When the morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, What is it to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. But the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood and they consulted together and bought them the potter's field to bury strangers in. Therefore, that field has been called the field of blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me." Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Lord, your word is so good. Lord, even in singing this song just a minute ago where it says that Satan's accusations may fly, but his power will never reach our names. Father, we glory in your power. We glory in your name. We glory in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Lord, today, as we get ready to go through your word, Lord, I pray that you'll calm our hearts from the activities of the week From the cares of this world, Lord, that you will calm us. Lord, prepare our hearts to hear and read your word that, Lord, we may not leave this place the same. Lord, bless us as we hear your word. In your name we pray, Amen. As we come to this passage of scripture, we have to recognize we are at the climax of the Gospel of Matthew. An enormous amount of text is devoted to the very last week of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here in chapter 27, the entire chapter is devoted to Good Friday. And here in this passage, there are many streams of truth that we need to acquire. One thing you see here is the value of the Son of God, how He is priced, how He is priced by the world and also how He is priced in our own hearts. You also see an innocent man who is being condemned. Innocent blood is being shed. Perhaps this is the heart of the matter. That innocent blood is being presented to us. And what do you think about Innocent blood. What does it mean when innocent blood is shed? The backdrop of the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as the innocent lamb of God is being displayed here before us. The spotless lamb is being slain as a substitute so that sinful and poor, repentant humanity might be saved. And the other thing that you see, you know, beyond this whole matter of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, The heart of the Gospel is the tragic lives of those who condemned Him. The dead end for those who shed innocent blood. The dead end there is for those who put a wrong price on the Son of God. We encounter these two groups of people here. First of all, the religious establishment. the most tragic expression of institutional religion. Cold is lifeless. It's legal. It's unloving. That's what you see in those who would price the son of God's for so little. And then you have Judas, who may be the most tragic personality in the whole Bible. Here we have Among the various suicides that are recorded in the Bible, the very last suicide in Scripture is noted here. You see the greed that destroys the soul. You see the hopelessness of false repentance. You see the derangement of. of just being overcome by sorrow for what you've done. You see the unprofitable way of dealing with sin, the anguish that you have and that the anguish doesn't mean that you're forgiven. So there are all these things going on here in this passage. Christ is the substitute. He is the innocent. blood that's being sacrificed here. What's what's being seen here is explained by the Apostle Paul in 2nd Corinthians, chapter five. Verse 21, where he says this, For He, God, made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So, in the midst of this crossroads of horrible motives, horrible feelings and anguish, wrong pricing of the Son of God, what you have in the midst of it is that you have One who knew no sin, who became sin for us. The sinless, spotless Lamb of God. The heart of the Gospel is here. The hope of eternal life is here. Yet, it's in the midst of so many dark things. And as I've worked my way through this this week, it's been a struggle to wade through the darkness that's here. The horrible scenes of suicide and lovelessness, a religion gone completely dead and heartless on the one hand, and a man completely at his wits end in such anguish that he finally kills himself. So there's such enormous darkness here. At the same time, there's the sinless, spotless blood of Lamb who said in the middle of the story, the only hope really in the whole story. Matthew 26 and 27 is really the heart of the Gospel. When you get to 28, you find the resurrection. Here, Good Friday in 27 and 28, the resurrection. And as we move through chapter 27, we'll see all the contours of the attacks against the Son of God. Here, we'll see the sentencing by the Jews and the remorse of Judas and his suicide. In verses 11-26, you'll see the sentencing by the Romans. In verse 27-31, the mocking of the soldiers. And then finally, the execution of Jesus, beginning in verse 32. And then finally, the death of Jesus in verse 45. And the burial in verse 57 and then the sealing of the tomb in chapter in verse 62 of this chapter and then the resurrection in chapter 28. So so what we see here is this this this final expression of the life of the Son of God, that really the climax, his taking on the sin of the world. We've seen him sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. We've seen his arrest. We've seen his abuse. And the Lamb of God is being led to the slaughter. The spotless Lamb of God is being slain here. The substitute. And so here we engage these incidents on Good Friday beginning in verses one and two. These are taking place in the very early morning hours. If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see in verses one and two is the section where we see that Jesus is taken to Pontius Pilate. When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound them, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor." Now, this all happens, quote, when morning