In the course of church history, there have been many, countless many, overwhelmingly many, who have professed faith in Jesus Christ, followed Him for a little while, and then turned on Him at a certain point, cursing Him all the way to their grave. Now, some would say that that phenomenon is merely a person losing their salvation through apostasy. But the Bible teaches that God predestines and calls his people. He draws them, he regenerates them and justifies them. He seals them with the promised Holy Spirit and secures them for an eternal salvation which cannot be taken away or lost. In John 10.27, Jesus says, This is the believer's eternal security. And yet there are countless many who claim to be believers and yet fall away forever. How do we reconcile this reality? In the same passage in John 10, Jesus says, he explains it quite simply, the reason that this happens is because they are not my sheep. Their faith was false. Their profession was false, their love was faked. Furthermore, we know that this is not merely a small and sad minority. Jesus says in Matthew 7, 22 that many will come on the last day, many will claim to have been servants of the Lord God, and he will say to them on that day, depart from me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness. It is a terrifying thing to consider the reality of this, and yet we must consider it, why? So that we may examine ourselves, examine ourselves, and in this examination, to be found to be genuine children of God. Even for believers, we ought to consider these things, test ourselves, the Bible says, to see whether or not we are in the faith. And so today we're gonna look at the end of a very egregious example of a false convert, the worst false convert in human history, the sad and despicable end of the betrayer, Judas Iscariot. And so turn in your copy of scripture to Matthew 27. Matthew 27. This brings us to a very crucial point in the course of the narrative, the gospel narrative. The previous 12 hours of the events of Matthew 26 have been quite a whirlwind. We spend several weeks from Sunday to Sunday kind of working through the exposition, and it can feel very long, but the truth of the matter is that these events are happening in rapid succession. Late Thursday evening, the disciples celebrated the Passover dinner with Jesus, only to be shocked when he announced that one of them, one of them in the room would betray him. None of the disciples could fathom the idea that one of them, his closest friends, his closest disciples, would betray the Lord. But two people in the room knew full well that this was the truth. And those two were the omniscient Lord Jesus Christ and the betrayer, Judas Iscariot. And before dinner was over, Judas, he excuses himself and goes off into the night to complete his betrayal. Of course, the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders in Israel, They've been looking for an opportunity to do away with Jesus, but they lack the chance to carry it out. And that is until Judas comes to them. And we read about this, even just in Matthew 26, just very quickly, one of the 12, Jesus Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, what are you willing to give me to betray him to you? And they weighed out 30 pieces of silver to him. And from then on, he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus. And so now, only hours later, Judas has led a crowd of Jewish and Roman soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus has been praying. And there, they arrest him and they lead him away. At that point, Jesus then appears before Annas, who is the former high priest. And then he appears before Caiaphas along with the rest of the Sanhedrin, and they deem him to be guilty of the crime of blasphemy, which is worthy of death. But as an occupied nation, Israel is not permitted to carry out capital punishment. Rome must be convinced to do that. However, before Jesus can be brought to the Romans for trial, they must first deem him to be a criminal by their own religious court. And so that's where we are in Matthew 27. Verses one and two, now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to put him to death, and they bound him and led him away and delivered him to Pilate the governor. This is the third stage of the ecclesiastical or religious trial. The first stage of that trial happened at Annas' place, and then it went to Caiaphas' home, and now it's officially taking place in the courtyard, or in the court of the temple. Matthew notes that this is taking place when morning comes. Jesus had been arrested in the middle of the night, and he had been held captive in Caiaphas' home until early the next morning, where he was brought to the council chamber, according to Luke 22, 66. He's brought to the council chamber. And we read that all the chief priests and elders of the people conferred together against Jesus. And what is their official verdict now? They decree that Jesus should be put to death. He has been condemned. But remember, they can't do it themselves. They can say this all they want, but they have to get Rome to agree. So verse two, they bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pilate, the governor. Pontius Pilate, we know from history, served as local governor over the region from the year 26 to 36 AD. He would have the authority to condemn Jesus to death. But he must first be convinced that Jesus is a threat to Rome, and then he can act. Now, their interactions play out in the course of subsequent verses, which we're going to get to eventually. But all of this is playing out here, and as this is all taking place, there is another person who's waiting in the wings. And that person becomes the focus of the next eight verses. And so look at this with me. We're still in Matthew 27, but we're going to look at verses 3 through 10. Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that he had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. But they said, what is that to us? See to that yourself. And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed. And he went away and hanged himself. The chief priest took the pieces of silver and said, it is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury since it is the price of blood. And they conferred together and with the money bought the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For this reason, that field has been called the field of blood to this day. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled. And they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me. Here we see the last scene of Judas's life. Judas, who is called the betrayer in many places, has sold Jesus into the hands of the Jewish leaders, and now he realizes what that means. Verse 3 says that he sees that Jesus has been condemned, and the implication is he's been condemned to death. But then something happens in Judas. The Bible says that he feels remorse. He feels remorse. Now we don't know why he feels this way. We know that from Luke's gospel, we understand that Satan had entered into him at some point and he had enacted his betrayal. But some point along that evening, something has changed. Now it's possible that he's been tricked. It's possible that the Sanhedrin had told him that they only wanted to scare Jesus into silence, or maybe just drive him away or punish him, and maybe that's why he betrayed them for money, because he said, well, they're just gonna shake him up a little bit. That's possible. Or maybe he didn't care at all. Maybe he knew they were gonna condemn him to death, and he just didn't think about it in the moment, and now that the whole thing has come to fruition, and now the reality is setting in, he's realizing that, wow, this is actually kind of a big deal. Regardless of the situation, we don't know why Judas had changed, but now we know that he is feeling some kind of emotional response. He's feeling remorse. He felt bad about what he had done. And so what does he do? In reaction to that, he goes back to the temple, back to the people that he had sold Jesus into the hands of, and he returned the 30 pieces of silver that he was paid by the chief priests and by the elders. Now, at this point, we know that there's no hope that returning the money is going to reverse the course of events. And he's not under that delusion. We're far beyond that point, and that's really not the issue for him. Why? Well, because that's not the concern that he articulates. Verse four, he declares, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. He's thinking about himself. I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. See, even though he hated Jesus, even though he was fully aware of who he was, he understood that Jesus was innocent of all crimes. He's not a follower, he doesn't love the Lord, and yet he understands that Jesus is innocent. In fact, in three years of following Christ, he never saw him sin once. Never once. Well, why? Well, because we understand, and the gospels convey this, and all the scripture testifies to this, that Jesus is sinless. Jesus Christ is flawless, he's impeccable. He's the only one who is righteous. The Bible says that there's not one who is righteous, not even one among all of the entire populace of humanity, save one, Jesus Christ, who himself is God in human flesh. And yet Judas had betrayed him to death. He had caused the impending death of an innocent man. And furthermore, he knew what the Bible said. Deuteronomy 27, a very famous portion of scripture, elucidates God's curses on Israel if they disobey. Remember the passage where he puts half of Israel on one mountain, Gerizim, and he puts the other one on Mount Ebal, and he has blessings for one and curses for the other to demonstrate and to illustrate the stark contrast between obedience and the blessings of obedience and the curses of disobedience. So this passage in Deuteronomy 27 is part of the curses of disobedience, and the very last one of the curses comes in verse 25 of that passage. Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person. And that's exactly what Judas had done. And so he had sold out Jesus for the price of a common slave, 30 pieces of silver. That's about what a slave would cost. And for that, he knew he was cursed because the scripture says so. And so he goes to the Sanhedrin, to the religious leaders of Israel, to the shepherds of Israel. the ones who were entrusted by God to take care of his people, the ones who were supposed to be caring for his soul, and he confesses to these religious leaders, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And so what do they do? Do they help him? Do they say, oh, dear brother, we're so sorry, we didn't realize. Let's help you make the absolution. Let's help you get right with God. Let's go make sacrifice for you. Let's help you. Do they do any of that? No. How do they reply? They say, well, what is that to us? See to that yourself. In other words, it's not our problem. You sinned, you have a guilty conscience, that's not our issue. You deal with that. You worry about that. Nevermind that they were his co-conspirators. Nevermind that they were also guilty with him. Their attitude was, hey, if you have a guilty conscience, you go figure it out. Don't come crying to us. That's the shepherds of Israel. The people who are entrusted with caring for God's people say, you know what, if you sin, you go deal with it on your own. That's why Israel needed a Savior. That's why we need a Savior. And so with that, the betrayer is betrayed. No help, no hope, no restitution, no sacrifice to be made, nothing. Judas, you're on your own. And so what does he do? Verse five, he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed. This would have been a dramatic scene because this is the place of quiet contemplation. This is the place of reverence and holy appearances. This is the place for recited prayers. This is the place for religious discussion. But here he wants to rid himself of the blood money that he's carrying on his person that was used to condemn Jesus Christ. And so he takes the 30 coins in his hands and he throws them into the stone floored sanctuary and creating a noisy echoing racket in the sanctuary. The sound of 30 ting, ting, ting, ting, ting all over the place, hitting the floor, alerting every single ear that was there that all was not right in the house of God. And so after ditching the coins, verse five says that Judas went out from that place, he went away, and he hanged himself. This is an absolutely horrendous and heartbreaking end. Of course, we know that Judas' suicide is recorded in two places. We see it here in Matthew 27. It's also noted in Acts 1.18. Now, if you were to read these two passages side by side, that you would notice that there is some differences in the two accounts and they don't seem to reconcile. Because here it says, he went and hanged himself. Acts 1.18 notes that Judas fell headlong and burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. That's not a best way to die, but that's how Judas dies according to Acts 118. This doesn't sound like the account of a person who has hanged themselves, but many scholars have reconciled these two accounts this way. The theory that they put forth is that Judas hung himself on a tree near a ravine. And as he's hanging there, whether he has expired completely or he's about to, the rope snaps and he falls into the ravine and lands on sharp rocks and becomes disemboweled there, and that's where he meets his end. No matter how this takes place, however, this is the bitter end of a cursed man. And the scripture says in Deuteronomy 21-23, he who is hanged is accursed of God. And you might think to yourself, wait a minute, didn't Judas repent? Didn't he feel remorse? Didn't he try to return the money? Didn't he confess to betraying innocent blood? I mean, what is that? Isn't that repentance? Well, there's a few things to consider here. We have to look at this very carefully. I think this is really important because we need to know what is true repentance versus what is false repentance. This is really important. First thing we note about this is that the word that's used to convey Judas's remorse is not the Greek word metanoia, which is generally used to refer to repentance. Metanoia literally means to think after. It's a change of one's mind. It implies a heart change. That's the general idea behind repentance. But here, it's not that his mind and his heart were changing. It's not that he's aligning himself with the will of God. Instead, Matthew uses a different Greek word, metemelomai, which is referring to sorrow or regret. It's sort of a more of a general term. It has to do with feeling bad. But feeling bad does not necessarily equate to repentance. You can feel bad that you got caught. You can feel bad that you're experiencing the blowback from your sin. That's not necessarily repentance. In fact, scripture delineates between these two things, two kinds of sorrow, one, being truly godly sorrow born out in repentance, and the other being selfish regret that produces no real change at all. In fact, let's look at this together. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter 7. 