Denial of the gospel, Mark 14:66-72

In the passage of scripture we read today, we have seen a tragic picture of the fall of one of Christ’s greatest, most courageous disciples.  Peter, by all accounts, was the foremost of the disciples.  He was first to declare Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God.  He was the one to jump in the water to walk on the waves with Christ in a storm.  If he had been a fireman, or a policeman or soldier, he would have always been first through the door.  Peter was a man to look up to.  He was a natural leader.  And yet we see him here falling, falling to the lowest level that anyone could have ever imagined.

It reminds me of the lament that David sang of Saul and Jonathan when they died on the battle field.  David said, “Oh, how have the mighty fallen!” Peter was the mightiest, the most courageous of all the disciples, and yet here he is pictured, denying the Lord three times while Jesus was being tried and beaten just a few yards away.  A tragic figure.  A terrible fall into sin. The old adage seems to be true that the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The question though, as we see Peter rushing out into the night, weeping bitter tearsl, casting himself to the ground in agony at his lack of faith, the question is, how did Peter get to this point? How did he go from being the foremost disciple, part of Jesus’s inner circle, the leader of the band of 12, how did he end up here lying on the ground in disgrace? 

Well, to understand Peter’s fall, we must go back in the gospel accounts to the first step to his declension.  No one goes from the heights of faith to the pit of despair in just a moment. It’s a progression, a downward slide that may be an almost indiscernible drift at first, but it ends up in shipwreck.  It’s like when I see a homeless person on the streets, caught up in addiction, living in poverty and filth, I have to remind myself not to judge him by the way he looks now.  But remember that once upon a time he was a young boy, running around the neighborhood.  Once he was an innocent child.  And I cannot help but wonder what happened in his life that caused him to end up there?  

So let’s retrace the steps of Peter’s denial.  Because I believe we can show that there was a progression which led him to deny Christ.  And perhaps Peter’s fall might serve as a warning to us, that when we think we stand, let us take heed lest we fall.  If Peter could fall, then we all could fall. And perhaps this lesson learned from Peter might even reveal our own fleshly attitudes and actions which are leading us towards a similar fate, and a similar destination.

The first step in the progression of Peter’s failure of faith is found in vs29.  There we see Peter boasting in himself.  Peter said to Jesus, “Even though all may fall away, yet I will not.”  The key to what was wrong in Peter’s response to the Lord’s statement that all of them would fall away that night, was not necessarily in his determination not to fall, but in his superior attitude.  Proverbs says that “pride goes before a fall,”  and Peter shows that in his pride he considers himself superior to the other disciples.  They may fall, they may be weak, but I am not.  I’m better than the other disciples.  I don’t have the sinful issues that they might have. 

Paul warned the Corinthians not to compare themselves against one another. 2Cor. 10:12 “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”  As I have said before, when we see another person who is down and out, who is suffering the consequences of bad decisions, our attitude should be, “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”  We need to guard against pride.

The real problem that Peter’s answer reveals is that he is trusting in his flesh, in his courage, in his strength of will to accomplish what the others could not do.  But again, Paul writing the Romans tells us not to trust in the flesh.  Rom. 7:18 “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.”  We have to walk in the spirit, to keep from fulfilling the desires of the flesh.  Peter though is boasting in his flesh, in his strength. And that’s a dangerous first step in the wrong direction.

The second step in the progression to backsliding, was that Peter argued with the Lord and with the word of the Lord. Vs.31, “But Peter kept saying insistently, ‘Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!’ And they all were saying the same thing also.”  Notice, he kept on

insisting even after Jesus corrected him.  Jesus said that they would all fall away, then Peter denied it.  Then the Lord specifically told Peter that before the cock crowed twice he would deny Him three times.  And Peter begins to argue with the Lord.  He keeps on insisting. 

It’s a dangerous thing to argue with the Lord. You may say, well I would never do such a thing.  But of course you do that very thing when you argue with God’s word.  When God says, leave something alone, do not touch, we want to argue that it won’t really be a bad thing for us.  We can do it and not be tempted, we can go there and not fall away.  It may happen to others, they may become alcoholics, but not me.  They may fall into sexual sin, but not me.  And so we find ourselves arguing with the Lord.  We think we know ourselves better than our Maker does. 