came. And you have these two parties who are converging there when morning came. One party is transferring jurisdiction to another party. The religious party is transferring Jesus to the political party, to the Romans. You see here the brutality and the speed with which the Lord Jesus Christ was delivered. You have to work very hard and very fast to to destroy the Son of God here. They've been spitting on him and hitting him, blindfolded. And all night long, they had been working at this. They packaged up their case and they delivered their case now over to Caesar. The religious parties had to make Jesus an enemy of Caesar in order to be successful in their killing Him. They had no authority to kill Him on their own. The Romans had deprived the Jews of executing any of their own prisoners and had made it unlawful. The only the only executions could be done at the hands of the Romans themselves. And this is this is the pattern that you that you've seen in all persecutions throughout history. You have to make an enemy of the state or of society before the civil magistrate. This is a common, common theme. And this is happening now in this passage of Scripture where the religious leaders have to make Christianity illegal. It has to make Christianity noxious in the eyes of the civil realm. We see that happening in our own day here, even now in small ways as employers and owners of event centers and wedding companies who are refusing to facilitate the events of homosexuals are being brought into court and being taken to task. You have to make the people of God and enemy of Caesar if you're going to hurt them the way that these men want to hurt the Lord Jesus Christ. You have to get the people to say, like these people said, we have no king but Caesar, as they said in John 19, verse 15. You somehow have to exalt the authority of Caesar in order to destroy the people of God. At least in this case, that's what you see. And so Christ is now shifted from the Jewish authorities to the Roman authorities. It says here, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. And so these are now the mechanics of how innocent blood is shed. The Romans have now taken authority to perform capital punishment. And they will complete their task. Now, notice notice what's been happening here in terms of the trials. There have been three religious trials and then there will be three secular trials. The first was before Annas. The second religious trial was before Caiaphas. And the third religious trial was before the Sanhedrin. And so there were three religious trials. Jesus stood before them. They happened all night long. They happened one after another under the cover of darkness. And then now Jesus is being transferred to three civil trials. First before Pilate, then the Roman governor, and then the second before Herod, who is the king, and third before Pilate again. And so you have to recognize how fast all this happened. All these trials, all six of them happened within a nine hour period. The Jews were so insistent upon wrapping this case up to make their murderous plan come to pass. And so what you find here is that both the religious bodies and the secular bodies are represented in the condemnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is by the will of God. that the Lord Jesus Christ stands condemned by dead religion as well as a secular government. The Lord Jesus Christ makes himself separate and distinct, one to be sacrificed and destroyed by both the religious and the civil realm. And so what you have, you have you have the best and most sophisticated religious authorities in the trial of Jesus. And you also have the best and most sophisticated civil authorities trying him. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ is being persecuted for righteousness sake. He spoke of being persecuted for righteousness sake way back in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount. And he says, he says in that time, be happy. Be happy if you're persecuted. Our friend, Jeff Pollard, is preaching on that passage this morning in Florida in Matthew chapter 5. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Now we see how this works out in real life, in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in this nine hour period, both the religious establishment and the political establishment have persecuted. the most perfect man who ever lived. We should never think that we ought to get a fair treatment from either dead religion or from civil authorities. Don't think that you'll get a fair treatment. The Lord Jesus did not get a fair treatment. He was the only perfect human being who ever lived, and He did not get a fair treatment. We all want things to be so fair in this life. But this is not what the Lord Jesus Christ promises us. And so you have this suffering, he's suffering at the hands of the religious establishment and also at the hands of the secular establishment. And when we think about his sufferings, All the way through, we ought to think that his sufferings were for a purpose. All of his sufferings were to tell us what suffering we have been protected from because he is the one who has taken the condemnation. for us. And in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, you see how He suffered for you. And you should always ask when you see Christ suffering, how did I deserve to be persecuted like this? How did I deserve to have this kind of punishment and censuring? You know, have you ever deserved to be tried by the religious authorities? Has anything ever happened that would that you have done that would call your life into question by the religious authorities? Is that true? Christ suffered for you. Have you ever deserved to be tried by the civil government? He was tried here three times by the civil government. Have you ever deserved to be tried by the civil government? Jesus Christ. was tried for you. Have you ever deserved to have an undercover informer? Has there ever been anything that maybe only one person knows? And you deserve to be uncovered. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered that way. Have you ever deserved to have a hitman hired to reveal who you really are? Have you ever deserved a guilty sentence? Have you ever been denied by your friends? Have you ever been betrayed by your companions? Have you ever deserved to be spat upon? Have you ever deserved to be slapped Have you ever deserved to hang with criminals? The ones who you really were like-minded with? Have you ever really deserved to have your garment sold? Well, these are all the things that Jesus Christ suffered. He suffered for you. For all the times when you deserved to stand before the civil government or the religious authorities. All the times you deserved to be slapped. All the times that you deserved to be censured and thrown down. The Lord Jesus Christ has suffered. He has carried all of your sorrows. He has taken all of your suffering. This is the meaning of His standing and suffering before both religious and the secular authorities. This is why we read in Isaiah 53, He was oppressed and He was afflicted. Yet, he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent. So, he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief when you made his soul an offering for sin." He shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand here. The Lord Jesus Christ, as he has tried and taken the Pontius Pilate. He was taken there as a substitute for us, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. And so we've seen Him sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. We've seen Him being arrested and abused. And He is taking our sufferings for us. This is the backdrop of the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The spotless Lamb of God is being slain as a substitute so that sinners can go free. This is the scandal of the cross of Jesus Christ, that you really are free. You really are forgiven. He really has carried all of your sorrows. Someone prayed here at the beginning of our service that they had sinned. Yes, but the Son of God was slain. And that's why we gather here today. And then the second thing we see here in this very gruesome scene, but beautiful on the one hand, is all this darkness and gruesome heartlessness is seen. This black scene there in the backdrop of it is the Lord Jesus Christ. And now we see Judas. remorseful over his sin in verses 3 and 4. How his sorrows of misplaced blame and no relief from sin finally overcame him. Here we see in these two verses his condition as he saw it. Condemned. He saw that he had been condemned. And he was remorseful. Those two things. And what was he remorseful over? He was remorseful over innocent blood. He said, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. There are only two responses to innocent blood. There's this response, remorse. And there's also the response of joyful acceptance of that innocent blood. Of a happy embracing of Jesus Christ. Of loving His sufferings and His life and His Word and His laws. There's only two ways, remorse and reception of that innocent blood. And here, Judas cannot receive the power of the blood. It only destroys him. Throughout Scripture, there are many commands and scenes which speak of the shedding of innocent blood. And great lengths are taken, not only to prevent innocent blood, but also to provide a place of refuge for those who have engaged in it and also to establish who is responsible for it. If you turn to Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 7, don't do that now, but you'll find this elaborate system that God has set in place in order to deal with the shedding of innocent blood. and how man handles the shedding of innocent blood. There's an establishing a way out for those who shed innocent blood. There's establishing the responsibility of it. Like the closer you are to the shedding of innocent blood, the more responsible you are to expose it, to make it known and to do something about it. This whole matter of innocent blood is explained in Scripture. I think that it was it was in preparation for the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there there are many occasions where innocent blood is shed in scripture. All of them have something to do with the cross. You have in Egypt the child killing to destroy the work of Moses, the lawgiver. In Israel, you saw how idolatry operated in the promised land and the child sacrifice and the killing of innocent blood. You see it in Psalm 24, verse 11, where there's this command, rescue those who are being taken away to death, hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. This is about innocent blood and the shedding of it. Even at the incarnation of the birth of Jesus Christ, Herod was killing the children so that Christ would not survive. The shedding of innocent blood is all bound up in the cross. All of these things are types. They tell us something about innocent blood. At the Passover and at the cross, you see the spotless Lamb of God. whose sacrifice, who is slain, the guilt is transferred onto the sacrificial lamb and he's slain for the sins of the people. You see it in Revelation chapter Twelve, where the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. The devil desires innocent blood. And that's what we see here. And it's so connected to the cross. He was declared innocent by Judas. Judas says, I, I've shed innocent blood. By the way, it's interesting. Pilate declares Jesus innocent as well. Seven times. Seven times, Pilate says he's innocent. He's innocent. He's innocent. He's innocent. He's innocent. He's innocent. He's innocent. Seven times. So this whole matter of innocent blood, is being presented here. He was sinless. He was innocent. And so, this was the heart