Father which is in heaven." His understanding was a divine revel ation of God's truth. As a result the promise came, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." What a tremendous mountain-top expe rience! Peter's soul had been op ened to the divine revelation. The Lord then begins to teach His disciples, giving them a better understanding of His mission and ministry in this world. This sug gests to us that God will never give us further truth until we come to understand clearly commence ment truth as to who He really is. How far have you gone in the un derstanding of truth? The Lord waits to lead each of us further on when we come step by step along the way. Such truth can give us the assurance of our salvation through the finished work of Christ on our behalf. In Hebrews, the sad commen tary on those believers was that they never went beyond the milk of the Word when God wanted to impart spiritual meat to them (He brews 5:11-14). May God help us to have our souls exercised in the understanding of divine truth so that the Lord will be able to lead us on into fuller truths to bless our souls. Are we just milk drinkers or are we meat eaters? AN IMPETUOUS DISCIPLE In the early life of the Apostle Peter he was privileged to learn truths directly from Christ which he had never heard before. Re corded in Mark 8:31 is the fact that Jesus "began to teach them" truths that He had never taught them be fore. The startling word He gave Page 22
was "that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." Here is the first message He gives them about the cross. Notice that in the same breath in which He talks about His crucifixion, He also mentions His resurrection. Easter Sunday is not very far from Good Friday. He will never mention His death on the cross from now until He is on it, without placing right by it the record of His resurrec tion. What a blessed truth that is to keep in mind. Because of this word, however, Peter begins to rebuke Him. This marks the point where this, rather impetuous disciple begins to back slide. How strange it is to realize that Peter begins to backslide un der the teaching and preaching ministry of the Lord Himself. The question is, "What do you do with divine truth when it is given?" You will either become bitter or better; rebellious or righteous. One's per sonal attitude is the determining factor. Will you live in the joy of His message, sharing in the power of it? Will it again, as it has in the past, just go out the other ear? Are you simply a "hearer" and not a "doer"? What we need to do is open our hearts to the Word of God, allowing it to enter and to act upon our lives in full force of pow er and conviction. Only in this way will we be obedient to the Lord's will. The basic difficulty is that as evangelicals we know a lot of truth but do we obey the truth we know? As a young boy I can remember an interesting and decorative sta
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