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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/murray-mccandless/bad-beginnings/
Very quickly, if you would, just to Matthew Chapter 16, Matthew Chapter 16. My brother Portman is a good mathematician. I know he's a brilliant man. He's a good mathematician. And I've always said, too, the worst thing a preacher can do, the worst at is dividing.
He just can't do it. He can add. And sometimes that's dangerous. He adds more than there are there. He counts years instead of people if it's a meeting. But dividing, they just can't seem to get it sometimes, but he divided the time.
Matthew 16 and verse number, really, 14, 1st chapter 14. And I'm going to draw on your knowledge of the chapter. And just come down, please, to verse 29. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind and boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
Now, Chapter 16, Chapter 16. And you'll notice his tremendous confession in verse 16. Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.
And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Somehow you wish the chapter would end there for Peter, but come down, please, to verse number 22.
Verse 22, Chapter 16. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. And he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art a fence unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
And now for a final reading, please, in Chapter 26, Chapter 26. And this is another chapter, and Peter's experience, he wished it had concluded just a little earlier. And verse 71, And when he was gone out into the porch, that is, Peter another made psalm, and said unto him, Them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth, and gainly denied with an oath, I do not know the man.
And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou art also one of them, for thy speech be rayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man, meetly the cockcrow.
And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cockcrow thou shalt deny me. Thrice said he went out and wept bitterly. Interesting, if you were to go through your Bible, you very easily could do it with concordance and notice the beginnings that we have in the Bible and the endings.
And there's some tremendous links, of course, concerning that. Luke is one that uses the expression, even with the prodigal, remember, he began to be in what? But I want to think just primarily on Peter, and this fits well with what our brother Thompson was telling us about Peter, some of the highlights, like really who rose to the level that Peter ever rose to.
Yet when you think of Peter, who ever went lower than Peter did? So it wasn't that he was a man of emotionally of highs and lows, but I want to think just particularly of bad beginnings. Bad beginnings.
Now as I look at you today, we all had a good beginning. Every believer that's saved here today, even though I cannot tell your testimony, I've heard of some, we all had a good beginning. We began with Christ.
Any beginning we had prior to that was a bad beginning. But unfortunately in our Christian experience, there are things that we begin to do in our life that are not always good. And here's a man and at three times it says concerning him, he began, he began, he began.
Three bad beginnings. Chapter 14, he is beginning to sink in his watchfulness. You know, it's interesting, but he takes his eyes off the Lord and he sees the wind and he's beginning to sink in his watchfulness.
Chapter 16, he's beginning to slink in his waywardness. Something's happening with Peter now. Where's the man that confesses Christ? Where's the man that steps forward in front of all those disciples and says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
But he's just kind of slinking away. A little bit like Demas, okay? You go through and notice the three mentions of Demas. Demas did not totally break down at once. It was just something that began just very gradually, very easily.
So he's beginning to slink in his waywardness. In chapter 26, I would suggest to you, he is beginning to shrink in his witness. I mean, it's a little bit like Elijah. One time he's out in front of Ahab's chariot and he's beating it down the road and he's going.
Nice man, and he's running away from a woman. But maybe if I had that woman in my life, I'd be running from her too. So I'm not going to be too hard on him. But beginning in chapter 14, it's interesting.
It says that the Lord caught him. The believer can sink. They'll never drown, okay? You can begin in your experience to go down. Remember the psalmist, he says he wanted to be preserved lest he would become like those that go down to the pit.
That thought that is given there, lest I start to go in that direction. It's interesting, the Lord didn't say, you know, I'm going to teach him a lesson like we would maybe sometimes, thinking on the wrong side of things.
I'll just let him, you know, take a few gulps of water. Let him take a little seawater in and then we'll rescue him. And he'll learn his lesson. As soon as he cries, he's saved. The Lord caught him immediately.
I might speak to this up here today, just as we conclude this conference. And really at the start of this conference, there have been some bad beginnings. Things weren't just as they used to be, okay?
In your life personally, I can only speak from my own experience, but there's been some slipping. And you know that. Nobody knows it better than you do. Maybe you haven't come to that point where you've really confessed that to the Lord.
And I'm not telling you that you have to do that. But you know as well as I do, you're starting to go down a little bit. I trust this conference, for me, for me, and for you, will be a new beginning. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing?
New beginning. I've got all these brethren here, and they're determined not to have, and sisters too, not to have an accident in their calendar. Isn't that right? Going to give that track out? If you don't do it, brethren, who does it?
Wouldn't that be a new beginning for you? If you've been giving them out daily prior to this, good for you. Sisters too, you can give them out. Whatever it might be. I'm only suggesting that because it came into my mind.
But, new beginning. But here's a bad beginning. He was going down into familiar territory. I mean, nobody knew the sea better than he did. I mean, after all, who would know it better than Peter? Who would know Peter's voice across the waters better than...
No voice was known better likely than Peter. Peter was, you know, I have every reason to believe that in business, he was something like he was in his spiritual life. He was just kind of a leader. And when everybody else was holding their tongue, he was prepared to step forward and have something to say.
It's interesting. Not only did the Lord catch him immediately, but notice the Lord didn't wait too long. Okay? Excuse me. Peter didn't wait too long. Peter didn't say, I'll try my treading water, see what I make out here.
And if things don't go well, then I'll call for him. See, didn't David do that? David waited too long. That's why you've got the Psalms that are written. That's why his heart is broken. He waited too long.
Isn't Samson do the same thing? Well, when does Samson give his prayer? Almost when it's a little too late. Should have done that earlier. But Samson is a man that waited too long. Listen to his cry. Oh, Lord, remember me.
