Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

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Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 3

And those eyes of Jesus, those eyes that Revelation 1 describes as like fire. Those eyes of Jesus burned into Peter's heart, and Peter immediately remembered the Lord's prediction. Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress.

Few things are more painful than being betrayed or abandoned by someone we love. And Jesus knew the pain of betrayal and abandonment as well as anyone.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress looks at the terrible suffering that Jesus endured on the night before his crucifixion, the longest night of his earthly life.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. I'm delighted that you've joined us as we continue to talk about the power of the cross. The Passion Week culminates on Sunday morning. Easter represents the apex of our Christian calendar. It's the moment when Jesus Christ, having endured the scorn and shame of the cross, defeated death once for all. And this is the heart of our Christian faith and the reason we have hope.

Well, this week I've been telling you about a book I've written that celebrates these historic moments. It's called the Power of the Cross. My book includes more than 90 pages of striking images from the Holy Land. And I want this illustrated guidebook to help you reflect on seven days of Jesus' ministry. I'd like to send you this beautiful pictorial essay right away. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory.

When you request this book today, let me challenge you to become one of our pathway partners. A pathway partner is like a missionary who sends the gospel of Jesus Christ through the airwaves, the Internet, and every other place where Pathway to Victory can be accessed. We've been praying that God would lead at least 50 people to join us as new missionary partners this month. As a pathway partner, you agree to send a generous gift of your choosing every month. Would you help us reach that goal?

David and I will share more details later, but right now it's time to resume a study from Luke chapter 22. We began yesterday. I titled this message the Longest Night.

Speaker 3

**Luke chapter 22.** Look at verse 39 of Luke 22. And he came out, that is, of the upper room, and proceeded, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples also followed him. And when Jesus arrived at the place, he said to them, pray that you might not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them, that is, the disciples, about a stone's throw. And he knelt down and began to pray.

Now, that's an unfortunate translation. Knelt down. That's not what happened. That's not what happened at all. If you want to find out what really happened, go to Matthew 26, 38, and 39. This isn't a contradictory account. It is a fuller account of what happened. Verse 38 of Matthew 26. Then Jesus said to them, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me. Verse 39. And he went a little beyond them, and he fell on his face. He fell down on his face and began to pray, saying, father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as thou wilt.

You see, Jesus was fully God, but he was also fully man. And it was only natural that he would ask for another way to accomplish the Father's will. And that's why he said, father, if you can find another way for me to accomplish your mission. Notice verse 43 and verse 44. Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. And being in agony, he was praying very fervently. And his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground.

Listen to me. When you know what God wants you to do, but you're struggling with it, you can talk to Jesus about it. He understands. He's been there. Jesus went through a real struggle in the garden that night in doing the will of God. And that set up the stage for the greatest betrayal he would ever experience.

Look at verse 47 of Luke 22. While Jesus was still speaking, behold, a multitude came. And the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them. And he approached Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said to him, Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss? And when those who were around Jesus saw what was going to happen, they said, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? There was one overzealous apostle who didn't wait for the answer.

Look at verse 50, and a certain one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. That certain one, John 18 tells us, was Peter. Now, to see what Jesus' response to that was, hold your place here and turn over to the parallel passage. Matthew 26:52, 56. Then Jesus said to Peter, put your sword back into its place, for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.

Now, don't read into that more than ought to be read into it. Some people use this to justify not doing anything to protect yourself. That's not what Jesus is talking about. He's simply saying, my purpose is not going to be fulfilled through the use of the sword. He goes on to say, for do you not think that I could appeal to my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? But then he goes on to say, but how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way?

Jesus said, Peter, put the sword away. This is part of God's plan for my life. You know, Judas' betrayal had to have been very painful for the Lord to experience. Have you ever been betrayed by somebody very close to you? The disciples. These 12 men had become like his family. For three years he had laughed with them, cried with them, shared his innermost thoughts, and then to have one sell him out for 30 pieces of silver.

