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Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice, and he went out a wet fitter leaf. Father Jeffery Pringle? Do you still have any flesh for the first count of the dark hour that someone drew before us? I'm going to try to read out after, and then toward the next letter. Jesus, amen. All right, amen. Matthew chapter number 26. The title of the sermon today is The Loyal Believer. It reads like a chick track, right? Except for we don't believe we're penning your sins. And so the topic is the same as the title. It's becoming and remaining a loyal Christian. And you might think, well, I'm already pretty loyal, and that's great. But one thing you need to understand is this. You know, Peter spent three plus years with the Lord Jesus Christ and genuinely loved him, right? He never loses salvation, but yet he betrayed and had a breach in loyalty to Jesus Christ. So if it can happen to Peter, it can happen to me, and it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody, okay? And so we need to study these things and apply these things in our lives so that we don't fall down this path. Because you might, you know, some people, they just get this idea in their head, well, I'm saved, I can never, you know, really go that far. Look, Peter was saved, and he went that far, okay? We need to learn to take heed and just remember these things that we need to be careful, you know, and oftentimes when we don't take heed and we think a little bit more highly of ourselves than we ought, you know, the next step is usually falling flat on your face. I'm going to tell this quick story here. I remember one time we were in San Diego, and I went to this grappling tournament, and I had already done like one or two matches, and the Marines had a professional team there. The Marines have a team, they just, all they do is they fight. They just go around, they do mixed martial arts, or they go around and they compete, and that's all they do, right? Well, I beat one guy, and so it was my turn to face one of the guys from Team USMC. And the whole time that we were grappling, you know, they're all yelling at me, you suck, you suck, you're going to lose, right? That's just how they are. I understand that being in the military a little bit, you know, they're trying to get into my head. Well, I actually beat the guy, you know, I actually beat him. And the guy afterwards, he comes up to me because I was supposed to face another one of his teammates, and he goes, hey, he goes, this dude, here's how you beat him, you know? And he started giving me all this insight on how to beat his teammate. And I thought, wow, so much for the brotherhood, you know what I mean? So much for loyalty, you know, you're just going to give up. You guys are all just like making fun of me and just cussing me out, just, I mean, being real vile, too. And now he's over in a corner like coaching me how to beat his very own teammate, who he travels across the country with, you know? I'm like, man, this country is in deep trouble. And so here's the bottom line. You don't have to turn there. Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loveth at all times, but a brother is born for adversity, right? And I saw that adversity amongst even that own team. And I was thinking to myself, like, how are you guys even successful with, you know, with that kind of a mentality? That's exactly what I don't want to see here. But you know what? That behavior, that can plague anybody. That can plague churches. It can plague individuals. It can plague family members. It can plague you at work, right? And it all boils down to envy. It all boils down to you or me wanting this glory, right? And that's what we need to shun. That's what we need to fight against. We don't need any of that garbage. Now you're going to stay there in Matthew 26. Look at verse, we're going to start this thing off here. Look at verse 30. It says, When they had sung in him, they went out into the Mount of Olives. Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. So if you heard those words from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, what do you think your attitude should be? Okay, what do I do about it? Maybe like, okay, I mean, he's telling you this is going to happen. You're going to be offended, right? And we're going to keep reading here. Yeah, so look at actually look at verse 31 one more time. It says, Then sayeth Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. And so I guess the next thing I want to ask is like, why is Jesus saying that they're going to be offended? And the answer is because of these things that are written right now. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that Jesus is saying, hey, because God wrote this, you have to do it like some Calvinist teaching, right? Basically, what he's saying is you don't understand what is written. And because you don't understand what is written and how it's applied, you're going to be offended. So here's point number one. Many Christians fail in loyalty because they lack biblical understanding. You see, these guys had spent years, right? Three years with Jesus learning and hearing the parables and having these things explained to him. And what was one thing they kept going back to? When is the kingdom going to get set up? When is the kingdom going to get set up? They wanted it set up on earth. They had heard the scriptures. They agreed with them. They believed the Bible, right? They believed what Jesus was teaching them. I mean, they didn't really, they didn't really question it or fight or anything like that. They're like, OK. But with this one scripture, they're like, oh, no, no, no. That can't be what it means. That can't be it. That can't be true. Keep your place there, Matthew. We're going to