Overcoming Spiritual Trials: Finding Strength in Christ’s Support

Joel R. Beeke discusses enduring spiritual trials and temptations through faith in Christ, drawing from the biblical metaphor of “Satan’s sifting.” Beeke emphasizes the believer’s reliance on Christ’s strength and prayer to overcome these spiritual challenges, fostering resilience and faithfulness in difficult times.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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I’d like to take two minutes, if I could, to present you with a few books. I never can fail to do that at least once in a conference. John Brown of Haddington, an old Scottish divine, wrote a systematic theology that has been buried in oblivion for 175 years. We brought that out last month with Christian Focus, and it’s now available. You can order it through our book list. There are 26,819 scriptural citations in this volume. So, if you have problems with struggles with reading books and thinking, you’re neglecting the Bible.

What you can do is you can read this book with your Bible open and check up all 26,819. By the time you’re done, you feel like you’ve been immersed in the theology of scripture. I really do believe that’s a good way to read the old, to look up every scriptural citation and meditate and read slowly and digest. The old divines weren’t meant to be sped ready. They were meant to be ruminated upon. The unique thing about John Brown is that he presents the whole systematic theology from the perspective of God’s covenant faithfulness.

Also, Wilhelmus Abracal, the Dutch divine, wrote the Christian’s Reasonable Service. This is a four-volume systematic theology, which we publish. Well, to me, if I were put on a desert island, as I told someone earlier today, I could have one book beside the Bible, I would take this with me. Two volumes deal with systematics and then apply every single doctrine in the closing section. And then two other volumes really deal with ethics. There’s a chapter on things like how to wait on the promises of God, spiritual courage, humility, zeal.

Just rich and full in scriptural chapters on all these topics and more. This is reformed, experiential, practical divinity at its very best. We offered it at the Banner Truth conference, and 40 sets were sold. A few months later, at the Joy Pepys conference in Greenville, I had 35 sets there. Joey stood up and told what the book meant to him. I came out of the session and said, where are all the broccoli? And they were all gone. They wanted ten more sets.

So if you’re a minister, particularly, you will find this very rich. 5000 sets have been sold, and more than 4000 of them have been to ministers around the world. If you’re not acquainted with it, please do ask questions about it. Please do order it. Also, we have a little confusion on our table out there. All the books on our table out there are free, so please do help yourself. The children’s book, some of you have asked about the ages, “Building on the Rock,” there’s just one book out there.

The other three you can order if you like. These are Christian stories for children seven through twelve. And then we wrote God’s Alphabet for Life for very young children. This volume is for ages four through six. And also, I brought along, since it’s a Puritan conference, I brought along a great number of this little booklet on Puritan evangelism. And I actually brought along more than there are people present. So, do feel free to take one for a colleague or for someone else that you know that might be interested in reading.

The fewer copies I take back with me, the better. So do help yourself to those books and do remember, with all your reading, as precious as it is, remember what Spurgeon said. All our libraries are nothing compared to our inner closets. You know, the Puritans were very fond of prayer. They believed it was the thermometer of the soul. And as I studied for a number of years at Westminster, I wrestled for more than one year with the question, why did the Puritans see such bright days when we see such small things?

And I came to this conclusion that certainly one of the greatest secrets is that they were great warriors at the throne of grace. Examples could be given. Let me just give you one quickly. John Welsh, the son in law of John Knox, prayed 7 hours a day. I mean, don’t even begin to try it. you’ll fall flat on your face 7 hours a day. His wife said he never slept through one night in their entire married life without getting up to pray. In the middle of the night. He kept his robe beside his bed.

He’d go off into a side cold room in the Scottish Highlands to pray. His wife would sometimes follow him and say. She’d say through the closed door, she didn’t dare interrupt him, of course; it was too sacred. But she’d say, “John, don’t you think you better come back to bed? you’re going to catch cold.” John. He’d shout back, “Oh, my dear wife, I’ve got 3000 souls and I know not how it is with many of them.” He prayed for them all, one by one. Then she’d hear him.

She’d listen by the door, and she’d hear him praying, “Lord, wilt thou not give me Scotland? Wilt thou not give me scarlet? O for men of prayer.” What would happen if every man who is in the process of reforming a Southern Baptist church would be a real Daniel, a real Habakkuk, a warrior in the presence of Almighty God? What would happen in your states, in your cities, in your churches, and in this land? Well, certainly the Puritans teach us that prayer is the hallmark of maturity for every believer as well as for every true minister.

And yet, there was something more than reading and prayer that make a mature minister. Martin Luther put it this way: Temptation and adversity are the two best books in my library. He said on another occasion, my temptations are my masters in divinity degree. And again, he said, one Christian who has been tempted is worth a thousand who haven’t.

Well, the Puritans have a great deal to say about temptation. True to the Lutheran and Calvinistic heritage, Matthew Henry said, the best of saints may be tempted to the worst of sins.

