Transcript
And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
But he said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You both to prison and to death.”
Then He said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.”
This past August the 23rd was a Tuesday. And it started out as a perfectly normal day for 20-year-old Christopher Graves. It soon turned into a horrendous nightmare.
On that particular day Christopher went to the home of his grandmother intending to mow her lawn. She lives about four miles or a few miles north of Robstown, Texas. But as he turned on the lawnmower a bee came up and stung him. Within seconds his body was literally covered with bees.
Unfortunately these bees were the Africanized variety, the so-called killer bees. They had come from a nearby vacant building, apparently disturbed by the sound of the lawnmower. Fortunately as he was under attack Christopher Graves had been doing something that his grandmother always told him to do. He was carrying his mobile phone.
And somehow or other he managed to call 911, which sent rescuers on the way. But it was no easy rescue job. The bees stung five different people who came to the assistance of Christopher Graves, including two firefighters and a police officer who was trying to control traffic about a mile away.
One of the firefighters who was stung was 35-year-old Ernest Gallegos. And he told the media, “I’ve been stung by bees before, but this was a nightmare. It was like someone coming after you with a knife or a gun. You run for your life.” He had tried to turn on the pump in the fire engine and the bees had zoomed into the fire truck. And they stung him 35 times. And they stung his partner Ricardo Gonzalez about 10 times.
Despite the fact that both of them were wearing thick fire boots and heavy insulated trousers, somehow or other they managed to get Christopher Graves out of there. And by the following evening, Wednesday evening, he was resting at Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi. And he was described as being in serious but stable condition. He was conscious. He was coherent. But he was tremendously swollen by what was estimated to be a thousand bee stings all over his physical body.
Christopher Graves is lucky to be alive.
Now I am not encouraged by the realization that the so-called Africanized bees, the killer bees, have been in the process of migrating northward from South America for the last several years. Quite obviously they have reached southern Texas. And this is not the only attack that has been reported. Unfortunately as far as I understand it they are expected to continue to migrate north so that eventually they will probably get as far north as we are here in Dallas.
But none of us has the time and energy to waste worrying about the arrival of the killer bees. We have something much more important to worry about. Because we have an enemy who is already here. An enemy who is already here. And this enemy has been compared to a fierce, hungry and savage lion which is quietly stalking, stalking, stalking its victims. And more often than not suddenly and unexpectedly it pounces on its prey.
And because this is a grim reality and a fact of life for each and every Christian who is in this audience this morning, this morning I want to invite you to think with me for a few minutes about the following topic: Christians in the Devil’s Den. That happens to be the title of my message to you this morning: Christians in the Devil’s Den.
Now no one needs to tell your preacher this morning that the circumstances of one’s life can change very swiftly and unexpectedly. And certainly three weeks ago Friday I was not expecting to receive a call in my office announcing the death of my mother. I had no plans for the following day to catch a plane and fly to Pennsylvania with Louise. And neither did Louise have plans like that since she was scheduled to preach that Sunday.
And I think all of us have experienced at one time or another this fact and reality about life: that many of the significant events of life, whether they are good or bad, whether they are sad or happy, are events that come suddenly and unexpectedly and without warning.
And there is one experience of life of which that is almost always true. And that experience is satanic attack. Satanic attack. It usually comes suddenly and by surprise.
And yet here is an amazing fact. In the passage of Scripture that we read just a few minutes ago there are a group of Christian men. And these men receive a warning that you and I virtually never receive. They receive a warning that they are going to come under the attack of Satan himself.
Now please keep in mind that the scene that we are looking at is the occasion that is often described as the Last Supper. Perhaps we would do better to call it the first Lord’s Supper. And in the verses immediately preceding the passage that we read together a few moments ago Jesus has just spoken to His disciples some very encouraging and praiseworthy words.
For Jesus has just finished saying to His disciples, “You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Now those are inspiring words. Those are challenging words. Those are words of praise for these men. And I am quite sure that these men never expected to hear just as you and I do not expect to hear that the very next thing that Luke records Jesus is saying is this.
The Bible says, “And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.’”
Now it is not particularly clear from the English Bible, but in the original language in which Luke was writing it is very clear that when Jesus uses the word “you” here He is not just referring to Peter. He is referring to the other disciples too.
So we could kind of paraphrase His words by saying this: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked for you men that he may sift you like wheat. That he may sift all of you like wheat.”
And I think that the meaning of the Lord’s words is something simply something like this. “Men, I am telling you that Satan has asked permission to shake your lives in the same way that a wheat farmer shakes the kernels of grain in the sieve which he uses to separate the grain from the chaff.”
Did you notice those words? “Satan has asked for you.” And from these words, my friends, we learn a very important lesson. The lesson is this: that Satan cannot upset the lives of believers unless he has God’s permission.
