Well, good morning. If you would open your Bibles
with me in Matthew chapter 26, we're going to continue our study
in Matthew chapter 26 this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, we bow before your
throne of grace this morning. We bow carefully. and reverently
coming into the presence of God Almighty. And Father, how thankful
we are that you've told us that we can come boldly, confidently
before your throne of grace in the person of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And Father, we do come before
you pleading his precious name, pleading his person as our only
acceptance, pleading his obedience as our only righteousness. Bleeding
his blood is the only way our sin could be cleansed and forgiven.
Father, we're thankful. How we thank you for the Lord
Jesus Christ. How we thank you that you've
enabled us to come before you in him and be accepted for his
sake, accepted in the beloved. Father, we're thankful. As we
look into your word this morning, Father, I pray that you would
reveal Christ to each heart here, Father, cause your word, your
gospel to go forth in power, to reach the hearts of your people,
to reveal Christ and cause us to rest in him, to believe on
him and to rest in him. Father, while we pray for ourselves,
we pray for your people who meet everywhere, all around the world
this morning. Father, bless your word, bless
your people for your great namesake. We pray a special blessing on
our brothers Eric and Jonathan as they're away preaching that
you'd bless them mightily in preaching, give them traveling
mercies. Father, we dare not forget to pray for the sick and
afflicted of our number and those that we know of. There's so many
at this time, Father, we pray that you'd undertaken their behalf
to heal, to deliver, to comfort their bodies, comfort their hearts
and their minds, that you would deliver as soon as it could be
thy will. all these things we ask in that name, which is above
every name, the name of Christ, our savior. Amen. All right. I've titled the lesson this morning,
the betrayer. I know that sounds kind of like
a negative subject, but I hope to have something that'll, there'll
be a blessing to you. Let's read our text first, beginning
in Matthew 26, verse 14. Then one of the 12 called Judas
Iscariot, went unto the chief priest and said unto them, what
will you give me? And I will deliver him unto you.
And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver. And
from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him." Now, you know,
it is a sad thing to talk about Judas Iscariot. It's good for
us to talk about him, good for us to be warned of these things.
It's a sad thing, but there are some good lessons for us to learn
here. You may recall in the last chapter
the Lord gave several different illustrations and parables to
teach us that the church on earth is always made up of a mixture.
There's always wheat and tares. There's always goats and sheep.
There's always a mixture of believers and unbelievers. And you know
that mixture was true even among the 12. Even among the 12. Judas was one of the 12. Yet
he was reprobate. Now something had to happen.
to be the straw that broke the camel's back for old Judas. We
know, they didn't know it at this time, but we know now Judas
was a greedy man. He was the treasurer of the group
and he'd been stealing from the bag all along. And Judas had
just seen Mary come and pour this very expensive ointment
on the Lord to anoint his body for the burial, the Lord said.
Now Judas objected to that. He got the other disciples with
him to object to this and don't, he said, don't waste. disointment
on the body of the Lord. But let's take it and sell it.
And he wanted to do that because he wanted to steal part of the
proceeds of it, you know. But the Lord overrode Judas and
Mary anointed. He said, leave her alone. He
said, wherever, wherever the gospels preached, this will be
said as a memorial to her. And that was it for old Judas.
It also could be that Judas understood exactly what the Lord meant.
In verse two, the Lord told them, you know, after two days is the
feast of the Passover. and the son of man is betrayed
to be crucified. It doesn't seem like the other
disciples understood this yet. As often as the Lord told them,
they still didn't understand. The Lord's gonna die. He's gonna
be sacrificed for sin. I think Judas finally got it.
He's gonna suffer and die, and Judas thought, I didn't sign
up for that. I didn't sign up for that. Judas
was just like all the others in this way. They were all expecting
Lord set up an earthly kingdom. They all thought that, uh, the
Lord is going to set this thing up and that they were going to
be part of this, this great kingdom that had power in the earth.
You know, like, uh, the Jews had under the reigns of David
and Solomon, they all wanted to be on the Lord's cabinet in
this new, this new kingdom. They thought he would set up.
Judas probably had his eye on secretary treasury. He didn't.
Peter, he thought he wanted to be secretary of the Navy. You
know, Peter wanted to carry that big stick. I don't know how soft
he wanted to walk, but he wanted to carry the big stick, didn't
he? And that's what they were thinking. And Judas finally got
it. The Lord's going to die. And
he thought, where does that leave us? Where does that leave us
if the Lord dies? What's going to happen to the
disciples? Well, he knows what's going to happen to them. They're
going to be shamed. They're going to be humiliated. They might be killed too. There
can't be an earthly kingdom if the king dies. And Judas thought,
I don't want any part of this. So he's going to get his golden
parachute and get out while the getting's good. And you know,
human nature never changes. People are still the same today.
