40
The Acts of the Apostles
own righteousness, the Jewish teachers refused to admit that the men
charging them with crucifying Christ were speaking by the direction
of the Holy Spirit.
Having committed themselves to a course of opposition to Christ,
every act of resistance became to the priests an additional incentive
to pursue the same course. Their obstinacy became more and more
determined. It was not that they could not yield; they could, but
would not. It was not alone because they were guilty and deserving
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of death, not alone because they had put to death the Son of God,
that they were cut off from salvation; it was because they armed
themselves with opposition to God. They persistently rejected light
and stifled the convictions of the Spirit. The influence that controls the
children of disobedience worked in them, leading them to abuse the
men through whom God was working. The malignity of their rebellion
was intensified by each successive act of resistance against God and
the message He had given His servants to declare. Every day, in their
refusal to repent, the Jewish leaders took up their rebellion afresh,
preparing to reap that which they had sown.
The wrath of God is not declared against unrepentant sinners
merely because of the sins they have committed, but because, when
called to repent, they choose to continue in resistance, repeating the
sins of the past in defiance of the light given them. If the Jewish leaders
had submitted to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, they would
have been pardoned; but they were determined not to yield. In the
same way, the sinner, by continued resistance, places himself where
the Holy Spirit cannot influence him.
On the day following the healing of the cripple, Annas and Ca-
iaphas, with the other dignitaries of the temple, met together for the
trial, and the prisoners were brought before them. In that very room
and before some of those very men, Peter had shamefully denied his
Lord. This came distinctly to his mind as he appeared for his own trial.
He now had an opportunity of redeeming his cowardice.
Those present who remembered the part that Peter had acted at
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the trial of his Master, flattered themselves that he could now be in-
timidated by the threat of imprisonment and death. But the Peter who
denied Christ in the hour of His greatest need was impulsive and self-
confident, differing widely from the Peter who was brought before the
Sanhedrin for examination. Since his fall he had been converted. He