Some Problems No.6 Guilt

And we read two passages from this lengthy narrative which helps us to see something of the events which led up to our Saviour's death. From the thirty-first verse we encounter our Lord addressing His disciple Peter. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death.

And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. And he said unto them, when I sent you without purse and script and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said nothing. Then said he unto them, but now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his script.

And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me. And he was reckoned among the transgressors, for the things concerning me have an end.

And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, it is enough. Now we go to the fifty-fourth verse.

Then took they Jesus, and led him, and brought him into the high priest's house. And Peter followed afar off. And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.

But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man was also with him. And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not. And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them.

And Peter said, Man, I am not. About the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed, saying, Other truth, this fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean. And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest.

And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice.

And Peter went out, and wept bitterly. Now, this particular Sunday morning, there's a challenge to your concentration, with some musical contribution outside, which might help to distract you. But as we come around God's word, we seek the enabling of His Spirit.

As I direct your attention again to what I've entitled as an address, The Problem of Guilt. The Problem of Guilt. And I want to direct your attention to three verses of scripture in particular.

You might like to look, first of all, at Luke 22, and verse 62, where we read, And Peter went out, and wept bitterly. Peter went out, and wept bitterly. And then in Mark chapter 16, and verse 7, But go your way, say the angels to two women who are in the garden tomb area, on the resurrection Sunday.

Go your way, say the angels. Tell his disciples and Peter that Jesus goes before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him as he said unto you. And then John's Gospel chapter 21, and the 17th verse, and right to the end of that verse, Jesus said unto Peter, Feed my sheep.

Now you may wonder why on earth I brought those three scriptures to your attention right now. Well, you'll still be wondering for five minutes because I'm not going to direct our thoughts immediately to them. But in God's goodness, as we see the whole perspective of what I want to share with you, you will find that those verses are very significant indeed, as we come once more to deal with this great topic of the problem of guilt.

Why is it that I return you to it? Well, because it is so important, firstly. And secondly, because there are few things less understood in the whole of biblical teaching than the idea of guilt, what it is, and what must be done about it. And then thirdly, because as I shared last week, it is not true to believe that the final objective for the proclamation of the Gospel is to create a sense of perpetual guilt within the ranks of those who hear.

It is not the goal of the Gospel to create guilt in a person's mind and to leave him or her there. A Gospel proclamation successfully undertook removes a person from the state of guilt into the joys of forgiveness and the blessings of being a child of the Lord. I was reading a book only this past week by a man called Timothy LaHaye.

It's a very successful book written by a Christian preacher under the title of How to Win Over Depression, and in that particular volume, Haye speaks of himself being confronted on one occasion by a psychologist in the United States of America, and that medical practitioner said to Haye, the problem with you preachers is that you give the likes of my profession far more work to do because you create a guilt complex in your ministry. LaHaye went on to show him that in the emphasis that a person is a sinner in the sight of God, and in the emphasis that a man might have his sins forgiven and become a new creature, there is tremendous healing power that helps a person to cope with all the problems of having lived an unrighteous life. The minister went on to show the psychologist that merely to patronize one of his client's consciences and to tell him that things aren't really as bad as they appear, and that he's not to do anything really about his guilt, but somehow or other covered up, is in no way helping him.

The thing to do about guilt, said the Christian preacher, is to bring it to the Lord Jesus Christ and let Him handle it. Now you will recall that that was the situation we discovered the psalmist to be in as we read and examined the 32nd and the 38th and the 51st Psalm last week. Here was David, who was the victim, and he was responsible for a bout of multiple sinning, and as a result he hated himself.

He did things which in more sane moments he would never have credited possible. And after staining his hands with the blood of a man, having taken his wife, David sinks into the morass of guilt and depression, and it would seem that nobody can help him at all. You remember how I showed you from the 38th Psalm that he felt singularly isolated, nobody understood.

His relatives, those who loved him the most, they were away from him, continents away. And you recall how the problem of his depression and the inner conflicts that he was feeling gave him no rest. He couldn't sleep, he's filled with anxiety, and eventually his mental ill health begins to affect his physical condition, and he becomes sickly.