You see this when somebody doesn't get their way, you know, Judas
is going to take his ball and he's going to take what he can
steal from everybody else's ball and he's going home. He just,
he's not going to be any part of this. Now that's what's going
on in his mind and his heart, and there's about four lessons
I want us to be able to learn from what we see going on here.
The first lesson is this, it's a warning to us. A person can
be very religious and think very little of Christ. In verse 14,
then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot, one of the chief priests,
and said, what will you give me? And I'll deliver him unto
you. Now notice the chief priest didn't
come to Judas. Judas went to the chief priest and he said,
what will you give me for him? He didn't say, what will you
give me for the Lord? He didn't say, what will you
give me for the master? He didn't say, what will you give me for
the savior? What will you give me for him? John Gill says that
that word means, I didn't see this, but this is what he said.
He's smarter than me. It means this fellow. You see the disrespect
there? He just had total disrespect
for the Lord. What will you give me for Him?
Judas didn't even have a number in mind. He just was going to
take whatever they offered, you know? They could have low-balled
him. And in whatever negotiation back and forth that they had,
they agreed on 30 pieces of silver. We'll give you 30 pieces of silver
and you betray Him to us. You know what 30 pieces of silver
is? It's the price of a slave. The master was sold for the price
of a slave. The savior of sinners, whose
blood will pay an infinite price for the sin of his people, was
sold for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. That's
how little Judas thought of the savior. And you know, this is
human nature. Judas isn't alone in this. Wouldn't
he saw the same way? He sold his birthright for a
bowl of beans. He sold the birthright to be
the priest of that family, to represent that family to God.
He sold that for just a bowl of beans. It's human nature to
think very little of Christ. And this is the way that religious
people think. They think a whole lot of their
man-made doctrine, but they think very little of Christ. They think
a whole lot of their morality. They think a whole lot of their
works. They think a whole lot of their rules and their laws
and their system of government. They think a whole lot about
all their religious ceremonies, but they think so little of Christ,
they won't trust their souls to him. They'll trust their souls
to all those other things, but they won't trust their souls
to Christ. They think so little of the Lord Jesus Christ, they
think he's unworthy to trust all their soul to him. They think
they gotta help him out. That's how little that they think
of it. Very religious, aren't they? But think very little of
Christ. And you know, all of us need
to be warned about this because we all have the very same nature
that Judas had. How easily would we trade Christ
for earthly ease? How easily would this flesh would
do it? You know, the question posed to all of us is not what
you think of the preacher. Now what do you think of this
doctrine? What do you think of this congregation? What do you
think about the way this thing's run? The question is, what think
ye of Christ? What think ye of Christ? And
I pray our answer will be, he's my all. He's my Lord, my master,
my savior. He's my wisdom, my righteousness,
my sanctification, my redemption. He's my prophet, my priest, and
my king. He's my salvation. You know,
I want that to be our heart's answer. I don't want to be religious
and think little of Christ. I want to know Christ and believe
him. I want that for you too. All right, here's the second
lesson, similar to the first one. A person can be very religious,
but still be lost. Don't confuse religion for salvation. You know, somebody thinks little
of Christ has to be lost, don't they? Judas was one of the 12. and he conducted himself in such
a way outwardly that the other disciples respected him. All
this other stuff he was doing, he was hiding from them. I'll
show you that in verse 21. As they did eat, he said, verily
I say unto you that one of you shall betray me. And they were
exceeding sorrowful and began every one of them to say unto
him, Lord, is it I? Now when the Lord told them one
of you is going to betray me, Judas didn't enter their mind.
Not one of them thought, Judas, I knew it. I knew that guy was
doing this all along. Not one of them thought that.
Every one of them thought it's more likely to be me than Judas.
Every last one of them. Lord, is it I? Oh, don't let
it be me. You know, sometimes a person
leaves the gospel And we're not really surprised by what they
do. You can see it coming a mile
away just based on how they've been acting. But not Judas. Nobody but the Lord saw this
coming. Not one of them. Judas was an
upright and a moral man as far as what everybody could see outwardly.
But being moral, that's not salvation. We have to have the righteousness
of Christ. Not our goodness, but his goodness. Judas was near
the Lord, wasn't he? He's part of the 12. He was in
on this intimate conversation the Lord had with his disciples.
