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All right, everybody, thank you for coming. I really appreciate everybody facing that traffic to come out. Can you turn the I don't know, some kind of a spokesman housework, but it's OK, we'll get it figured out. But before I start preaching, I just want to thank Brother Peter and Brother Mark and just everybody that's helped out. I know Brother Peter, we've already had a big passion for this to happen. And when you plan things well, it gets done. So we have a full house. So thank you, everybody, for coming. Really, really appreciate it. And we'll get through this, this. Can everybody hear me in the back right now? Because this is a. Well, OK, good. You can hear me? I can hear me, too. All right, so well, the title of the sermon tonight is The Sifter, The Sifter. And I'm basically explaining kind of when Satan attacks, how he attacks. And I'm basically going to go through this story with what happened with the apostle Peter. You know, before he was the great apostle in the book of Acts, he was a disciple of Jesus Christ and he was following him for three years. And, you know, we all read the story together. If you're paying attention that at one point Jesus says you're going to you're going to betray me or not betray me, you're going to deny me thrice before the cock crows. So let's look at down at verse number 22. The Bible says or excuse me, verse 31 and Luke 22, the Bible says, And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desire to have you that he may sift you as we. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for all these people that would show up on a Friday night and brave traffic and and just pray that you would fill this room with your spirit or fill me with your spirit as I begin to preach the word of God tonight. And I pray you'd help me as I preach. And I pray that you would help the people to hear what the spirit says unto the church tonight in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So the sifter when Satan attacks. So what does it mean to sift? Well, to sift is to separate something, especially something to be discarded from something else. So when you're talking about wheat, you know, you have the chaff and then the stuff you want at the end is the corn or the kernels. So you can make bread out of it. And so Satan wanted to have Peter. And Jesus said to him, he's desired. Satan had desired to have you talk about something scary. I mean, when the Lord is saying, hey, Satan wants you, Peter. He wants you. That's that's kind of a scary statement. But it says that he may sift you as wheat. That's even more scary because the sifting process is usually you're applying pressure to separate the things that you want and then to discard the rest of it. So look at verse number 32 says, 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 thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt deny or thrice tonight, excuse me, that thou knowest me. So here's Peter. He's very he's very well known for saying really great things in the Bible. And then like five minutes later, just sticking his foot in his mouth and saying something really stupid. And but, you know, Peter was a great man of God. Peter had his failures in life. He had his lack of faith when when he was walking on water and he started to sink, you know, just that everybody lacks faith, though. Peter's kind of a picture of of most Christians where, you know, we're we're really faithful and we're really bold. And then sometimes it just takes a little bit to kind of knock us off. Or maybe we say too much and then we have to kind of walk back what we say and eat those words. But tonight, I want to show you four ways to help you to avoid being sifted by Satan. Now, you know, if Satan's going to attack, sometimes just preaching the word of God is going to get you attacked. Sometimes there's nothing you can do about being attacked, but there are some things you can do. And I think we'll find it here in the text, some things will help us, you know, to not get sifted on, you know, from our own accord. You know, when if you're if you're sifted by Satan for preaching the Bible, for preaching the word of God, then there's nothing to be ashamed of. But there's sometimes when Satan can get a hold of us and start to attack us over things that we do to ourselves. It's like that meme that you see with the little Asian kid. And it looks like someone's putting a boot on his neck. Right. But then you look at the other part of the meme and it's like his own arm in the boot. Right. He's like choking himself. It's kind of like that. And as Christians, sometimes we do it to ourselves. And, you know, the last person you want to have, you know, squaring off against you is the devil himself. And this is literally Satan himself going after Peter. And you wonder why? Why Peter? Why why didn't he say that to the rest of the disciples? Well, in the book of Acts, the apostle Peter is the one that preached that great sermon. Three thousand people get saved that day. They get baptized. And the power of the Holy Spirit is poured upon the church that day. But Peter is the one after Jesus is gone, that kind of leads the charge. Right. So why would Satan want to tear Peter to shreds and tear him apart and make him quit? Because ultimately, we know that Peter quit, didn't he? Jesus told him to quit his job fishing. But what did he do? He went back fishing, didn't he? He felt like after this happened to him that he was done. And you know what? And God was not done with him. The Lord Jesus Christ was not done with him. And, you know, when Satan attacks us and if he beats us up, you know, God's not necessarily done with you either. So don't get down about being attacked. You know, my son in law, Dylan, Steadfast Baptist Church, Pastor Shelley are just under constant attack right now. They're doxing their house. They're I mean, putting their their address and their and their phone numbers online for anybody to see their wishing. And, you know, it's funny how they wish death upon us after saying that we think that someone should be executed as a capital crime for someone that's a sodomite. So we're just saying something. We're not like pastors of the preaching for 15 years. Pastor Mendez, how long have you been preaching for? Eleven. Has anybody that you preach to ever killed a sodomite that you know of? No. See, you know what? And I've been preaching for a while, too. And look, we that's you know why? Because we don't preach that. We don't preach that you all should go get up and do something. But yet all over the Internet, all over the news right now, they're saying Baptist preacher calls for people to be on a live. That's like the new word. You can't say that killed, I guess, on social media. So they say this person