3 Sermon Illustrations on Betrayal

Legend fills up the silence of the Gospels concerning Judas. He is said to have been a foredoomed wretch, whose mother received warning of what he would be in a dream before his birth. To avoid this, his parents enclosed him in a chest, and flung him into the sea. The sea cast him upon the shore in the domain of a king and queen, who adopted him as their own son. Malignant from his birth, he killed a fosterbrother, fled to Judea, and became a page to Pontius Pilate. He commits many monstrous crimes, is at length filled with contrition and terror, and flies to Christ for peace. Thenceforward, the account agrees with the New- Testament narrative. After the betrayal, Despair comes, and offers him choice of weapons of destruction; when he chooses the rope, and hangs himself. At his death, his evil genius seizes the broken rope, and drags him down to the seething abyss below. At his approach, hell sends up a shout of joy; Lucifer smooths his pain-racked brow, and from his burning throne welcomes a greater sinner than himself.

TREACHERY, Reward of Philip, Duke of Austria, paid the ambassadors of Charles IV. (who had betrayed their trust) in counterfeit coin; whereof when they complained, it was answered, that false coin is good enough for false knaves. James I., King of Scotland, was murdered in Perth by Walter, Earl of Athol, in hope to have the crown; and crowned he was indeed, but with a crown of red-hot iron clapped upon his head, being one of the tortures wherewith he ended at once his wicked days and devices. And Guy Fawkes, that Spanish pioneer, should have received his reward of five hundred pounds at an appointed place in Surrey; but, instead thereof, he had been paid home with a brace of bullets for his good service, if justice had not come in with a halter by way of prevention. Thus traitors have always become odious, though the treason were commodious. Spencer.