Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.14UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.12UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.53LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.6LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.43UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.9LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.39UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.14UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.61LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.62LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Hows your heart
No one wants to let others down.
We try our best to ensure we ar people of our word.
Why?
Because your Word/Reputation matters.
No one sets out to betray or be a traitor.
That name is so demeaning and derogatory.
There is so much shame.
When we think of the name Judas that is exactly what comes to mind: shame, betrayal, mistrust.
Tonight we will end our series on the apostles talking about Judas Ischariot.
He is a very well known apostle but not for good.
He is the most notorious and universally scorned of all the disciples - the Betrayer.
His name appears last in every list of the apostles, except for the list in where he does not appear at all.
Everytime he is mentioned in scripture he is noted as the traitor.
He is the most colossial failure in human history.
He betrayed the perfect, sinless, Holy Son of God for a handful of money.
Judas spent three years with Jesus but for all that time his heart was growing hard and hateful.
Looking at his life makes me remember the importance of guarding your heart, heeding the voice of the Holy Spirit in keeping me on track and the importance of checking my spirit before God.
This morning I urge you to keep this in mind especially when we see what the result was in the life of Judas.
The other eleven apostles are all great encouragement to us because they show how common peope with typical failings can be used by God in uncommon and remarkable ways.
On the other hand Judas stands as a warning about the evil potential of spiritual carelessness, squandered opportunities, sinful lusts and hardness of heart.
Here was a man who drew so close to the Savior as one could humanly possible.
He enjoyed every privilege Christ affords.
He was intimately familiar with everything Jesus taught, yet he remained in unbelief and went that way into a hopeless eternity.
Judas was as common as the rest of the apostles.
There was nothing that made him stand out in the group.
He began exactly like the others had but never grabbed hold of the truth by faith.
Due to this there was no transformation like the rest.
While the other apostles were increasing in faith as sons of God, he was becoming more and more a child of Hell.
Saying this words are so devestating this morning because I am not one that likes to concentrate on things so negative.
But we need to be reminded that even though things can be really, really good, there is still evil, there is still bad in this world and yes there is still Hell.
These things are very real!
The New Testament tells us lots about Judas - enough to show two things:
Judas reminds us that it is possible to be near Christ and associate with Him closely and yet become hardened to sin.
Judas reminds us that no matter how sinful a person may be, no matter what treachery he or she may attempt against God, the purpose of God cannot be thwarted.
Even the worst acts of treachery work towards the fulfillment of the divine plan.
God’s sovereign plan cannot be overthrowneven by the most cunning schemes of those who hate Him.
His Name - Judas
Judas’ name is a form of Judah which means “Jehovah leads” which indicates that when he was born his parents must have had great hopes for him to be led by God.
The irony of his name is that no individual was ever more clearly led by Satan than Judas was.
His surname Ischariot signifies the region he came from.
It comes from the Hebrew word “ish” - “man” and the name of a town Kerioth - “man of Kerioth”.
This was a humble town in the South of Judea.
He was one of the only apostles that did not come from Galilee.
There is no evidence that he was ever looked down on in the group or excluded, he may have thought of himself as an outsider which may have helped him justify his treachery.
The other apostles knew little about his family or background or even his life before he became a disciple.
So it was easy for him to play hypocrite.
He was able to work his way into a place of trust, which we know he did, because he became the treasurer of the group and used that positio to get funds.
Judas’ father was named Simon.
This Simon is unknown to us.
It was a common name but beyond the name we know nothing of his family or social background.
Judas was ordinary in every way, just like the others.
It is significant that when Jesus predicted one of them would betray Him, no one pointed the finger at Judas.
Judas was so good at being a hypocrit that no one seemed to distrust him.
But Jesus knew his heart from the beginning.
His Call
The call od Judas is not recorded in scripture which is something that is very ironic isn’t it.
It is obvious that he followed Jesus willingly.
He lived in a time of heightened Messianic hope and like most in Israel he was eager for the Messiah to come.
When he heard about Jesus he must have been convinced that this must be the true Messiah - why else would he follow for so long?
Like the others he left whatever he worked at and followed Jesus full time.
Judas even stayed with Jesus when the less devoted disciples began to leave the group.
John
Judas had given his life to follow Jesus but he never gave Jesus his heart.
You see there is a difference.
There are those today who fool themselves into thinking that they can get by by going to church, doing good deeds, volunteering their time and the like.
But at the end of the day what matters most is if you have a personal relationship with Christ.
These others things don’t matter in light of eternity but asking Jesus into your heart and for His forgiveness that where it is at!
It was obvious that Judas was not attracted to Christ on a spiritual level.
He followed out of desire for selfish gain, worldly ambition, wealth and material gain, and greed.
He was interested in what he could gain and nothing else.
Wealth, power and prestige were what fueled his ambitions.
But he did chose to follow and Jesus did choose him.
The tension between divine soverenity and human choice is exhibited in Judas’ calling.
Judas’ role of betrayal was even prophesied in the Old Testament.
This was quoted by Jesus in and it was fulfilled in His betrayal.
Psalm 55:
Zech. 1
Scripture says that when Jesus chose Judas He knew Judas was the one to fulfill the prophecy of betrayal.
But even here Jesus was obedient.
Judas did what he did because his heart was evil.
His Disillusionment
No doubt at the start all the apostles thought Jesus was the Messiah and that He would defeat the enemies of Judea and rid Israel of pagan occupation and reestablish the Davidic kingdom in unprecedented glory.
They knew Jesus was a miracle worker.
But Jesus did not always fulfill their personal expectations and ambitions.
Their expectations were not always spiritually motivated.
The other disciples begun to catch on to the fact that the Messiah was not what they first expected.
The embraced a new understanding through their personal encounters with Christ.
But Judas simply became disillusioned and hid his disappointment under hypocrisy because he was probably looking for a way to get some money out of the years he invested in following Christ.
He never embraced the spiritual kingdom of Christ.
He remained an outsider secretly.
As early as in , Jesus referred to Judas as a devil.
Jesus knew no one else knew Judas was becoming disgruntled already.
He was still unbelieving and unregeneate and was growing more hardhearted all the time.
By the time of Passover in the last year of Jesus’ earthly ministry Judas’ disenfranchisement was complete.
His disillusionment turned to hate, mixed with greed and turned to trechery.
His Greed
One huge example of his greed was in the act of worship recorded in .
The fact that Mary took such an expensive bottle of oil and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.
This act was shocking with extravagance.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9