WWUTT 2502 Peter Denies that He Knows Jesus (Luke 22:54-62)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus. When he realized what he had done, he went out and wept bitterly.

00:09

We also need to grieve over our sin, and God will forgive us when we understand the text.

00:24

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

00:30

Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

00:38

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we come back to chapter 22.

00:46

We've read of the last supper with Jesus' disciples, Him praying in the garden.

00:51

He was betrayed and arrested in the section that we read yesterday. And today we're looking at where prophecy is again fulfilled, for Peter denies

01:00

Jesus just as Jesus told him. This is verses 54 through 62.

01:08

Hear the word of the Lord. Then they seized Jesus and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house.

01:17

And Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together,

01:23

Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said,

01:33

This man also was with him. But he denied it, saying,

01:38

Woman, I do not know him. And a little later someone else saw him and said,

01:43

You also are one of them. But Peter said, Man, I am not. And after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying,

01:53

Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean. But Peter said,

01:59

Man, I do not know what you are talking about. And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

02:07

And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the

02:12

Lord, how he had said to him, Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.

02:21

And he went out and wept bitterly. As we've been looking at the sections of Luke 22 that we've been looking at this week,

02:31

I've talked about the fulfillment of Scripture, the fulfillment of prophecy that has happened even as Jesus is being arrested and led away.

02:39

Yesterday, we considered Judas betraying Jesus into the hands of the Pharisees, just as it had been prophesied about in the

02:45

Psalms, in Zechariah and other places. Judas was being called the son of destruction.

02:52

Jesus said in John 6 that he had a demon. He was the son of perdition. He was born to do this dreadful deed and be destroyed.

03:03

Judas betrayed Jesus into the hands of his enemies. And here in the section that we look at today,

03:11

Peter denies Jesus, denies that he even knows him. And this also is in fulfillment of Scripture.

03:17

It's in fulfillment of that Scripture that says the shepherd will be struck and the sheep will be scattered, because that's what happened with all of the disciples.

03:24

But specifically, Jesus said to Peter, before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times.

03:31

I come back again to chapter 22, verses 31 to 34. Jesus says,

03:36

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

03:46

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter said to him,

03:52

Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death. Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny me three times that you even know me.

04:05

And so here is the fulfillment of exactly what Jesus had prophesied to him. This is

04:10

Jesus, not just knowing the future of what is going to take place by the hand of the father.

04:17

It is the father's will that all of this would happen in just this way. And Jesus knew that. But it's also

04:23

Jesus knowing Peter's heart. He knew that his spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

04:32

He also knew that Peter had an expectation here that was not really what was going to happen.

04:37

I mentioned this yesterday, but the disciples wanting to see that Jesus was just going to break out of this pilgrimage thing that he had been doing all over Galilee and Judah and were healing people and feeding them and preaching the message of the kingdom.

04:52

OK, enough of that. It's time to to now break out and we're going to assume the throne again as Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem.

04:59

That's exactly what the disciples think is going to take place. So Peter's expecting that to happen.

05:05

And yet Jesus doesn't do it. And part of Peter's tenacity, part of his his head, strongness and his stubbornness or surety, whichever you want to call it.

05:16

But as as sure as Peter is in all of these things that are going to take place. He believes

05:22

Jesus is that Messiah and he's going to be a military emancipator. He is going to lead a revolt that is going to free us from the tyranny of Rome.

05:32

And so when Peter says something like, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death, he thinks this is what we're supposed to be doing and Jesus is not going to fail.

05:41

That's how much trust I have in this guy. Jesus is going to succeed. Look at all these miracles that he does.

05:47

Who can possibly stop us when Jesus can heal sickness and injury?

05:54

Any of us get stabbed or shot with an arrow or something like that, but Jesus will just heal us. We'll just keep right on going.

05:59

I have to wonder if any of those conversations had actually come up among the disciples when they talked about that.

06:07

The scripture doesn't record any of that for us. But when Jesus was not around, did they talk about these things like this?