May I repeat that? Satan cannot upset the lives of believers unless he has God’s permission.
Do you remember the very tragic yet triumphant story of Job? That on one single day Satan took away from him all of his oxen and donkeys and the servants who took care of them were killed. On the very same day Satan took away from him all of his herds of sheep and the servants who took care of them were killed. And on the same day Satan took away from him all of his camels and the servants who took care of them were killed.
And as if that were not bad enough for a single day, folks, Satan arranged that a whirlwind, a tornado I suppose, should strike the house where Job’s seven sons and three daughters were feasting. And all ten of his children were killed.
But the one thing that we learned clearly from the book of Job is that before he was ever allowed to do any of this Satan had to appear in the presence of God and get God’s permission. And of course Satan expected Job to curse God for all of these misfortunes that had fallen upon him.
And Job simply said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
And then Satan wanted to do more to Job. But he had to go back into the presence of God. He had to get permission to touch Job’s body. And God gave him permission to touch Job’s body but not to take his life. And Satan struck Job and he was covered from head to toe with painful boils.
And when Jesus says, “Satan has asked for you,” Satan has asked for you, He is revealing an important principle. For whether it is Job in the Old Testament or whether it is Peter and the disciples in the New Testament or whether it is you or me today, Satan is not allowed to upset our lives without permission from God Himself.
It is said that there was a woman in England one time who was awakened at night by a strange noise that sounded like a pecking sound. When she got up she saw a butterfly frantically flying back and forth on the inside of her window pane. On the outside of her window pane there was a sparrow taking aim, trying to get the butterfly.
Now I suppose we could say that the butterfly expected to be caught by the sparrow at any minute. And the sparrow expected to get the butterfly at any minute. But the pane of glass that was in between them was invisible. And the butterfly was just as safe as if it had been a million miles away.
And if you will permit me to say it this way, God is the invisible pane of glass between us and the power of the enemy. He is the barrier between us and the attacks of the enemy. He is our shield. He is our defender. And Satan never gets through that shield unless God allows it.
But please notice one thing. Please notice one very important thing. Jesus does not say to Simon and to the other disciples, “Satan has asked for you. However he is not going to get you. However his request has been denied.” Did you notice that Jesus did not say that?
In fact it is clear that Satan is going to get his request. But listen to what Jesus says. He says, “Simon, Simon, Satan indeed has asked for you that he may sift you like wheat. But,” what an important word that is, “but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
Yes, Satan had gotten his request. But not before Jesus had prayed that the outcome of this experience would be beneficial not only to Peter but to others as well.
“I have prayed,” says Jesus, “that your faith would not be crushed to the ground. That you would not be so devastated, so discouraged, so disheartened by the failure that lies ahead that you would no longer have faith in Me. I have prayed that that will not happen. And I want something else from you. When you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
Now here at Victor Street I hope, I hope there is no one who thinks that when Peter went out that night and denied Jesus three times that he lost his salvation. And that when Jesus talks about Peter returning to Him that he had to come back and get saved all over again. I hope nobody thinks that.
You see when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of eternal life we are saved and saved forever. How do I know that? Because Jesus said so. And He said so in a large number of ways.
Jesus said, “He that comes to Me shall never hunger. And he that believes on Me shall never thirst.” If you partake of Me as the bread of life, if you partake of the water of life, you will never need to do it again. You will never hunger again. You will never thirst again.
Jesus also said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. And he that comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” He has never rejected or cast out anyone who has ever trusted Him for eternal life.
And maybe most decisively of all Jesus said this. He said, “I came down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me: that of all that He has given Me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day.”
You know a lot of people tell us that after we get saved staying saved depends on whether you or I do the will of God. And that is not true. After we get saved staying saved depends on whether Jesus does the will of God.
And what is the will of God? That of all that God has given to Jesus He will lose nothing. And Jesus always fulfills God’s will.
Let me make this clear to everybody here at Victor Street. If you have ever trusted the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of eternal life you have no fear whatsoever of hell. Because He guarantees to raise you up at the last day. I hope we all understand that.
But I hope we also understand that when we fall into temptation, when we commit sins, when we begin to walk away from God as Christians, we are on a dangerous path. Because we have lost fellowship with God. We have lost our harmony and peace with the Son of God. And we may be headed for disaster. We may be headed for the kind of consequences where our faith in God will collapse.
We will still be saved. But you cannot live close to God unless you can trust Him.
And I want to suggest to you that before God allows us to fail, and He sometimes does allow us to fail, we can be sure that our Lord Jesus Christ has prayed for us. And God’s purpose in allowing us to fail is that we might return to Him and be useful to Him like we could not have been useful before.
I want you to understand that. Of course God is strong enough to prevent every failure. Don’t you agree with me? Don’t you agree that when I come into temptation if God just wanted to stop me from sinning He would stop me from sinning? Of course He could.
