1250. The Fall And Restoration Of Peter, Part 2

Welcome to the daily form from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Senior's intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services today. That tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University travel platform. Today's sermon is the second part of that evangelistic message about the fall and restoration of Peter preached by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University we read here Luke's gospel and I did about an hour past and during that time Peter said nothing, but then he came back to the crowd and this time he started talking and someone spoke up and let me put it in modern English. They said dude you are one of them because your accent gives it away. You're not from Jerusalem, man. You we know exactly where you're from you're from Galilee and that's where Jesus is prompt and then all of a sudden the servant of the high priest recognizes Peter as the one who shot all his cousin's ear, for he was there just a few hours before where Peter pulled out so morning cut all a man's ear. By the way, I think that was an accident. I don't think he was going for the ear that he was going for the head.

Even the guy moved his head or peers are really bad shot any wax dudes ear off and what did Peter do in his response, he did something to prove that he could not have possibly been a believer. He responded in such a way that they would been confirmed, he can't be a Christ follower because of what he just did and what did Peter do.

The Bible tells us his mouth exploded with profanity. If there's such an active that such a thing as an F bomb in Hebrew. He said it, he began to curse, he began to swear a string of the most all expletives came flowing out of his mouth.

So much so that no one accused him of being a Christ follower after his rent. He proved to everyone by his actions that he must not be a disciple of Jesus. So how do we deny the Lord number one we just don't want to be identified. Number two, we clearly violate his laws and number three we began to live in such a manner as you think, how can you possibly be a follower of Jesus by the lifestyle and the way that your living and here's the thing that is so sad that all of this happened with in the ear of Jesus and Jesus heard it all and how it must've grieved his heart so question me. How did Peter get here. Ever wonder that many I mean we look at his lively look at his fervency is vibrancy. I mean, let's be honest. How can people be a vibrant Christian and then a year later there's like one of the world happened and can I suggest you deny that the reason for his sin. Number one was because the fear of man.

Actually, in this case it was the fear of women, because it was the girls that were speaking to him much of our backsliding begins when we fail to stand for the Lord in front of others I should be identified with the Lord. I should live. I should live in obedience to his commands and we don't want to be identified with the Lord. Secondly, Shirley. It was self-confidence that Peter felt weaker. He would been stronger because he felt strongly proved to be weak and he fell because he did not really realize what Jesus said the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. But they let me say that I believe he fell away and at the very heart and core of it was that Peter failed to follow Jesus's admonition to watch and pray Peter's undoing was his own inconsistency. Peter did not lack emotions. I mean, he did say I will never follow-up fall away. I mean, he was fired up.

But what he did lack was he lack consistent he was carried away by circumstances, because he was not controlled by character. He was not steadfast in his devotions when we fall away from God, it can always go back to the root of not walking with God that there is a failure in the personal life to have a deep and intimate time with God beside all of you freshman that one of the easiest places on the planet. The backside is in the Christian University. Why, because it's the atmosphere because everything here Bob Jones University is intentional. It is for the purpose of your spiritual development so that you can try and you come here and you get in the flow and go with the flow and you go to classes.

Here the Bible and you go to discipleship groups and you go to church and you come to chapel and all those things are good. I know I sent we use that. But I'm telling you tonight and I'm warning you that Tim Tatian is real because you have a sinful nature. Temptation is real because Bob didn't University is full of saved centers and depending on how you're doing. I emphasize saved her center Bob Jones is filled with say sinners. Nobody here has reached the state of perfection. Some of you are growing Christians.

Some of you are not even Christians. Some of you haven't decided if you going to follow the Lord and some of you have fallen away from the Lord. And so you need the power of God because we are living in a world where were going to be tempted by the world the flesh and the devil, and you need the Lord, and Peter's failure was a faith failure. Have you fallen away from the Lord with the fact is, Christians do fall away because it wasn't just Peter because what did Jesus say on the night before baby was crucified. He said to the whole bunch. He said you will all fall away because of me this night, they all fell and what if it wasn't for the grace and the tenderness in the care of our great Shepherd.