2 Corinthians chapter 7 in the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul is reflecting back on the first letter that he sent to the Corinthian church, which he calls out their sinful behavior in many different ways. 1 Corinthians is really quite a difficult letter to read. I mean, it's a hard pill to swallow. Paul goes right for the spiritual jugular in 1 Corinthians, but he does so for good reason because they were a church that was drowning in their own sins, and he has to call them out. And so even though Paul felt bad personally, he felt bad for them, he knew he upset them in the letter, but he knew that there was more important things going on, there's more godly purposes to be had in calling them out. And he alludes to that in 2 Corinthians 7, starting in verse 8, he says, for though I caused you sorrow by my letter, the first letter he sends. He says, I've caused you sorrow, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it, for I see that the letter caused you sorrow, though only for a little while. Verse nine, now I rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance, for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. You see the differences here. There are two stark contrasts here. In these few verses, he delineates between what's called godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow is that which considers the reality and the seriousness of sin and bears itself out in repentance according to the will of God. Godly sorrow says, Lord, I agree with you, I change my mind, I change my heart, I agree with you, I want to do your will, I feel terrible about it, and I want to follow in obedience. That's the sorrow that leads to repentance and godliness and salvation. When you regret your sin and you mourn your sin, when your sin bothers you and keeps you up at night, and you're wracked with guilt and you're wracked with shame to the point where you desire God's forgiveness and you desire to obey his will and you desire to bear the fruit of genuine repentance. That's the effect of godly sorrow that leads to salvation. It's good to experience godly sorrow. When you sin, you should feel bad. But feeling bad is not enough. That feeling bad, that godly sorrow, should lead you to the fruits of repentance. It's when you go to the person you've sinned against and you ask them to forgive you. You say to them, I've sinned against you and I feel bad about it and I wanna make it right, will you please forgive me? And I promise you I will do everything in my power by God's will to make it right and to live differently. Again, we're not pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps. We're not saying I'm just gonna do better. You're submitting yourself to the will of God and desiring obedience, desiring reconciliation. That's godly sorrow. That's godly repentance. That's the effect that leads to salvation. That's how you know you're a believer when you manifest godly sorrow and godly repentance. But worldly sorrow, merely feels remorse over the consequences of sin, but does not desire heart change. You feel bad that you got caught. You feel bad that people are upset. Yes, it's easy to look at someone when they're crying over your sin and say, yeah, I feel bad for you. I'm so sorry that you feel that way. Ever heard that say before? Maybe you've said that before. I'm sorry that you feel bad. That's not repentance. That's not an apology. That's worldly sorrow. You're crying and so therefore I'm crying. That's nothing, beloved. That doesn't mean anything. Worldly sorrow is only over the consequences of sin. It does not lead to repentance. It does not foster forgiveness. It does not free the conscience. That's really important. Worldly sorrow will never alleviate your conscience. You're gonna do one of two things. You're either gonna sear it and dull your conscience to the point where it doesn't function anymore, or you're gonna continue to wound it to the point where you're miserable and can't even lift your head off the pillow. But either way, if you don't repent and manifest godly sorrow and godly repentance, you will never be free from the consequences of your sin. Not in this life and certainly not the next life. This only further enslaves, and the Bible says, Paul says, it only ultimately leads to death. That's Judas' sorrow. That's where Judas was. Go back to Matthew 27. How do we know that Judas was not truly repentant? Beyond the word choice in the Bible here, Matthew using metamellomi versus metanoia. We also have the fruit. How do you know that you're repentant? Because again, you can say, I'm sorry. You can say, oh Lord, forgive me. How do you know it's genuine? What did John the Baptist say? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. It's all about the fruit. The fruit will tell you if the root of the tree is good or bad, won't it? That's what we see here. What did Judas's remorse produce? When he felt remorseful, when he confessed to betraying innocent blood, did he seek the Lord's forgiveness? Do we have Judas's recorded prayer of contrition before the Lord? Do we see him pursue obedience to the will of God? Did he go back to the disciples and say, brothers, I've sinned against our Lord, pray for me. Does he go to the Lord when he's in chains and say, and fall on his face and kiss his feet and say, Lord, please forgive me? Does he do any of those things? No. What does he do? Instead, he responds to betrayal and murder with self-pity and self-murder. That's the fruit of his worldly sorrow, because that's essentially what suicide is. Suicide is selfishness