If you're going to be turning to Luke 22, I often wonder about eternity, entrance there, if by grace the Lord permits that. course, the main reason to see him, but then some good friends, very good friends that have gone on, some preachers that we became very close. But I can't imagine communing with those old Puritans that have meant so much to me in years gone by, the Reformers, and some even coming out of the Dark Ages that we have a little from them. Y'all have to do something very special to me. to dare commune with them. But I know there we'll all be one. I also know that some will carry a lot more knowledge of Christ into eternity than I will. I don't know how all that plays in of us being one, but it does. The main thing is, me being ready to meet the Lord. Luke 22, we'll begin shortly in verse 31 and read just four verses. But before we read, would you bow with me? I would love nothing more than the one we speak about manifest himself to us today, he become a living reality to us. Would you unite your hearts together as we seek his dear face? My father, thy grace, your eternal loving kindness, your mercy, or these. There's such a vast, vast topic. Eternal is thy loving kindness. And we got these little minds trying to wrap around these thoughts. But we thank you. We thank you for giving your son. And we thank thee, Lord Jesus, for your great love. your coming and redeeming the people and bringing them from sin back to thee. And we thank thee, Spirit of God, for it was you that taught us about Christ, showed us Christ, manifest him to us. And we are of all people most blessed. Father, our request this morning is that your Son, again by the sweet Spirit of God, manifest, come and abide in our midst for these next minutes, Lord. Become a reality. to these, some that do not know you, not yet, a trophy of grace. Father, be gracious to them, keep them, and work in their hearts that desire for eternal salvation. Open the scriptures as you open our hearts and give us understanding. And be kind to these in allowing clarity, auction direction by thy spirit, for Lord, man's words mean nothing. But if you can speak through us and that you do, be pleased to do so to these dear hearts and other friends that we have. I pray in Christ's name, amen. Now, if you can get, not in your head, but if you can get what I so desire to set before you, if you can get the reality of this, you've got a gem to keep Keep in your hearts, meditate, think upon it. I assure you that it is not a gym because I said it was. And only God can make it that, but if he will do that for you, surely you'll walk out saying, I am a blessed individual. So beginning with verse number 31, And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may shift 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'm ready to go with thee both into prison and to death." And he said, I tell you, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. A good man, a strong man, a self-confident man that he could do what he desired and not do what Christ said he would do. But the thought, hopefully to get across to you, verse 32, just simply this, I have prayed for thee. Now sometimes the Lord would speak to one and in that one He was including all, His disciples and all His children. But distinction is made here when He called Him twice, Simon, Simon. I'm only talking to you now, I'm not talking to any of the other disciples. In John 21, three times he called him Simon of Jonas, Simon son of Jonas. Do you love me? Here you've got an all-knowing, omniscient Christ telling the son of Barjona, son of Jonah, what's around the corner for you. Before morning comes and the cock crows, this is what will happen. Christ being equal with God the Father in every attribute, everything, three in one, yet one but all equal. all that the Father is, the Son, and the Spirit are, and vice versa. We know that the power of Christ, now that he has ascended and God has given it into the hands of the Son of Man, we know that that power is unlimited. Prior to even coming into the world, God, by him, creating all things, And he would say, there's gonna be rain on the earth 40 days. He won't quit in 38 or 39. It's gonna rain 40 days. Are God promising when his children were obedient, I will give you rain in due time, in a due season when it's needful for you. But if you are disobedient, I'll shut up heaven. and there will be no rain. Inspired riders, and he made a way for lightning, for the lightning of the thunder. He maketh the water small drops, so that it will not damage, unless God intends on destroying something by a flood or a heavy downpour. Our God said to the snow, be thou here, Be thou on earth. You rest assured, every place that he said be on earth, it was there. And he brings the wind out of his treasury, whether from the north, south, east, or west. It's just the breath of God blowing from the treasury of God, clearing up the air, benefiting you now. hail, snow, vapor, stormy wind, all fulfilled his work. Whatever it is, it is because God said for it to be. Our Lord Jesus said to the lepers, be thou clean. All of them were clean, one time one. And he walks into the house, in their mourning for the loss of a young lady. And he walks in there where she's been prepared for a funeral. He took her