Where would we all be where would I be if it wasn't for the mercy of God working in my life helping me to overcome sin.

Where would we all be so denied I want I want to I want to say this is a plea to you. Would you be honest tonight about where you are tonight. I'm not preaching with a baseball bat trying to beat you in the head. I'm I'm I'm trying to be like a shepherd saying to you. Look okay you wandered away, but you're a child of God.

Think about who you are. Think about what the Lord is done in your life. Think about the mercy and the grace of God in your life. Remember the days when you felt close to God and today you drifted away from the Lord. Remember all of those things because not only did he fall. The second thing I want us to see tonight. Is it in the midst of this terrible situation. The Lord intervene on his behalf. The secondly I want to talk about his Peter's restoration.

The point I would like to make tonight is that it wasn't that Pete Peter didn't really in the sense Peter didn't restore himself what it was really all about. Was it was all about the Lord restoring him because remember he prophesied you're going to fall away, but he also prophesied you could be restored and the whole story here is really centered around the fact that those who are true Christians are going to be restored back to the Lord in the gospel we see here the difference between a true believer who backsides in a true apostate who does not come back to the Lord.

We see that we see that in the story of Peter and Judas both of them denied the Lord.

Both of them regretted what they did but one went out and wept in the other went out and he hung himself. What's the difference between a backslider and an apostate. It was the difference between a pig and a sheet. They both may end up in the pigpen.

But the pig loves this the pigpen the slot because it's in his nature. The sheep hates the pigpen because it's not in his nature is nature's different. Any wants out, even in a backslidden condition. You still know that this is not where you should be.

You still know that your miserable you still know that the joy that you want ask what's experiencing the power you once felt in the blessing that you once had is no longer there, and the fact that Peter is restored back to the Lord is the proof that he is the Lord's and the issue denied is not if a Christian falls.

The issue is how does the Lord restore him. How does the Lord restore you and I we see this divine restoration in three specific ways three out the first thing we see is the providence of God working in his life for listen to what Jesus said truly I tell you this very night before the road rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.

What did the war do to get his intention. It was the crowing of a rooster that would Peter deny the Lord the first time to write. The rooster crowed.

And Peter didn't seem to pay attention to what he heard. Often times, forgetfulness is when the chief weaknesses that we have in a time of temptation because there's a spiritual dullness and are likely not sensitive were not listening carefully. We go to church but we don't have the sense of the conviction of God and by the way when I go to church to worship God. There should be a sense of the conviction of the Lord. I don't mean constantly guilty. What I mean by that is the Lord moving in my heart and stirring in my heart and working in my heart. What did God do God brought into his life, a rooster and after the third denial rooster crowed. The second time and this time the chickens voice cut straight to Peter's heart.

God's providence brings into our life loud and roosters to get to arrest our attention and to awaken our conscience. Is there been a rooster in your life recently crowing speaking to you I was saying when I was 19 years old. Easter Sunday 1975 the first four or five months of my Christian life.

You probably would not have known that I was Christian by the way I was living, but I was growing a little bit. I was I was in the Bible is growing in the word but I was I was very convicted about my actions of the things that I was doing that summer something happened that really turned me around between my freshman and sophomore year I was playing soccer every evening at the University of South Carolina trying to get in shape. One day I was asked if I was willing to go down to the College of Charleston to play in an indoor soccer match I've never played indoor soccer my life.

We played in the gym on a wooden floor and during the middle of the match.

I went up to had a ball that was being crossed. I missed the ball and I came down off balance and I had my left ankle turned in all of my weight came down on that ankle.

Back in those days. I went hundred 95 pounds. You say how much you weigh this morning on your business and I felt my ankle snap that fell right to the floor and I grab my leg and I went down my leg and then I felt the ankle go out and come back in. I thought I don't think this is good.

