John 18:15-18 And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple: that disciple was known to the high priest… Lie engenders lie. Once committed, the liar has to go on in his course of lying. It is the penalty of his transgression. To the habitual liar, bronzed and hardened in the custom, till the custom becomes second nature, the penalty may seem no terrible price to pay. To him, on the other hand, who, without deliberate intent, and against his innermost will, is overtaken with such a fault, the generative power of a first lie to beget others, the necessity of supporting the first by a second and a third, is a retribution keenly to be felt, while penitently owned to be most just. Dean Swift says: "He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one;" and F. W. Robertson: "One step necessitates many others. The soul gravitates downwards beneath its burden. It was profound knowledge which prophetically refused to limit Peter's sin to one." Mr. Froude shows us Queen Elizabeth stooping to "a deliberate lie." At times "she seemed to struggle with her ignominy, but it was only to flounder deeper into distraction and dishonour." Nobody ever did anything wrong without having to tell one or more falsehoods to begin with: the embryo murderer has to tell a lie about the pistol or dagger, the would-be suicide about the poison. "The ways down which the bad ship Wickedness slides to a shoreless ocean must be greased with lies." (F. Jacox, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple: that disciple was known unto the high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest. |
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