to Matthew chapter 26. We're
going to look this morning at Peter's denial of Christ. We'll begin our reading in verse
69. Now Peter said without in the
palace, And a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with
Jesus of Galilee? But he denied before them all,
saying, I know not what thou sayest. And when he was gone
out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that
were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. And again
he denied with an oath, I do not know the man. And after a
while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter,
surely thou also art one of them. For thy speech bereath thee,
or betrayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to
swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock
crew. I want to begin my message this
morning by quoting words that the Apostle Paul wrote in the
letter of Romans about the Old Testament part of our Bible.
He said this, whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning. And the same is true here concerning
the sin that Peter was guilty of, of denying the Lord Jesus
Christ. There's never been but one man
who lived in this world of life without sin, the Lord Jesus Christ
has only been one. And there's not a true child
of God in this room this morning who doesn't have things that
we have thought, things that we've done, things that we've
said, that we wish that we had not. Things that we have repented
of and asked the Lord to forgive us for doing. Things that we
would be ashamed this morning if somehow those things were
broadcast on a screen before us. There's not any of us here
who would not be in that category. Not any child of God, at least. I know that this is merely a
tradition, but it has been said that after this, Peter's face
was marked with channels running down his face from the tears
that he wept because of his sin of denying the Lord and the repentance
that God granted unto him. I know that's just tradition,
but at the same time, I know that Peter, because the scriptures
teach us and tell us that he went out and wept bitterly. Now,
Peter's sin in denying the Lord Jesus, when he said in verse
74, I know not the man. His sin seems to be greater considering
these three things. First of all, We know that Peter
was one of the favored three of the twelve disciples. The
Lord Jesus Christ chose twelve disciples to follow and accompany
with him as he ministered in this world before his death.
And out of those 12, he chose three to experience special blessings,
Peter, James, and John. For instance, if you look with
me in Luke's gospel, just a moment, Luke chapter eight, there's a
man named here by the name of Jarius or Jarius, whose daughter
died. And I believe she was about 12
years old, something like that. He came to the Lord, asking the
Lord to come and help him. And on their way, the girl died. And when they came to the house,
the people were standing outside, of course, weeping. And the Lord
Jesus Christ, if you notice here in Luke chapter 8, beginning
with verse 51, And when he came into the house, he suffered no
man to go in. Now notice, I said that the reason
Peter, one of the reasons that Peter's sin seemed so great is
because he was one of the special ones that the Lord chose, even
out of the 12 that he had chosen to be his disciples, to see some
things, to witness some things that the other disciples did
not experience. And this is one of them. When
he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter and
James and John and the father and the mother of the maiden.
And all wept and bewailed her. But he said, weep not, she is
not dead, but sleepeth. And they left him to scorn, knowing
that she was dead. And she was dead. When the Lord
said, she sleepeth, that's what he said about Lazarus. Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth. That's a word the Lord Jesus
Christ used for the death of his children. They sleep. That's a more gentle term, isn't
it? To think of death. When our Lord said, hear this
girl, she sleepeth, she was dead and they knew she was dead. And he put them all out and took
her by the hand and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came
again, and she arose straightway, and he commanded to give her
meat. Notice this, and her parents were astonished. I believe Peter, James, and John
were astonished also, don't you? I know I would have been. Wouldn't
you? Sure. Have you ever seen a corpse? I'm sure you have. The spirit
has departed. There's no life there. Never,
never move an eyelid. Never speak again. And that's
the way this girl was. And the Lord Jesus Christ took
her by the hand and commanded her. Just like he commanded Lazarus
to come out of the tomb. And she arose. Sure, they marveled. Peter saw that. Another experience that he and
James and John were only privileged to have was recorded in Mark
chapter nine. If you look back there to Mark
chapter nine. Beginning with verse two. And after six days, Jesus taketh
with with him. Here it is. Peter and James and
John. He left the other nine disciples.
He took these three and leadeth them up into a high mountain
apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before
them, and his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow,
so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared
unto them Elias with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.