06:12

Did they strategize? Did they they think that, OK, so if this happens, here's what we're going to do.

06:18

Were they drawing up private military plans for one another? I'm curious about that. I remember one time years ago when well, when

06:27

I was in high school. So, of course, this was years ago. This was decades ago now we're in the in the multiples of decades when

06:33

I was last in high school. It's now over 25 years ago. I was sitting with some friends in the cafeteria.

06:40

So this was a long time ago before social media. But we still had plenty of video games and we like to play video games.

06:46

We're sitting there at the at the lunch tables in the cafeteria and one of our friends comes over and sits down having gotten his tray and he comes and sits with us and we're all just sitting there quiet eating our food.

06:58

He says, I've never seen you guys this quiet before. What are you thinking about? And one of my friends, Aaron, who is sitting kind of across from me, he said,

07:06

I was thinking about if somebody came through that door with a gun, I would flip over this table here, probably run over there and take cover.

07:15

And we're all like, dude, I was thinking the same thing. If somebody came in here, what would our strategy be?

07:20

You could tell we had been playing way too many video games. That was what was in our heads. That's what we're thinking about as guys and as guys who play too many video games or think about what sort of strategy we need to make here in order to save lives or take out the gunner or whatever else.

07:36

And so I have to wonder, did the disciples have those kinds of conversations believing that Jesus was going to be a military force?

07:45

He was leading an army against Rome. Who's going to be in this army?

07:51

What sort of strategy are we going to have? I'm sure he's got all the strategic maps in his head, but we should be ready, right?

07:59

If we have to protect him, what is it that we're going to do? And Peter's strategy, of course, was to just draw a sword and start swinging, cuts off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest, as we read about yesterday.

08:11

Jesus saying no, no more of this, because this was not the way that the kingdom of God was going to come. We're going to read more about that when we get into the gospel of John, especially.

08:22

This is one of the things, too, that has disappointed me about the show The Chosen. It's delving into conversations that would have happened outside what we read about in scripture.

08:34

When the show was first described to me before I ever even watched an episode of The Chosen, the most popular television show concerning Jesus that there has ever been, in case you're unfamiliar with it, it's about Jesus and his disciples.

08:47

But even according to the creators of the show, 95 % of what happens in the show doesn't happen in the

08:53

Bible. It's really not biblical at all. It's just kind of based around biblical events. But anyway, when the show was first pitched to me, when somebody was asking me, have you seen this show yet?

09:03

What was said to me was that it is the story of Jesus, the story of everything that you read about in the gospels, but from the perspective of the disciples.

09:12

So what I had in my head when somebody described it to me that way is that you're hearing the disciples or maybe even other witnesses talk about what they observed and what they saw, but Jesus wouldn't really be a main character in the story in the sense that he's the star of the show and everything that happens to him is what you're following around.

09:34

You're just following the story of Jesus. That's what The Chosen is. But the way it was told to me was it's from the perspective of the disciples.

09:43

So what I was thinking I was going to see was the disciples talking about everything that has happened, but not seeing

09:52

Jesus on the forefront as kind of a main character. If you've ever seen the film Ben -Hur, the great

09:59

Cecil B. DeMille film, which stars Charlton Heston, Jesus is never seen.

10:05

His face is never seen in the movie. He is a character in the story that you are watching play out.

10:11

It's a fictional story, of course, but it's happening around the time of Jesus' earthly ministry.

10:18

And so Ben -Hur, the character that's played by Charlton Heston, he'll come across Jesus occasionally, but you never see

10:24

Jesus' face. And then eventually at the end, even his, I think it's his mother and his wife or somebody like that.

10:33

I can't remember. Anyway, they have leprosy and Jesus heals them.

10:39

But Jesus dies on the cross and you don't get to the resurrection part in Ben -Hur. But anyway, so just like that in Ben -Hur where Jesus' face is never seen,

10:48

I kind of had that sort of expectation with The Chosen. I was interested in hearing some narration that would come from the disciples that you don't hear in the gospel.

