Peter is one of the foremost and beloved Bible characters of the New Testament. We have more information about Peter than any other person in the New Testament besides Paul. When we are introduced to Peter, he was a fisherman on the shores of Galilee along with his brother, Andrew, and another pair of brothers, James and John. Jesus would soon call another pair of brothers, Philip and Nathaneal and these three sets of brothers became the core group of His disciples. Peter was involved in Jesus' ministry from the very start but it was not until the beginning of His second year of ministry that the disciples gave up their jobs to follow Jesus full-time. Jesus' ministry began in A.D. 27 and died in A.D. 30.

Peter was not well educated, but was a born leader. When he came to Jesus, he was very much the proverbial "diamond in the rough." Peter preferred the direct method and bluntness and often would step out in faith when the other disciples held back. Peter was also known for his willingness to open his mouth: often at the wrong moment! Despite these shortcomings, Peter became the leader of the Early Church and oversaw the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Tradition says that he was about 75 years old when he was killed in A.D. 65. If true, that means that Peter was 37 years old at the time he first met Jesus and was 39 at the time of the crucifixion. By contrast, John was probably 16-18 years old when he first saw Jesus. Peter wrote the books of the New Testament, I Peter and II Peter and also probably dictated much of the Gospel of Mark for John Mark to write. Any event of Peter's life is profitable to study because we can all see a little of ourselves in Peter!

In this lesson, we are focusing upon Peter's actions at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in A.D. 30. All the Gospels record the events of Peter's denial of Christ but we have chosen the Gospel of Mark for our text because it presents the events much harsher than the other three. The reason for this is probably because it is the story of Peter's denial as told by himself!

The Main Storyline

We begin with an incident that happened way before Peter's denial which helps us to understand why Peter acted the way that he did:

It all started because Peter really did not understand exactly what Jesus Christ had come to do. Peter knew that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and was God in the flesh. He also knew that Jesus' words were truth and powerful. But despite repeated teachings from Jesus, Peter did not understand why Jesus had to die upon a cross. In fact, one day when Jesus was trying to prepare the disciples for what was about to happen, Peter rebuked Jesus for talking about dying and got rebuked in return by Jesus who told him "Get thee behind me Satan!"

Peter had found the Messiah and he had found security and was so caught up in his personal comfort and blessings that he was not looking at the will of God for the entire world. Peter did not come from a poor background. Mark 1:20 says that the fisherman's business that Peter, James, John, and Andrew gave up to follow Christ involved "hired servants," or employees working under them. Peter had inherited the business from his father and was not just a struggling man with a net trying to make a living, but instead was the overseer of employees and a thriving enterprise. Yet, he had forsaken all because in Jesus he had found a fulfillment that far surpassed anything life or wealth had to offer! The three years of following Jesus had been the most fulfilled an happiest time of Peter's life and so when Jesus began to speak about dying and leaving them, Peter responded by expressing his feelings and fears! It was fear of the unknown and a failure to see that Jesus Christ had come to set ALL men free that caused Peter to travel down the path toward his fall.

This brings us to the first key lessons to be learned from this story: 1.) God often does not explain all of the reasons for His will for your life so that He can see if you will walk by faith. If Peter would have known about the power of the Holy Ghost and the resurrection and exactly what hope the blood that Jesus Christ shed upon Calvary would bring to the world, he would have had a different attitude about Jesus talking about His death. Instead, he got focused on his own personal comfort and got irritated when God used events that stirred him out of his comfort zone trying to get him to reach somebody else. 2.) God cares less about your comfort and more about souls being saved and will often use traumatic events in a person's life to try to change their focus from themselves to reaching others. Oh, how many Christians have been filled with the Holy Ghost and lived a blissful life for several months or even years only to get bitter at God when He allows some trials to come trying to get them concerned about reaching other people!

