is Peter the sifting of faith. And I'm very well aware of the fact, of course, that in the verse we have read, Satan is the one who is mentioned as being the sifter. This might seem an odd kind of verse. If we didn't realize that the Lord, at least once that we have a direct history of, used Satan and his tactics for the sifting of a very wonderful servant of his, God was the initiator, we refer, of course, to Job. It wasn't that the devil suddenly broke loose and said, I'm going to overwhelm that fellow. But when Satan, along with the other angels, for never forget Satan, is an angel. He's not some kind of a wild brute, all painted red with horns and hooves and a fork in his hand. This, I think, he invented, this caricature he invented. to deceive us entirely as to his true character not only can he transform himself into an angel of light he doesn't transform himself into an angel he is an angel and was one of possibly the very highest ranking angel of God's whole hierarchy in the heavens creature but he fell and he presented himself among the sons of God and God said have you considered my servant Job and then came that very interesting dialogue in which Satan was permitted by God to go down and to put Job through all kinds of testings and trials. Now it's the devil that does the actual work. But when we come to the Epistle of James, we read a rather startling statement where it says, You have heard of the patience or patient endurance, the perseverance of Job. And have seen the end of the Lord. Not meaning the finish of the Lord or the tail end of the Lord where he broke off. But you've seen the objective of the Lord. The Lord had an objective in mind. And over all the, I shouldn't say all the devilry of Satan. I suppose maybe that would be rather appropriate. But over all the terrible attack that Satan mounted against Job was a sovereign God permitting him to do it. And God had an objective in view. It wasn't just some wild kind of sadistic turn. Well, I want to make my children suffer down here so they'll enjoy heaven all the more when they get there, something like that. Very far from it. God had an objective, an intelligent objective. The sovereign God above used the persecution, the tactics, the attacks of Satan in order to purify his servants. in order to take away from him a good deal of self-pride and self-confidence, in order to take away from him some of the stubbornness, and I imagine other things as well. And in the end, Job came out, tried in the fire, and he came out such a wonderful person. And God told the other people, the other man, his three friends, I said, you go to him and talk to him and confess your sin, and he'll pray for you. And you will be blessed, and they were, of course, and so was Job. So that for the younger Christian, that is someone who may be newer in the faith, we just mention this in case it might pose a problem to you. God uses all the troubles and testings and trials of our lives in His divine and sovereign purpose to make us more like Himself. Even when wicked men persecute us and blaspheme the name of Christ, maybe they may even cause us to lose our job. They may... cause us to lose our temper perhaps. Then we go back and confess, and even that is a good thing if we see what it leads to. They may cause us to lose money. They may, in some cases, have caused some of God's children to lose their lives. It was wicked man, violent man, murderous man, for example, who killed Stephen. But we, of course, as Christians, know very well that those men could never put a finger on Stephen if a sovereign God had not permitted it. So we say, well, why ever did he let his child be killed? Couldn't he have saved him? Of course he could have saved him. He saved Peter from prison a few chapters further on. Now, we don't know all the story of why God allowed Stephen to die, even in the case at the same time as Peter, for example. He heard the prayer of the church and he saved Peter. But in the verses immediately preceding that, he did not save the other servant of God, James, who immediately before that was put to death by Herod. It says, Herod slew him, and then seeing it pleased the Jews, he's going to do the same with Peter. And God said, oh, no, you're not. I allowed you to do the first. I am not going to allow you to do the second. It wasn't that God was slow, but God has a divine purpose. So that assisting is always God, the prophet, the benefit, the purpose. Even if God sends some harrying monster like Nebuchadnezzar into the land, and God referred to Nebuchadnezzar indirectly in a picture as a wild boar, just like a wild boar tearing into a vineyard and uprooting it and ruining and ravishing the whole thing, that was God's estimate of him. And yet God in another place called him my servant, because he was actually in invading the land of Judah and carrying away the people, he was carrying out the will of God. And even in the worst of troubles and sorrows and persecutions that we face, even when the world does this, in a murderous, blind hatred against Christ, God will always make that turn out for his honor and glory. So having said that with regard to this sifting, let us now look at our notes. To sift means to separate the course from the fine, as for example in flour. Ladies are forever sifting flour to make