I went that night to the hospital in and in the emergency room at 2 1/2 hours later they looked at my ankle. The doctor said yeah you broke it. I said yeah I know and he took the inside of my ankle here in the outside. The bone was poking out a little bit. He took and he pushed it in scope modern medicine. The next day I went up to Columbia to have ankle surgery and after the surgery, I woke up in the Baptist Hospital in downtown Columbia in the back in those days they gave every patient a copy of the Bible, and as soon as I saw the Bible. I knew I broke my leg, God's rooster was going. God was saying to me, Steve, am I going to get your attention or you can follow me and not and I remember that very very clearly and I remember that the working of God in my life and I want to say this. It wasn't like a it wasn't like a 100% turnover night. It took me a little while but there was a rooster crowing in my life. The providence of God speaking to me. Let me issue question what it what what roosters crowing in your life that one is at tell me is the providence of God is the mercy of God, I mean think about it. Jesus in eternity past planned this rooster took hello at the very moment that he denies the Lord, what is that tell us about the Lord in his providential watching chair over the life of his own people, but it wasn't just the providence of God, that the Lord used in his life, but number two was the grace of God and we see that in verse 61 when Christ looked at Peter notices said in the Lord turned and looked at Peter and Peter remembered the saying of the Lord how we said to him before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times and he went out and he wept bitterly that look did the work the moment Jesus looked at Peter, the darkness of his heart was driven out.

Jesus said nothing, but he didn't need to say anything because the look set it all and what happened when Jesus would Peter saw Jesus when he looked in his eyes. Bible says and Peter remembered what it he remember while obviously he remembered what Jesus had prophesied that look awake and maybe many more things. All that Jesus it said all that Jesus had done all that Peter had experience in the presence of the Lord. All of these things how forgetful we are of the Lord in our life and how it is that when we come back to him. We come back in our memory and what kind of look was it when Jesus looked at them what you think he saw in his eyes. Do you think he saw him angry. Do you think he was mandating was he. If I can use it in human language.

Was he ticked Matt suggest you deny that the look of Jesus was not the look of the law wasn't the look of the law because the law condemns us the law can't restore us.

You can know the law, but that doesn't really change you.

It just shows you what you are is like looking in a mirror. You can look in a mirror, an American show you what you look like there's no power, the mirror, the change the way you look, I don't think it was a look of law think was a look of love. The law may drive me away from Christ or to Christ shame and guilt are weak restorers but compared to loving grace. There is no comparison. I believe he saw in the life in the in the face of Christ in the eyes of Christ.

I think he saw the grief of Christ and at the same time he saw the love of it was that love that broking. I remember attending a church when I was a student in college. I've been saved for all. I don't know maybe maybe six or seven months and I attended a small Baptist Church in the be frankly honest with you I don't really remember the sermon the preacher was. Not that great.

To be honest with you, but we came to the end and they they gave an invitation and I never been in a church that gave an invitation for response. We stood up and we began to sing a hymn I had never heard in my whole life and the whole congregation took the hymnal and they began to sing a song called just as I am. And as I began to sing the song I began to weep because I was overwhelmed with the words and says, just as I am, without one plea, but that my blood was shed for me oh Lamb of God, I come just as I am in waiting not to cleanse my soul of one dark spot spot to D whose blood can cleanse and then oh Lamb of God, I come and I remember standing there and I was dating a girl at the time and I was I started weeping in church and she thought one the world what's wrong with you and II did I couldn't even talk to because I'm the kind you people sometimes people can cry and talk. I can either cry or talk but I can't do both. And she said what's wrong with you as it is that so that's only after church we went out and got in in the car and I sat in the car and I kept crying because I was overwhelmed I was over wound with God's love for me in spite of my own sinfulness when God does a work in a person's life. He always works through grace. The effect of grace is a change of heart and a change of attitude and a desire to walk away from your sin and then there was one last thing I want to say about the divine elements of restoring Peter that is not only God's providence and God's grace, but the third is God's power.

Jesus had promised to his own disciples that he would preserve them.

He would keep them. We read in John 637.

