Daily Sacrifice, July 1 (14:10-11)
“Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto the chief priests, to betray Him unto them. And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray Him”— Mark 14:10, 11.
JUDAS was the treasurer of the apostolic company (John 12:6), trusted by the rest, but all the time unrenewed in heart and life (John 6:70). Professing to be a son of God (Acts 1:17) he was really the son of perdition (John 17:12), destined, because of his own sins, to a lost eternity in endless woe. This was “his own place”. (Acts 1:25). Though so highly privileged, it would have been better for him had he never been born (Matt. 26:24). He was, apparently, the only one of the Twelve not a Galilean. Iscariot (Ish-Kerioth) means “man of Kerioth,” a city of Judah.
It was covetousness, the love of money, a root from which every form of evil may spring (1 Tim. 6:10), that led Judas to betray his Master to those who sought His death. What a solemn warning to all who profess to be Christ’s disciples!
―W. Blane.