Why Good Christians Suffer: PART 13

Beginning of Series

How much can we learn from the spiritual conspiracy to “sift” Peter “as wheat”?

I’ve spent days pondering the refining action of suffering. While doing so, I’ve been puzzling over the significance of a Scripture I knew must be closely related:

Luke 22:31-32 Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat, but I prayed for you, that your faith wouldn’t fail. You, when once you have turned again, establish your brothers.

I had never bothered to explore the details but I realized that sifting must be the agricultural equivalent of refining. Can you see the connection? Jesus was simply using another analogy to describe the process of adding value and making something more useful by removing the inferior. Moreover, as Scripture often does when using the metallurgical analogy of refining, Christ applied this to a spiritually challenging time in someone’s life. (I have since investigated this more; detailed in the brief note below:

My familiarity with biblical references to winnowing or threshing (e.g. Luke 3:17; Judges 6:11) led me to presume that sifting must be some part of the process of separating chaff from the wheat. (Chaff, by the way, should not be confused with bran. Whereas chaff is virtually inedible for humans, bran has a valuable dietary function.)

I thought myself foolish, however, when I discovered this verse in the NIV:

Amos 9:9 . . . I will shake the people of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. (Emphasis mine)

I then presumed that sifting must be a reference to separating wheat from stones. It turns out that some scholars still think that, in Luke, sifting might be referring to removing the chaff. Moreover, whether pebbles are actually referred to in Amos is disputed and so Bible versions vary in their translation of this verse.

Nevertheless, regardless of whether what is sifted out is chaff or rocks, sticks or dirt, it is referring to the important process of removing the inedible, virtually useless, from the edible part of the wheat.

As I’ve thought long and hard about and Peter’s ‘sifting’ and subsequent denial, I discovered I needed to re-evaluate all of it. What I found astonished me.

First, note how Peter’s denial came about. It was instigated by an attack from Satan but, as evil and anti-God as Satan is, God remains mind-bogglingly powerful. Satan cannot attack God or do a thing without the Almighty allowing him to do so. It’s almost the exact process described in the first two chapters of Job where, as previously mentioned, Satan accused someone dear to God and sought divine permission to attack Job, in the hope of proving that Job was not the faithful man of God he appeared to be.

There are other biblical parallels, such as Paul’s “thorn” that protected him from the danger of pride, even though it was “a messenger of Satan” that tormented him. It achieved so much good in Paul’s life that the Lord refused to remove it, despite Paul’s repeated pleas. Paul eventually came to recognize its value and, to use his word, “glory” in it (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

A particularly confusing example is found in David incurring divine wrath by conducting a census. It was a devastating failure on David’s part, even though it ended with divine intervention that limited the damage and with the purchase of land on which the temple was built (1 Chronicles 22:1).

There are two divinely authorized accounts of this event. One says Satan was behind it, the other says God was:

1 Chronicles 21:1 Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel.

2 Samuel 24:1  . . . the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”

Before you start thinking this ‘contradiction’ proves the unreliability of Scripture, think for a moment. We find something similar in the account of Jesus’ temptation. Immediately after the Spirit came upon Jesus during his baptism, the Spirit of God drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted, say all three Gospel accounts (Matthew 4:1 Mark 1:12 Luke 4:1-2). Nevertheless, not only was it the devil, not the Holy Spirit, who did the tempting, it was the devil who physically transported Jesus to various places during this time, say both accounts that detail the temptations (Matthew 4:5, 8; Luke 4:5, 9). No one could argue that this is not some accidental slip-up on behalf of the Gospel writers because the ‘contradiction’ was made not only by the same writer but occurs in the same short passage and was repeated by another Gospel writer.

Another complication is that James 1:13-14 says “Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God,’ for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.” One then has to wonder how it is the holy Son of God was tempted. Clearly, spiritual truth is complex and the Bible does not baby us by oversimplifying.

Both statements about David’s temptation seem to be different ways of expressing the same thing: if Satan asks God’s permission and God grants it, there is one sense in which Satan is responsible and another in which the buck stops with God.

If this sickens you, it’s because I have not yet adequately explained.

Why would the good Lord let his arch enemy get away with such things as attacking Job and David and Peter? I will by no means wimp out by settling for pat answers. My longing to comfort you as soon as possible, however, drives me to begin with a quick answer before going into greater depth later.

The short answer is that there are far more factors involved than a finite mind can even conceive of, and the relatively few times when God does not totally reject Satan’s pleas occur because God’s approach ends up defeating Satan’s schemes and being in the best interest of the people involved and being the smartest move and achieving the greatest good.

In biblical thought, tempting or testing could have the good intent of proving a person’s character or the evil intent of enticing someone to sin.

If hard training sessions intended to build an athlete’s strength and stamina become a temptation for a certain trainee, leading him to give up the sport in favor of a softer life, it would be the very opposite of the coach’s hopes and break his heart. With a perfect coach, such a tragedy would not be because of a flaw in his plan but a flaw in the trainee’s character. The coach would still do all he could to reignite the trainees enthusiasm, encouraging him to tough it out and become the champion he could be. The final choice, however, remains with the trainee.

