Have you ever encountered a situation where you thought you were on the same page with someone concerning a moral issue, but they turn on you when discussing this topic with a third party friend of theirs?
This is a “Peter denial, cock-crowing moment”. This is a situation where siding with a friend (or peers, as in “peer pressure”, or “political correctness” as in politics) was more important than that individual’s so-called “moral convictions.”
I experienced this recently concerning the topics of abortion and gay marriage. The “third party” individual I was having this discussion with has spent most of her 40 years of life in la la land* and claims “I should be able to do what I want with my body” referring to her right to abort. At the same time 1) she claims to know and believe the Bible, 2) she understands that there is another body – not her own – inside the body of an aborter, 3) she proclaims belief in gay marriage, and 4) she self-righteously exclaims “don’t tell me what to believe” when I challenged the basis for her opinions.
Short review: She is clueless about this whole issue and doesn’t care a whit about the illogic of her attitude – which goes far in explaining why she has achieved little in life.
Enter now the individual who has consistently expressed her convictions that abortion and gay marriage are both wrong. Witnessing the immoral and illogical statements of her friend, instead of supporting the Biblically moral position that she has expresses in private many times, she instead tells me I am wrong and demands the end of the discussion. Whoa!! A voodoo head-spin moment. Blindside alert! Time to shake the dust off my sandals.
This brief encounter included this paraphrased exchange:
Her: “I can do whatever I want to do. I want to do what I want to do.”
Me: “The essence of the Bible chronicles our human willfulness against God.”
Her: “Don’t tell me what I know. I know the Bible.”
Voodoo head spin lady to me: “She’s right. Be quiet.”
Me, thinking to myself: Shocked, dumbfounded, betrayed, silenced.
And I concluded to myself that it is more difficult witnessing the denial of one who you thought believed than the denial of one who never did.
John 18:25-27 –Meanwhile, as Simon Peter was standing by the fire warming himself, they asked him again, “You’re not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it, saying, “No, I am not.” But one of the household slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Didn’t I see you out there in the olive grove with Jesus?” Again Peter denied it. And immediately a rooster crowed.
Denying the truth of the Scriptures is the same as denying Christ.
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* La la land: An attitude toward life that maintains no serious commitment or endeavor, that dwells on pop-entertainment and gossip, that rejects moral principle, that relies on the largess of others for survival, and who is satisfied in that condition. A place that is remote from reality.
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