Reading: Luke 9:28-36; Matt. 17:1-9; Mark 14:66-72; 2
Pet. 1:18.
One would not put these
Scriptures together in this way - for it would seem
rather unfair to Peter - but for the fact that this
account given in "Mark" of Peter's denial was
virtually Peter's own record of what took place. The
great influence in Mark's life eventually was Peter, and
it is quite generally accepted that the Gospel by Mark,
as it is called, is really Peter's record of things, and
bears all the marks of his nature and character. It is
therefore impressive that Peter recorded so definitely
and clearly the account of what took place, and drew
attention so plainly to the vehemence of his denial of
the Lord. That is some justification for placing the
denial alongside of the great event of the
transfiguration.
We have seen on an
earlier occasion how heaven and hell, God and Satan, were
contending for the ground in the soul of this man, and
that everything for Peter's future usefulness to the Lord
depended upon the Lord's having the ground by Peter's own
yielding of it to Him.
Now here we might speak
of the height and the depth possible in the soul of one
person. Here is the mountain - probably Hermon, over nine
thousand feet high - a symbol of the great spiritual
height represented by the transfiguration. We are not
speaking about the transfiguration at the moment, but it
does represent a very great height of spiritual vision
and experience. One would think that it would be
impossible to rise to anything higher than to see the
glorified Son of man. How high a spiritual thing that was
for these men! And then, right at the other extreme, it
is difficult to think of anything much deeper and lower
than Peter's vehement and repeated denial of his Lord.
How high! How low! How wide is the range of possibility
in the life of any child of God! I expect we know just a
little of this. There are times when we feel we are on
the very mountain top with the Lord, and we wonder if
ever again we shall be found guilty of the doubts and
fears that have characterised us before. We feel that now
we shall go on, and there will be no more ups and downs;
and it is not always very long before we seem to be just
at the other extreme, and wonder if ever we shall be up
again. This is not an uncommon experience. We may be
amazed at Peter and say, 'If ever I had such an
experience and saw the Lord transfigured, I should never
get anywhere near denying Him after that.' But I think we
know enough to know that such things are not impossible.
There are great heights and great depths which remain
possible to the soul of any man or woman. And that is the
point, I think, of the whole thing.
You see, the Lord was
making it perfectly clear to Peter and to others during
their time with Him that they, in themselves, were not to
be relied upon, and He was saying through them to us that
the stability is not in us, in what we are at all. We can
never come to a place where we are settled and sure that
there will be no more variations; we are not of that
stuff, especially when we come into the spiritual realm
where we have to meet the extra factors which Peter was
undoubtedly meeting in the desire of Satan to have him to
sift him as wheat. So stability is not in us, and the
Lord takes great pains and goes a very long way to settle
us as to that matter, to undercut all the ground of
self-strength and self-sufficiency. It is something that
has got to be established and maintained all the way
along in order that one thing may be made manifest - one
thing which came out in Peter's life and is perhaps the
great thing which characterised him. That one thing is
the grace of God.
The Lord knew whom He
had chosen (John 13:18). "He needed not that any one
should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew
what was in man" (John 2:25). And yet, knowing
exactly these heights and these depths, these terrible
reactions and rebounds, knowing how far Peter could and
would go - and we too in the same way - He chose him.
Surely it is sovereign grace! When you come to read
Peter's letters, you find that the key to his letters is
grace. It is a simple, but tremendously helpful, message
to our hearts. On the one hand, the Lord leaves us in no
doubt whatever as to what kind of stuff we are made of,
and it would be very easy for us to despair of ourselves
when we find the tremendous extremes of elation, and then
of depression, which are possible in us; but the grace of
God is greater than all that, and it is through making us
aware of that utter worthlessness which belongs to us
that He displays His grace most gloriously.
Peter, as an example,
is taken on the way which lays down a very sure
foundation for the grace of God. We can understand Peter
speaking much about grace. But then, you see, there was
the ministry aspect of it. "Simon, behold, Satan
asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat; but I
made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not; and
do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy
brethren" (Luke 22:31,32). The real ministry of
Peter was going to be strengthening, confirming,
encouraging his brethren, and undoubtedly that ministry
was along these lines. Many of his brethren would come to
the place where they were prepared to give up and
disappear from the work because of the consciousness of
their own insufficiency and weakness. There would be a
great need for a confirming, establishing, and
strengthening ministry, for this very reason, that the
Lord was never going to allow His blessings, however
great, to obscure the fact that all was of grace, and
that on the human side all was weakness and
worthlessness. In that realm we well know how much a
ministry is called for to strengthen and confirm the
Lord's people. And so the ground for that had to be laid
very truly and deeply in Peter's own life. If we are
allowed or caused to see, perhaps in some deeper and
fuller way, our own worthlessness, it is that we may
discover more fully the grace of God in order that we may
be able to help others who are on the point of despairing
and giving up. There is a ministry factor in it, and we
find that, in the case of Peter and Paul and others, the
Lord was making the ground safe for service.
It is very impressive
to notice that, however great were the blessings of the
Lord, however much the power of God came to rest upon
these men - and I need not remind you how greatly Peter
and Paul were blessed and used by God - yet all that was
never for one moment allowed to cover over the fact of
the utter helplessness and worthlessness of the men in
themselves. It seems as though the Lord kept that balance
all the way along. There is a very great peril in being
used and blessed - the peril that we should forget that
this is the Lord and not ourselves at all: that we do not
figure in it. If the Lord for one moment lifted His hand
from us we should go utterly to pieces and could commit
the most awful sin and make shipwreck of our lives - as
the outflow of what is in us. That could be, and the Lord
would take great pains to see that that does not happen
as the result of His own blessing. He will not bless to
our undoing. So, if He blesses, if He uses, He will
always balance it in some way with that which will keep
us aware that this is not coming from us but from the
Lord. He makes usefulness safe by always keeping us
conscious of the underlying fact of what we actually and
truly are in ourselves.
I think these are some
further characteristics of the life of one who may be led
into a knowledge of the Lord and into usefulness to Him.
Service has its principles, and Peter undoubtedly
represents the man of service to the Lord. But what a
background there is for that service! And it will never
be otherwise with any of us. Even though we may never
rise to the measure of Peter's value, nevertheless we are
going, either here or hereafter, to be of very great
service to the Lord - that is what He is after, but our
theme will ever have to be, Grace, wonderful grace,
unspeakable grace.