And of course it's a principle well known in modern medicine that an ill mind will affect the body, and a body as a result will be harmed. David was grateful ultimately for the appearance of his chaplain, Nathan, who came and showed him the way out of his dilemma, who came and brought the guilt right to the forefront of his mind, who showed him what a sinner he was in the sight of God. Nathan didn't fob him off, Nathan didn't excuse his sin, Nathan didn't give up, give some bundles of reasons why David should forgive himself.

He called sin by its name, and he pointed David to God, who alone could cleanse him. Do you remember how David in that 51st Psalm, that penitential Psalm, cries to the Lord, wash me from my iniquity, wash me thoroughly, wash me truly, will you get rid of all the guilt of all the sin in my personality, will you create within me a clean heart, O Lord? And David ultimately comes through, his guilt removed, his sin forgiven. David an Old Testament example of a man who knows what it is in New Testament terminology to become a new creation, because God has taken over in his life, and has dealt with his complexes, has dealt with his guilt.

Ah, but you say, that's just an Old Testament illustration. You've taken from those three Psalms certain principles that you believe are demonstrated there, and you would refer to that as biblical psychiatry, or biblical psychology, but really you can't bring the whole of God's Word to bear upon the teaching that you're sharing during these Sundays. My friend, you could not be more wrong.

There is not some teaching in the Old Testament which contradicts teaching in the New. These books, the two parts of our Bible, were authored by one being, even the Holy Spirit. And the way that guilt is dealt with in the Old Testament is exactly the way that guilt is dealt with in principle in the New Testament.

As David needed help, so there will be men whose stories you will encounter on the pages of the second half of our Bible, who also will need help. And it may be that today you will identify yourself in part with their particular situation. I want to show you the dilemma that Peter was in as a follower of Jesus Christ.

I could have taken the illustration of Paul, and may well, if I have a few moments at the end, just touch on it. But I'm concerned to show you at this moment how Peter is very much like David. He sinks into a terrible depression.

It's a dangerous depression. He is a man who is absolutely ridden by guilt. And if God in His grace, or God without grace, overlooks Peter, then the consequences may be disastrous.

The story from his life to which I refer, of course, involves his denial of Christ. You remember the scenery, how the Lord informs the disciples that He is going to be arrested and crucified, and when He needs someone to be by Him, there won't be any present. And Peter says, Lord, you've got it wrong.

You can depend on me whatever happens. I'll be there. The rest, they may fade into the background.

They may scamper like frightened rabbits, but you can rely on your fisherman friend to be with you through thick and thin. And you remember just what did happen. Our Savior is arrested, and as He predicted during the hours of that terrible night, all His close associates fled away, including Peter.

But the Word of God goes on to tell us that the fisherman followed the group of temple guards who had arrested Jesus. He followed them afar off, stealthily, quietly. He comes into the courtyard of the high priest, where Jesus has been led and where He will go through the first of a series of mock trials.

And during the hours of early morning, in the flickering light of flames from a brazier that's on fire, Peter is challenged as to his discipleship, as to his loyalties towards that carpenter from Nazareth who's been hauled like a criminal into the high priest chamber. And Peter denies the Lord to a couple of women and also to a man. Not just a polite denial, but on the third occasion, he goes back to the ineloquent vocabulary of his fisherman days, with oaths and with swearings.

He rejects the notion that he's ever been an accomplice of Christ. And on the third occasion, as Jesus predicted, the cock crew and the fisherman has a glimpse of the face of our Lord, perhaps as He's taken on the overhanging balcony of the courtyard into another of the high priest's room, rooms. And as Peter catches Jesus's disapproving, questioning, loving look, he rushes out into the darkness of the night.

And we're told in the 62nd verse of Luke 22 that he weeps bitterly. It's very difficult sometimes to get Greek words into the English vocabulary because the Greeks have a much richer fund of words than we do. And this word wept is not a quiet sobbing.

It's not the condition of the heart internally that is a little bit grieved. This is a man who is convulsed. This is a man who doesn't know what to do with himself.

This is a man, if you will admit to it, who is crying out loud, almost screaming. And the adjective or adverb, bitterly, is placed alongside once more to heighten the misery through which Peter is now passing. He's guilt-stricken.

He's guilt-sodden. And he has to spend hours in this condition. David spent several months.

Peter is going to spend at least some days. And I ask myself, as a reasonably objective bystander looking on this scene, what will happen to Peter if he's left in the emotionally distressed condition in which he finds himself, soaked in guilt? If you feel that I have taken principles out of context in Psalm 32, Psalm 38, and Psalm 51, then listen carefully to what I have to share with you next. You have Peter in the depths of despair.

