Judas: The Assassin

This blood money that Judas returned, that he threw into the naos, they gathered it up and then they wanted to do something religious.

The priest felt guilty. So they got together and they said, well, I'll tell you what let's do. They said to each other, let's go buy a field and we'll allow strangers to be buried in the field. And Matthew writing says it's known to this day to be the field of blood. In other words, 30 years after that purchase, everybody in Jerusalem knew that field had been purchased with blood money. What a picture of religion.

The best they can do my friend is offer you a free grave. There have been many notorious sellouts and traders in history, but none of them are quite as infamous as Judas Iscariot. His name is synonymous with betrayal and his story is the epitome of treachery. But what led this seemingly committed disciple to forsake Jesus Christ for a mere 30 pieces of silver?

Where did he go wrong? And more to the point, as far as we're concerned, what are the warnings for us in this account? Today, Stephen Davey answers this profound question for us in his message, Judas the assassin.

He'll remind us that there's a grave difference between being near Christ and being in Christ. I came across a story of personal betrayal carried by news in Boston. A woman announced that she had cancer and was going to begin chemotherapy and her friends, of course, and family rallied behind her. And she, of course, went through the effects of chemo, including the loss of her hair.

And it didn't seem to work. She reported to them, her friends and family, that she would try some experimental drugs and her insurance was not going to cover it. And so they rallying behind her raised some forty thousand dollars only to find out that her cancer was a hoax.

She had cut her own hair to appear to have gone through chemotherapy and she had spent all of the money on her new car and vacation and other personal items. And you think, how utterly despicable is that betrayal? It's interesting to me that the American Heritage Dictionary defines betrayal as to be false or disloyal, to give aid or information to an enemy. And what I found interesting is within its primary and secondary meanings in that dictionary, they gave us an illustration of this word, Judas, and his betrayal of Jesus Christ. You know, you take all of the stories of betrayers and traitors and conspirators and you do not come close to the shocking, self-centered, callous betrayal through this demonically inspired man named Judas, who was one of his own disciples. Judas stands out as one of the men who missed Easter, a most tragic illustration of betrayal. In fact, his name has been shunned for now two thousand years. No one would ever dare name their son Judas. His name means betrayal now to our minds and around the world, dealing treacherously with another, giving aid to an enemy, violating allegiance. What I want to do this morning is take you to five or six scenes rather quickly from the biblical account of Judas as we try to uncover why someone so close to Jesus would betray him. And more importantly, what does it say about the world of humanity?

And even more importantly than that, what might it say about us? If you have your Bibles and you're going to try to keep up, start in Matthew chapter 10 and look at verse two. Matthew 10, verse two is where the disciples are simply listed. In fact, if you look at all the lists of the disciples, you'll find Judas is always last. And in the last part of verse two, Judas is identified as Judas is scary at the one who betrayed him.

And you ought to notice at least that he is included. I don't believe that Judas was first called and at that moment believed that he would somehow try to deceive the Lord and betray him. In hindsight, however, we can see things about Judas that created the background for this ultimate defection and treason.

Let me give you two or three of them. First of all, we know from the record of scripture that Judas had an attraction to money. He had an attraction to money and he would deceive and lie to get it. In John chapter 12, the incident is where Mary comes and pours the costly ointment on the feet of Jesus. A wonderful act of obesions. And Judas comes off his chair and he says, what?

Why are you doing that? We ought to sell that ointment and give the money to the poor. And how religious did that sound? How sanctimonious? How do you argue against that?

It's worth 200 denarii. He said we ought to sell it and give the money to the poor. No one argued with him. Just a few days before the crucifixion of the mask of Judas is slipping, he is actually implying in that interchange that Jesus is selfish. How can you, Lord, he implies, how can you accept this costly gift when you could give it to the poor? And if it weren't for John's commentary, we would miss out on some insight into Judas's own heart and character. For John adds this in verse six.

Now he said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief and he had the money box and he used to pilfer what was put into it. In other words, now this interchange three and a half years into ministry, Judas is more dishonest than ever. He is more deceitful and callous and cold hearted than ever.