As we've said before, Jesus could have been consumed with bitterness if he had focused on that offense. But Jesus was saying to Peter, Peter, leave him alone. Leave these people alone. They are simply pawns on God's chessboard to accomplish his ultimate plan. I know I've said it before. I'll say it again. The way to keep from being bitter against those who have hurt you is to remember God is bigger than they are. As Joseph said, you meant it for evil, but God used it for good. God can take the worst things that have been done to you and use them for your good and for his glory. That's what Jesus was saying.

And then notice how Matthew 26:56 ends. Then all the disciples left him and fled. It wasn't just Judas who betrayed him. All the disciples left him and fled. And in that word, all was included one man that you would least expect to turn his back and run. His name was Peter. And Peter, in a few hours' time, would deny the Lord not once, twice, but three times.

Turn back to Luke 22 for just a moment. Remember just a few hours earlier in the Upper room, Peter had made this bold declaration. He said in verse 33, Lord, with you I am ready to go to prison and to death. And Jesus said, I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you have denied me three times. You'll deny three times that you even know me. Now, he made that prediction in the upper room just an hour or so later in the garden of Gethsemane. What happened? Peter took the sword and cut that guy's ear off.

And you were tempted to think, well, maybe Jesus was wrong about this. Maybe Peter was going to be the rock man that Jesus said he was. But the rock man turned to jelly very quickly. Notice verse 54 of Luke 22. And having arrested Jesus, they led him away and brought him to the house of the high priest. But Peter was following at a distance.

There's a whole sermon in that phrase, Peter was following at a distance. There are a lot of followers of Christ today who profess they're going to do great things for God. But when the heat starts to be turned up on them for following Jesus, they drop back a little bit. There's a distance between them and the Lord until they see how this is all really going to pan out. That was Peter. As he began to see everything taking place, he drops back. He's still curious, but he drops back.

Now, where did they take Jesus? From the garden to the house of the high priest. And Jesus begins at about 1 o'clock in the morning, a series of six trials before he was crucified. Eight hours later, at 9 am they brought him for the first trial to the high priest's home. Now the high priest was named Caiaphas. Caiaphas had been priests seated. The former high priest was named Annas. And it was Caiaphas' father-in-law who was the high priest before Annas.

And so when they went to the home of the high priest, many of us have been there. That home is a palatial home. And it was probably a place where both Annas, the father-in-law, the high priest emeritus, and Caiaphas lived. And their quarters were separated by a courtyard. Now, Luke doesn't record the first trial of Jesus which was before the father-in-law, Annas. It was a very brief interchange. Luke picks up with the trial before Caiaphas. It was probably a two-hour trial that went between 1 and 3 am.

Now Peter was with the others out in the courtyard of that high priest's home where he could hear everything that was taking place. Now notice the three denials that would take place within these two hours, verse 55. And after they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter was sitting among them. And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight and looking intently at him, said, this man was with him, Jesus too. But he denied it, saying, woman, I do not know him.

Notice the two-step denial. He denied it. Arneomi, it's a word that refers to apostasy. He denied it, but then he went further. He said, I don't even know him. The first denial. The second denial, an hour or so later, perhaps verse 58. And a little later, another saw him and said, you are one of them too. But Peter said, man, I am not. Notice here, Peter's not only denying that he knew Jesus, he was denying the disciples as well that he was part of them. He said, I'm not a part of that group whatsoever.

And then the third denial, perhaps 30 minutes or so later, in verse 59, somebody else fixes their gaze on Peter and insisted certainly this man also was with him, for he is a Galilean too. Remember, Galileans lived in the north. Jesus was from Galilee. They're now in southern Israel, in Judea. And somebody around that fire says, look at him, he's from Galilee. He must be with Jesus.

