A Tale of Two Men

Send us Fan Mail A Tale of Two Men In the fourteenth chapter of The Gospel of Mark, we find the story of two men who betrayed Jesus. One of these men betrayed Him for money, and the other one was afraid. One of these men betrayed Jesus with a kiss, and the other one denied Him with an oath. The first one had maliciously schemed to sell Jesus and the second one had boldly proclaimed that he would never deny Jesus. But he did. They were both guilty. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Peter denied Jesus because he was afraid. Both men felt shame and regret for what they had done. The name of Judas will always be synonymous with treachery and deceit but Peter will always be remembered as a saint. What was the difference? When Judas saw that Jesus was to be crucified and he was sorry for what he had done. So, he tried to fix it. He tried to take it back. But a sin that has been sinned cannot be unsinned. It cannot be taken back. Judas could not live with the devastation of his sin, so he took his own life. Thus, he will always be remembered as the man who sold the Savior for thirty pieces of silver Peter also was devastated by his sin. But he did not try to fix it himself. He knew, that His sin could not be unsinned and it could never be taken back. But unlike Judas, Peter received forgiveness for his sin, not because he was sorry for his actions but because he repented of his sin. Later as they shared a breakfast of fresh fish Jesus forgave Peter and cast his sin as far away as the East is from the West. At some point in time, we have all betrayed Jesus. Don't say you haven't, that would just be a lie. We are all sinners, and the sins that we sin cannot be unsinned. But Jesus has promised that if we repent of our sins, He will have compassion on us and will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Our sins cannot be taken back and you and I cannot fix them. But when Jesus forgives us He also forgets about our sin and it is just as if we had never sinned. The Bible says “Happy is the person whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned. Happy is the person whom the LORD does not consider guilty." Psalms 32:1-2 NCV