And as Peter was beneath in the
palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest. And
when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him and said,
And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied, saying,
I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. And he went
out into the porch and the cock crew. And a maid saw him again,
and began to say to them that stood by, This is one of them,
and he denied it again. And a little later they that
stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them,
for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto. But he began to curse and to
swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak. And the
second time the cock crew, And Peter called to mind the word
that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt
deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon,
he wept. So that's a reading from Mark
chapter 14, verse 66 to 72. Great attention is given to this
passage in all the four Gospels. There's mention made of Peter's
denial, Peter's fall, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And with slight additions in
each account and explanations given by each writer. So that we are provided with
an account of the nature and gravity of Peter's fall and denial
of the Lord Jesus Christ by each four witnesses in the Gospels. And I feel sure that that broad
coverage, as it were, that is given to this incident reflects
the desire of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the Holy Spirit,
to encourage and to assist and to comfort the church, the Lord's
people, throughout all ages, upon the back of the lesson that
we learn from Peter's fall and circumstances. When we fall into
sin, when we discover our helplessness to resist temptation, or to recover
ourselves from the state that we get ourselves into, when we
find ourselves regretting, remorseful, repenting, and we begin to feel
that sense of self-loathing which comes with conviction of sin. Where are we to look except we
have this example of Peter and his look to the Lord and the
Lord's look to him? I tried to provide a short summary
of the events of this passage as they're set out by Mark and
the other gospel writers in yesterday's introduction. And we've read
the passage again today, so we really don't need to dwell too
much, I don't think, on the actual details of who said what, when,
and to whom. The narrative is very clear and
straightforward. Peter had gained access to the
high priest's palace, probably with the help of John, as we
saw last week, and he gets as close to the Lord as he can. And it's very obvious that he
is within sight of the Lord and it seems as well as if he is
in hearing distance. And so Peter has managed to get
quite close to the Lord in this situation here in the night with
the fire going, with the servants and the maids milling around.
with the Sanhedrin sitting in session, Jesus in the midst being
questioned, Peter had managed to get in and get close to the
Lord and there he waited and there he sat amongst the servants
to see what would unfold. Now it's Peter's fall and his
recovery that I want to think about today. But just before
I do that, I think it's important for us just to make a little
diversion and to realise how Peter's denial aggravated the
Lord's suffering. And I don't think we should ignore
this part of what was happening here. A man can endure much. when he rationalizes his personal
loss to be a sacrifice that he is making for a cause, for his
family, for his friends. We see that, we see that all
the time, men and women. go to war, they go to fight,
they go to the front line for the sake of those that they love. And a person can endure a lot,
can stand a lot, can sacrifice a lot. They can take great personal
loss when they think to themselves that they are doing this for
those that they love. And so I'm certain that Satan
used this incident of Peter's denial of the Lord and delighted
to parade Peter's denial and his protestations against the
Lord at the moment of this intense pressure and duress that the
Lord was in. And this ought to further elevate
the Lord's death in our eyes. Let us not miss the point. The
Lord Jesus Christ was fully man as well as fully God. That means
that he had all of the same emotions, he had all of the same thought
processes, all of the same feelings. He was sympathetic in all of
the things that we feel. He was without sin, but he knew
all of the feelings of a man and of this flesh. And in his
suffering, it is his humanity that comes to the fore. He was
the perfect substitute for his people, and as such, he had to
be that perfect man. So it was a real man who stood
before the Sanhedrin. It was a real man who felt the
blows on his face and on his head, who felt the spit on his
cheek, the buffeting and the whippings. It was a real man
who died on the cross. And the last thing that Jesus
heard from his dear friend, for whom he was dying, for whom he
was preparing to die, was oaths and cursings and vitriolic denials
that they had ever even met. And I can almost hear Satan whispering
in Jesus' ear, Are you listening to this? Do you hear what's going
on here? Is this one of those for whom
you're getting ready to die? He's hardly worth it, is he?