and hopelessness that results in the sin of murder. Self-murder. Let me tell you, beloved, suicide is never God's will for your life. Ever. And sadly, lots of people have believed the lie that God doesn't love me anymore and God wants me to just do away with it and just get it out of the way. It'll be easier on my family, it'll be easier on my friends, it'll be easier for the world, I'm such a burden. All these thoughts of self-pity and self-defeating, hopelessness, let me tell you, that is never God's will and it's a lie from the pit of hell. If anything, be encouraged by that. Even though I'm speaking boldly to you, know that there's love behind this. God never desires for you to take your own life. God's desire is that you repent of your sins. God's desire is that you put your trust in Jesus Christ, who can give you hope, and spend the rest of your life seeking to glorify God. Yes, life is hard. Life is very hard. It gets harder when you become a Christian, by the way. Not because of the worldly problems, but because of now the spiritual problems, and persecution, and the reality of sin, and the trials of life. Yes, it gets difficult, but here's the thing, life is good. Life is good and you were made in the image of God and you were built and designed to reflect His glory and to bring Him praise. Every single human life, from birth to death, every single age in between, In the hospital bed in utero, every single human life is the image of God. We all bear His image. You were made, you were created to know and love Jesus. You were made and created to be known and to be loved by Jesus Christ. He is our hope. And so just in case, because there's always at least one in the room, And we all seem to know each other, but the thing is, is that when a person struggling with this kind of a thing, they don't talk about it. It's one of those insidious things that just gnaws at you. And so to the person or to the persons who are thinking about this this morning, maybe you've been in a state of hopelessness. You need to know that God wants you to live. He wants you to stay alive. He wants you to repent and put your trust in Him. He wants you to throw your entire life, your sorrows, your cares, your depression, your intrusive thoughts, He wants you to throw all of it at the foot of His cross and to trust Him and to lean on Him and to grab around His feet and hold Him and to know that He is actually the one who's holding you. Be encouraged, beloved. Don't do what Judas did in worldly sorrow. No, if you're sorrowful, make it be godly sorrow that leads to repentance and leads to hope in Christ. Your life is worth living because you are made by God and he wants to know you. And yet here's the thing, Judas would rather die than humble himself before God. For Judas, that was a better alternative in his mind. All he had to do was go to the Lord and repent, and he didn't do it. That's wicked and worldly sorrow that leads to death, and it's awful. What did the religious leaders do at this point? Because the betrayer's gone now. He's gone. He's no longer in the picture. All they have in the temple, their precious place of reverence, so they say, all they have is a pile of 30 coins laying there on the floor, making a mess of the place. What did they do with this pile of silver coins strewn across the sanctuary floor? Look at verse six. The chief priest took the pieces of silver and said, it is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury. since it is the price of blood. Never mind that the money to betray Jesus came from the treasury. Forget that. They couldn't fathom the idea of putting it back into the treasury. No, that would be a sin. That's a bridge too far. No doubt they had Deuteronomy 23, 18 in their mind where it says, you shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the Lord your God, for both of these are an abomination of the Lord your God. They couldn't risk the idea of abominating the temple by putting blood money back into the treasury that they pulled out for that purpose. I mean, this is just the height of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. How do you even fathom that? You'll pay for murder. You'll pay for murder for hire from the treasury, but you can't put it back in. But that's their issue. That's their issue. What do they do with the money instead? Verses seven and eight. It says, they conferred together. And with the money, they bought the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For this reason, that field has been called the field of blood to this day." At some point, the Sanhedrin go and they purchase a piece of property with Judas's money. Later, it came to be known as Hekeldomah, which is translated field of blood, field of blood. This became a graveyard, a piece of property, a graveyard for strangers and unknown persons of Israel. So whenever they'd have a stranger who is not a Jew or someone passing through, let's just say a visitor from another land, a pagan land, was traveling through and they die in Israel, they don't know what to do with them, there's no family, there's no friends, there's no burial place. So they take that person's body and they go bury it in the field of blood