I’m reminded of what Jesus told Peter earlier; “Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.”  It turns out that Satan didn’t have to use some great tool  to turn Peter.  He simply had to use the accusation of a little servant girl, and Peter ’s faith fell like a house of cards.  Because he was dependent upon his own strength. And Satan knows that though our spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.  To rely upon the Spirit, is to walk according to the word of God.  “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11)  And Isaiah 45:9 says, “Woe to him who strives with his Maker!”  If the Lord said it, don’t be foolish enough to go against His wisdom in lieu of your own.  Let God be true, and every man a liar.

The third step in the progression to Peter’s betrayal is that he was sleeping when he should have been praying. Vs.37.  “And Jesus came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”  There is a saying that prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I suggest that the prevention to falling away is prayer.  It’s hard to pray and fall into sin at the same time.

It’s interesting that Mark says that Jesus came to them three times to wake them up from their sleep.  You would think that they would have set themselves on fire in order to stay awake after the first time they fell asleep.  But instead, they seem to have become calloused.  They have no sense of urgency.  They forgot the admonition of Prov. 6:9-11 “How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?  "A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest"--  Your poverty will come in like a vagabond And your need like an armed man.”  Now in context, Solomon was talking about laziness in regards to work, but it certainly applies as well to spiritual poverty.  Phil.2;12 says we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  Thus Peter writing many years later in his last letter says, “be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness.”

There are really only two sources of spiritual strength, prayer and the word of God.  And notice that Jesus puts a great deal of emphasis on prayer as the means of overcoming or resisting temptation. That’s when we confess with our mouth our faith.  That’s when we call upon the Lord to help us to stand, to keep us from falling.  And finally, I can’t help myself on this one, notice that Jesus says, “could you not keep watch for one hour?”  I’m amazed at the excuses that people come up with in regards to coming to church.  One hour a week, and that is too much it seems.  And then we don’t understand why we are having such problems in our lives. Jesus said the church should be a house of prayer.  Peter could have possibly prevented a lifetime of heart ache if he would have just made prayer a priority.  

There is an old song, "What A Friend We Have in Jesus." The one line declares "O what needless pain we bare, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”  Prayer is not just declaring what we want, but submission to what God wants.  Jesus taught us to pray “your will be done.”

Another step in the progression to failure of Peter’s faith, is that in the garden he relies upon physical weapons to fight a spiritual battle. Vs.47, “But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.”  That was Peter, according to the gospel of John.  And we would have expected no less.  They only had two swords among 12 disciples, but you would have expected that Peter made sure he would wear one of them. 

Listen, what happens when we walk in the strength of our flesh, in the wisdom of our mind, rather than in the wisdom of God and the Spirit of God, is that we then find ourselves fighting spiritual battles with fleshly methods.  And not only does that not work, it’s counterproductive to spiritual things.  We may think it makes perfect sense.  We may think we have figured out a method for dealing with a problem, but in the long run, it accomplishes nothing for the faith, or even comes to outright disaster.  

Peter forgets that Jesus could have called 10,000 angels to defend Himself if He had wanted to do that.  This was a pretty large mob, it included not only the temple guards of the high priest, but also a group of Roman soldiers.  Peter’s efforts could have ended up getting him and the rest of the disciples killed.  And the sad part of that is, that it was not God’s will.  It was just the consequences of a headstrong, foolish will on Peter’s part to do things according to what he thought was right.  It’s one thing to suffer for the Lord, it’s another to suffer the consequences of unspiritual thinking.  Peter learned his lesson here though, because many years later he writes; in 1Peter 3:17 “For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.”

The fact is that what seems natural and logical to us is often not the method of the Lord. Isaiah 55:8-9  "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. 9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”  And Zechariah 4:6 speaks to that as well, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts.”