In fact, three and a half years of sitting under the ministry of the greatest preacher to ever walk the face of the earth. He is hardened out in the open. He's believing, he's following, but inside he's lying, he's stealing, pilfering.

The Greek word gives us our transliterated word kleptomaniac. He's stealing his brother's blind every chance he can listen on the outside. Everything looked good, even to the point where he would say, oh, why would you ever do that when all of the poor need the money? When his own poor brother and think about poor the disciples were, they didn't own anything. They borrowed houses to sleep in. They borrowed food to eat. They borrowed donkey to ride into Jerusalem.

They're borrowed ships to sail on. And all the while Judas is taking what little they had and pilfering it on the outside. He looked good. Part of the problem that we have, in fact, perhaps even exacerbated by these scenes that we have seen on the screen is that we picture Judas as some guilty looking guy anyway. He's some crooked guy anyway. He's got beady little eyes. You know, if he rose to the surface, we'd know. Oh, I know that that would be the one right. I knew by his eyes.

I could tell. One little boy in Sunday school named Kenny's teacher was asking who betrayed Jesus? And Kenny raised his hand and answered Judas the scariest.

That's probably how we feel. You know, he's got to be scary. He's got to be sinister. Extra biblical writings assume this is true. And so they create all these fanciful stories about Judas to try to come up with something logical that this would be the guy. He'd have to be evil, incarnate. He was after Satan possessed him.

But not until then. One apocryphal writing entitled The Story of Joseph of Arimathea taught that Judas was actually a member of Caiaphas's family and he was sent at the very outset of Jesus's ministry to infiltrate the disciples. So at the very beginning, there was this sinister plot and he did everything he could.

It's fanciful. One even more fanciful apocryphal book called The Acts of Pilate recorded that Judas went home after the betrayal and found his wife roasting a chicken in the fire when he told her that he was planning to kill himself because he was afraid Jesus would rise from the dead and take vengeance on him. His wife responded by saying sarcastically, well, Jesus will no more rise from the dead than the chicken I am cooking will jump out of the fire and crow.

And at that instant, the chicken came back to life, jumped out of the fire and crowed. One writing from the 12th century called The Legendary Aura claimed that the parents of Judas knew there was something diabolical about him at a very early age and they threw him into the sea, hoping to destroy him. You know, they knew he was the devil.

That fits well with the movies that are out there. You know, they just knew this man was the devil. And so even as a little baby, he was thrown into the sea. This record states that he managed to survive and he grew to adulthood.

Then he married a beautiful older widow who turned out to be his own mother. You know, these bizarre extra biblical false pieces of literature are simply concocted because they all bear our own nature. We want to try to figure out and demonstrate the vileness of Judas.

It has to be obvious that the record of scripture does not bear that out entirely. In fact, he was chosen to administrate the money because evidently he was the one most likely to take care of it. He was the one most trusted to handle their meager funds. He was perhaps not some aloof, sinister man.

He might have been, as one author said, jovial and outgoing. In this upper room, the scene we'll look at in a moment when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him, all eyes did not turn to Judas, right? Nobody said, I knew it was Judas.

No, all of them said, is it me, Lord? And he had such respect among the disciples that when Jesus accepted the gift of ointment on his feet by Mary and he came off his seat and he said, oh, we should have sold that. He had such respect that no disciple rebuked him and they should have. He had an attraction to money. We know that was the deeper secret of his life that would lead the greater masquerading and ultimately lead to part of his downfall. But he also had an affection for Jerusalem.

And this is even greater than the first. He had an attraction to money, but he had an affection for Jerusalem. He, like all his brothers, thousands of Jews living in and around Jerusalem were thrilled to hear Jesus talking about establishing the throne of David, thrilled to think of the throne, thrilled to think of the restored people of God. You got to understand, Judas is passionate about Jerusalem. He loves his country.

He loves his people. And he was thrilled when this one came along saying, I can restore the throne. Frankly, we would have selected him to be an elder, a deacon. He would have been a preferred teacher. He would have been outgoing and respectable and perhaps even dynamic. And when Jesus appeared, he said, you know, there's somebody here who seems to have divine power capable of overthrowing Rome and setting up the people of God and restoring Jerusalem back to its glory and greatness. I think I'll follow him. The third thing I would bring out is that Judas also had an avid hatred for Rome.

