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D a i l y D e v o t i o n a l
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S T U D I E S I N T H E N E W T E S T A M E N T FOR INDIVIDUAL MEDITATION AND FAMILY WORSHIP
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By R. A. TORREY
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..............................■ ■ nil...... ■ ■ in....mniiiiimin[n) death, even as he said he would, instead of denial (Acts 4:12). Peter has many fol lowers in his cowardice and failure before Pentecost; would that he had more follow ers in his dauntless heroism and devotion after Pentecost. Thursday, September 2. Mark 15 :l-5. This passage introduces us to an awful scene. We see not only Jesus on trial but man. And what really is in man we see in the murderous hate of the religious lead ers of Israel, the blood-thirsty clamor of the. populace, the weak vacillation of Pilate and the heartless cruelty of the soldiers. Jew and Gentile stand condemned: “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God” (Rom. 3:19). Fear of an uprising and intensity of hate spurred the Jewish leaders on. At the earliest possible hour they drag Jesus before Pilate. They vio lated all their own prescribed methods of procedure in their eager haste to make sure the death of Jesus. And this was not the act of a few unprincipled men, but of “the whole council,” composed of the leading and most highly esteemed men of the nation. Jesus had forseen and foretold this out come of His last visit to Jerusalem (ch. 10:33). Friday, September 3. Mark 15:6-14. Pilate was convinced of Jesus’ innocence. More than that, worldly and unprincipled though he was, he was strangely awed by the appearance and bearing of Jesus. He desired to release Jesus, or at least get Him off of his hands. But he lacked the moral courage to come right out and ¿Jet Him go in the fape of priestly demands.
Wednesday, September 1. Mark 14:66-72.
Our Lord Jesus had told Peter on the preceding evening that he could not follow Him at the time, but that he should later (Jno. 13:36). Furthermore at His arrest He had given all His disciples a hint that they were to go away (Jno. 18:8). But Peter had turned a deaf ear to all this and now undertakes to make good his boast and to prove his Master mistaken in His esti mate of him. How much better our Lord knows us than we know ourselves. Peter got into very serious danger by not heeding our Lord’s repeated warnings and thus keeping out of bad company. A few words of a servant girl filled the self-confident Peter with dismay, and he de nied any knowledge of his Lord (vs. 68, 70, 71). He did not get out of trouble by one denial nor two. The sinner until he genu inely and thoroughly repents always goes from bad to worse. There is at the first glance an apparent contradiction between the accounts given by the various evangel ists of Peter’s denial of his Lord. Mark says that it was the same maid who on the first two occasions accused Peter of being a follower of Jesus. Matthew and Luke say it was another maid on the second oc casion. The solution of the apparent dis crepancy is found in Jno. 18:25, where we are told, that there were several who said it at the same time; so doubtless the first maid was reinforced by a second and to gether they brought the accusation. At last Peter has reached the very bottom (v. 71) and when he has denied' the three predicted times, the cock crows and recalls the words of Jesus. Disloyalty and cowardice now give way to bitter tears of repentance. The time was soon coming when Peter would not deny his Lord, when he would choose
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