come back to it often, but go to John chapter six. And so, you know the story, right? We just read it. Peter's like, I won't deny thee. You know, you could trust me. I know that's what's written, but we can make that change. We can override the scripture. Look, you can't override scripture. If it says something's going to happen, it's going to happen. Right? And so what the apostles, the disciples, what they should have done is said, is there any way around this? Like, what are we lacking? Is there anything that we can do to maybe change this course of action? You know, that would have probably been the right response. Just instead of, you know, being filled up with pride and saying, no, no, no, we will never deny it. You know, you're misunderstanding that scripture, Jesus. So you turn to John chapter six. I'll read for you Luke seventeen one, which says, then sitting into the disciples, it is impossible, but that offenses should come. We need to learn as believers that offenses are going to come. And where they're going to come probably most often is at church from your Bible reading, from edification, from rebuke, from reproof. That's what the Bible produces. This is why so many people have an issue with the Bible because it reproves humanity. It puts man down here and it puts God up here. The world can't stand that. But you know what? Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're automatically going to have the right perspective. You know, and this is what people just need to get. You know, people come into these churches all the time and churches like ours and they just have this idea. Oh, all the sermons are just going to rip on all the things that I don't like and all these other people and everybody else is doing wrong. But sooner or later, the Bible is going to point something out that applies to you that comes down your alley that steps on your toes and then you're going to have a decision to make. Are you going to get offended and leave or are you going to make the change? And that mentality that you have in that moment will decide whether or not you really are a loyal person. The reason why I chose this passage to teach about the subject of loyalty is because if you're going to be loyal to God, if you're going to be a friend of God, right, what does the Bible say? That a friend loveth at all times. So that means even when the Bible offends you, even when the preacher offends you, even when your brother or your sister says something that you don't like, you're still going to love at all times. And if you can learn that here, you will apply it out there. It's that simple, OK? John chapter 6, look at verse 60. It says, And many of you are familiar with the passage Jesus is teaching about eternal life, eternal security, and he gives them this analogy, whosoever shall eat of my flesh, drink of my blood, and they're like, we don't get this, you know, we don't understand this. Verse 61, Right? Now, it's important to understand here, Jesus is not going to be like, Oh, it does offend you? Well, I'll just change the message. I'll just scale things down a bit, right? No, look at verse 62. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. So what does Jesus say? It is what it is. There's no way around it. Does this offend you? Oh, well, too bad. The truth is the truth. These words are spirit and they are life. These words will change your life. These words go out into the community every single week and get people saved. But you know what? They'll also save you who are already saved from a lot of perils, a lot of trials, a lot of troubles, a lot of unnecessary problems that you don't need to go through. Verse 64, But there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believe not and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father. Now, look at verse 66, Why did these people leave? Because they got offended at the word. They heard something that was too hard. And instead of asking more questions, instead of pondering the things, instead of saying, What is wrong with me? How can I come to a better understanding so that I can accept this hard thing? They said, I'm out. We're done. Look, this this this is this is a plague. This is a real pandemic here, lacking biblical understanding amongst God's people. Look, it's written in the Bible. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And you know, when you when we fail to turn the lack or to turn knowledge into understanding, that's when you're really going to get offended. You're going to see that as we go through this. Keep your place in John. We will come back to it. But go to let's see here. Go to go back to Matthew. Go back to Matthew. You say, OK, great. Well, what do we do about it? Psalm 119, 165 says, Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them. If you know that you're the type of person that gets offended easily, gets offended at the word, you get offended at preaching or you just you could just feel your blood boiling all the time for certain things. You need to develop a love for the Bible, you know, and you say, Well, how do I do that? You need to force yourself to read it. Look, you have the new man and that new man delights after the things of God. You can read about that in Romans Chapter seven. So when you actually beat down your flesh a little bit and say, You know what? I'm going to make time to read my Bible every single day. I'm going to make time to do something, to pray, to meditate, to think on these. I mean, listen to a sermon, do something for God. And you know what? You will learn over time to love God's law. Look, this even applies physically to when I was a kid. My parents used to take us to this Mexican restaurant because I had this friend in junior high that worked there. And at the end of the meal, he'd always give us