very special cakes with. Just something ordinary, ordinary flour will do. If it's something special, there has to be sifting done. Sifting the course from the fine, or the authentic, the useful. or the relevant from the spurious, the useless, the irrelevant. Peter, like all those we have considered, was a man chosen by God for a purpose, and deeply conscious of this fact. That is, he was conscious that God had chosen him for a purpose. The Lord Jesus had told him, follow me, and I will make you, fishers of man. You notice the I will make. There's the purpose. And in the sifting, at least we have part of the process. God was going to make him something different from what he was at that particular time. And this sifting that takes place in between is the process by which God made this impetuous and perhaps at times rough and clumsy man into one of the princes of God. One of the most wonderful men who ever lived without any doubt. In his life, that is in Peter's life, God seems to have focused our attention on the process of sifting through which every Christian must go, if the worthwhile is to be developed and the useless discarded. Now, I think it would be good if you underlined in your mind those words, if the worthwhile is to be developed and the useless is to be discarded. We sift something, and the rough, the useless, the irrelevant, what we don't want, the coarse, is taken and put to one side. We don't want that. It's discarded. And we keep the more precious thing, the finer thing. Now we're cutting down on its bulk all the time in doing this. And of course it's a costly business because you are discarding things or of course we're not only thinking of flour. Many, many things are sifted and graded and sometimes in such things for example as stones, granite to put on highways. They put it through the crushers and they sift it in different sizes and they use it for different purposes. And of course some of it, which is coarse, they turn and put right back through the machinery and bring it out a different size altogether. And sometimes God has to break it down a little bit to size too. At least that's my feeling. So this sifting, choosing, selecting, grinding purpose goes on in all our lives. And the purpose of it is to set aside what we don't want to the useless, to discard it, and to develop, refine, clean what we do want, the worthwhile. Now, I've said this is a time-consuming thing. God takes time at it. We say sometimes, don't we? The mills of God grind slowly. They grind exceeding small. Also, it's an expensive business. Some things are discarded that maybe we wouldn't discard, but God wants them discarded in our lives. Things that may not necessarily be sinful, but God still doesn't want them in our lives. It's the laying aside, perhaps of every weight, not necessarily sinful, but just something that is not convenient in the life to which God is calling me. Now, there may even be a difference in what God would allow in one life and what God would allow in another. We've already referred to the fact that when an ordinary loaf is being baked, the flour can be a good deal coarser. If you're baking something very fine, something very special, it has to be sifted. Of course, if you're baking some kind of buns or scones or whole wheat, well, you don't have to the top. Different processes for different purposes, but always this selection under the hand of the master to fit the job in hand. No grain of our being will escape and processing if the end product is to be what God wants. In other words, God is going to go over your life and God is going to go over my life as he went over Peter's and he is going to sit and he is going to remove things perhaps painfully. He is going to draw our attention to things and ask us to remove them voluntarily. And also he is going sometimes perhaps to put us through the mills. and to break us. And in this painful business we see the trial of the faith, we see the furnace, which is just another picture for the same thing, melting, burning, taking away the dross, the scum, the dirt, the unworthy thing, and bringing out the purer metal, bringing out the finer product. Now this is what we're going to be talking about in Peter. For the sake of those who came in late, of course, we read the references, Luke twenty-two, thirty-one. I don't know how I miss getting it down on the lesson, but that's where we read just the two verses, Luke twenty-two, thirty-one, where the Lord refers to Satan sifting him as wheat. Now, the first sifting that I have put down on the list is the sifting of Christ's call. Now, I think that you know the passage is well enough that we don't need to turn at least to two of these. In John chapter one, of course, you know that long chapter where Philip and Andrew meet the Lord, and Andrew goes and searches out his own brother, and Nathaniel is found. This is possibly one of the early contacts of these men with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they went, and they abode within some of them, that day, and their lives were changed. These men possibly had been, some of them certainly were, maybe all of them were, in some measure at least, John the Baptist disciples. And as they heard him, then they were attracted and pointed away to the Lord Jesus Christ. And this was, if not their