Now how did he know that Peter was from Galilee? Simply by looking at him? The Galileans had a certain accent. Those in the south knew exactly where he was from. And so how did he respond to that? Matthew's account says he began to quote, curse and swear. Now I've read that for years and you have too, and I bet you've had the same thought I did. You probably think that means that Peter responded by just letting out a string of expletives, cursing and swearing. That would be normal. I mean, he was a rough, rugged fisherman. That'd be a normal response.

But that's not what the text means, that he cursed and swore. No, he's talking about the fact that he made an oath to God, calling down a curse upon himself if he was lying. Basically what it says is Peter said, I am not one of his. If I'm one of his followers, may God strike me dead. The ultimate curse. That's what it means, that he was cursing and swearing. He was swearing an oath, may God strike me dead. May God send me to hell if I am not telling the truth, that I don't know who he is. That's what you call the ultimate denial.

Verse 60 says, before those words had left Peter's mouth, the rooster crowed, just as the Lord had predicted. And the Lord, who was apparently close by, turned around and simply stared at Peter and those eyes of Jesus, those eyes that Revelation 1 describes as like fire. Those eyes of Jesus burned into Peter's heart. And Peter immediately remembered the Lord's prediction. Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times, verse 62 says. And Peter went out and he wept bitterly, continually.

What a night it had been for the Lord. In just a few hours, an intense temptation to disobey God, the betrayal by somebody close to him, the abandonment of everyone close to him, including Peter. Obviously, these events are important because they were the preamble to the crucifixion that we'll look at next time.

But in these final moments we have today, I want to point out just three simple principles from this passage that I hope will be an encouragement to you when you face temptation, betrayal, abandonment of those close to you.

**Number one,** write this down. Don't be surprised when people disappoint you. You know, Judas' betrayal could have been written off as simply an anomaly. I mean, Judas, I mean, he was not a Christian to begin with. Okay, we'll give him some slack. But then for all of the disciples to abandon him, and then for Peter, the one Jesus had handpicked to be the leader, that was a hard thing to take. But Jesus never wavered in his faith because his faith was not in people. His ultimate faith was in God, and ours should be as well. Don't put your hope in other people. You're going to be disappointed. D.L. Moody, the great evangelist, said it this way. Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment. Trust in your friends and they will die or leave you. Trust in reputation and some slanderous tongue may blast it, but trust in God and you are never to be confounded in times or eternity.

**Principle number two.** Strengthen your relationship with God before the battle begins. You know, the baseball player who waits until the World Series to learn how to swing a bat? The soldier who waits until the bullets are flying overhead until he learns how to load a gun. Those men have waited too late. No, the time to prepare is before the contest begins, not in the middle of the contest.

Let me press that illustration just a little bit further. I was reading yesterday in Dallas Willard's book, *The Spirit of the Disciplines.* This baseball illustration, by the way. It's a great book on discipleship. The Spirit of the Disciplines. But Dallas Willard says just imagine a teenager who wants to be a star baseball player. So he thinks to himself, how do I become a superb baseball player? Well, I'll watch and emulate the actions of good baseball players. So he watches his favorite baseball player. He looks at how he swings the bat, he looks at how he slides into home base, and he thinks, I'll just duplicate that when I'm up to bat and when I'm running around the base.

So at next Saturday's game, he tries to swing just like his model does. He tries to slide into home like his model player does. Is he successful? No. No. You can't imitate what somebody else does and be successful by what they do during the game. You see, what he fails to understand is the reason that star player plays the way he does is because of the hours he spends away from the game training—hours and hours and hours of preparation. Disciplines he goes through saying no to certain privileges in his life so that he becomes a prime athlete.

No, the key to success in the game is what you do in preparation, away from the game. You know, so many times we hear it said, well, if you want to be a good Christian and succeed in temptation and testing in your life, you know, ask yourself, what would Jesus do? Try to be like Jesus. Try to do what he did when he was in the garden or when he was in the wilderness with Satan. If you just try to do what Jesus did when he was in the heat of the battle, you're not gonna succeed.

