I want to ask you, please, to open
your New Testament tonight at the twenty-first
chapter of John's Gospel, John chapter twenty-one.
And you would help me again if you
would mind reading this to me, all together
in unison.
We shall read from John twenty-one, chapter
one, verse one, to verse nineteen, the first
nineteen verses of the twenty-first chapter of
John.
Are you ready?
Well, go.
Thank you.
Verse fifteen.
So when they had dined, Jesus saith to
Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou
me more than these?
He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest
that I love thee.
He saith unto him, Feed my lands.
This has been a very wonderful week, much
more than a conference for discussion.
It has been a meeting with God.
And at the end of the week, I
felt that as I thought about this meeting,
my great desire was that I should leave
you at the feet of a risen Lord.
And we have almost reached the last moment
of this convention.
And I should think there are probably three
thoughts that are on our mind.
There is the assessment of what we have
heard and learned.
And there is the anticipation of what the
future holds in the light of what we
have heard and learned.
And there's a call to action in response
to our committal to Christ.
I think these things are probably uppermost in
our mind.
The assessment of what we have heard the
future in the light of what we have
heard.
And a call to action of which we're
all conscious in the light of a fresh
commitment to our Lord.
I want you to turn with me to
this interview Peter had with the risen Christ,
as it is recorded in the chapter that
we have read.
Perhaps some of you may feel that this
convention has revealed so much of past failure
that like Peter, you're tempted to give up
and go fishing.
But let us see what the future does
hold for us in the goodness and mercy
of the Lord in the light of what
it held for Peter.
If you think back a minute with me
at the experiences which led Peter to that
hour, within the recent weeks of his life,
three things had taken place.
First of all, disillusionment.
Disillusionment.
The cross had shattered all his dreams of
earthly glory.
And Caesarea Philippi, you remember, when the Lord
Jesus first revealed the cross to his disciples,
he said, be it far from the Lord.
And he was never in sympathy with the
project.
He thought of an earthly kingdom.
He thought of himself probably as prime minister
in the kingdom.
But the cross had shattered all his dreams.
And how many Christians have imagined that the
Christian life would be comfortable and pleasant and
even acceptable until God has put the cross
into your path?
And you have discovered that the cross means
reproach, apparent failure, and defeat.
I remember Dr. Barnhurst speaking at the English
Keswick on the enlightening subject, the way to
up is down.
And the Christian begins to discover that truth.
That the pathway that leads him up to
a throne takes him down to a cross.
For except a corn of wheat fall into
the ground and die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
And perhaps you never thought, never realized, until
this week, that the Christian life would mean
that for you, disillusionment.
But then Peter also had experienced in recent
weeks defeat.
Looking back beyond the cross a moment, Peter
had known defeat.
Just the laugh of a girl had done
it.
Just a servant girl who laughed at him.
How many sermons have been preached upon the
disciple who followed afar off?
But what about the other disciples who didn't
follow at all?
Many of us don't bear the scars that
Peter bore.
At the first sign of battle, we've run
away.
And when the torches of the enemies of
Christ have come near us, we've fled.
Then in the security of a very comfortable
life, we've done something which those disciples never
did.
We've shaken our heads so sadly over the
disciple who followed afar off.
You remember that there was a moment when
Jesus looked upon Peter.
In the moment when he swore and denied
they'd ever knew anything of him, Jesus looked
upon him.
And have you ever asked yourself how Jesus
looked on him?
It wasn't with anger.
It wasn't a look of, I told you
that would happen.
It wasn't even a look of sympathy.
It was a look of love.
As a matter of fact, it's the same
word that was used when Jesus first met
him on a country road.
And our Lord looked upon Peter, looked him
through and through, that's the word.
And at the moment of his denial, Jesus
looked him through and through with a look
of penetrating love because he had followed him
so far.
Some people don't even know what it is
to follow Jesus afar off.
Comfortable Christians, knowing nothing of the scars or
wounds, nothing of warfare, only defeat.
It's the man who resists temptation that knows
the power of it, not the man who
goes down to it.
And many, many, many Christians don't know anything
at all about that.
There's a great word, you know, that the
Apostle Paul spoke to the church at Corinth.
When he said in the first Corinthian letter,
chapter 10 and verse 13, "'No temptation hath
taken you, but is common to man.' But
God is faithful, who with the temptation will
provide the way of escape that you may
be able to bear it.
Not that you may be able to run
away, but that you may be able to
bear it.
Let me illustrate a minute just what that
means.
Here's a workman, an engineer, and he's testing
a piece of machinery, and he's putting it
under severe pressures, and he watches it being
tested.
He particularly has his eye on the temperature
gauge.
He watches as the temperature goes up.
And when it releases, when it reaches a
certain point, a danger point, he releases a
valve that takes off the pressure, so that
the pressure may be able to escape.
God will not suffer you to be tempted
above that you're able, but will with the
temptation provide a way of escape.
He knows when to take off the pressure.
But some of us haven't dared to trust
him for that, and we've run away and
suffered defeat.
Said it was too big, too great, too
much for us, so we've gone off.
Peter had done that.
He had suffered disillusionment, he'd suffered defeat, and
he had suffered despair.
He went out and wept bitterly.
That should settle forever, the place that emotion
has in spiritual experience.
And perhaps some of us have been very
near to tears this week.
Perhaps even we've shed them.
As God's word has searched our hearts.
Here then is the man who met Christ
at daybreak.
And what a wonderful text is verse four
of our chapter.
But when the morning was come, Jesus stood
on the shore.
Peter must have thought that the long night
of despair would never end.
But it did.
And the new day held something for him,
as it does for you and for me.
Disillusionment, defeat, despair.
I wonder if in some measure we haven't
all been faced with those things this week.
But the morning has come, and Jesus, a
risen Lord, stood on the shore.
Just watch, Christ and Peter, as they walk
slowly away and begin talking together.
We'll learn something of what that new day
would hold for Peter.
First of all, I suggest to you it
held for him a new humility.
Verse 15, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou
me more than these?
Was that said, do you think, with a
look round at the other disciples?
As Jesus and Peter walked together toward the
sea, there were all the others there, and
the Lord had a little look at them
and said, Now, Simon, lovest thou me more
than these?
Listen to his answer.
The answer of a man who very proudly
had said a little while ago, Though all
men forsake me, thee yet will I not.
Simon says to him, Lord, thou knowest that
I have an affection for thee?
He dent rise to the word that Jesus
used.
Jesus said to him, Simon, lovest thou me
with all thy heart?
It was a word of absolute depth of
love.
And Simon didn't dare trust himself to say
it.
Lord, you know I do care for you.
And you remember that the Lord Jesus came
back with the same question, Simon, lovest thou
me more than thee?
And once again, Simon said, Lord, you know
that I have an affection for you.
And the third time, back again, Jesus came.
And this time, he came off from the
word that he had used, and he used
the word that Peter had used.
Peter, have you even got an affection for
me?
Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I do care
for you.
You see, a threefold defeat, a threefold denial,
had to be met by a threefold confession
of Christ, of his love to Christ.
Peter's defeat was in public, and his name
and his witness were discredited.
May I say very quietly, your defeat and
mine, I mean the thing that really has
mattered, have been in private, and they are
known by and large only to God and
ourselves.
Had the record of our failure received the
same publicity as did Peter's, our reputation would
have shared Peter's fate.
Yet, we are critical of the faults of
others, and sensitive to criticism of ourselves, while
all the time we've carried in our hearts
such a record of sin, which, if it
were made public, would strike us down with
confusion.
It's an awful job having a photograph taken.
Every time you come to this country, you've
got to do it.
And you know, the thing to do is
to get the cheapest thing you can possibly
can.
And I went to a shop in Edinburgh
to get a photo taken.
The whole job was done in three minutes.
There was the photograph, passport photo.
And I looked at it, and I thought,
my goodness, can that really be me?
Is the story as bad as that?
And I compared it with a photograph of
myself, which we, my wife, strangely enough, likes
to keep on her dressing table in the
bedroom.
Well, the contrast was ludicrous.
But the one was the touched-up, finished
product of a photographer in Chicago who knew
all the arts of photography, of taking out
all the pimples and spots and blemishes.
The other was the raw proof of a
passport photo.
Jesus isn't interested in the photography art.
He's very interested in looking at the truth.
Looking into the proof.
And the first step that led you into
blessing during the days of this week, if
you've come along that way, has been that
you were willing for him to look at
the proof.
He has seen you.
And the exposure has given you a shock.
We're just so glad that it isn't known
by other people.
Ever since I first saw myself as God
sees me, I've never been able to be
angry with people who have been critical of
me, because I've said to them, Well, Lord,
you know that the truth is about a
hundred times worse than that.
But I wonder what there is that Jesus
hears.
And alone, he hears.
Can I define humility?
I would define it this way.
It is the silence of the soul before
God.
Lord, thou knowest.
No complaints, no arguments, no resentment now, Lord.
No questioning, no challenging your way with me.
Jesus looks into the heart that was once
full of pride and once full of arrogance.
And that heart has seen him and seen
itself.
And in the presence of God, it is
silent.
A new humility.
Peter never forgot that lesson.
And so it was that later on in
years, as he wrote, an old man now,
he said in 1 Peter 5, 5, Be
subject one to another, be clothed with humility.
God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to
the humble.
Is there some Peter here tonight?
And the new day is dawning for you.
And it holds for you a new humility.
One of the most precious graces of Christian
character.
And you know, when people, when God has
really looked into your heart like that, and
reduced you to silence, no arguments, people will
soon notice the difference.
They notice the difference by the way you
walk down the church aisle.
By the way you walk and talk in
your home.
A new humility.
Something else I see here.
A new loyalty.
Watch them again, Peter and Jesus.
As they pass, this time the boats and
the fishing gear.
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more
than thee?
Oh, we've been on the point of going
back to the old life and old associations.
How much easier.
At any time, a Christian, if he chooses,
can take the heat off.
At any time, he can move out of
the path of God's will.
And so, be free from the attacks of
the devil.
At any time, he can cease to be
a menace to the powers of darkness.
If he likes, of course he can.
But the peace which is secured that way
is different, as different as the peace which
is enjoyed in the midst of the battle.
As that is different from the peace that
is enjoyed by tranquilizers.
You can get out of the battle and
you can quit and get out of the
heat and spare yourself a lot of the
battle, but you have no real peace in
your heart.
Perhaps some people have been thinking of giving
it all up.
And taking off the pressure.
Simon, lovest thou me more than thee?
At that moment, the old affection died forever
in Peter's heart.
And years later, he wrote, sanctify the Lord,
Christ as Lord, in your hearts, 1 Peter
3.15. Tell me.
No, don't tell me.
Tell the Lord.
Is there something to do with that old
life?
The life which is something less than God's
will for you.
And it still has a tremendous hold upon
you.
A tremendous grip.
Is he taking you right past it?
And saying, lovest thou me more than thee?
After one of the services at Moody Church
a year or two ago, just before leaving,
there came up to me a man, obviously
a very well-dressed, a very wealthy man.
And he came and spoke to me and
he said, 20 years ago, I knew everything
that you were talking about.
It was real to me.
The Lord was so precious to me.
But he said, you know, I got in
the rat race.
And I got on the conveyor belt.
And I got to work it every morning
at six o'clock to get my men
out on the road.
And I wasn't home till ten o'clock
at night.
And I made a great success of it.
I'm very rich and very wealthy.
But he said to me with a choke
in his voice, but oh God, what a
price I've paid.
Simon, lovest thou me more than thee?
A new loyalty.
Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
But the very essence of Christian experience, there
is the fact of implicit obedience to the
Lord Jesus.
We don't obey him in order to be
saved, we obey him because we are.
We don't obey him in order to comply
with rules, we obey him because the love
of Christ constrains us, because that's the whole
message of the Bible.
Listen, Romans 519, as by one man's disobedience
the many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
He was obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross.
The heart of sin is rebellion.
The heart of salvation is submission.
And I can find nowhere in my Bible,
and I'm prepared for you to come and
challenge me on this and point me out
a verse if you can.
I can find nowhere in my Bible where
it is even suggested that there is any
possibility of receiving Christ as Savior and then
at some future and more convenient time crowning
him as Lord.
He is either Lord of all or he
is not Lord at all.
Of course, there is an increasing area of
his sovereignty extended over your life as the
years go by.
He is Lord from the very beginning, but
as he goes on and you go on
with him, he begins to say to you,
now look, that's not my will for you,
that's not my purpose for you, this is
the way for you, not that way, don't
you do that again.
And he begins to talk to you like
that, all the joy of your Christian experience.
And the joy of his life lies in
your obedience to his voice, a new loyalty.
And thirdly, a new intimacy.
Simon, son of Peter, son of Jonah, lovest
thou me?
I think that Peter had probably thought that
his days of fellowship with Christ were all
over.
How could Jesus ever overlook his failures?
How astounded he must have been to listen
to the Lord defining the basis of their
new relationship.
Simon, lovest thou me?
Christ wanted his love.
One of the most wonderful promises, John 14,
21, is, He that loveth me, I will
love him and will manifest myself to him.
One of life's greatest experiences is the fellowship
and communion and given and received in mutual
love.
Intimacy is the hallmark of love.
How many of us really know the Lord
Jesus?
Oh, well, we know a bit about doctrine,
but it doesn't impress him very much.
There is something far greater than that.
Paul's great ambition was that I may know
him.
The great search in the church today, very
largely, is that I may know truth, that
I may get to know a system of
doctrine.
And now my heart filled, my head filled
with truth and my heart empty with love.
Do we know Jesus?
Do we walk with him in the quiet
place and talk with him?
Peter came to know the Lord in a
new intimacy and years later he wrote about
growing in grace and the knowledge of our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Now, that new day held all that for
him.
My dear friend, it can hold just that
for you, a new love.
In our search for truth, particularly regarding eschatology,
we tear each other apart like nothing on
earth.
And if you're not pre-tribulation or mid
-tribulation or post-tribulation or pre-millennium or
post-millennium, if you don't dot your I's
like I do on the program of Christ's
coming, finished.
I knew a minister in Chicago, a dear
man he was, and he was away for
six months on a tour of Africa on
the mission field.
And he came back one day to O
'Hare Field and his deacon's board and elders
were represented to meet him and his wife
was there also.
And they got there about some time before
the plane was due and they all went
to look at their timetable.
The flight so-and-so, I forget now
what land it was, arriving, this time, such
and time, they got all mixed up with
flights and they were worried and arguing about
it.
Eventually, they found the flight number and the
gate number and the time and they sailed
out to the gate and lo and behold,
when they got there, what do you think?
The pastor's wife was in the arms of
her husband.
They were concerned about the timetable, she was
concerned about him.
Lovest thou me?
A new intimacy.
And fourthly, a new responsibility.
Feed my sheep.
Do you ever wonder, perhaps, why, you know,
you want to serve the Lord and you
haven't found a sphere of service or a
place to work in or serve the Lord
happily?
Let me say this to you, the Lord
Jesus never lets love lie idle.
And I don't know what failure has marked
your life, but if you confessed it deep
down in your soul to your love to
the Lord, I'm sure that God has a
task for that love to do.
I don't think that many pulpit committees would
have considered Simon Peter.
I don't think he'd have been featured at
any particular Keswick convention in his backsliding condition.
But listen, when the hour struck for the
most vital and important sermon to be preached
in all history, he preached it.
Oh, what mercy and love, what a thrill
it was for him to stand up as
the mouthpiece of heaven on that day of
Pentecost.
Do you remember the hymn, one verse of
which says, O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek, to those
who fall, how kind thou art, how good
to those who seek.
Never judge God's forgiveness by man's forgiveness.
How unforgiving we are.
We have a gospel of forgiveness for the
unconverted.
But we have no forgiveness to offer sometimes
to the Christian, to the brother, the sister,
whom Satan has tripped up.
We gather on our pharisaical robes around us
and say, well, he's fallen, keep clear.
I wonder how we can afford to behave
like that in the light of God's forgiving
mercy to us.
No wonder that years later Peter wrote on
having compassion, 1 Peter 3.8, love as
brethren, be pitiful, feed the flock of God,
1 Peter 5.2. Yes, a day of
new responsibility had dawned.
Listen, my friend, did you know that everybody
in this congregation is either a missionary or
a mission field?
Did you know that?
You stop being a mission field and begin
to be a missionary.
At the moment when you answer the Lord
Jesus, thou knowest, Lord, I love thee, and
that comes first, and you accept his responsibility,
feed my sheep.
One more thing, a new intensity, verse 18
and 19.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, when thou
wast young, thou girdest thyself and walkest, whither
thou wouldest.
But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt
stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird
thee, and carry thee, whither thou wouldest not.
This spake he, signifying by what death he
should die, he should glorify God.
And when he had spoken this, he saith
unto him, follow me.
As Peter and Jesus stand face to face,
there's a new light, I think, dawning in
Peter's eyes.
He's got a, he's got a new glow.
You know, it's been wonderful.
I've been on the platform, of course, but
to watch a new light coming in people's
eyes.
I've watched that with this week.
I've said in my heart, hallelujah.
And some people will never be the same
again.
New light, they've seen something and have gripped
it, and it's real.
And Peter was like that.
And just as Jesus stood and talked with
him for a morning, for a moment before
rejoicing the others, before rejoining the others, so
he talks with us before we rejoin the
others with whom we work.
And he says, when thou wast young, thou
girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldest, when
thou shalt be old.
By the way, a few weeks later, not
much more than that, poor old Peter found
himself in trouble.
You remember?
He was in prison.
I want you just to catch this glimpse,
Acts 12.
He was up against it, really.
James had been killed and Peter was due
to die the next morning.
Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer
was made without ceasing of the church unto
God for him.
And when Peter would have brought him forth,
when Herod would have brought him forth, the
same night Peter was sleeping.
He was the only Christian in Jerusalem asleep
that evening.
They're all having a night of prayer for
him.
And there he was, behind iron gates, and
in the second ward, and four quaternions of
soldiers, and chained up, two other men, and
the man's asleep.
Oh, I want to learn some good lessons.
How could Peter sleep on an occasion like
that?
I think I know.
I'll tell you what I think, and then
when we get to heaven, at least I
for one, I want to ask you whether
I was right.
As he was chained up in that jam,
he was doing a bit of thinking, thinking
about his last interview with the Lord Jesus.
He thought about Christ's claim on his heart
and his love, and then he remembered the
little chat that Jesus had with him before
he went back to work again.
When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and
walkest whither thou wouldest.
But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt
stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird
thee.
When thou shalt be old.
But Jesus only said that to me a
few weeks ago.
I'm going to be old.
Here it can't cut my head off, praise
the Lord, I'm going to have a jolly
good nap.
So he rested on the promises of God.
But that day, around that seashore, Peter saw
himself looking into the face of the Lord
Jesus, and right down the way that Christ
had planned for him for the future.
And there he saw against the brightness of
the day a shadow of a cross, and
in that shadow he was to live and
to serve for the rest of his life.
No wonder years later he spoke so much
about suffering.
Nobody understood suffering like he did, but then
he lived in the shadow of a cross
all his days, and history records that he
died on one.
But he said, think it not strange, beloved,
concerning the fiery trial which is to try
you, as though some strange thing happened to
you, but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers
of Christ's suffering, that when its glory shall
be revealed, ye may be glad also with
exceeding joy.
So the new day dawned, and Peter entered
into it, entered into it in response to
the Master's call.
It had begun with disillusionment, defeat, despair.
But the day went on, and his experience
was a new humility, a new loyalty, a
new intimacy, a new responsibility, a new intensity,
as he lived under the shadow of a
cross.
Lovest thou me more than thee?
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
Is that your answer?
Well, Jesus saith to you, feed my sheep.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we would recognize afresh that the
one thing that matters above everything else is
our relationship with thee, that an ungrieved Holy
Spirit may rule and reign and govern, guide
and sovereign control in our hearts.
Lord, we pray that if we began this
week and we had to say, had to
admit that what thou didst say to us
was right, I have somewhat against thee in
that thou hast left thy first love.
Grant, O Lord, that during these days thou
hast cleaned this sacred, intimate place, and that,
Lord, thou and each one of us are
on intimate speaking terms.
May we live and walk and talk and
work in the light of the glow of
the love of Jesus in our hearts.
We ask it for thy name's sake.
Amen.