The Tragic Tale of Judas: Betrayal, Remorse, and Redemption

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Well, welcome everybody,

thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Bible Guys. He's Chris and

I'm Jeff, and we have a great episode for you today. We do

we hope. We're going to do the best we can. That's all we

do. Jeff is just hope and hope. We live in hope, and

we try. We're try hard, we try really really hard. Okay,

well, hey, so today we have an episode the what do you call

a segment that we think is fun. We've done this I think one or

two other times, so today it's just called Guess the Gibberish. I wonder

and post edit if they could put the gibberish words on the screen for those

watching, just to just for fun. Okay, well, we'll have to

pass that on and and so we'll know basically the people watching right now will

know whether they heard me. That's right. So this is Guess the Gibberish.

And so what's gonna happen. We're gonna put up some a string of

random words gibberish. See if you can figure them out. Now. I

think that this is really an easy one for you, because when we tried

to figure out gibberish, we just went and got your last message that you

preached. And that's what I'm gonna week. Yeah, was that week trying?

Okay, half a point, okay, half a point, half a

point. They stack up, right, they build up all right? Okay,

No, this is not from the message you preached. Here we go.

Police do nod hutch, police do not hutch, Please do not touch.

Yes, Wow, I heard myself saying, wow, okay, uh,

this one's this one's the toughest one. Ike hot if rom mime hum

uh. I'm not gonna remember all those I can't repeat that said again.

Ike hot if from mime hum uh? Say fast? Ike hot if from

my hum uh. I don't even have a clue. Ike hot if from

my hum uh? I got it from my mama. That did not sound

like that at all. That was a hard one. That was terrible.

I rebuked that. I do not receive that. Yes, this one is

a little tough, yeap ben Joe watshan bib yeah, Bin Joe watshin beIN

Joe what wa shin watchin bin Joe watching Bin Joe watchin bin Joe watching,

Banjoe watching, Binge watching That Joe was the problemay binge watching. Yeah,

that was a hard one. Okay, why would they say, Joe,

I don't know this one? Binjoe watching? Yeah that's yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, I don't love this skit. I don't love it.

It's not great. Day can day kin one for Thudham again? Day can

one for Thudham. They can one for thud Him. They can daycon one

Dacon, one tack and one. They can one for thud Him taken one

for the team. That was a good one, was it? Yeah,

gnome or missed her nice thigh? No more, mister n I thought,

mister yes, there you go. Okay, that was a good one.

Yeah, okay, well you got two out of the five so that was

a rough one. Yeah. Yeah, we should just move on. I

think that was that was That was not one of our better moments. Let's

pretend that didn't exist. Hey, I vote, I vote, we do

not do those again. One of the other things that our listeners will learn

if they listen to us long enough, is if we can't win at a

thing, we don't want to do anything that's right. That's right, that's

right. It has to be to our advantage. You'd like to tilt the

table our way. That's what we like. Yeah, it's funny. Okay,

I guess the gibberish. Well, today is seven more verses and this

is this is a kind of a sad passage. It really is, yeah

said yeah. But this one it's about Judas and Matthew chapter twenty seven,

where Judas takes his life right in Matthew chapter twenty seven, verse three,

which is the only passage that covers this idea right today, Matthew's the only

one. And it says, when Jesus, who had betrayed or when Judas,

I'm sorry. When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus

had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took

the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priest and the elders. I've

Cindy, declared for I've betrayed an innocent man. What do we care?

They retorted, that's your problem. Then Judas threw the silver coins down in

the temple and went out to hang himself. The leading priests picked up the

coins. It wouldn't be right to put this money in the temple treasury,

they said, since it was payment for murder. After some discussion, they

finally decided to buy the Potter's field, and they made it into a cemetery

for foreigners. That is why the field is still called the Field of Blood.