You see, the secret to Jesus' success is what he did in the hours when he wasn't being tried and tempted. For example, the Bible says he went to the garden of Gethsemane as was his custom. This wasn't the first time he had been to the garden to pray. Prayer was an integral part of his life. Mark 1 tells us that Jesus got up as a habit in the early morning while it was still dark to go out and pray. He was used to doing that. We saw in Luke's Gospel. Jesus went to the synagogue, as was his custom, every week he was in God's house to be strengthened. If Jesus needed that, how much more do we need that? It's the disciplines Jesus had outside of the game and the battle that made him successful. When temptation and testing came. If you want to be successful like Jesus was, it means preparing yourself.

**Thirdly,** failure is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be final. Failure is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be final. Listen to this. Judas failed. The Bible says he went out and he hung himself, and he spent eternity separated from God in hell. Peter also failed in just as serious of a way, denying that he knew the Lord, asking God to strike him dead if he was lying; his denial was just as serious. But Peter confessed his failure. He found God's forgiveness. And within seven weeks, he was standing on those southern steps of the Temple in Jerusalem. And he preached the most courageous sermon that had ever been preached at Pentecost. And 3,000 people were converted. And from that moment on, he spent his life following Jesus Christ regardless of the cost. And at the end of his life, he was crucified upside down. Tradition says he was crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy to be crucified in the same manner as the Lord Jesus himself.

Now hear me this morning. You and I are going to fail, and we're going to fail miserably at some point in our life. But you can choose how to respond to that failure. You can be like Judas and allow that failure to drive you away from God and be the final word of your life. Or like Peter, you can confess your failure, find Christ's forgiveness and receive it, and allow your failure to drive you into the arms of the God who loves you.

Speaker 2

Whenever Jesus encountered someone who was lost, his teaching always led to a moment of decision. It was impossible to meet Jesus without responding with either yes or no. My prayer is that you decide, as Peter did, to follow Jesus, to trust in him for your salvation, no matter what, what the cost. This is the very reason that Pathway to Victory exists, to tell the world about the power of the Cross.

And remember, when you step forward and give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory, I'm going to say thanks by providing a copy of my coffee table book called the Power of the Cross. In my book, I guide you on a pictorial journey tracing the footsteps of Jesus over the most important seven days of his earthly ministry. The Holy Week starts on Palm Sunday and culminates on Easter morning.

But here's the best part. When you give and when you become one of our Pathway partners, you have a ministry all of your own. Let me share an example. Not long ago, I heard from a friend who listens to Pathway to Victory. On his commute to work every day, Oscar wrote, "Pastor, I've begun to thank God daily for his forgiveness through His Son. It's because of what I learned in one of your teaching series. I was searching for guidance, and your study brought me to tears. Pathway to Victory has become God's answer for me."

Well, thanks for those encouraging words, Oscar, and let me add, when you support Pathway to Victory as a Pathway partner, you become the channel through which God reaches women and men like Oscar. So thank you for helping us pierce the darkness of our day with the only hope of the world, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3

David Thanks Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 1

To become a Pathway partner, simply go online to ptv.org and follow those easy steps to sign up. And when you give your first monthly gift or when you give a one-time gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the Power of the Cross. It's a beautifully illustrated coffee table style book based on the teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Plus, we'll also send you a one-of-a-kind brochure called Three Days that Changed the World.

Call us toll-free at 866-999-2965 or give online at ptv.org, and when your gift is $75 or more, you'll also receive a very special collection of messages that Dr. Jeffress preached on location in Israel. It's titled Live from Eight Powerful Messages by Dr. Jeffress from the Holy Land, and you'll receive both the DVD video and the MP3 format audio disc. Again, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. If you'd prefer to write to us, here's that mailing address: P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222.

I'm David J. Mullen. Jesus was a perfect, sinless man, yet he died at the hands of those he came to save as a condemned criminal. Join Dr. Jeffress as he walks us through the six trials of Jesus leading up to his crucifixion. That's Friday on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible.

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