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

Show Notes

Episode 392: 
In this enlightening episode, we explored a somber passage from Matthew chapter 27, focusing on the tragic story of Judas Iscariot. We discussed Judas' betrayal of Jesus, his remorse, and the consequences that followed, including his tragic end. We also touched on the theological implications of Judas' fate and the misconceptions surrounding suicide and salvation.

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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,