saying they're going to analyze somebody. It's like the first time I heard that, I was like, are they being serious? Like, but I guess if you say killed or something like that on social media, then like they'll automatically do something to your channel or something. But anyway, you know, nobody nobody has ever preached. Pastors never preach that Pastor Mendez has never preached that. I've never preached that. We've never said that it's our job as Christians to go out and put people to death. And you know what? We never will say that. It's funny they even put the caveats in, you know, of our preaching in there. And they still can't register. They can't speak English. They can't understand English. They can't read English. And at one point I commented and I was like, you know, I didn't hear where he told the congregation to go out and kill homosexuals. And they're like, don't you have ears? It's like, yeah, I do have ears. And that's not what he said. He said the government by trial should put them to death because it's a capital crime. Now, just because our laws have gotten weak and watered down and everything, this state here used to put sodomites to death. Did you know that this state of New Jersey used to have that as a law here? So but why are they being attacked right now? Because they are preaching the word of God. And you know what? If we just stop preaching against the sodomites, all of us just said, you know what, we're not preaching against the sodomites anymore. We're done preaching about that. You know what? People would still be pissed off by our preaching because everything that we preach, what is the word of God? People get upset. What do they get upset about? What are the other things that they get upset about? Well, they get upset about the Jews, of course. But and around here, that's probably, you know, a really hard subject to preach. But what else do they get upset about? Women wearing pants, you know, divorce and remarriage. I mean, just name the doctrine that we preach about and people are going to get mad about even salvation. They get mad about the salvation message that we preach. They're just going to you know what? They're just going to get mad about everything that we preach, everything that we preach. And so, you know, Satan knew that that Peter was probably going to be the face of this new movement. And he went out and, you know, tried to have his way with Peter. And the Lord Jesus Christ warns him here, doesn't he? He says before the doubt that thou shalt excuse me, verse 34 again. And he said, I tell me, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny thou knows me. So again, tonight, four ways to help you avoid being sifted by Satan. Four points. Number one tonight. Avoid the sifter by following Christ closely. One way that you can avoid the sifter, who is who? Who's the sifter? Satan, right? To avoid the sifter is by following Christ closely. Look at verse number 54 in our text. It says, Then took they him and led him and brought him into the high priest's house. And Peter, what? What's it say? Followed a far off. He followed a far off. Now, obviously, Peter's afraid here. You know, he followed Jesus closely all this time, and then he gets arrested. And then Peter is following him a far off. And I just take that as a picture of, you know, he's he's setting himself up for the sifter right here. This is just one, you know, because in our Christian life, there's times when we don't follow Christ as close as we should either. Right. There's lots of times in our lives when, you know, you know, just things are busy, things are going on or maybe just get backslidden. But sometimes we're not following Jesus as closely as we should be. And so Peter followed a far off. He wasn't walking closely with the Lord. When we begin to follow Jesus far off, it makes us easy pickings for the sifter. So predators, when preying on animals like sheep or cattle, for instance, they try to isolate that animal. I've ever seen those videos where you'll see like a pack of wolves and there's like all these wildebeest or whatever, whatever kind of animal they're trying to hunt, and they'll find either a baby or they'll find a weak, injured animal. And they try to isolate that animal. And they try to get it away from the rest of the pack because there's safety in numbers of the pack. You know, when you're walking with Christ, you should be in fellowship with your brother or sister. Christ, you should be in church. Right. And so the Bible multiple times talks about how the were sheep of the great shepherd. Right. And so if you're if you're in sight of the shepherd, if you're if you're walking close with the shepherd, he's going to guide you. He's going to protect you. He's going to watch over you. But predators, when they see that you're walking off, you're away from the pack, what are the what's a predator going to do? They're going to try to isolate you. What is what is saying? Well, he's the sifter, but he's a predator. Just like all his followers are predators, too. But they gang up and they choose the weakest one to go after. And so when we're weak as Christians, it's when we're not following Jesus closely, isn't it? When we're weak, you know, people might not be able to see how bad off you really are, that you're really ready to quit or that you're just tired of going to church. But you know, who knows that God knows that. And you know what? We can't see the devil. We can't see his minions. But you know what? They see what we do, too. And they see when we're not following closely. They see when we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing. So Peter, right off the bat here, he starts. He follows, but he's not following closely, is he? Look at first Peter, Chapter five, verse number eight. First Peter, Chapter five, verse number eight. This is a very famous scripture, but it kind of goes along with what I was saying about the predator. Satan is like a predator. He's the sifter. He wants to destroy you. He wants to destroy your life. He wants, what's he ultimately want to do? He wants to make you quit. He wants to kill you. He wants to kill your whole family. He wants to destroy your family. He wants to sift you. He wants to take what he wants and use it for his for his purposes. And then what's he want to do? He wants to discard the rest of you. And so if you're not doing things for God, you're not really fair game, are you? If you're trying to do something for God, then he's going to come after you. So these are times when you're trying to do great things for God. That's when the sifter is going to come. That's when he's going to come and try to separate you from the pack and try to do anything he can to stop you from serving God. So this is what happens to a lot of new Christians. They get they get, you