And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for
us to be here. Yes. along with James and John,
had experienced these things that the other disciples did
not experience. Another reason that Peter's sin
seemed so great, not only because he was one of the favored three
of our Lord's disciples, but he had made such a clear, such
a clear dogmatic statement When our Lord asked his disciples,
who do men say that I, the son of man, am? It was Peter. It was Peter who responded with
such a clear, dogmatic statement, thou art the Christ, the son
of the living God. What a declaration of his faith,
right? And another reason his sin seemed
so great is because at this particular time, the Lord Jesus himself
was being so abused, so abused by men. Look back there in our
text to Matthew 26, verse 67. Then did they spit in his face. It was when the Lord Jesus Christ
was being so abused by men, spitting in his face, taking the palms
of their hands and buffeting him. It was while that was going
on that Peter said, I know not the man. I know not the man. Now, as I said at the beginning,
I believe that this denial of Peter, his sin is recorded for
our learning. And I have five steps, I believe,
that Peter took in this denial that I want to bring out, I believe
will be a blessing and a warning and an instruction to all of
us. But Peter's first step, his overconfidence
in himself. Look back in this chapter, chapter
26, to verse 31. I believe this is the first step
in Peter's denial, his overconfidence in himself. Beginning in verse
31, we read, Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended
because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the
shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. But
after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Peter answered and said unto
him, though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet
will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, verily I
say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow, thou shalt
deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, though I
should die with thee, Yet will I not deny thee, likewise also
said all the disciples. First of all, the Lord in verse
31 told all of his disciples, all ye shall be offended. Now
Peter proclaims himself to be an exception. Now that sounds
somewhat, I was thinking about this like that that Pharisee
in our Lord's parable that he told when two men went up into
the temple to pray. Remember the Pharisee, he said,
I thank thee that I am not as other men. Doesn't Peter's words
kind of sound like what that Pharisee said? Though all men
be offended, not me, not me. And then when the Lord Jesus
Christ spoke to him directly, I say unto thee, well, Peter
just turned his self-confidence up another notch and said, no,
I will not be offended even if it comes to dying. Even if it
comes to the point of death, I will not be offended. If we grow boastful as God's
children, and I'm speaking to all of God's children here this
morning, those of us who are saved by his grace, if we become
boastful, we are on dangerous ground. I don't care what we
think we have to boast in. If we become boastful, like Peter,
this overconfidence in himself, then we're just asking for trouble.
We're asking for trouble. The believer's safety, my safety
as a child of God, is to recognize my weakness. Paul said, when
I am weak, I'm strong. When we recognize our weakness,
then God gives us strength. When we rely upon Him, but when
we become overconfident in ourselves, then we're just asking for trouble. The Apostle Paul made this statement,
I can do all things through Christ. But he didn't stop there, did
he? That wasn't the end of his sentence. That wasn't the final
statement, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth
me. It's only through Christ, through
His strength. Oh, that you and I, and I speak
for myself and I trust for you as well, that we could learn
to live recognizing that in ourselves we have no strength, not spiritually. We are just like Reuben, like
Jacob said about his oldest son Reuben, we're all weak as water
when it comes to spiritual strength. The Lord Jesus Christ said, without
me, you can do nothing. Yes, overconfidence. I was looking
at Psalm 27 earlier this morning that, oh, that we could learn
to live like David there in that Psalm said, The Lord is my life
and my salvation, yes, but he goes on to say the Lord is the
strength of my life. The Lord is the strength of my
life. So that's the first step that
I see in Peter's denial, this overconfidence in himself. The
second step is his neglect to watch. His neglect to watch,
look down to verse 37, here in the same chapter, Matthew 26,
verse 37. The Lord Jesus, this is again
one of those times when the Lord separated Peter, James, and John
from the others and took them apart. And verse 37, and he took
with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful
and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, my soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, tarry you here and
watch with me. And he went a little farther
and fell on his face and prayed, saying, oh my father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples
and findeth them asleep. and saith unto Peter, What? Could you not watch with me one
hour? The Lord Jesus knew that this
was an hour of great temptation. His soul, he said, my soul is
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. This was a hour of temptation. The Lord knew that, and he told
these disciples, he told Peter, now watch, watch. What does it mean to watch? What is meant by watching? Well,
what did the Lord Jesus do? He watched. What did he do? He prayed. He prayed. He submitted to the Father's
will. It means to be awake. It means
to be alert. He prayed, Father, if it be possible
for this cup to pass. The lesson for us surely is meant
that we must not neglect prayer. In the letter of Galatians, the
apostle in the last chapter, the way it's divided up in the
last chapter, Paul said, let us not be weary in well-doing. Now I'll speak from my own personal
experience, but I don't know of any well-doing that it is
more easy to grow weary in than prayer. Prayer. Usually when our hearts grow
just a little cold towards the things of God, the first thing
