And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, to sift [you] as wheat;
The Lord warns Peter about something happening out of sight. Satan has asked for the disciples, and God has said yes. Why would God hand His own people over to be shaken? And what remains when the shaking ends?
The word behind "demanded" is not a casual wish. One commentator, noting the force of the Greek, explains what kind of asking this was:
"Has begged" is the sense here. The ek in exētēsato points to intensity and persistent asking.
But pressing hard is not the same as having power. Satan must ask, and God sets the limits:
Always remember: no matter what Satan wants, he cannot touch one hair of our heads without God's permission. Both Job and Simon were in Satan's hands for a time, but in each case Satan could go only as far as divine wisdom allowed him. God let Satan lead Simon into a temptation, and Satan made him fail in it. Yet all Satan really achieved was to destroy Simon's self-confidence. He could not destroy his faith.
The picture is a threshing floor, and the word itself tells the story:
Peter and all the disciples were to be "sifted like wheat." But every trial any child of God goes through is sifting. That is what tribulation means, and "in the world you will have tribulation" is a sure word. The word comes from the tribulum, the threshing tool that separated the wheat from the chaff. Loss of loved ones, sickness, personal suffering, loss of possessions, hard circumstances, strong temptation — all these sift the wheat from the chaff. And Satan is not far away when the sifting begins.
The enemy expected an empty sieve. He had miscalculated what he was sifting:
As in Job's case, the enemy had presented himself before God to accuse them. He chose the moment that suited his plans, when the Lord would be taken from them and they would have no visible protection. He asked to put them into the sieve. He was certain that nothing would remain which God could accept. This way he thought to wrench them away from Christ, but he was mistaken. No doubt nothing of man would remain in the sieve; but what God had worked in the disciples must remain. In his hatred Satan forgot that if he had all power over the flesh, he had none at all over God and what comes from Him.
The Lord names Simon, but the demand covers the whole group. Older English translations showed a difference modern English hides: "you" for them all, then "thee" for Simon by himself. That change points to where the crack was:
You notice the change. "Satan demanded to have you." It was not only Simon, though He addresses Simon — Satan wanted them all. "But I have prayed for you." Why for Simon alone, and not for them all? Because Satan was making a dead set at Simon, and what gave Satan the opening was this: Simon's self-confidence. Confidence in what? In his natural character? Not at all — in his love for the Lord. If his confidence had been in the Lord's love to him it would have been a very different matter.
Satan asked for all of them. The Lord had already prayed before Peter knew anything was wrong:
Peter did not yet know his danger or his need. Before he knew either, the Lord prayed for him. … He had demanded to have them all so that he might sift them like wheat. He did not get them. Peter did go astray by rushing into temptation, but God heard the Lord's intercession for him.
The prayer that follows did not ask God to cancel the trial:
The Lord said, "Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you." What did He ask — that Peter should not be sifted? No, not at all. Peter needed sifting, because he had confidence in the flesh. But the Lord prayed that his "faith may not fail." That is, Peter would be held up under his trial. His heart would not lose its grip on Christ. He would be sure of His love and get the blessing intended.
God used Satan for this work. That is startling, and there is a line the enemy cannot cross:
Peter needed sifting, and God employed Satan to do the work — just as with Job, and the man in 1 Corinthians 5. It seems very wonderful, very mysterious, very solemn, that God should use Satan like this. Yet so it is. God uses him "for the destruction of the flesh." He cannot touch the spirit. That is eternally safe. But it is terrible work to get into Satan's sieve.
- Asked — the demand was urgent and insistent, but Satan still had to ask. The enemy moves only as far as God permits.
- Granted — God allowed the sieve because Peter trusted his own love for the Lord, and that confidence had to break.
- Sifted — trial is the threshing tool that separates wheat from chaff. Nothing of man survives it. What God has worked in a person remains.
- Guarded — Satan wanted the whole group and got none of them. He can reach the flesh; he cannot touch the spirit, and Peter's faith held.
