Warning! Warning!
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply
Title: Warning! Warning!
Keywords:
“warnings”
Welcome
to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual
temptation.
Passage: Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75*
31. Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be SCATTERED.’
32.“But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.”
33. But Peter answered and said to Him, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.”
34. Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you that this very night, before a cock crows, you shall deny Me three times.”
35. Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.” All the disciples said the same thing too…
69. Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a certain servant-girl came to him and said, “You too were with Jesus the Galilean.”
70. But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you are talking about.”
71. And when he had gone out to the gateway, another servant-girl saw him and said to those who were there, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”
72. And again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.”
73. And a little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Surely you too are one of them; for the way you talk gives you away.”
74. Then he began to curse and swear, “I do not know the man!” And immediately a cock crowed.
75. And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, “Before a cock crows, you will deny Me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
Questions
1. What word would you use to describe Peter’s attitude in verse 33 (above)?
2. Was there something about that attitude that made him particularly vulnerable to denying the Jesus he knew and loved?
Practical help
Peter is famous for the spectacular failure chronicled in the passage quoted above. When the chips were down, on the night Jesus was betrayed, he denied three times that he was a follower of Jesus, that he even knew Jesus at all. And it wasn’t as if he had not been warned…
Earlier on that very evening, during the Passover meal that Jesus and the other eleven apostles ate together, Jesus had told all of them, “This night, you will all fall away.”
Even though Peter assured Jesus that he would be the last one to ever fall away, the Lord assured Peter, “I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.”
I wonder what would have happened had Peter taken Jesus’ warning to heart? Do you think he might have stood firm and not denied? Perhaps. And in that case, Jesus’ words would have been warning, not prophecy.
Jesus is giving warning to each of us. He tells us to “flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22) and to “be on the alert” for the temptations of our adversary, the devil. (1 Peter 5:8).
If we will learn from Peter’s sad failure, we can stand strong in the face of the sexual temptation that the Web offers. There is no need to fall. Just take the warnings of Scripture to heart. They are there for our protection.
eXXit
homepage
Index of three-minute studies
Copyright 2004 by eXXit
*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright
The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by
permission."
|