know, they get sifted at the beat. They're like, I'm going to go to church three times a week. The car breaks down. I'm going to go to I'm going to go to church three times a week. I'm late or I have to work later. Well, you know, just whatever it is, the kids are sick. But, you know, there's there's always some reason why we can't make it to something. But you know what? If you purpose in your heart to follow the Lord and to follow him closely, you know, he's going to make sure that you know, you might go through some trials. You might go through some hardships trying to go. But look, if you set your face like a flint, like the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was going up to Jerusalem, he set his face like a flint. And if you set your face like a flint, say, I'm serving the Lord, no matter what comes and you know what, things might come. But you know what? You get up and you go and serve him again. You follow him closely. Look what it says in First Peter, Chapter five. It says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Now you say, well, Pastor Thompson, how's that being like the sifter? Well, when lions eat things, it applies a lot of pressure with its jaws to try to eat it, doesn't it? And then it eats you and it gets all the protein that it wants from you. And then the rest comes out the drought. Right. The rest of it is discarded. So the devil is a sifter in all of his forms and all the things that he does to try to to attack Christians and attack Bible believers, to attack preachers. And he's trying to look, this is Peter writing this. He's been through the sifting process. He understands this very well. And we'll go to some other verses where Peter talks about these types of things, because he had the experience. He went through it. He went through this sifting process. So Satan is a sifter. OK, so we need to understand that, like Peter followed Jesus afar off. But what so what should we do? We should follow him closely. And if we follow him closely, you know, we can avoid being sifted because, you know, Satan just waiting for you to just get fed up or, you know, have problems with other members of the church or whatever. Don't let anything stop you from serving God. You know what? You go through trials, you go to tribulations, you go through hard times, but you know what? That shouldn't be what makes you serve God or not serve God. What should make you serve God is the fact that he saved you. He loves you and he has a lot of work for us to do. And so when a worker gets knocked out, you know, that's not good for the kingdom of God. Jesus, many times in the New Testament, said, Follow me. He would he would say he said to Matthew at the receipt of customs. He said, Follow me. And immediately he got up and follow them. He said to, you know, the disciples, the beginning, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. You know, he said to the rich young ruler, sell everything you have and come and follow me. So Jesus wants us to follow him. He says it a lot because that's what he means. And if you're following him far off, you're not really following him very closely. OK, so I like to use this. I was thinking about this, but. There's this bumper stickers that say, Do you follow Jesus as close as you've ever seen those? I actually want one of those. If anybody knows where to find those, let me know. I would definitely like to have one of those. But when I'm driving somewhere and people ask me, hey, can I follow you to wherever, you know, we're going to a soul, any place or whatever, I know the way how to get there. They're like, Pastor Thompson, can I follow you? And I always say, you know, you must follow me as close as you follow Jesus. And that's really close. OK, so you have to follow me like you're supposed to follow Jesus close. And so what I mean by that is like, don't drive slow behind me. If you're if you want to follow me, I'm going to get there in a quick manner. Now I'll I'll dial it back when I have when I know people are following me and they're like judging me for how I drive. But, you know, the point is, is that we're supposed to follow Jesus close. Peter was falling far off. So that's one way to avoid the sifter. Now, let me ask you this. Are you following Jesus close? Well, how how how are things going in your walk right now tonight? I mean, you're in here, so you're following them pretty close right now. You're here. But I just want to make sure that you understand that we're supposed to continue to follow him close. Have you drifted afar? Have you have you kind of drifted back? Have you dialed back your soul? When have you dialed back your church attendance? Well, you know, you don't want to give Satan the room that he needs to to get involved into your life, because sometimes God will allow Satan to to mess with you when you're not doing the things you're supposed to be doing. So now let's look back at our text. Let's look at point number two. Point number two is to avoid the sifter. We need to come out of the world to avoid the sifter. We need to come out from the world. Look what Luke Chapter 22 verse 55 says. It says that when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall and were set down together, Peter sat down among them. So picture this. He's falling too far off. These people that just captured Jesus. Some of these are the are the the people that work in the area or whatever. And there's some people there that have made a fire and they've made this trial for Jesus, this illegal trial, by the way. And so they they sit down and make this fire, and it says, and we're sat down together. Peter sat down among them. Peter sat down among them. So Peter is warming himself with the world's fire. Peter is warming himself with the enemies of Jesus Christ, sitting there with them, mingling in amongst them. And I and I think, well, you know, would I have done the same thing? Well, I mean, I hope not. These things are a lesson for us to understand that, you know, we should be following Jesus close, not a far off. And, you know, we shouldn't be at the world's fire enjoying their things with them and acting like we don't know him and behaving like we don't know him. So it says we'll turn to First John Chapter two, verse 15. So, Peter, you know, the Bible has this principle where we're supposed to come out from among the world and be separate. We're supposed to not love the world. So Peter here, he's warming himself by the fire. He's sitting with God's enemies, you know, you know, and we're when we're worldly and we assemble ourselves with God's enemies and with people we shouldn't be hanging around with. You know, that's a good way for the sifter to come and attack you. So look at First John Chapter two verse 15. It says, Love not the world. Now, before I go any further