004: Anthony Whitehorn - A Man Transformed: Peter

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Welcome to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. I'm Chris. This week, the talk we're listening to is from the Palm Springs Bible School in 2006 by Brother Anthony Whitehorn. Brother Anthony's overall topic for the Bible School was Be Ye Transformed, centered on Romans chapter 12, verse 2, which reads, And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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   In the first three parts of his series, Brother Anthony broke down the concept of transformation, from what it is, to why we should try, and how we can start the process of transforming ourselves. This all culminated here, where he applies these ideas on Peter in his fourth talk. The story of Peter is always great to look at for an application to our own lives, and Brother Anthony does a great job of bringing the personality of Peter to life, as he goes from an impulsive, rough fisherman to the faithful rock that Christ would build the first century ecclesia upon.

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   So now I will hand it over to Brother Anthony Whitehorn for his fourth talk, titled, A Man Transformed, Peter. Let's just have a look at what we've done there, because today we're going to look at session 4, Be Ye Transformed, A Man Transformed, Peter. What did we consider so far on Monday, of course, we considered what is transformation?

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   And we realised that it was a complete and inward change, metamorpho. It's not conforming, it's an inward fundamental change. And Sister Erna just gave me this little passage, and I'll read it out to you, and it's from Corinthians. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.

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   How about that? Lovely. And that's true, it's our inner nature that's changing, and that's what we should be looking to change. And then on Tuesday, on Tuesday, we of course had the full glass, the full glass of air, which has now got to be displaced by the fruit of the Spirit. And that was our process that we recognised that we need to be doing throughout our lives.

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   Displacing the natural man, feeding the white dog and not feeding the black dog. And then yesterday, how do we do that? We do that through disciplines. Recognising that it is God at will and to work within us. But we require certain disciplines. We need to have information from our Bibles, and we need to build on that information by being throughly, not thoroughly, but throughly equipped for every good work.

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   So it's building on that information that we get from our study to be throughly equipped for every good work. That's the first point. And the second one was, of course, prayer. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availing much. So those are the things that we've discovered so far. And today, today we're looking at an example.

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   And that example is the man, Peter. I think Moses quite like Peter, don't we? He said, yeah, he's just one of those sort of interesting sort of chaps. I was going to start today with a little illustration. First of all, well, I won't do that. I will explain the illustration. At the end of which, I will then explain why I'm not going to do the illustration.

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   This is what I was going to do. I was going to show you three things. I was going to show you an egg, a stone, and a piece of Play-Doh. You understand? You have Play-Doh? Good. Okay, and a piece of Play-Doh. And what I was going to do, I was going to get a hammer to smash the egg.

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    And then, of course, it won't break the stone. But the hammer leaves an image in the Play-Doh. And that, of course, is just to show how we should be. We should be like the piece of Play-Doh. Because that leaves the image that moulds us, left on us. It's quite a good little illustration, I thought.

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    Let me now tell you why I'm not going to do it. I tried this. I tried it about a year ago. And it was a special effort that we had. And so I put an egg in a bag. And I had a piece of stone also in a bag. And I had the Play-Doh.

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    And I did the Play-Doh and said, look, that leaves the image. I then, when I was standing at the front there, I then had the egg in the bag. And I got the hammer and went, bosh, like that. Great. The egg smashed. And so did the bag.

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    And it went all over the front three rows. And there was a couple of interested friends in there. Who were, like, wiping the egg off them and thinking, what is this that I've joined to come along to? It didn't stop there. I then, people wiped themselves. I said, you know, you understand that we don't want to break.

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    We just want to have the image left. And I got up the stone. I said, and what was this? Hit the stone. And the stone broke.

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    That's not what I want to try and show to you now. I want to try and explain to you that we should be like the Play-Doh. Have the image, God's image, imprinted on us. We should be malleable to God's image working on us. And that's what I think happened to Peter. Peter. In the 12 to 15 years of Peter, this man, he was transformed.

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    He was a changed man during those 12 to 15 year periods that we seemed to meet him. Let's just think about him first of all. The background of Peter. What do we know about him? He was married. We know about his mother-in-law being ill. We also read about, actually, that he actually took his wife on trips, on missionary trips with him.

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    We read about that in Corinthians. So he was a married man. What else do we know about Peter? He was obviously a fisherman with probably his elder brother, Andrew, with James and John. He was a member of the Zebedee Fishing Company. So what else does we know about him? What else do we know about him as well?