that suffers is prayer. The very first thing that suffers
is we begin to leave off praying and watching, watching, seeking
the Lord's will. And that's the second step I
see in Peter's fall. His denying of the Lord, first
of all, his overconfidence in himself, and secondly, he failed
to watch when the Lord plainly told them, showed them by his
disposition, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. He'd
never told them that before. They'd been with him for three
years, more or less, and he had never said anything like that
before. This was an extreme situation. Watch with me. And what does
Peter do, and James, and John? They went to sleep. The third
step, and I want you to turn with me to see this, to the book
of John, the gospel according to John, chapter 18. The third step that I see in
Peter's fall here is that he was quick to use the
sword. His rash action in using the
sword. Here in John chapter 18 beginning
with verse 7. Then asking them again, that
is the Lord Jesus Christ asked those who had come out to the
garden to arrest him. Whom seek ye? And they said,
Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you
that I am. If therefore you seek me, let
these go their way, that the same might be fulfilled which
he spake. of them which thou gavest me
have I lost none. Then Simon Peter, having a sword,
drew it and smote the high priest's servant and cut off his right
ear. The servant's name was Malchus. His rashness, his action here
was a rash action. Remembering, James tells us in
his letter, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness
of God, This action showed that Peter, and we know this is so,
he still did not understand that the Lord's kingdom is not of
this world. He didn't understand that. If
you look further down in this chapter, chapter 18 of John to
verse 36, when the Lord was before Pilate, and Pilate asked him,
art thou a king? Verse 36, Jesus answered, my
kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight? Well, that's what Peter had done,
wasn't it? He pulled out his sword and cut off that man's
ear. He acted rashly. He still did not understand that
the kingdom of God is not outward. The kingdom of God is within. When the Lord saves a person,
when he saved you, if you're saved this morning, he became
your prophet, your priest, and your king as a mediator. And
as a king, he set up his throne in your heart. He's now your
ruler, your sovereign ruler. His kingdom is not of this world. But he reigns in the hearts and
in the lives of his people. What I see here is Peter acted
so rashly here. You know, some things call for
immediate action. If there's a fire, get the fire
extinguisher. We're not going to sit around
and think about it. There's some actions that call for immediate
action, or some things rather that call for immediate action,
immediate response, but not everything. We need wisdom, don't we, to
know the difference, to know the difference. And we have a
wonderful promise, God's children, you and I, we have a wonderful
promise. And I don't know if we avail
ourselves of this promise like we should. Like we must, when
James said, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who may give
him, no, he didn't say anything about may or might or maybe. Let him ask of God who giveth
all men liberally and upbraideth not. And I like that word upbraideth. You know what that means to me? You asked yesterday for wisdom,
and God gave it to you, and you weren't all that wise, didn't
use it all that well, and you come back the next day and ask
for wisdom again. Well, I gave you wisdom yesterday.
No, he upbraideth not. Come again. Ask again. He doesn't put any limitation
on how many times. No, if any man lack wisdom, whenever
we lack wisdom, let him ask of God, which giveth all men liberally
and upbraided not. And you know, James goes on in
that letter to tell us something about this wisdom that God gives. First of all, it's pure. It's
pure, and then it's peaceable. When Peter took his sword and
cut off that man's ear, I don't see much peaceable wisdom in
that, do you? God's wisdom is pure, it's peaceable,
and it's gentle. Gentle. You know, some people do not
like the letter of James, but it is so practical, isn't it? It meets us where we live. I
don't care how long we've been saved. The letter of James, it
deals with us as we are, not as we would like to be necessarily,
but as we really are. And James goes on there to say,
wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak. We pretty much reverse that,
don't we? Most of us are swift to speak,
Slow to listen. Let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak, slow to wrath. Slow to wrath. We don't see that
in Peter's action here. The fourth step, let's go back
to our text in Matthew chapter 26. The fourth step, and this
is very obvious in verse 58, Peter's following Christ afar
off. Verse 58. But Peter followed him afar off
unto the high priest's palace. It's always bad. This is always
asking for more trouble. The safest place, I should say,
for every child of God will be to be as close to our Savior
as we possibly can be. He's our defender. He's our friend. We need to be as close to him.
Peter followed the Lord Jesus Christ afar off. Now, I believe, and I think you'll
agree with me, Peter by nature was a very courageous man. He
was. He was not a timid type of person. He was a very courageous man
speaking out. But we see his courage beginning
to fail. And one of the reasons, no doubt,
his courage began to fail was because of that action of cutting
that man's ear off. I mean, everybody recognized
who did that. Those soldiers there, they knew.
Peter, he's the guy that did that. He would be easily recognized. He would be apprehended and arrested
also. Well, Peter begins to lose that
courage that I think he naturally had, and he begins to grow weak. I thought of a hymn that we sang
sometime, the words of a hymn that I read Years ago, a book
that was published on the year of the centennial year
of the Baptist churches in the United States, I think it was
in the 1700s. One of the men that commented
on that said, you could not attend a Baptist church in that day
that you didn't hear about God's sovereign election. I mean, that
was a mark. And you couldn't attend a Baptist
church without hearing about the perseverance of the saints.
