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Of course, he's referring to Judas.

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Judas is about to get dismissed to go do the betrayal that he's going to do. And Peter says, I'll never betray you, God.

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And Jesus looks at him and he says, before the rooster crows a couple times, you're going to deny me three times? Peter's like, no way.

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And actually, things were looking pretty good for Peter. As a matter of fact, when they go to take Jesus while he is in the garden, Peter pulls out his sword and tries to take the head off of one of the guards, only manages to take out his ear. And God goes and heals him. We know the story about that in one of the other Gospel accounts. And so Peter's looking pretty strong. He's looking like he's a tough guy. He's going to make it through. And then we read this account. You see, he's on trial. They're getting ready to push him through the process by which he will end up under Roman crucifixion, dying, total torture, totally terrible.

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And Peter gets confronted by it by a few people. And that confrontation is not a pretty one. So let's talk about this for just a second.

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Let's go over this, and then I'm going to go somewhere else. And I think it's really, really important.

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Okay? It says this in verse 66.

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And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest. And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him and said, and thou also was with Jesus of Nazareth. You were with them. I saw that, Peter. I know you're with them. You would expect Peter to say yes, so what? None of your business. But he denied saying, I know not. Neither understand I what thou sayest. And he went out into the porch,

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and the cock crew. So the roaster. I said the roaster, the rooster, whatever noise it makes. I'm not pretty good at sound effects there. And then the maid saw him again.

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By the way, did you notice he

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lies in some very unique ways the first time.

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I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't even know what you're saying.

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Verse 69.

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And a maid saw him Again, and began to say to them that stood by, this is one of them. And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by again said again to Peter, surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean. And thy speech agreed thereto. Dude, you got the Galilean accent. We know you're from there.

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But he began to curse and to

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swear, saying, I know not this man

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of whom you speak.

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By the way, the cursing and the swearing would have separated him from the

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identity of being a Galilean because of what was believed of Galileans at that time.

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So he did this sort of in an attempt to separate himself from Jesus. He behaved uncharacteristically of himself.

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Look what happens next. Verse 72. And the second time, the cock crew.

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And Peter called. Yeah, Peter called to mind the word

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that Jesus said unto him before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And notice this. And when he thought therein, what happened, the Bible says he wept. He didn't just weep, folks, he wept bitterly. He recognized that he fell short.

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He recognized that even the very thing he believed he could never do, he

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forsook the Lord that poured into him for three years. Terrible situation. Now, I read this to you because if it just ended there, then you know what?

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It would be a tragic story. But it didn't.

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You see, Jesus is crucified. He's resurrected. We know the story there. And he has an encounter. I think it's strategically set up by him with Peter. And Peter goes to the shore to

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meet Jesus, very similar to the time when they first had met.

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And Jesus goes to Peter and he says, peter, do you love me? Peter says, of course. And Jesus says, feed my sheep. Well, Peter, do you love me,

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Lord? Yes. Feed my sheep, Peter, do you love me, Lord? You know I do.

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And he goes on saying the same thing. Now, this is interesting because a lot of people will just completely rip this passage apart in a really bad way, and they'll talk about the differences between the Greek word, which is the first two times he gets asked about love, and then the last time he says agape, which, of course the Greek word agape, so many people will contend is

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the only form of love that can

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come from God himself. Not true. Because having loved this present world, meaning somebody falling back, backsliding, having loved agape, this present world could not be God's love. This was literary flow. I don't want to minimize the context here. It was a literary flow. But the reason why I'm emphasizing it as Literary flow is because you have to see the real message here. The real message is redemption. The real message is, yeah, Peter, you failed me.

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Well, now I'm coming to confront you. Do you love me?

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Yes.

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Do you love me? Yes. Do you love me? Yes.

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For every single time, time he denied the Lord, he was given an opportunity by the Lord to acknowledge him again and to declare his love. Then, of course, we know what happened in the Book of Acts on that beautiful day where the Spirit of God came upon all of those people. Peter was baptized with the Holy Spirit and he preached a powerful message explaining that Bible prophecy was being fulfilled in that very moment. He even quotes the book of Joel, and he speaks the truth of the Gospel, and thousands of people get saved that very day. This is the story of redemption. This is the story of the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God in bringing in to fruition a function of reconciliation that cannot be understood by the world. So are you here getting beat up by somebody?

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Somebody saying, look, look, look. Look what they did. Look at the pictures of them when they were in high school. Look at this. Look at that. Look at here. Look at there. Okay, yeah, it was that person. Yeah, I messed up. Sure. You ought to look at some of the mistakes I made as a Christian.

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My salvation, my ministry, my call is not predicated upon my shortcomings. It's predicated upon the very function of redemption made available to me through the precious blood of the Lamb. If you're being discouraged right now about mistakes you've made, things that have happened, don't let those discouragements rip you off. God is good. He's bigger than all of it, and he's here to give you another chance. There's no greater way to live.

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With that said, I want to tell you I'm excited. We have a Q and A coming up at the end of this week,

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and I cannot wait to be available to you to answer some Bible questions.

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I love you guys.

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Look, keep looking to the Lord. He's faithful. He knows what he's doing. He understands you. He recognizes that you are going to fall short. He knew that that was going to happen, and he's here to build you up. Don't quit reading the Word, continue on with it. You are all doing an amazing job. I am very proud of you.

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And on behalf of Erica Kirk, let

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me just tell you something. She's incredibly proud of you. She is blessed that you continue to stand for the things that are right. And my understanding is we are rapidly approaching 3/4 of a million people that are reading together in this group. That's an amazing number. It's an amazing number. But God is faithful. He's good. He knows exactly what he's doing. And he wants to bless you.

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So keep on reading. I'm proud of you, and I'll see you at the Q and A. God bless you.