here, I just want to say this. God so loved the world. But this is different. This is talking about something different. God loves the world. He wants them to be saved. But it doesn't mean he wants us playing in the in the pigpen with the unbelievers. He doesn't want us going to the bars and drinking and smoking and carousing and whatever all the things that the world does. He doesn't want us hanging out with them unless we're trying to get them saved so they can come out from among the world and be part of the kingdom of God. But it says, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but as of what the world. Peter is sitting with the world, warming himself, hanging out with these people. But, you know, the funny thing is, is that people start to ask him questions, don't they? See, people will start doing that to you also. When you're at work and you're hanging out and you're doing and partaking with with people, the things that the world does. And they're going to start asking you questions. Don't you go to church? Aren't you aren't you a Baptist? Like, don't you believe all things should be shot in the head? No. Don't you believe it's like you believe in the death penalty for all these different things? And, you know, that's what's going to happen. You know, you play it, you hang out with the world, you go to their fire, you do the things that they do. They know that you go to church, they're going to call you out. They're going to be used by the devil to make you look back in front of other people. It's going to destroy your testimony. You're never going to get that person saying that you want to get saved because you know what? They just don't trust you. They're like, he's one person at some place and he's a different person here. So we don't want to be that way. Look at second Corinthians, chapter six, verse 14. You know, and obviously we all have to work at places where people are not saved and things like that. I understand that. But when you're partaking of their sick jokes, you know, you're talking exactly like them, you know, and it's going to it's going to be affecting your life because that's when you're inviting the sifter to come. But look at second Corinthians, chapter six, verse 14, it says, be not unequally yoked together. What does it say? Unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness? What's the answer to that? They don't. So that's why we're supposed to come out from the world. We're supposed to be separate from them. And so that we can be a light to the world and not join in in their darkness. Look at verse 17. It says, Wherefore, come out from among them and be separate, save the Lord and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. And, you know, if you're doing worldly things, it's sinful, isn't it? So, I mean, and again, you know, Peter's trying to blend in here. But that's what people do. That's what Christians do, too. They try to blend in with the world and not be looked at as the freak, the peculiar one, the one that, you know, that doesn't cuss and swear, the one that goes to church on Sundays and Wednesday nights or Thursday nights or whatever, you know, people we get scared. Like Peter is literally afraid of a little girl. He's afraid of just people he doesn't even know. Like, why do you care? But for some reason, that pressure gets upon us and I'm getting ahead of myself. Turn to James chapter four. See, we're not supposed we're supposed to come out from among them and be separate. And James, he has some pretty harsh words. And this look, take this to heart. Take this next set of scriptures to heart, because it's very sobering when you think about the fact that if you want to be friendship and friendship with the world and you want to you want to be one person, you want to be a little double life and live one way. I mean, I'm not saying you're not saved. I'm just saying you live a double life. You're double minded at church. You're one person at work or another or wherever else or with your family or with your mom and dad or whatever it is. You know, look at what the Bible says in verse four, says the adulterers and adulteresses know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. That means God is against you. Whosoever, therefore, what does whosoever mean? Anyone, right? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is what? The enemy of God. Doesn't matter if you're saved or not. You can be saved and still be the enemy of God. I mean, just read the Old Testament, read the Book of Kings, read the Book of Judges. You know, they made themselves. God said, hey, if you don't do this, then this is what's going to happen. And it happened in there. And then even up into the most gruesome things and bad things that God said were going to happen if they didn't follow them, that's what happened. So when we are a friend of the world, we are the enemy of God because what's he trying to do? He's trying to get those people saved. And what you're doing is stopping them from getting saved. You're actually stopping them from getting saved by the way you're acting and the way you're being around them. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, verse five, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? See, because we do. We still and we still lust to envy the spirit within us, not the Holy Spirit, but our own spirit wants to do things that it shouldn't want to do, that the flesh wants to do wickedness and sin. But it says in verse six, but he giveth more grace. Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. So so see, James has given us some good advice when we resist the devil, when we resist the friendship with the world. You know, when we're not an enmity with God, when we're not God's enemy, and when we just stop allowing ourselves to be controlled by our lust and our flesh, then and we're humble, you know? And when we mess up, hey, be humble with God. Don't just sit there and act like what you're doing is OK and try to twist the Bible to make yourself not be sinning or something. It says resist the devil and he will flee from you. He's not going to sift you. He's going to flee from you. So this is a way come out from among them and be separate. Say the Lord, come out from among the world. You know what? God will be your friend. Why was Abraham the friend of God? Well, because he did what God said. He obeyed God. He loved God. Was even willing to give up his own son in order to serve the Lord. So let me ask you this question. Are you part of the world? Are you living the double life? Are you living a separated life? Do you have friendship with the world? Look, I'm not saying do you love your parents or so I'm not saying that. I'm saying, are you just hanging out with your old buddies? Are you just acting like it's OK? It must feel weird. It must