initial contact with Christ, certainly one of the early contacts with him. But there seems to be more than one meeting. For when we come, for example, to Matthew chapter four, and you remember this scene, it's very well known, we've already quoted it. The Lord Jesus Christ is going along the shore of Galilee, the lake of Galilee, and he sees the fishermen. They're cleaning their nets. And he says, he would like to, oh, he calls to them and says, follow me, and I will make you fishes of men. But turn to Luke chapter five, which is one of the things that I have in mind. Now, Matthew chapter four, he gives him a distinct call there without all the details that we have in Luke. But in Luke chapter five, it came to pass, verse one, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Genesaret and saw two ships standing by the lake. The fishermen were gone out of them and were washing their nets. He entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would suss out a little from the land. He sat down and taught the people out of the ship. When he had finished preaching, he told them to... push out into the lake and catch some fish. Simon answered him and said, Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes and their net break. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. They came and filled both the ships so that they began to sink. The word partners there, by the way, is exactly the same word, the concrete form, of the noun that's used other places throughout the New Testament for fellowship just as a matter of interest. That beautiful word, koinonia, which stands for partnership rather than an official church fellowship kind of thing that you get by writing your name in the book. This is a partnership. So these men are partners. When Simon Peter saw it, that is, both the boat spilled, the net breaking, and the boat so full of fish that they began to sink, Peter, Simon Peter, thought he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Oh, Lord. Now here we have at least two things that had a sifting influence on the life of Peter. In the first place, in John, he meets the Lord. And as he meets him, he learns something of him. But when we come to Matthew's Gospel, And even more to Luke's gospel, we find this man being challenged to something more in the way of commitment than what had taken place in John chapter one. Now, first of all, is the sifting, we might say, of the presence of Christ in power. That is, as in Luke. Peter is a fisherman. He knows what ordinary fishing is, and he knows that this kind of thing wasn't just an accident. He knows that he is now in the presence of the power of deity. He knows that he's in the same ship with someone whom he calls Lord. And these men didn't use the word Lord very lightly. This word Lord was the old word that the Hebrew people were used to using alone for the deity. As a matter of fact, it was such a solemn word that they avoided its use altogether. in Hebrew, and used some other euphemism, put another word in in its place. In many, many instances they felt that the name was too sacred, too sublime, just to be used, lest they should be found using it in vain. The name Jehovah, as a matter of fact, was a name which, in many cases, just simply faded right out of the text, simply because they didn't want to use it. It was such an awesome name to invoke. Now here's Peter, and he sees divine power. right on the lake of Galilee. He knows that these two boatloads of fish simply didn't come some accidental shoal of fish drifting along, and it happened that he got them. He wasn't a fool. He knew that they had toiled all night, and he knew this lake like the palm of his hand. And when he sees the power of Christ and sees that he is so close up to him in a boat, he drops to his knees. And there is this sifting process of discovering that he, an unworthy person, is associated with the deity in this putting forth of his miraculous power. And it begins the sifting right there. And this is the sifting of seeing himself as he really is in the presence of God. And I tell you, any Christian, when he or she sees themselves as they really are in the presence of God, it is the beginning of all sifting in that life. It was so with Isaiah when he fell down in the presence of God. And he said, Woe is me, for I am unclean. I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Because mine I have seen. What? The Lord. The glory of the Lord right there. The same thing happened with Johnny fell at his feet as one dead. The same thing happened with Job, who argued with those wonderful theologians for all the chapters of the book practically. And then when he gets into the presence of God, he says, No, no, no more. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine I see of thee. And he said, I won't speak again. I will put my hand upon my mouth. That's the end of the subject. He knew he was in the presence of God. It's easy to argue. It's easy to rationalize. It's easy to compare ourselves with other people. But when we get into the presence of God and see what we are in his sight, then that is real sifting. That is real sifting. And I believe that it is a sifting preparatory to service for this Lord, but perhaps more so service with this Lord. You see, to serve somebody at a distance is one thing, but to work in harness, as he saw, probably with that deep insight of his, that he was going to have to work with this man because follow me and I will make you fishers of men. In other words, we're all going to work together. And so if I'm going to work with this one, what a shaking thought, what a tremendous concept. Not that I'm going to work for him merely, but that I am going to work with him. And, of course, in Matthew twenty-eight, go ye into all the world, make disciples from among all nations, and I am with you always, not just helping you, that's involved, but also scrutinizing, also watching, looking over your shoulder, checking everything you do by my standards. That's a very sifting kind of thing once we discover it. So here we have the sifting of Christ's call. This, as sometimes has said these days in a kind of modern phraseology, this is the kind of thing that separates the men from the boys. This is the kind of thing that separates those who are serious about Christian things from those who are not. When God puts his finger into someone's life and says, I want you. I don't just want you to go to Greenwood or Downforth or Westmont or wherever you go. I don't just want you to go and enjoy the fellowship of the Christians. All this is wonderful. I don't just want you to go to all the meetings and enjoy them and even participate in them and contribute to them. I have something special in your life that I want you to do. I have some special service that I'm preparing you for and I'm putting my hand on you for it. And I want you to give yourself a shake that I want you to look this thing straight in the face and know whether you are prepared to surrender to my will and to yield yourself for this special service which I have. Now, some bar and prepare themselves. They drop other interests and other preoccupations, and they say, All right, Lord, if that's what you have in mind, frightened though I am by it, you lead on, and I'll go. Some other people... are not quite prepared for that. For being a Christian, yes. For being a disciple and a servant, a fellow servant, with God. Perhaps they are not quite prepared for all that that might entail. And I venture to suggest that if in our company tonight God were to speak to someone and say, I not only want you as my child and as a Christian, but I have you in my eye and I have something in my heart for you, and I'm going to separate you out from the herds, and I am going to break into your life it's going to influence of course some present relationships it's going to influence your outlook on occupation and study and everything else and I want you to make some decisions in connection with that there would be a real sifting process would start in your life the moment you felt the hand of God the divine hand upon you it would shake you then in chapter fourteen And again, I think this is very well known. It's a historical thing that every Sunday school child knows. It's the story of Peter walking on the water. And here we have another very sifting influence. And I have titled this sifting by attempting the superhuman. Now, this is a subject on which I often feel tempted to go on quite a bit, and I don't want to allow myself to do this. But I do want to gather up the salient fact, and that is to me just what stated here, that what Peter attempted to do was something superhuman. It was something above the ordinary experience of fishermen on the lake. It was something above the ordinary experience of the other disciples. Well, we hear everybody saying, well, you know, Peter, that's the fellow who sank out on the lake. And I get very annoyed when I hear this. Because Peter didn't sink out on the lake. Peter did what no other human being ever did. He walked on water. That is that we know of. Not even Moses, the greatest of all the Israelite leaders and the man that they put on the pinnacle way up top there. Even for him, God opened up the Red Sea. And for Joshua, God opened up the Jordan. But here is this so-called impatuous, clumsy, Galilean fishermen, and so taken up with the love of his Lord, and so convinced of the power of his Lord is he, that in the middle of that storm, when he sees the Lord Jesus coming in the middle watches of the night across the water, and he said, the Lord said, it is I, be not afraid. And Simon said, Lord, if it be that, and I don't think that was an if of doubt, I think that was an if of reasoning, Since it is you, if it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water. You are the Lord. And if you are really the Lord, I have such complete confidence in you, you just tell me he saw the Lord doing. He wanted to do what the Lord was doing. I don't think that this was mere impetuosity. I don't think that it was presumption, for there is no rebuke at all, so far as walking on the water is concerned. But when Peter stepped out over the edge of the boat, and it says he saw the wind and the waves boisterous, I don't know how you see wind, but anyway he saw, he just got taken up with the roaring storm round about him, and he thought, maybe I have bitten off a little too much this time. Because it's one thing to get stirred up and say, Lord, I love you and I want to go to you, and I know that you have the power to take me there, and I, you bid me come and All right, come on. But