But he also made this comment. There was a couple of hymns.
He said, you'll always hear these hymns. And one of those hymns
was, am I a soldier of the cross? I looked at those words again.
Am I a soldier of the cross? a follower of the Lamb? And shall
I fear to own his name or blush to speak his name? Must I be
carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease when others fought
to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas? I think sometimes
we lose the fact that God's children have have suffered for the cause of
Christ. We think everything's easy. We
want everything to be easy. We don't want to suffer in any
way. We don't want to be put out in
any way. We want everything to be handed
to us, so to speak, on a silver platter. Well, that was another step.
Peter began to follow the Lord afar off. And as I said, that's
always a dangerous situation. The last step, if you look also
here in Matthew 26 and verse 69, Peter's sitting with the
servants of the high priest. Verse 69, now Peter sat without
in the palace. and he sat with the servants
of the high priest. We're told that in Luke chapter
22. Think of this, how that night
began. Here's Peter, the other disciples
with the Lord Jesus Christ. They observed the Passover, the
last Passover that should have ever been observed because it
was going to be fulfilled. Christ is our Passover. Our Lord
then instituted the Lord's table. And Peter ate that bread that
our Lord said, this represents my body. Peter drank that wine
when he said, this represents, or this is my blood. Do you think
he would have ever, in his wildest imaginations, ever thought when
he was sitting at the table at the beginning of that night,
that before the night was over, he'd be sitting with the enemies
of the Lord? But he was. He was. You know, the Apostle
Paul said, be not deceived. He wrote this in 1 Corinthians
15. Evil communications, and that word communications means
companions, corrupt good manners. Sometimes young people, you may
be here this morning, you don't fully appreciate that your parents
are concerned about who your friends are, who you spend time
with. It's because they know it's important. That your friend, why we pick
up things and we do things that normally we maybe wouldn't have
done, influenced by those we spend time with, our friends.
And it's not just the young people, it's the adults as well. No, our friends, those that we
spend time with. I know we're in the world and
we want to be a testimony and witness to those that are outside
of Christ, certainly. But at the same time, our fellowship
cannot be with people of the world, because what do we have
to fellowship about? About the weather? About sports? Yeah. But really, we
fellowship around Christ, don't we? What are some lessons in
closing? What are some lessons about this?
As I said, this is recorded, as far as I'm concerned, not
to paint Peter in a bad situation. It's for our learning. It's for
our learning. Same thing about Moses. The fact
that he was called the the meekest man, and yet he lost that meekness,
didn't he, at that one time and struck that rock and called the
people of Israel, you bunch of rebels? And that tells us this, that
Satan will attack God's people at what may be considered their
strongest point. Your strongest point, that's
where Satan is going to try to attack. You say, why would Satan
do that? He's not after you. He's after
your Lord, after Christ, after your Savior. He wants to bring
reproach upon him, upon his name. Certainly. What are some lessons
here? Well, first of all, The first
lesson I think of, that teaching of sinless perfection, don't
ever fall for that. Don't ever believe that. Those
people who teach, well, there's a second work of grace and there's
a possibility, you know, you just advance in sanctification
and holiness, you get to the point where you'll never sin
in this, don't believe that. Surely, no one here I know would
believe that. A second lesson is we need Christian
fellowship. You know, in that passage where
Paul said, and forsake not the assembling of yourselves together
as the manner of some is. Let us consider one another.
He goes on to say, let us consider one another to provoke unto love
and good works. We need Christian fellowship. Peter was alone here, wasn't
he? As far as we can see, he's alone here. Wouldn't it have
been better off if he had been with John or James or Philip,
one of those other disciples maybe? But he's alone. Third lesson, we should show
compassion on every believer, any believer who might be overtaken
in a fault. Our Lord did. You remember when
he told Mary, I believe it was Mary, to go and tell his disciples
that he was risen? And Peter? Tell my disciples
and Peter? We should show compassion to
those that may have fallen into some sin, some error. You which
are spiritual, Paul said, restore such a one in the spirit of love. Number four, we should never
cease to praise God for the Savior that we have. Did the Lord know that Peter
was going to deny Him? Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, He said, I prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not. Did our Lord's love for Peter
ever change? Did it ever waver? Of course
not. What a wonderful Savior we have,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the last thing, the Lord's
gracious forgiveness, His gracious forgiveness. He doesn't just
forgive, but He puts that in the past, doesn't He? Peter,
he fell, and there's no doubt about it. He fell in a bad way. But you know what? He still was
used of God. He still was forgiven, wasn't
he? And stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached a message. 3,000 souls were saved. Yeah. The Lord Jesus, his gracious
forgiveness to those who fall. Let us bow our heads.