of Judas' anguish was the shedding of innocent blood. Now, his condition was a condition of being condemned. He knew he was condemned. The Lord Jesus Christ said he was the son of perdition. We know that the devil entered him at the Last Supper. The Lord Jesus Christ said in John 6, verse 70, one of you is a devil. He was speaking of Judas as a prophecy. In Matthew 26, verse 24, the Lord Jesus said, woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for him if that man had never been born. And then we know that after the Lord Jesus Christ dipped bread with Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, after he dipped with the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember what happened? Satan entered into him. So this was who he was. He was condemned. He was condemned. But what kind of remorsefulness was it? It was a feeling of regret for what he had done. It wasn't the same word, metanoia of repentance, that is more commonly used to explain those who are saved. It was simply a remorseful feeling sorry for oneself. There was never a change of heart. but only kind of an intellectual change of mind. It wasn't a spiritual revolution of reversal that took place. There wasn't a turning around. There wasn't a turning away from sin. There was just a remorsefulness for the sin. This marks the difference between the true believer and the unbeliever. The unbeliever can only have remorse. The true believer has relief. from sin, because there is a turning away from sin. He knew that Jesus was innocent. He felt so bad. You know, one of the commentators that I read said that the way Judas' repentance was very much like the kind of repentance that you find promoted in the Roman Catholic Church, where there's penance, there's crawling up the mountains to cross as self-flagellation and all these kinds of things. Or what people do today, particularly what young girls do today when they're so full of anguish and angst and remorse, they cut themselves. It's just knowing how terrible it all is. And feeling it in the depth of your soul. And so you cut yourself. And this is how you sort of atone for your sins. But there's no atonement in cutting. There's no atonement in bad feelings. You can feel very, very, very bad and not have your sins atoned for you. So the whole doctrine of repentance is presented to us here as well. The difference between true repentance and just simple anguish for your sins. You've seen this in your children. Sometimes all you see is they just sort of anguish about what might happen to them. But there's really no change of heart. There's no turning their hearts toward you. You can always tell when a child is right, their hearts turn toward you. It's not that they just feel bad. If you just leave your children feeling bad, you have to recognize what you've done. Leading them to the cross. Leading them to the only place of solace for their souls. And the true repentance that leads there. The heartfelt repentance. Not the perfection of the soul, but the longing of the soul for holiness. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 spoke about repentance. It's so important that you understand the difference between true repentance and just remorse. You have to recognize that in your child raising. You have to recognize it in your own heart. And you have to recognize it in the church as well, particularly when church discipline is taking place. You have to recognize the difference between just pure remorse and true repentance. And the Apostle Paul gives us language to help us understand that. Please turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 8 through 11. For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I did not regret it. Though I did regret it, for I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a little while. Now I rejoice. Not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. Now, here's the case of the person who was put out of the church and he did have sorrow. And his sorrow led to repentance. It was the right kind of sorrow. It wasn't Judas kind of sorrow. It was a sorrow that led him to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner. Things happen to make you sorry. Your sin, the exposure of your sin, like in this case of church discipline, he was made sorry because it was exposed and he was actually put out. The being made sorry was the only right thing to do in church discipline. You have to make someone sorry because none of the none of the lighter previous Methods of discipline made them sorry enough to truly repent, not the personal counsel of their friends, not the preaching of the word of God, not the witness of the Holy Spirit, not the taking of the Lord's Supper. And. Nothing, nothing seemed to work, so the church, in this case, took action and he was made sorry. But it led to repentance. He says, for you were made sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. In other words, so that you would be restored back. So that there would be no loss of love at all. The shame wouldn't be forever. It would completely dissipate and there would be a complete welcoming back. Verse 10, for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation. Not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death. That's what Judah said. He just had the sorrow of the world. He felt very, very bad about it. And then the apostle says, for observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication in all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter." So here the Apostle Paul defines what true repentance really looks like. You have to know. You have to know when you're raising a child. You have to know in your own heart You have to know in the church, you have to know what it really looks like. And here the apostle Paul says what it really looks like. And what happened with Judas didn't look like this at all. The sorrow