flan. You guys know what flan is, right? I hated it. I hated it with a passion, but he gave it to us for free. You know, and it would take me hours to eat it. I'm like, This sucks. I don't want to eat this stuff. I only like chocolate. If it ain't chocolate or peanut butter, I don't want it. Right? But my parents are like, You have to eat it because this guy, you know, this is expensive and blah, blah, blah. So I forced myself to eat it. It took me like six months. Now I love it. To this day, I love that stuff. Right? And look, what I'm trying to tell you is that when you force yourself to do something, especially Bible reading, meditating, praying, all the things we talk about, you're going to learn to develop that love for it. And when you love God's law, you will no longer get offended. You hear something that goes contrary to what you're doing, you're going to be like, Oh, crap, I better just change it. And then that's it. You become a better person that fast instead of just walking out the door and leaving everything behind. That's the key. That's why these people left is because they got offended. It proves that they didn't really love the word of God. I'm not saying they weren't saved. I'm not saying the reprobates, but they failed to learn to love God's law. And that's it. That's what we need to do in order to protect ourselves from becoming offended. Ecclesiastes chapter 10, verse 4 says this, If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place, for yielding pacifieth great offenses. A good bit of wisdom for getting along in church and in the workforce, you know, not everything is worth fighting over. Especially when it comes to certain opinions that don't really, you know, come from the Bible, just extra external type things. We don't need to be fighting about those. One person has an opinion on this vehicle versus this, you know, stuff like that. We don't need to be fighting over stuff like that, you know, but this also applies in church. When you just yield to the word of God, right, it's going to pacify that offense. It's going to help that thing pass by so that you don't get snared. You don't get caught up and get offended and leave. Because when you do that, you are no longer being loyal to God because God wants you in church. He wants you reading your Bible. He wants you to serve him. And the way to continuously do that is to learn to love his law. So if you're there in Matthew 26, let's move on here. Look at verse 32. He says, But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Verse 33, Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Look, every time I read that, I start laughing because, you know, you've heard the story a thousand times, right? And you've got to admire Peter. Peter was somebody that, you know, we'd all get along with because we can all relate to him. We've all been in this position. We've all been in some kind of a situation where somebody said, Hey, don't do that. This is going to happen. We're like, No, I know better. I'm good. And then what happens? You got roasted. You bit off a lot more than you can chew. And look, Peter, he's no different than us. Look at verse 34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee that this night before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. And then look at that last phrase there, the last part of that last sentence. It says, Likewise also said all the disciples. Now it shows Peter here being like the most adamant one. And his attitude rubs off on the rest of them. They're like, Yeah, none of us will do that. Right. But who do we read about denying him? He was the one who was the most adamant about not denying him. And that's so true today. Right. You know, you look around and people come into church and they'll often promise the world. Right. You guys have seen this. You know, I hate to keep bringing it up, but it's so true because you're going to see it again. You're going to see it again. People come in here. Oh, man, I'll be here every single day. I'm going to do this, man. I'm going to get us a bigger building. I'm going to bring thousands of people in here by the end of the week. You know, you think I'm joking, but I've heard all those statements before. And next thing you know, they quit over something stupid. Or they leave or they just fall out or whatever. You know, and it's, you know, a good way to pinpoint these types of people is when they have this attitude that Peter does. Hey, I'll never be offended. I'll never do that. You know, we ought to have the opposite attitude. Well, it's possible, you know, that I get offended if I don't keep doing this, if I don't keep loving God, if I don't keep meditating on his word, if I don't keep praying, if I don't keep taking heat to myself, I'm going to end up like Peter. Right? That's what happens. He was with Jesus Christ. He saw the miracles. He saw all kinds of things. And he still denied it. You know, obviously, this is also a little side note, a great story to bring up to people when they say that, well, if you stop believing or if you deny him, then you'll lose your salvation. Well, Peter didn't lose. Peter denied him three times. Three times and didn't lose his salvation. Here's point number two. Thinking that you know better than God guarantees that you'll have a breach in loyalty. Thinking that you know better than God guarantees that you will have a breach in loyalty. And this is just so true. You know, I've seen just hundreds in my lifetime of church members just coming to church, new guys, they get fired up from the Internet. And that's great. You know, some make it, some don't. And they come in and they're like, yeah, you know, I'm this man. I'm going to be soul winning every single day. And, you know, they bite off more than they can chew. And you try to tell them, hey, slow