Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing Bible study in the book of Luke chapter 22 today. Our lesson
today starts in verse 31 of Luke chapter 22. If we backed up just a little
bit, the Lord had just instituted the Lord's Supper and the things
that were represented in that. And then right away in verse
24, it says, also a strife among them which
should be accounted the greatest." And the Lord dealt with all that.
And then kind of in view of that, starting in verse chapter 22
of Luke 31, and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath
desired you, or to have you is in the italics there, that he
may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that
thy faith fail not. When thou art converted, strengthen
thy brethren." And he said unto him, Lord, I'm ready to go with
thee both into prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee,
Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before thou shalt thrice
deny that thou knowest me. So as we look at this scripture,
boy, there's just so much in there. There's a lot of things.
You know, we read these verses. Simon, Simon. Satan has the desire
to have you that he might say, well, how does he know that?
And what is the result of that? And just keep in mind too that
they've just been quarreling about who's going to be the greatest,
who would be considered the wisest, the eldest, the most, one capable of dealing with these
kind of things. And remember, they had just came
out from being sent out and preaching the gospel and healing diseases
and casting out demons and all that kind of stuff. Boy, you
know, if I got to do that, I'd probably have a head about that
big. And so, you know, you can hardly blame Peter for kind of
lacking an apparent knowledge of what's going to come ahead
and the trials that he was about to be faced with. All he could
think about was, wow, look what I've been doing, and look who
I'm with, and you know, here we are with the Lord. pretty confident in his own abilities.
And that's just a warning for the church that we always have
to contend with, that no matter what things seem to be going
on, we always have to keep our eye on Christ. And when we take
our eyes off Christ, We run into problems, and what a typical
picture of the church there is. And you know, the Lord, He's
always, He never takes His eye off of us. It's kind of an opposite
view there, you know. We get our eye off of Him, but
His eye is always on us. The verse reminds us of the view
of the Lord here as He sees things, and displaying His omnipotent
power, His absolute knowledge of all things, and all things
centered in His redemptive work, and His awareness of His almightiness,
and His awareness of spiritual activities occurring, and his
absolute power over overcoming all obstacles of the church,
and how those things are taken care of by him even when we don't
often think about them, and we think that we're doing pretty
good on our own. We're going on our own abilities. Well, I'm
doing fine. I don't need Jesus today because
things are going swell. And I'm feeling good about myself. I'm feeling good about what I'm
doing. And yet, in the background, there's
other things going on. previous lesson we had on Luke
chapter 4, where the Lord endured the temptations, and we titled
that message, He Did for Us the Things We Couldn't Do for Ourselves.
And Christ was victorious. It hardly seems a strong enough
description of the Lord God Almighty overcoming all the adversaries
of the church. So here again, we're reminded
that we're mere recipients of grace, and that grace is found
in Christ. He says, Satan desires to sift
you as wheat. We're going to explore that a
little bit here. But first, I wanted us maybe to take a look over
at Revelation Chapter 12. And we'll read two verses from
there, verse 10 and 11 from Revelation chapter 12. And I heard a loud
voice in heaven saying, in heaven now has come salvation and strength
and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them
before God day and night. That's who that we're talking
about here, the accuser. He accuses us of a lot of stuff
and probably a lot of stuff we're just guilty of. I mean, he doesn't
have to make anything up. We can take care of that on our
own. And they, in verse 11, overcame him by the blood of the Lamb,
not by their own abilities, not by their own, well, I'm doing
pretty good today, or I'm going to make a sincere effort not
to do nothing wrong today or say anything bad. or think only
pure thoughts or whatever. They overcame Him by the blood
of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved
not their lives unto the death." So you know, it's just no doubt
that Satan had been accusing Peter as well as all the disciples. The Lord held these men that
I love here, and He says, Heaven, I've chosen all of you, and one
of you is a devil, one of you is a demon. And you know, Satan
here is depicted as desiring to have control, to exercise
authority. over those whom are in God's
eternal love and care. That's what he's kind of saying
here. Satan has desire. That's his desire. It's not his
ability. It's not his, as Norm was saying
this morning, he has no omnipotence. He has no omni-anything. He is just a tool. He's a created
being, but he's always trying to usurp God. And isn't that
what we always do ourselves in our natural state? We're trying
to usurp God's authority, His role over us. But you know, we find this throughout
the Scripture in the Garden. God, did God really say that? And we find it in the book of
Job. We'll be looking at that here
in just a second. But Satan is many times portrayed as being
equal to God, but just opposite. And he's trying to win people
over to his side of the fence, and God is trying to win people
over to his side, and we with free will are in the middle going,
Oh, I should choose this, or no, I should choose that. We find that our will is corrupt
and is never going to choose God. Is there any that seek God? And the answer was no. that many falsely attribute to
him power and authority, which he does not have and never has
had, and the truth is brought out really here again. He's desired
to have you and to sift you as wheat. He says, but I prayed
for you. And boy, there's just so much. I don't know if we'll get through
all of this today in this particular lesson, but we'll go as far as
we can go and take it up again later. But, you know, it's apparent
that his desire to have Peter as the object of his intent is
actually a declaration that his desire was in subjection to the
absolute power and permission of God Almighty in the person
of Christ. If he was omnipotent, he'd just
say, he's mine, I got him. I don't need to. But it says
his desire is to have that, but his desire is not fulfilled. His desire by the sovereignty
of God is not allowed to have that. The same is in Job. You know, the scripture here
kind of intimates that Satan had approached Christ in some
manner that we're not privy to. But much as we saw in Chapter
4, where Satan converses with him and says, well, if you will
just bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of this. And
if you will do this, I'll do that. And so all of his things
were contingent on Christ. bowing, condescending to His
desires, which He never did. He never did. He countered Him with the Gospel
every time, and He took care of all those things as only He
could. So we have a declaration here
that his desire was in subjection to the absolute power and permission
of God Almighty in the person of Christ, just the same as it
was in Job. Satan came up and said, hey,
God said, what have you been doing? He said, oh, I've been
walking up and down on the earth. And God says, you know, I've
got a person that I've loved eternally. Have you ever considered
him? And Satan says, well, he only loves
you because you protect him. We'll probably read that here
in just a minute here in Job chapter 1. But the scripture
here intimates that Satan had approached Christ and expressed
a desire to have Peter and to also sift him as wheat. That's
very interesting terminology used there and it's very interesting
spiritually in that sifting here indicates a process by where
weed is run through a sieve with the intent that the the impurities,
the chaff would be exposed. Back in those days, they didn't
get their wheat in a nice little clean white paper bag at Safeway. They ground it and it had little
chunks of stone in it, probably from the grinding wheel and all
kinds of, they didn't have a sanitary environment to process it all
and it wasn't, run through a mill and all these things. They ground
it up with a stone and everything and then maybe they took like
a sieve-like device and kind of sifted it through and then
left in the basket is the little rocks and the little chunks of
husk and all the things you didn't want to eat. All the impurities. Well, can you imagine Satan wanting
to sift Peter and then he'd go up to the Lord with this sieve
full of junk and say, here's your guy. See all this stuff
in here? When you sift out all the stuff
that you've done for him, when we sift out all the great, this
is what's left. And you know what? The Lord looks
down at that and He says, I don't see anything. All those things vanish. And
he says, what, what? I'm accusing him. He did this
and he did this. See this little rock here, this
little chaff? These are pictures of his impurities. These are pictures of his infidelity.
These are pictures of his treatment of you. And the Lord
says, you know what? I don't see anything. I don't
remember any of those. I paid for everything. Those
things are vanished. And what a wonderful thing for
the church to remember that as we have an accuser that accuses
us day and night, we have an intercessor in Christ that's
saying, I paid for that, paid for that, paid for that, paid
for that. And it's not like we plan. Our motives are pure. Our motives are always with the
best intent. Peter says, Even though everybody
might abandon you, I'm not going to do it. And Mark will read
that maybe if we have a little time today. But all the disciples
said that. So said they all. Though everyone
abandon you, we'll stick with you to the death. And yet, you
know, we know how that story turned out. So again, In Job, we find that it's made
abundantly clear that Satan of himself can't do anything, and
even acknowledges that God sovereignly must put forth His hand if the
circumstances concerning one of His elect were to be affected
in any way. That's what it tells us in Job.