where strangers are. All this is done, however, by the Pharisees and by the Sadducees and scribes and chief priests, all this has been done to create distance between the religious leaders and their sin. They're creating distance between the Sanhedrin and Judas Iscariot, keeping the whole matter at arm's length because they believe they could just wash their hands of Judas' betrayal. They could wash their hands of the blood money and the guilt of participation. Now they can say, not our problem. Now they can say, not our money. And now they can say when they buy this place for strangers to be buried, not our people. So not our problem, not our money, not our people, job done. We can move on. Complete disassociation. But was their guilt truly removed? Not at all. They had conspired to kill the Son of God and then tried to cover it up. But here's the thing. Their treachery had been prophesied. The Bible already talked about this. Verses 9 and 10. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled. And they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me. Here, Matthew, the gospel writer, cites the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy from Jeremiah. However, it's very interesting because, again, if you stack these accounts up, the careful observer would note that these verses actually come from Zechariah 11 and not from Jeremiah. So how do we reconcile this? Again, Bible scholars have talked about solutions and how do we understand how this is written and what's going on. One theory had to do with how the Jews kept their scrolls. When they had their copies of the scriptures, how did they keep them? One theory is that one of the scrolls, because you have the law, the prophets, the writings, you had all these scrolls of the Bible. In the Old Testament times, one scroll that contained the minor prophets, so Hosea through Malachi, that scroll began with the prophet Jeremiah. And so whenever you wanted to get to a place like Zechariah or Malachi, you'd have to unroll the Jeremiah scroll to get to that place. And so one theory is that they were referring to the Jeremiah scroll, the prophecy of Jeremiah, which also included other prophecies as well. That's certainly a possibility. Another possibility is that Matthew was referring not to the specific scripture that he notes here, but to the concept, to the idea of the potter's field. Because even though the verses were taken from Zechariah 11, which was written in the sixth century BC, the notion of the potter's field actually found its origin in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah 32, which was written a century before. In Jeremiah 18, the prophet offers a parable of the potter, which displays the sovereignty of God. And then in Jeremiah 32, he purchases a piece of property as a sign of faith in the promises of God. So these two concepts, the potter and the field. And so is it possible that Zechariah was picking up on that concept of potter and field and carried it forward? And then by the time you get to Matthew and the prophecy is fulfilled, you've carried this notion forward. That's certainly possible too. But what is the prophecy that we're referring to? What is the passage he's quoting from that we know finds its original origin here in Zechariah 11? What is it? Well, it's referring to the prophecy of the rejection of the true shepherd of Israel. The picture here is of Israel's true shepherd coming to his people and then being rejected by them. And we know that's exactly what happens with Jesus. He's the shepherd, the true shepherd, the good shepherd. He comes to Israel, they reject him. But in Zechariah's prophecy, Zechariah 11, 12, the shepherd says to the stubborn people, he says, give me my wages. What's he talking about? It's this idea. If you're going to reject me, if you're not going to accept me, at least pay me for my time. Give me my wages. Well, how much do they pay him? They pay him 30 shekels of silver, the price of a common slave. You see the connections building now? And once he receives this payment, these 30 pieces of silver, what does the shepherd say once he's received the silver? He says, throw it to the potter. Referring to Jeremiah's field, the potter's field. Referring to this prophecy in Zechariah. Throw it to the potter, give it to the potter. I don't care what you do with it. Scatter these pieces of silver for the potter's field. And so that's what Matthew records here of Jesus's rejection. And they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price has been set by the sons of Israel. The sons of Israel determined to give him 30 pieces of silver. And give them for the potter's field as the Lord has directed me. It's an exact fulfillment of the scriptures, of the concept noted in Jeremiah and the actual prophecy in Zechariah. It's a direct fulfillment. All of this had been predetermined. All of this had been prophesied by the Lord. The shepherd of Israel, the good shepherd, had come to his people. They rejected him. They would later put him to death. They sold him out for 30 pieces of silver. It was thrown under the temple and eventually used for the potter's field, and there the Lord would go and then die as