"Simon, the Savior, and the Sieve"
As the time of our Lord's death neared, He “set his face like a flint” to go to Jerusalem. His main purpose in incarnation was this final showdown at Jerusalem. He would be delivered into the hands of wicked men who would then put Him to death by the most humiliating of means, the Roman cross. As these thoughts dominated His mind, He found Himself having to solve a dispute among clueless disciples regarding, of all things, who should be the greatest. On the heels of this discussion, He turned to Simon Peter, that most impetuous of disciples who would some day become a pillar of the church, and told him some unusual things about himself. What Jesus revealed to Simon that day has great value for any servant of God because the process through which Peter had to go is the same process through which any child of God must go before he can achieve great usefulness for his Lord.
In addressing Peter, Christ first spoke of Satan's desire. He said, “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” Sometimes what the Savior did not say is just as fascinating as what He did say. Christ used a direct address, Simon, which would usually be followed by a statement that applied to Simon alone. Christ's statement was a plural statement, however. Instead of saying thee, the singular pronoun, He used you, the plural. In other words, Satan's desire to have Peter was not limited to just Peter, but included all the disciples. Anyone who endeavors to do anything for God will be Satan's special target. Satan would have loved for every one of Christ's disciples to have ended up like Judas. Similarly, he wants every servant of God to utterly fail today. He wants possession of their hearts, minds, bodies, and ultimately destinies.
Once Satan had the man that he wanted, the destroyer wanted to sift that man as wheat. The process by which wheat was prepared for human usefulness in Christ's day forms the basis for His analogy. Once the wheat ripened, it would be cut down out of the fields and separated from the straw. This process is analogous to purging that God effects in the believer's life today. In order for God to use a man, He must first remove that man from his natural surroundings. Old friends must be cut away. Old activities must fall off. Old habits must die out. God must cut the man away from his natural setting before He can use that man to his fullest potential.
Cutting away from the natural setting still does not make a man completely useful, however. After the wheat is cut, it must be threshed. The cutting process only deals with extra parts attached to the wheat. The threshing process begins to break the actual wheat kernel down. Sometimes in the threshing process, the wheat is beaten, while other times oxen crush the wheat by pulling a drag over it. Either way, the actual kernel is crushed so that the worthless chaff can be removed. So it is in a man that God has chosen to use. After removing that man from his natural surroundings, God begins to break that man so as to remove from his character those things that would prevent his usefulness. While the cutting process is uncomfortable, the threshing process is often painful. Still, it is completely necessary if the wheat is to ever be useful. After the threshing process, the wheat is thrown into the air so that the wind can carry away the worthless chaff that has been beaten out of the wheat kernel. Much useless material of the wheat plant has been removed at this point, but the wheat is still unready for use.
After being cut, threshed, and winnowed, the wheat must then be sifted. During the threshing process there are dirt particles that cling to the wheat, particles that do not fall away even after the chaff has been blown away. By this time in the process, the wheat has been buffeted a lot. It has been removed from its natural setting, beaten until broken, and thrown into the air so that the chaff could fall away. Then, it is placed into the sieve and shaken back and forth so that the dirt that attached itself during the threshing process could fall away. In the making of a man for God's service, there is a similar occurrence. While that man will go through a lot as God takes him from his comfortable surroundings, breaks him to separate the worthless aspects of his character, and then throws him around so that the worthless aspects fall away, there is still more work to be done to the man before he can achieve maximum usefulness. During the process, the dirt particles of pride find their way into the man's life. While many worthless aspects of his character have been broken and blown away, he still must undergo more purifying if he is to be used to his fullest.
Christ said of Peter that the sifting process was the work of Satan himself. It was Satan that would take the sieve of Peter's life and begin to agitate faster and faster, with ever increasing violence. It was Satan that would buffet Peter through the entire process. Satan himself would be the means of the final purification of Peter. Satan, for his part, hoped to destroy Peter in the sifting process.