So let's go over there. And again, we know that he's
not, in no way, absolutely not co-equal with God. He exercises
no power which has not been specifically determined and permitted. Think
about it as we read this in Job 1, and we'll read starting in
verse 6. Now, there was a day when the
sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came
also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Whence comest thou? And again, not a question from
that he didn't know and he was desirous to know, but just for
our benefit. Then Satan answered the Lord
and said, from going to and fro in the earth and from walking
up and down in it. Look at me, I'm pretty important
and I've been everywhere. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like
him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth
God, and escheweth evil? And then Satan answered the Lord
and said, Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about
him? and about his house, and about
all that he hath on every side. Thou hast blessed the work of
his hands, and his substance is increased in the land." He
says, that's the only reason he loves you. That's the only
reason he sticks with you is because you've done all this
stuff. And the Lord is about to bring forth a very important
fact here. Physical stuff means nothing. It's what's happened in eternity
is what's important. You hedged him about on every
side, blessed the work of his hands, and substances increased
in the land. But now, put forth thy hand now,
and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power, only upon himself
put forth, not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the
presence of the Lord. So the only thing that he was
allowed to do was to affect some things that the Lord predetermined
and authorized him to do. Not that he had power to do that
of himself. He had to go and seek permission
to do that. This kind of reminds me of what
Norm's been teaching Wednesday night in the book of Esther. The evil guy. He's got evil intentions
and he says, hey, you know what? If you're really the king and
you do this, This is what's going to happen. So he's trying to manipulate
God, I guess we might say. Manipulate Him according to his
desire. But it's very interesting if
you go through there and read ahead in Esther 3 through the
rest of it, how that works out with Haman.
But you know, there is a king. As it points out in Esther, there
is a king who exercises absolute authority, and there is evil
who of themselves can do nothing outside the will and purpose
of God Almighty, and evil which is intent on exalting themselves
above God and contrary to Him. There is a king who's almighty.
There's a king, he says, I prayed for you. Satan desires to have
you and sift you as wheat, but I've prayed for you." There's
a king who's prayed effectually for the people God the Father
had given them. You know, in our previous lesson,
we mentioned that many things which occurred between the institution
of the Lord's Supper and the going out to the Mount of Olives
and the eventual betrayal of the Lord and his being arrested,
A lot of the details of that is covered in John 14 through
17. And one of the things that we have presented to us is when
the Lord says, but I've prayed for you. And we have that prayer
in John 17. We get to go over there and read
that in John 17. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven. Verse 1, it said, Father, the
hour has come. Glorify thy son that thy son
also may glorify thee as thou has given him power over all
flesh. that he should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal,
that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the
glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine
they were, and thou gavest them me." There's just so much in
there. They were possession of God.
They were loved by God eternally. Thou gavest them Me, and they
have kept Thy word. Now they have known all things
that whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given
unto them the words which Thou gavest Me, and they have received
them, and known surely that I came out from Thee. and they have
believed that thou didst send me." That's a core thing right
there. That's what's important. That's
the core of it. There's not much said about behavior
here. There's a core thing about belief. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given Me, and all Mine are Thine, and
Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no longer
in the world, but these are in the world, and here is the nut
of it. And I come to Thee, Holy Father."
He says, Keep through thine own name those
whom thou has given me that they may be one as we are. You know
what this word keep is an interesting word. It means to watch or to
keep a guard on, to keep an eye on, to prevent
loss or injury. It's kind of like in Job, you've
hedged them about. It's the same thing. You know the scripture in James
5.16 says, the effectual fervent prayer. of a righteous man availeth
much." Well, who could be more effectual and more righteous
than the Lord God Almighty? So that's kind of a paraphrase
of John 5, 16. But the intent is that if we
think our prayers avail much, what do you think the prayer
of the Son of God to the Father amounts to as he prays for his
people and says, hedge them about, guard them. That's the same word we find
in 1 Peter 1, verse 5, who are kept by the power of God through
faith unto salvation and ready to be revealed in the last time.
That same word there, protected, hemmed in, guarded. It doesn't mean that nothing
physically bad is ever going to happen about us or to us,
because we're in this world and this world is up to our neck. the impact of the fall. It doesn't
mean we're going to be free from disease. It doesn't mean we're
going to be free from the impediments of old age. It doesn't mean we're
going to be free from injury. It doesn't mean we're going to
be free from anything. But whatever does happen to us,
it's going to be because God has determined it and purposed
it for some purpose of His own. One of my favorite hymns of all
time is D.W. Whittle. He was a major, I think,
in the Civil War and he got his arm shot off. He was on a train
somewhere and I think his mom had slipped a Bible into his
satchel and he was reading through that. He penned that hymn, I know not what good or ill may
be reserved for me, but I know whom I have believed in, whether it will be golden days
or weary ways. He said, I don't know, but I
know this one thing, I know whom I have believed in, And that's
what the core is. They have believed that Thou
didst send me. They have believed in Christ, the Son of God. They have believed that I came
to save them from their sins. I know whom I have believed in.