hand and said, May it arise. And he brought her out and said, give her food. Lazarus, come forth. Remember how he was able, he came out, he came out of the tomb bound in grave clothes because Christ said, Come forth. Peter, go down to the sea. There is no way that any of us could number the fish that are in the sea. Numberless are they. Yet our Lord said to Peter, go down there, cast in your hook, and take up the fish, and you'll find a piece of money in its mouth. And you take that and you pay our taxes. Knowledge and the wisdom of this Christ who said, Simon, Satan hath desired thee, that Christ. Now who can place a limit on his knowledge? If it is infinite, then it has no beginning and it has no ending. Of all the eight billion people on the earth today, the very hairs of your head are all numbers. My father, looking down, sees one sparrow. He said, there's not one sparrow fall to the ground without the knowledge of my father. My father annoyed. Simon, before that old rooster, stretches out its neck and begins to make the sound that God gave him when he created him. Before that crows, you will have denied me three times. This, our Christ, governs the affairs of all nations. He sets up kings as He's pleased to do, sets down kings, governors, presidents, and all. He, according to His own purpose and will, sets them up to the twelve. I have chosen you twelve, but one of you is a devil. knowledge, power, and love eternal, all abiding within the heart of this Son of Man. From all eternity throughout all eternity, love brought Him, love carried Him all the way to the cross. You could put the love of every mom and dad, bind them all together if you could get all that love in one heart. It never would be as great as the love of God, of Christ, or the Spirit. How great that love is, yet it will take eternity for it to be manifest. All this God has been pleased to reveal to you in His Word. Sometimes you can read between the lines when the Spirit of God is helping and you can see more than what they said. We sometimes are like the Queen of Sheba when she sat, listened, when she saw. As she was beginning to leave, she said, the half has not yet been told. Put all the Puritans, put all their writings together and the knowledge they had and the men before and the men after, bind it all together and you still would not have the fullness of God revealed. It will take eternity. for the vastness of God to be made known to his children. Here you came into the world, your days were numbered. Your life this day is in his hands. You don't own the day, and certainly not your life. Seeing that his days are determined, God said of man, and Christ said thou fool this night, shall thy soul be required of thee." Before you got here, God Almighty had already appointed the bounds of your habitation and the time of getting here and of leaving here. It's all in the hands of God and His Son. God being all powerful knowledge without limit, His love undescribable, undefinable, your days here numbered by that infinite knowledge of God, determined by He who is Lord over all, in whom we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of Him that worketh all things after the counsel of His own will and knowledge. Ephesians 111, such a God, such a Father, such a Savior. Now you understanding this, shouldn't all God's children have smooth sailing from birth, from the cradle to the grave? He can do whatever he pleases. He's powerful. You know his power just looking at what he created, just reading a little in scripture. We obtained an inheritance because God predetermined that according to the purpose of him that worketh all things after the eternal counsel. Such a God, such a father, a savior, a sweet spirit that helps. Couldn't he fix it where Simon would never be tempted? Could he? Of course. Could he, could he not have given Simon the same boldness there before those three that said, we know you, you're one of his? Could he not have given him the same boldness that he had on the day of Pentecost when he preached a thousand? You men took and crucified the Lord before he ran from a little maid and now he stands with all boldness. Could not Christ have done it for him that night? Certainly. You, as a parent, if it were possible, You would control all circumstances in your children's lives. You would keep them from a terrible fall. You would keep them out of an embarrassing situation. How's Peter going to ever lift his eyes now? to the others when he said, Lord, you can say what you want. I'm not going to deny you. Could not God keep you as you would keep all your children from an embarrassing situation where the slip of the tongue came out? Could he not keep you and your children from one bad decision that would hurt them? You would do it. If you had the power, you would keep them from bringing reproach upon God, upon your name, knowing they love you and would never do these things in the meanness or to hurt you, but they do. They love you. would never do you wrong. Now answer this to yourself. If you went to an orphanage and you had determined, you and your wife had determined that you were going to adopt two or three children, but you weren't going to take the small ones, you wanted those that were in their teen years, as our Father did us. John and