Surely that sense of abandonment that the Lord Jesus Christ felt
was not only that his disciples turned and fled in the darkness
of Gethsemane in the face of that great crowd who had come
to take the Lord, but also the words that were spoken by Peter
here in this moment of denial. Let us remember that it is while
we were yet sinners that Christ died for us. The Lord Jesus Christ
didn't lay down his life for people who were grateful and
thankful for what he was doing. Christ shed his blood for his
enemies. And here in this final hour of
his life, he had to listen to Peter denying him as any enemy
would. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
die for good people who trusted in him. He died for sinners who
denied and rejected him. He died for fallen men and women
and boys and girls who still exhibit their weakness and sin
so long as they live in this fallen world. Some people teach
that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he went to the cross, looked
into the future and saw all who would believe in him and died
for them. That's so wrong. That would make
Christ's redemption conditional on man's will and choice. Rather, Christ died for the ungodly
sons and daughters of fallen Adam, who had been given into
his hands in the covenant of peace, that he might make redemption
for them, that he might bring reconciliation and open a way
of escape. It is by his stripes that we
are healed. Peter denied his Lord three times
in this event and in each denial, Peter was brought into deeper
and deeper self-condemnation. Each time the disciple opened
his mouth, he worsened his condition and he exacerbated his situation. And perhaps the Lord will give
someone listening today some comfort as we reflect on Peter's
attitude and his action and his state. Perhaps you have fallen
into serious sin. And which sin is not serious?
But let us say a particular sin. One that you remember, one that
weighs upon you, one that plagues your conscience, shames your
witness and clings to you like a bad smell clings to clothes. And I think Peter's case is designed
for such people as us today. So the first thing I want to
draw your attention to is this. I want us to think about the
graveness of Peter's fall. Peter was in a dangerous place.
He sat amongst the Lord's enemies. Let that be a lesson to us. immediately. We cannot be out of this world. But surely we learn as we go
through it, that just as there are some places and some companies
that are conducive to spiritual encouragement for our souls,
there are some places and some companies that are conducive
to fleshy temptation. We need to be alert and we need
to be careful about where we spend our time, how we spend
our time, and what we spend our time doing. Whose company are we in? What
is it that gives us pleasure? Are we endangering our soul's
well-being by the things that we do, the things that we look
at, the things that we engage with? The allegation that was made
against Peter was that he knew the Lord Jesus Christ, that he
was one of his followers. That became an embarrassment
to Peter. It became more of an embarrassment. But it was an
embarrassment to him there, as it will be an embarrassment to
us. There's the key point. Would we be embarrassed to be
declared to be a believer amongst a certain group of people? or
when doing a certain kind of thing. Out of fear, Peter denied that
he was a follower of Christ. Out of fear, he denied that he
knew Christ. And that was a lie. Peter began
his fall by telling a lie. Peter, of course Peter knew the
Lord Jesus Christ. Of course he knew him. He knew
him as a personal friend. He knew him as his Lord and Master. He knew him as Christ the man,
having spent three years travelling and living with him through all
kinds of circumstances and situations. He knew Christ spiritually as
God. He knew Christ the Messiah. He knew him as his saviour and
he had spent years discovering how infinitely wonderful, glorious
and divine Jesus Christ of Nazareth truly was. It was after all Peter
who said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And
it was Christ who said to Peter, flesh and blood hasn't revealed
this to you. To say that he did not know Christ
was just not true. And as often happens, one lie
leads to another. And down and down Peter sank
into this pit of his own making. First, Peter denied knowing Christ. And then he reinforced this with
an oath. He called on God Note, he called
on God to attest and verify the truthfulness of his assertion
that he didn't know who Jesus was. That's what's meant by an
oath. Sometimes we use the phrase oath
in cursing. Well, this is the oath part of
it. It's not just swearing. It's not just using bad language. It is taking an oath, it is swearing
solemnly before God. It is calling upon God to witness
the truthfulness of the things that you are saying. And Peter
took an oath before God. He called on God to perjure himself. and thereby to deny God's own
holiness and God's own perfect nature. Peter called on God to
perjure himself. That's the implications and significance
of an oath. To tell a lie under oath is to
call on God to support you in your deception. And there's more. He did it with curses. And that
means that he called down God's curse on himself if he were not
found to be telling the truth. So when you say with oaths and
curses, this was so serious and such a solemn thing that Peter
was doing. It's almost staggering to realize
the degree and the speed with which Peter ran to this extreme
repudiation of Jesus. And this after being expressly
warned that he would do it. And again, let us note how one
sin leads to another. And this example of Peter's sin
shows the wickedness and deceitfulness of our hearts. The Old Testament
