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• The Bible is filled with recorded spiritual failures.
• God wants us to profit from the experience of failure in the lives of others.
• Spiritual failure is the result of a long process of spiritual mistakes.

• Mark 14:27-31
• Peter was ignorant of his flesh's propensity for failure.
• We can only know success by walking in the Spirit.

• Prayer is the recognition that your need is not partial; it's total.
  - Mark 14:32-42
• We easily neglect prayer.
  - Illustration: Hendricks tells a brief story of a man who was emphatic about even the dullest baseball game but couldn't stay awake in church for 10 minutes.
• Satan works against prayer.
• People don't like recognizing their total need.

• Mark 14:43-50
• Peter was passive when he should have been active, and active when he should have been passive.
  -Illustration: Hendricks gives a hypothetical situation wherein a tongue active in gossip later goes still in an opportunity to witness, illustrating passivity and activity at the wrong times.
  - Illustration: Hendricks briefly recounts the story of a retired pastor who allowed his flesh to preach his last sermon and who regretted it later.

• Mark 14:66-72
• Christianity requires a constant rethinking of our actions.
  - Illustration: The brief story of fourth-century Julian the Apostate's persecution of the Christians ends with him angered that Christianity was causing even the despised slaves to think.
  -Illustration: Hendricks tells of a wealthy man whose children have all fallen into harm (through drugs, crime, and so on), only realizing too late that he would now give anything to save them from their pain.

• Peter's failure was not fatal.
• Nonetheless, Peter would advise you not to follow his path to failure.