Jeremiah's the only two that I know about that came into the world as a child of God. Can't explain it, I just believe it. Turn with me to Galatians 4. Galatians 4, beginning with verse 5. This is talking about the Son of God coming. To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you're sons, God had sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Next little book over as you head towards Revelation, Ephesians. Ephesians, verse 5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. You and your wife were down at the orphanage, and they began to bring all those young teenagers, middle teens in for you to look at, talk with. Before they ever got there, you'd already looked at their grades and see, had they applied themselves in school? What was their behavior in school? Were they just rebels and always causing trouble? Well, certainly you wouldn't adopt one that every teacher there said, he's a little troublemaker or she is. We've just had from the first day up until now trouble out of that person. No, poor grades, because they did not apply themselves, are the lowest of reputation in the school. You would not take that child home with you, yet our Lord did. Look at you. Took us out of an orphanage. Public education, private education. Look at our Lord Jesus when He came to earth. He took the publicans and the harlots and they went into the kingdom of God before the sanctimonious righteous Pharisees. Sure, our Lord took that kind of children. He'd take the poor. He'd pass by those that were self-righteous. And he'd go down there on the back streets of the city. You see, you're calling, brethren, I Corinthians 1, not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. Where'd God choose then? Right the opposite of that. You were traveling through Samaria. You you would go to the parts of the city most respectable, most honorable, where the upper class citizens lived. Certainly, you wouldn't stop at a whale to speak with a woman that had no lady friends and only such a bad reputation that the men only would hear her. You wouldn't stop there, you'd go down to the best parts of the city. You would not choose the uneducated, but the highly educated students, pupils. You wanted a child to write the best-selling story of their life and of what God did You wouldn't take an old foul-mouthed young teenager that everybody knew he was headed for trouble and had one of the lowest occupations around, just mending ladies' cookware. My, what a book that old wretched man had. because God took the worst. That man in allegory form, he described the work of God in his life and the work of God in all God's children's lives, was the second best seller of all times. I don't know where it ranks now, but for several hundred years, the second best seller. You wanted a man to write one of the premier hymns of all time. You did not choose an old drunken sailor that was a slave trader. God did. Who better to write of amazing grace than Newton or the work of God couldn't find a better one, but society would never pick that kind of men to speak about the work of God. Our ways are not His ways as the heavens are high above the earth, so are God's ways above your ways, your thoughts, the highest you can ever have of God, He's still in eternal height above all that. Amazing grace, an old sinner bowed down with the guilt and weight on his back. Only one fleeing out of a city God was going to destroy. We'd never have that man write about the work of God. Name any better. Well, you could find some in the church or used to be able to find some in the church that God picked up out of the gutter, saved them. Would it not have been best for an omnipotent God that worketh all things? after the good pleasure of his own will, worketh all things for the good of his children. That's our God. Would it not have been better that Simon Barjona had been given sufficient grace, never to deny, much less curse? Would not it have been better for God to give that man the boldness he had on Pentecost. Evidently not. Grace is more evident when sung about, written by a drunken sailor. Our pilgrim's progress is more real, it's more lifelike to a Christian. God took a cursing young man and saved him. Mercy makes such tremendous vessels to spread forth His work in grace. That's why God doesn't choose righteous folks. If you're here this morning, and all you've got is your good deeds, I'm going to miss you. If God in grace lets me into his presence, the great high priest. Lord Jesus, why didn't you ask the Father to keep Simon from the trial and from such a great fall? Wouldn't that have been better for your cause than having a very own disciple that had been with you for three years to deny you? Would not it have been better for you to have provided grace for that man? No, no. Dear reader of scripture, it would not have been better. God's determined that all the children All of them must be conformed to the bridegroom, tempted, tried, the very head of the church. That's who God picks up out of sin and saves. Grace and mercy never shines as brightly as it does against the backdrop of sin, magnifies the mercy and the sweet loving kindness of our Lord Jesus. Well, okay, preacher, if that's true, then should not we sin that grace might abound and shine more? Paul anticipated there'd be many Thinking that, he said, God forbid, get that thought out of your head. Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, and if she has a grain of wheat, the old threshing machine would beat out the kernels in the wheat, and it'd have shaft around it, and then they'd take it to the wind and drop the containers, and as the wind blew, it would blow away all the shaft. That's what Satan wants to do with you, Simon. Well, if our Lord Jesus passed through the sifting process and through the fire's furnace, not because there was one sin in him, but because there was much sin in all of us. When God birthed one into His family, the nature, the holy nature of God, that new man within, it dwells in a body that's still fallen and sinful in your nature. Now you've got the precious and the vile all in one body. What that means is, children, that throughout life, God will be sending you through the fire. And God will be letting you fall so that the shaft can blow away from you all through life. That means that the precious metal must pass through the fire to burn everything off that's not of gold. Got to do that to you to burn everything away from that old nature that's interfering with your growth as a spiritual man. No, no, Christ should not have prevented Simon from falling. My, what a spokesman that man's going to be when he stands and he tells what Christ can do or a Bunyan or a Newton. Great trophies mightily used by God. And after God birthed them, they sinned more. But throughout life, they went through that refining process as the head of the church did. God's determined you'll be just like Him. God's determined that as death approaches, the shaft will have been blown away from you. But don't wait until later in life to begin the process of living wholly and striving to be a righteous man or woman. Bypass, if you intend on doing that one day, you better start today. I got one last passage that I'd like for you to turn with me, and let's read together. Malachi 3, I'm sorry, I should have told you, or did I tell you, Malachi 3? Last book in the Old Testament, just go to your left. Malachi 3. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek That's a child of God, shall suddenly come to his temple. That's what we're waiting on. That's what we get a little taste of from time to time. Whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But a big question is asked. Who? may abide the day of his coming. Our God is as a consuming fire, children, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. Being that, and God only, having holy children, Inner glory, I do not mean that in life you can reach that sinless state. I never would say that. That'd rule all of us out. But I am saying in life, God sends fiery trials. That old Fuller's soap. I heard my grandmother talk about lye soap and how they made it. That's all they had and how rough it was. Going through a depression and a World War I, they didn't have much. Verse three, and he shall see it as a refiner and purifier of silver. He shall purify the sons of Levi. as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." God will put that old gold, it comes up out of the earth, it's got other elements mixed with it, and those old men working the refiner, they'll melt it. And then they'll add chlorine, then it'll bubble up through that and that, those other particles will attach themselves to that element and they'll float to the top and they'll skim off the top. They do that enough, they've got pure gold coming out of that fire. Last week, I think it was last week, might have been the week before. Tim, no, Kerry, not going to give him the credit. Kerry gave me a quart of syrup, and my, that was good. But it brought back memories as a young fellow with other boys. Up at my grandmother's there was a man about, I don't know, several thousand yards away that made syrup. We'd go down and watch. We'd go down and cut us a piece of cane off that he'd already told us we could have. He'd take that old press. Someone would put the sugarcane stalks in that press and the juice squeezed out would run down through a fixture they had there into a large open vat with fire under it. And the pieces of cane that had been left came through the press and the impurities that might have been on the cane, they'll float to the top because of the fire. And they've got this apparatus that crosses the entire vat. They'll pull it down over the top and they'll skim off that syrup, trash, impurities. They didn't skim it one time, they'd do four, five, six, seven times. Then when they'd get all the impurities out, you could look at a quart of their syrup and it was clear throughout. That's what God does to us. He puts us in that refiner's fire and he sits there outside the furnace and he builds the fire to a temperature that is needful for him to burn off the impurities in us. And God skims off the top of us. But he's not through with one time in the fire. We're going again. God's going to make a holy child out of you when he's through you and that blazing fire and the impurities floating to the top and God, the Holy Ghost skimming them off the top and then God taking that old lye soap, fuller soap, you're going to come out a child of God, holy like the Lord Jesus. So the Lord Jesus did not pray