{"id":4770,"date":"2013-11-27T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4770"},"modified":"2013-11-26T17:28:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-27T01:28:30","slug":"witnessing-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/11\/27\/witnessing-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Witnessing Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

But he denied it. \u201cI don\u2019t know or understand what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d he said, and went out into the entryway. <\/p>\n

When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, \u201cThis fellow is one of them.\u201d Again he denied it. <\/p>\n

After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, \u201cSurely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.\u201d<\/p>\n

He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, \u201cI don\u2019t know this man you\u2019re talking about.\u201d <\/p>\n

Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: \u201cBefore the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.\u201d And he broke down and wept. (Mark 14:66-72)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tOnly hindsight is twenty-twenty. Even if you knew what the future held, it wouldn\u2019t affect your choices. Peter knew the future; he knew his<\/em> future. But Peter remembered Jesus\u2019 words and took them to heart only after<\/em> he had fulfilled them. He did not remember Jesus\u2019 words the first time he denied Christ. He did not remember them the second time. He didn\u2019t even remember them after the third time! He only remembered the words of Jesus when he heard the rooster crow. After it was too late. Only when Jesus\u2019 prophesy was completely fulfilled did Peter recognize that he had somehow done just what Jesus predicted he would do.<\/p>\n

\tProphesy does not get in the way of human freedom of choice. Peter was not a puppet being pulled along by his strings. He made every bad choice of his own free will, not once, but three times. And when it was over, he did not think to himself, \u201cI had no choice in that,\u201d or \u201cGod made me do it.\u201d He didn\u2019t even think, \u201cthe Devil made me do it.\u201d He knew, in the depths of his soul, that he had done it all by himself. So he reacted accordingly: with overwhelming guilt and despair. He knew it was his own choices that had brought him to that place.<\/p>\n

\tThat God knows ahead of time what you will do, that in some sense the future has already been determined, nevertheless does not violate your freedom\u2014or the responsibility you bear for your actions.<\/p>\n

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While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him. \u201cYou also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,\u201d she said. But he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4771,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions\/4771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}