I always thought that was interesting
that here's a guy that's been through terrible battle, wounded
grievously, got no arm left, doesn't know how things are going
to work. You can imagine the things that went through his
mind. How am I going to work? What's going to happen to me?
What's going to happen to my family? All these physical things,
but he said, you know, I'm not counting on that. I'm counting
on the fact that I know whom I have believed in. You know, Peter, as well as the
others, they declare their fidelity unto death to the Lord, it says
here in the Scripture. You know, the Spirit is very bold until the time comes,
and then the weakness of the flesh crops up, and it's just
a good thing that it doesn't depend on that. The Spirit's willing, but the
flesh is weak. That's from Matthew 26-41. We
think we can cope. We think a lot of things. And we say things and then it
turns out we're like Paul. This morning I got up and I said,
this is what I'm going to do today. And then he says, you
know what? At the end of the day, I didn't do any of those
things. But I had a list of things that
I'm not going to do today. And he says, that's what turned
out what I did, the very opposite. And he said, who's sufficient
for these things? It's not us. In Mark Chapter 14, we're kind
of doing a little harmony of the Gospels here as we go through
this study, but we mentioned the fact that a lot of things
that transpired are recorded in John 14-17 to where they go
up to the Mount of Olives, and then we have some more in Mark. Mark 14, 26. When they had sung
a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives, and Jesus saith
unto them, All you shall be offended because of me this night. For
it is written, I wrote this a thousand years ago. I will smite the shepherd and
the sheep shall be scattered. But after that I am risen, I
will go before you into Galilee. Peter said unto him, Although
all shall be offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him,
Verily I say unto you, This day, even in this night, before the
cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. But he spake the more
vehemently, If I should die with thee, I'll not deny thee in any
wise. Likewise also said they all." And we know that that very night
they all did the very opposite. They said, the things that I
wouldn't do, those seem to be the things that I do. You're one of those Galilean
guys. No, no, I'm not. Your speech betrayeth thee. You've
got that Galilean accent. There's no mistake in that. You're one of those guys that
came with him. Nope, nope. I never saw him before in my
life. The Lord, He's so wonderful and
so full of grace. It's like that sieve. He looks
into that sieve, and the accuser's got it there, and it's all full
of all the residue of sin and whatnot. I said, I don't see
anything. Your sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. You're without spot, without
wrinkle. Everything is on such a more
deep level than what we just read on the surface. Satan decided
to sift you as wheat, but I prayed for you. When you're strengthened,
when you're converted, strengthen the brethren. Well, when you've been turned around
as Norm pointed out this morning from your things that you're into, and
you get your eye back on Christ. It's like the same thing as when
he was out on the water, when he kept his eye on Christ. He
was doing fine, and when he took his eye off, down he went. He says, but when you remember
grace, strengthen the brethren. And what's the first thing he
does when he comes back to them? He says, fear not. Because you always have to remember
that His view is an eternal view, immutable view, an unchanging
view, a view full of eternal purpose in the redemption of
the church. He never changes that. He never
wavers from that. Even though we are changeable,
even though we are wavering, He does not. And he says, you
remember when I sent you guys out? I sent you out with nothing,
without purse, without script, without anything. He said, did
you lack anything? And they said, nothing. Well, we just have to remember
that. He takes care of all those issues
for us. He takes care of those things where we have nothing. All we
have is Him. They overcame by the blood of
the Lamb, not by their own sack of stuff that they had with them
and their preparations and all the things that they would do
to satisfy their needs with their eye off of Him. When I sent you
out without purse and script and shoes, And that's so clearly
pictured in the Old Testament when they're wandering in the
wilderness. Forty years, their shoes didn't wear out. They had
manna from heaven to eat every day. They had water of life. Their clothes didn't wear out.
They lacked nothing. But yet in their natural cells
they said, oh, this is awful. They got their eye off of him
and onto the physical things. Did you lack anything? And they
said nothing. So, we're about out of time. I pray for thee that thy faith
fail not. That's what Jesus said to Peter.
Pray for thee that thy faith fail not. Boy, that's not his
faith in himself, but his faith in Christ and the Son of God
who satisfied all of the needs, all of the righteousness of God,
all the justice of God with his own blood. They overcame by the
blood of the Lamb. not their own wherewithal. So I think we'll just stop there and pick up this again next time.
He says, you know, everything that's written must be accomplished. So we'll quit there and thank
you for your attention as always.