Peter the Man (3)

Driving home: Scripture is the words of God. It is the words of God given to us in the words of men. And in giving us His very words... God has so ordained this process of giving us His words, that the men through whom He gives them l…

The analogy of God giving His words through men, who lend 'contours, dimensions of color and hue' from their redeemed humanity, explains why understanding Peter's life aids in understanding his writings.

The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, December 28, 1997, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, in setting the stage for a series of expositions in that portion of God's Word that we have come to recognize and identify as 1 Peter, I am taking several Lord's Day mornings in order to set before you just a very small sampling of the many portions of the Word of God which help us to understand something of Peter the man. And if you ask why am I doing this, rather than plunging right into 1 Peter verse 1, my answer is quite simple, and it is this. Scripture is ...

0:03 - 1:27 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin expounds Luke 22:31-34, where Jesus reveals Satan's desire to sift Peter but affirms His prayer for Peter's faith. Jesus predicts Peter's turning away and turning back…

The metaphor of Satan asking to 'sift you as wheat' is explained as an attempt to demonstrate Peter is 'nothing but chaff,' while Jesus affirms Peter is 'real wheat' of His own planting.

Now we can't go into a detailed exposition. It's been difficult to discipline myself to pass over some of these passages in such a surface manner. But will you notice that when our Lord announces that behind all that human eyes can see there is a real spiritual conflict in which the ancient prophecy of Genesis 3.15 is finding a very focused, concentrated expression in the warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

43:54 - 44:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: How does one so weak as to deny his Lord gain the gall to try to strengthen his brethren? Well, it isn't a matter of Peter's gall. It's a matter of the Lord's appointment. And the Lord, in essence, is saying, Peter, part…

Martin asks the audience to imagine knowing Peter only during his denials, emphasizing how unbelievable it would be that such a man could strengthen brethren for 2,000 years, highlighting God's grace.

The Lord Jesus is telling Peter, and he affirms it in the latter part of this passage, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. But all of this in the gracious providence and mercy of the Lord Jesus is part of that which God is using to make a fit instrument to strengthen his brethren. And in a very real sense, every time a Christian from A.D. 64 onward has heard Peter's epistles read, any time a believer in any language sits down with a translation of these epistles, the Lord's word is finding an additional fulfillment as brethren will be strengthened until the very day t...

47:13 - 48:29 Read in full sermon

Driving home: How does one so weak as to deny his Lord gain the gall to try to strengthen his brethren? Well, it isn't a matter of Peter's gall. It's a matter of the Lord's appointment. And the Lord, in essence, is saying, Peter, part…

The metaphor 'upon the rubble of Peter's denial is built this man of God' illustrates how God used Peter's failure as a foundation for his future ministry and strength.

If you only knew that, if you only knew that of Peter, you'd say, how in the world could someone like that ever be used to strengthen his brethren? And that for almost 2,000 years. Well, you see, God's determined to show that all of his ways are ways of grace. And upon the rubble of Peter's denial is built this man of God who in the purposes of God becomes the instrument of God to strengthen his brethren and to strengthen them with a realism that would never have been there had he not passed through this tragic denial of his Lord.

48:58 - 49:39 Read in full sermon