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From this most memorable incident, recorded with noticeable candour by all the evangelists, many lessons spring.

I. HOW IGNORANT OF HIMSELF EVEN A GOOD MAN MAY PROVE! (Ver. 33.) Peter believed himself to be capable of daring and enduring the very last extremity in the cause of his Master. He would have utterly ridiculed the idea that the sneer of a servant-girl could draw from him a denial of his Lord. The event showed how entirely he mistook himself. We ought to know ourselves well; but, in fact, we do not. We suppose ourselves to be strong and steadfast, when we are feeble and unreliable; or to be humble-minded, when we are proud of heart; or to be generous, when we are essentially self-seeking; or to be devout, when we are really unspiritual; to be near to God, when we are afar off (Revelation 3:17; 1 Corinthians 10:12; Psalm 19:12, 13; Psalm 139:23, 24).

II. How PERFECT THE KNOWLEDGE OUR MASTER HAS OF OUR HEART AND LIFE! (Ver. 34.) Jesus knew how weak his disciple was, and he foresaw his speedy failure. He knows us altogether. He knows our heart; how sincere is our purpose, how frequent are our efforts, how many our disappointments, how faulty is our nature, how wounded and weak is our spirit. He knows also our life. He sees it as it lies before his all-beholding eye; he "knows the way we take," the path we are about to pursue. It is to One who has a thorough and complete knowledge of us that we belong, and it is to him we draw nigh in our best hours.

III. FROM WHAT A HEIGHT a GOOD MAN MAY FALL! This erring one is no other than the Apostle Peter, the very man who had made the great confession, and upon whom or upon whose testimony Christ would build his Church (Matthew 16:13-19). It is he who had been admitted to such close fellowship with Christ, and been allowed the high privilege of rendering him constant personal service. There is no office, however high it may be in the Christian Church, which will ensure to its occupant spiritual integrity. And even he who has been "raised up to heavenly places," and has known even the raptures of an exalted spiritual experience, may fall under the power of temptation. It is not the lofty but the lowly that stand on safe ground in the kingdom of God.

IV. How STEEP IS THE DESCENT OF SIN! From a presumptuous and blind self-confidence Peter fell to a half-hearted following (ver. 54); from that he fell to untruthfulness and denial of his Lord (ver. 57); from that to a more deliberate and repeated denial (vers. 58, 59), accompanied even (as Matthew tells us) with profanity. Sin is a slope which seems slight at the summit, but it becomes steeper and yet steeper as we go on our downward way. And it too often happens that we reach a point where we cannot arrest ourselves, but are compelled against our own desire to continue. Shun the first step in the downward course!

V. HOW MERCIFUL IS CHRIST'S METHOD OF CONVICTION[(Ver 61.) Not a blow that smote him to the ground; not even burning words of condemnation that should sound ever afterwards in his soul; but one reproachful glance - the look of wounded love. So merciful and so pitiful is our Lord when we are unfaithful or disloyal to him now. He bears long with us; he seeks to win us back through added privilege and multiplied mercy; he deals very patiently and gently with us; only when other and milder methods fail does he mercifully afflict us, that in some way and by some means he may redeem us from folly and from ruin.

VI. WHITHER CHRIST SEEKS TO LEAD THE ERRING. (Ver. 62.) He seeks to lead us, as by his reproving glance be led his fallen disciple, to a pure and saving penitence. He would have our hearts filled with a worthy and a cleansing shame, with a purifying sorrow; that this may lead us into a condition of

(1) abiding humility, of

(2) living faith, of

(3) thorough reconsecration to himself and to his cause. - C.

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KJV: And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.

WEB: He said to him, "Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death!"