For an elite soldier, training is vital but it can only achieve so much. One day, the recruit must go into real combat situation. It is the only way to become truly battle-hardened and achieve things of great value and become a hero. Everyone knows that if he were wounded in battle, it would be the work of the enemy and never his commander’s plan.

We must avoid being so foolish as to confuse our loving Lord with the enemy. Such confusion, however, is disturbingly easy to fall into. Getting this even slightly wrong, would cruelly rob us of much comfort and zeal by cooling our love and admiration for the One who is infinitely worthy.

An average commander sending soldiers into battle can make horrific mistakes. There is nothing average about our infallible Lord. Some commanders are heartless but there is nothing unfeeling or aloof about the One who for our salvation left paradise to be tortured to death. Some commanders have always had it easy but the One who sends us says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21, emphasis mine). Our leader says, “Follow me” (many Scriptures) – follow the path I have cut with my own blood, sweat and tears. And not only has he courageously forged ahead, making it incomparably easier for those who follow, he adds, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). For as long as we remain on a planet where people are in rebellion against God’s loving ways, we are either on dangerous missions behind enemy lines or in training for such missions. Occasional times of rest and recreation aside, life will be tough. Opportunities for glory, however, are immense.

We who are forever underestimating the infinite Lord, find it mindboggling that the same event could have two different origins or opposite goals – one from the heart of Satan to do evil and the other from the heart of God to do good. That this actually happens is highlighted in Joseph’s famous statement to the brothers who had sold him into slavery:

Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good . . . (NIV)

How this marvel came about is most instructive. The brothers hatched a despicably evil scheme that we might have expected the Almighty to have stopped. Instead, he let it proceed but, as with Job (Job 1:12; 2:6), under his restraints. That way, rather than merely stopping evil, it was reversed so that good resulted for everyone. That’s divine genius! It’s why Almighty God is worthy of all praise and all trust.

As is typical of the Eternal Lord, the outworking of the divine plan took what in human years was a long time. What is typical of us, however, is blaming God for things moving at snail pace, when the real reason is him patiently bearing with our slowness. Just as little children dawdle, tire easily, stop to explore irrelevant things, run off in the wrong direction, get stubborn because they are sure their harebrained ideas are better, and take agonizingly long to learn such elementary things as how to tie their shoelaces, God’s children are continually slowing him down, and they rarely even realize it. In fact, embarrassingly many of us are too unaware of the real situation to spare ourselves the shame of foolishly getting impatient with God when things move slow because of his patient consideration for our weaknesses.

The brother’s plan was originally to kill Joseph (Genesis 37:20). This was quickly turned – presumably through the Lord’s intervention – into selling their brother into slavery (Genesis 37:24-27). Then followed a peculiar set of sufferings, blessings and setbacks. The blessings were truly of God (Genesis 39:5, 21-23) but the hardships and disappointments were equally real.

From being a slave, Joseph gradually gained a position of trust in an important household (Genesis 39:1-6). Then he was thrown in prison on the disgusting trumped up charge of rape and slowly became head prisoner (Genesis 39:20-23). He then successfully interpreted dreams, only to be forgotten and left to rot in prison.

Through it all, Joseph proved himself faithful and grew strong. He ended up astonishingly exalted but, as is typical for God’s faithful, it was quite a saga or, as I prefer to see it, a faith adventure that made him a true hero.

For another short answer, I’ll use an analogy. We know business owners often make it their employee’s responsibility to leave their premises locked at night. As an extra level of protection, however, they sometimes hire a security company that sends a nightly patrol to visit the place at random times to double-check everything.

A security patrol is not hired so that people can be lax about locking up at night or so that the owner can get away with cheap, flimsy locks. A patrol officer helps by regularly and diligently testing the building’s security. If any vulnerability becomes apparent, he will alert the owner, whose responsibility it remains to correct the deficiency. In an emergency, the officer might temporarily cease his other patrols and stand guard at the point that is unsecured but the owner is expected to provide a more permanent solution as soon as possible.

Picture a security guard going from building to building on his nightly rounds, checking the locks on every door and window. Now picture a thief doing virtually the same thing. Despite their actions seeming almost identical, their motives are so different that, to those of us in the know, what one does is comforting and valued, whereas the other sends a chill down us.

Should a competent security guard spy a thief, he might even stay in the shadows and let a thief try to break it. He would know that if the thief failed, the building is adequately secured. He would be confident, however, that if the thief broke in, he could prevent him from stealing anything, plus remove the threat by having him arrested.

This is so obvious that I’m embarrassed to take your time spelling it out. When we move to the spiritual, however, we tend to lose to our way. So let me round off the natural and move on to the spiritual. There is no way the guard and the thief are in league, even though they might act similarly in testing locks and even though a guard might delay intervention in order to catch the thief red-handed. And the owner does not regard any of this as absolving his employees from their responsibility to lock up at night, nor his own responsibility to provide solid doors, protected or reinforced windows and so on.