11:00

Some of those theories are interesting to think about. And as long as you're not doing something like rewriting scripture, like rewriting the actual events that happen in scripture, which is really what

11:09

The Chosen does, I think you could do something like that in a tasteful way, but that's not the way that the show is done.

11:15

What if there had been some kind of a scene where the disciples are sitting around and they're talking about, hey, so Jesus, he's the

11:22

Messiah, right? I mean, we know what kind of power he has. We know what he's capable of.

11:28

Peter, when he draws a sword and strikes the ear of the servant of the high priest, remember he has seen

11:37

Christ's glory. He was with James and John when they were on the

11:43

Mount of Transfiguration and Jesus was transfigured before them. And there's Moses and Elijah standing there talking with him.

11:52

And they hear the voice of the father saying, this is my beloved son. We've got God on our side in this.

11:59

We have a power that nobody else has yet seen. And so Peter, with full confidence in what he's seen, but not having the right application, like he's listened to what

12:12

Jesus has said, he has seen with his eyes, but he's not applying it in the proper way.

12:18

And Jesus, or sorry, Peter going with his own application has all this confidence when he fights back against his enemies because he thinks, watch this, watch

12:27

Jesus jump right out of his skin and see how he'll be glorified in front of all of you. But again, that's not the way the kingdom of God was meant to come together.

12:36

So unfortunately, The Chosen turns out to be a blasphemous mess. It was a wasted opportunity.

12:43

Tons and tons of money have been spent on this show, could have done something fantastic, but they don't at all.

12:49

It's just another one of those Jesus movies slash shows that rewrites the narrative and tells their own story.

12:54

That's all they're doing with this. But here, Peter now seeing that this was not going to play out the way that he thought.

13:04

Jesus is being led away and Peter's thinking he's not going to break out here.

13:11

Maybe maybe this wasn't who we thought he was. I don't know what Peter is thinking in his mind.

13:16

I don't know what he's got going on in his head. But the Messiah, who we thought was unstoppable and untouchable, is now arrested and being led away to trial.

13:27

So Peter's confidence is now at an all -time low. Peter's following at a distance, verse 55, when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together,

13:37

Peter sat among them. Then a servant girl seeing him as he sat in the light and looked closely at him, she said this man was also with him.

13:47

But he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him. A little later, someone else saw him and said,

13:54

You are also one of them. But Peter said, Man, I am not. And after an interval of about an hour, so we're seeing how long this is taking place.

14:02

Luke again is including some more details as we see these events unfold. So after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying,

14:12

Certainly this man also was with him, for he too was a Galilean.

14:18

But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

14:29

Now when we read of Peter's denial of Jesus in Matthew 26, so this is the first time that we have come across this narrative in Matthew's gospel.

14:40

It's the same thing where three times somebody says this man was with Jesus of Nazareth.

14:46

But the way that Peter or I'm sorry, the way that Matthew records it is that Peter's response gets more and more intense.

14:53

Each time the servant girl says, You also were with Jesus, the Galilean. He denied it before them all, saying,

15:00

I do not know what you mean. When he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him and said to the bystanders, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth.

15:08

And this time he denied it with an oath. I do not know the man.

15:14

After a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter, Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.

15:19

Once again, this man is a Galilean. So there was something about the way the Galilean spoke, the way that they look, the way that they dressed.

15:27

It stood out to everybody that this man is not among the people of Judah.

15:33

He looks and dresses like and sounds like Jesus of Nazareth. So your accent.

15:39

Yeah, it gives you away. You're with him. And then verse 74, this is Matthew 26, 74.

15:46

Peter begins to invoke a curse on himself and to swear,

15:51

I do not know the man. And then immediately the rooster crowed.

15:59

So the way that Matthew records that again, it's got that appearance of Peter getting more and more intense.

