Judas’ Repentance.
Matt. 27:3-10.
THERE are two kinds of repentance spoken of in Scripture. One is a repentance wrought in the heart by the grace of God, when a soul is brought into His presence, and there discovers its guilt, in the presence of grace which removes it forever. In the presence of this grace the guilty one takes sides with God against himself, and judges himself according to God’s hatred and abhorrence of sin. This is always connected with faith, and is accompanied by salvation. The other kind of repentance is when a man sees the consequences of his evil doing as bringing sorrow upon himself, without any concern about his having sinned against God. A man might commit murder, thinking he will never be found out, and if he is arrested and tried, and condemned to be hanged, he judges himself as having been a fool, and is sorry that he did it, not because it was sin against God, but because he has to suffer for it. There will be plenty of this kind of repentance in hell, but it is worthless, and there is no salvation connected with it. This was the kind of repentance found in Judas.
We are toll that, when he saw Jesus was condemned, he “repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” It was not his sin against God that he felt, but he was smitten with remorse, and now that his Master must die as the result of his heartless act in betraying Him, he realized that he was a doomed man, and he wished he had never committed the dastardly act. He brought back the money and possibly thought that would in measure, at least, atone for his dyed, or change the minds of the rulers. But the rulers did not care for that; they only wished to have Jesus put to death, and cared nothing about Judas. They knew as well as Judas that Jesus was innocent, but all they cared for was to get Jesus out of the way. They would not defile the treasury by “the price of blood,” but they could use the money to buy the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. And so that field was called “the field of blood;” and the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled, which said, “And they took the thirty. of pieces of silver, the price of Him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.”
So Judas found no comfort in coming to the wicked rulers, and confessing his sin. They had given themselves over to the power of Satan, just as Judas had done, and would not stop in their mad course until they had murdered the Son of God. But remorse and despair seized upon Judas, and the money could do him no good now. So he threw it down in the temple, and “went and hanged himself.” And thus he went to his own place. Possibly, being under the power of Satan, he may have thought that death would end his miseries, as many a dupe of Satan now thinks; but alas! no, the sudden ending of his life here, only ushered his soul into the place of torment, where not even a drop of water can be found to cool the burning tongue. Poor Judas! he sold his divine Master to the rulers for thirty pieces of silver, and sold his own soul to the devil for the same money, and soon, very soon, the devil claimed him, and landed him in the gulf of eternal despair.
Reader would you sell your soul for thirty pieces of silver? Would you sell it for a million? It would be madness to do so. Your soul is worth more than the whole world. It is of priceless value.
It cost the precious blood of Christ to make a ransom for it. Oh! then, see to it, that you get your soul saved. It is through faith in Jesus that the soul’s salvation is secured. Believe in Him.
ML 06/17/1906