In his own mind, and according to his own rationalizations, Judas was the hero of the story — at least until the cold reality came crashing in on him.
Once there was a hypocritical man who made a great show of his loyalty and faithfulness to his friends at a company where they all worked. But because of various slights that he imagined they had been guilty of toward him, he became resentful and was very concerned that no one else appeared to be aware of these offenses that had been committed against him. So he then began whispering in a way as to separate friends, and to stir up dissension among those who had previously been at peace. He did this because he was very scrupulous about the law of God, as he thought he understood it, and he was very aware of how all the others were not obeying the law in their treatment of him. So he took matters into his own hands.
Even though the Scriptures expressly condemned what he was doing, he had more than enough verses to justify in his own mind what he thought he was doing. One day he even began reporting his friends’ infractions of the company policy, as he imagined them, to the higher authorities in the company — without ever talking to his former friends. He did this because, in his mind, his friends were no longer scrupulous about obeying the Scriptures in their treatment of him.
But Scripture promises this — “be sure your sin will find you out. And Jesus said that there is nothing about the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, that will not be revealed. What is whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roof tops.
One day, this is exactly what happened. These secret things always come to light, and one day the boss revealed what had been happening. This man’s betrayed friends just looked at him. And while his behavior had been pathetic all along, for the first time, he caught a glimpse of himself similar to what others saw. But I do not know if his response was more like Judas’s or Peter’s.