ridicule

• Peter withered before

139:2.6Si­mon Pe­ter was dis­tress­ingly vac­il­lat­ing; he would sud­denly swing from one ex­treme to the other. First he re­fused to let Je­sus wash his feet and then, on hear­ing the Mas­ter’s re­ply, begged to be washed all over. But, af­ter all, Je­sus knew that Pe­ter’s faults were of the head and not of the heart. He was one of the most in­ex­pli­ca­ble com­bi­na­tions of cour­age and cow­ardice that ever lived on earth. His great strength of char­ac­ter was loy­alty, friend­ship. Pe­ter re­ally and truly loved Je­sus. And yet de­spite this tow­er­ing strength of de­vo­tion he was so un­sta­ble and in­con­stant that he per­mit­ted a ser­vant girl to tease him into deny­ing his Lord and Mas­ter. Pe­ter could with­stand per­se­cu­tion and any other form of di­rect as­sault, but he with­ered and shrank be­fore ridicule. He was a brave sol­dier when fac­ing a frontal at­tack, but he was a fear-cring­ing cow­ard when sur­prised with an as­sault from the rear.

• do not indulge in sarcasm

159:3.4Take care that you do not wound the self-re­spect of timid and fear­ful souls. Do not in­dulge in sar­casm at the ex­pense of my sim­ple-minded breth­ren. Be not cyn­i­cal with my fear-rid­den chil­dren. Idle­ness is de­struc­tive of self-re­spect; there­fore, ad­mon­ish your breth­ren ever to keep busy at their cho­sen tasks, and put forth ev­ery ef­fort to se­cure work for those who find them­selves with­out em­ploy­ment.

• Judas influenced by Sadducean friends’

172:5.13Ju­das was tremen­dously in­flu­enced by the ridicule of his Sad­ducean friends. No other sin­gle fac­tor ex­erted such a pow­er­ful in­flu­ence on him, in his fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion to for­sake Je­sus and his fel­low apos­tles, as a cer­tain episode which oc­curred just as Je­sus reached the gate of the city: A promi­nent Sad­ducee (a friend of Ju­das’s fam­ily) rushed up to him in a spirit of glee­ful ridicule and, slap­ping him on the back, said: “Why so trou­bled of coun­te­nance, my good friend; cheer up and join us all while we ac­claim this Je­sus of Naz­a­reth the king of the Jews as he rides through the gates of Je­ru­sa­lem seated on an ass.” Ju­das had never shrunk from per­se­cu­tion, but he could not stand this sort of ridicule. With the long-nour­ished emo­tion of re­venge there was now blended this fa­tal fear of ridicule, that ter­ri­ble and fear­ful feel­ing of be­ing ashamed of his Mas­ter and his fel­low apos­tles. At heart, this or­dained am­bas­sador of the king­dom was al­ready a de­serter; it only re­mained for him to find some plau­si­ble ex­cuse for an open break with the Mas­ter.

• beware poison darts of

174:0.2This morn­ing he greeted each of the twelve with a per­sonal salu­ta­tion. To An­drew he said: “Be not dis­mayed by the events just ahead. Keep a firm hold on your breth­ren and see that they do not find you down­cast.” To Pe­ter he said: “Put not your trust in the arm of flesh nor in weapons of steel. Es­tab­lish your­self on the spir­i­tual foun­da­tions of the eter­nal rocks.” To James he said: “Fal­ter not be­cause of out­ward ap­pear­ances. Re­main firm in your faith, and you shall soon know of the re­al­ity of that which you be­lieve.” To John he said: “Be gen­tle; love even your en­e­mies; be tol­er­ant. And re­mem­ber that I have trusted you with many things.” To Na­than­iel he said: “Judge not by ap­pear­ances; re­main firm in your faith when all ap­pears to van­ish; be true to your com­mis­sion as an am­bas­sador of the king­dom.” To Philip he said: “Be un­moved by the events now im­pend­ing. Re­main un­shaken, even when you can­not see the way. Be loyal to your oath of con­se­cra­tion.” To Mat­thew he said: “For­get not the mercy that re­ceived you into the king­dom. Let no man cheat you of your eter­nal re­ward. As you have with­stood the in­cli­na­tions of the mor­tal na­ture, be will­ing to be stead­fast.” To Thomas he said: “No mat­ter how dif­fi­cult it may be, just now you must walk by faith and not by sight. Doubt not that I am able to fin­ish the work I have be­gun, and that I shall even­tu­ally see all of my faith­ful am­bas­sadors in the king­dom be­yond.” To the Al­pheus twins he said: “Do not al­low the things which you can­not un­der­stand to crush you. Be true to the af­fec­tions of your hearts and put not your trust in ei­ther great men or the chang­ing at­ti­tude of the peo­ple. Stand by your breth­ren.” And to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes he said: “Si­mon, you may be crushed by dis­ap­point­ment, but your spirit shall rise above all that may come upon you. What you have failed to learn from me, my spirit will teach you. Seek the true re­al­i­ties of the spirit and cease to be at­tracted by un­real and ma­te­rial shad­ows.” And to Ju­das Is­car­iot he said: “Ju­das, I have loved you and have prayed that you would love your breth­ren. Be not weary in well do­ing; and I would warn you to be­ware the slip­pery paths of flat­tery and the poi­son darts of ridicule.”

• withering influence of

174:3.5The Sad­ducees had thought to sub­ject Je­sus to the with­er­ing in­flu­ence of ridicule, know­ing full well that per­se­cu­tion in pub­lic would most cer­tainly cre­ate fur­ther sym­pa­thy for him in the minds of the mul­ti­tude.

• Peter withered before

184:2.8Pe­ter was so per­turbed that he sought to es­cape con­tact with his ac­cusers by go­ing away from the fire and re­main­ing by him­self on the porch. Af­ter more than an hour of this iso­la­tion, the gate-keeper and her sis­ter chanced to meet him, and both of them again teas­ingly charged him with be­ing a fol­lower of Je­sus. And again he de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tion. Just as he had once more de­nied all con­nec­tion with Je­sus, the cock crowed, and Pe­ter re­mem­bered the words of warn­ing spo­ken to him by his Mas­ter ear­lier that same night. As he stood there, heavy of heart and crushed with the sense of guilt, the palace doors opened, and the guards led Je­sus past on the way to Cai­a­phas. As the Mas­ter passed Pe­ter, he saw, by the light of the torches, the look of de­spair on the face of his for­mer self-con­fi­dent and su­per­fi­cially brave apos­tle, and he turned and looked upon Pe­ter. Pe­ter never for­got that look as long as he lived. It was such a glance of com­min­gled pity and love as mor­tal man had never be­held in the face of the Mas­ter.