Lesson 25: Peter’s Repentance, part 3

Third, look now at PETER'S REPENTANCE. Peter denied his Lord thrice, and then the Lord looked upon him; and that look of Jesus broke the heart of Peter, and all at once there opened before him the terrible sin that he had committed, the terrible failure that had come, and the depth into which he had fallen, and "Peter went out and wept bitterly."

Who can tell what that repentance must have been? During the following hours of that night, and the next day, when he saw Christ crucified and buried, and the next day, the Sabbath—in what hopeless despair and shame he must have spent that day!

"My Lord is gone, my hope is gone, and I denied my Lord. After that life of love, after that blessed fellowship of three years, I denied my Lord. God have mercy upon me!"

I do not think we can realize into what a depth of humiliation Peter sank then. But that was the turning-point and the change; and on the first day of the week Christ was seen of Peter, and in the evening He met him with the others. Later, at the Lake of Galilee, He asked him: "Do you love Me?" until Peter was made sad by the thought that the Lord reminded him of having denied Him three times; and said in sorrow, but in uprightness: “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You."


Fourth, then Peter was prepared for THE DELIVERANCE FROM SELF; and that is my last thought. You know Christ took him with others to the footstool of the throne, and bade them wait there; and then on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and Peter was a changed man. I do not want you only to think of the change in Peter, in that boldness, and that power, and that insight into the Scriptures, and that blessing with which he preached that day. Thank God for that. But there was something for Peter deeper and better. Peter's whole nature was changed. The work that Christ began in Peter when He looked upon him was perfected when he was filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you want to see that, read the First Epistle of Peter. You know wherein Peter's failings lay. When he said to Christ, in effect, “Thou never canst suffer; it cannot be "—it showed he had no conception of what it was to pass through death into life. Christ said, “Deny yourself," and despite that he denied his Lord. When Christ warned him, “You will deny me," and he insisted that he never would, Peter showed how little he understood what there was in himself. When I read his epistle and hear him say, “If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit of God and of glory rests upon you," then I say that is not the old Peter, but that is the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking within him.