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    In terms of his personality. What do we know about his personality? Well, we know that he would quite often engage his mouth before his brain. He was a little bit of the old impetuous Peter, wasn't he? And we can think of some examples of that. Just think about the transfiguration. And I love the Bible when it says, and whilst Peter was still speaking, something happened.

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    It's like he was just babbling on. He didn't know what to say. And he just talked. And I love that. We're going to look at this example in a moment. The example of the occasion when the Pharisees come up to him, up to Peter and say, does your master pay the temple tax?

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    He says, yeah, yeah, he does. He didn't know at all. He had no idea. And he sort of says those things impetuously. And he's outspoken. He seems on a number of occasions to answer for the rest of the disciples. And he has a colourful tongue. It's lovely. It's in Mark 14, where it talks about the denial.

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    And it says, he cursed. He didn't say, oh, goodness me. No, you're absolutely wrong. This man was a fisherman. He knew the language of fishermen. We call him in the UK. He would have effed and blinded, I would suspect. He would have been very, he would have been sort of that sort. He'd be cursed.

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    He would have, the words say he cursed. He cursed. So he would have been very, he would have given strong language. He was a man of the world. He'd been around a bit, was Peter.

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    So that's what we know. A little bit about the background of Peter. Let's now just think a little bit about this man then and how he changed. Because he was a man transformed. We're going to look at some passages here and see how this man moved on and changed. Let's see where we first, where he first meets Jesus.

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    This is in John, John chapter 1. John 1, 35 to 42. And this is what it says. Again, the next day after John stood and two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus.

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    And then Jesus turned and saw them following and said unto them, What seek ye? And they said unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master. Where dwellest thou? He said unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt and abode with him that day. For it was about the tenth hour.

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    And one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Right, so what had happened is that if this here is the Sea of Galilee, they lived up here in Capernaum. And what happened here is that Andrew and John had got a little two-man boat and had come down the Sea of Galilee and gone down the Jordan to meet John and Jesus for the first time.

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    And it says there that they, in verse 39, and they stayed all day for it was about the tenth hour. So they'd come all the way down there. They'd met Jesus for the first time. And then at four o'clock in the afternoon, they then left. Then verse 40. And one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

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    He first findeth his own brother Simon and saith unto him, we have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. So what then happened is that John and Andrew took their little boat back, all the way back up to Capernaum, to find Simon. Probably the younger brother of Andrew. And you can imagine what Simon would have been thinking.

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    Just trying to get a little bit of a flavour of the character there from what we've seen earlier on. I can imagine he was probably standing by the keyside waiting for them. Because they would have gone out to fish that night. And so he would have been sitting and think, come on, we should be fishing, where have you been?

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    And he would have been a bit annoyed, I suspect. And then verse 42. I would suspect it was the next day this happened. And he brought him to Jesus. That is, Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he saith, thou art Simon, the son of Jonah. Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone.

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    It was the next day. And here is Jesus seeing Simon for the first time. He said, you, you're Simon. You're John's son. I'm now going to call you Peter. Interesting that, isn't it? He only actually ever calls him Peter once in Luke 22.

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    And of course that means the rock. The stable one. This man was far from being stable. Originally he was called Simon, which means hearing. And then he was going to be called Peter, which means the rock, the stable one. And I suggest that through hearing, he was going to become stable. Now, when you meet Simon, Peter, for the first time, he's just one of those individuals that I suspect that you think he won't ever be a Christian.

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    And we have those individuals in our lives, don't we? We sort of blank them out. Psychologically. It's a sad thing to do. And that to me was a lesson about this man. We don't know a huge amount about him necessarily, but trying to piece some of those little bits that we do know about him, we sort of think, him, he's not your traditional Christian, him.

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    And I think that's probably what Simon was, Simon Peter was. He would not be classified as that traditional Christian. And so on that first occasion, I wonder what Peter thought. He'd been held up, he'd been waiting by the quayside the night before, waiting for his brother and John to come back. And then when he did come back, the next day he was taken down to see this Jesus.

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    And Jesus knew him. And then Peter thought, who is this chap? Let's now look at the next occasion, Luke. Luke chapter 5. Luke chapter 5.

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    And verse 1 to verse 11. And it came to pass that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake. But the fishermen were going out of them and were washing their nets. So they'd been fishing all night, these fishermen.