Samuel Rutherford said, the greatest temptation out of hell is to live without temptation. Now, the Puritans have a great deal more to say about that, and I want to look at that with you tonight from a scriptural perspective, as we examine how to live experientially as mature ministers out of the threefold office of the Lord Jesus Christ. My text this evening is verses 31 and 32 of Luke 22, Luke 22:31-32.

³¹ “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, ³² but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32, ESV)

Well, you recall, I trust, that we are pursuing this theme of the church’s need for mature ministers. Last night we looked at that theme from a doctrinal perspective as we tried to grapple with the apostolic model for Christian ministry, ministry in Christ. Tonight we want to look at it from an experiential dimension, not only ministers, but all believers.

But there will be some references again to ministers enduring Satan’s sifting through Christ. And then tomorrow morning, God willing, we’ll look at it from a practical perspective, gleaning from Hebrews 4:14 and from the Puritans on how to persevere in discouraging times in the ministry by Christ. The words of our text tonight were spoken at a most surprising juncture. Jesus has just ordained, instituted the first holy communion.

And instead of saying to his disciples immediately after that communion, “you will now go from strength to strength out of holy supper, and you will be great men of God,” He turns to them and says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, to sift you as wheat.”

³¹ “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, (Luke 22:31, ESV)

Jesus speaks here prophetically. He speaks as that great God-man prophet. He sees that he’s about to go to Jerusalem and suffer and die. Satan is going to attack his abandoned sheep.

And he says to Simon Peter, who was always listed up to this point, the first among the apostles, as leader among the apostles, “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation, for Satan wants to have you.” And so the Lord Jesus confronts his disciples, his servants, his ministers, with a hard and cruel reality of the temptation of the devil. These are hard words. Our text are hard words. Tonight, Christ is saying that as ministers of the gospel, Satan is always near at hand, always ready to tempt and devour us.

And Jesus is gracious enough to be our prophet, to admonish us. And that admonition, brethren, and every believer gathered here tonight should arouse within us a holy fear and a tender anxiety. Satan is a potent foe. Satan wants to bring down every single minister of the gospel in this building tonight. Not so long ago, I had a member of one of my churches, or a member of my church call me, say this. She was trembling. Something was obviously wrong.

She said, pastor, I was on a plane yesterday and I noticed a man praying next to me. And when he got done, I leaned over and I said, so you’re a Christian? And he looked startled. She said, and he looked at me and said, no, I’m not a Christian. Oh. She said, sorry, I didn’t mean to bother. I just thought I saw you praying. He said, I was praying. She said, well, may I ask who you were praying to? And she said, he looked me straight in the eyes and he said, I’m a Satan worshiper.

And I was praying to Satan this week to destroy the relationship between 30 ministers and their churches somewhere in the United States of America. And she said, pastor, he was praying so earnestly, more earnestly than I pray to the living God. Satan wants to have you, and his worshipers do, too. I don’t know if that picture is brown. In the south, I suppose it is.

But in the north and the post offices, we’ve got that picture with Uncle Sam, you know, with a hat on his head and this long, bony finger coming out of the center of the picture, zeroing in on you. Uncle Sam wants you in the army. Well, Jesus said, Simon. Simon, Satan wants you under his banner, and he won’t give up until he has you. So Christ prophetically sees that Satan will be like a wolf attacking his defenseless sheep. JC Philpott said, it’s almost as if Satan says, I have Judas, I will have Peter.

Next, I picked off one of the lieutenants. Let me see if I can shoot down the colonel. You see, Satan aims for the highest. He aims particularly for ministers because of our past usefulness, our present position, and by the grace of God, our potential for the kingdom of God.

Peter had a problem. Peter had become a leader in his own eyes. He had become too self-confident. He was in special danger. He said, Lord, though all men shall offend thee, yet shall not I. Jesus said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan wants you.

I’m warning you, Peter. I’m warning you now. When Jesus speaks a name twice, he means to give it special attention. That indicates special emphasis, grave concern, and tender affection all rolled into one. This is the third time he used that technique in the book of Luke: Martha, Martha; Jerusalem, Jerusalem; and now, Simon, Simon. Only this time, he adds the word “behold” to it. So it’s really a triple warning, isn’t it? Simon, Simon, behold. “Behold” also means pay special attention. I have a son who sometimes doesn’t seem to hear what I say.

And so I have a way. When I really want him to pay attention, I come to him and I lovingly yet firmly, I take his head in my hands, and I get down on my knees, and I look him straight in the face. And I say, son, daddy has something he wants to say to you. Pay attention. And I look him straight in the eyes. I tell him what he needs to be told in love. That’s what Jesus is doing here. The sign of Peter. And that’s what he’s doing tonight with me and with you.

Behold, brother, Satan wants to have us. He wants to destroy us. You see, he can’t reach Jesus Christ anymore. Christ is in heaven. And Satan’s greatest joy is in damaging the flock of Christ. And how can he better damage it than getting a minister to stumble, to fall, or to be at odds with his own congregation?