feel bad. It must feel like you're a Benedict Arnold or a double agent of some sort when you're just doing the same old things you used to do at church on Sunday. You know, you're acting like you're the world's greatest Christian. Look, I'm not saying people don't sin. People do sin. But see, when we humble ourselves before God and we confess our sins before God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So look, if you're if you're if you're sliding back into the world, if you're like, I don't know if TV's that bad. I don't know if this is that. But I don't know if the world in music is that bad. It's that bad, right? They're literally worshiping the devil in front of you. And you're like, yes, it's so cool. Yeah. While they're wearing like bath in their shirts and, you know, do what thou wilt, thou shall be the whole law, like Jay-Z or whatever. I mean, these people are openly I mean, they're not even hiding it anymore. These people, these these pop stars and stuff, they're just flat out worshiping the devil right in front of people. Everybody's just like, yeah, this is so great. It's wicked as hell, folks. We need to come out from among the world and be separate. Number three tonight, avoid the sifter by avoiding compromise through worldly pressure. See, we can avoid the sifter by avoiding compromise through worldly pressure. And this is what Peter this is what the devil uses against Peter is worldly pressure. He uses peer pressure. People say peer pressure isn't really real. They're joking themselves. They're going to be kidding themselves. Peer pressure is legitimately real. And not only that, apparently total strangers can can be peer pressure to you because look at let's look back at our text and Luke Chapter 22 verse 56. I see the devil wants us to compromise. He wants us to compromise so that we feel defeated. And so we'll quit. He wants us. But what I said, he wants us to quit. He wants to destroy you. He wants to destroy your family. He wants to take you out of a good Bible believing church so that you're not effective. He wants to use you for what he wants to use you for, which is probably to make God look bad. And then he wants to discard you and leave you broken and sifted like wheat. Look what it says in Luke 22 56. It says, But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire and earnestly looked upon him and said, This man was also with him. So he's enjoying the fire. It's just like roasted marshmallows or something. I don't know what he's doing. He's sitting there. Right. And this maid, the certain maid looks at him and said, This man was also with him. What's he say? And he denied him. Saying, Woman, I know him not. There's the first denial right there. And so to say that you don't know Jesus when you actually do. The Bible says, Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Yeah. But I understand that Peter's under pressure here. Think about what's going on here. He was Jesus was arrested in the garden. Peter's cut one of their ears off. Jesus healed the guy's ear. They take him away. They're punching him. They're sitting in his face. They're mocking him. They have a bag over his head at certain points. They're beating him mercilessly. And Peter's like, if I identify with him right now, I'm going to be in the same boat as him. He's afraid. He's afraid. And there's pressure. There's legitimate pressure to compromise here. But look what it says in verse 58. It says, And after a little while, another saw him and said, Thou art also with them. And Peter said, Man, I am not. So first, it's like, woman, I know not. And he's like, man, I know. You know, he's always like using the proper pronouns here. But it says, I am not. He didn't say they, I know them. And about the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed saying of a truth, this fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean. And Peter said, you know, he felt he feels like he dodged the first bullet. But here comes the next one. Here comes the next one. It says that Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately while he spake the cock crew, Peter has compromised himself. Peter has denied the Lord three times, just like Jesus said he was going to do. And Peter and then it says, and this is like. A very dramatic moment in the Bible right here, it says, and the Lord turned and looked upon Peter and Peter remembered the word of the Lord and how he said unto him before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Imagine Peter sitting there. He's he's afraid. He's just compromised. He's denied the Lord three times. And then from across the room or wherever he was, Jesus just turns his face and looks at him. And I don't know what his face looked like at that point, but it was enough to make Peter remember what he had said to him. And what's it say? And Peter went out and wept bitterly. So not the greatest moment in Peter's life. And so Jesus foretold that this was going to happen to him. Jesus foretold that Satan wanted him and he wanted to sift him like weed. It seems like he's going through a pretty big sifting right here. Now, obviously, he's not enduring physical pain. He's not he's not dealing with physical punishment. It's just pressure. But it's still pressure, isn't it? Because people mocking you and making fun of you and the fear of being hurt is a legitimate pressure. The devil will use that to try to sift you as weed also. So in order to avoid being sifted in this way, we need to not compromise. See, Peter did have a choice here. He could have not compromised. He could have said, no, I do know him. And then who knows what would have happened to him next? Well, maybe the Lord would have protected him. We don't really know because that's not the choice he made. But see, this is in here as a lesson to us to help us to understand that, you know, there's a few things that we can understand here. Well, number one, you know, we can avoid the sifter by when we get my we can avoid the sifter by following Christ closely. Peter stopped following him closely. And then to avoid the sifter, we need to come out of the world. He's with the world. He's with the enemies of God. And then we can avoid the sifter by avoiding the compromise, by saying, yes, I know the man. Yes, Jesus is my Lord. And people are saying, hey, are you one of those Christians? Those fanatical evangelical Christians or whatever? You're like, yeah, I am. That's not compromising. Yeah, that's just being true to yourself. And you know what? Who cares with some stranger that you don't even know things? Who cares with some work friend of yours? Thanks. Who cares? You know what? It's better to to go through a little bit of hazing and a little bit of persecution and everybody, you know, whispering about you when you walk into the room than it