But don’t you see He doesn’t. Not always. Not always. He didn’t for Peter. He didn’t for these other disciples. He didn’t pray that Satan would not get his request. He prayed that Satan would not win a final victory. That Peter’s faith would be sustained.
And He was aiming for Peter to be useful in the future. “When you have returned to Me,” He says, “strengthen your brethren.”
There was a newspaper some time ago in Kansas City which published an item like this. It said, “We wish to apologize for a mistake that we made in our previous issue. In the wedding story due to a typesetter’s error we said the roses were punk. And we really intended to say the noses were pink.”
I hope you get that. They corrected one mistake and made another.
And you see when we are left to ourselves, my friends, we can make one mistake after another. And we need the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need His prayer. We need His grace. We need His strength.
The great inventor Thomas A. Edison once had a laboratory in which he carried on very expensive experiments. And one day the place in which this laboratory was located caught on fire. And there was nothing that Thomas A. Edison could do.
And so he called to his son Charles and he said, “Come see something you will never see the like of it again.” And then he called to his wife. And as the three of them stood there watching his place burn down Thomas Edison said this. He said, “All our mistakes are being burned up. And now we can start over afresh.”
And within two weeks, my friends, he had begun to rebuild that laboratory. And it wasn’t very long before he made one of his greatest discoveries. He invented the phonograph.
And my friends sometimes God allows Satan to set fire to our lives. You know why? To burn up our mistakes. To burn up the wrong ways we have been thinking or feeling or acting. And to give us a fresh start. A fresh start.
And that is what Peter and the other disciples were going to experience thanks to the intercessory prayers of Jesus Christ their Lord.
Now I wish that I could say that when Peter heard this he said, “Oh Lord, thank You so much. First of all I needed this warning. And secondly I really, really needed Your prayer. I am a weak person. Be with me please. Be with me during the difficult hours that lie ahead.”
I wish I could say that he said something like that. But that is not what he said. And what he did say, my friends, amounts to something like this: “Lord, You have got the wrong guy. You are making a mistake. Lord, this is Peter You are talking to. My name is Peter. And that means a stone. Lord, I want You to know that my loyalty to You is rock-hard solid as a rock. Lord, I am ready to go with You to prison and to death.”
And I have to believe that if we could have been there and looked in Jesus’ eyes at that point that we would have seen a sadness coming across His eyes. And He has to say to Peter, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me. Peter, you are not as strong as you think you are.”
And may I suggest to you, my friends, that in the words of Peter we discover the reason why it was necessary for God to allow Peter to fail. Because Peter thought of himself as a man of strength. And God saw him as a man who needed to rely on his strength.
And listen to me. Listen carefully. This is the bottom line. When we say to ourselves and persuade ourselves that we are better than we are, when we think we are stronger than we are, when we think we are wiser than we are, when we say to ourselves, “I would never do this. I would never do that. I would never really let the Lord down,” we are a candidate for satanic attack.
And God may permit it to teach us that we are not smart. We are not strong. We are not self-sufficient. We need His strength. We need His wisdom. We need His sufficiency.
Oh yes, Satan can do nothing but what God allows him to do to us. But sometimes God allows him to attack. And sometimes He allows us to fail so that we may be better men and women in the days ahead.
Mrs. Peter Underhill was in a mobile home in an area of the Dakotas called bear country. And with her in this mobile home was her 18-month-old grandson Jason.
Suddenly without warning through a partially opened window there leaped a 120-pound mountain lion. And it began to maul the little baby.
Mrs. Underhill describes what happened next. She said, “I kept saying, ‘Give me a knife. Give me a knife.’ And finally my husband gave me a butcher knife.” She said, “I thrust it. I twisted it in the body of the lion. And I felt the body go limp. I knew I hit the heart.”
And then she said, “I had prayed that the Lord would give me strength and give me the right spot. And He did.”
And my dear Christian friends this morning when Satan pounces we need God’s help. We need to pray for His strength. And we need to pray for Him to give us the right spot to strike that the victory may belong to Him.
Martin Luther was a man who probably knew more about the warfare with Satan than most people learn in a lifetime. And it is his great hymn that has challenged and inspired people down through the centuries and speaks directly to the conflict I am talking about this morning.
A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing.
Our helper He amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
Yet still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing.
Were not the right man on our side,
the man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He.
Lord Sabaoth His name,
from age to age the same,
and He must win the battle.
Christian, the next time you are in the devil’s den remember you can’t do it on your own. The victory can be yours through your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Shall we pray? Father we know as we stand here that the struggle with Satan is a reality for each and every believer who is in this audience. Teach us to recognize our weakness and to cast ourselves on Your strength and by Your grace to win the victory. We ask this in Christ’s name, amen.