And yet, Simon Peter is not even shaken by the seriousness of this admonition. He hears the seriousness and the sincerity of Jesus’ words. And you see what he says in verse 33?

³³ Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33, ESV)

Simon, don’t you hear, Simon? Can’t you look inside? Can’t you see your weakness? Don’t you know, Simon, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked?

⁹ “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9, NKJV)

Who can know it? But you know the power of Satan. Simon, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan wants to have you. The word in Greek is exciteo. And exciteo means to ask excessively. For it’s the strongest verb form for asking. It’s actually demanding. Satan demands to have you for trial. Satan is begging.

He’s pleading not only, but he’s suing for you, Simon Peter. He’s got a suit in heaven’s courts for you, Simon Peter. Sort of like Job. You remember how Satan came in the presence of Job? It kind of is reminiscent of that, isn’t it? And here actually, Jesus uses “you” in the plural, meaning all the disciples. Satan wants all the disciples. He’s put a claim in to have you. It’s as if he said, well, I’ll prove that every one of your disciples are hypocrites. In the end, I’ve got Judas under my control.

The others will betray you as well. Now, Satan’s like a fisher. He baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish. He knows exactly where we are weak and where we are strong. Now, you’ve experienced that in the ministry, haven’t you? That your very weaknesses, it’s as if Satan knows them. He comes again and again with temptation. He knows how to approach you. He’s got a lot more experience than you do. William Grinnell said, there’s a spark of hell in every temptation.

Every temptation is like another welcome billboard on the way that leads to destruction. And what Satan does is he comes to tempt us. Jesus says, like a farmer handles his wheat, he desires to have you, that he may sift you his wheat. Now in Bible times, the way wheat was sifted was that there would be a large instrument with a handle on it, and a farmhand would come to a threshing floor and scoop up a mixture into the sieve.

He would then shake it back and forth as hard as he could with his wrists, and the dust and the dirt would fall to the ground to the threshing floor. He would then, in a teeter totter motion, shake it up and down, and the straw and the chaff would come to the surface, leaving the wheat in the bottom of the sieve. Now that’s Satan’s goal, so that the straw and the chaff would choke the wheat and destroy the work of God.

But an able farm hand would then reach in and take out the straw and blow away the chaff. But Jesus says, “Satan wants to have you, to sift you as wheat, so that the straw and the chaff may choke the wheat and you may be destroyed.” And friends, men and women, how trying, how dangerous the sifting of Satan is. How frightening an experience it is to be in the sieve of Satan. Old sins that we thought we have long destroyed are prone to resurface. At such times, waves and billows go over our head.

We don’t all fare well in the sieve of Satan. And we may well fear in that sieve that we will return to the world in our former lives. You see, not much good comes most of the time when we’re in Satan’s sieve. When Job was in Satan’s sieve, he cursed the day of his birthday. When Abraham was in Satan’s sieve, he said, “Sarah is my sister.” When Jacob was in Satan’s sieve, he said, “All these things are against me.” And you know what you have done when you’re in Satan’s sieve.

You see, every temptation leaves us better or worse. Neutrality is impossible in temptation. And our response to temptation is an accurate barometer of our current relationship and our current degree of love for our God. Now how cunning and crafty Satan is. You see, Satan picks this time when Jesus is going to be absent to peculiarly attack the disciples, the apostles of the Lord Jesus. And so it is particularly with ministers. You know what it’s like to be in Satan’s sieve on Monday morning, don’t you?

When your sermons have flopped on Sunday and you think you can never preach again, you know what it’s like to be in Satan’s sieve of temptation in times of pride, when you think you can do it and you have to find out you can’t. You see, we are all guilty in times of temptation. We are all guilty of abusing the Lord’s gifts, privileges, and benefits. We are all guilty because no degree of temptation ever justifies the smallest degree of sin.

But Satan comes at such times, and he puts us in his sieve, particularly seeking to draw us away through temptation. And so the apostle Paul is always saying to ministers in particular, isn’t he? Take heed to yourselves and then to the flock. Acts 20:28. And again to Timothy. Always the emphasis is on first taking heed to ourselves. You can’t be a faithful minister to your flock if you’re not watchful for your own soul.

You see, brothers, we are opposed by a living, intelligent, resourceful, and cunning enemy who can outlive the oldest Christian, outwork the busiest, outfight the strongest, and outwit the wisest. We have to recognize and reckon with the power of Satan. One Puritan, Edward and Reynolds, said this: Satan has three titles in the scriptures setting forth his malignity against the Church of Jesus Christ and ministers in particular. He’s a dragon to note his malice, a serpent to note his subtlety, and a lion to note his strength.

And you see, unless there be something within us, that which is above us, we shall soon yield to that which is around us. We have got to stay in communion with God if we’re going to resist the temptations of Satan. And woe be to us if we start believing that we can live out our ministries without a tempting devil. You know what Spurgeon said? He said certain theologians nowadays do not believe in the existence of Satan. Isn’t it remarkable when children don’t believe in the existence of their own father?