This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah that says they took the thirty pieces of

silver, the price at which he was valued by the people of Israel,

and purchased the Potter's field as the Lord directed, so very sad, ending

to a very conflicted life there right, this guy who had rejected Jesus rejected

everything that he'd seen. He witnessed it at the same level that the others

did, and he went, eh, I don't know how he's doing it,

but I don't believe in it. Did you ever wonder, like the

Pharisees knew the scripture back and forth, Yes, yes, did they buy

the Potter's field because of the prophecy? Or did they just buy the Potter's

field? Like just not knowing the obviously you're not thinking and then all of

a sudden, you know, somebody points out thirty years later when they're on

their deathbed, you do realize what you guys did is in the Bible,

right. I would bet that they were that they overlooked it, so they

were obsessed with the law. But you know, there are a lot of

Christians, I know, I know Christians that are obsessed with the Book of

Romans but can't tell you anything about the minor prophets right, right, because

they just don't read the rest. That they get obsessed about their peace,

the thing that they want to harp on the most, and they don't know

any of the rest of the Bible. Yes, and it could be the

thing it wasn't in the Torah, that's right, It wasn't one of the

first five books of Moses that you know, they memorized the first five books,

right, and then they were familiar with the rest, and perhaps they

just didn't realize it. Yeah, yeah, but it's part God blinded them

from it. Yeah. So remember in Kung Fu Panda, probably when when

they when the when the master Uguay says that ty Long is going to and

then he gets so nervous he sends a messenger there. But it's because the

messenger went that actually he escaped, so he said, it's we often find

our destiny on the path that we choose to avoid it. That's what That's

what Mesteray says, right, And so that's that's sort of like this right

now, right, self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, sort of that way,

right. So it's like, do they do it because of the prophecy or

or you know, in spite of it or whatever, But yeah, I

have a tendency to believe that maybe you're right, like they didn't quite realize.

But it is interesting how this prophecy is so unbelievably specific. Thirty pieces

of silver which was valued by the people of Israel to purchase the Potter's field,

and yet this is what they choose to do with thirty pieces of silver.

That's pretty strange. So, you know, it talks about yesterday when

we were discussing this trial. At that point, it was all the leading

priests, and it was the elders of the people, and it was the

tea teatures of religious law. Those were the people. So sometimes it's possible

for us to be really, really really focused on one part of God's word

and just leave the rest of it. And it's why we need really good

balance right. It's why we need to understand the whole word of God,

and how the Old Testament connects to the New Testament, how every book in

the Bible points to Jesus, how everything about God's word is important. Right,

Jesus says this, that every part of the Word of God is important

for us. And so I think that in this case they missed it because

they were teachers of the law. They knew the law verse five books.

They just missed out on so much more of the rest of the Bible.

It was there plain for everybody to see. They just didn't see it.

And so, you know, they did exactly what the Bible said that they

would do. So let's just get this out of the way. We believe

that, unfortunately that Judas is not in heaven. Yeah. The Book of

Accident he went to his place. Yeah, well, and it also says

that Jesus referred to him the one headed for destruction, the son of destruction.

Yeah yeah, so so yeah, I have to believe that that's true.

And by the way, it wasn't because he committed suicide that he went

to hell. It was because he rejected Jesus as the messiah, right,

right, So, and and by the way, not as it you know,

it's I mean, listen, trust me, I'm never going to be

a person that you know, justifies something as awful as taking your own life

or even making light of it, because every life matters. Yeah, yeah,

because that is definitely something I would never ever do. But the idea

that a person would think that suicide would keep you from heaven is, in

my very strong belief, incorrect. And the reason why is because the Bible

doesn't say anything about that, and that would actually go against every scripture we

know about salvation. So the Bible says, there's nothing you can do to

get you to heaven. There's nothing you can do to keep you from heaven,

right if you trust Christ. And so that belief system of taking your

own life sending you to hell, that belief system was invented. You can

google this on your own, but it was invented because let's just let's just

say it this way. It was. It was a it was a motivated

out of fear right for for like involved persecution, and it involved motivating people

not to take their own lives when they buckled it to deny Christ. So

that's that's how that was invented, and it was not invented by the Bible,

you know what I mean. It doesn't come from the Bible. It

was invented outside of that. And also the only verse that people use to

back up that belief is they tried to quote the verse that says there is

a sin that you can commit. It's the unpardonable sin. Right, there's

a sin that you can commit that is not forgiven, and that's a whole

other sermon altogether, but it's never listed what that sin is. And if

you match it up against all the other scriptures about salvation, there's only two