is to have Jesus look at you after you've denied him in front of other people. So just think about this story before you. When you get into a situation like that and maybe some of you happen in that situation where you you've compromised in that way. But you know what? You can make it back. You can, you know, be forgiven. The Lord can still use you. Jesus, I mean, people think that Peter, like, lost his salvation or something when he denied the Lord. He was already saved, folks. He can't lose your salvation. So what a defeat, though, for Peter. What a bad moment in his life. But you know what? We can look at this story and think, well, I would have done something different. Maybe you wouldn't have, though. We can look at this. We can look at the things that Peter does, like, you know, one minute he's saying thou art the Christ, the son of living God, to whom shall we go? And then like five minutes later, Jesus is like, get behind me, Satan, thou art an offense to me. You know, we're just we're human beings, we're sinful and we and we we fall into bad times sometimes. But who do you think sent these people to say these things to Peter? Who do you who do you think did that? It was probably the sifter. Right. And so he's being tested there. You know, like predators will also test. They'll run. They run circles around people. They try to just find a weak point in someone. And that's what he did. He used because, look, Satan can use anybody that's not saved. Not saying that there are some evil reprobates or something necessarily. But Satan can use people. He has the whole world mind control pretty much and all these different things that are around us in the world. And when we get saved, we have overcome the wicked one. The Bible says we've overcome them. We've overcome that. We're saved. But it doesn't mean that the devil is not going to come for us in in one of these ways. So, you know, turn to chapter 13, verse number 20. I believe that Satan is the one that sent these people that he sat down next to to to test them. And that's what they'll do in our lives, too. They'll do the same exact thing. Put you in a position where are they going to compromise or not? And then when when we do compromise, then that's when Satan can have his run at us. So Matthew 13, 20 says, But he that received the seed in stony places, the same as he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it. It's a person that gets saved, right? Yet have he no, not excuse me, not root in himself, but dureth for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arise, it because of the word by and by, he's offended. This is talking about a new Christian. And then once the tribulation or persecution happens in their life, they because of the word, what's the word? The word of God, because the Bible, right? Because that that Bible that you believe in, it offends people. It makes people angry. It makes sinners angry. It makes the heathen rage. They hate there's people in this world that hate the word of God. And they'll use situations to bring tribulation to you. I mean, in the early church, they were telling people they've been killing prophets for thousands of years, folks, not just in the New Testament. It happened in the Old Testament. Also, there they've been killing Christians that refuse to compromise for many, many, many years. And so but a lot of times when people are faced with persecution that are new believers because of tribulation or persecution, they will be offended. They will fall away and they don't want anything to do with it because they can't handle the persecution. So we have to be on guard for that stuff. And so, you know, you know, when when the persecution comes, you've got to stay strong. You've got to you've got to buckle down and just say, you know what? I don't care what's going to happen. I care about not compromising my faith in Christ. Number four tonight, if you're sifted by the devil, be converted. If you're sifted by the devil, be converted, because here's the thing about the sermon. I've given you some some keys to not get sifted by the devil. But even with saying all that, say you do everything perfectly right. The devil can still attack you in certain situations. The Lord has to allow it, of course. But what did he tell Peter? Let's look back at our text in Luke chapter 22, verse number 31. What did he say? See, the Lord Jesus told them, you know, this is what Satan wants to do to you. But what did he say? He said in verse 31, And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And it says, and when thou are converted, strengthen thy brethren. So the Lord Jesus is kind of just trying to help him. He knows what's going to happen, of course. And so he's given him some guidance for what to do after he gets sifted. You know, and he, you know, he appeared to he said that he was going to go meet them in Galilee after he resurrected. But Peter still quit. Peter saw the resurrected Christ, but Peter still quit. And then when he was in Galilee, you know, Jesus is, you know, remember the scene that he's fishing, he jumps in, he knows it's the Lord. He swims back to shore. There's fish on the, you know, and bread on the fire. And he's like, come and die. You know, and this is that's the part of the John chapter 20 or 21, when he, you know, he basically restores Peter and lets him know, hey, I still want to use you. And that's what he asked them. Love is not me, Peter. And says, feed my sheep. And they asked him three times and he said, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. So he was not done with him, even though Peter failed this test. He still ended up getting back on the horse and doing that, which was right. And Peter. Was prayed for by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, he said, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. See, a lot of times people's faith fails. They go through all these trials. They go through these afflictions. They go through these tribulations. They go. The devil is trying to sift them like we. And like I said, sometimes we allow we we do it to ourselves. But the problem is, is that we sometimes people just get they get out and they're and they're done for good. They can't handle it. But see, what does God want from you? You know, the Lord Jesus Christ prayed for Peter. But did you know that he prayed for you too? Did you know that? So he says, when thou are converted, strengthen thy brethren, you know, and converted obviously can mean that you you converted someone to the faith and got them saved. But Peter was saved already. So that's not what he's talking about here, is it? So in this case, I think that Peter is, you know, basically being told that he's going to turn back to the man that he was before he quit. That's what I think. You know, he was a man that