Did he think the Lord had forgotten him? No, but it was just kind of a late, desperate cry. Lord, remember me. When all else is lost. Sometimes, you know, we just don't have the wisdom to just to yield, to give in for any sake.
Maybe there's a situation between someone in the assembly and, you know, there's a big thing going on and you just don't want to give in. A little bit like the story of the captain on the ship. He had a parrot.
But there was a magician on the ship as well. And I was going to say my children hauled my wife and I onto one of these cruises and I saw their magician and what else. I was thinking of it. Anyhow, there's a magician on the ship and there was the captain's parrot.
And then the magician, he'd do his work on the parrot. Just every time he'd be in the back, he'd fake, fake, fake. And the magician, he'd get sick of it. He'd ignore them. And he just, every time he saw, go by, see the magician walk, fake, he'd say.
But he's the captain's parrot, so what are you going to do? Big storm came up. And you know what happened. Ship went down. Now, the magician and the parrot are both in the same light bulb. They're sitting there glaring at each other.
Remember when people do that to you? Kind of glare at you, you know, just glaring. Not saying a word. Nothing. Finally, the parrot gave in. He says, okay, what did you do with the ship? So sometimes, brethren, it just pays to just give in.
Why not just give in? Why hold your ground? Why be so tenacious about it? But it says, Lord save me. And the Lord saved him immediately. Chapter 16, beginning to slink. You know, it's interesting. The Lord asked a very simple question.
Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Now, what would qualify an answer to that? Well, you had to be talking to people about the Son of Man. How would you know? Could you imagine all of a sudden they're just kind of dumbstruck there and say, oh, we really haven't been talking to people.
Let me ask you. You know, we're not back to tracks here, but you speak to people. Who do they tell you he is? Do they know anything about him? Do they? What was the last response you got when you spoke about Christ?
Is he any different to us and is challenged to us today than he was then? I don't think so. And finally, you know, maybe some of them hadn't been. They did lots of talking. We've been reminded of Luke.
They said they discussed who would be the greatest. Well, you know, you can't be talking to men about the Christ if you're deciding between yourselves who's really the greatest. Finally, Peter steps forward and, well, first of all, some say, who do they say the Son of Man is?
And they said, okay, that's plural. Some said, thou art John the Baptist, Elias, and Jeremias, one of the prophets, and he saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? That's an individual. Peter says, okay.
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. He makes not only a confession, but I take it that the confession that he has made, Peter has heard from somebody that. You know, ultimately you will run into people, even though they want to deny Christ, in their living, they know him to be such.
And when we come down, the cross thing, the thought of the Lord Jesus dying and not being with them was just a little bit more than they could really handle. And finally, Peter took him and then Peter took him and began to rebuke him.
Imagine rebuking the Lord. It's a bad beginning, bad beginning. Saying, be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. Be it far from thee. It's a bad beginning. It was just kind of a slink in his waywardness, just something coming in there that was just a wayward thing about it.
Finally, let me come to the last, chapter 26, and I will close on time. Just the way the light's at that clock, it's giving me a hard time, so it'll be my excuse. No, it won't. Chapter 26, he begins to shrink in his witness.
The Lord besought him. Didn't leave him, didn't say that, you know, it's interesting. He didn't say, fine, Peter, that's it. I'm all done with you. I'm finished. You have denied me for the last time. Let me ask you today, are you living a life that is in denial to the Lord Jesus?
Oh, you say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm in the assembly fellowship. I break bread, but that's not what I asked you. Are you living a life that is in denial to the Lord Jesus? Are you associated with something today that you know there's things that are grieving the Lord, and there's something telling you you need a new beginning?
There's a man back our way, came into the assembly fellowship, and he sat back for a while, and he observed the order of the assemblies that functioned, and he come to one quick discovery, and it's not that we are the people.
Okay, don't take that from us, brethren. He said, God is among them of a truth. And he sat down with those brethren, and he said, I want to become part of that fellowship. He said, can I become part of that fellowship?
They said, we'd love to have you. And he came in, and he's been there all his life. What was it? It was a new beginning. A new beginning. It wasn't that there was so much wrong with where he was going.
There's many, many other people, more people going there than where he went to. But you know what he saw? God is among you of a truth. That's a new beginning in his life. Maybe I'm speaking to some of you who are not in assembly fellowship, but baptized, some that haven't been baptized.
How about a new beginning? Anything before that is a bad beginning. It's a bad beginning because really you are denying him. There's two disciples of whom it is said that they went out. We read concerning Judas that it was night, the day would never dawn again.
It would be eternal darkness. Went out and he hanged himself. He went to his own place. But Peter went out to weep and to witness the dawning of a new day. Okay? Three bad beginnings. But it was a new beginning.
But I just want to close saying this. What was it that took Peter away? It was a luck. It was a luck. Saw the wind. Saw the circumstances. Listen, if I see all the circumstances that are associated even with assembly testimony, all the circumstances that are wrong in my life, I don't know why you'd want to be around me, really.
But that's what took him away. Why start looking, brother, at all your weaknesses? It'll take me away. You look at mine, it'll take you away too. It was a luck that took him away. But do you know what it was?
It was a luck that brought him back. It was a luck that brought him back. It was the Lord that looked on Peter. And it melted Peter. I often think of Miss Ora Rowan's hymn. "'Tis the luck that melted Peter.
"'Tis the face that Stephen saw. "'Tis the heart that wept with Mary,. "'Draw on, win and fill completely, "'Til the cup o 'erflow the brim. "'What have we to do with idols who have accompanied?'. As we leave Waukesha Conference, don't we have the opportunity, all of us, to do?
A new beginning. A new beginning. Don't make it a bad beginning.