led to repentance. The sorrow was godly sorrow. The sorrow led to salvation, not death. The sorrow produced diligence. In other words, earnestness, swiftness to deal with it. It produced a desire to be cleared, the clearing of yourselves. It produced indignation as a state of strong opposition to what you did. You hate your sin and you don't want it part of you any longer. It produces fear. It produces vehement desire, recognizing a lack of strong desire to make it up. There's either vehement desire or just a little bit of desire, like you don't really care. If you see someone who says they repent, but they don't really care, you haven't really seen this kind of repentance. It produces zeal. It produces vindication. It means redness of face. It produces a result in all these things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. So you have the doctrine of repentance here. There's Judas kind of repentance that just feels oh so bad. And there is the kind of repentance that disciples of the Lord Jesus experience. where there's vehemence and fear and zeal and desire, and there's life, and there's relief, and there's joy. So, Judas was remorseful, but he wasn't reforming his life. He just feels the misery of the absence of grace in his heart, and so he's overwhelmed with condemnation. So the definition of repentance is very, very, very important to recognize here. John Calvin said this, The papists take nothing more than the bark of repentance. For they leave out what was the chief point, the conversion of the man of God, when the sinner broken down by shame and fear denies himself so as to render obedience to righteousness. So this was the kind of repentance that Judas did not have. The kind that led to righteousness. And so here, what Judas does, he takes the money back to the Pharisees. He doesn't take his sin to the Lord. He just takes it back. He takes it back to the other criminals and he throws it at their feet. He was not broken. He was bitter. And you can see how lifelessness can look early on. And then what its final result is. You know, Judas was included among the disciples. He was sent out to evangelize two by two with the other disciples. At some point, he desired the money that he was carrying and he began to steal from it. It happened very slowly. And then he finally came to the place where he would actually take blood money. The stages worked to this final solution. Now, let's recognize what unbelief really looks like. Let's don't think Judas was some kind of a horrible person. The disciples didn't recognize him that way. He was part of them. They worked together. They walked together. They all seemed to trust him enough to have the money. And yet he was not a believer. And he was facing a tragic end. There may be some people like that here, who walk with and talk with, speak the language, go out evangelizing, all these kinds of things. But there's that latter end for you, like Judas. And if you're that person, if you know you're that person, repent. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe that there is one sinless, spotless Lamb of God who was slain for your sins. And to cry out to Him. This is the backdrop of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. That there is one who cannot get rid of his guilt. And then next we see the chief priests and the elders responding to the confession in v. 4 at the end of it. Here you see the coldness of heart that characterizes all false religion. And they say when Judas comes back, so sorrowful, they say, what is that to us? You see to it. You're on your own. So here the chief priests and the elders, they're distancing themselves from Judas. He was their pawn. And they used him. And now they would have nothing to do with him. And they were distancing themselves from their own sin. How they self-righteously saw themselves as different than that man. And they were just denying reality. Somebody on Tuesday morning said it was a brazen disengagement from reality. What reality? The reality of their own participation in the sin. They were self-righteous and they were totally abdicating their responsibility for the sin. And the loss of love is so prominent here. They have all the rules, but they have no love. This is one of the great marks of false religion. where you have many things to do, but there's no love. There's no mercy. There's no kindness. There's no empathy. There's no taking responsibility for your own sin. This happens in lots of places, doesn't it? This happens in religious homes. It just doesn't happen in religious bodies like the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders. It doesn't just happen there. It happens in every jurisdiction. It can happen in the jurisdiction of the home as well, where all you have are rules and regulations, but there's no love. God does give many rules and regulations, but He doesn't do it without love. And this was the great sign of apostasy, was the loss of love. That's why the whole law is summed up by love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law is summed up by love. And somehow the ones who memorized the law, they knew the law. They had no love. You know, this can happen in your home. You can have your children memorize all kinds of wonderful passages of Scripture, and you should, but then there's no love. And you have to recognize what happens to homes like that. We don't want to make the mistake of saying, you know, look at how horrible these people are. We want to say, is there any way that I'm like that? Is there anything lurking in the recesses of my heart or in the realities of my house that looks anything like this? And if there is, then clean the leaven out of the house. Repent. Come before God. See the lack of love. Find yourself again. in a place of love. You know, a couple of weeks ago, my daughter Claudia and I went down to a father-daughter retreat, and