- Ahead — the Lord prayed for Peter before Peter knew he was in danger, and that prayer was heard.
but *I* have besought for thee that thy faith fail not; and *thou*, when once thou hast been restored, confirm thy brethren.
On the night before the cross, Jesus warns Simon Peter that Satan has asked for him. He then speaks of a prayer already made, and of what Peter must do after the fall. Two questions follow. What did Christ actually ask for? And why did He not ask that Peter never fall?
The timing is the heart of it. Christ speaks of the prayer in the past tense. Peter is still standing, still confident, still hours away from his fall.
With Peter, it was not after he had fallen that Christ says to him, "I have prayed for you," but before. His intercession for Peter was going on all the time. He exercises it because we go wrong, not because we are right. Our feebleness and failure become the occasion for the exercise of this grace.
That order changes how we understand repentance. Peter's tears did not unlock Christ's help. They came from it.
Repentance is the effect of His advocacy... He prayed for him before the sin was committed. Then He looked at Peter at the right moment. Peter repented, went out and wept bitterly. But He had prayed for him before he repented.
Look at what Christ asks for. He does not ask that Peter escape the fall.
"I have prayed for you, that" — what? Was it that he might not fail? No, but that, having failed, his faith might not give way. Had Christ not prayed for His poor, feeble servant, he would have gone from bad to worse, and from worse to worst. But the intercession of Christ obtained for Peter the grace of true repentance, self-judgment and bitter sorrow for his sin. In the end it brought complete restoration of his heart and conscience.
Sifting separates grain from husk. So there must be grain there in the first place.
Notice, Satan sifted him just because he was wheat. Perhaps you have sometimes wondered whether there was any wheat there at all. If there were no wheat there would be no sifting. Satan never sifts mere chaff... And he will do the same with any of us, if we are not watchful and do not judge ourselves.
In verse 31, "you" is plural in the original. Here it is singular. Christ turns from the group to one man.
The Lord Jesus told Peter that Satan had desired to have "you" (a plural word), that is, all the disciples... But it is Peter alone to whom He says, "I have prayed for you (singular) that your faith may not fail."... The Lord Jesus, as the faithful Advocate, prayed for Peter before his fall. Certainly then Peter's faith did not fail, though he failed.
Older translations read "when you are converted." That wording confuses readers, because Peter already believed. The word means turning.
The word translated "converted" means turning to God. It covers conversion at the start, and also turning back after someone has departed from Him. The second is of course what is meant here. It is what we usually call "restoration" of soul, not what most people mean by "conversion."
Notice what Christ tells the restored man to do — and what He does not tell him.
He does not say, "When you are restored, take care you do not fall again." He says, "When you are restored, strengthen your brothers." That is what Christ cares about. You must learn from failure; but when you are restored, strengthen the brothers. That is our business, and we can only strengthen each other by the ministry of Christ.
It also answers the instinct to write off anyone who has fallen.
He was the object of such grace, and of the power that drew him back again. That fact would give confidence not only to him, but to them. So it is quite wrong to say that God does not restore a man, or that you must never trust someone who has once broken down... Peter broke down here, and he broke down later just as seriously: he failed over the Gentiles — the non-Jews God had sent him to welcome... Even so, no one except perhaps the apostle Paul was used by God more to strengthen his brothers. I think it is a serious thing to weaken the source of confidence in a soul that has slipped aside.
- Asked — Satan demanded all the disciples. Christ answered by praying for one man by name.
- Prayed — Christ prayed before the sin, not after it. Peter's tears were the fruit of that prayer, not the price of it.
- Held — Christ did not ask that Peter avoid the fall, but that his faith not give way. Peter failed; his faith did not.
- Turned — "converted" here means restoration of a believer who has wandered, not the first turning of a sinner to God.
- Strengthened — Christ's aim was not caution but usefulness. The man who fell became the one who could steady others.