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    And they hadn't caught anything. Now, these were hard times. They would have lived hand to mouth. They were now having to mend their nets. And you can imagine that Peter's wife was probably thinking, these are unsocial hours that you're working, Peter. You're out all night, and then in the daytime, you're mending your nets, or you try and get some sleep.

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    It's not a particularly, it's a hard life this man was having. And he hadn't caught anything. So there he was on the quayside, washing his nets and mending them. And then all of a sudden, these people come and they start trampling over his nets. I suspect he wasn't very happy about all that.

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    And then there, he, in verse 3, he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed in that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down and talked the people out of the ship. Put out the boat, would you, Simon? What? Put out the boat. So he pushed out the boat.

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    Beautiful, wonderful situation to do preaching. It's away from the crowd. Those of you that know that actually, having the crowd like that, talking over the water, superb acoustics. And everybody would have heard Jesus really well. And the visibility would have been good. And then in verse 4. Now when he had left speaking, he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.

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    Let me tell you a couple of things here. Number one, you don't fish in the daytime. Why? Because the fish, they want to go and hide. The last thing you do is go fishing at daytime. You fish at night. Number two, you don't fish in deep water. You fish in shallow water. Your nets aren't that deep, aren't that big.

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    You want to fish at night in shallow water. And here is a carpenter telling a professional fisherman how to fish. And it's all wrong.

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    And what does he say in verse 5? And Simon answering said unto him, Master. That literally means skipper. Skipper. I don't know. But was he perhaps being a little bit sarcastic here? I don't know. Perhaps. We have toiled all night and have taken nothing. And nevertheless, at thy word, I'll let down the net.

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    How was Peter feeling at this stage? He hadn't caught anything. He was trying to mend his nets and people had trampled all over them. And now there was this man, Jesus, whom he'd met perhaps a couple of days beforehand. And now he was saying, I want you to go and fish in the daytime in deep water.

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    Right, skipper. I'll do that then. You're a carpenter. And then, of course, what happens? When they've done this, they enclose a great multitude of fishes. And their net break. Wow. What an incredible miracle.

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    And what a wonderful opportunity. What a wonderful opportunity to go and make some big money here. Because probably that night, nobody caught very much fish. And it was, as I said, they didn't have big refrigerators to keep the fish. When they caught them, they sold them the next morning. And probably nobody caught fish that night.

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    But here is Peter, who had gone out and caught a huge amount of fish. He had the monopoly. And everybody would have wanted to be coming to him. So did he make the most of it? Well, what did he do? When Simon Peter saw it, what did he do? Did he go into the market and think, I'm going to really raise the price of fish today?

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    He fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, depart from me, for I'm a sinful man. The second Adam had dominion over the fish of the sea. And Peter saw it. And Peter saw it. This man, Peter, who perhaps was a little bit sceptical at the beginning.

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    And now it was a case of realisation. Somebody said to me once, how do I know when I'm ready for baptism? When you realise that you need Jesus. And that's what happened to Peter here in verse 8. Simon Peter saw it, and he fell down at Jesus' knees, depart from me. Why? Because I'm a sinful man.

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    So here you have the very first meeting that Jesus met Peter. Jesus said to Peter, I know about you, and I know about your past. For what goes on to hear? For he was astonished, and all that were with him at the draught of the fishes which they had taken. And so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon.

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    And Jesus said unto Simon, fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him. So this big catch, they didn't monopolise that in the markets. They forsook all.

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    And one followed Jesus. So the first occasion, Jesus said, I know about you. I know about your past. Your father's John. And the second occasion, I know about you. I know about your future. You're going to catch men. And that's, to me, a start of a lesson of transformation. The start of a lesson of transformation is recognising that Jesus knows.

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    He knows about your past. But he knows about your future. He knows where you are going. And we have the tools that we talked about yesterday, here and here, to enable Jesus to help us to get where he wants us to go. Because he is in control. I want you to imagine this situation.

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    There is a dog in a car. And the dog in the car is going mad. Running from seat to seat, jumping around, howling, doesn't know what's happening. Looking completely petrified. The man in the driver's seat is looking completely calm. Why is the dog frightened and jumping around? The reason being, is that the car has just gone into a car wash.

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    And the dog sees these things coming towards him and doesn't know what's happening. He's jumping all over the place. He's frightened. The man who's calm knows exactly what's going on. And that's the contrast. The Lord Jesus Christ knows our future. He is the man in the driving seat. And he's calm. How are we?

