Judas is a caricature who often puzzles the mind. Imagine walking, talking and serving right along side of Jesus for over three years, seeing all that He did, asking Him personal questions and never once witnessing Him ever making a mistake or thinking or doing any act of sin. And then, imagine throwing all that personal evidence away for 30 pieces of silver which in today’s market would amount to $20, as a means of betrayal? What in the heck were you thinking?
In terms of his character, Judas was impressive and trustworthy. He was given the honor, perhaps chosen to take care of the money bag for Jesus and the disciples (John 13:29). It is only right to trust the collection and handling of your money to someone who has exhibited a trustworthy example.
In my church, the only ones who put the offering in the offering bad in the back of the church are those who have good jobs. I would be a fool to let a homeless person do such a thing or anyone who is financially strapped and hurting for money. The temptation would be too great for such a person. I would be setting such a person up for failure. But Judas did not exhibit any signs of being untrustworthy or a traitor.
After selling Jesus out for a measly 30 pieces of silver (Matt. 27:3), Judas waited during the night of Jesus’ arrest, hanging around the edges of the crowd, listening for some word of how things were going. What exactly did he expect? No one knows for sure. But if at midnight he wanted to see Jesus die, by sunrise he had changed his mind.
Memories flooded his mind. Things Jesus had said, little jokes the apostles used to tell, stories Jesus had told over and over again. Little pictures painted themselves in the darkness—the smile on the face of Jairus’ daughter when Jesus raised her from the dead, the look on Peter’s face when he walked on the water and it actually held him up, the picture of those 12 baskets of food left over after Jesus fed the 5,000. He could see it all and hear it all and the memories were almost too much to bear.
For a moment, there was a commotion in the courtyard and Judas saw Jesus as he was being led away to Pilate. He didn’t see him clearly, just a glimpse of his face from a distance, but he knew it was him.
Judas was stricken with guilt and overwhelmed with the thought that Jesus was going to die. In that moment it came to him in a blinding flash: He had made a great mistake, the greatest mistake of his life, so great a mistake that he must somehow find a way to make things right.
But it would be too late.
He took the bag of money and tried to give it back. But the chief priests laughed at him. They had no more use for him or his money. They had what they wanted. In desperation, Judas cried out, “I have sinned for I have betrayed innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). Every word was true. He had done it; what he had done was the worst sin imaginable; he had betrayed the Lord Jesus who, though he was innocent, was about to pay with his blood for Judas’ crime.
With that, he threw the money back into the temple, the coins clinking and ringing as they hit the stone pavement. As Judas turned to go, the 30 pieces of silver stayed behind. Judas not only lost his Lord, he also lost his money. Very shortly he would lose his life and more important, his very soul.
The Bible tells us that “he went away and hanged himself” (Matt. 27:5). It is the final act of a man who could not live with himself and the memory of what he had done. In the ultimate irony on this tragic day, Judas died before Jesus did. For Judas it turned out to be a tragic end from what appeared to be a promise beginning.
Remember these facts about Judas in the beginning:
He was personally chosen to be an apostle by Jesus Christ.
He forsook all to follow the Lord.
He spent 3 1/2 years traveling the length and breadth of Israel with Christ.
He saw all the miracles of Christ in person.
He heard Christ give all his famous discourses.
He watched as Christ healed the sick, raised the dead and cast out demons.
He, along with the other apostles, was sent out to preach the gospel.
He was one of the leaders of the apostolic band.
No one ever suspected him of treason.
In terms of experience, whatever you can say about James, Peter and John, you can say also about Judas. Everywhere they went, he also went. He was right there, always by the side of Jesus. He heard it all, saw it all, experienced it all. However you explain his defection, you cannot say he was less experienced than the other apostles.
If anything, he was one of the leaders. After all, the other apostles chose him to handle the money. You don’t pick a man whose loyalty you suspect to handle your money.
So what lessons can we learn from Judas? Let me share with you the following:
Lesson 1: Choosing to hold on to a sin, any sin, will result in a snowball affect.
What is the snowball affect? As you form snow into a ball and begin to roll it, it will become larger as it picks up more snow along the ground until it becomes too large to handle. This is what happened to Judas.
Back in John 12, we see the first sign of the beginning of a snowball of sin in Judas’ life. Verse 4, says that “he was intending to betray Jesus.” Notice it began as a “thought.” Sin always does. Sin has its conception in our minds. Remember how James put it? Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. 15 These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death (James 1:14-15). Sin is conceived as a thought or desire, then it snowballs into an action that carries us away.