down. Take it easy. Learn the fundamentals. Right. You know, it's great you watch the documentaries, but do you even know what John 3 16 says? Can you even quote some basic Bible verses? Can you even give somebody the gospel? Right. And if the answer is no, you need to just listen to that stuff. That's fine. But don't make that your main mission because it's going to fail you. You've got to have some kind of a foundation. And when you don't and you don't listen to that counsel. Right. When people are telling you, hey, slow down, take it easy. Build yourself up. Right. Just start. How about you just start coming to church maybe once a week. OK. And then maybe then go to two and then gradually grow. When they don't do that, they don't listen. They always seem to fall. And look, some people are new and they're fired up and they come in here and they go three times a week and they never look back. Right. Not everybody's like that. Some people need to incrementally take steps, especially if they didn't grow up in church. You know, that's just one thing I've noticed. One thing that I've seen in my life. Turn to Proverbs chapter number two. And when while you're turning the memory for your first Corinthians 10 12, which says, Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. And you see, this is the problem. A lot of people come into church and they think they stand. They think they've got it all put together. They think they're rock solid, but they fail to take heed. And then they fall. You say, well, what does take heed mean? It means realizing and having the attitude that says, you know what? I need to continuously guard my heart because if I don't, I'm going to fall. This is the problem. The disciples, they lacked understanding. Right. I think that when when Peter saw Jesus get arrested, he's like. That that's not how it's supposed to go. You're supposed to get that crown now. We're supposed to get the armies going now in the kingdom and we're supposed to get Rome out of here. We're supposed to be a free, established nation again. That didn't happen. And I'm mad. And now I'm going to deny it. And that's how things go. He failed to take heed. Look, there's a reason why this is mentioned in all four gospels is because God wants us to really understand this. Look at Proverbs, chapter two, verse one. See, people don't get the other half of knowledge, like I said earlier. Right. People cry after knowledge and they cry after, you know, learning and learning and learning. And the Bible says that knowledge puffeth up. It's not saying don't learn anything. It's not saying don't expand your knowledge. But if you don't turn that into wisdom, if you don't seek understanding. Right. Real understanding. There's a difference between being able to quote John 3 16 and being able to preach that to someone and apply that to their lives so that they can understand what to do. That's the difference. You see, if you don't do that, you're missing half the equation and you will fall. You see, that's what happens to so many believers. They come into a church like this. They've got all the knowledge. They hear these sermons, but they don't read the Bible and they never figure out the application. They never figure out what these things really mean and how to make a change. And then when the offense comes, when the hard sermon comes or somebody gets, you know, does something they don't like. And it's not a big deal. They view it as a big deal because they lack understanding. And then the next thing you know, they walk no more with us. And all of that could have been avoided if they would have just understood. You know what? Get all the knowledge you can. But you better learn to understand that knowledge. Memorize all the verses you want, but you need to learn how to explain them. You need to learn what they really mean. Understanding. Look at verse three again. Yea, if thou cryest after knowledge, and hopefully we all do in here, and liftest up thy voice for understanding. You see, after you cry for the knowledge, you need to ask God for the understanding. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things from my law, is what the Bible says in Psalm 119. That is a cry. That is a prayer. That is a statement that all of us should be able to make, right? I mean, who's been soul-ending and like a verse just comes to you that you haven't maybe read or memorized in a while, and all of a sudden you get the understanding, right? That's a wonderful thing. And the reason why you guys get that is because you love God's law, you get these things in your heart, and the Holy Ghost is like, hey, there's somebody I can use. I'm going to give him this. I'm going to give that person this understanding. That's the goal. Get the knowledge, get the understanding, and use it. Verse 4 again. If thou seekest her as silver and searchers her as for head treasure. You see, a lot of people, they want the best of both worlds, right? They want the hardcore Christianity, and really this is just basic Christianity. Hardcore Christianity is Acts 5, 6, 7. That's really hardcore Christianity. This is just, you know, Shield of Faith Baptist Church, right? We're not being persecuted like these guys were in Acts, but you get these guys, and they come in here, they want the best of both worlds. I want to be a church that's on fire, that's doing the right things for God, and then Monday through Saturday, I want that bigger house, I want that five-car garage, I want those jet skis, I want that boat, I want all this stuff, and then the next thing you know, you lack understanding, an offense comes, and you're out the door. You're gone. Let's see, go to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter number 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. So again, point number 2 is thinking that you know better than God will guarantee that you have a breach in loyalty, just like Peter. He said, I will never ever offend you. You can trust me, you can count on me. And then when Jesus needed him, he's out in the courtyard saying, I know not the man. I don't know him. I don't know what you're talking about, right? I'll be as loyal as I can be as long as I get what I want, right? That's the way people are. Now, 2 Corinthians 10, look at verse 4. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exulteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. See, this is another thing here, is that you know, we get these imaginations. We put our, you know, we'll sit down and we'll just think, you know, of all this tribulation coming and what you're going to do. Oh, I'll be out there, I'll be, you know, fighting the Antichrist army, you know, and it's going to be interesting to see who will. It's going to be interesting to see who will take a stand when they say, hey, no more church. No more soul winning. We actually passed a bona fide law. No more door to door. No more giving the gospel. It'll be interesting to see how many people remain loyal at that time. You know, because, you know, it's easy within yourself to have these imaginations of, you know, grand victory. It's like, oh man, you know, if these guys send, you know, these Antifa people down here, I'll be out in the street with my two pistols. I'll be blowing them out, you know, until it actually happens. Right? Until it actually happens. And this, you know, I can see the disciples like this. I can see Peter like this, you know. Where do you think that statement came from? From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, right? And so Jesus says, hey, you're going to get offended because it is written of me. And he's like, I've already rehearsed this, right? I already chopped Malchus's ear off. I already proved I'm ready to go down. Right? Peter wasn't a coward. He had a sword. He was willing to physically fight, but he wasn't willing to spiritually fight because he lacked understanding, because he built this imagination within his own heart. And when it didn't meet reality, he got offended and he denied Christ. And so all I'm saying is that we need to be careful with putting ourselves in these situations in our mind where, oh, we're going to do this, you know, playing the what if game, right? Playing the what if game. What if these people come in here, man, this is what I'm going to do. I don't know. Will you? Will you really take a stand? Will you really keep going out? Will you really keep preaching the word of God? Or are you going to be like Peter and deny him and just keep your mouth shut? Because, you know what, most people will probably just keep their mouth shut. Or they'll try to justify things. Oh, well, you know, they have the right to do that. You know, we had a pretty good run and I think maybe God's just going to send the whole world to hell and we'll just, we just need to stay out of it. If they're going to get saved, they'll just come find us. That's not how it works. I mean, how often do people actually come up to you and say, what must I do to be saved? It happens sometimes. Usually only after you've given off some light and they even know they can ask you that. But if you never mention God, you never mention church, you never talk about it, you never say anything about it. How is anybody going to even know to come ask you those things? It's like the story of Brother David the other, last week, right? Posting that Bible verse. If he hadn't have done that, the guy would not have asked. You know, it's a small thing, you know, to post a verse on Facebook. I'm not saying you have to go home and do that, but it worked in that situation. Just a little beacon of light is all it takes to get somebody's attention. And they're like, oh, okay, here's, well, you obviously posted this, you obviously don't just have knowledge. I mean, wouldn't it have been something if the guy was like, hey, what does this mean? And Dave was like, I don't know. Call the church phone number. Call the church phone number. That would have been kind of weird. You know what? And I've told you the story before where I was at an old IFB church and we had Thursday night soul winning. I went to one apartment complex. These other guys went to another one and actually found somebody that wanted to listen. And they said, okay, we can't give you the gospel tonight. And they literally told this guy because we don't know how. But we know a guy who does. And we'll bring him here next week. And so Sunday, they're like, we met somebody. The guy wants to get saved. I'm like, what? Where is he? They're like, well, we don't know the exact street, but we know how to get there. Right? Because these apartments are huge. And like, we just have to take you. And so I had to wait till the following Thursday. They took me over there. I got the guy saved. But man, a lot could have happened between Thursday and Thursday. Right? It would have been better if those two guys would have just not only had knowledge to go out and go solely and knock on somebody's door, but to actually explain the verses, actually understand John 3 16, understand Romans 3 23, understand all the verses that we use. You know, and get the guy saved. That would, I mean, think about that. Then I wouldn't have had to go back. We could have gotten, you know, a little bit further. Right? So all I'm saying is that we need to learn how to apply these things in our lives. We need to make sure that we don't think higher of ourselves and we're not, that we're not just filling our minds and our hearts with these imaginations of what you're going to do if this happens. Look, if you can't do the small things now, like read your Bible, get knowledge, you