Today we are going to finish the sermon series on the Twelve Apostles by examining the life of Judas Iscariot. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that the book “Twelve Ordinary Men” by John MacArthur was used as the foundation for this sermon series. Judas is undoubtably one of the most universally known and scorned disciples of all time. Even though he was called and given the same teachings and opportunities to develop an in-depth personal relationship with his Lord as the other apostles, Judas chose to squander his spiritual blessings by loving the things of this world. In betraying the sinless, Lamb of God for a mere 30 pieces of silver Judas demonstrated how depraved humanity can become when we focus on the evil desires of our hearts (James 1:13-15). While finding out that the fruits of Judas’ labor was not wealth, but suicide and eternal damnation might tempt one to say “AMEN” one can’t help but think that his story was placed in the Bible as a plea for us to examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5-8)! Just because a person reads the Bible, prays and attends church does not mean that one has obtained salvation and knows their Master (Matthew 7:21-23) any more than Judas did! Without confession of sin, belief in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice (John 3:16) and making Him the Lord of one’s life (Romans 10:9) one simply has not become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), filled with the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13) and eternally adopted into God’s family (John 1:12-13)! This sermon is going to focus on the life of Judas and in doing so encourage us to never take our spiritual blessings for granite but instead out of thankfulness examine our hearts and confess our sins so that we might keep our eyes fixed on the perfecter of our faith, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:1-3)!