scholarly beliefs about that verse. Either. Number one, Jesus is referring to

maybe possibly a sin that could only be committed while he was there on the

earth in person, that they rejected the Messiah in person, and somehow that's

a different sin than you and I rejecting him today, which I don't believe

is true. It's not a very widely accepted view, but it is a

view that's out there. And the other view that's widely accepted is is rejecting

the Holy Spirit. Right, so you reject the Holy Spirit, you deny

Christ, you don't choose to believe him. That's the impertonaal sin. Yeah,

rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit, and the work on Holy Spirit

is to draw you to Christ convicted of your sin, draw you to repentance,

stry you to faith in Christ. Exact, that's his job. So

it's when you reject Christ that So in this situation, he didn't go to

hell because of his suicide. He went to Hell because of the fact that

he rejected Christ. Right, So he felt bad about his behavior. That

didn't bring him to a salvation moment in placing his faith in Jesus Christ.

Right, So it's possible to have a little bit of guilt about what you've

done, But if you don't place your faith in Jesus Christ, then you're

not safe now Acts one eighteen. So sometimes there's a little bit of a

again. You know how, sometimes people like to try to say, oh,

there's differences in the Bible, and that disproves them. I think it's

the opposite. I think that the difference is as long as they're reconcilable,

the differences prove the Bible because it's different views of the same situation. That's

right, If you and I saw the same thing, the same event happened.

We would describe it similarly, but we probably see different things because we're

standing at different angles or whatever. We had other information available. So in

Acts one eighteen it says that Judas after he had betrayed Jesus, and it

says in verse seventeen, Judas is one of us and shared in the ministry

with us. But then it said that they bought a field with the money

he received from his treachery, and then falling head first there his body split

open, spilling out his intestines. Ew, yeah, I know that,

doubt yeah, so it's it's worse. So because of that, then the

news of his death spread to all the people of Jerusalem, and they gave

the place the airmank name Akldama, which means feel the blood is where that

came from. So the the reconciliation of those two things would be, he

hung himself, as it says here, and perhaps the branch broke or something.

Right, if he hung himself out over the edge of a cliff,

the branch breaks, he falls, right, And so historically that's what theologians

would say, is that both events happen, the hanging first, the split

open second, which is really really gross. Well, I mean and I

mean, and so those of you listened to this this morning morning, yeah,

good morning. Right, Well, it's not to it's not it's not

a stretch. It's not a stretch to you know, think about all the

stories in the Old Testament, right, remember when Joseph was in the dungeon

and he was giving the uh uh you know, the prophecy to the butcher

and the baker, remember, right, and he and he says to the

or the cup holder, what was it? It was the cup holder in

the baker, right, And no, no, no, yes, it

was the cup bear. It was a cup bear and a baker, wasn't

it. Anyway, it wasn't a butcher. But but he said to the

baker, h yeah, the birds are gonna come and they're gonna eat of

your flesh. And remember it was just so gruesome, right, and it's

like it's like, uh, you know, remember Elisha calls two bears from

the from the woods to mall forty kids from making fun of him because he's

a prophet of God. I mean, there's some there's some pretty rough thing

rough things that happened to people. You know, uh, you know,

and I just don't don't see how this is any different somebody who betrays Christ

for his body, for something horrific to happen to the body afterwards. I

would expect that, actually I really would well. And the graphicness of it.

You don't find the Bible being super graphic all the time, but there

are a few times when it is, and I think that's just another one

of those evidences of the specificity of that specific event is very significant. So

the other one would be I think it's interesting that these priests have no guilt.

Yeah, what do we care? Right? So he comes and he

says, you know what, Uh, I didn't mean to get him killed,

and many meant to get him arrested. I was trying to ruin his

reputation. I think is probably what it was. Is. I've decided Jesus

is a scam and he's not the one I thought he was going to be.

Very likely Judas was one of those zealous right, because Jesus had a

couple of zealous very like there was some kind of motivation that Judas had for

following Jesus that was not fulfilled, whatever that was, And so all Judas

saw Jesus As is some kind of do gooder. He goes around somehow he's

doing these really amazing things, and people believe and he says all these things

that most of it I don't even understand. And he teaches nice things,

and the people sure do like him. But I'm done. I'm just I'm

done. I'm going to ruin his reputation. I'm going to get him canceled.

Well, I think his intent was getting canceled, not killed. Yeah.