He was near with the disciples. But that's not salvation. Salvation
is being found in Christ. A lot of people were near the
ark that Noah was building, weren't they? But the only way you could
be saved is being in the ark. In the ark. Judas was a preacher. Judas performed miracles. He
went and healed people. He cast out demons and so forth,
but that's not salvation. Preaching and performing miracles,
that's not salvation. Salvation is having faith in
Christ, is believing Christ and trusting Him. And we'd be wise
to lay this to heart and not be like Judas, because we will
if the Lord leaves us to ourselves. Every one of us, we will. We're
to examine ourselves, scripture says, for what? Whether you be
in the faith. not whether you're crossing all
your T's and dotting all your I's right, not are you in the
right religion, not do you have the right doctrine, we're to
examine ourselves to see if we're in the faith. Do I believe Christ? Do I trust him? Do I cling to
him? Is he all my hope? Look at Psalm
51. Here is a real good prayer that we could just take to be
Our own, Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression.
My sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Behold, thou desires truth in the inward parts, and in the
hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. made me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. And here
it is. Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from
thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Create in
me a clean heart. If the Lord doesn't create a
clean heart in us, we'll have the heart of Judas and we'll
be lost same way as he does. This is our prayer. Lord, create
in me a clean heart, a heart of faith. Don't just let me be
religious and be lost. Make me know Christ. Make me
believe Christ. All right, here's the third lesson.
Even in times like this, when the betrayer is doing his worst,
trust the word of God. Trust the word of God. It won't
be to the extent that the other 11 were here, but people are
going to disappoint us often. They're going to hurt us often. They're going to do that because
that's what this flesh does. People are going to disappoint
you. Just be careful how much stock you put in now. They're
going to disappoint you. But the word of God will never
disappoint you. The word of God will never let
you down. I mean, can you imagine the hurt
and the confusion that the other 11 felt when they learned not
only did Judas betray the Lord, but this wasn't a heat of the
moment thing. He'd been planning it and plotting it for some time. And they just had to be so hurt,
so confused. Somebody that they trusted to
make the treasurer of their group had been stealing from them and
betrayed their master. And I just don't think they ever
got over the hurt of it. I don't think they ever got over
the shock of it because of how they wrote about Judas whenever
they wrote about him after the fact. This is the way they described
him as they wrote in the epistles and in the four gospels. They described him as Judas,
which betrayed him. Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed
him. Judas Iscariot, which also was
the traitor. It just seems like they just
never could get over it. And then this, Judas saith unto him,
not Iscariot. Lord, how is it thou manifest
thyself unto us and not unto the world? They said not Iscariot
because they wanted to be sure they identified the right man
here. To them, it's the worst thing in this world to be confused
with Judas Iscariot. They wanted to be sure that that
didn't happen to their brother Judas. They just never got over
the shock and the hurt of this. But as horrible as that was,
for Judas to betray the Lord, to steal from them and betray
the Lord for 30 pieces of silver. Do you know when Judas did that?
Not only did he not harm the word of God, he fulfilled it. Let me show you that, Psalm 41.
Psalm 41. Verse nine. Yea, my own familiar friend in
whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his
heel against me. Now, what David was writing here
is about his experience with Ahithophel. Ahithophel was one
of David's chief advisors. He was one of the best advisors
that David had. They were together. They ate
at the king's table together. They talked. Ahithophel was his
advisor. And when Absalom rebelled against
David, Ahithophel joined with Absalom. Now David was writing
by his own personal experience, his own personal hurt here with
Ahithophel. But he was prophesying of Christ,
the son of David, who would be betrayed by a close friend, a
close companion. And when Judas betrayed the Lord,
yes, it hurt, but it didn't hurt the word of God. It hurt their
feelings, it hurt, but then it didn't hurt the scriptures. He
fulfilled the scriptures. Now look at Zechariah chapter
11. Even the price that Judas got
for betraying the Lord. And then that silver being used
to buy the potter's field, Judas took the money back in and cast
it to the chief priest and said, I betrayed innocent blood. And
they said, well, we can't put that back in the treasury. So
they went and took and bought a potter's field where they could
bury the poor people. Even that fulfilled the scriptures.
Zechariah chapter 11 verse 12. 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. Zachariah
wrote that. And how many ever years later,
that's exactly what happened. Judas betrayed the Lord for 30
pieces of silver, and he ended up buying the potter's field
with it. Now, nothing's changed. Human nature hasn't changed yet.