Satan comes, and God says, “Take heed to yourself, brothers. We have to take heed, first of all, what we do in private.” John Owen, the Puritans said, “What a man does in private before God is what he is and no more.” He may fill his communion roles. He may be a popular creature, but he is what he is in private with his God. How do we spend our private time, our private prayers, our private leisure? What kind of relationship do we have with God?

You see, Satan doesn’t come to ministers to get them to fall in. One day, Satan comes inch by inch. He comes through what we call backsliding, sliding back from God. And backsliding is like a malignant cancer. It grows within us and becomes acute almost before we’re aware of it. And it begins in the inner closet of prayer. Scriptures then become less relevant to us, preaching more laborious, edifying literature more tedious and more boring.

It loses its attraction when we come into Satan’s sieve; the word of God loses its grip on us, and inner corruptions multiply, thoughts wander. Humility yields to pride. Communion with God dissipates. We no longer have that daily contact with God. As we move through the day, we begin to feel estranged from God. We start working more for God than being with God. We still confess our sins, and we still make vows. But our confession lacks genuine repentance, and our vows fail to yield genuine reformation. And we begin to stop examining ourselves.

Or at least we do it less frequently, less prayerfully, less thoroughly. And so, through backsliding, we are led to talk more about God than to God. And soon we get presumptuous. We think we can endure trials and resist temptations in our own strength, and we go on thinking that way. Despite our own failures and God’s silence in our lives, we no longer feel the need to embrace Christ every day by faith. Faith. We feel less conviction of sin, and we become more adept at justifying and defending our weaknesses and shortcomings in Satan’s sieve.

And when we get deeper into that sieve, the line of separation between the godly and the ungodly in our own lives and in our congregation begins to grey over. Somehow it seems easier to talk with worldly people now about secular things than with believers about the things of Jesus Christ. We become more attracted to worldly amusements. We find ourselves spending more time reading the newspaper than the Bible, more time watching television than spiritually counseling people. What we once considered trivia, even somewhat dangerous, encroaches itself upon us.

And before long, our relationship with God’s people, some fellow Christians, becomes strained. We no longer love them enough to bear with their sinful weaknesses. We begin to argue and bicker, be cantankerous, and get a bitter, cynical attitude towards the ministry. We become impatient and irritable with problems in the congregation. They began to talk about people rather than bringing them to the Lord. Calvin says the ministry is not an easy and indulgent exercise, but a hard and severe warfare where Satan is always exerting all his power against us and moving every stone for our disturbance.

Oh, how careful we have to be, how we must guard our hearts. John Flabel writes, in Keeping the Heart, set a watch before every gate that leads in or out of your heart. Set a gate at the door of your imagination, at the door of your mind, at the door of your inmost soul. Take heed to your private thoughts before God. Set no wicked thing before your eyes. Brothers in the ministry, did you know that 4000 ministers, evangelical ministers, fell last year through being enmeshed in Internet pornography?

Others are toying with movie theaters, spending hours watching television, renting questionable videos, not realizing that when we hear profanity, when we see sexual things, witness violence, we are silent participants. We desensitize our consciences no matter who we are, and we grieve the Spirit of God. Paul said in Ephesians 4,

²⁹ Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:29-30, NKJV)

We don’t only grieve him, you see, by speaking evil words, also by hearing, by seeing evil things. Perhaps you heard the story about a man who lived at the top of a mountain, and he wanted a driver to take his daughter down the mountain every day to school. But the mountain was very steep, and he wanted a safe driver. So he opened it up for applications, and four people applied. The first man said to his question, how close can you come to the edge without going over? I can come within a foot.

Next man said, I can come within six inches. Last man said, I’m a really careful driver. I can come within one inch without going off the edge. The fourth man said, I don’t know, sir, because I’ll be hugging the other side, you know. Which one got the trial? Stay away from sin. Remember the devil’s boots. As one puritan put it, don’t creak. He comes silently. He comes as an angel of light. He comes as a gentleman. He comes and he says, but you gotta know what’s going on in the world. you’re a minister.

A little bit of this won’t hurt you. Brothers, Satan watches you. I say to you tonight, he wants to sift you as wheat.

³¹ “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, (Luke 22:31, ESV)

Behold, Simon. Simon, behold. Take heed to yourself. Take heed to your prayer life. Take heed to live a holy life. Take heed to be as holy in your private relationship with God and as husbands and fathers in your family and as shepherds among your people. As you appear to be on the pulpit, there must be no disparity between what we confess and what we practice.

You remember the well-known story of the minister who came to Robert Murray McShane’s church. He wanted to find out the secret of his success. McShane was gone. The janitor said, “I can tell you. Follow me.” Took him into the McShane study. He said, “Sit at his desk.” Man sat. He said, “Put your elbows on his desk.” He did. He said, “Fold your hands, put your head on your hands. Weep and cry to God Almighty.” He said, “Now come, follow me.”