That you cannot argue against. You have Peter who's out on his own. There's no one who fully understands.

He's incommunicado. Peter who has let his Lord down and life is now absolutely meaningless. He doesn't understand so many things.

He doesn't understand why Jesus is going to the cross, and even more, he doesn't understand his own nature. He's a man who's cut off. If you've ever felt isolated, then maybe you can understand a little bit about what Peter is going through.

Now pause there for a moment, because I must introduce something else that possibly you've only given a cursory thought to in times gone by. Three days after the death of our blessed Redeemer, he's raised. Raised from the grave.

What we call, of course, as Christians, the resurrection. And without the resurrection, we would have no faith. Without the resurrection, there would be no such thing as sins forgiven.

But when the women went into the garden that resurrection Sunday morning to inspect the tomb, and so they thought to re-embalm the body, they discovered the tomb was empty. There was nobody in the tomb at all. But a couple of angels address those women.

And we are told that they have a message to give to the disciples. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen.

He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him, but go your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee.

There ye shall see him. Why do they say, and Peter? The word disciples is a collective noun. It's a general term.

It includes, it incorporates Peter. He was one of the apostolic college, one of the apostolic band that was following Jesus. I suggest to you that those two words are placed in to this little telegram, if you like, that Jesus once conveyed to the disciples, because he understands what Peter is going through.

Peter feels now he's absolutely cut off. His situation is hopeless. He's like David walking to and fro in his room in Jerusalem until Nathan comes to help him.

Peter believes he's isolated, that life is now no longer worth living. But he's told by the womenfolk that a message has been left that Jesus is alive and wants Peter to know that he will meet him, an appointment in very familiar surroundings, the most homely that there could have been for Peter, for Jesus will meet him by the seashore of Galilee where Peter had exercised a successful fishing business. And so I take you to John's Gospel and to the record of that interview, Peter and Jesus.

It's necessary for the Lord Jesus Christ to come alongside Peter if the guilt within his heart is going to be dealt with. And so, as there is not much time to read those verses to you this morning, let me give you a summary of the scene. Once again, it's early morning, just as it was in the high priest's courtyard, a trace of a new day, a little light but not too much breaking through on the horizon and there's a fire for Jesus is going to cook breakfast and there are questions, three questions.

Go back a few days to Peter's denial. So, the early morning, the fire, the questioning, the scenery in principle is the same. Why is it being set up? Why is it being engineered? Because Jesus is going to deal with the guilt complex in Peter's mind, in Peter's heart if Jesus, the greatest counselor that ever there was, who bears that title as a prophetic description as of his ministry, if Peter bypasses, if Jesus bypasses Peter now, there's no hope.

If Jesus leaves in the memory of Peter his guilt and his denial and does not in any way neutralize it, does not in any way show that it's forgiven, then Peter will never become a preacher, he will never become a great and successful evangelist. So the Lord Jesus has Peter by himself, perhaps with one or two of the other disciples eavesdropping and they stand before the fire and Jesus puts questions to Peter which are going to bring from his subconscious, if he's tried to forget, they're going to bring from the depths of his personality what will otherwise cripple him spiritually and emotionally in the years that are to come, unless they're dealt with. When Jesus deals with sinners, he deals with them deeply.

He doesn't deal with us on a superficial level. Look, Saul in the Old Testament was a very, very troubled man. He was a jealous man.

He became a bitter man. He was a man difficult to get on with. He had thoughts that troubled him.

And one day, do you remember what some bright spark in his court suggested? Go and get a harpist and let the music soothe you. And they did just that. They engaged the services of the one called the sweetest singer and harpist that there was in Israel, even the shepherd boy David.

And in some respects, the treatment was all right as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. It helped him temporally. It helped him superficially, but he still remained weeks later what he'd been before the treatment.

Saul, a man who has guilt, who has jealousy, who has envy, who's full of self-pity. Saul, a man whose complex ultimately will destroy him. And my friend, and I say this with no criticism of the medical profession at all, you can sometimes take your tablets and you can sometimes be soft-soaked.