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    Are we like the dog jumping around? Or do we have that fruit of the spirit, which is joy? Joy. Which of course means doubt abandoned.

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    And so, Peter's journey of transformation begins here. As he allows Jesus to transform him. To change him. Let's now look at another incident. Matthew chapter 14. It was our reading. I love this passage.

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    We know it well. It's the occasion, of course, of Peter walking on the water. And Matthew chapter 14, of course. We know the situation. We read about it. Verse 23. After he had dismissed them. He went up on a mountainside. After he had sent the motids away. He went up onto a mountain apart to pray.

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    And when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves. For the wind was contrary. For those of you who have been to the Middle East, been to Israel. Well, you know exactly what evening is like. Evening, whatever time of year it is, is somewhere between 5 o'clock and half past 6 in the evening.

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    That's it. Doesn't change. So it's now somewhere between 5 and half past 6. And it's wonderful when you're in the Middle East. If you're there, or ever you go there, it's wonderful to watch the sunset. The sunset takes just over two minutes. It's from the whole sun to nothing. It's incredible how quickly it goes down.

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    So evening is a very short period of time. So it's between 5 o'clock and half past 6. And the boat is already being tossed about.

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    And then what does it say? It goes on to say this. During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them walking on the sea. The fourth watch. That's 3 a.m. in the morning. That's 10 hours later.

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    And what had Jesus been doing all that time? He'd been praying. And this storm had been going on for 10 hours. And Jesus knew exactly what was going on. A little lesson there for us, isn't there? There will be storms in our lives. And Jesus knows all about them. He may not come immediately.

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    But he will be praying for us. During that period of time. And he comes. And the storm that happened... Just a little aside. I'm going to cut some tangents here. Mark, in the Mark passage, it says when Jesus comes, he was going to pass by. Remember that phrase? He's going to pass by.

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    Strange phrase. It occurs in two other occasions. It occurs with Moses and it occurs with Elijah. On both those two occasions, when it says those words pass by, that specific occasion, those specific words, it's when God was communicating directly to Moses and communicating at Horeb directly to Elijah. So why did he pass by here?

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    I'll tell you why. Because God is communicating directly to us about discipleship. This is all about discipleship. This occasion with Peter. And Jesus comes up. And they think it's a ghost. And then, of course, they realise it's Jesus. And what does Peter do? Impetuous Peter. Does he jump out? No, he doesn't, actually.

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    Verse 28 says this. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. So, he asks Jesus, first of all, can I come out to you? He checks with Jesus first. How often do we do that? Do we often go off and do something and then we check with Jesus?

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    Check with God? No, no. The principle here, check with God first and then get out of the boat. You know, there are two reactions to Jesus on this occasion. I always thought this was a situation of the failure of Peter. It's not at all. Because there are two reactions to Jesus. There's a reaction of the 11 and there's a reaction of the 1.

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    The 11 people avoided failure. The 1 person saw an opportunity. We are, I put it to you, a little bit like the 11. In the UK, the most popular chair to buy is called a lazy boy. Do you have lazy boys? Oh, you do? Okay. It's the most popular chair in the UK.

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    Right? It's called a lazy boy. Isn't that an interesting phrase, that? We have phrases in our English language, you probably haven't seen, called veg out or couch potato.

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    And isn't it frustrating when you lose remote to the TV? It is so frustrating. Do you know, you can actually buy a remote control now, whereby, if you lose it, you can clap your hands and it beeps. And the sad thing is, is that some of you are thinking, I've got to get one of those.

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    That's where we've got to. We're a bit like the 11, you know. But it says in Ephesians this, make the most of every opportunity or redeem the time. And that's what Peter saw. Peter saw an opportunity. Brothers and sisters, you can't walk on water unless you get out of the boat. And that's what Peter recognised.

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    But the rock sank like a stone. But in verse 30, something wonderful happens. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried saying, Lord, save me. What would you do? There you are, you're walking on the water. You've been a Peter, you've seen the opportunity. And you're walking on the water.

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    What would you do? Would you turn to Jesus or would you turn back to the boat? Now there's a challenge. And this man turned to Jesus. Now there's a bit of a transformation, isn't there?