I was speaking there. And one of the most remarkable things that happened during that retreat is that I had the opportunity to interview Craig Houston and his daughter Anna, who's 16, who is going to have a bone marrow transplant here very, very quickly. She's in chemotherapy right now. She's just feeling horrible. But I was able to interview both of them on this big screen asking them a number of questions. One of the most amazing things about that is that you saw a father and a daughter sitting there, and they had a love for one another that had been so challenged and increased and sweetened. The tenderness grew because of the threat of death. And it was amazing to me to sit to stand there looking out over this crowd of fathers and daughters. And thinking, you know, there there's there's probably hardness. That exists in a number of these fathers and daughters, what would it take to break the hardness? Is there something that the Holy Spirit could use to convict them of their disconnection and their hardness of heart, their lack of love? toward their daughter or a daughter toward their father from whatever offenses that might have come apart. I think we saw men's hearts tenderize. I think we saw the hearts of daughters thinking of tenderness and love that maybe they never really had before or that they wanted more than they had thought of before. It's such an enormous thing when love is lost in a family. It's such an enormous thing when love is lost in a church. And look what happens when love is lost among the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders. Look what happens. So these are very sobering scenes here where you see such dramatic expressions of loss of love. At the same time, in the backdrop of the story is the sinless Son of God, the Lamb of God who stands before his accusers, and he doesn't say anything. And he's taking all of the abuse. He's taking all the accusations that you and I deserve. He's taking every accusation that the civil government could have against you. He's taking every accusation that the religious authorities have against you. Everything you've ever done wrong, the Lord Jesus Christ presents Himself as the spotless blood of lamb to wash you of your sins. And then finally, not finally, but fourthly, we have Judas suicide recorded in verse five. The overwhelming hopelessness of his lostness finally brought him to his end and he committed suicide. The Book of Acts fills in some of the details of this of this terrible suicide in Acts chapter one, verse 16. We learn we learned that He fell headlong and he burst open in the middle and all of his entrails gushed out. And that field became known as the field of blood, akaldama. It was well known for that. The scribes, the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders wanted to hide it. They wanted to have a nice little burial on the back lot so nobody would know. This is the field of blood. We don't want anybody to know about this. This is the potter's field, actually. And it became known as the field of blood. They could not keep it silent. But you might ask yourself what you think about suicide. It's important that you think biblically about suicide. This is something that has probably touched many of your families. I know it has mine. And whenever there's a suicide, you have to somehow think biblically about it because your emotions will teach you one thing. Your friends will teach you another. You have to think biblically about it. I mean, I mean, in fact, just this weekend, the night before last, the 27 year old son of who is probably one of the most famous, well-known pastors in the world shot himself. Our prayers should be with that family, but there are instances of suicide in the Bible to help us think rightly about it. We here in this passage are in the final example of suicide in the Bible. And if you look at all of them, none of them are role models. None of them are right with God really in any way. There's nothing right about any suicide in the Bible. There's no suicide in the Bible for which you can somehow paint a nice rosy picture over it. You cannot do that. We like to do that somehow. We assign all kinds of categories to it. But in each case, at least in Scripture, it was an instance of defilement. You have Abimelech who slaughtered his seventy brothers trying to grab power. He burns a thousand people alive in a tower and he finally kills himself so that he won't have to suffer the shame of dying at the hand of a woman. In Judges 9, you have Ahithophel, who was one of David's dear friends, trusted counselors, and he became his slander and he conspired against him. And in the midst of his rebellion, which faltered, he hanged himself. You can find that in 2 Samuel, verse 31. King Saul was another. We know about Saul. the one who always wanted to make his way on his own through anger, through pragmatism. He fell on his own sword rather than to be captured by his enemies. The Bible calls his death a judgment from God. 1 Chronicles 10. Then there's Zimri who murdered the entire house of King Elah. And he sees the throne. He reigned for one single week and he killed himself as his troops turned upon him. First Kings chapter 16. And then finally, there's Judas suicide in the field of blood. The culmination of his treachery against the Son of God. Now, this is suicide in the Bible. Now, the dignity of suicide is all the rage today. Do you reckon? Do you know that? Do you know that the dignity of suicide is all the rage today? It comes from a number of directions. I'll name three directions that the dignity of suicide is being promoted. First of all, through secular atheists, second, through modern psychology, and thirdly, through false religions. The secular atheistic direction on suicide is in the promotion of euthanasia, assisted suicide, putting a sunny face on it. Suicide becomes so acceptable and