Well, I mean, and he also could have thought, Hey,

the money's not going to come rolling in like it used to because he's seeing

things turn. The tide's turning, So I have one more opportunity to cash

out of this guy. Yeah, because I mean, you know, the

Bible gives us insight about Judas, and it says, remember when the woman

broke the alabaster box, and he said that that money could have been sold,

or that perfume could have been sold, and the money given to the

poor, And then it says in parenthes, but he didn't care about it,

that's not why he said it, right. He gets about the poor,

right, because he often stole money out of the Jesus' treasury for himself,

right, and so it gives us, you know, some insight about

the fact that even during ministry, his motivation is making the money. So

you know, it's probably fair to assume that he viewed Jesus like a cash

cow, right, like, Hey, I'm just gonna make a little on

the side. This is kind of cool. And and we've got the best

trick in the book. And right, you remember the old man, Sorry

about the movie quotes today, but you remember the old show from the seventies,

Pete Dragon, Yes, remember that we're money, money, money by

the pound, right there. They were shysters. They went from town to

town, right, he says you, he says something about you. I

didn't want to go ball, but now my hair turned pink in the song,

he says, but it's so becoming. So anyway, So so these

guys lose the Pharisees, lose any sense of morality, except they won't take

the money back and put it back in the treasury. I'm not touching that

because that's inappropriate, right, right, it's inappropriate, oh, selling it

because it was against the law, the Jewish law, to use money,

accept money for murder. Apparently it's not against the law to murder somebody in

their minds, but it is against the law to accept money for murder.

So they knew that they gave it to him for murder. That's what they

gave it to. They were selling him out. Now they've decided they're going

to convict him, convict Jesus. And so Judas wants to give them money

back. I go, hey, wait a minute. You know, he's

a jerk, but he's not an evil person. I don't want him killed.

They say, what was that to us? We don't care, and

then he throws the money at him, and then they're standing there. They're

picking up the coins, thirty pieces which, by the way, thirty pieces

of silver was the price of a slave. That's right, So it's not

a significant amount of money, it's the price of a slave. And so

they pick it up and then they go, well, you know, they're

so pious in this moment, it would be inappropriate for us to put this

in the treasury, right, right? Isn't it so goofy? And isn't

it weird how even everyone's not to make a movie theme reference In the Mafia

type movies, there's still a code. There's a family code, you know,

what I mean, these criminals, they do all these bad things,

but don't lie to the family or whatever right. And it's kind of the

same thing here that they've developed their own sense of morality, their own sense

of right and wrong. They're claiming it's the Bible, but or God's words

or the teaching of all of the teachers about God's words. And I think

that this is where the danger would be. And this is why we want

our listeners to spend time in the Word themselves and not just believe us.

Right is because much of the Pharisees and the teacher's religious laws belief system was

not built on what God's words said. It was built on the words taught

to them about God's Word. And so the most important thing for you to

do is to take God's word into your heart and mind on your own.

Having some teachers is good. Right. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by

the word of God. Book Roman says, so hearing God's word being taught

helps build our faith. But ultimately you can only truly know what is true

with your time in the Word, the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Those

two things first, and then having Bible teachers be a supplement to those things.

Otherwise, I think we run the risk of the Pharisees, and that

is we build in the teachers of law, where we build these religious constructs

that don't make any sense. It's okay to murder, it's just wrong to

put the murder money back into the church treasury or the temple treasury. Right.

They build these weird religious constructs that make sense to them but are not

you know, their contrary scripture, the bigger one. I don't know if

you heard, but in the top ten God's top ten is don't kill.

Yeah, I heard about that, right, do you hear about that one?

Yeah? So I'm not sure what they're quoting about putting money back in

the treasury, but it's not in the top ten. Yeah, right.

And so it's just one of those things to spend time in God's word,

know it yourself, let the Holy Spirit teach you, and then supplement that

with people like us that are helping teach what the Bible has to say.

No, that's great, Yeah, that's awesome. Well that looks like about

our time. And I just have to throw this in there too. You

mentioned the Godfather and he said, you know, in the mafia, you

know, and it's always family first, godfather too, and he says,

I know it was euphraido remember that. Yeah, the brother there go,

there you go. You don't betray family and the godfather. That's right,

all right. Well, hey, that looks like it's our time and we

will see you next time, hopefully on the bibble guys,