And that was probably greater than all the previous two combined. He hated Rome. He's identified in Matthew 10 for and throughout as Judas, Iscariot. Iscariot relates to the Latin term sicarius, which was the designation of a radical Jewish group living at the time of Christ. And in the first century, they were called the sicarii, the assassins. They were called the sicarii after the sika, the dagger that they would hide in the robe.

And they would take the life of Romans and disloyal Jews without any thought. Josephus, a Jewish historian who during the first century wrote this of these men, which would include Judas. They're spraying up in Jerusalem a gang of robbers called sicarii, who slew men in the daytime when they were mingling with the populace at the festivals and hiding short sikas in their garments, stabbed with them those that were their enemies.

The sicarii were implacable in their hatred to Rome and any Jew who was suspected of leaning toward Rome. This is the profile of Judas and his father, Simon, who was also designated with this term, the sicarii in John 671. He had grown up in the home of an assassin.

He'd grown up around blind patriots. He'd grown up around people who hated Rome, who longed to see Jerusalem restored, and they were thieves and killers. But now for a few years, he'll put away his dagger because now he'll follow one who will overthrow Rome. Why go around secretly exposing perhaps myself by killing somebody when I can follow one who will kill all of Rome? All put together, I'll follow him. His agenda seems to be mine. We both want the same thing.

We want Rome reduced to ashes. May I ask you a question? Why do you follow Jesus? Why do you follow him? Is he good for your business? Does the fish in your logo attract customers?

Is church a great place to swap cards? Does his agenda seem to be yours? Has he promised you something you want?

Is he fire insurance from hell? The disingenuousness of your unbelief will be revealed as Judas' was. For those who truly do not believe, as soon as God's agenda seems to separate from their agenda, they are quick to abandon God. You see, Jesus stopped talking about the throne and he started talking about dying. He stopped talking about his rulership over all and he started talking about death. Let me take you to the second and third scene.

They're separated by just a few hours. Mark's Gospel, chapter 14, it's in Mark's Gospel where there is this secret meeting. Verse 10 tells us, And Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests in order to betray him. In other words, he's tired of the Lord talking about death and dying. He isn't following my agenda. I want a throne.

I want Rome overruled and overthrown. Now I'm just going to betray him. I'll go and hand him over to the religious leaders. Verse 11, And they were glad when they heard this, you can bet they were, and promised to give him money and to begin seeking how to betray him at some opportune time. The next scene is in Matthew chapter 26 back there where Matthew fills in the account of the upper room. Judas has already established the price.

He's already met with the leaders. He plans to betray the Lord. And now in the upper room, you discover this unbelievable outpouring of God's grace.

It's amazing grace, no doubt. You and I, if we were the Lord, we'd probably have a little difficulty washing the feet of Peter, but he washed the feet of Judas too. We would never give disciples who would deny us and run from us anything to eat.

Certainly not the one who would betray us. And yet Judas has the seat of honor next to the Lord. It's as if the Lord is giving him ample opportunity to repent. And then Jesus makes this announcement. Truly, truly, I say to you, verse 21 of chapter 26, one of you will betray me. One of you will betray me.

You know what this is? I think this is an invitation for Judas to come clean. His secret's out. Jesus knows. And it must have rocked his thoughts and mind to think, how did Jesus find out?

Was I seen? Did somebody tell him? He knows.

His feet have been washed. Judas in his mouth. He's in the seat of honor. And Jesus announces.

He knows. The one who will deal treacherously toward me, the one who will aid the enemy, the one who will be disloyal is in this room. And Matthew records for us that all of the disciples began to grieve. That word means they began to sob. They began to deeply sob and grieve. And every one of them looked at the Lord and said, Surely it is not me.

Is it? And Judas merely imitates their shock and grief. He sees what they're doing and he thinks, oh, maybe that's how I'm supposed to be responding to it. So he simply replicates their action. He imitates their grief. And he says in verse 25, Surely it is not I, Rabbi, beloved teacher.