Although the father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out in this the will of him that sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me raise it up on the last day. In other words, let me just say this that you are not By your own power. You don't keep your salvation you then work to get your salvation and you don't work to keep your salvation. It is God that keeps you is the preservation of his people. God is put us in the palm of his hand and no one comply can out and Peter Smallwood have been final Peter would've been an apostate. Had it not been for the fact that Peter was Christ's own, and Peter did not ultimately fall away. Why, because of the prayer of Jesus, he says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan had demanded to have you, that he may sift you like weep when I prayed for you that your faith failed, and when you have returned again, strengthen your brothers. The reason why you and I are preserved eternally.

Even in the midst of our own failures is the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to pray for you and pray for me. What a Savior we have one who loves us in the midst of our stupidity in the midst of the terrible choices that we may in the midst of our denying the Lord in the midst of our disobedience to the Lord, even in the midst of us acting like were not the Lords the intercession of Christ is the reason we are preserved the intercession of Christ is the reason why we persevere. We keep God keeps his own by his own power and what Satan assaulted us when Satan sought to destroy Peter's faith. What did God want to do in the situation. This failure because here's the end here's the point. Did Peter fall yes to Peter was Peter restored yes because all you have to do is go back and read the New Testament. What happened to Peter. Peter, the one who was who denied the Lord what happened on the day of Pentecost. What happened he stood up in front of everybody. And he preached he went from fear to faith.

He went from evading the truth to boldly declaring the truth and what Satan wanted to use to destroy Peter's faith. God sought to strengthen Pete Peter's faith because the very thing that Satan used God used in God turn the tables on the devil through Peter's fall, God took out of Peter what needed to come out of Peter you see what it Peter's fall reveal reveal. First of all, that he was fearful he revealed obviously that he was weak and revealed obviously that he was inconsistent that he didn't watch and pray, and therefore, Peter could not be an apostle until these issues were resolved and God used Peter's failure to expose Peter and driving back to the Lord and what was the result he watched and prayed in the upper room. What was the result he was empowered by the Holy Spirit and what was the result he went out on the day of Pentecost and boldly preach the gospel and God fulfilled his promise when he said in when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. It was Peter who led the church. It was Peter who led his brothers and it was Peter who went out and preached and 3000 were saved on the day of God uses are false through his restorative power to accomplish his purpose in the world.

Maybe some of your sitting here tonight you say I do I don't know if God could ever use may have messed up. Let me tell you something you come back like Peter you get broken hearted in your heart and people like like Peter did. God will take you and God will do amazing things for you. Listen, I know preachers all of the United States who went to Bob Jones University and they went about Jones Academy and the got kicked out some of the best preachers from five Jones Academy got booted. Go figure. I'm serious because for a believer.

His falls are not final because God is going to restore and God is going to change you.

And God is gonna take you and God is going to use you when you've turned again, strengthen your brothers. So tonight I ask you this question how many of you need to be like Peter in turn again.

How many of you falling then God is speaking the roosters crowing Jesus is looking. He has been praying and you have to be like Peter, he went out and wept bitterly. What is that mean he experienced true godly sorrow. He was really broken over sin and it was at breaking he never forgot.

And God used in the rest of his life. May God help restore those who fallen away from him.

May God bring you back to him tonight. Would you bow your heads.

We pray tonight.

Father, I thank you this evening for your word and I thank you for your faithfulness. Lord I thank you for your restoration that you bring in our lives even when we fall.

Your promise that you're able to keep us from falling in the present your present is faultless before your presence with exceeding joy. Lord I pray for every young person in this building tonight who have fallen that they would come back they would acknowledge that they have denied you, Lord, I pray denied that you would work and show your power. We pray for your blessing down this invitation. In Jesus name, amen.

You been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. If you appreciate this program and benefit from the faithful preaching and teaching of God's word would you consider sending us a special financial gift. You can easily do that through the website. The Daily Platform.com. I'm Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. Thank you for listening to The Daily Platform, the Bob Jones University school for continuing own line and professional education offers convenient and affordable online programs. Whether you're seeking to expand your skills pursue a passion or develop a ministry on your own time qualified and engaged instructors will help you reach your goals. For more information, visit scope.BJ you.edu or call 888-253-9833. Thanks for listening and join us next time is will hear more soul stirring sermons on The Daily Platform