Bible Study Series: Peter the Apostle
Luke 22:31-34: The Sifting of Peter
by Fraser Gordon
Hello saints, we are continuing our study into the life of Peter. The last message was on the foot washing by Jesus at Passover. Jesus said to Peter, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me”. There are two events that occur on the night of the Passover and today we will look at the second incident of Peter being sifted. Jesus gives us a behind the scenes look at who else was involved. Jesus introduces this passage to His disciples and foretells that one of them will have a major failure. First we will look at what the Gospels say about it and what Peter and the disciples' problem was.
Matthew 26:30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 31 Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: 'I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' 32 But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee." 33 Peter answered and said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble." 34 Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." 35 Peter said to Him, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" And so said all the disciples.
I want to point out that many people have talked about this big boast of Peter’s but all the other disciples were included in this as well. They all said, ‘good on you, Peter, we're with you’.
Mark 14:26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: 'I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered.' 28 "But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee." 29 Peter said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be." 30 Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times." 31 But he spoke more vehemently, "If I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" And they all said likewise.
So all the disciples were involved and in agreement but Peter was the main mouthpiece. Luke's account, which is the one I want to look at, adds insight into what Satan the accuser of the brethren was doing behind the scenes. Peter had no idea what was going on in the spiritual realm.
The accuser of the brethren
Luke 22:31 And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.
So what do we know about Satan? About this adversary that is given free reign on earth, but also has access to the heavenlies? 1st Peter 5.8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” and Revelation 12.10, “for the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before God day and night, has been cast down”. His role is to destroy faith in God. He started with Adam and Eve and hasn't stopped. He will use persecution, deception, death, tragedy, and worldliness to crush a person's faith. His role is to destroy the believers' faith in God and cause us to doubt and question God's love for us. His role is to crush any faith in the living Lord Jesus Christ.
In Luke 22.31 Jesus gives Peter a little insight into what is happening behind the scenes. This reminds us of Job.
Job 1:1 “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil”. The Holy Spirit's record of this man was an upright, righteous man who feared God and shunned evil.
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 And the Lord said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it." 8 Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?" 9 So Satan answered the Lord and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!" 12 And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person." So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
The first thing we need to recognise in this passage is that the Lord instigated the confrontation. He said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job?” The second thing is that Satan had to ask permission. Satan acknowledged that the Lord had placed a hedge around those He loved. It's the same for you and me. We are in the hands of the Lord and there is a hedge around us and our families. Satan does not have free will over us; he has to ask permission. His objective was to get Job to fail in his faith. Satan believed that if he could touch the life of Job, it would cause this upright and righteous man’s faith to fail and he would curse God.
Job 2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it." 3 Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause." 4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!" 6 And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life." 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!" 10 But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
We see that Satan’s domain is on earth. He goes to and fro on it, just as 1 Peter 5.8 says, that “the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”. Satan has access to earth, but we also see he has access to the heavenly realm. It is there we find Satan as the accuser of the brethren day and night.
Satan sees the sin, weakness, and unbelief of those who have come to faith and are now in the family of God and accuses them before God day and night. Satan was given Job and he thought he could make Job fail in his faith and in his trust of God's character. He thought Job would look at his circumstances and say, God does not love me, God does not care for me. Yet in all these things scripture declares that Job did not sin. Job was unaware he was being sifted as instigated by God. Satan was just a piece of the puzzle in the sifting. Right at the end of this whole process in Job 42.5 Job says, “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you”. Satan sought to destroy the faith of Job, but God used the sifting process to bring a deeper faith and level of relationship with Him. Satan is used for the purposes of God. Job was completely unaware that Satan was involved. The sifting going on in the servant of God's life brought him into a deeper relationship with God. This same sifting process is about to be used on Peter.
Sifted as wheat
Firstly wheat is threshed by spreading it out on a large flat area and then crushed by using hard implements such as a flail or something similar. This loosened the chaff from the wheat. The winnowing process happened when the loosened grain was thrown into the air and the lighter chaff was blown away. The wheat which was heavier fell back to the ground.