The god of this world is no match for the God of heaven, however. Though Satan had a desire to destroy Peter, Christ Himself had a defense. Again, it is fascinating what Christ did not say on this occasion. Most of us would look at all that Peter had undergone up to this point and conclude that Peter's greatest need at this crucial time of sifting at the hands of Satan was deliverance from the hand of the Tempter. Christ did not pray for deliverance from the hand of Satan, however. He prayed for deliverance in the time of sifting. Rather than pray that Peter would not have to go through the process, Jesus said, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” Oh, how easy it is as the sieve gains momentum in its back and forth motion, to lose faith in the God of heaven. The man has already been through so much and seems to have come such a long way that he begins to assume that he should begin to have things easy. He looks back at all the purging that has already taken place and thinks that he must at last be ready. What he fails to see, however, is the fact that pride has clung to him, the farther he has gone in the process. In all his difficulties, he has begun to trust in self. Satan's sieve is about to prove to the man that he is desperately dependent upon God. Christ will not stay the Tempter's hand as he accelerates the sifting. He will only pray that the man's faith will not fail as he is mercilessly tossed about.
Christ's request was different from His original statement. Originally, He had told Peter that Satan wanted to have all the disciples so that he might sift them all as wheat. Christ's prayer, however, was individually addressed to Peter in the singular: “I have prayed for thee.” The tender love of the Savior is often doubted in the sifting process, but though a man may doubt it, the love of God never waivers. The greatest need is that the sifting build the man's faith, rather than shatter it. For this building of faith Christ prayed.
Once the wheat has gone through the sieve, it is finally ready to be ground into flour for human consumption. So a man, after he has gone through the sifting process to remove the pride in his life, is a drastically changed person and ready finally to be used by God. So dramatic is this change that Christ called it “conversion.” There can be no doubt that the events that were shortly to transpire in Peter's life made him into a different man. The brash man that was so quick to speak disappeared the night our Lord was tried. By the time the reader of Scripture encounters Peter in John 21, the apostle is hardly recognizable compared to what he once was. Such is the power of the sifting process. The man has been removed from his comfortable surroundings, he has been beaten to separate the chaff, he has been tossed around to remove the chaff, and finally he has been violently sifted to remove the dirt and mire of personal pride. Once this transformation is complete, it is nothing less than a complete conversion.
When Jesus predicted the sifting that Peter was about to endure, He could not have told a more incredulous man than Peter himself. Peter confidently declared, “Lord, I am ready.” So many servants of God make the same assumption that Peter did, and, like Peter, only show that they are in desperate need of the sifting process. Though they claim to be ready, yet personal pride clings to their hearts and prevents them from being able to be used of God. Peter's pride and personal abilities would soon be proven to be broken reeds in what would be the greatest temptation, and fall, of his experience after meeting Jesus of Nazareth.
In a mere matter of hours, Peter would be awakened to the sound of a mob growing closer to the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ had been praying. Peter, ever confident and impetuous, took opportunity to take a sword and cut off the ear of one of the men deputed by the high priest to take Jesus. From the arrest in Gethsemane, Peter followed at a distance to see what would become of the Master he had grown to love. While enjoying the warmth of the fire, he felt the first agitation of the sifting process. One maid on the other side of the fire stared at Peter until he was quite uncomfortable, then announced her conclusion, “This man was also with him.” As if without so much as a thought, Peter retorted, “Woman, I know him not.” What had he just done? Had he just denied his Lord? Curiosity demanded that he look from time to time in the direction of the Savior, but caution prohibited him from studying the situation completely. Before too much longer, another, this time a man, came to him and asserted, “Thou art also of them.” Peter's answer was quick again, “Man, I am not.” Oh, how uncomfortable was the next hour. Each look from everyone in the crowd seemed to be full of accusation. Guilt by association tied this one casually warming himself to the man standing on trial. Bystanders were sure that this man had been in the garden with the accused that night. Finally, one could take it no longer and “confidently affirmed, saying, 'Of a truth, this fellow was also with him; for he is a Galilean.' ” In accordance with Jesus' earlier prophecy of Peter's denial, the most outstanding of the disciples had just denied his Lord. At that moment, the cock's piercing voice shattered the early morning air, cutting straight to Peter's heart. Worse, at that moment, the Savior turned from His trial and directed His gaze at Peter. The temptation to deny the Lord was complete. Satan had sifted and Satan had won. The stalwart disciple had denied his Messiah.