He takes him out into the sanctuary, says, go up on the porch, stand behind the pulpit, throw out your hands, weep, and cry to God almighty. The secret of McShane’s success? He was in private. What? He was in public, the inner closet. And the pulpit matched.

You see, our doctrine must shape our lives, and our lives must reflect our doctrine. One Puritan said, he doth preach most who doth live best. They must be what we preach. Our hearts must be transcripts of our sermons. John Owen put it this way.

If a man teaches uprightly and walks crookedly, more will fall down in the night of his life than he built in the day of his doctrine. Thanks be to God. Our text doesn’t end here, but, oh, one of those wonderful scriptural divine interventions.

³² But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22:32, NKJV)

We’re coming to the hour. The crisis of all ages. We’re entering the greatest crisis, and I am going to have to go to Jerusalem to bruise Satan’s head fatally and defeat the devil. And I’m going to be leaving you behind.

But I will send another comforter, Peter. But, oh, Simon Peter, I’ve already stored up with my father, father in heaven, prayers for you that your faith won’t fail. What a beautiful testimony. The shepherd must be smitten to defeat the devil. And to accomplish that, he must trod the winepress alone. But even as he goes to trod the winepress alone, he goes into prayer for his disciples, and he enters into suit for them in heaven’s place. Courts a stronger suit than Satan possesses. And so you have two praying people, as it were.

I put praying in quotes for Satan. Satan praying to have the apostles and Jesus Christ praying to retain the apostles. Two powers that want the minister of the gospel. One thing we can always say, as ministers, we’re not unwanted. Satan wants us. God wants us. And, oh, what power Satan has. And how we should flee to the intercessions of Christ. I believe, as ministers of the gospel, that we haven’t made enough personally and experientially in our own lives out of the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers, that’s our strength.

And he is praying for me that my poor worthless prayers uttered into his ears are salted with the salt of his sufferings, and he takes them and proceeds from me and whispers my worthless name in the years of the Lord of Sabaoth. And that is the strength of my ministry. He prays for me. Joseph Irons, 19th century independent from London, said if Jesus Christ were to stop praying for me for five minutes, I would put myself on the bottom of hell. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. Father, what a tender prayer. John 17. You know it well.

²⁴ “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24, NKJV)

You see, the beauty of Jesus’ prayer is that he pleads on stronger grounds and with stronger claims than the devil. He pleads on the grounds that he himself was sifted in Satan’s sieve and with his own bloody satisfaction, his own ransom, price of sin, his own triune love.

From all eternity, he has earned the right to the sheep that have passed under the rod of his covenant from eternity past. They all belong to him. And through Gethsemane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha, he’s earned the rights to claim every minister of the gospel and every believer for himself. And so, when we may hear with the year of faith Christ’s pleadings, and we may be granted to believe we are included in his prayer, oh, that our souls are humbled and we are filled with joy.

What greater joy can you have than to read and to experience the reality of Romans 8:31.

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31, ESV)

You see, Satan is an angel. He’s not God. He’s mighty, he’s not mightier than we are. He’s an angel, he’s powerful, but he’s not God. Jesus is God. God has more power than an angel.

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:31-34, NKJV)

³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, ESV)

The apostle concludes, not even the angels or the principalities and powers of hell. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. But now notice, Jesus didn’t pray that Satan won’t tempt Peter. Jesus didn’t pray that other things wouldn’t fail. He prayed that just one thing wouldn’t fail: faith. You see, Jesus often allows his servants to go through many temptations. He allows the devil sometimes to sift us as wheat, with one condition: that our faith, not fail. You remember what he said about Job?

He said, you can touch him, you can afflict him, you can take things away from him, but don’t take his life. On the New Testament, God says to Satan, you can tempt ministers, you can try them, you can challenge them, you can bring them through difficulties, but don’t touch the real life faith because I prayed that their faith shall not fail. So you see, what happens is Jesus Christ. And here we get to the heart of our text. Jesus Christ turns Satan’s efforts on their head, doesn’t he?

Satan’s desire is to overturn our faith by choking the wheat. But Christ’s desire is to strengthen our faith by purging the wheat. And so when Satan thinks he has us choked and strangled, those are just the times in our lives when our faith becomes the strongest. Because Christ reaches in and takes out all the straw in our miserable hearts, blows away our wretched chaff. And he shows us his own grace in our hearts. And we see that we are the wheat of God. And so we say, thanks be to God.

Thanks be to Jesus for praying for us that our faith not fail. But it’s not easy to be in that situation and to have everything else fail. The Puritan William Grinnell said, no actress hath so many dresses to come in upon the stage with, as the devil hath forms of temptation. It comes in the sieve of prosperity. He comes in the sieve of adversity. He comes in the sieve of spiritual difficulties and fears and inadequacies. He comes in all kinds of sieves of temptations.

