“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 scrip and shoes, lacked ye any thing?’ And they said: ‘Nothing.’”
Now, here we find Peter’s fault of self-confidence. That was really his besetting sin, and when the Lord told him that the cock should not crow twice before he had denied Him thrice, he ought to have believed the words of Christ and cried for help; but no, he was very self-confident. “Why,” says he, “if the rest of the disciples deny You, I will not deny You.”
Peter not only declared he would not deny Jesus, but he even tried to make the other disciples worse by comparison. If you meet a man full of conceit and self-confidence, you may look for that man’s downfall.
Men who have stood the highest, in Scripture, have often fallen on their strongest point.
Moses was noted for his humility. Right there he fell. He got angry instead of being humble, and fell through lack of humility.
Elijah was noted for his boldness. Right there he fell. Why, he stood on Mount Carmel and defied the whole nation. He stood there alone. He seemed to be the boldest man in the whole nation. But after a while he got word that Jezebel was going to take his life, and then he lost all his boldness and got scared at the threat of a woman.
There was Samson, who was noted for his strength. He lost his hair, wherein his strength consisted, but he recovered it. They cut off his hair, but they did not remove the roots, and it grew out again.
Abraham was noted for his faith. But he got into Egypt, and denied his wife.
There was only one time, I am told, that Edinburgh Castle was ever taken by the enemy, and that was done by climbing on the back rocks. The rocks were so steep the besieged did not believe the enemy could get in that way, but that was just where they got in.