We need to be equally clear-headed in distinguishing God’s role and the devil’s role in our lives and realize that we are like the owner of the business that thieves would love to rob. Just because our Lord is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, does not mean he dissolves into a nebulous blob or disregards everyone and ceases to hold others responsible for their actions. He sees clear lines of demarcation as to who is responsible for what, and we need to see things his way.

Like confusing a security officer for a thief, it is needlessly upsetting to suppose our Lord has anything but the most compassionate intent in testing us. We can avoid that distress by steadfastly choosing to believe in God’s loving goodness. There is another distress, however, that cannot be avoided. Locks can be tested painlessly but neither for the flawless Son of God nor for us, is there any painless way of being spiritually tested. As someone’s readiness for the Olympics can only be tested by pushing the athlete to the limit, so it is for testing our spiritual readiness.

Why doesn’t the Bible spell this out clearer, rather than allowing such puzzles as the illusion of a contradiction in 1 Chronicles 21:1 and 2 Samuel 24:1 about who was behind David’s test? Because that ‘contradiction’ is itself a test. The Bible is crystal clear in repeatedly and emphatically declaring that God is good. Choose to root our faith deep into the bedrock of this divine revelation and we will stand strong. Should we refuse, however, we will be blown over every time God does the smallest thing that our tiny minds fail to understand. If, for no other reason than God is smarter than us, tests in the form of God doing things that make no sense to us, are inevitable.

Perhaps, after such a brief answer, you are still reeling at the thought of God not vetoing Satan’s every move. I long to work through this with you but would you mind waiting until the next question posed in this webpage? There’s another aspect of Peter being ‘sifted’ by Satan that has been nagging me and discussing it right now might settle your mind a little, as well as getting the incident involving Peter done with so that we can then focus on broader issues.

In Peter’s case – unlike Job’s – it seems as if the ‘gamble’ backfired: Peter fell. Note, however, that Jesus said right from the beginning that he had prayed Peter’s faith would not fail and told him “once you have turned again, establish your brothers.”

If, like me, you tend to think that, besides Judas, Peter was the greatest coward and failure among the disciples, think again. When Jesus was arrested, all the disciples fled. It was just Peter and one other disciple (John 18:15) who had the courage not to totally desert but to follow at a distance. For his Lord, Peter voluntarily exposed himself to considerable danger.

Did this end up a victory for Satan? If you think so, let me pose another question: Why is it that, rather than any other disciple, Jesus assigned to Peter the task of strengthening the others?

Ultimately, Judas was the only one who failed. By choosing suicide, Judas rendered himself totally useless. No one is inspired by Judas. In contrast, Peter grasped Jesus’ hand of forgiveness and has ever since been a powerful source of inspiration to literally millions of Christians who, at some time or another, have felt such failures that they were in danger of declining God’s forgiveness and falling away completely.

Peter’s painful ‘sifting’ removed the chaff of ignorance and pride, empowering him to tenderly minister to people reeling under condemnation. Here’s a sample of the tenderness it produced:

1 Peter 5:1-3 I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder . . . Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly; neither as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock.

God’s intention is that testings always result in good. Whereas God’s passion is to bring out the best in us, the devil strives to bring out the worst in us. The devil wants our weaknesses exposed so he can mock and discourage and attack us. God wants them exposed so that they can be removed, making us stronger and less vulnerable. It is hardly surprising that the good Lord and the Evil One have opposite agendas. The Almighty, however, dignifies us by entrusting us with the casting vote. Whether trials result in good or evil, hinges on our response to them. Peter’s remorse led him to repentance and empowering; Judas’s choice, however, was tragically different.

Whether it be shifting or smelting, good is achieved by exposing hidden impurities that need removing. The process might be less than comfy and no one likes confronting the reality of one’s failures. Nevertheless, it is only by discovering the extent to which we are wrong that we have the chance of becoming right. If spiritual cleansing were impossible, ignorance of our failings would at least provide the temporary bliss of not knowing our unavoidable fate. But since our Savior has provided a rescue plan, it is critical that we are alerted to the need to avail ourselves of it.

The Story So Far

The process required to reveal what is in our hearts might be as unpleasant as childbirth but, like childbirth, the result can be invaluable – so valuable, in fact, that some godly people have actually sought it.

Psalm 26:2 Examine me, Lord, and prove me. Try my heart and my mind.

Job 6:24 Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred.

Job 13:23 How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my disobedience and my sin.

Psalm 17:3 You have proved my heart. You have visited me in the night. You have tried me, and found nothing. I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey.

Psalm 19:12 . . . Forgive me from hidden errors.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

1 Chronicles 29:17 I know also, my God, that you try the heart, and have pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things. . . .

Leviticus 4:2-3 . . . ‘If anyone sins unintentionally, in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and does any one of them . . . then let him offer for his sin . . .

1 Corinthians 4:4 For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord.

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?

That’s not nearly as reckless as one might suppose. What makes it wise is that it is far better for us to discern our weaknesses and failings this side of Judgment Day than the other side.

Continued: Part 14