tells us the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? It shows what poor creatures
the best of us are, or how we would be if we were left to ourselves. This is what Peter was when he
was left to himself. And except for grace, we all
are like every other man and woman. Lying to God, lying to
others, deceiving ourselves, thinking better of ourselves
than we are. This is the point except for
grace we're all alike with mouths full of cursing and bitterness
and the corruptions of the heart are the same in all of Adam's
fallen progeny. The only difference between one
person and another is what grace makes us to be. So the first point here is the
graveness of Peter's position, his place. The second one is
this. The greatness of Peter's plight. Faced with the accusation of
this girl, Peter grew fearful. And Solomon tells us that the
fear of man bringeth a snare. and Peter was snared, Peter was
trapped, Peter was caught. Having first denied, he then
discovered that he was getting in deeper and deeper into this
web of lies and danger. First it was a girl, then perhaps
the same girl, perhaps another girl, then it was a group of
men. Peter's plight was the weakness
of his flesh. And we've spoken often about
the care that the Saviour took to train his disciples and to
prepare them for the ministry to which they were called. And
this weakness of Peter's flesh, I think, is why the Lord led
the apostle through this experience. He allowed him to go through
and to taste and to feel the depths of his own depravity in
such a blatant and overt disbelieving way. rebellious way against God,
even to the point of soliciting God and calling down God's judgment
upon him. Peter seems to have been a man
of some boldness, some bravado. He seems to have been a confident
man. He was opinionated. He was assertive. He exhibited
what men would call leadership qualities. But natural strengths are of
no value in the kingdom of God until they are broken and until
they are harnessed in subjection to Christ. And this was the lesson
that Peter had to learn. Confronted by an armed mob come
to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Peter drew a sword
and would have killed the high priest's servant. He tried to
do it and confronted with a question about faith and spiritual allegiance
by a little girl. The bold and brave and confident
apostle's courage failed him. We climb mountains and we trip
up on pebbles. But having told us, as Solomon
did, that the fear of man bringeth a snare, The wise man continues
in Proverbs 9, 29 and 25 to say this, Christ should have been
all Peter's salvation and all his desire. However, for Peter's benefit,
for Peter's education, And for our good, this lesson
by Peter had to be learned and had to be recorded. Peter had
to be taught where his true strength lay. His own strength had to
be dismantled. He had to see that there was
nothing in himself that was of any use. And often in order to
show us how weak we really are, the Lord deals with us in the
very areas where we imagine ourselves to be strongest. He shames us or allows us to
be shamed in the places of our greatest confidence. The best
of men cannot keep themselves from falling, and so neither
having fallen can they raise themselves or recover themselves. And this we have to learn. If
it's not all of grace, then we have nothing. And I'd like us
to notice something about the way in which the writers tell
us about Peter's situation here. In verse 68, we were told that
having been accused of being a follower of Christ, Peter denied
saying, I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. Then we're
told he went out into the porch and the cock crew. So here was
the cock crowing when Peter went out into the porch here in the
high priest's temple or house in the temple precincts. He went out into the porch and
the cock crew. And then in verse 72 we read,
Now these two points are made by Mark. But what Mark does not
mention and what Luke does tell us is that Peter calling to mind
the word of the Lord was not triggered by the cock crowing. but by the Lord turning and looking
at Peter, and by the Lord observing his fallen, compromised, backslidden
follower. Luke 22 verse 61 says this, And
the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, And Peter remembered the
word of the Lord, how that he had said unto him, before the
cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice. And so it was before
the cock crowed that Peter remembered the word of the Lord. It was
upon that look of the Lord that the word of the Lord returned
to Peter's heart. Christ's look on Peter that night,
or in the early morning, was a look of grace and mercy. It wasn't a look of disgust. It wasn't a look of condemnation. It was a look of love. And when
Peter saw that look of grace, he was convicted of his sin. When he saw that look of mercy,
he wept bitterly for the shame that he felt. When he saw the
look of love, he immediately went out from the presence of
Christ's enemies and his. It took that look to change Peter
and to send him out from the midst of those enemies. Now let's
mark that for a moment. It wasn't the fear of condemnation. That fear of condemnation didn't
preserve Peter from falling. In fact, it was that fear that
had led Peter into this place. It was the love looks from Christ
that lifted up the brokenhearted. And it's not the condemning law
that comforts us, but Christ's gospel truth. In the midst of
his trial, in the midst of the beatings which the Lord was taking,
at this very moment, there is Christ being slapped by these
servants of the priests. In the midst of his beatings,
in his trial, in the accusations being levelled against him, what
was the Lord thinking about? He was thinking about Peter.