16:08

And the more he gets accused, the more he gets provoked, the more he beats his chest and pulls at his hair and says,

16:16

I don't know him. And then when the rooster crows,

16:22

Peter remembered the saying of Jesus before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And both

16:27

Matthew 26, 75 and Luke 22, 62 records that Peter went out and wept bitterly.

16:40

Now Judas himself was very grieved over the fact that he had betrayed

16:47

Jesus, as I talked about a little bit yesterday, tried to give the silver back. They wouldn't take it. He threw it into the house of the

16:54

Lord and went out and hung himself. So Judas was also grieved thinking that this was going to go a lot different than it was going.

17:02

Peter went out and wept bitterly, but he did not fall into despair the way that Judas did between Peter and Judas.

17:11

We see quite a distinction. They're both grieved over what they've done, but Judas grief is a worldly grief that leads to death.

17:21

As the apostle Paul talks about in second Corinthians 7, 10, godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

17:35

And so we see the two kinds of grief exhibited between Peter and Judas. Judas had a worldly grief.

17:43

He did not really repent. He did not ask for forgiveness. He just goes out and hangs himself.

17:49

He is in such despair over what he's done, does not believe that there is any way to be relieved of this wicked act that he has committed.

17:58

So he just hangs himself, ends it all, and ends up going to hell. As I've heard

18:05

John Piper say, he wrote a little booklet on it, and I agree with him on this, that Judas committed the worst sin that has ever been committed by anyone ever, the betrayal of the son of God with a kiss.

18:20

I've heard preachers say of Judas that we do the same sorts of sins that Judas do, or sometimes our sins are even worse, and we will sell

18:29

Jesus out for even less because at least Judas sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver, but we'll do it for free.

18:35

You know, I've heard preachers say that, and I don't think that's accurate. None of our sins will ever be as worse as what

18:41

Judas did. You didn't see with your own eyes and still betrayed

18:46

Jesus to be taken away and to death, tried to sell him out for 30 pieces of silver, and then went out and hung yourself.

18:53

That is never going to be as wicked as what Judas did, though we can still do extremely grievous things.

19:00

We can certainly commit sins that were as bad as what Peter did, and if Peter had not repented, then he certainly would have perished as well, but he recognized what he had done.

19:11

He was called out about it. He heard the rooster crow. He was aware of his sin. He goes out and he weeps bitterly over his sin, and we know from what we read at the end of the

19:23

Gospel of John from chapter 21 that Jesus reinstates him, forgives him of the denial that Peter had done when put on the spot and asked if he knew him, and Peter said,

19:36

I don't know the man. We can be put in that same sort of position. We can deny

19:41

Christ too, but there is forgiveness for our sins, and we need to understand that that is a grievous thing for us to deny

19:48

Christ before men. Jesus said, you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father who is in heaven.

19:53

So it's a serious thing. It's not to be played around with. But if even we have denied Jesus with either our words or our actions, there is forgiveness for our sin.

20:02

Just as Peter was forgiven, so we will be as well, but we must be grieved over our sin.

20:08

We must grieve that we have sinned against God, and what we deserve for that is judgment.

20:14

But he is patient with us and forgiving. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness by the precious blood of Jesus.

20:28

Heavenly Father, I pray that we would be convicted over our sin and when we have sinned, we come to you and we seek that mercy and that grace that only you can give.

20:39

We will sin against others, but most of all, when we sin, we sin against God and we need your grace to be forgiven these sins and to have the everlasting life that has been promised to us in Jesus Christ, our

20:53

Lord. It comes to us only as a gift from God. And so,

20:58

Lord, let us be as David, who prayed in Psalm 51, Create in me a clean heart,

21:04

O God, and renew a right spirit within me. We would grieve as Peter. We would be restored as well, that we may walk upright before you, following your rules and your statutes, and that we would do these things to the glory of your name.

21:20

Keep us holy until your kingdom come. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

21:34

You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.