The fifth step in Peter’s progression to denial is found in vs54, with says Peter followed the Lord at a  distance. “Peter had followed Him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the officers and warming himself at the fire.”  After Jesus’s arrest in the garden, Peter fled with all the other disciples.  But then he sort of doubled back and followed the mob back to the high priest’s house.  But whereas in the garden, Peter was right beside the Lord, now he is following at what he thought to be a comfortable, safe distance. 

Listen, there is no safe distance to be from the Lord.  The further you are from the Lord, the more unsafe it is.  If you think you are in a comfortable place with the Lord, then you are about to get a lot more uncomfortable.  James said, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”  But we often think that we don’t want to end up looking like a religious nut, so we find ourselves a comfortable distance from the Lord, where we think we are still close enough to hear Him and see Him, but not too close for comfort, and not so close as to bring undue scrutiny upon ourselves by the world.  We follow at a distance when our hearts are not fully given to the Lord.  We think we are ok being half way.  But that’s a dangerous place to be.

The truth is, we need to be as close as in the same yoke with the Lord if we are going to have any safety.  It’s much safer to be close to the Lord than close to the world.  The world is hostile towards you, if you are a Christian.  Satan is your mortal enemy and looking for an opportunity to strike you, to sift you like wheat.  And when you start hanging near the back of the herd, and then straggling a few dozen yards behind everyone else, the devil’s ears prick up and he begins to stalk you, looking for the right moment to pounce.  But poor old Peter has to learn the hard way.  His prideful confidence regarding his own resources is his downfall, and already he has started to pick up the pace in his descent.

The devil is always going to tempt you to think that you can go over there and still be ok.  You can do this and still be a Christian.  He uses the allure of the world to lure you further and further from being in communion with the Lord.  It reminds me of the story of a rich man that was hiring a new chauffeur to drive his limousine.  And so he came up with a test course to see how well each applicant could drive.  And the course near his mansion had a hairpin curve around a mountain, with a sharp cliff off the side of the road.  The first driver drove his car pretty fast around the curve, and got within a few feet of the guardrail without skidding out.  The second driver decided he needed to outdo the first, so he went even faster and got within a foot of the edge of the road, and he made it fine.  The third driver drove very slowly around the curve, and he stayed as far away as possible from the edge of the road.  Well, the rich man hired the last driver.  He had no interest in seeing how close he could come to running off the road.  He wanted a driver that would stay as far away as possible from danger.

Now that’s the attitude that we need to have.  When we want to see how close to the world we can get and not end up in trouble, then we are playing right into the devil’s hands.  Our desire should  not be to see how close we can live to this world, but how close we can live to Jesus.

Finally, we see Peter warming himself and sharing a fire with the Lord’s enemies. Psalms 1:1 tells us that there is a progression to falling away from the Lord.  It says, “Blessed [is] the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful.”  Notice that he starts off walking in the counsel of the ungodly, then standing in the path of sinners, then finally sitting in the seat of the scornful.  Peter made the same mistakes.  He walked afar off.  He stood near the fire.  Then finally he is seated with and sharing the fire with the very men that are enemies the Lord.

Trying to find companionship and warmth in the things of the world is always a sign of having moved away from the warmth of His love.  And when we find ourselves sitting by the fire of the world, we find ourselves dangerously close to the denial of our Lord.  James 4:4 “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”  

Peter found himself sitting by the fire of the enemies of Christ, the very servants of the high priests who would strike the Lord repeatedly as He was blindfolded, and without realizing it he had put himself in a position to readily deny the Lord, not just once, but three times.

Yet I am sure that none of us today would think that we would ever deny the Lord.  Oh, everyone else may deny the Lord, but I never will.  Yet we may already have denied the Lord either by our words or our actions.  We have denied HIs word, by not doing what He says.  We have denied Him by refusing to spend time with Him in prayer as He desires.  We deny Him by the way we talk, or the way we act when we are around the world.