It isn't me, is it? Judas had become a consummate thief, a skilled pretender and an angry, now disillusioned radical who wouldn't get the throne he wanted to have. And now he's a selfish man who's going to sell the Lord out for 30 pieces of silver for all of his trouble. 30 pieces of silver was the first century payment for having accidentally killed somebody else's slave.

In other words, he's saying it was an accident. I ever followed Jesus and killing him will be no more of an issue to me than the killing of somebody's slave by accident. The fourth scene is familiar. It is in the garden where Judas leads several hundred armed soldiers, temple guards and religious leaders. They're armed to the teeth. They've come with torches and lanterns.

There are nearly a thousand of them strong. And in the same chapter of Matthew 26, verse 49, it informs us that Judas came and he embraced Jesus. And we have again the image in our mind. He comes up to him and he gives him a little peck on the cheek. The word and the intensity of this verb says that he came and he kissed him and he kissed him again and he kissed him again and he kissed him again. This feign expression of affection and emotion.

He embraces him and he repeatedly kisses him on the cheek. And I cannot imagine the scene where the serpent empowered sinner kisses the cheek of sovereign God. I can only imagine the irony of this embrace reverberated around the universe. And all the demonic hordes seeing the serpent embrace the Savior said with glee, we have him now. And the religious leaders took him and they must have thought too we now will be rid of him soon.

H.G. Well an unbelieving agnostic once wrote his blasphemous perspective on God and the world he created. He wrote that the world is like a great stage production produced and managed by God. As the curtain rises the set is perfect.

It's a treat to every eye. The characters are resplendent. Everything goes well until the leading man steps on the hem of the leading lady's gown causing her to trip over a chair which knocks over a lamp which pushes a table into a wall which in turn knocks over the scenery which brings everything down on the heads of the leaders. Meanwhile behind the scenes God is running around shouting orders pulling strings trying desperately to restore order from chaos. But alas he is unable to do so. Poor God. Poor little limited God. There is no poor God here even in this scene. Matthew records in verse 50 that Jesus brushed Judas aside. He said friend do what you came for. He doesn't use phyllis the normal word for friend he uses a word that just shows respect to a stranger. You could literally render it sir do what you've come for or even more woodenly sir get it over with. No grace now.

Sir do what you came to do and get it out of the way. And he brushes them away. John's gospel fills in the scene by telling us it was then that Christ stepped forward in the garden and said to these thousand men strong whom do you seek. He didn't need to be identified. They didn't need torches thinking he'd hide behind a tree.

They didn't need a thousand soldiers thinking he would resist. He steps forward and says whom do you seek and they said Jesus the Nazarene. And then comes that wonderful response where he says to them I go Amy I go Amy I am that I am. This is the name that God gave to Moses the Greek Septuagint which Jesus Christ often quoted from the translation of the Old Testament Hebrew into Greek there in that story God is telling Moses to lead the people and Moses said you got to give me a name I need to go back and tell them who you are. And God said here's my name.

Ego Amy tell them I am that I am. So they come to Jesus and they say you know we're looking for somebody and he says well who are you looking for and they say Jesus the Nazarene and he says I am that I am. And the next verse tells us every one of those men fell over backward onto the ground flat on their backs. One breath of his omnipotence flattened them. There is no little God here.

There is no poor little God here. One breath of his divine power slammed them to the ground. He was a willing lamb who would give them all the help they needed to be able to put him on the cross that he came to die upon and it was planned before the foundation of the world. Can you imagine Judas having been brushed aside having been exposed again to this demonstration of divine power.

Can you imagine what he was thinking as he's lying flat on his back. Another scene that takes place before the members of the Sanhedrin in Matthew 27 verse 3 records what happens when Judas who had betrayed him saw that he had been condemned he felt remorse. This is not repentance by the way. The world feels remorse. They feel guilty when they've done something wrong. The word for repentance better know which means the turning from sin and the turning toward God is not used here. He just feels bad because he's betrayed innocent blood.