I struggled when I read that “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat”, because what do we know about the character of our adversary? He's not into the sifting process so that the good remains, he's into the crushing, breaking,and destroying process. He wants to destroy our faith in God. God's plan is to sift Peter and Satan is only a tool. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to allow Satan to have access to Peter as He allowed him to have with Job. It is needed. Using Satan God will begin to sift the rubbish from Peter’s life and it will be blown away so that what remains is the true wheat. It will be the true kernel of life, the rest will be exposed and blown away. We need this process in our own lives. Judgment begins with the house of God. Peter is extremely valuable to the Lord Jesus Christ but there are areas in his life which he is totally unaware of. Areas that need to be sifted and broken. He's got a major fall coming his way.
Luke 22:32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail;"
There is so much security for our faith in this scripture Saints. Satan has come to destroy Peter’s faith but Jesus has prayed for him. There is such comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ holding His disciple in prayer. In John 17.15 Jesus prayed to the Father, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one”. So Jesus has already prayed for us, His saints. We also know in Hebrews 7.23-25, “Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, (the Lord Jesus Christ) because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them”. The Lord Jesus Christ is eternal and continues forever. He has an unchangeable priesthood and His role as high priest never ends.
Those are such beautiful words. The Lord Jesus Christ, who has entered into the heavens, prays for us continually and can save to the uttermost those that come to God. He eternally lives to make intercession for us. The Lord Jesus Christ has prayed that we would not be taken out of the world but be kept from the evil one. Not only that but He intercedes for us forever and will save us to the uttermost forever. Wonderful Truths.
Failure
Jesus prayed for Peter that his faith would not fail. Well you might say that Peter did fail because he denied the Lord. But his faith endured and was not completely shipwrecked. We all fail but Satan would come to destroy the faith of you and I and Peter so that it would not remain. Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail. We know Peter stumbles and falls, but the enduring faith he has in the Lord Jesus Christ remains. He picks himself up, dusts himself off and his faith in the Saviour continues. It's possible for the Christian to have a perfect crash.
Proverbs 24.16 says, “For the righteous man may fall seven times and rise again”. We can have a perfect crash and rise again. Yes we will fall, fail and stumble, but we will rise again. The faith we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, despite our weaknesses, will endure. We can have a time of failure, unbelief, a time of sin, or denial. The Holy Spirit urges us to acknowledge our weaknesses, confess our sin and rise again, standing, washed in the blood of Christ. This is the great thing about the preservation of our faith. Jesus' prayer for Peter was not that he wouldn't fail or sin. He prayed that Peter’s faith would endure, that it would not be completely shipwrecked.
We all have big failures and times where we completely blow it. I read an example about the Soviets in World War II. They came up with this idea of strapping explosives to dogs and sending them to the front. What these dogs were supposed to do was walk underneath tanks and then detonate. That's pretty sad for the dogs, but the tanks would be destroyed. Unfortunately the dogs weren't able to distinguish between enemy tanks and friendly ones so the whole Soviet division had to retreat because their tanks were being destroyed along with the enemies. Now that's a major failure. I read of another example where a lady’s cat was stuck. She called the fire brigade and they rescued it. She then invited them in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. The fire brigade all enjoyed a nice cup of tea and a bicky with the woman. She saw them on their way and as they were leaving they ran over the cat and it died. That was also a major fail!
Satan wants to destroy your faith, accuse you before God, and then remind you of your failings. He roams about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may destroy. Because he has access to the heavenlies, he picks out the failings and weaknesses of the believer and accuses us before God day and night. His other tool is to remind the believer of how far he falls short. For all this we have Jesus, the only man who lived a perfect life and was the acceptable sacrifice to God. He made full atonement of the sin principle for every failing that man would ever make. Jesus' sacrifice was acceptable to God and He raised Him from the dead. He has placed all believers in the Beloved, seated in the heavenlies, in a risen Christ, accepted in Him and declared righteous because of the blood of Christ. Now, we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our continual intercessor.