had great faith. He had great zeal. And although he did put his foot in his mouth, a lot of times, a lot of times he said some really great things. And so even though he fell, he was backslidden and was sifted by Satan through his own failure. He lacked faith in the matter of denying who he knew who Jesus was. So he said, I pray that your faith will not fail. And so ultimately, did his faith fail or did his faith succeed? It succeeded. So. Well, let's turn to first Peter, chapter five, verse 10, first Peter, chapter five, verse 10. So if you're sifted number four by the devil, be converted. What do I mean by that? Well, look at what Peter says himself in his own epistle. It says, but the God of grace. So he had just got done talking about Satan being a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Verse number eight, it would have says in verse number 10. But the God of all grace, who have called us unto his eternal glory by Christ, Jesus, after that, you have suffered a while. Make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. So Peter understands this concept because he went through it, right? And sometimes we suffer for a while. But sometimes that suffering makes us perfect. Sometimes that's, you know, and I'm not saying perfect as in sinless, I'm saying perfect as in the total package as a Christian. It's going to help us that when we go through the persecution, when we go through the affliction, God is going to help us on the other side of that. And eventually it's going to stop. Eventually, that persecution will stop. It'll be a relief of the pressure, because what is the pressure? What is the sifter do? He applies pressure to us. He applies pressure against us. And if we can just endure that, then we'll come out on the other side. OK, now turn to John Chapter 17, verse number eight. John Chapter 17, verse number eight. Now this is the I said, did you know that Jesus prayed for you also? So he prayed for Peter. He said, I prayed for the. But my faith would not fail. But he prayed for you and I also later on in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is what this passage is from where Jesus is praying for his disciples. I don't have time to go through the whole thing, obviously. But I'm going to show some highlights here. Verse number eight in John 17 says, for I have for I have given unto them the words which thou gave us me, and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from me and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them, which thou has given me for their vine. So he prayed for his disciples. He prayed for them, but he also prayed for us. Future us. Right. So let's see. Look down at. Verse 14, it says, I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. And just really quickly, look, if you preach the word, if you follow the Bible, if you follow God's word, if you preach it. You're going to get hated. You're going to get hated. People are like, well, why does everybody hate you guys so much? Because we love the Bible, because we love God's word, because we want to go out and preach the gospel to the same, because we get up and we stand up and we rip face against the wickedness of this world that we live in. You know what? And someone has to do it. Someone has to do it. Because, you know, there's a lot of people out there that have fallen down on the job and they're not doing what God said and they're not preaching the word of God. And it makes me sick because the Bible says we're going to be hated, hated of all men. Right. And then people like others understand why people hate you guys so much. The Bible says we're going to be hated. What do you mean? That's why Jesus prayed for us, because he knew that if we actually followed the Bible, we actually followed God's word. If we actually preach what it says, the people are going to hate us. Look at verse 15, it says, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. So we're not supposed to go live in some commune somewhere or something. We're not supposed to farm together on some communist farm, right? We're not supposed to go in homestead or whatever together. He says, I pray, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the work, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil. And that's not necessarily saying of what God said. That's not necessarily saying of us doing evil, evil happening to us, because persecution is evil happening to us, regardless of whether it's mocking, regardless of whether it's spitting, regardless of whether it's losing your job, regardless of whether it's beating you, regardless of whether it's doxing you and your whole family and telling them that, you know, I hope that you guys get what's coming to you. They're trying to terrorize us in every single way that they can. But we got to stand up to it. We got to get through it. You know what? We sang that song where it talks about we will serve thee to what? Death. Faith of our fathers. Holy faith. Right. We sing the songs, but do you really believe them? Because some people die for their faith and for what they believe. And you know what? It's it seems like a very small amount of people are getting up and preaching what the Bible says, because why? Because they're like Peter. When he compromised. He doesn't. Yeah. Look, there's pastors that agree with us on some of these issues. They just are too afraid to say something. They're afraid they're afraid to lose their tithers. They're afraid to lose, you know, their followers are afraid their churches are going to get small or whatever. But you know what? God's going to he's going to take care of us. He's prayed for us. But what it says in verse 20 says, neither pray I for these alone, but for what them also, which shall believe on me through their word. That's y'all. That's everybody in this room. Because because of what they did and going through the world and preaching the gospel, we're here. We're saved today because the Bible says it's faith to faith. Right. It's faith to faith. So we are saved because of the faith that they have, that they pass on to somebody else because they weren't afraid to go out and preach the truth. He was chapter seven. You can turn to Proverbs 24, verse 16, Hebrews, chapter seven, verse 25 says, Wherefore he is able to save them to the other most that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Just know this. Look, God, Jesus Christ is our high priest. He's there making intercession for us. You know, and whatever we go through, God does allow it to happen. But see, we can also help our own circumstances by not falling into the pitfalls that Peter fell into that night. We don't want to get sifted, do we? You know, we don't really want it. But when it starts to happen, it's like, well, here we go. You know, we literally our church got