know, take care of the brethren, come to church, you know, all the things that we do. If you can't do those things now, you're not going to be some superstar hero when the Antichrist shows up and decides to go ham on us. Okay? It doesn't work like that. You lack understanding. Remember the disciples here, Peter, he understood the Bible. He believed the Bible. If Jesus would have said, Peter, do you believe what's written on me? Yeah, I believe all these words. In fact, in John chapter six, when Jesus said, Hey, why are you guys going to go too? You guys going to leave too? What did they say? No, because thou has the words of eternal life. They understood that, they knew that, but they lacked the complete understanding. And this is key. This is huge. This is what will make you a loyal Christian or make you a non loyal Christian. Make you a person that's out for your own glory, your own fame, your own whatever, right? We don't need that. We don't want that. We don't want this Rambo type mentality. Leave that to Hollywood because you know what? That's what's in their heart. To glorify one God. Forget the team. Forget everybody else. It's just always got to be one guy. Just one dude. One dude goes out in the woods and he blows up a whole town, you know? And he takes out everybody. You know, humans, our old man, we like stuff like that. We like that, you know, that soul hero guy, you know, that guy that went out to some village of bad guys, you know, some village of drug dealers and just took them all out, right? Well, like the story of 300. Why is that so popular in the world? Exactly. You know, and there's better stories about that in the Bible. The reason why they don't like those stories is because God was always behind those people. You want to talk about loyalty? Look to David's mighty men. You know, Shammah stood in the midst of a lentil field and slew an entire troop of people. Adino grabbed a spear and took out 800 people, but he had the backing of God. So he didn't just have the knowledge of how to use those weapons, but he also had understanding that God was going to help him and we need to be the same way. You have the same weapon. Your battle is not carnal, though. It's spiritual, right? And when you get that understanding, you will be like those people. You will be like those people, but not by expense. The reason why they had to fight alone is because most of the children of Israel during that time were cowards, right? I mean, think about that. The reason why Shammah had to stand in the middle of that field is because everyone else fled. That's what it says. They all left. They said, well, I'm loyal up to this point. These guys have big axes and swords. I'm out. I'm done, right? We don't want to be like that. Go back to Matthew chapter 26. We're going to skip down, skip some verses here. Go to 69. Matthew 26, 69. So remember we just learned Peter's like, look, I've got your back. I will never deny that. I'll never leave you. Don't worry about it. I'm here. You already saw me use my sword. Looking for 69. Now Peter sat without in the palace and a damsel came unto him saying, thou also was with Jesus of Galilee. So a little damsel, just some girl was like, oh, you were one of those guys out there, too. Look at verse 70. But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest. Now we've got a lie on our hands. Verse 71. And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him and said unto them that were there, this fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. Verse 72. And again, he denied with an oath. I do not know the man. And after a while came unto him, they that stood by and said to Peter, surely thou also art one of them for thy speech be ready. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. So what is Peter doing here? Obviously, he is lying. He's had a breach in loyalty. He just got done saying, I'm your guy. I am loyal. I will be here with you no matter what. And now he denies Christ three times, just like Jesus said, all because he lacked understanding of the Bible. But what I want you to notice here is in verse 72, he's not just lying, but he's upping his game here. And it says, and again, he denied with an oath. So he's being persistent with it now. He wants them to believe his lies so much that he's willing to swear an oath. So here's point number three. Breached loyalty leads to irrational behavior, because when you breach loyalty, somebody will call you out on that almost every single time. And now you've got a decision to make. You can either lie and try to justify your actions, which is only going to increase into more ungodliness, or you can accept what you did and be like, yeah, you got me. I don't know what I was thinking. I was wrong. And Peter eventually gets to that, that status, right? Remember last week we talked about Judas. He was repped. He was a devil from the beginning. He didn't get that opportunity, right? So we need to remember that we do, there is forgiveness in this for us. If you can get rid of the pride and the stubbornness and the arrogance thinking that you're all that, right? So just keep that in mind. Breached loyalty leads to irrational behavior, because nine times out of 10, when I see this, the people have to justify it. Well, you don't know the whole matter. Well, you're this, you said this, you're that, you don't get it, right? Isn't that what happens? It leads to more ungodliness, because now you're lying and you have to cover your tracks. You know what I think Peter would have done well to do here is to just control his emotions and maybe think, okay, Jesus said it's written that we would flee. Yeah, maybe I should take another look at this. Maybe we need to look at this verse a different way. Maybe we need to compare some other scriptures, right? And if he