for Simon Peter to be kept from the temptation. He did not pray that Simon Peter's faith not be tried. He left him alone because that's what Peter needed. Now if I or you am justified by his faith, not yours, by his faith, isn't his faith pure? Absolutely. It is without mixture of the least particle of sin. But within me are my beliefs, my thinking, attached to faith. My believing that I have a word from God and He's going to do this, but He didn't do it. And God burning off everything within me till I'm left just with the faith. We all see at times I believe But is that from true faith within or so often from our wants? And we attribute our wants to a word God's given us that we've found in scripture, but we find more times than not that God doesn't do that for us. I've heard many, As far as I know, I honestly can say I never did. But I've heard many say, God told me thus and thus. And I'd watch to see if it ever came true. Rare were those times. More times than not, it never did come to pass what they said God told them. I have heard from the lips of God's children, I laid my hand on that and I claimed it by faith. I've heard that several times. But I also saw that the only way they got what they laid their hands on was to go borrow money to buy it. Simon, I prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. Ephesians 2, faith is the gift of God. The Lord calls it your faith, but your faith is going to go through the trials But Christ has prayed for you before you head into the trial, and when you come out of the trial, that's where oftentimes we get careless. Boy, I'm something, God favors me as His child. If He doesn't pray for you after the trial's over, pray it will be the fall. the gift of God, the faith of Christ. The only way you got it is he had to give it to you. And the only thing Christ prayed for for Simon was that his faith fail not, being the gift of God. Sure, the Lord calls it yours, but that it becomes that by trials of fire. where the impurities that you call faith were beginning to attach to true faith. God had to burn all that off. It was the faith of Christ as wrought in the Son of Man at Calvary. He had one word from his father in the old economy. I will not leave thy soul in hell. That's all Christ had. The father turned his face from him. The pain, physical pain, the mental, the spiritual, And the Lord Jesus headed into the burning fires of hell to deliver his children with one promise. God his father told him he would not leave his soul in hell. That's the faith God implants in his children. That's the faith that God's got to send you through the fires to burn off all that you call faith. When the high priest went into the Holy of Holies, on his breastplate was the names of every tribe. On his shoulders, two pieces engraven there with the name, when He walked into that holy of holies, He carried the names of all God's children. They're making intercession for Him, but I don't want you to get lost in that now. Beyond the church, all of you grouped together as a whole, the Lord Jesus prays for individuals. That's what I want you to leave here having tasted that. He didn't pray for Kirit. He prayed for his children making up Kirit. Don't lump everything into one so you don't have much time or get through with your prayers, children. That's not praying. Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee as if he was the only man in the world. Now, that's it. That's the message. And it's that that I challenge you, I plead with you, and in his name command, you strive to obtain. Christ prayed for me. That you can be in such a close relationship that you become aware of the high priest, or you become aware of the shepherd with you on his shoulders carrying you. When most speak of the love of God, they speak it more in a general term. God loves His church. But what of you as an individual? That's all I'm interested in. You as an individual. The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me. Well, Paul, that's kind of selfish of you, isn't it? It'll do you no good. you come to know the love of Christ within. Missing today the personal love, the faith of our Redeemer, our Intercessor, and the intercession that He makes on our We live mostly upon his omnipresence. God's everywhere, therefore God's with me. He loves all his children, therefore God loves me. You've made no progress in the school of grace and faith. I'm not talking about him being omnipresent. I'm talking today about His manifest presence. I open the book, I don't want to hear what Malachi said, I want to hear what God said through Malachi. And I get in the closet, I want to hear words that the high priest has placed on my soul. His love for the church, no, no. His love for you as a member of his church. Is Christ your high priest? Then labor to become aware of personal intercession. Simon, I prayed for thee. that your faith fail not, and Simon's gonna come out of that refiner's fire, a valiant soldier for Christ. Did Simon not sin anymore? Oh yeah, he did. Paul got on his case one time. So God'll be purifying you a lifelong experience. But in the fires, your Redeemer prayed before you went in and while you're in, that your faith fail not, that it come out refined. Timothy, you come, if you would, lead us in the closing hymn.