Forgiven and
Set Free to Serve
the Savior
(part 1)
A Walk of Faith Devotional by Dave Bunnell
On the night before the crucifixion, Peter had failed Jesus as badly as one can fail Him. Would it be possible for God to ever use Peter again? Let’s look at that sorrowful night through Peter’s eyes, and see if God was at work in Peter’s life even during Peter’s time of disobedience. Through this, we will learn a wonderful and almost unbelievable attribute of God:
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.”
As the apostles were about to leave the upper room and head for Gethsemane, Peter’s heart was filled with pride in what he would accomplish for the Lord. “Even if everyone else here falls away from you,” he told Jesus, “I will stick with you, even in prison or in death.”
When we are prideful, God is forced to humble us, because we are useless to Him when we’re trying to accomplish good things in our own strength. He “resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” So Jesus was going to have to let Peter suffer defeat, so that he could be humbled. So that he could learn that his own heart was wicked and deceitful, and that there was nothing good in him but God.
The Bible tells us that as the last supper was being celebrated, Satan was there, and that he was conversing with Jesus. Satan wanted the apostles. Jesus addressed Simon Peter on the subject, “Simon,” He said, “Satan has asked to have you all, that he may sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you.” (In the Greek, the “you” in the first sentence spoken to Simon is plural, referring to all the apostles.)
Because of the hardness of Judas’ heart, Jesus let Satan have him. But Jesus knew of Peter’s desire to serve Him. He knew it was real. He knew He just had to get Peter’s “self” out of the way for the promise of making “Simon” into “Peter” to come true. The pride had to be dealt with, and Peter had to be allowed to suffer defeat in his Christian walk. So that he could be restored. (Are you struggling with a sin that has control of you? Do you complain to God that you aren’t receiving deliverance? Perhaps there is a problem with pride that God is dealing with in you. Perhaps He has to let you suffer defeat, until you learn to depend on Him and not on yourself to find victory. Pray about the possibility, and let God speak.)
Jesus already knew how Peter would be restored after his fall, and how he would then be more useful to God, and thus more powerful than he had ever even dreamed of being. Walking on water was going to seem like a small miracle 54 days or so later at Pentecost. But Peter’s own small dreams and pride would have to be done away with first.
Peter’s fall was already set in motion. The omniscient prophecy of Christ had already been made. “Before the crow of the rooster, you will say you don’t even know Me three times.” But Jesus was also already prophesying and setting in motion Peter’s restoration to service. “When you return,” Jesus told Peter, “strengthen your brothers.” When we fail God, it saddens God, but does not take Him by surprise. And He knows how to restore us, before we fall in the first place. Are you struggling with the pain of a recent fall? Jesus wants you to return to intimate fellowship with Him, and allow His strength and power in you to be a force of strengthening your brothers.
Let’s go back to that night in the upper room.
In Peter’s pride, he made another mistake. He misinterpreted the word of the Lord — something we will all be capable of doing when we try to make the Bible tell us what we want to hear. Don’t torture the scriptures until they confess to what you want them to say. If you read God’s word and think it’s instructing you to do something un-Christlike, assume that you’re misinterpreting it, as Peter was about to do when He thought Jesus was telling him to do something ungodly.
Luke’s gospel records the last words of Jesus before leaving the upper room, which Peter would misunderstand. “He who has no moneybag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment to buy one. For I say to you that this which is written about Me is about to be accomplished: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’”
Jesus was telling His disciples, using symbolism, that the world was about to treat Him as a criminal. The attire of a robber is a sword and a moneybag. Jesus was telling them that as He went to the cross, they needed to be ready to identify with Him in being falsely accused by the world. “It’s more important than the clothes on your back to be known from now on as My followers,” He was saying, “so if you don’t have a sword, sell your garments to buy one.”
Peter misunderstood. So when he faced the temptation to refuse to identify with Christ, he would fall. Peter heard the word of the Lord through fleshly, prideful ears. He determined it to mean that he should get a literal sword and be ready to fight–and that’s just what he did.
Next came the familiar scene in Gethsemane. Three times, Jesus pleaded with Peter and the others to pray, and three times they refused, falling asleep. Three opportunities for prayer were ignored, so Peter would three times fail his Lord.
Then they come. A crowd of the religious leaders and a mob of Roman soldiers, armed with swords and clubs to take Jesus away. And Peter, in his pride, makes the dumbest mistake of his life. He pulls out his sword to fight a spiritual battle in the flesh. His anger flares and his fear causes his adrenaline to rush, as he commits a great sin against one of the few innocent people in the crowd. Swinging his sword at the servant of the high priest, Peter slices off his ear.
What if Jesus hadn’t intervened at that point? What would have been the consequences of Peter’s sin? I submit that four very bad results of Peter’s sin were on the way.
First, he was leading others into the same path of sin. One of the gospel accounts tells us that the other disciples were then asking Jesus, “Is now the time when we take our swords and fight?” Others were being called to sin by Peter’s sinful actions.
Second, Peter’s testimony for the Lord was being ruined. Jesus was a man of peace, and His disciple was becoming an insurrectionist and a man of war. He was committing an act of violence, and the world would rightly judge him.
Third, Peter was interfering with the sovereign and expressed will of God. Jesus had told them repeatedly that He must go to Jerusalem to be delivered into the hands of sinners to be crucified. Peter’s sin was fighting against God’s plan and against what Jesus had told them He was to do. So Jesus asked him then, “Shall I not take the cup that is before Me?” Peter’s flesh-driven battle against evil was actually interfering with the impending salvation of the cross.
Fourth, Peter was placing his own life at risk without God’s permission to do so, and so he was threatening the fulfillment of the promise of everything Christ had said He would do through Peter. Without God’s intervention, Peter had mere seconds to live. The Roman soldiers would have mercilessly bludgeoned him with clubs and cut off his head, along with the other apostles.
But none of these four terrible consequences actually happened. Because the mercy of God intervened in three wonderful ways that show us how God deals with us, too, in the aftermath of our greatest failures.
Part 2 coming soon
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