For Judas, the thought of betraying Jesus entered his mind. Guess who put it there? Thank you Satan! But rather than trying to kill the thought, Judas entertained it and it grew into a desire. After a while it spilled into Judas pilfering money from the group’s treasury. Finally, Judas desire became so overwhelming that he was not able to control his action. He betrayed Jesus for $20 bucks! And then went out and hanged himself.
I don’t care who you are or how strong you think you are, if you entertain sin as a thought, it will feed your desires and snowball into an action that even you cannot contained. The proper thing to do is to immediately kill the thought while you are able to do so. When Judas betrayed Jesus, he made the biggest mistake any man has ever made.
Lesson #2: What made Judas so evil was not his behavior, but his hypocrisy.
Now here is something I need for you to catch. We think that evil is epitomized in such people like Hitler. And certainly Hitler would fall into that category. But you know is more worse off? Religious people who ought to know better. Jesus called Judas “the son of perdition” (John 17:12). However evil people, who are a lot like Hitler, they cannot be matched against the son of perdition.
Religious people who taste of the goodness of God and who experience His mercy, but never surrender their lives over to Jesus are worse than the worse. Listen to how the writer of Hebrews puts it: For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come—6and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame (Heb. 6:4-6). Notice such words as, enlightened, experienced, shared, and tasted. This is what happened to Judas as he walked with Christ for three years. He was enlightened to the things of God taught by Jesus Himself; he experienced the miracles of Jesus and the power of the gospel in the lives of so many people whom Jesus came in contact with; he shared in the victories of the Lord and those of the other disciples; and he tasted of the goodness and power of God. Yet all these words simply tell us that Judas’ experiences were superficial. He had religious experiences and not the experiences of a man who has surrendered his life to the Lord. It was all enough to reform his outer man, but his heart was left untouched. This is the worse kind of human being. This is a hypocrite. This was the son of perdition. And there are scores of people within churches who are like Judas. They are religious in that they have experienced enough of God to change their outer person, but refusing to allow God to affect their heart. And when it comes to the right time, betrayal, deception and the falling away from God will come to light and when it does, the last state of the person is now worse than the first.
Don’t ever rest your hope on religiosity. You better know for certain that you and Jesus are tight! If not, surrender your life to Him now and truly experience His power, forgiveness and grace. Do not settle for mediocre experiences that do little more than change your outer person, but leaves your heart still rotten to the core.
One more thought before moving to my third and final lesson. You think the designation, “son of perdition” is heavy on Judas. Listen to what Jesus said over in John 6: “Did I myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is THE DEVIL” (v. 70)? It is one thing to be likened to the devil, it is another thing to be so rotten that the Son of God actually calls you “the devil.” This can only be true of religious people, i.e. hypocrites.
Lesson #3: Repentance in Impossible.
It is this third lesson that is most devastating to me. Remember, after Judas realized what he had done, the bible says he felt remorse and returned the money back to the chief priests (Matt. 27:3). Basically he had a change of mind. But remember what the writer of the Book of Hebrews had said: “it is impossible to renew then again to repentance” (Heb. 6:4). Then over to Hebrews 10: “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of fire which will consume the adversaries” (vv. 26-27).
Notice the willful sinning is occurring AFTER receiving the knowledge of the truth. How can this occur and within what context? Religiosity. People who sit in church on Sundays and hear the message of the gospel and nod their heads, but do not go far enough to give their hearts. This passage says that the only thing such people can expect is judgment. For such people, they have gone too far. Repentance is impossible.
As I was going over this I asked myself, “Rich, what would you trade Jesus for with all that you know and have been exposed to?
Would you betray him for money?
Would you betray him for a better job?
Would you betray him to keep the job you have?
Would you betray him to save your own skin?
Would you betray him to get better results in life and ministry?
Would you betray him for a new contract?
Would you betray him for a million dollars?
Would you betray him to find a wife?
Would you betray him because he didn’t live up to your expectations?
Would you betray him because you thought He let you down?
Would you betray him if you thought you could win the favor of important people?
The story of Judas asks us to probe at the level of our personal motivation. Why do you serve the Lord anyway? How much is the Son of God worth to you?
Is it possible that out there in our churches there are those who could be classified as a “second Judas?” I pray and trust it will not be me. I am confidence about my relationship with God, but I dare not allow such confidence to well up in pride. It would do me well to walk the rest of my life humbly and dependently on the Lord. I do not want to be a “second Judas.”
“Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Mark 14:21b
“If you are not born again, the day will come when you will wish you had never been born at all.” --Warren Wiersbe
How about you?