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    And it isn't until he asked Jesus that Jesus gives him help. Jesus didn't immediately, when he saw him sink, go out, stretch his arm out and pick him up. It wasn't until he asked Jesus to help him that Jesus helped him. Some wonderful exhortations in this passage here. And in verse 31, it says this, And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, What did he say unto him?

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    Did he say unto him, You should know that this water walking isn't for you? No, he didn't say that at all. He said, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? He didn't tell him off for having a go. He castigated him for his doubt.

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    It was a good start by Peter. He was getting there. He was starting to change. But of course, he falls this time at the second hurdle. And here we come now to another little passage, and it's in Matthew 17. And this is, there's a number of situations here with Peter. There's a transfiguration passage already mentioned.

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    And there's this situation here about the temple tax. It's just after the transfiguration, you can sort of understand a little bit of the natural man coming out in Peter here. He was perhaps on a bit of a high. He'd seen the transfiguration. And he'd listen to Jesus about, and seen Jesus heal the boy with a demon.

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    And then, of course, the Pharisees come up to him, and the tax collectors come up to him and say, Does your teacher pay the temple tax? And in verse 25 he says, Yes. When he's come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What sinkest thou, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute?

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    Of their own children or strangers? And Peter said unto him, Of strangers do you say unto him, Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast and hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up, and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money, and take, and give unto them, for me and thee.

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    The shekelfish. Isn't that a wonderful story? I'd love to have been there. You can imagine, can't you, that Peter had been with Jesus now for a large amount of time, and he was understanding, he was understanding more about Jesus. And I'd love to have been with Peter, because when he heard that, what do you think he might have done?

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    He might have come and said, Come with me, you guys. Watch this. I'm going to catch a fish. The first fish I pull out, it's going to have a shekel in it. Here, watch this. And he does. And he pulls out a fish, and he opens his mouth, and there's the shekel.

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    It's the atonement money. The fish had to die before yielding the atonement price. I don't know whether Peter recognised that at that time, but he absolutely recognised it later. And of course, it was the sign of Jonah that had just happened two chapters earlier.

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    A couple of other occasions, when we see Peter's impetuosity, the quelling of the storm in Mark 4. Teacher, do you care if we perish? Shouts Peter. In John 18, the cutting of Malchus' ear. And in Luke 22, when Peter denies Jesus three times. There's this one here in John 21 I want you to turn to, please.

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    This is the occasion when this man, Peter, he's getting there, isn't he? You can sort of see the snippets of Peter changing. It's the impetuous man who's a fisherman. He's a rough man. He cursed when he was told. You, you're a Galilean, aren't you? I can tell by your dialect and the way that you looked.

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    I tell you! And he cursed. I'm not. I don't know this man. And then in John 21. After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias and on this wise showed he himself. They were together, Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathaniel of Canaan, Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two others of the disciples, eight of them in all, of course.

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    Appropriate. Simon Peter said unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth and entered into a ship immediately and that night they caught nothing. Oh, similar, huh? But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore. The disciples knew not that it was Jesus.

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    Some nighttime fishing. And Jesus shouts out, Have you caught anything? They didn't recognize him. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship and you'll find. And they cast, therefore, and now they were not able to draw it with a multitude of fishes. And therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loves to come to Peter is the Lord.

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    Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fish's coat unto him for he was naked and did cast himself into the sea. This man, this man who denied Jesus just wanted to be with Jesus again.

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    Why did he put his coat on? I don't know. I've heard lots of different interpretations. I don't know if you've heard this one. Did he put on his coat? Because if you're going to jump into the sea, you wouldn't put on your coat, would you? Unless you were going to walk to Jesus.

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    I don't know. Verse 9. Verse 8. And the other disciples came in a little ship, for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits dragged in the net with fishes. And soon then, as they had come to the land, they saw a fire of coals there. Isn't that wonderful?

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    How the scriptures just put these little bits in there. Why? We should always say when we read the scriptures, why? Why is that there? Why does it say there was a fire of coals there? I'll tell you why. Because it occurs two chapters earlier. In chapter 18. In fact, chapter 18 and verse 18.

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    And what happened there? That was the occasion when Peter denied Jesus three times. And on this occasion, he says he loves Jesus three times. That's why it's there. Just that nice little link in to the previous occasion.

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    And the fish laid there on and bread. And Jesus said unto him, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. And Simon Peter went up and drew the net to the land full of the great fish and 153. And for all that there were so many, yet the net wasn't broken. How many times have you read that?

