When Jesus was arrested and put on trial, the Apostle Peter denied that he knew him.

After the crucifixion, Peter hid in fear with the rest of the disciples.

But just weeks later, and all the way up until his death, Peter boldly and publicly proclaimed his faith.

What caused such radical change?

We'll find out today on Truth for Life.

Alistair Begg is teaching a message titled, We Are All Witnesses.

Our text is verse 32 of Acts chapter 2, where Luke records for us that Peter, in the course of his remarks to the Jerusalem crowd, makes this statement, God has raised this Jesus to life.

And we are all witnesses of the fact.

Now, it's only a matter of some seven weeks since the Gospel writers tell us that all of Jesus' disciples deserted him and ran away.

And so the obvious question to anyone who is reading the record and thinking this out is this, how do we account for such a radical change?

Because remember, on good Friday, the disciples were totally demoralized.

On Easter Sunday, they were actually thoroughly bewildered.

John even tells us in our reading earlier, doesn't he?

That even though when he encountered that scene in the empty tomb, that was for him an aha moment, a moment of belief.

Yet he adds parenthetically, but the disciples, we the disciples still did not understand the fact that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

You see, the telling thing about what Jesus had been saying to them was not that he was going to die.

That doesn't mark you out as different, because we are all going to die.

Now, the staggering thing about what Jesus kept saying was, I'm going up to Jerusalem and I will suffer the hands of cruel men who will crucify me and I will die and on the third day,

I will rise again. But somehow or another, that piece of the puzzle had never fallen into line for them.

And yet now here he is, along with the 11 were told, the 11 of them together and their cowardice has been replaced with courage.

What is the explanation? Well Peter himself tells us what the explanation is.

The reason that I'm standing here, he says, the reason that I'm here to proclaim this story is because God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses to the fact.

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