God hadn't changed, and God's Word hadn't changed. People are
going to hurt you. People are going to let you down.
But this Word will never let you down. The message of this
Word, the truth of this Word will never let you down. The
message of the word of God, the truth of the word of God is this,
salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not in our works,
it's in him. That message is on every single
page of the Bible. Salvation, righteousness is in
the obedience of Christ. His obedience to the law, that's
what makes his people righteous. They obeyed it in him. Salvation
is in the sacrifice of Christ. It's his blood which put away
the sin of his people. paid the sin debt of his people.
And every sinner who believes on Christ, every sinner who casts
their soul, all of it, on the Lord Jesus Christ, every last
one of them is justified. Every last one of them has eternal
life. So when people hurt you, you just remember this, you just
keep trusting Christ, who's the message of the word of God. He'll
never let you down. This word will never let you
down. All right, here's the fourth thing. Always trust God, who's
sovereign. Look again in our text, verse
21, what the Lord said. And as they did eat, he said,
verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Now,
the Lord knew what Judas was gonna do. He knew that Judas
was gonna betray him. You know why he knew that? Because
he was the very one that ordained Judas to do it. He ordained Judas
to do that. What Judas did was despicable
and it was wicked. but the Lord determined for him
to do it. He ordained that. You see, only
God can bring good out of evil. And this is the preeminent illustration
of that. God bringing good out of evil.
God's elect were all redeemed by the blood of the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was sacrificed as a result
of Judas betraying him. You can't find anything more
good than that. for the best thing for our souls, the best
thing for God's glory was brought out of Judas betraying the Lord
and him being crucified because of it. Our Lord brought the best
good there could be out of evil. Out of Judas' wicked actions
that resulted in our Savior going to the cross, God Almighty revealed
to the world his greatest glory. He revealed his greatest glory
in his redemptive love, his redemptive mercy, his redemptive grace to
sinners through the sacrifice of his son. Through the sacrifice
of his son, Almighty God revealed to his people how God can be
both just and justifier. He brought that good, he brought
his greatest glory to light because of Judas' wickedness. Out of
the wickedness of Judas, the Lord brought about the eternal
redemption of his people. bringing the sacrifice that would
put their sin away. Now listen, God's sovereignty
in no way excuses Judas, in no way whatsoever. Judas can't blame
God for what he did. Judas did exactly what he wanted
to do. And at this very moment, he's
in hell because of it. And this is also true. Our sovereign
God brought good out of evil. And we need to remember this.
Again, nothing changed. Man's nature hadn't changed.
God's word hadn't changed. And God hadn't changed. God's
as sovereign today as He ever was. Everything that happens
in our lives, in our world, in this creation, is all happening
by God's sovereign decree. Same is true today just as when
Judas was betraying Him. There's so many wicked things
we see happen. Wow, I just can't get over it. And some of them really hurt.
Some of them scare you to death. You think, what in this world
are people thinking? But our comfort is this. Those
things hurt. I mean, wow. But our comfort
is this. Our sovereign God has ordained
these things to happen exactly the way they're happening. Nobody's
doing something that's against God's will. Nobody's doing something
that's outside of his eternal will and purpose. Yes, it's sin,
and yes, it's evil, but only a sovereign God can work those
things together and bring good out of it, bring about the salvation
of his people. So when people disappoint you,
and they hurt us, be hurt. It's all right to be hurt. I
mean, you know, they meant it for evil. That's what Joseph
told his brethren. You boys, you meant it for evil,
and it hurt, didn't it? but don't be discouraged. God's
gonna bring good out of it. Everything is still right on
track in God's schedule, God's purpose, God's purpose for this
creation. And the Lord is using even this,
even whatever trial, whatever hurt, whatever it is we're going
through, God's using even this to bring about the salvation
of his people, to reveal his glory on earth, to reveal his
glory to his people, And one of the great glories that we're
going to see someday is this. All the wicked things that men
have done over the course of history, in the end, we're going
to see not one of those wicked things, not one of those wicked
men, not one of those wicked women ever did anything to cause
Christ to lose one of his sheep. Not one. He's going to have every
last one of them. And it all had to happen just
the way it happened. in order for him to bring all of his people
to glory. Present them to his Father and say, Father, here
they are, I and the children, which thou hast given me. Now,
I don't understand that. I mean, I just don't understand
how the Lord's doing that, but I know he is, because that's
what scripture says. And that's good enough for me
to trust him. And you, I hope the Lord will
use that to help make us trust him. All right.