when you step out over the edge of the boat and find that you're right down at water level and find that you're walking on water, and he looked around and saw the results of the wind, the heaving and tossing, he got a little bit frightened. And he began to sink. He didn't sink. He began to sink. But he knew the cure for that, too. He said, Lord, save me. And... The Lord stretched out his hands, and the two of them. This is what I would like to see. I've seen all kinds of wretched paintings of the Lord walking across the water, and poor Simon right up to his belt in the water, holding up quite true. You'll see all kinds of pictures, and the Lord stretching out his hand, and Peter almost in a panic, right to here in the water, grabbing this hand. Why doesn't somebody paint? The man of Galilee and the fishermen of Galilee hand in hand walking back to the boat over the water. That would make a far more glorious portrait. Now, it happens. And Peter did it with the Lord. But he first of all had to be shown that it wasn't anything that he could do in his own strength. That's the sifting part of it. Now, when you attempt something superhuman, you will be sifted in the attempt of the other. Or you say, oh, just a minute now. Are you talking about some Superman kind of stuff? Yes, in a way I am. Not this gaudy, worldly kind of Superman stuff. If you are going to do work in men's lives and hearts and souls for God, that is superhuman work. You will never bring men to Christ through your smartness or your education or your knowledge of the scientific answers or your nimbleness of foot or your ability with words. You will never bring a soul savingly to Christ through that alone. It is a work of the Spirit. It's a superhuman work. And all preaching and all teaching and all living for God is superhuman work. It's not on the basis of my ordinary natural experience. and ability or capabilities at all. And so the moment I attempt to do anything spiritual for God, I'm right out there in the realm of the above human. And of course, the moment I lose my contact with the above human power with which that work can alone be done, I'm going to be sifted and in trouble. I'm going to start to think. And this is what happened to Peter. Now I have to leave it there, because I want to keep up with the clock. The sifting of confession. Now I think we must look at this one, because the passages are not quite so well known. John chapter six. Verse sixty-six. That's easy to remember, isn't it? Six sixty-six. From that time many of his disciples went back. That is, many of the Lord's disciples. When they heard some of the things he had to say, in the preceding verses, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will ye also go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? There's good old solid Peter with his feet down firmly. Where can we go? There is nobody else to go to. It never entered his mind. He never dreamed of going to any human being. Once in contact with Christ, so far as Peter was concerned, that was the end. Where could we ever go to? There is no choice. There is no option. You have the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And I think that's wonderful. But then we turn over to Matthew chapter sixteen, and we find a similar confession going a little farther perhaps, the record of it anyway. Matthew chapter sixteen, verse thirteen, when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I the son of man am? And one gave one and One opinion, another gave another, and then he said, Verse fifteen, but whom say ye that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then the Lord Jesus Christ reminds him that this had not been revealed to him by human instrumentality, flesh and blood. It was a divine revelation. And then he goes on to show him that on the basis of this confession of what he was, Christ would build his church. That is on himself and on Peter's confession of that. Now this I have called the sifting of confession. Many turn back. The question comes, will you also do the same? Will you also go away? Whom do men say that I am? Whom do you say that I am? It is the test of a public confession of what Christ is to us. How we see him, what he means. Not what other people think about him, not what the theological books think about him, not what the brethren who minister in your assembly think and say about him, but what he actually is to you. And a public confession of that. Now men all around were turning back. Men all around were stumbling and falling. And here the Lord backs these men into a corner and says, Now I want you to stand out and confess exactly what I am to you and what our relationship is to be. That, I think, would be a very sifting thing, too. You see, we think of these things always in an abstract, in a very distant historical way. But try to think of them in the context of your own local assembly, your own local home, where you live. Try to think of them in the context of the office, the school, the hospital, the warden. It causes a tremendous shake, I'm telling you. A friend of mine told about being at a great banquet down the city of Boston for a man called Marshall, who was a great scientist. His mother had been a humble believer in fellowship in the old Cliff Street meeting in Boston for many years, and she