would have controlled his emotions, his anger, I think he probably wouldn't have gone down this road, right? And that's another big issue that we need to control in our lives is emotion, getting angry, right? It all goes back to these offenses that a lot of times are going to come from the Bible, and they're going to come from God's people. We spend a lot of time together. We come here Sunday morning, we stay late, we come, you got sowing, you know, another church service, all this stuff. You know, sooner or later, we're going to rub each other a little bit raw. And then you're going to have a decision to make. Are you going to be mature enough to actually be like, okay, I'm just going to let that go, let that side, it's not worth fighting about. Unless it's some serious issue, which we've dealt with in the past. But you get what I'm saying, right? You have a decision to make in that moment. And that decision hopefully is, okay, I'm going to just placate this offense. I'm just going to get this thing out of here and move on, keep marching on. If Peter would have done that, if he would have controlled those emotions, he wouldn't have had to deny them three times and even go above and beyond with this irrational behavior by swearing an oath. I mean, think about it. It's crazy to me to read this all the time that you spend with Jesus. You were at the mount of transfiguration. You saw supernatural things. You heard supernatural things. You saw the miracles, right? I'm grateful that we get to read about them, right? And we have a more sure word of prophecy than even those things the Bible says. And I'm super grateful for that and super thankful for that. But it's like, man, you actually saw these things and you still denied them. That tells me that we need to be super careful. We need to make sure we got control of our feelings and our emotions. Because you know what? That doesn't come from the new man getting offended. That comes from that old man. He's standing there. Hey, talk with me. Converse with me. Let's talk about this. He shouldn't put you in the limelight like that. He shouldn't have said that about you. I think he's talking about you. Right? And you start getting these imaginations. You start getting worked up. And the next thing you know, your loyalty is out the window, even though you said a thousand times you wouldn't leave. Oh, I'll never get offended. I love hard preaching. I love this stuff. Sure, until it comes to your doorstep. Right? That's what's going to decide who you really are. And this world's not getting any easier right now, in case you haven't noticed, right? We need to make sure that right now that we are on fire and that we stay on fire. We're going to do that by being loyal. A friend loveth at all times. The good times and the bad times. Let's see here. Go down to verse 75. Here, look at verse 75. It says, And Peter remembered the words of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cockroach, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out and wept bitterly. Obviously, huge difference here between Peter and Judas. Now, the Bible says that Judas repented, but he still went to hell. So how does that work? And Peter remembered. I'm sorry, go back to John. Go to John chapter 21. John chapter number 21. Let's see Peter here. He's like, OK, now I've got the understanding. Jesus said I would do this and I did it. And now he feels bad. Now he gets the understanding. So you as God, you know, and us as God's people, as God's child, God's going to make sure that we get the message. Right. So you can get the message two ways. You can get it with an understanding heart or you can get it with an understanding heart and tears. And that's what I'm trying to avoid here with it. Look at verse 15. John 21, 15. It says, So when they had dine, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou me more than these? And he saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. Verse 16. He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verse 17. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. And the point that I want to make here is that if you're lacking loyalty in your Christian character, it can be healed. It can be fixed, right? If you've had an issue with something like this in the past, you just need to understand that you can get through it. Right? And that's what Jesus is teaching Peter here. He's given him three times. Like, look, you denied me three times. And I'm asking you three times if you love me. And what does he tell Peter? Feed my sheep. He doesn't say get saved again. Go back down to the church and get re-baptized. You got to start all over from scratch. He's like, hey, I'm putting this aside. This transgression is covered. I get it. We all make mistakes. He's like, look, you're human. And it's just the way it is. Everybody in here is going to make mistakes. Everybody in here is going to have some kind of a breach of loyalty. Let's just try to minimize how severe it is. Right? And the solution, Jesus saying, hey, feed my sheep. Feed them with what? With the word of God. So if you have this lack of loyalty in your character, what you need to do is feed yourself some word of God. That's what you need to do. You need to get in the word. You need to come to church and you need to take steps to correct that behavior. Now, turn to Deuteronomy Chapter 12. Deuteronomy Chapter 12. Why are you turning there? I'm going to read for you Psalm 119 9, which says, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word is what the Bible teaches. You say, I've got some issues. I've got some problems. I know I'm lacking in this area. The solution is always going to be to go back to the word of God. It's going to be to get in church. Like I said earlier, you have got to force yourself. This is what we don't like today. We live in a society where we just expect everything to be done for us. This remote control, finger swiping type of a lifestyle, this finger swipe, you know, tablet Christianity, whatever you want to call it. You know, just do this for me. Right. We're always seeking to make things easier. The Christian life is not doing that. We still look. This is hard work. You have to do this. You have to muster up the courage and the guts to say, you know what, I'm just going to go do this. I'm going to go take these extra steps. I'm actually get up and do something about it. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed, by paying careful attention to the word of God. Nobody's going to be able to do this for you. You can sit in these chairs all you want to and have these things just fly right over your head week after week, week after week. You know what? It saddens me when you see people come to these kinds of churches for like months on end and they still just don't get things. They still just can't get basic concepts in the Bible. It's like, what in the world is wrong with you? Oh wait, I know what's wrong with you. You don't take heed. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto, according to thy word. So that just tells me these people coming to these churches, they're not necessarily bad, they're not evil, but they just don't take heed. They don't pay careful attention. And I just feel like asking like, what are you doing here? When are you going to get with the program? Right? Because think about this. What would happen, what happens when everybody does that? Like we're a small church like that right now and pretty much everybody does this. But what happens when we get bigger? What happens when we have 60 or 70 or 80 or 100 or 160 people? Then this has to be preached even farther, even harder, even more. Because think about that. If we had 160 people that were like these 30 people, then what could we do? I don't think the valley could hold us, to be honest with you. I don't know what's going to happen then. We can already make a pretty big noise in these towns now. Think about when we expand. Think about when we all have this mentality that we're all going to be low. We're all going to take heed according to his word. Deuteronomy 12, look at verse 13. Notice this phrase, take heed to thyself. Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest. Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou liveth upon the earth. You know, it's interesting to me that during the establishment of the nation of Israel, you're going to find this language all throughout the entire law. Take heed. Take heed. Be careful. Just because you've made it, just because you're on track now, doesn't mean it's automatic. It doesn't mean that something's going to hook up to you and pull you in the right way. It's your choice. We are not Calvinists here. You have got to make that choice. You have to take the heed. You have to take the effort. Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou liveth upon the earth. What's the Levite? That's basically the ministry. So how do we apply this to our lives? We don't forsake the ministry. We don't forsake the things of God. We take heed to those things that we learn and see in the Bible. Jump down to verse 29. When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land. Look at verse 30. Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them. After that they be destroyed from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their God, saying, How do these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise. So look, if you're making the right progress now and God's getting this stuff out of your life, you're doing a good job. You know what? You don't. That doesn't mean you go on autopilot. That doesn't mean that you stop taking heed. We always need to be on guard because the devil is always looking for a new avenue to come in here and seek and destroy and stop what we're doing. And the only way that we will fight that battle is to be loyal at all times. Remember, a friend loveth at all times. I would say this church is a friend of God. I believe that 100% and we want to keep it that way. Because when we're loyal, we're not denying him. We're not lying. We're not betraying him. We're actually out there doing the work of God. Right? Which Peter obviously in them, they go on to do great works of God and thank God for his mercy and his forgiveness. So again, I just want to leave you with a statement. If you think that you stand today, take heed lest you fall tomorrow. If you've been lacking in your loyalty to God, feed yourself on God's word. And it's really, it's really that simple. You know, it's easy to say. None of this stuff is hard to teach or it's necessarily hard to preach. But it is hard for us to do. You know, because the world's pulling us in all these different directions. You know, you got people, you got your family members, you got all these other influences and they're just tugging for your time. They're tugging for your attention. They're tugging for your loyalty. And the believer, you know, you got to make a choice. Are you going to give your loyalty to God or are you going to give it to the world? You cannot split it. It doesn't work that way for the believer. It's all or nothing. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, again, for your word, Lord, and thank you again that we can even meet here, Lord, still with freedom. And we don't have to worry about the government coming in here and bullying us down yet, Lord. And I just pray that you'd strengthen us now so that when that day comes, Lord, we won't deny you. That we will keep fighting for the truth and doing what you want us to do to get people saved. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.