Notice, that the more the enemies by the fire accused Peter of being with the Lord, the more incensed he became, until he finally begins to curse and swear.  Now cursing and swearing can be a sign of a heart that is far from the Lord, but I don’t think Peter was necessarily saying curse words.  The commentators tell us that Peter was swearing by God, and pronouncing a curse upon himself if he was not telling the truth, that he did not know the Lord.  That’s really a lot worse than saying a couple of swear words.  It’s hard to imagine Peter falling that far, that fast.  Yet as we saw, it really wasn’t an immediate thing.  It was a downhill slide that started some time before with an attitude of pride.

I think Mark is careful to point out the contrast between Jesus speaking under oath in the inner courtroom and Peter's oath in the courtyard. Jesus said he was the Messiah, the Son of God, and Peter denied that he knew Jesus at all.  If there is anything good that comes out of this situation, it is that Peter’s pride was broken that night.  He realized when the cock crowed the second time that what Jesus had prophesied concerning him had come true.  His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.  Luke tells us that when the cock crowed, Jesus looked at Peter.  And I’m sure that look broke his heart, because Mark tells us that he ran out and wept.  

Sometimes, God has to break us before He can use us.  I heard the story of a famous conductor who had written a beautiful song, and a  young woman was chosen to sing it in his presence at a rehearsal.  The woman was very talented, and she sang the song perfectly.  But when the friends of the conductor asked him what he thought of her rendition, he said, “She will be great when something happens to break her heart.”  

In the life of faith, whereby we walk by faith and not by sight, it is not enough to simply believe with your mind the facts of Jesus’s life.  But  a necessary component to faith is repentance, and that comes not simply from sorrow, but from brokenness over your sinfulness.  Recognizing as Paul said, that there is nothing good in you.  And yet the Lord still loves you, and has died for you, so that He might purchase you for His own.  Brokenness is the key to usefulness. Brokenness is realizing that the flesh is worthless.  Jesus said in John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Even Peter’s professed love for the Lord was not able to sustain him in his time of trial because he was dependent upon his flesh, on human abilities and human resources, to carry him through. In the hour of crisis, even love was not really effective in keeping him close to the Lord. Love and loyalty and determination mean nothing when they rest on the shaky foundation of the  human will.  Our steadfastness is not dependent upon our will power, but on the power of the Holy Spirit, who works in us through prayer and the word of God. 

When I look at the lives of many Christians today, I am afraid for them because they depend upon the flesh.  They exhibit sentimentalism instead of sacrificial love. They evaluate spiritual things with worldly appraisals. They propose fleshly methods for dealing with spiritual problems. But God choses to work in the Spirit, which is contrary to the flesh.  Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  

But we bring the flesh into the church, we bring the world into the church, and like Peter slashing with the sword, we try to fight spiritual battles with worldly weapons.  And like Peter, it leads to our spiritual destruction.  That’s why Paul could say, that he gloried in his weakness.  Notice he doesn’t say he gloried in his sinfulness.  He was not glad he was weak, but in recognition of his weakness he knew his dependency was in Christ.  And so he dared not stray from  closeness to Christ.

Paul goes on to say in 2Cor. 12:5, 9-10  “On behalf of such a man I will boast; but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses. ... 9 And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  The source to our spiritual strength is our utter dependence upon Christ dwelling in me and my fellowship with Him through prayer and through His word.

The late Paul Harvey used to end his popular radio broadcasts by saying, “And now you know the rest of the story…”  The chapter ends with Peter going out and weeping bitter tears at denying Christ.  But I want to just leave you with the rest of the story.  Jesus, after being resurrected, made a special  private visit to Peter in order to restore him to Himself again.  And then, one more time before His ascension, Jesus made another appearance as Peter and the disciples were fishing, and this time Jesus publicly restored Peter not only to fellowship with Him, but usefulness to the kingdom. Once Peter recognized his weakness, and repented of his pride and self sufficiency, then the Lord could use him.

The good news is, that if you have seen in yourself some parallel today in the life of Peter, you recognize that you have started slipping away from fellowship with the Lord, then there is the invitation of Christ to be renewed and restored to usefulness.  And that starts with repentance.  David, who also fell away and by his actions denied the Lord, prayed a prayer of repentance in Psalm 51, 10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. ... 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. ... 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”

The Lord is willing to forgive and restore those who come to Him in faith and repentance.