took this boy by the hand to the assembly school. His father died, and the mother had great difficulty bringing him up. He was helped by, she was helped by other Christians, but that's another story and a very wonderful story too. This man, he grew up to be extremely brilliant and got into electronic, the electronic side of things, and gradually he developed a lot of electronic developments and devices and inventions that led to the whole system of transistorizing. and miniaturizing equipment for bombers and bomb sites and guided missiles and all this kind of thing. And, of course, he became a millionaire. He was the owner and the head of the great Raytheon complex of firms in the United States. Whether he was a Christian or not is an open question. But he knew his mother's Christianity, and he knew of Christ, and he may have been a Christian, no, he did not. certainly a very active one. But when he was retiring, all the great government men from around MIT and these great development agencies, the government he'd run about fifteen enormous factories producing this stuff during the war, and a number of these men, great gathering of these men at one of the big hotels, gathered for a banquet on his retirement. And of course, it was a stag affair, they were all men, and the conversation became a bit a bit sticky after a while, around a banquet table, this man was at the head. Some stories were told, and finally, something very wrong, blasphemous, some dirty story or some messy kind of thing was mentioned in connection with the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. There were, of course, a great gathering of these men, and they were all the top scientists of the United States, not just Massachusetts. This man rose to his feet, tapped with his spoon on the table, and he said, Gentlemen, I don't want to sound clumsy, I don't want to sound foolish, I don't want to sound as though I were trying to embarrass you. But my mother loved the Lord Jesus Christ. My mother served him all her days, and I believe my mother was one of the most beautiful characters I ever knew. It hurts and grieves me very much to hear the name of the one she loved so much and that she taught me about, mentioned in connection with some of the dirty talk that you gentlemen are using, and if this continues, I must regretfully withdraw. It was a real bombshell. The place nearly congealed the air right there and then. Immediately somebody jumped to his feet, tendered an apology, and the thing took a totally different... a totally different angle from there on. Now, I'm not even sure that this man is a Christian. He was just disgusted and he felt he was dishonoring his mother. And he got up in public and took a stand. Among a lot of probably Jewish agnostics among them, there would be atheists, there would be all kinds of people. But he didn't mind that and it brought them to their senses. I think we need to be challenged about the sifting process here. Then there's the sifting of the Transfiguration. This we get in Matthews seventeen, and I think again you know the story well enough, being the kind of Bible students you are. It's mentioned in Matthews seventeen, but Peter himself mentions it in the second epistle, chapter one, verse sixteen, and that I think we should read. Second Peter, chapter one. For we, and verse sixteen, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy month. No, he connects this with his preaching in verse fifteen. We have not devised cunning, we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you. In other words, while in Matthew we read that the whole context of the story was the death or exodus of the Lord Jesus Christ, but when Peter interprets that in connection with what he preached and lived, He puts the emphasis on the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His majesty. In the epistle, he says he declares it, but in the gospel, he merely wanted to enjoy it. Oh, this is wonderful. Let's just sit up here, build a nice little hut, and just stay right here. We don't want to go down into the world again. We don't want to be bothered trying to apply this or teach this or anything else. We would just like to sit here and enjoy it. By the time he learned the lesson on the mountain, got away over into the writing of the epistle as a much older man, he connected with his preaching. He had learned the lesson. He had seen something, and he realized that he wasn't to sit up there and enjoy it, but that he was to come down and expand it and reveal it and explain it and apply it to the Lord's people, which he did. From that day to this, because he said, I want to write you the kind of letter that that you will keep on remembering what I say long after I'm gone. And he really did that too, didn't he? We still read Peter's letters and get shaken up by them. The very elements dissolving with fervent heat and all the rest of it. He did a real job on it. But the point is, Christ, we mentioned here, was sifted from Moses and Elijah in his estimation. That is, he had to learn... that there had to be a sifting even in his appreciation and evaluation. He could never put the Lord Jesus Christ on the level with Moses and Elias, and God made it very clear to him that that should never be done. But he was also sifted himself by his response to