WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?
Mk. 14:27-31,66-72
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A duck walked into Burger King and walked up to the counter. The crabby assistant manager said, “Can I help you?” The duck said, “Yeah, you got any duck food?” “No we don’t. This is Burger King. We don’t serve duck food here!”
2. The next day the duck walked back into the Burger King. The crabby manager said, “Can I help you?” The duck said, “Yeah, you got any duck food?” “No! I told you yesterday that we don’t serve duck food here! Now get out of here before I nail your webbed feet to the floor!”
3. The next day the duck walked back into the Burger King again. The crabby manager said, “Can I help you?” The duck said, “You got any nails?” The man said, “No.” The duck said, “You got any duck food?”
B. LEAD IN
1. In the life of Jesus there were many animals. At his birth there were cattle. Bethlehem was a center for sheep raising. There was the donkey Christ rode into Jerusalem on. Jesus spoke of the little sparrows, the birds of the air.
2. Jesus spoke of swallowing a camel and of Herod as a fox. He said we should be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves. He talked about dogs and directed the catching of fishes.
3. But there’s one more animal we’re very familiar with, that Jesus mentioned, and that’s what I want to talk about.
C. TEXT
27 “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” 29 Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.” 30 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.” 31 But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same. 66 While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. 67 When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him. “You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said. 68 But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway. 69 When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.” 70 Again he denied it. After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” 71 He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.” 72 Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept. Mk. 14:27-31,66-72
D. THESIS
1. The title of this message is, “What Were You Thinking?”
2. My Point is: ‘Why didn’t Peter “snap” when he heard the rooster crow the first time?’
I. PETER: ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER?
A. JESUS’ PROPHETIC INSIGHT
1. Verse 72 says, “Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: ‘Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.’”
2. Jesus had foretold many things that came to pass: the miraculous catch of fish in Peter’s net, the fig tree withering, the coin in the fish’s mouth, He foretold many healings.
3. Jesus as a prophet foretold Peter’s future, Nathanael’s future. Jesus knew his answers to the Pharisees’ questions would stump them. On & on. So why, on this occasion did Peter not pay attention?
B. GOD’S WARNINGS
1. Sometimes we don’t take the Word of God seriously until it’s too late! This prophecy about the rooster was going to be fulfilled.
2. This warning was: “There will be two crowings of a rooster, then there will be a fulfilment. I want to ask him, “Peter, What were you thinking when you heard the first crowing?”
3. God was saying, “Peter, I’m shooting a warning your way! Are you listening?” God does that with all of us: He gives a couple of warnings before we run into the consequences!
4. Peter had been walking with Jesus 3 years; he knew His word always came to pass. When he heard the first warning, he should have thought, “Put on the brakes, Peter!”
5. The first warning was an invitation to humble ones self and be restored. The second warning always results in embarrassment and consequences.
6. God always gives warning us – when we go places we shouldn’t, or watching something, or doing something we shouldn’t. You don’t get to the second crowing of consequences without going through the first warning from God.
C. TRESPASSING
1. The Greek language is very diverse. It has four words for love – agape, phileo, etc. But it has 9 words for SIN!
2. “Trespass” is the one that really sticks out to me. The interesting thing about trespassing is, that you have to get by/over/around some barrier in order to keep going on with your sin. By the “No Trespassing” sign, there is a fence, a door, an obstruction, some rule you must break.
3. You have to read the sign and keep going, to make an effort to overcome God’s hindrance. In other words, God makes you work hard for your sin. There’s signs, signals, crowings – God is active in trying to get us to stop sinning before we get the consequences.
II. 3 TYPES OF WARNINGS
I want to give you 3 ways God sends us warning (the first crowing) to keep us from sinning, so we don’t end up in the consequences:
A. CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1. Jonathan Edwards preached the message, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards had written it out
as a manuscript and simply read it.
2. It’s said he was so near-sighted that he had to hold the manuscript close to his face to read it! Yet in spite of his ineffective elocution style – as he read his sermon, the conviction of the Holy Spirit fell.
3. People were holding onto the pillars to keep from
falling into hell. Many began screaming and fainting. That’s what the Holy Spirit can do!
4. Later he had a prayer meeting with 800 men. While assembled, a note arrived from one of their wives that said, “I would like to request prayer for my husband there, who has been prideful and very hard to live with the last month.”
5. Mr. Edwards quieted the crowd and read the note, without telling the name of the woman/man. He asked for the man who’d done this to come & pray. Such was the conviction that 300 men got up and came forward!
6. When you don’t listen to the Holy Spirit, it makes it harder for you to hear the Holy Spirit the next time. The people who are the most sensitive to the Spirit are the ones who repent about things others think would be silly to repent about.
7. When the Spirit deals with you and you don’t repent, that opens the door for even stronger temptations to be able to come your way.
8. The person you spoke harshly to – say, your wife, kid, fellow church member, work subordinate, etc. – may become bitter for life. So the offense spreads.
9. When you hear the Spirit – obey! Close your mouth, soften your tone, stop your action, apologize if you’ve offended someone.
10. When you do that you stop the expansion of the sin into something bigger. The first crowing should be responded to with humility. That stops the progression.
B. PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE AS WARNINGS
1. A man, due to security concerns, turned on burglar alarms in his home each night. The family slept upstairs so they turned on motion detectors downstairs.
2. To keep the kids from going downstairs accidentally, they put a waist-high gate at the top of the stairs. The wife was worried about the kids falling over the gate and falling down the stairs, so she warned them.
3. One night, the father happened to see his small son (obviously planning to sneak down stairs for something), go to the gate and put one leg over. He stopped. After a moment of indecision, he pulled his leg back over and went back to his room.
4. The next day, his father asked him why he stopped. He said, “As I put my leg over the wall, I heard mom’s voice
telling me, “You better not do that!” God put her in his life to warn him of danger!
C. WARNED THROUGH THE LOCAL CHURCH
God has three additional ways to warn us connected with church.
1. WORD OF GOD.
a. The Word of God warns us about our anger; it often sets a deadline. For example: “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath/anger.”
b. We’ve all heard the sheriff say in a Western, “Get out of town by sundown!” God says, “Ok. You can be angry about something, but you’ve only got until sundown to let your anger go & get over it.”
c. There’s a time limit to your anger. Don’t let it drag on, day after day. If you do, you’ll end up in sin of some kind.
2. Another: WORD PREACHED IN CHURCH.
a. God says, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” Heb. 10:25.
b. God believes church attendance is important. There’s a word God gives your Pastor/speaker, that is vital for you; it’s God’s crowing/ warning to you.
3. GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT: tongues & interpretation, prophecy. God placed these gifts in the Body to give us special revelation to help us at a specific juncture.
4. SITTING OUT OF CHURCH
a. You may be able to hold on to your Christian faith and not attend church, but you will never be a GROWING Christian unless you’re in church.
b. Just like the limbs of your body are necessary to each other, so other Christians – even the difficult ones – are necessary to keep you fresh in the Lord.
c. Staying home and watching a sermon on TV will never substitute for interaction in your local Body; you won’t GROW!
5. So get in church: the pastor, believers, the gifts – are some of God’s vehicles of warning to help you get successfully to heaven.
III. SYMBOL OF THE CROWING ROOSTER
A. THE ROOSTER HERALDS THE MORNING
1. The symbol of the Crowing Rooster would be a good symbol for the dawn of the Day – the Rapture. "MORNING" = A TYPE OF RESURRECTION/ RAPTURE.
2. Jesus is the “Light of the world” as opposed to dark; the Day as opposed to Night. Paul writes, “You are all sons of the Light and sons of the Day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness(1 Th. 5:5; see Rom. 13:12,13).
3. Luke 1:78 says that Jesus is "the Dawn from on high." Rev. 22:16 calls Him "the bright and Morning Star." Peter says we should pay close attention to the Word "as to a light shining in a dark place, until the Day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts”(2 Pet. 1:19; see Ps. 110:3).
4. Peter used the Greek word “phosphoros" (Morning Star) which in ancient times referred to the planet Venus, which always precedes and does not follow the dawn.
5. These references indicate that the Rapture will occur just as the Day of the Lord begins to dawn! The Morning Star will arise in our hearts, transforming us!
6. So if the Rapture is the “Morning” of God’s Day, then the Rooster would symbolize the Final Warning of the approach of that Day!
B. BUT WILL WE LISTEN TO THE WARNING?
1. We are not only in the Last Days (Acts 2:16-17), we are now in the End Times! The Day of the Lord is near! As Paul said, “The night is far spent, the Day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” Rom. 13:12.
2. If we have ears to hear, we should be hearing the crowing of the Rooster, warning us that daybreak is at hand.
3. Will we go on with life as usual? Or will we purify ourselves from the world and fight the good fight of faith?
4. Jesus has said He’s coming back. The signs of His coming are everywhere. Paul said the “day is at hand.”
5. Are we getting ready? Or will we be like Peter who wouldn’t listen to the warning the Lord sent to him?
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. I’ve been through several hurricanes, so I know they’re nothing to laugh at.
2. I remember Hurricane Alicia which hit Houston in 1983. It had sustained winds of 115 miles per hour at landfall.
3. It caused $2.6 billion in damage and killed 21 people; this made it the worst Texas hurricane since Hurricane Carla in 1961.
4. It shattered almost all of the windows of the high rise office buildings in downtown Houston. The streets were littered with business documents from the buildings.
5. It also spawned many tornadoes that ravaged the cities and countryside all the way to Huntsville.
6. People were warned. Many boarded up their windows, tied yard decorations down, put their cars in their garages, and got extra supplies like food, water, batteries, etc.
7. But many people didn’t take it seriously. They ignored the warnings. They thought it wouldn’t be much even if it hit Houston.
8. But it was much worse than people thought it would be, and many people lost a lot of property and lives that could have been avoided.
B. THE CALL
1. Peter was warned and you’re being warned: A major storm is coming in – the storm of God’s Judgment. It will be worse than you anticipate. Now is the time to make changes and get ready for it.
2. Do you hear the rooster crowing? I hear it! The signal is announcing the approach of the Day of God. Will we heed the voice who speaks to us?
[This is a rewrite of Tim Dilena’s message of the same title.]