The very moment that Peter cursed and called down God's judgement
on his own head. Luke tells us, the Lord turned
and looked upon Peter and Peter remembered the word of the Lord. It's a lovely little verse in
Psalm 119 and verse 132. It says this. Look thou upon
me and be merciful unto me as thou used to do unto those that
love thy name. And that's a delightful little
verse for the backslider. That's a wonderful little confirmation
and comfort to those of us who have felt the weakness of our
flesh and succumbed to the temptation of sin and found ourselves separated
from the Lord, found ourselves engaged in this world in a way
that we cannot extricate ourselves from. It is a prayer from the
heart. Look thou upon me and be merciful
unto me as thou used to do unto those that love thy name. So
we've thought about the graveness of Peter's situation. We've thought about the place
that he was and the greatness of his plight. And now we're
going to think about the graciousness of Peter's saviour. And with
this, we'll wrap up our thoughts today. But let us be under no
misapprehension. Peter's deliverance was due to
the grace of God. We've seen the graveness of his
fall, we've seen the greatness of his plight, And now we see
the graciousness of Christ towards him. He was completely unable
to prevent his own fall. Peter went willingly, he went
easily. As I've already suggested, it's
almost staggering to see the speed with which Peter descended
into this pit. He couldn't help himself. And
so very often we fall as believers and sadly we continue in that
unconcerned state until the Lord's faithfulness brings us to see
our plight. It takes the Lord to turn us
and it takes the Lord to turn to us before we turn to Him. And yet let us remember this.
Sinful, fallen, backsliding people as we are. We are no less loved
by Christ, even during our periods of denial, in the midst of our
foolish actions and our oaths and our cursing, than when we
are close to him. Paul tells Timothy, and he tells
us in telling Timothy, if we believe not That is, if we are
unfaithful, if we deny him, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot
deny himself. And that verse so fits Peter
like a suit that was made to measure. Peter believed not. Peter was unfaithful and Peter
denied his Saviour. and yet Christ abided faithful
to him. Does that help us? Surely it
does. The law did not shame fallen
Peter. Duty and obligation did not bring
him to repentance and faith. Peter wept for shame when the
Lord turned and looked upon him with love and forgiveness. Only then did Peter become aware
of the sin that he had been guilty of. It is the Lord who makes
us willing in the day of his power. There is a little phrase that
is used. It serves a purpose so you'll
occasionally come across it and you'll hear it and perhaps it's
useful for us to know. It's called evangelical repentance. But simply that means true repentance. And it's an attempt by some writers
to distinguish between repentance that is merely to the law under
a sense of conscience and guiltiness. and a true evangelical repentance
which is provoked by the gospel. And I'm making this point because
I want to lead you into another thought here just as we wrap
up our time today. True evangelical repentance springs
from Christ looking upon the sinner with grace and mercy and
love. And it's the look that enables
us to look and turn to Jesus in faith because He is the author
and finisher and object of our faith. Peter's repentance here
was what the Bible calls repentance unto salvation. Paul tells the
Corinthians that there is a sorrow after a godly sword. Now you may say, was Peter not
already a believer? Was he not already saved? Yes
he was. But believers need to be saved
every day. Because our sins persist every
day. And temptations arise every day. And we fall every day. And we need new mercies of Christ
every day. Jeremiah says in Lamentations
chapter 3, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Peter asked to be consumed. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They
are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. And
here's the point that I want to leave you with. In the past
few weeks, we have read about Judas' betrayal and Peter's denial. Judas betrayed his Lord with
a kiss. And Peter lied and denied him
with oaths and cursing. I learned as a youngster at Sunday
school, when these two men were being compared, that Judas's
betrayal was more culpable, more grievous, more worthy of death. He betrayed the Lord. Peter only
denied him. Really? Is that the extent of
the matter? Isn't all sin sin? Isn't all sin going to condemn
a man or a woman? We read in Matthew When Judas
saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented himself and brought
again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent
blood. And they said, What is that to
us? See thou to that. and Judas cast
down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went
out and hanged himself. Judas repented himself. He acknowledged
sin, yet fearfully he went out and he hanged himself, conscience
stricken, bereft of hope, while Peter obtained repentance and
found forgiveness. And though he wept bitterly for
his sin, he went out with joy in his soul and love in his heart
for Christ. And he went forward to fulfil
the role of apostle and leader in the New Testament church.
Peter found grace in the sight of Christ, and he went out in
faith, repenting of his sin. Judas found no grace, He was
possessed of no faith, and taking his own life by his own hand,
he died the son of perdition. The sole distinguishing feature
between these two men was the grace of God. There was no other
difference. Towards the end of his life,
Peter looked back on the experience of the Lord's grace and mercy
and love. and he rejoiced in the free gift
of God. Writing of all those given to
Christ by God the Father in the eternal election, all those redeemed
by Christ's blood and quickened by the Holy Spirit, he writes
this, we are they who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation. 1 Peter 1 verse 5. May then the Lord show each one
of us today his mercy and his love. May he lead the fallen
and backslidden amongst us back to himself. May he give us that
look of compassion and may he give us the grace that we require. Amen.