what he saw, and the sifting process left him sore afraid. That was on the march. In Matthew we read that. He was sore afraid. He went into a clive. And in that cloud there were revelations of the glory of Christ. Sometimes it's under the cloud and when we are so afraid that God revealed some of his greatest glory too. Don't think that you won't be afraid. I think fear, a lack of confidence in ourselves, and even an ordinary fear is something we don't need to be ashamed of, provided we learn the lessons from it. He was afraid, but as he went in afraid, he soon saw what God had to teach him, and there was a very real sifting process there. Then in John chapter thirteen, the sifting of foot washing, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. He had to learn that communion with God can only be maintained on the basis of holiness and purity, and that this can only be achieved in and through Christ. They'd had a bit of a rug coming along the road, an argument anyway, about who was going to be greatest. And, of course, as long as they were arguing about who was going to be greatest, nobody was going to get down and wash the other side of the sea. And so they got in the room, and they sat down, sulking and pouting and waiting to see who would chicken out first and get up and do it. Of course, this is the work that was normally done by some household slaves, some domestic slavery around the place. And they had to learn that there are no slaves or slavies in the house of God. That is one to another. But this idea of sitting there and expecting somebody else to do something that you should be doing just doesn't work in the things of God. And so by and by, as they sat there waiting to see who would break first, they heard a rustle of garments and somebody got up and poured out water and moved over. And to their horror, they discovered it was the Lord himself. Now whether Peter was the first, which I rather doubt that he went to, or whether the others were completely tongue-tied. They just didn't know what to say. You've been in a situation like that, I'm sure. Whether the thing was far too big for you and you didn't know what to say, so you very wisely didn't say anything. They sat tongue-tied. Finally he comes to Peter. And Peter says, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? The emphasis is on the two pronouns. Not dost I wash my feet? Because he knew he was washing them. Not dost I wash my feet? But dost thou wash my feet? He was horrified. This is a man that some people say, they're so light. I like this humility. Peter was a big man. Peter was a wonderful man. His love, his devotion, his understanding of the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe far surpasses us out. and horrified at the mere thought. He said, Lord, thou shalt never wash my feet. Now he meant it sincerely. He said, this shouldn't be. It's wrong. You are the master. I am the disciple. I'm sure he was grieved at the sinful stubbornness that had led him to sit on. But finally, then when the Lord said, well, if I wash thee not, thou shalt no part with me. He didn't say thou's no part in me. That's a different thing. In him is Peter's standing, and that is absolutely basic and eternal. That can never be altered. But part with him in service, that, of course, is a matter of communion. And communion can be broken by defilement, and therefore defilement must be dealt with. So Peter, you don't want me to wash you? Well, if I don't wash you, that's an end of our intimate fellowship in service. Do no part with me. Oh, all right, then. Start here and do me all. No, not then. You see, he's going from one extreme to another, and he has to get all this sifted out of him to teach him. He that is bathed in the original washing when he came to the Lord doesn't need to be saved all over again. He doesn't need to be resaved and reconsecrated. You know the way some people get on. They're always going back to the cross to get it all sorted out and sift it all over again. No, he says. Like the priests of old, you have been consecrated. You have been brought near. You have been bathed from head to foot once. That never is repeated. But you do need the service of the labor. You need your feet washed. And this is what I'm doing now. And I think that was the end of Peter's conversation. He just sat and allowed the Lord to cleanse him. And mind what a lesson this was for him. To learn... that service done out of fellowship with Christ is not acceptable and therefore not rewardable. Just can't be. There has to be cleansing, no matter how you look at it. Now, Peter had to learn that, and I'm sure it jolted and sifted him to the very foundations of his being. There's the sifting of Gethsemane, and we merely refer to that one. in sorrow don't you ever forget some people talk about this in a very superficial kind of way and they say here were these fellows just lying there and lazy dozing and sleeping but the scriptures as they slept for sorrow they were exhausted with the weariness the heart-crushing business of Christ's rejection of his oft-repeated warning that he was going to be crucified killed They weren't that slow. They knew that they were heading up to some appalling crisis. And I feel that these men possibly, though I'm not trying to let them off. But we have certainly to