his father's will and keep his promise
to his father. I'll be sacrificed for the sins
of my people. It was the bands of love that held the savior,
that bound him so that he did not escape from them. He had
the power to escape. He could have called those 12
legions of angels and put it into this whole mess, but he
didn't do it because he loves his people. And the only way
they can be redeemed is if he's sacrificed. It wasn't nails that
held him to the cross. No, it was the bands of love
he had for his people, for his father. Now look here at verse
5. Here's another way the scriptures
were fulfilled. And he cast down the pieces of
silver in the temple and departed. And he went and hanged himself.
And the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, it's
not lawful for to put them into the treasury because it's the
price of blood. See, suddenly now they're interested
in doing everything right, aren't they? And they took counsel and
they bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in. where
for that field was called the field of blood. And to this day
then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy, Jeremiah,
the prophet Zachariah is the one who actually quotes Jeremiah.
This is never that we ever see written by Jeremiah, but Zachariah
quotes Jeremiah, the prophet saying, and they took the 30
pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they
have the children of Israel did value and gave them for the potter's
field. as the Lord appointed me. Now
if you look back at Zechariah chapter 11, I'll show you the
fulfillment of this. Zechariah chapter 11, how many ever years it was before
the Savior was born, this is what Zechariah wrote, quoting
Jeremiah. In verse 12 of Zechariah 11,
and I said unto them, If you think good, give me my price
and if not for bear. So they weighed for my price,
30 pieces of silver and the Lord said unto me, cast it under the
potter, a goodly price that I was prized out of them. And I took
the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house
of the Lord. See that was, that was prophesied
many, many, many years ago and now it's fulfilled at the death
of Christ. I'm going to show you one more
scripture. Genesis chapter 49. This scripture is not quite so
obvious, not one of those things that comes immediately to mind,
but it's a wonderful fulfillment of this prophecy. Now, the Jews,
they tried the Lord, didn't they? They found him guilty, they condemned
him. Why didn't they just kill him? I mean, the Jews' form of
capital punishment is stoning. Why didn't they just stone him
right then? They already condemned him. They decided they condemned
him, said he deserves to die. Why didn't they put him to death
themselves? Why did they have to take him to pilot? Well, I
can tell you. Because two years prior to this
night, the Jews or the Romans finally took away, you know,
the Romans let people they conquer kind of self-govern themselves
to an extent. Well, two years ago, the Romans
took away the last national power of Israel. They took away their
right to put somebody to death. They took away these last rights
that the Jews had to self-govern themselves. Everything they did,
everything, had to be done by the approval of Rome. There was
no Jewish sovereign anymore. They couldn't decide how to govern
themselves anymore. They had to get Rome's permission.
The king of Israel is gone. That was prophesied. Look here
as Jacob was dying and blessing his sons in Genesis 49, verse
eight. Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise. Thy hands shall be in the neck
of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall bow
down before thee. The kings are coming from the
tribe of Judah. Judah is a lion's whelp. From
the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down. He crouched
as a lion. And as an old lion, who shall
rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
come. And unto him shall the gathering
of the people be. Rome took the scepter away, didn't
they? They took the power of self-government
away from the Jews at this exact time to fulfill the scripture. Shiloh's come. They took the
scepter away from Judah. There is no more Kings coming
out of the tribe of Judah because now Christ our King Shiloh has
come to sacrifice himself for the sin of his people. And when
he's lifted up, the people are going to gather to him. God's
people are going to gather to him. And that's exactly what's
happened at the scriptures were fulfilled. All right. Hope the
Lord will bless that to you.