In fact that's what he says. And then he receives from them great condemnation and they condemn themselves of course as well. And he knew he had no hope now and he will take his life. Verse 5 tells us that Judas threw the silver into the naos the sanctuary.

He literally pitched it into the naos. That was the holy place. That's where only the priest could go. It's as if Judas said all right you don't want I'm going to make sure that only a priest can go after it. I'm going to force the priests you crooked priests to gather the money the blood money. And so he threw it into the naos forcing them to go and retrieve it.

Or no gentile or non priest could go. And then he went out and he hanged himself. His cause done away. His vision failed.

His heart hardened. The final scene is this hillside where Judas hung himself by comparing the gospel accounts. He evidently hung himself from a limb but either the limb broke or more than likely the rope broke after he died and his body fell. It fell down the side of the hill. Evidently that limb was going across some ravine or extending out into it and we're told that he literally became disemboweled as he fell utterly horrible death.

He literally tore open. But it is ironic to me to consider that while Jesus hung on his tree Judas was hanging from his on one tree is the savior and on the other tree the one who represents all the unbelieving unrepentant world deceived by the serpents who seemed to embrace Christ who seemed to want Christ who seemed to follow him or some religion who are headed for judgment. Our staff has been rejoicing the last couple of weeks. We've had a number of men and women adults come to faith in Jesus Christ through a series of different events all unrelated but just things happening around here. These ones who have come to faith in Christ have something in common. They all grew up in church. They all would never have denied the Bible is God's book.

They would not have denied Jesus as the Son of God. They knew the gospel but they had never taken time to consider how the gospel related to them. One man who had turned somewhat skeptical about the whole thing had begun attending Colonia for a few weeks just in the last couple of months. His wife came to visit with me and we prayed for him and his wife told me you know he doesn't believe in God but he likes to hear you preach and I wasn't quite sure how to take that.

A few weeks ago this man was sitting at a men's gathering and admitted to one of the men near him. He wasn't a believer. He was at a church activity and admitted he wasn't a believer and the man asked him have you heard the gospel and he said oh yeah I've heard that but I don't believe it. And this man with great insight said you need to hear it again and shared with him the gospel again.

Do you know it? That all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one of us to our own way. That it please the Father to bruise his son and delay upon him the iniquity of us all that he having died and paid the penalty for our sin being God could pay an eternal price for that sin and he rose from the dead to offer forgiveness and life to those who come to him alone and admit their sinfulness and their wretchedness and their unbelief. When he finished sharing with this man the gospel they were both in tears and this man who I've had a chance to talk with who's my brother in Christ said I want to pray.

I want to give my life to Jesus Christ. Perhaps you're like that man right now in church but not truly believing and the evidence of it will be that tomorrow you will set him aside and you like Judas will go about your own agenda and perhaps even one day walk away from him the one you never truly followed to begin with. Matthew informs us in his gospel account that this blood money that Judas returned that he threw into the naos they gathered it up and then they wanted to do something religious the priest felt guilty and so they got together and they said well I'll tell you what let's do they said to each other let's go buy a field and we'll allow strangers to be buried in the field.

We'll do something magnanimous. We'll buy a field and anybody who doesn't have land or doesn't have a home or is a stranger is not attached maybe wandering through the village or the town and dies will give them a plot will bury them there. And Matthew writing says it's known to this day to be the field of blood. In other words 30 years after that purchase everybody in Jerusalem knew that field had been purchased with blood money. But I couldn't help but think the daily reminder that they would have in Jerusalem for having rejected Christ would be a cemetery. What a perfect picture of religion.

The best they can do my friend is offer you a free grave. We are here to declare that the living Lord Jesus Christ offers you forgiveness and life everlasting. Place your faith.

Give your life to Him. This is Wisdom for the Heart and our Bible teacher Stephen Davey is the pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Cary North Carolina. You can learn more about us at our website wisdomonline.org. We're going to continue thinking about the circumstances of Jesus death and resurrection as this week unfolds. Tomorrow Stephen begins a two part series called Resurrection Power. I hope you'll be with us for that. Between now and then please continue to interact with us on our website or our app. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. Thanks for listening and please be back tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart.