Mark's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 43.
Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of
the twelve, appeared.
With him was a crowd armed with swords
and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the
teachers of the law, and the elders.
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with
them, the one I kiss is the man,
arrest him and lead him away under guard.
Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, Rabbi,
and kissed him.
The men seized Jesus and arrested him.
Then one of those standing near drew his
sword and struck the servant of the high
priest, cutting off his ear.
Am I leading a rebellion, said Jesus, that
you have come out with swords and clubs
to capture me?
Every day I was with you, teaching in
the temple courts, and you did not arrest
me.
But the scriptures must be fulfilled.
Then everyone deserted him and fled.
A young man wearing nothing but a linen
garment was following Jesus.
When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving
his garment behind.
They took Jesus to the high priest, and
all the chief priests, elders, and teachers of
the law came together.
Peter followed him at a distance, right into
the courtyard of the high priest.
There he sat with the guards and warned
himself of the fire.
The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were
looking for evidence against Jesus so they could
put him to death, but they did not
find any.
Many testified falsely against him, but their statements
did not agree.
And some stood up and gave this false
testimony against him, We have heard him say,
I will destroy this man-made temple, and
in three days we'll build another, not made
by man.
Yet even then their testimony did not agree.
Then the high priest stood up before them
and asked Jesus, Are you not going to
answer?
What is this testimony that these men are
bringing against you?
But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again the high priest asked him, Are you
the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?
I am, said Jesus, and you will see
the Son of Man standing at the right
hand of the Mighty One and coming on
the clouds of heaven.
Then the high priest tore his clothes.
Why do we need any more witnesses, he
asked?
You have heard the blasphemy.
What do you think?
They all condemned him as worthy of death.
And some began to spit at him.
They blindfolded him, struck him with their fists
and said, Prophesy.
And the guards took him and beat him.
While Peter was below in the courtyard, one
of the servant girls of the high priest
came by.
When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked
closely at him.
You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus, she
said, but he denied it.
I don't know or understand what you're talking
about, he said, and went out into the
entryway.
When the servant girl saw him there, she
said again to those standing around, This fellow
is one of them.
Again he denied it.
After a little while, those standing near said
to Peter, Surely you are one of them,
for you are Galilean.
He began to call down curses on himself
and he swore to them, I don't know
this man you're talking about.
Immediately the rooster crowed the second time.
Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken
to him.
Before the rooster crows twice, you will disown
me three times.
And he broke down and wept.
This is the word of the Lord.
Now let me twin to that reading that
you already had so feelingfully brought before you,
a few verses from Peter, 1 Peter in
chapter 1, in which Peter makes some reference
to trials and difficulty, and I imagine he's
speaking somewhat autobiographically because he himself has known
the same, and he's addressing his remarks, Peter
also being the man who's behind Mark's gospels,
so you're really drawing from the inspiration under
the Holy Spirit of the same man for
these epistles and also for the gospel.
And he's addressing a readership that is going
through great problems, great trials, like in Iran
today, we're asked to focus our attention worldwide
on the situation in Iran where you've got
50 million or so people tucked away, often
unreached, often unheard of in terms of their
needs in the world, especially the tiny Christian
minority that endures such suffering and hardship.
Well, speaking of hardship, this is what Peter
says in the sixth verse, in this, this
is 1 Peter 1, in this you greatly
rejoice, though now for a little while you
may have had to suffer grief in all
kinds of trials.
These have come so that your faith of
greater worth than gold which perishes, even though
refined by fire, may be proved genuine and
may result in praise, glory, and honor when
Jesus Christ is revealed.
Though you have not seen him, you love
him, and even though you do not see
him now, you believe in him and are
filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
And then still speaking somewhat biographically, Peter at
the end of this epistle says in the
fifth verse, fifth chapter, eighth verse, be self
-controlled and alert.
Your enemy the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion looking for someone to devour, but
you shall not resist him, standing firm in
the faith, because you know that your brothers
throughout the world are undergoing the same kind
of sufferings, and the God of all grace,
who called you to his eternal glory in
Christ, after you have suffered a little while,
will himself restore you and make you strong,
firm, and steadfast.
To him be the power forever and ever.
Amen.
Well, let's go back to Mark's gospel and
to those very fascinating verses tucked away at
the end of the fourteenth chapter.
As always, I try, along with my colleague
Tim, in the grace of God, to explain
to you what the word of the Lord,
the Bible actually says, that's the task of
the preacher and those of you who home
in here regularly on a Sunday know that
we're working our way through and coming to
the conclusion of the life of Jesus as
told in this wonderful gospel.
And from the fifty-third verse and onwards,
we come to a particular passage in this
fourteenth chapter which speaks, if you please, of
trials.
It is the way of faith to be
tested.
The testing of your discipleship will clarify what
you believe, it will focus it more clearly
and what's more, it will toughen you.
Somebody has said that the trials of life
are sent to make us better and not
bitter.
Another Puritan preacher says that the rod that
strikes is often better for us than the
staff which comforts.
Well, let's consider this passage.
You see, it has a lot to do
about trials, but you can work that word
trial through with two particular connotations.
There is a sense in which your faith
is always being tried, you're always on display.
People, whether you recognize it or not, assuming
that you profess to be Christians are examining
your life and therefore there is a sense
in which you're always being tested.
And I want to suggest that in that
general sense of the word, it's helpful for
you to come to the narrative between the
fifty-third and the sixty-fifth verses of
this chapter, because here is our beloved Lord,
if you please, on trial.
They're testing His faith, they're testing His mettle.
So if you like, it's interpreting that word
circumstantially.
I'll fill in the details in just a
moment.
But then when you come to the, I
said as far as the sixty-third verse
is concerned, I really meant to say that
our Lord is being tested, He's being tested
as far as His circumstances are concerned from
the fifty-third verse.
And then after that, you will find that
the Apostle Peter is also being tested and
tried in a legal sense from the sixty
-sixth verse and onwards.
But let's go back to the forty-third,
for here is our Lord and He's been
arrested and He's been taken in front of
the high priest, or at least He ultimately
will be.
But at the point of His arrest, as
I suggest that generally speaking, in understanding the
word generally, He's on trial, there are certain
things that He brings to your attention by
the way that He reacts to the problems
that are in front of Him.
You see, what's happening here is our Lord
is coming towards the end of His human
life in terms of leading up to the
cross.
And from the forty-third verse and onwards,
you are introduced to what is called the
passion narrative.
It was probably a narrative that circulated for
a while independently of the rest of Mark's
gospel, and when Mark was writing his gospel,
he drew this narrative into the main gospel
that he's writing.
And therefore in the forty-third verse, you
see as he's quoting, an explanation is made
about Judas, one of the twelve.
We know that he's one of the twelve,
but well, this is an incorporation into the
narrative.
And Mark is showing you how our Lord
Jesus, as He is arrested in these incidents
that follow in the garden of Gethsemane, is
in that general sense on trial.
He's going to be specifically on trial from
the fifty-third verse.
But here I'm suggesting to you that the
way in which things are happening to Him
at that point is also a test as
to who He is and how He will
cope with the problems that have come His
way.
You see, earlier on, you recall in the
garden of Gethsemane, He's prayed, Father, let this
cup pass from me.
And it doesn't pass.
It can't pass.
It's within the purposes of God for the
Son of Man, look at verse forty-one,
to be betrayed and handed into the hands
of sinners.
And so, from this forty-third verse through
to the fifty-second, what you get is
a picture of Jesus responding, I say, to
the general trial, responding to His circumstances.
And you can start to analyze something of
what He's going through in these words.
First of all, He has to cope with
the trial of treachery.
That's what it says in verse forty-three,
Judas, one of the twelve, appeared.
Verse forty-four, now Judas, the betrayer, had
arranged a signal with those who've come to
arrest Jesus.
It must have been quite a temptation for
our Lord, don't you think?
I mean, He knew all the time that
one of the twelve who was with Him
would ultimately deal treacherously.
But Jesus is human as well as divine.
I mean, if David was hurt by the
treachery of his son Absalom, will not Jesus
also be hurt by the treachery of Judas?
So I'm putting to you that here you're
beginning to get an example of a trial
in its general sense.
Now, if the disciples of our Lord had
obeyed His express instructions, they would have known
that when He was arrested, there was going
to be no forceful attempt whatsoever permitted to
be made to rescue Him from His predicament.
But not only is our Lord tried in
terms of treachery, He's tried in terms of
immaturity.
Look at the forty-seventh verse, and you'll
find John's gospel will identify the person who's
involved.
One of those standing near, Peter, draws his
sword and strikes the servant of the high
priest.
And in so doing, he endangers the whole
of our Lord's ministry, who has been teaching
His disciples that the kingdom that He's going
to bring in is one that is not
to be taken by way of military might.
And for Peter to blunder in such a
way as this is going to be a
trial to Jesus.
The last miracle that Jesus performed on earth
before His crucifixion was to undo the mischief
caused by an insensitive, overzealous act on the
part of Peter.
And our Lord has to cope, I say,
with this particular burden or trial.
And what is more, when He starts to
look at those who've come to arrest Him,
He finds that they're perverse.
There's a crowd armed with swords and clubs.
Look at verse 43, sent from the chief
priests.
Now this to our Savior was a perversion
in terms of justice and human behavior.
They come to Him at night, and yet
He says as He responds to this arrest,
am I leading a rebellion?
Verse 48, that you've come out with swords
and clubs to capture me?
Every day I was with you teaching in
the temple.
You come at night, I've been with you
in the day.
And what's more, you're not representatives of the
Roman occupying force, I've been with you in
the temporal area.
Therefore by pure logic our Lord is inserting
thereof the stock of Abraham.
Oh, the perversity of coming armed to the
teeth to arrest a man who is unarmed.
The insults which are directed towards our Lord
Jesus, treachery on the part of Judas, immaturity
on the part of Peter, perversity on the
part of the arresting gang.
And then there is the temerity of His
disciples.
Look at verse 51 as an example.
Now admittedly when you come to verse 51
you've got some interesting reasoning in which you
can engage.
The reference is to a young man, wearing
nothing but a linen garment, who has been
following Jesus.
When they seized him this young man flees
naked, leaving his garment behind.
Who this young man is, is a tantalizing
question.
I think that all the evidence seems to
indicate that this is John Mark, the one
who actually wrote the gospel, who acted, if
you please, as Peter's secretary.
John Mark, he was living in Jerusalem.
It seems that he came from a family
that was quite wealthy, who probably allowed the
Lord Jesus and the disciples the use of
the upper room.
With the curiosity of maybe someone not much
more than a teenager, he has witnessed what
happened in the garden of Gethsemane and he's
actually stole into the inner part of the
garden.
But when all this happens in terms of
the arrest of the Lord Jesus, terror strikes
his heart as it struck the heart of
the rest of the disciples and he flees
away naked.
Now Lord Jesus is left on His own.
You see, He's being tried, not in terms
of jurisprudence, but in terms of circumstances.
And I repeat my argument that you are
always being tried for your faith in terms
of how you react to your present circumstances.
Someone has said that God at times allows
His children to go to bed in the
dark.
What did they mean?
Well, you can't always understand what God allows
at a particular point.
He'll ask you to trust Him when you
cannot trace Him.
When you have worked out a certain course
of events that are going to happen, you
believe in the benevolence of God and they
don't work through in that particular order.
Then I put to you in the name
of God, He's trying you.
He's testing your faith.
He wants to focus your faith more clearly.
He wants to strengthen it.
The trials of life are not, I repeat,
directed to you by God, allowed by God
to make you bitter but to make you
better.
And here is our beloved Lord in those
opening verses of the narrative that commands our
attention from the 43rd and down to the
52nd, being, if you please, tried by the
circumstances that befall Him.
So I argue there is a general trial.
But let's move to the 53rd verse and
onwards, if I've cleared up having given you
the wrong verses right at the very beginning,
the configuration of my pulpit Bible is a
little different from the personal Bible that I
use, thus my mistake right at the outset.
But when you come to the 53rd verse,
then you get the introduction of our Lord
Jesus Christ to the Jewish Sanhedrin.
And if you like, there commences the legal
trial.
But if you've read very carefully what follows
after the description of our Lord before the
Sanhedrin and you focus your attention on Peter
and the circumstances that fall out in his
career at this stage, you will find that
it's not just Jesus who is on trial
but also Peter who is on trial.
Now Mark is very interesting in the way
that he writes this narrative.
He engages in what I would call flashback.
In other words, he has two cameras and
they're both rolling at the same time because
he wants you to see that there are
concurrent incidents that have to be interpreted, the
one stacked against the other.
You say, what do you mean?
Well, look at verse 53, our Lord having
gone through what I've called this general trial
in the garden of Gethsemane, starting to drink
something of the contents of the cup which
is so unacceptable to him, is then carted
off into the high priest's lair.
Ah yes, but the camera zooms in on
Peter.
Peter followed him at a distance right into
the courtyard of the high priest.
Look at verse 66.
Again, you get the same idea of the
flashback.
You see, Mark goes on to describe Jesus
in the courtroom of the high priest, but
then he comes and at the same time
shows you what is happening to Peter.
Peter was below in the courtyard.
So I'm arguing you've actually got two trials
here.
There is the trial of Jesus, the legal
trial of Jesus in the upper room, one
of the balcony rooms of the courthouse, and
there's the trial of Peter in the courtyard.
In the courtroom, lies of false witnesses will
be directed towards Jesus.
In the courtyard, there will be the sarcastic
laugh of a mocking servant girl directed towards
Peter.
Jesus will take an oath within.
Peter will take an oath without.
Jesus is on trial by the professionals.
Peter is on trial by the amateurs.
Jesus will be judged by the lawyers.
Peter will be judged by the laity.
But mark this, both Jesus and Peter have
in common, they are under scrutiny.
Now you see how the whole of this
narrative remarkably links together.
I repeat in the first part, here is
the illustration of Jesus responding in the garden
of Gethsemane to the testings and the trials
of the arrest.
Here in the 53rd verse, you get the
story of Jesus responding to his so-called
legal trial, and you get Peter described as
coping with the trial that's his on the
part of lay people putting questions to him.
So, let's follow our beloved Lord into what
I call the lair of the high priest.
Actually, what has happened is there's been an
unofficial calling together of the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin is the Jewish equivalent to the
Old Bailey.
The Sadducees will be there, referred to here
in verse 53 in terms of the high
priest and all the chief priests.
The elders will be there, that is the
Pharisees, and the teachers of the law, the
scribes.
Seventy men will come, and in a semicircle
they will face the Lord Jesus, he being
in the center, and they will ply him
with questions.
I refer to it as a legal trial,
but actually it's an illustration of a flagrant
miscarriage of justice.
You see, these men who want to assess
our Lord Jesus have actually made up their
minds before the whole procedure of the trial
begins, that's why I call it a farce.
Look at verse 55, they were coming together
looking for evidence against Jesus.
In other words, they had prejudged the whole
issue.
Our Lord never had a fair trial.
But it wasn't that easy for them to
get witnesses that were all saying the same
thing.
The very pieces of silver which have bribed
Judas no doubt were also being offered to
people who were in the area of the
palace of the high priest in order to
come forward and to give testimony against Jesus.
One of the things about trying to get
people to lie is that you cannot get
them to lie consistently.
That's one of the reasons why if evidence
is ever given at a law court and
everyone is saying the same thing, any magistrate
worthy of his name, her name, knows that
there has been connivance because any reputable evidence
about an incident given by one, two, three,
or four people will always have their nuances
of difference because everyone sees something from a
different angle.
And here the priests are in great difficulty,
the evidence comes forward but they cancel one
another out.
Many testified falsely against him but their statements
did not agree.
Then somebody stood up and gave this sort
of comment.
We.
We heard him say, I will destroy this
man-made temple and in three days we'll
build another not made by man.
And now the half truth is always worse
than a lie.
Half of the truth was that Jesus had
made reference to the temple.
Right at the very beginning of his ministry
and towards the end of his ministry.
But you didn't really need to have much
common sense to appreciate that when he was
talking about the temple he was referring to
his body.
He was in the temple area, but he
was actually referring to the temple of his
body.
And when he made reference to the temple
being destroyed, even if he had been referring
specifically to the physical temple, he didn't do
so in the language that is here used
in this court.
There is no occasion when Jesus right at
the beginning of his ministry or at the
end of his ministry spoke of himself destroying
the temple.
He spoke rather of finding the temple in
a state of dissolution.
And they would see what he would do
when his body is handed over to the
charge of those who will deal damnably with
him.
Though it is destroyed on the third day,
it will be raised again.
But as I say, the evidence is perverted.
This is just another indication of the trial
that our Lord had to go through.
But not only that, you find that the
high priest who by this time is getting
a little bit miffed, he speaks to the
Lord Jesus.
He suggests that the case is watertight, knowing
full well that it's riddled with illogicality.
Are you not going to answer?
What is this testimony that these men are
bringing against you?
Well, a downright lie does not have to
be argued with by truth.
Truth will always remain intact and stand on
its own.
So Jesus remains silent.
There is no case to answer.
Now the interesting thing about our beloved Lord
is that one of the charges that were
leveled against him, one of the trials that
he had to cope with, is actually that
his ministry was explained in terms of he's
a demoniac.
In other words, he's demon-possessed.
Now the high priest has great authority.
And according to Jewish culture and tradition, when
the high priest actually uses his priestly authority
and adheres someone to speak, they have to.
And the interesting thing is that when the
high priest here makes a challenge to our
Lord Jesus, when it says he asks him
the rather neutral, insipid language of the NIV,
he doesn't.
He adheres him.
And it's the same verb which suggests the
expulsion of a demon.
Maybe the connotation is this, that Jesus is
so possessed that it needs the high priest
to use his authority to see if he
can get this blasphemy out from the lips
of Jesus once and for all.
Tell us, are you the Christ?
And now you see the charges shifted.
It's not to do with some trumped up
business about the temple.
It is to do with the person of
Jesus, who he is and what his authority
is.
And so our Lord significantly responds in verse
62, I am, using the express name of
God.
And also affirming that the priests will one
day see the Son of Man sitting at
the right hand of the Mighty One.
In other words, here is our Lord Jesus
acknowledging that not only is he the representative
of God, he has the authority of God
himself.
How the watchtower, the Jehovah's Witnesses can read
this, not see the reaction of the high
priest and appreciate that our Lord is claiming
publicly and clearly to be divine, I do
not know.
As a result, the high priest tears his
clothes.
Game, set and match.
He's got Jesus, or so it would seem,
just where he wants him.
He has got the Lord Jesus to come
clean.
Are you the Christ?
Are you the Messiah?
Yes, I am the Christ.
I am the Messiah.
And the place alongside Jehovah himself belongs by
right to me.
You've heard the blasphemy?
What do you think?
Says the priest.
And so, our Lord Jesus on trial is
proven to be by this subtle questioning more
than just an ordinary man.
He claims he is the Son of God.
Now, let's move because we have to.
I know there is a couple more verses,
but we'll return to those in a moment.
Let's move to Peter.
If Jesus is in the upper court, here
is Peter in the lower court.
And he too, I argue, is on trial.
Not the lawyers, but the laity.
Not the professionals, but the amateurs.
You ask yourself, first of all, why are
there people in the courtyard at that time
of day?
And the reason is, well, because of all
the exciting things that have happened in Jerusalem.
Here is this Nazarene.
He's been arrested.
There's a trial.
And, you know, human curiosity being what it
is, it causes people to hang around.
It's Passover.
It's night.
It's dark and cold.
And, therefore, there's a fire.
And Peter, all credit to him because he
shows some courage here.
He makes his way into the area of
the high priest's domain.
And he starts to warm himself by the
fire.
And it seems as though he's got some
sights as to what is happening to the
Lord Jesus inasmuch as such a full narrative
is given later on at Peter's dictation to
John Mark.
So, a woman comes along.
Actually, she's a portraitress.
The lady who looks after the gate through
which Peter has passed into the palace garden
of the high priest.
And she says, you also were with that
Nazarene.
As Jesus has been assailed by false witnesses,
here is the saucy comment of some damsel.
I don't know or understand what you are
talking about.
That's a very interesting expression.
What Peter is doing now is using legal
jargon.
He's using the language of a proper law
court in which he is dismissing any possibility
of the charge being leveled against him as
being accurate.
Isn't it interesting that sometimes men and women
can cope with intense pressure?
I mean, Peter may have been very foolish
in the garden taking the sword and cutting
off the ear of the high priest's servant.
But there is a sense of courage involved
in that action.
Peter can do that.
Peter can show the confidence and the courage
of following the Lord Jesus into the very
domain of the high priest where people presumably
are looking out for him because of what
he has done to the high priest's servant.
He can cope with the greater.
But the saucy comment of a servant girl
pulverizes him.
I don't know or understand what you are
talking about.
And he clears off.
He went out.
He went out into the entrance.
Well, he comes back once more to a
different part of the courtyard.
And this annoying lady spots him again and
publicly identifies him.
This fellow is one of them.
But he denies it.
He doesn't just deny it with ordinary speech.
He begins to call down curses on himself.
And he goes under oath as well as
using oaths.
You remember how Jezebel said to her husband
Ahab when he wanted but found it difficult
to obtain the vineyard of Naboth, God do
so to me and more also.
In other words, bringing an oath upon herself
if what she wanted wasn't delivered.
And here is Peter bringing an oath on
himself and with the foulest language he is
dissenting from the accusation that he was an
accomplice of Jesus.
I don't know the man you are talking
about.
Peter, turn the clock back just a few
months.
The high priest has been saying in courtyard
number one that Jesus is or asking him
if he is the Christ, the son of
the blessed God.
Who do men say that I am?
Peter, you remember the disciples suggested John Baptist
or one of the prophets and you said
you are the Christ, the son of the
living God.
Jesus is in trouble for affirming what you
said five months ago.
And in courtyard B you are denying what
you said five months ago.
You see the point?
There is a double trial here.
Not just Jesus on trial but Peter also
on trial.
And the cock starts to crow.
It could be a literal cock and probably
is but the Romans actually, they had a
trumpet call at three o'clock in the
morning which was known as the cock crow.
Which would have been heard throughout the whole
of Jerusalem as it sounded and disturbed the
silence of the streets at that time in
the early morning.
And we read, then Peter remembered the word
Jesus had spoken to him.
Peter has been knocked off course by the
amateur interrogation.
Our folk are only concerned to establish his
relationship with Jesus who he refers to now
as that man.
You see what happens is that our Lord
is able to cope, is he not?
I mean he copes with the general trial,
he copes in the garden, he copes with
the treachery, he copes with the perversity, he
copes with the temerity of the disciples and
so on and so forth.
He copes there admirably.
And he also copes in the legal trial.
But Peter, Peter goes to pieces.
And you can't criticize Peter unless you yourself
have lived an impeccable life of discipleship.
But you probably haven't.
And therefore you're glad of the honesty of
Peter that when he talked to Mark about
these incidents, he who alone had the intelligence
as to what happened in the high priest's
courtyard, he allowed Mark to write it down.
And Peter goes out and he weeps.
O ye tears, O ye tears, I am
thankful that you run.
Though you trickle in the darkness, you shall
glitter in the sun.
The rainbow cannot shine if the rain refused
to fall.
And the eyes that cannot weep are the
saddest eyes of all.
Peter remembers.
He remembers that Jesus has said, when you
deny me.
Recall this.
I prayed for you.
You see, Peter's love for Jesus never failed.
Peter's faith in Jesus did not fail.
Peter's hope about the current circumstances, that failed.
And he panicked.
He knee-jerked.
I was at one of the most incredible
services I've ever attended in my life, yesterday.
I went up to Westminster Chapel, not because
of my past association with Westminster, but because
Bishop Huyck, Hobespian Meyer's wife, was present.
Bishop Huyck was martyred for his faith in
Iran.
In the early months of this year.
He is one of three Christian leaders who
have been butchered in the opening period of
1994.
His wife, Takush, was present.
And she came to the microphone.
There were not many people there, mainly Iranians
and just one or two Brits like myself.
And she started to talk about Bishop Huyck.
An elegant lady.
When she had finished, people not only clapped,
they stood up.
And the clapping went on and on and
on.
Not the clapping that you might associate with
the jingoism of, shall we say, the last
night of the proms.
It was the clapping of people who realized
that they were standing in the presence of
someone who had been almost to hell and
back in terms of what her family had
endured.
And she talked about Bishop Huyck, her husband.
And the way that he had faced persecution
in its face.
And told the Muslim authorities that there was
no way in which he was prepared to
agree not to spread the gospel amongst Islamic
people.
She told of the problems that she has
now as a woman whose partner has paid
the supreme price and was knifed to death
in Tehran just in the early parts of
this year.
And when I tell you that there was
hardly an eye that wasn't filled with tears,
I'm not exaggerating.
Because so against the consistency of Bishop Huyck,
one felt one's own inconsistency.
You thought of what he had gone through
and you related it to the way that
you buckle.
And the fact of the matter is that
when you buckle, as Peter did, only he
with the Lord Jesus as his example, Jesus
does not turn you aside and refuse to
take you back.
When the trials of life come in, when
the testings come and you fail, he'll take
you back and give you another start.
That's what happened for Peter.
In Galilee, by the seashore where Jesus first
met Peter, he met him once more and
brought him back into the ministry.
Father, there are those of us who need
to reaffirm our trust and confidence in you.
There are some of us who have been
reeling this past week through circumstances, sometimes beyond
our control, sometimes as a result of things
that we've set in motion through our foolishness.
We ask that whatever state of life we
find ourselves in right now, that your word
may come and minister to all our hearts.
In the name of Jesus our Saviour, Amen.