But the war was hardly over. Though Satan had won a single battle in the war for Simon Peter, there would be other battles to be fought. The sifting did not end with the tears that Peter wept that night. As the days went by, he relived the moments there by the fire, haunting himself with the thoughts of “If only...” He who had once been so confident was now completely devoid of personal pride. He had leaned upon his own strength and had fallen flat on his face. Now his Savior was gone and when He had needed Peter the most, Peter had denied even knowing Him. There was definitely nothing worthwhile left in Simon Peter. After some bizarre news three days after the death of Christ, Peter finally decided that the best option would be to go back to what he had once been good at. To the rest of the discouraged disciples, he announced, “I go a fishing.” No sense in being a disciple when he denied his Master in difficult times.
By contrast, when the believer lives to know his God, the issues fall into place one by one as he focuses on living day by day in fellowship with God. Christ becomes all, and pleasing Him towers above any earthly controversy and over any possible issue. Fellowship with God does not necessarily mean weakness on any issue. It does, however, mean that the Christian will pick his fights and be sweet in his disposition. He will not live his life for issues, but for God.
One of the most potentially wonderful, potentially terrible things in the world is a modern American wedding. The bride must busy herself for weeks or even months dealing with issues. Invitations, decorations, apparel, music, refreshments, ceremony, and host of other details crowd the bride’s thinking. Many a groom, at least once during the process, longs for the wedding to be over so that they can enjoy a relationship once again. The girl that became his friend during courtship is now too preoccupied with other things to give him much attention. As discussion after discussion dominates the time the two have together, the groom asks himself, “Are these things really all that important?” Live flowers or fake, this or that invitation, this dress or that for the bride’s maids, light refreshments or full meal at the reception– all these things seem so fleeting in the overall picture. To him, the companion- ship of marriage and the relationship that they will enjoy is a far more important item than the wedding itself. Most grooms know that the wed- ding will soon pass and he and his bride can resume their relationship as friends and companions. Following the actual wedding, there comes a time when bride and groom shut everyone else out and spend time completely to themselves. We call this honeymoon. During the honeymoon, the issues that surrounded the wedding seldom come to mind: the couple is focused solely upon relationship. To be sure, their marriage will bring with it a barrage of issues, some important, some insignificant. The test of the couple’s marriage, however, will ultimately be their relationship with each other, not where they stand or stood on various issues. God is looking for honeymoon Christ- ianity, the kind that puts issues on the back burner and focuses solely upon knowing and enjoying fellowship with Him.
This seeming victory by Satan, however, was really the door to defeat. In losing his confidence in himself, Simon Peter was setting himself up to hand the victory in the war to the Son of God, the same Lord he had denied around the fire that fateful night. With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the realization that there was nothing of spiritual value in himself, Simon Peter became a great leader in the church. After hearing him preach, three thousand souls were saved on the day of Pentecost. Satan lost a greater battle for the life of Simon Peter. Not long after, Peter found a lame man at the gate Beautiful and healed him through the power of God. Another defeat for Satan, for the incident caused people to glorify God and listen to the Gospel. Then, Peter raised from the dead a woman named Dorcas and preached the Gospel in Joppa where still others were saved. Then it was on to the house of Cornelius where Satan once again met defeat as the first Gentile trusted Christ.
Without a fireside denial, there would have been no Pentecost reaping. Without the sifting process, there would have been no great results. While all of the purging processes are important, the sifting process is, perhaps, the most difficult of all. A man can be fruitful without going through the sifting process. There are branches on the vine that do bear fruit. God is never satisfied, however, until a man reaches his full potential. Once He sees a man with a willing heart, He ordains every step of the purging process so that the branch bearing fruit may bring forth more fruit and then much fruit. Anyone who wants to be used of God must be willing to go through all the purging process, including the sifting process, so that he will be purified from the awful sin of pride. Only then can God use him to his fullest potential.
"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am 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 that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me."
