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All the four evangelists give us an account of Peter's fall in denying his Master.
And therein we have observable, 1. The sin itself which he fell into, the denial of Christ, and this backed with an oath; he sware that he knew not the man.
Lord! how may the slavish fear of suffering drive the holiest and best of me to commit the foulest and worst of sins!
Observe, 2. The occasion of his fall.
1. His presumptuous confidence of his own strength and standing: Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I.
Lord! to presume upon ourselves, is the ready way to provoke thee to leave us to ourselves. If ever we stand in the day of trial, 'tis the fear of falling must enable us to stand; we soon fall, if we believe it impossible to fall.
2. His being in bad company, amongst Christ's enemies: Peter had better have been acold by himself alone, than warming himself at a fire which was compassed in with the blasphemies of the soldiers, where his conscience, though not seared, was yet made hard.
Observe, 3. The reiteration or repetition of this sin: he denied Christ again and again; he denied him first with a lie, then with an oath and curse.
O, how dangerous is it not to resist the beginnings of sin! If we yield to one temptation, Satan will assault us with more and stronger.
Observe, 4. The heinous and aggravating circumstances of Peter's sin.
1. From the character of his person; a disciple, an apostle, a chief apostle, yet he denies Christ.
2. From the person whom he denies: his Master, his Saviour.
3. The time when he denied him: soon after Christ had washed his feet; yea, soon after he had received the sacrament from Christ's own hand.
How unreasonable then is their objection against coming to the Lord's table, that some who go to it dishonour Christ as soon as they come from it!
Such examples ought not to discourage us from coming to the ordinance, but should excite and increase our watchfulness after we have been there, that out after-deportment may be suitable to the solemnity of a sacramental table.