understandable because of this nowadays. If you live in the Netherlands, all you have to do is pick up the phone and call a mobile assisted suicide unit and they will come and kill you. And that puts you out of your misery. Because you know, misery is just so unacceptable. Suicide is better than misery. This is what the secular humanists say. Is that true? Is suicide really better than misery? Is that what the Bible says? Don't ever think that thought. If you think that thought, recognize you're not thinking a thought after God. Then you have the view of modern psychology that suicide is understandable and acceptable. And it's just a natural outworking of mental illness. Of course, if you have mental illness, of course, you would want to commit suicide. Of course, you should. It's the right thing to do. It's placing such a sunny face on something that the Bible has in a completely different category. Then you have the perspective of false religions, the Buddhists. In Japanese culture, you find the honor of suicide as well. Harry Carey. In Islam, it's an honor to strap a bomb on yourself and commit suicide. And even in Jesus' day, the Greeks and the Romans believed it was an honorable way to die, or at least it could be. But this is the modern thinking about suicide. It's wrapped up in these three streams of secular humanism, of modern psychology and false religions. This is how you get a modern view of suicide, which is now working to legalize assisted suicide, even in our own land. Suicide was a crime in England until 1961 in English law. But contrary to popular belief, the Bible does have something to say about suicide. First and foremost, I think the Bible does not teach that people who commit suicide go straight to hell. That's not a teaching of the Bible. It's possible, but the Bible does not explicitly teach that. The doctrine of sin clears that up. If you sin by committing suicide, you have to recognize this. Mark 5, 28 says, all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men and blasphemies. So there's no sin that's too great for the grace of God. I want to just give you a number of thoughts about this. to help you think through the subject of suicide. Number one, it's a violation of the Sixth Commandment. The truth about suicide is that it is a rebellion against what God said. Thou shalt not murder. Secondly, It is from the ministry of Satan himself. The backdrop of suicide is always the ministry of Satan, who is out to steal and kill and to destroy. It is a work of the devil. Thirdly, it's a sin against the body, the preciousness of the body. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Number four. It's a temptation that can be resisted. It is a temptation that can be resisted. There are many examples in Scripture who resisted this temptation. We have we have a number of examples of men in the Bible who faced overwhelming sorrow that could have led to their suicide. You had David who cried out in Psalm 13, How long will you hide your face from me? We have Jeremiah, who in Jeremiah 20, verse 14, said, Cursed be the day which I was born. You have Job in Job chapter 7, verse 14. You terrify me with visions so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my body. I loathe my life. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, he said, We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia. We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. You have to recognize that there are men in Scripture who resisted the temptation to suicide. You can resist that temptation to suicide. It's an act of extreme selfishness. Suicide may be one of the most selfish acts that ever is committed in the world. It changed everyone. It damages everyone. It changes every day of that family's life from that day forward. No birthday, no holiday, no family gathering will ever be the same. Never. No one is ever the same. And when you do that, you take everyone with you. You shame your father and mother like nothing that could ever shame them. And you plunge everyone in your family into a time of difficulty and self-searching that's not necessary. It's a very selfish act. One of the things that Christians do is that they deny themselves and they follow Christ. For Judas, we know for certain it was the work of the devil in his life. The devil entered him. He was and he was always he was driven by the devil. And so you see this high cost, this high cost of Betrayal, following the devil. In Psalm 101, verse 5, we read, He who slanders his neighbor in secret, him I will destroy. I think this was fulfilled. in this terrible death. We see the abusive servant, how he accuses and uses, abuses and executes his own, how he destroys them, how he puts them out of service, how he depresses them, and how he finally takes them to a terrible, terrible end. Deuteronomy 27, verse 25 says this, Cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person. That verse was fulfilled in the suicide of this man. And Judas was tormented. He was depressed. Why? He could not see how sufficient Christ was. He could not see how good a shepherd he was. He could not cast his cares upon such a faithful and compassionate high priest. How different this was from Peter's denial who was caught off guard in a moment of weakness. He denied the Lord. This was so different. So here in the backdrop of this horrible scene of the suicide of a man and his bursting out into the field. The Lord Jesus Christ is the sinless, spotless, substitutionary Lamb of God who stands in contrast to this terrible deprivation of forgiveness. And then fifthly, we see the money is put into the treasury was not put back into the treasury. Verse six. But the chief priest took the silver pieces and said it's not lawful to put them into the treasury because they are the price of blood. Now you see the religious gamesmanship that the religious authorities are