C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters about Satan's strategy. Satan preoccupies Christians with their failures and from then the battle is won. He's right, because in this way our eyes are always on ourselves and our failings and never in faith on the finished work of Christ. We need to be aware of his accusations.
Strengthen your brethren
Luke 22.32b and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren
Jesus knew that Peter was going to fail, and it was needed, but he also knew he would return. Remember it says in Proverbs, “a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again”. Jesus gave Peter a job. One minute Jesus says that Peter is going to fall and then in the next breath he gives him instruction and a ministry. Why is it that sometimes God will use our failures and weaknesses for His blessing? In 2 Corinthians 1.3-4 it says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God”.
Saints, you will go through tough times but then God will use you in what you have gone through. If you've failed massively in the Christian life, God can use you to be a blessing to those around you who go through the same type of thing. You see quite often in Christian circles there is pride. We hear of someone who has done something really bad and in our hearts we might say that we would never do that. But we don't really know the condition of our own hearts and what we are like in the flesh. It’s just pride that says ‘I could never do that’, but we are capable of anything and everything. Our flesh is rotten to the core and apart from the grace of God we are capable of anything. After we've failed we have a lot more compassion for those around us that make the same mistakes because we ourselves have failed and fallen short. We become more compassionate.
Jesus is teaching Peter to pick himself up and then to strengthen his brethren. He has a job for him to do, a ministry about others. Jesus used what happened to Peter for the benefit of others.
The root of the problem
Peter doesn't know it yet but Jesus knows what the root is and He knows why the sifting process needs to happen in the life of his saint.
Luke 22:33 But he said to Him, "Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death." 34 Then He said, "I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me."
After all that Jesus has said to Peter, Peter still says it’s not going to happen. He thinks he’s made of much more sterner stuff than that. ‘I'm going to roll my sleeves up, what are you talking about?’ Peter was 100% committed but he didn't know what he was really made of. He didn’t think he needed Jesus’ prayers, he thought he had what it takes. The root problem with Peter and the other disciples was pride and self-confidence. Peter was ignorant of his own weakness. He thought he could do it and he thought he was made of much sterner stuff. He wasn’t going to fail Jesus, he was ready to go to death and even to prison. This failure stuff, nah, that's not me Jesus!
Peter is heading for a fall, but it is needed for his growth and maturity in following the Lord Jesus Christ. He is loved by God, but because he is loved God is going to use the sifting process to root out what his main problem is, self-confidence. Peter thought he was strong and had what it takes. He thought he could roll up his sleeves, but that's the opposite of what the Bible teaches. Throughout the Bible God is looking for men and women whose hearts need Him, depend on Him, and trust in Him. It's not about rolling up your sleeves and trying your best. It's about dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ. Dependence on His strength not our own. Peter didn't know this, but he's about to learn it.
2 Peter 1.3-4 His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
What do we need for life? Do we need to roll up our sleeves? Do we need to try harder? Do we need to increase our strength? Do we need to be bolder? No. What we need is divine power and that power is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter thought he could do it all in his own strength. Out the other end of this sifting he realised that the Christian life is received, that strength and power is received from a person, the living Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter had no idea about his own condition and was ignorant about himself. The sifting process was needed in the life of the saint and it is needed for us. Do you remember when you first got saved how much you were going to do for the Lord Jesus Christ through your own strength, power and wisdom? When you look back over your Christian life I hope God has brought you through the school of failure where you have come to realise that you don't have what it takes. What is needed is for you and I to abide in the vine. Jesus said in John 15.5, “for without me you can do nothing”. It is very true. It doesn't matter how much we roll up our sleeves, we will accomplish nothing apart from the abiding presence of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Self-confidence needs to be dealt a blow. We think we can live the Christian life. We think that if we roll up our sleeves and try harder it will work out, but we need the school of failure to show us what self is truly like. In this sifting process it will be revealed to Peter. The school of hard knocks is needed for the growth of Peter and it's needed for you and me.
Peter takes this self-confidence into the Garden of Gethsemane and heads toward a fall. It’s a big one. We will continue on with our studies next time and see what happens to him. God bless and I pray that you would see more in these passages. Amen.