look at both sides of it. And the scripture says they sat for sorrow, exhausted with the harrying emotional experience they were going through. He said, carry me here. You watch with me while I go yonder and pray. And he went and prayed in an agony. And he came back and found them asleep. Could you not watch with me one hour? That was just anybody. And I'm sure it did, Peter. And there are references to these things obliquely in his letters, if you'll read them carefully. To find that we are simply not up to going all the way with the Lord. To find that we fail so dismally in understanding that which grieves and hurts you. To find that when we should be alert, We're dozy and droopy. To find that when he wants our companionship and our fellowship, we're simply not available. Must be a very caring kind of experience in anyone's life. It is. We all know we have been through it in some measure. Then there was a denial of boasting. He boasted and he failed. He said, though all men deny thee, yet will not I. And the Lord reminded him. He gave him a marker so that it would sink into his mind. I don't think the Lord was kind of exulting over this man's favor. I think he was, if the Lord hadn't drawn his attention to it, because he was just human like all the rest of it, he might have even forgotten about the things. or forgotten that he had boasted the way he did. But he said, Simon, are you actually saying that? I want to call your attention to the fact that Cock is going to crow. But before it crows, you will have denied me three times. And then the Lord is in the judgment hall, and Peter does precisely that, just because a bit of a girl challenged him about being with the Lord. And he said, no, no, no. I don't even know him. And he took a note to confirm that. That he didn't know his Lord. And immediately he heard the cop go. The realization that we have denied the Lord is a frightful experience. And as the Lord went by, he turned and looked at him. And Peter broke down in an agony of tears and went out, a broken man. Before we start comparing ourselves to Peter, let us remember the genuineness of this man. that one glance from the Lord reduced him to a broken, weeping child of God because of what he'd done. That was another part of sifting, to boast and then to deny, and then to deny, denial after focusing, the sifting of failure and restoration, to have the Lord look at him and say, Simon, do you really love me supremely? Remember the last time? Do you really love me supremely? Three times over, and finally the Lord comes down to his word. He meets him in his frailty, for Simon is frightened now of making any very strong declarations of what he is or how he loves. And so the Lord comes down and uses perhaps a weaker word, an easier word for him to get hold of him. He said, Lord, you know all things, and you know my deep affection for you. And on the basis of that, he was given work to do for God, work which God gives us to do. is given because of love and devotion and not because of smartness. And not because of ability. Do you love me? All right, then you can serve me in serving my people. Then there was assisting in being challenged and blamed for combat. You can look this one up yourself in yourself. Galatians two, eleven. Paul says, when Peter came to Antioch, I was stood unto the faith. Now Peter was a much older man. Peter was one of the original disciples of the Lord. Peter was a prince of the church in every sense of the word, but he was a man who was not at that moment walking in a proper way. And because he was leading some of God's people into wrong paths, because he was leading some of God's people into a position of bondage, the younger man and the far newer Christian challenged him on it and he said, Peter, you are not doing the right thing. Now that must have been a very shifting experience for an older man. But Peter accepted it. While we read later on that he talks about our beloved brother Paul, second Peter, three, fifteen, according to the wisdom given to him, and he puts Paul's writings on the same level as the inspired writings of the Old Testament, a wonderful witness and testimony. In Acts four, eighteen and nineteen, is assisting with man's demands, or man's demands versus God. Do you remember they prohibited to preach? This sorts, man, Acts two. What's he going to do? If you preach again, you're in for it. You've got your head taken off. You'll be stoned or crucified. And he looked those men straight in the face. He whose knees had knocked together when a girl, a maid servant, kind of, I suppose, a bartender kind of thing of that particular age. And he... wobbled and denied the Lord then, but here's the man of the Sanhedrin, the rulers of Israel. You do it, you mention this name again, and you're for it, you're for the gallows. He looked at them calmly in the eye, and he said, will it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge you. But as for us, we cannot but speak. It drove him to a decision. It made him decide whether he would sacrifice his life in order to please God. And, of course, the overall sifting of suffering throughout all his life, which he brings into focus very clearly in his epistle. Now, we've seen a good deal of the sifting processes in the life of Peter. We've certainly got a lot of materials.