The hands of those who mean well will try and tell you that sin is not sin and that there's every reason to excuse yourself in certain circumstances, in certain things that you have done. And the treatment may help for a little while, but it won't be treatment in depth because the guilt has got to come to the surface. It has to be dealt with.

Top Lady not only wrote hymns, but was enabled to write good biblical theology. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin, the double cure.

Cleanse me from its guilt and power. It's not just the power of sin in my life I need to be cleansed from, it's the guilt of sin. It's the fact that once I was a sinner.

It's the fact that on multiple occasions I have done things that were wrong in my life and I'm ashamed of them. And that needs to be brought right from my subconscious into the forefront of my memory. And it needs to be dealt with.

And this is what Jesus is doing for Peter. No superficial treatment, no soft soaping. Jesus calls a sin a sin.

And so the questions, corresponding with the denials and Peter knows what Jesus has at the back of his mind when he says, do you love me? And he puts that in a strong Greek verb. And then he drops it in its strength and puts the question again, do you love me? Do you, do you really love me, Peter? And Peter's aware, of course, that the threefold questioning is related to his threefold rejection of the Savior. A night, or rather an early morning not long ago, Peter has denied Jesus.

Here on the seashore of homely Galilee, Jesus involves himself with Peter and brings back to his mind his betrayal, or rather his denial. And Peter is amazed to discover that Jesus has accepted him. That instead of being rejected by Jesus, he's accepted.

Lord, I've not loved you as much as I should do. I can't use that intense verb to respond. I know what you're getting at.

I know I've done what is wrong. But Lord, the marvel of it all is that despite what I am, despite what I've done, you're even talking to me. And he doesn't just talk to Peter in terms of forgiveness.

He goes on, and he says to Peter, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. This is amazing. Jesus does not demote Peter to his betrayal.

Jesus does not remove Peter from the leader of the apostolic band. He does not expel him from being a member of his small church after the denial. With all the guilt that it brought into Peter's life when Jesus has absolved him of his sin, when Peter has identified by implication his guilt and brought it to Jesus, the master then ordains him to the ministry.

Feed my sheep, feed my lambs. I don't know what your guilt is. Maybe as an older person you find it hard to get relief because you look back on situations you mishandled as a parent.

Maybe your children are not following the Lord and you're blaming yourself. Maybe your marriage crashed and you're blaming yourself. Maybe you were once indiscreet in handling a relationship.

Maybe you once went wrong in handling finances. There are a myriad ways in which a person can be guilty and bottle that guilt up in their life. They could still be a Christian person but never fully benefit from the double cure which Jesus offers because though they have acknowledged him as their savior, they have still to bring back from the dark recesses of the past those things that need to be confessed and got right.

I believe that it is the legacy of a Christian to know peace with God, peace of mind. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. The peace of God shall garrison your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

I come back to what I said last Sunday morning. The objective of gospel proclamation is not to produce guilt but to have guilt recognized, to have it dealt with and to go on beyond guilt into the full joys of salvation and forgiveness and peace with God. And there are some of us who allow the past and its memory to bankrupt the present and to make the future unpalatable.

I believe that the I'm not excusing you, I can't, of any guilt that there may be in your life. I don't agree with Freudian psychology which seems to be the psychology of diminished responsibility. Trace it back to your granddad.

Trace it back to your father. Sin is sin. Whatever has been done but within the confines of the gospel of Christ, your sin can be forgiven.

Your guilt can be dealt with and you can go on as Peter did from the seashore of Galilee into the service of Jesus Christ and become successful. Peter does not allow the past to bankrupt the present nor to jeopardize the future. Jesus Christ forgave him and of having forgiven him, he forgot.

Your problem very often is this. You fail in the area of realizing just how deep is the forgiveness that Jesus offers and how deep is the forgiveness and how complete, therefore, is his pardon. Let's go on, having confessed our sins, having brought our guilt to the Lord to find that double cure, freedom from the guilt of sin and from the power of sin.

Amen. Bringing all my burdens, sorrow, sin, and care at thy feet, I lay them and I leave them there. Father, help us to be honest before your throne, confessing sin and seeking help in so doing when necessary.

And having got rid of the guilt, enable us to go on, to know the blessings of rest and peace and well-being, the happiness, the contentment, which should be ours because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. Father, may his blood be of sin, the double cure. Save us from its guilt and power.

Amen. Amen. Amen.