Study the two pictures together
to see what grace can do for a man by J.R. Miller. He appointed the twelve. To Simon
he gave the name Peter. Mark 3 verse 16. In an art gallery in Europe are
shown, side by side, the first and the last works of a great
artist. The first is very crude and most
faulty. The last is a masterpiece. The contrast shows the results
of long culture and practice. These two names are like those
two pictures. Simon shows us the crude fisherman
of Galilee with all his rashness, his ignorance, his imperfectness. Peter shows us the apostle of
the Acts and the Epistles, the firm and secure rock, the man
of great power before whose spirit-filled eloquence thousands of proud
hearts bow, the gentle, tender soul whose words fall like a
benediction, the noble martyr witnessing to the death for his
Lord. Study the two pictures together
to see what grace can do for a man. It is not hard to take
roses, lilies, fuchsias, and all the rarest flowers, and make
forms of exquisite beauty with them, but to take weeds, dead
grasses, dried leaves, and trampled and torn and faded flowers, and
make lovely things out of such base material, is the severest
test of skill. It would not be hard to take
an angel and train him into a glorious messenger, but to take such a
man as Simon, or as Saul, or as John Newton, or as John Bunyan,
and make him into a holy saint or a mighty apostle, that shows
great power and ability. Yet that is exactly what Christ
did with Peter, and has been doing ever since. He takes the
poorest stuff, despised, worthless and vile, oft times the outcast
of men, and when he has finished his gracious transforming work,
we behold a saint whiter than snow. The sculptor beheld an
angel in the rough blackened stone which had been thrown away,
and when he was finished, behold, men saw an angel cut from the
rejected block. Just so, Christ can take us as
rough, as unpolished, and as vile as we are, and in His hands,
our lives shall grow into purity and loveliness, until He presents
us at last before the celestial throne, faultless and perfect. For those God foreknew, He also
predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Romans
8, verse 29.