He tempted Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Aaron with the fear of man. Tempted Noah with wine, Rachel with jealousy, Moses with impatience, David with lust, Solomon with polygamy, Hezekiah with pride, Asaph with the envy of the world, and here, Peter with spiritual pride. And he’s tempted every one of us with ministerialism, as Spurgeon called it, doing everything as a minister, reading as a minister. Oh, that’s good for that person, forgetting ourselves. He tempts us in so many ways, in the sieve of discouragement and in all those sieves.

You see, Jesus Christ overrules Satan’s temptations, and we experience that Christ allows Satan to destroy so much. At the end of the day, through the sieves of Satan, our fleshly self confidence is destroyed. Our fleshly expectation of an earthly kingdom is destroyed. Our fleshly holiness is destroyed. Our fleshly pride is destroyed. Our fleshly strength, our fleshly wisdom, our fleshly prayer, our fleshly self righteousness, all of these things drop through the sin, except for faith.

And so, in the greatest of trials, we cling to the mighty arm of the great God of Jacob, and we press on and we cling to our God. Even when the water comes over our head and we think all things are against us, our faith is not eclipsed. The Greek word here actually is eclipel. It comes from the verb form eclipel, which means to come to an end, and out of it we get the English word eclipse.

Kenneth West, I think, caught the flavor rightly when he translated it this way, that your faith never be totally eclipsed. Jesus will keep us. It’s because of his intercession we still stand today. If he didn’t intercede for me, brothers, I tell you freely, I would have destroyed myself long ago and my ministry. So what happens? Well, William Grinnell puts it so beautifully. This is puritanism at its best: God sets the devil to catch himself. Satan, as in his first temptation, is still, still on the losing side.

And the devil shall never lift his head higher than the saints’ heel. You see, Christ so overrules that Satan actually serves as a tool in His hand to bring to pass the divine purpose, so that Satan on his part uses his utmost powers to thwart that purpose, but cannot help but fulfill that purpose of sovereign grace and sovereign direction in the lives of ministers every time, over and over and over again.

And so in all your troubles and all your trials as a minister, you end up coming out of the tunnels of difficulties into the sunlight of his grace. And you say once more, in your life with Paul, I comfort others with the comfort wherewith I myself was comforted of God in the bowels of affliction. You see, God wants ministers to be afflicted. You believe that? Puritans used to say it this way. George Downing said it this way.

He said a minister ought never be proud of slender shoulders, because the more trials God gives you, it means the broader shoulders he’s giving you, because he will, with the temptation, provide a way to escape. And if you stay with slender shoulders, you won’t be able to minister to the flock. Aw Tozer perhaps put it even better. He said God won’t use a man greatly till he’s broken him deeply. You see, through trial, through affliction, we learn dependency. We learn lessons we can never learn in prosperity.

And we learn to get a pastoral heart for our people. And out of the intercessions of Christ, we learn to intercede for others. So what happens at the end of the day, until the waters comes up to our lips? Our faith does not fail because of Christ’s intercession. Peter will not follow Judas and hang himself, but will repent because of Christ’s intercession. Thomas will not sink away in unbelief, but be delivered because of Jesus intercession. The ministry shall not fail. His word shall prevail.

He holds the seven stars, as are the ministers in his right hand. And he walks among the golden candlesticks, the churches. And he keeps his churches by his own priestly advocateship. And he has engraven his servants upon the palms of his hands. There’s our safety. There’s our experiential strength. I am safe in the palms of the hands of my savior.

Well, brothers, let us then keep courage. Jesus said, Father, I know that thou hearest me always. The Lord shall not lose one of his own, not the smallest grain. Sometimes we feel we’re so small, so insignificant. We’ll fall. We ourselves will be the wheat that will fall right through the sieve. Well, you won’t. There’s a beautiful text in Amos 9:9,

⁹ “For surely I will command, And will sift the house of Israel among all nations, As grain is sifted in a sieve; Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground. (Amos 9:9, NKJV)

There’s someone here ministering to five or six or seven people. You think you’re the least minister, the least grain. You think you’re not even worthy to be noticed.

Jesus counts you as a star in his right hand. you’re a minister of the gospel, the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bride for whom he gave his blood. And if he counted himself worthy to die for her, you ought to count yourself worthy to minister to her, no matter how small she may be.

Well, finally, Jesus shows himself here, not only as prophet and priest, but also as king. He says, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. What does that mean? How do we see the kingship of Christ here?

Well, I believe in a very powerful way, because Jesus didn’t say, Peter, if you are repentant, strengthen your brethren. He said, when it’s the word of a king, before Peter even falls, Jesus is envisioning his own intercessory grace, his own look of love in the hall of Caiaphas, drawing Peter to repentance, drawing him back. When thou art converted or repentant, strengthen thy brethren. It’s going to happen, Peter, because I’m king. Where there is the word of a king, there is power. You see, Jesus sees that Satan is mighty.