playing here. They would rather kill an innocent man while trying to maintain one nuance of the ceremonial law. One one commentator describes their hypocrisy this way. The hypocrisy of this lynch mob is immediately evident, for while they had no qualms about killing an innocent man, they were fastidious in preserving ceremonial purity. Just as Jesus had warned, they were straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. It was duplicity. Here you have the sadness, the lovelessness, the fakeness of dead religion. And you have the spotless Lamb of God standing there in the midst of them. And then you have the potter's field that is purchased in verses seven and eight. Here is this testimony of this terrible place, the potter's field, the place that you buried strangers. You know, you come out of the city through the dung gate, the place where the refuse was taken out of the city to the valley of Hinnom. It was a dump. It was the place where the filth of the city was taken. And right there, right there in the vicinity was the potter's field. The sewage was carried off of the waters of Kidron. It was the place where Ahazim and Nassa sacrificed children in the fire. It was a place of idolatry. It was a place of infant sacrifice. Finally, Josiah in Second Chronicles 34, he spreads out human bones over the site, making it unclean so no one can go there anymore. It was such a site of despicable filth and murder and hatred against children. and idolatry. That was the place. That was the place. It was symbolic, I believe, of the betrayal of Christ. If you betray Christ, this is what you get. You're buried as a stranger in the most horrible place you can imagine. The valley above the valley of Hinnom. And then finally, Scripture was fulfilled. Verses 9 through 10. Here, God has proven true again. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeroi the prophet, saying, And they took 30 pieces of silver, the value of him who was priced, whom they, the children of Israel, priced and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed. It was about a price, wasn't it? It was about the price of the Son of God and what He was worth to them. And the backdrop of this price is the sonless Son of God being led to slaughter. The innocent. The one who was silent before His shearers. The one who took all the sins of those who persecuted Him. Now, I want to bring just quickly some applications to this passage of Scripture. If you go back in Judas' life, Think of the incremental steps that Judas took in his journey to hell. Maybe it started with the love of money. The love of money is a snare. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And then he says, but you man of God flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience and gentleness. You know, if you're like Judas. was probably the kind of person who felt like he deserved a lot more than he got. Have you ever felt like that? You just deserve a lot more than you get. You just deserve more and you're not getting it. So you're going to take means outside of lawful means to fix your problem. Are we like Judas at all? Think also of the high cost of envy. We'll learn in the next section why this happened. Why did the scribes and the Pharisees do this? They did it out of envy. That was the bottom line. Check your envy. Check your envy and turn, run from it. Then there's the tragedy of loveless religion. Religious people who They don't care. They don't care about those who are burdened by their sins. They say, what does that to me? And then, what I think is the heart of this passage, innocent blood. What about innocent blood? What do you do with innocent blood? Christ was the innocent lamb who was slain You know, every person in this room was at one point either in the seat of Judas or the seat of the religious establishment. You either you either were a betrayer like Judas. Or. Or you were an envious person. Like the scribes and the Pharisees were. And He saved you from a conscience that could have driven you to suicide. He rescued you. He gave something in your heart that said, Lord, I desire You. He gave you life. He gave you faith. to say, O Lord Jesus Christ, forgive me of my sins. O Lord Jesus Christ, I trust You. O Lord Jesus, I believe in You. O Lord, I repent of my sins and I want to run away from them. He gave you that gift. He gave you a sinless, spotless Lamb of God so that you might be saved. And He gave you in your heart a desire to love Him and to follow Him. And you know how imperfectly you love Him and follow Him, but you want more. You desire Him more. And you're making progress. You're seeing Him cleanse the well. You're seeing Him making you new. You're seeing Him confront sin in your life and relieving you of one thing after another. And you're being helped by the spotless blood of the Lamb. At all those times that you deserve to be dragged before the civil magistrate three times, or before the religious magistrate three times. Every time you deserve that, the Lord Jesus Christ did that for you. And this is what innocent blood is all about. That the spotless Lamb of God was slain so that we might have life. And so that we might have it more abundantly. Think of the difference of living the life of Judas and living the life of Peter. Peter's a free man. Peter has a voice. Peter has a heart. Peter is running toward God. Judas is in that place of everlasting destruction. And so, whenever you read about innocent blood, recognize that it all somehow points to this moment in Scripture where innocent blood is being shed. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we are so amazed at this drama, this darkness. Lord, You've shown us such darkness here in this passage. Oh, that You would use it to give us such light, that You would use it to convict, that You would use it to save, that You would use it to cause rejoicing in Your people. Amen.