SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/3/2024 10:02 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “Intro to Matthew 26:69-75”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:69-75
Message of the verses: “69 All this time
Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a maidservant came up to him
and said, "Weren’t you too with Jesus, the man from Galilee?" 70 But
he denied it before them all, saying, "I don’t know what you’re talking
about." 71 Then when he had gone out into the porch, another maid caught
sight of him and said to those who were there, "This man was with Jesus of
Nazareth." 72 And again he denied it with an oath — "I
don’t know the man!" 73 A few minutes later those who were standing about
came up to Peter and said to him, "You certainly are one of them, it’s
obvious from your accent." 74 At that he began to curse and
swear — "I tell you I don’t know the man!" Immediately the
cock crew, 75 and the words of Jesus came back into Peter’s
mind — "Before the cock crows you will disown me three
times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.”
I want to finish the steps which caused Peter’s
denial of Christ as we looked at the first two in yesterday’s SD. Peter’s third step toward denying Christ was
prayerlessness, which was a manifestation of sinful self-confidence. As we look at the life of Jesus Christ on
earth He had a constant prayer life with His Father. Dr. Wiersbe writes about what “Prayer without
ceasing” means as he states that one has to keep the phone off the hook. He wrote that when the majority of people had
land lines, not cell phones. Jesus
always had the phone off the hook, and in this case Peter did not.
MacArthur writes on this subject: “When Jesus took Peter, James, and John
farther into the garden and left them to watch and pray while He spoke
intimately with His Father, all three of the disciples fell asleep. When he found them asleep, Jesus addressed
Peter as leader and spokesman of the Twelve, saying, ‘So, you men could not
keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep
watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation’ (Matt.
26:40-41). The Lord went away to pray
privately two more times, and each time Peter and the others fell back to sleep
(43,45). Jesus had just warned them that
‘the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’ (41), but they felt no weakness
and saw no need to be watchful or prayerful. Because they did not take
seriously the Lord’s warnings about their deficiencies and frailties, they did
not take seriously His admonition to be prepared and strengthened. Self-confidently trusting their own judgment
above the Lord’s, they were indifferent to His call to prayer.”
Now we look at the forth step toward denial and that was
Peter’s independent, self-generated impulsiveness. It does not take too long to find this characteristic
of Peter in the New Testament, and I know that the Lord was putting up with it
because of how He planned to use Peter especially after His return to
heaven.
Peter sensed no need to ask the Lord’s advice or help, he
took matters into his own hands. This
can be seen as soon as the Roman officers laid their hands on Jesus that Peter
took his sword and cut off the ear of the slave of the high priest, and make no
mistake Peter was aiming for his head.
Jesus and also the others were taught by Jesus that it was the Lord’s
will for Christ to go to the cross, to suffer and die and then be raised from
the dead. (Matt. 16:21; 17:22-23;
20:18-19) Peter just refused to believe
it as remember when he said “Not so Lord.”
After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and when the Holy Spirit
came upon the disciples Peter was a different person and understood the reason
why Jesus had to go to the cross, and that was to pay for the sins of the
world.
Now we move to the last, the fifth step towards Peter’s
denial of Christ which was his compromise in allowing himself to be in a place
of spiritual danger—such as the courtyard of the high priest—where his faith
might be tested above his ability to resist.
MacArthur adds “The Lord’s promises not to allow His children ‘to be
tempted beyond what [they] are able’ (1Cor. 10:13) and ‘to rescue the godly
from temptation’ (2 Pet. 2:9) do not apply to willful disobedience.” (That is a really good point to understand.)
He goes on “Peter could not accept the word of the Lord
because he was so controlled by his ego and self-sufficiency that he felt infallible. And perhaps because he had just seen the
entire multitude suddenly fall at Jesus’ feet (John 18:6), he also felt
invincible as long as the Lord was nearby.
If Jesus could miraculously save him from drowning when he tried to walk
on water (Matt. 14:31), He could protect him now.
“But again Jesus had to tell Peter he was out of God’s
will and pointed out to him how foolishly presumptuous he was to think that He,
Jesus, needed to depend on Peter for safety (Matt. 26:52-53). Well-meaning and humanly courageous as he
was, Peter continually placed his self-centered human understanding above the
Lord’s divine revelation. His own human
will was a barrier to obeying the Lord’s will.”
We will look at two subjects about Peter’s denial as we finish
this last section of the 26th chapter of Matthew, a chapter that we
began looking at on the 6th of April this year. “Peter’s Collapse” and “Peter’s Repentance”
are the two sub-sections we will be looking at and the first one will take us
the longest to get through.
7/3/2024 10:52 AM
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