The reason that Jesus called Peter, "Satan," in the rebuke is because we are never more like Satan when we are viewing our own agendas as more important than God's will! Satan was created to lead others in worship of the one, true living God, but began to desire to be worshipped himself! Even though Peter did not realize it, he was following the example of Satan when he spoke against the plan of God because it did not seem enjoyable to him or his will for his life! 3.) The Will of God for our lives will rarely be convenient, usually cause us some discomfort, and will always result in us trusting more in God than in ourselves! To God, shy people make the best candidates for witnessing, and uneducated people are the best teachers of the learned scribes because they will have to trust in Him to help them and will not be able to be comfortable in their own strength!

4.) Peter's downfall consisted of seven steps which are the exact steps that people who turn away from the Lord today follow! By studying these steps in Peter's life, we can identify them in the lives of people who have turned away from God and guard against them happening in our own lives! Let's take them one by one:

1. Peter got a boastful attitude. His attitude in our text became "I won't fail God, ever!" Peter should have said "By the grace of God, I won't fail!" However, he did not give credit to the mercy and power of God but rather thought that he had reached a place where "he had arrived spiritually, and nothing could cause him to fail God." I have heard Christians make similar claims, but such statements come from pride of what you have become rather than focusing and trusting in the One who saved you and got you to what you are.

The Proverb warns us to "depart from evil" and to keep walking right with the Lord, and then immediately warns us not to trust in ourselves while doing so! Pride is the first step toward a spiritual fall! The noted Christian writer C.S. Lewis once wrote: "I have heard men confess of having many faults ... but very few Christians acknowledge to having a problem with pride." Yet it is pride that was the first sin ever committed and that caused the devil to become what he is! I have heard Christians respond to warnings about their prayerlessness or lack of faithfulness to the house of God by saying "oh, just a few days without prayer won't hurt me, I'd never go back to what I used to be." Or, "preacher, just staying home one service isn't going to cause me to backslide." Maybe not, but what God hears you saying is "I won't fail God, ever!" You are expressing an attitude of pride and a trust within of what you now are rather than in the God who got you there!

2. Peter became lukewarm spiritually. After a last meal with His disciples, Jesus took them to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. The disciples did not realize that it was the night of Jesus' arrest but surely they should have been able to tell that something was different. Jesus took Peter, James, and John with Him further into the garden and then walked a few feet away to pray. He prayed earnestly and "sorrowful." Yet, when He came back after an hour, Peter and the other disciples were asleep. He shook them, asking them to pray, and then returned to praying with such fervency that His sweat became "as great drops of blood." When Jesus returned, the second time, the disciples were again asleep! He again shook them and returned to pray but after the third time of coming back to find them asleep, He gave up and prayed alone until His arrest. In the moment when Jesus needed Peter the most, Peter was so full on the meal that he had just eaten in the flesh that he was spiritually lukewarm!

The second step that people take toward a spiritual fall is that they grow lukewarm to the things of God. God's Spirit can move in a service and the preacher can preach a dynamic message that has many searching themselves and asking God to help them become exactly what He has for them, and the person who is falling just sits there. A preacher cannot wake them up. The very presence of Jesus in the building does not cause them to awake out of spiritual sleep! Why? Because they are too full of fleshly food so that they cannot respond spiritually! There have been times in my life where the preacher was preaching with a passion and other people are obviously being touched by God and I felt nothing, and it is in those times that I remember the story of Peter and I shake myself and I force myself out of spiritual lethargy! Because I realize what path that Satan is trying to get me to follow! I praise God whether or not I feel like it! I pray whether I feel to or not! I refuse to allow myself to become like Peter and become spiritually lukewarm!

3. Peter began to fight against the will of God. They were sleepy while Jesus was praying but when the soldiers came into the garden to arrest Jesus they suddenly became very much awake! Even though Jesus had told him time and time again that "He must suffer many things" Peter pulled out his sword and aimed at taking off the head of the nearest person, a servant of the High Priest named Malchus. Malchus moved his head and Peter instead chopped off his ear. Jesus rebuked Peter and placed Malchus' ear back on his head, healing him!

Fighting your own battles is always a result of trusting in yourself rather than God. A person who has become spiritually lukewarm, begins to try to figure out their own solutions and take care of problems themselves. When they find they cannot, then they begin to fight against God's will in their lives. Perhaps God wanted them to be prayer warrior or a Sunday School teacher. They remove themselves from those things and fight anybody who tries to encourage them to fulfill the will of God. As Peter found out, the problem with fighting against the will of God in your life, is that you always make it harder for someone that Jesus is trying to reach to hear the Gospel!