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    Many. And now think about this. Here we have all these 153 fish. Okay? When the fish are in the water, it helps its buoyancy. And you have a couple of boats and these number of fishermen who actually can't drag the fish in.

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    But without the buoyancy of the water, one man on his own manages to pull it over. How does he do that? Well, that's some good questions for you. Is it perhaps that the closer you get to Jesus, the more powerful you become? I don't know. It's a nice thought though, isn't it?

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    And then of course we have in verse 15 that occasion. So when they had died, to the seventh Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me more than these? He said unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And of course we have that situation about the love of the three times contrasted with the three denials.

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    He hadn't changed enough completely just yet. Because of course it was the wrong type of love. So you have a man here who just in these chapters that we looked at, you can see that he's changing. Not completely, but he's changing. And some of the fruit of the Spirit is coming through this man.

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    He is being transformed. And when we start to have a look at some of the other passages, like this one in Acts chapter 2, we shan't look at it specifically. It's in A Gate Beautiful.

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     And what happens at Gate Beautiful? Well, sorry, in Acts chapter 2 it's Peace to Dress. I'm sorry. Peace to Dress. He understood what Jesus had been saying to him. And he proclaimed it. There was therefore a great understanding in the Acts of the Apostles of this new man, Peter. You start to contrast Peter now to Peter that we first met.

101. 38:33

     and this man here in Acts chapter 2 is a man full of understanding. He'd appreciated what he had done at the denial. He appreciated that the cutting off of Malchus' ear was not what Jesus wanted. He appreciated what Jesus had been talking to him for those three years. We read in Acts chapter 3 this time at Gate Beautiful where he says in the name of Jesus of Nazareth walk.

102. 39:14

     This is a miracle. Can you imagine Peter walking up to Gate Beautiful and seeing this beggar there and said I don't have anything. What I do have I'm going to give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth walk. That took enormous faith to know that what he said was going to happen.

103. 39:40

     This man who was castigated by Jesus for doubting now walked at Gate Beautiful to see another man walk. in Acts 10 with Cornelius Now that was brave wasn't it? That was incredibly brave. This man who had been brought up understanding and appreciating the Jewish way the chosen people and he trusted the rules but here in Acts 10 he trusted God and what God showed him and he realised that what God showed him was greater than his natural tendencies and he appreciated that Christ's death his atonement was for all not just the Jews he understood the shekelfish and he really understood the aspect of circumcision Let's just have a look at Acts 15 I find this a really remarkable little speech that Peter gives that we have in our community many issues that that that we struggle with aspects of circumcision and Peter got up there in in verse 7 and when there'd be much disputing Peter rose up and said unto them men and brethren you know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe and God which knoweth the hearts bear them witness giving them the Holy Spirit even as he did unto us but put no difference between us and them purifying their hearts by faith now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they that took incredible understanding

104. 42:28

     of what Jesus was going on about and it really did appreciate the sign of Jonah Jonah the man who went to speak to the Gentiles and this was the sign of Jonah being fulfilled and Peter understood that and then you have the epistles of Peter and when you look at the epistles of Peter they seem a little bit disjointed but when you read Peter 1 and 2 what comes out true grace comes out certainly in 1 Peter and the second epistle it's all about faith and practice and that's what we talked about yesterday an understanding that enables us to be throughly equipped in every good work faith and practice so what is the conclusion then the conclusion is this is that this man Peter was absolutely transformed he was an impetuous man he was a man that was very natural and some of the natural man came through but during that period of time he transformed he changed he was previously full of air but gradually that air was displaced by the fruit of the spirit and how did that happen it happened because he spent time with Jesus that's how he was transformed and that's what we do with this we spend time with Jesus and with this we we spend time with God and Jesus and then we too can also be transformed just like our brother Peter thank you for listening to the good Christadelphian talks podcast please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review in apple podcasts whichever service you use to help people find the show when they search for it if you enjoyed this talk share it on social

105. 45:13

     media so other people can hear it too for show notes and links to the talk you just listened to visit our show page at anchor.fm we encourage everyone to share their thoughts on the talk from this week with everyone on facebook or instagram where we are at good Christadelphian talks or on twitter where we are at gct underscore podcast if you know a great talk we want to know about it too send a suggestion to good Christadelphian talks at gmail.com or message us on social media thank you for listening god bless and talk to you next week

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     you