a sacrifice for their sins, and he would resurrect the third day. All of this is in fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Jesus had to be betrayed. He had to be, but the Bible says, but woe to the one through whom he has been betrayed. Jesus said it'd be better that he had never existed. Jesus never absolves Judas of the sin of betrayal. But the true sorrow is for the life that's wasted, who actually goes and betrays him. Because here's the thing, Judas had three years with Jesus. He had opportunities to repent, and yet he didn't. His selfish, worldly sorrow led only to his death. And that truly is a tragedy. What about us? What about you? As we consider these kinds of stories, and here's the thing, nobody ever wants to align themselves with Judas. Nobody names their children Judas Iscariot. That's not a name we pick from the Bible. We detest the idea of this, of betraying the Lord Jesus Christ, but here's the thing. Maybe we're not Judas Iscariot, but if your heart is hardened against the Lord, if you don't really love him, if you don't manifest godly sorrow that leads to repentance, then you are essentially committing the same kind of sin. There is no righteousness there. It would be the same as if you had said, there is no God. I don't care. I don't know him. I don't even want to know him. And maybe you've come in here this morning with a hardened heart, or maybe you've been pretending. Maybe you've been sitting in church for years just saying, well, I'm here, but maybe there's never been a heart change. Maybe there needs to be a point when you come to your senses like the prodigal son and realize, no, I have sinned against God. I have hardened my heart. I have sold him out to my worldly pleasures and to my own self-interest. I've sold him out of my own heart and I've delivered him to death in my own heart. And the truth is, is that our sin, it wasn't just the Roman sin or the Jews sin, no. Our sin nailed into the cross. So what is the exhortation? Turn away. Turn away from your sins. You're not Judas. You can repent. You can demonstrate and bear the fruits of repentance. And so turn away, go to the Lord and say, Lord, I've sinned. I've sinned against heaven. I've sinned against you. My heart has been wicked. Please forgive me. And then if you've sinned against other people in that process, go to them and say, I've sinned. Please forgive me. Please take me back. Please restore me. Please unburden me from the guilt and the shame of my sin, person to person. Or maybe if you've stolen money, return it. If you've hurt someone, apologize. Whatever you've done, bear the fruits of repentance. Maybe you cuss somebody out. Maybe you cut somebody off on the way to church this morning. Whatever it may be. If you have sin in your heart, repent and trust in Jesus Christ. He gave His life on the cross to pay for your sins. You don't have to pay for your own sins if you trust in Him. Turn from your sins, trust in Jesus Christ, and you will have the hope of the future, the hope of eternity, the hope of eternal life. You will not die like Judas. You will live with Christ. That's where we want to be. We want to live with Christ. And by faith, by God's grace, you can. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for your word. Lord, these kinds of passages are hard. They're hard to read. They're hard to preach. They're hard to consider. Because Lord, we can look at Judas with scorn and derision. We can look and say, oh, that cursed man, I would never be that man. And yet, so many harden their hearts like him. And they turn away from You, Lord. Or maybe worse, they're like the Pharisees, who talk a good game, act a good way, but in their hearts have no love for God at all. And so where I pray, That maybe even through this passage, you might break the heart of the stubborn. That you might bring to repentance those with no contrition. That you might humble and humiliate the proud. That you will break down the walls of the fortress surrounding our hearts. Break us, Lord, and bring us to acknowledge our sin before you and to repent. And Lord, as we consider even the sad end of Judas, so many people through the course of human history have fallen into despair, thinking there's no hope for themselves, oh Lord. And they've taken their own life. Lord, would you please, as we consider that tragic end, would you please lift up and bind up the brokenhearted? Lord, if there's even someone here who was in that place where they're contemplating such an end, and they haven't yet turned and repented, would you grant them repentance and then comfort them and stay their heart, oh Lord? Would you lift them up and turn their eyes to heaven? Would you give them strength and grace and mercy? Would you exhort them that they might feel your love? Lord, we must all deal with our sin, but Lord, we also must bring our sin to the foot of your cross. And so, Lord, have mercy. Have mercy and show grace. Show us your favor, oh Lord, and draw us to yourself. Help us to consider a wonderful life, a wonderful future, in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the blessing of your word, and we thank you for the blessing of your son. In his name, amen.