4. Peter began to follow God afar off. After all the disciples ran away from the garden in panic, Peter was determined to follow Jesus, but did not want to have to face the possibility of his personal capture. The result was that Peter began to follow from a distance. Jesus was taken to the home of the chief priest and was put on an illegal trial. There were many people who were coming and going and many servants around. Runners were sent to the members of the Jewish court, the Sanhedrin, and they began to arrive in the early morning hours. Peter slipped among them and acted like he belonged. From where he was he could see Jesus through the courtyard but yet was not close enough that anyone would think that he was a disciple!

The next step in people falling away from God is that they begin to try to serve God from a distance. They stay close enough to the church and it's people that they can convince themselves that they are religious and yet they stay uncommitted enough that no one really notices from their life that they are Christians! They make church every now and then. They read their Bible every few weeks. They pray when they have a situation or crisis. They really are not trying to get closer to God but just trying to maintain the level that they are currently at. They want to be known as a follower of Jesus and yet are not really willing to endure any persecution as a result of their Christianity. They are following God afar off.

5. Peter began to warm himself by the enemies' fire. Here is the danger of following God afar off. Standing outside in the yard in the wee hours of the morning, it became chilly. The servants built a fire to warm themselves and Peter, cold physically and spiritually, blended in as if he were one of the servants to warm himself.

Trying to serve God afar off always causes the lukewarm Christian to become cold spiritually! Before long they are warming themselves with the servants of sin trying to outwardly stay warm by the fires of the world while yet inwardly trying to serve Jesus, and yet, it never works! Unfortunately, I have seen backsliders hit this stage. They began to fellowship with their old friends and their old haunts. If they were an alcoholic, they began to drink "just a little" in secret. They are still coming to church some, and still acting the part around the church folks, but also beginning to warm themselves by the fires of this world! The sad thing is that once you have experienced the fire of the Holy Ghost, the world's heat will never satisfy, which brings us to the next step!

6. Peter denied the Lord. As he was standing by the enemies' fire trying to serve God from a distance, a little servant girl recognized him and said "you are a disciple of Christ aren't you?" Peter replied "I know him not." A little while later, a man came by and said the same thing. Peter again denied it. The scriptures point out that it was about one hour later that the third accusation came from one who had been standing by listening to the conversations around the fire. He said "you speak like you are from Galilean." Peter again denied Jesus Christ the third time.

A lukewarm Christian will only be able to warm themselves by the enemies' fire for so long before someone asks, "aren't you a Christian: what are you doing here?" They will have to start vocally denying involvement with God's people or lifestyle in order to be accepted within the world's group. Notice that the three accusations and Peter's staying around the enemies' fire for "one hour" corresponds exactly to Jesus' coming to Peter three times in the garden trying to get him to pray for one hour. The final step of denial is more than just words, but comes when the backslider does for the world what he would not do for God! A good example is when a lukewarm Christian refuses to be demonstrative with their praise and hates having to spend two hours in church and yet will spend all night drinking and will not exactly be quiet or meek! When you are "on fire" with the fire of the Holy Ghost, then an hour's time spent in prayer is more exciting than any vice that the world could offer!

7. Peter cursed and swore with an oath. The pressure got to him. After the third time that somebody accused Peter of being a disciple of Jesus, he either had to admit to being a follower of Christ and leave the fire of the enemy and stop following God from a distance, or else choose to leave Jesus Christ altogether and convince the enemy through his actions and words that he was not a Christian. He began to curse and swear and even took an oath that he was not a follower of Jesus Christ! And as he was swearing his allegiance to the enemy, the rooster crowed just like Jesus had said that it would and the realization hit Peter that he had, in one twenty-four hour period, walked out on Jesus Christ just as he had said that he would never do! Ultimately, the backsliding Christian comes to a decision: I either have to prove with my lifestyle that I am not serving Jesus, or else go back to serving Him as I did before!