He sees that Peter shall fall and fail, but he sees his own royal prerogative and power and grace prevailing. And so, as a loving, tender, almighty, promising king, he says, “Peter, I’m going to draw you back. And when you are repentant, strengthen your brethren.” you see, if Peter hadn’t fallen, he would have stayed riding high. And if he would have stayed riding high as the New Testament church was established, what would have happened? He would have beat those little lambs.

He would have destroyed the sheep of God with his agenda, his ministry, and his leadership. He would have indeed become the pope. But God said, no. Peter, I’m going to make you a humble servant. I’m going to get you right down beside those smallest sheep, and I’m going to teach you that you are a worm of the dust, and it’s just a privilege that you can serve me. I’m going to make you nothing. In your eyes, I’m going to make you decrease, Peter, so that I increase, so that I become all and in all.

And when that happens, when you’re repentant, then I’ll restore you. I’ll restore you publicly in front of all the disciples, and I’ll then say to you, feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. So what does Peter learn out of all this? Well, Peter learns that all his salvation, all his ministry, depends upon the threefold office of the Lord Jesus Christ. He receives an ear to hear the prophetical voice of Christ. He receives a heart for the priestly ministry of Christ.

He sees his salvation in his bloody sacrifice, and he sees his preservation in his ongoing intercession. And he receives submission to the kingly office of Christ. And brothers, I am convinced that if we are going to be faithful ministers of the gospel, or friend, if you are going to be a faithful believer, we have to live out of this threefold office all the days of our life and seek to know it better and deeper all the time.

So how could Peter strengthen his brethren? Well, look at the whole book of Acts. Isn’t he always strengthening his brethren who stood up on the day of Pentecost when they were challenged? “These men are full of new wine,” Simon Peter, “these men are not full of new wine.” I preach to you the gospel. Didn’t he strengthen his brethren? He still slipped a couple of times in the Book of Acts. Why? God would teach him again his dependency.

What about 1 Peter? What about 2 Peter? Aren’t they books of great consolation? Notice how he talks about the shepherd and bishop of my soul. Notice how he says, we are kept by the power of God through faith, faith that didn’t fail unto salvation. You can’t read Peter apart from the hall of Caiaphas; both epistles are brimming full with lessons he learned.

And through these epistles, he has strengthened the church of all ages. He strengthens the church by telling them of the bitterness of sin, the bitterness of denying the master, the weakness of the flesh, by stressing the need for daily repentance and humility of heart. In every way, Peter is strengthening the brethren.

That’s what we are to do too, as we feed the little lands, as we feed the mature sheep, as we bring the word to the unsaved, we must walk worthy of the vocation we are called. We must live out of the threefold office of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter did that by the grace of God for the rest of his life. You know how tradition says he died? He died crucified like his master. But he said I’m unworthy to die like him. Crucify me upside down. He gave his life for his master’s cause.

Brothers, strengthen your brethren, strengthen your sisters. Be a counselor to wanderers. Tell them what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from the living God. Tell children, teenagers, what a wonderful thing it is to serve and fear and love and worship the living God. Tell young men what a glorious occupation the ministry is. Strengthen the brethren. Say, with Edward Payson, there are times I cannot help but clap my hands for joy at the thought that I am an ambassador of the king of kings. Strengthen your brethren, your colleagues. Look up to Jesus.

Lean Christ’s word. Look Christ’s word. Preach Christ’s word. Pray Christ’s word. Live Christ’s word. Strengthen your brethren out of this threefold office of Jesus Christ. He will never let you go. He won’t desert you. He’s engraving you in the palms of your hands.

Perhaps you heard the story. Let me say this, and I’ll just give a few points in closing. You heard the story of one of Ebenezer Erskine’s parishioners who was dying, an old godly woman.

And Ebenezer visited her and tested her out on her deathbed, as those pastors were prone to do out of love. He said, “My dear woman, are you ready to die?” She said, “Oh, yes, pastor, I’m ready to die.” He said, “Why? How?” “Oh,” she said, “I’m in the palms of his hands.” “Well,” he said, testing her once more, “aren’t you afraid you’re going to slip through his fingers in these last hours of death?” “Oh, no, pastor,” she said, “why not?” He said, “Because of what you told us. What have I told you?”

You said, we are his body. She said, I am one of his fingers. I am engrafted into him. I can’t slip through if I’m part of him. Well, let me close then, by asking, what must we do when we are in Satan’s sin? I’ve got four quick things for you. Number one, you must repent and flee to the intercessor, our advocate, our paraclete, our helper. We must condemn ourselves as fully as Satan condemns us, but then bring our condemnable mass to the precious advocate.

You know, much of what Satan says about us is true, Luther said. One reason I’m so afraid of Satan is that he speaks so much truth and he’s got so much power. Luther said that even with his tail, he can knock the conversion out of me. Were it not for my lord and savior, my intercessor, don’t take Satan on one on one. Fly to Christ when you’re tempted by Satan.

Another thing Luther said was, when Satan tempted him, he said, Satan, you’re knocking at the wrong address. My head is in heaven.

