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By Pastor Glenn Pease
William H. Taft, the 27th President of the United States, was a big man in more ways than one.
When he was inaugurated in 1909 at age 51 he weighed 325 pounds.
His goal was not to become President, however, but to be the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
In 1921 he achieved his goal and became the only man in the history of our nation to hold the countries 2 most powerful offices.
Peter was like Taft in being the big man among the Apostles.
He was physically a big fisherman, but he was also the only man selected to be the head of the 12, and the only man to be considered the first head of the church.
The Catholic Church considers Peter to be the first Pope.
Peter also had the reputation of being the biggest human power on earth with the keys to the kingdom.
All of the stories about coming to the golden gate of heaven involved dealing with Peter, and so he was like Taft in the Christian realm.
He was the only man in Christian history to ever hold the 2 highest offices.
He was the President of the 12 and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Christian faith.
He could bind up or set loose and so determine who would or would not be in heaven.
Peter was a big man, but as we have seen in previous studies, he made more mistakes than all the rest of the Apostles put together.
A big man can make big mistakes and make himself look small, and Peter was a pro at it.
His most violent mistake is the one is the one we want to focus on.
It happened in the account of the arrest of Jesus.
In Peter's impulsive act of drawing his sword and cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest, he taught a multitude of lessons about the Christian and violence.
We can only look at some of them.
No situation is necessarily like another situation.
Peter could have said that Gideon with just a handful of men defeated a large army, and so even though we have only two swords among us, by God's power we can defeat this army of enemies who come to take our Lord unjustly.
It is a biblical truth that God can lead the minority to victory over the more powerful majority.
It runs all through the Old Testament.
This is the setting we have here in the arrest of Jesus.
We need to get the picture to see the high side Peter was taking in coming to the defense of his Master.
Peter was being as bold and courageous as he ever was in his life, but it was zeal without knowledge.
The fact is, he was demonstrating his willingness to die for Jesus.
All 4 Gospels reveal this scene, and Mark and Luke both used the word multitude.
There was a vast crowd of people who came to arrest Jesus.
John tells us of the band of soldiers and officers of the chief priests and Pharisees, but the other Gospels tell of a multitude of people with swords and staves.
Matthew even calls it a great multitude.
Get the idea out of your head that the arrest of Jesus was by a hand full of Roman guards, and that it was like a police officer picking up a disturber of peace.
This was a crusade, and the troops were lined up to march as to war.
We are talking hundreds of people ready to engage in fierce battle to subdue and take Jesus into custody.
The enemies of Jesus expected and all out conflict with heavy casualties, and so they came with an army.
Peter had delusions of grandeur to think he could fight this army.
It is a wonder he was not cut to ribbons.
Jesus did a quick miracle to restore the one victim of Peter's violence.
Otherwise Peter would have been killed on the spot.
The point here is that you cannot just transfer truth to any situation and try to apply it where it does not fit.
Every piece of a puzzle fits somewhere, but it does not fit everywhere.
You can't take a biblical truth or principle and just squeeze it in anywhere you like.
It is true that one man with God is a majority, and that God can use one man, like Samson, to win a battle over a thousand Philistines.
Does this mean a Christian can in every situation take on a thousand enemies and be assured of victory?
Not at all.
A Christian can take on foe, and if he uses violence out of God's will, he will be a loser even if he draws first blood as did Peter in this context.
There is a time for war and a time for surrender, and this was a time for surrender for Jesus.
If Peter would have stopped and talked with Jesus, he would have known that Jesus was ready to surrender and go the cross.
Peter saw the setting as a power struggle, but that struggle was already over and Jesus told Peter to put up his sword.
He was ready to drink the cup the Father had given Him.
This was a setting where fighting was not appropriate.
When the disciples grasped this they all fled, and their lives were spared.
Matthew records that Jesus said to Peter that he could have called for 12 legions of angels.
One angel destroyed an army of 85 thousand in the Old Testament.
12 legions equals 72 thousand angels.
Jesus is saying that if the issue here was power I have at my disposal enough power to wipe out the entire human race millions of times over.
Jesus told Peter to put up his sword for violence only leads to more violence.
Violence only produces revenge and retaliation, and the end result is that everybody eventually loses.
Peter was probably aiming for the whole head, but as a fisherman he was not skilled in swordsmanship.
John tells us that the man's name was Malchus.
He has the distinction of being the only person who suffered injury in this mini-war.
He could have been the only man among the enemies of Christ who ever experienced a miracle.
Jesus made sure His enemies did not suffer any loss.
This was His last miracle before the cross.
Malchus is the only New Testament victim of Christian violence.
This is the only battle in history I am aware of where one side guaranteed that the enemy would lose no blood, while the other side would shed the most important blood in history.
It is no wonder that the disciples fled the scene, for they could not understand what Jesus was doing.
We know the whole story and so we can understand, but for them it was pure mystery.
Jesus calls Judas friend, and then He heals the injured enemy, and rebukes the only one to strike a blow in His defense.
Whose side is Jesus on anyway?
Would be the question in their minds.
The only record of Jesus ever doing any miracle surgery whereby He attaches a body part back on is done here in the context of His arrest.
This was an eraser miracle to undo one of Peter's mistakes.
Peter had to be shocked at the action of Jesus.
It is true that one less ear in an army does not lessen its strength measurably, but a few more whacks and he might have got in a direct hit, taking Malchus out of the battle.
But Jesus commanded him to put up his sword.
Jesus stopped the fight before it even got a start.
The Christian does not win in the war with evil by making the enemy suffer.
He wins by suffering for the sake of the enemy.
This is the new message of the cross.
You don't make the enemy pay for their evil, but you pay the penalty for them and offer them peace.
You won't find this in any military manual or strategy for warfare, but this is the principle for Christian warfare.
The blood now shed is not to be that of the enemy, but it is to be your own for their good.
The goal is not to win over them, but to win them over, and to make them a part of the Christian army.
The cross way is the only way to win an enemy.
Jesus could have won the victory easily if defeating the enemy was His way.
He could have won in second, and all of the enemy would have been dead or prisoners of war.
It could have been the fastest won war ever fought, but that was not the way Jesus wanted to win.
Someone said, "He who strikes the first blow admits he has run out of ideas."
Peter was quick to run out of ideas and strike the first blow.
Peter felt violence was justified because it was self-defense.
They were minding their own business.
It was a normal response of self-defense.
Any of us would defend ourselves if attacked, and so Peter is just told to put up his sword and not take that approach.
Self-defense can be legitimate, but there are times when even that only adds to the misery of friend and foe alike.
Satan almost used Peter again to wipe out all the labor of the Son of God and sink His church in one battle.
Starting a war, even for the right reasons, can be foolish, for nobody wins most wars.
Wallace Viets says that asking who won a war is much like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake?
You survive a war, but you seldom win a war, for as Jesus said, those who take the sword will perish by the sword.
War is never the best answer.
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