There is a false doctrine very much in vogue in the world today that says once a person is "saved" that nothing that they can ever do will cause them to be lost! This errant doctrine contradicts scripture. Notice the following scriptures:

Peter knew that even he had the ability to fail God, because He did! He was warning those who think that they have "arrived spiritually" not to make prideful boasts! We must learn from the life of Peter the danger signs of the process of falling away from God and guard ourselves from such actions!

It would be tragic if the story ended here but thankfully it does not! Peter did make it back to God and before we close this lesson let's briefly outline the steps that Peter took to get things right. 5.) Peter's restoration consisted of seven steps which are the exact steps that people who have turned away from the Lord must also follow today to get things right with God! They are:

1. Peter turned and looked to Jesus. He stopped looking at the benefits of the world and got his eyes back upon the one who loved him enough to die for him! This is always the first step to returning to God.

2. Peter left the enemies' fire. He walked away from fires of the world with which he had been warming himself. To think about God does not in itself constitute a change, the backslider must be willing to cease turning to sinful pleasures for their spiritual warmth.

3. Peter wept bitterly. He truly repented. He expressed Godly sorrow that was asking God to help him change. This was an admittance that he needed Jesus in order to make it! He asked God to forgive him and to help him get back! We cannot rely solely on ourselves even when it comes to getting back to God!

4. Peter warmed himself at another fire, one fixed by Jesus Christ! He had been fishing and had caught nothing. In the morning Jesus appeared on the shore having a fire fixed and fish cooked. After directing the disciples to a miraculous catch of fish, Jesus invited them to come around the fire with Him. Peter jumped from the boat and swam to shore! So must a Christian that is coming back to God allow their spiritual man to be thawed by the fires of the Holy Ghost and from the atmosphere of the local church assembly. God's church and their relationship with Him has to become priority again over anything else!

5. Peter listened to the message of Jesus and obeyed the challenge. Before Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives, He taught the disciples about the Holy Ghost and commanded them to go back to Jerusalem until they received it! The Christian that is being restored must allow themselves to once again be challenged by the preached Word of God and respond with faith and obedience.

6. Peter tarried in the upper room until he received the Holy Ghost and fire within him! He received the fire of Jesus Christ within Him! He allowed himself to become spiritually ablaze with the Spirit of God! This was a state that Peter had never achieved before his denial! The backslidden Christian that is restored must return to a state of spiritual awareness and sensitivity that they have never experienced! They must go beyond where they were before they began to slip spiritually! Notice that not only did God forgive Peter, but allowed him an anointing and spiritual walk that Peter had never ever experienced! 6.) God will not continue to punish a repentant and restored Christian, no matter what they may have done, but will forgive them and even allow them to climb to spiritual heights that they never before achieved!

7. Peter boldly proclaimed the message of truth to the world. He allowed himself to be consumed with the will of God that he had missed in the first place! From the Day of Pentecost on, Peter's favorite message was the cross and Calvary which had been the very part of God's will that he did not understand! A restored Christian must allow God to change their attitude toward the things that caused them to begin to slip in the first place and to use their fall to reach people! They must get beyond themselves or else they will make the same mistake of pride again!

As we have seen, this story is a perfect analogy and type of the steps that a backslider takes while walking away from God and what they must do to be restored!

Peter was married and his wife later often went on missionary trips with him which tells us that she was a believer (I Corinthians 9:5). Tradition tells us that his wife's name was "Perpetua." I have often wondered where she was during the time of Peter's denial because she is never mentioned as being around. When you are running from the will of God and denying Jesus Christ, you neglect your family also!

As we have already stated, Peter was not just a poor fisherman, but actually ran a very profitable business with employees working for him. It cost him something to serve God.

1.) God often does not explain all of the reasons for His will for your life so that He can see if you will walk by faith.

2.) God cares less about your comfort and more about souls being saved and will often use traumatic events in a person's life to try to change their focus from themselves to reaching others.

3. Peter began to fight against the will of God.

4. Peter began to follow God afar off.

1. Peter turned and looked to Jesus.