If you are going to tempt me, you have to deal with him. Go to heaven, Satan, if you want me because I belong to him, flee to your intercessor. Number two, defy Satan with a word and with the promises of God. Never compromise with him. Spurgeon said of two evils, choose neither. You see, Satan promises the best, but he pays with the worst. He promises honor, and he pays with disgrace. He promises pleasure, said Tom. This is Thomas Brooks, and he pays with pain. He promises profit, and he pays with loss.

He promises life, and he pays with death. You see, we have to learn to say no, Satan. Spurgeon said, learning to say no for a minister is more important than learning your Latin. The courage, the backbone, the fortitude, for Christ’s sake. To say no to Satan is a staple item in every minister’s, faithful minister’s diet. Say no to Satan. Stand fast. Gird yourself with the armor of God. Put on the whole armor. Resist him in the faith.

¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. (Ephesians 6:11, ESV)

And don’t forget, Satan is chained. Christ has his chain. So be hopeful, be sober, be vigilant, but don’t be overly fearful. Be neither self-confident nor overly afraid, but stand guard for the seed of the serpent.

Thirdly, avoid worldliness. Like the plague, worldliness in the ministry destroys everything. Worldliness shows itself in so-called professionalism when we turn our people into objects rather than souls. Worldliness shows itself when we petrify in the ministry, when we stop living on the growing edge, stop reading, stop searching the scriptures, regurgitate old sermons.

I had a minister call me up some months ago, 62 years old, going to his last church. He wanted me to buy his library. I said, “What do you want me to buy your library for? For Reformation Heritage Books?” He said, “Well, I’m going to my last church.” He said, “I’ve got a barrel full of sermons. It will take me through the rest of my life.” Then I said, “Brother, you’re going to go to this next church, and you’re not going to prepare one new sermon.” He said, “I like to press the flesh.”

My sermons are ready, not living on the growing edge. I believe every minister, I tell my students this: Every minister should work at three levels. He should work at his own level in preaching, teaching different settings or venues. He should work below his level. He should have at least one class where he’s teaching children, making the gospel very simple. And then he should always be working at a level higher than himself, stretching himself. Don’t petrify in the ministry. you’ll become the bait of Satan if you do.

But then, too, and I want to stress this most of all, worldliness promotes a pleasure-focused ministry. You see, when a minister speaks more about sports than about Christ, when he spends more time with material possessions than the welfare of souls, when he spends more time cruising the Internet than in prayer, at the end of the day, the man who focuses more on temporary pleasures than on godly ministry will fall. Fall into adultery, fall into some other sin, fall into something, and your sheep will be the losers, and the kingdom of God will greatly suffer.

Avoid worldliness like a plague. Run from it, hate it, and be circumspect in your whole ministry. Don’t covet any man’s gifts. Don’t covet any man’s wife. Another thing we always say in the seminary is you’ll never visit a woman alone in a home who’s now at least 20 years older than you. I believe that’s important. You can go with your wife. You can meet with her alone in a setting where people are around, in the next room. Make sure you have a door in your study in the seminary.

There was no window in the door. I said, put a window in that door. Because when I counsel women alone in the study, as other people are walking by, I want them to be able to see in that room. Watch yourself. Resist every temptation. Don’t covet anything. The best way to not flirt with anyone, or not be flirted with by anyone, is to cultivate a good relationship with your wife. It’s amazing when you’ve got a wonderful marriage, how few women will ever try to flirt with you when they see how happy you are in your marriage.

Be clean, ye vessels that bear the honor of the Lord, said Isaiah. Oh, flee these traps of Satan. Ralph Erskine said, when it comes to temptation, you’ve got to do one of two things: fight or flight. And if you’re strong in a certain area, go ahead and fight. If that’s your strength, fight. Beat Satan back. But in most areas, we’re too late. Run. Run. You see, if you don’t want the devil to tempt you with forbidden fruit, you better keep out of his orchard. Turn the other way.

Finally, fourthly, cling to your calling from God to be his ambassador at all times. When the waves and the billows run over you and your deep and Satan sieve, remember to say to God, “Lord, I didn’t put myself here. Thy vows are upon me. I’m thy ambassador.” And no matter how high the waves get, no matter how the seas roar and the mountains tremble and cast themselves into the depths of the sea, God is our caller and God is our refuge. Selah, I rest in that.

I don’t understand thy ways many times, but what thou doest now, though I know not, I shall know hereafter. Don’t ever allow yourself to toy with the idea, even of resigning. Remember John Robertson, the old Scottish preacher? He was so down after 40 years of ministry, saw so little fruit. He said, “Lord, I’m going to resign.” And God said, “Don’t resign. Resignation. Sign up again. Begin afresh, always begin over again, flee to Christ.” Finally, read this book, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, by Thomas Brooke.

If you want to know what it means to fight temptation in the midst of trial, Romans 16:20 says,

²⁰ And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. (Romans 16:20, NKJV)

Amen.