The Faithful Witness

Transcript of the segment on Simon Peter:
Peter was left standing with the enemy. Look at v. 16, v. 18, v. 25. ‘Peter was also with them standing and warming himself.’ In verse 5, this was said about Judas. And Judas, when the arresting offices came, Judas the traitor was standing there with them. And by his denial of Jesus, he put himself in the same place as Judas, on the side of Christ’s enemies. ‘If you are not for me, Jesus said, you are against me.’ ‘Whoever is not for me is against me.’ Peter is putting himself there. He putting himself in that place which Psalm 1 talks about, as it describes the downward progression of a person, who ‘walks in the counsel of the wicked and stands in the way of sinners.’ Here is Peter standing in the way of sinners. The story of Peter’s betrayal and denial exposes something about us all. It is this, that we under-estimate the darkness of our fallen human hearts. We don’t realize what we are capable of. And like Peter we may profess loudly our love and loyalty to Jesus, and we no doubt mean it, from the very bottom of our hearts. But we must be very careful not to put our confidence in our own strength of character. We must be careful that we don’t think that, somehow or other, just by saying it, it is so. We must always be guarding our hearts.