protested a couple of years ago and it only lasted for a couple of weeks. But the reason why we got protested was because one of our people, I still don't know who it was, it doesn't matter, I wouldn't be mad at them anyway. Left one of our invitations on the door of a sodomite. And so they raised hell and were dancing and doing all the weird stuff that these sodomites do in front of people, starts showing pornographic pictures to our children as they walked in. But that's OK. You know, they always say, this is the Bible, say to love thy neighbor. Well, that's what we're trying to do. Idiots, right? We're inviting them to church. Sorry, we didn't know you were a God-hating reprobate. We were trying to actually help you, but obviously there is no help for you. But you know what? God knows what we're going to go through. He knows that the things we're going to we're going to be dealing with. So if you've gone through the sifter, if you've been attacked, if you've gone through persecution or if you're going through it right now, just know this, that you can recover from it. And in fact, you know, Peter did, didn't he? Joe did. I mean, you want to talk about someone that got really afflicted. I mean, Joe got really afflicted. But you know what? In the end, he came out the better, didn't he? He lost, he lost his children, obviously, but he also got 10 more children. Everything that was taken away from him. God gave it back to him. But why? Because Joe handled the pressure. And see, God's probably not going to ever put that kind of pressure on anybody in this room. But it's a it's a it's a it's a story, a true story to show us this is what one man could endure. What about our Lord Jesus Christ? He endured the cross, despising the shame for the joy that was set before him, knowing that he was going to save everybody's soul that's in this room to save today. And everybody in the whole world will have a chance to be saved and be offered salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. Here in Proverbs, Chapter 24, verse 16, if you've been sifted before, what's the Bible say? For a just man follows seven times and rises up again. But the wicked shall follow the mission. Hey, you know, if you fall, obviously, this could be you falling into sin. And it's probably the primary topic of it, but when the sifter made Peter fall, he rose back up again, didn't he? And he went out and did great things for God. Turn to Ephesians, Chapter six. I'm almost done here. Really, really? It's not even been an hour yet, Pastor Menace. He's going to be so proud of you, but it's going to go like 10, 15 minutes later now. One page, you know, another 35 minutes. So he's chapter six. The Bible tells us finally, verse number 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against what the wiles of the devil. See, it's not our power. It's God's power. So God, you know, we Jesus said he prayed for us. He prayed for everybody in here. And you know what? He ever liveth to make intercession for us. And he said, be strong in the Lord, not in yourself. Put on the whole armor of God that you can stand against the wiles of the devil. Does it say that we can defeat the devil? It says that we can stand against them for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. This is what we're seeing happen today. How how in the world? Can the police say I'm not coming to help you because of what you believe? We I mean, I just this is what I can't fathom about the whole thing that's going on with steadfast. They're allowing these freaks to smash their windows, to display themselves vulgar, vulgarly in front of other children, to cover up their stuff, to vandalize them. And then instead of sticking up for them, they write a little thing saying, we're basically disgusted by what they're doing to. We're going to look further into it. I mean, I don't have the whole thing memorized, but they're basically just saying we don't care. Do whatever you want. This is principalities. This is powers. This is spiritual wickedness in high places. See, someone is those cops bosses. And you know what? They don't want to lose their job, do they? So they're going to just do whatever the higher power tells them to do. And they should be ashamed of themselves for not doing their job. It's wicked. They're supposed to be protecting and serving. They made an oath and they would defend the Constitution and they're not doing it. It's super wicked. But you know what? It's like an unstoppable force against an immovable object right now. And, you know, we need to pray for Pastor Shelley and steadfast after church. Don't forget them in your prayers. What's being done to them is super wicked. And you know what? They're not threatening to hurt anybody. Nobody from Pastor Shelley's church has hurt a single soul. It's the word, it's this book. So that's what's that's what's happening. They're preaching this book. That's their crime. So what if we believe that? That's what the Bible says. So if we believe that. But we're not we're not inciting anybody to do anything. See, they're just lying. They're just lying. They're just a flat out lie. I mean, all these news channel. I mean, they're calling Dylan pastor. I mean, we all know Dylan's not the pastor. It's like you can't even get one single fact straight in your article. You just have to lie and just just man. You know what? And a lot of us have preached the same exact thing. But for whatever reason, you know, they're picking on pasty Dylan, the whitest man in the new life. That must be why, you know, he must be racist because he's white or whatever. But anyway, I mean, who knows why these things happen? It's a test for Dylan's faith, too, but you know what? Jesus prayed for him. Jesus prayed for steadfast. Jesus prayed for Pastor Shelley. He's prayed for all of us. But you know what? If he said, I'm not ever preaching against those all lights again, that would be a compromise. Who knows what's going to happen? But you know what? I know this. They're regardless of what happens, regardless of what happens in the future. We all get to go to heaven. We all get to go to heaven. You know what? And they are going to get what they deserve. We want to talk about getting what they deserve. I'm not talking about here in this life. Maybe they give AIDS or monkey pox and die. I hope so. I hope they get all those things, all those incurable diseases. Because, you know what? They're putting forth their hand to touch the Lord's anointed and it's wicked. And so sometimes all we can do is just stand. The Bible says in verse 13 here. Wherefore, take you take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in that in the evil day. See that God prayed that he would keep us from evil. To withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. See, sometimes all we can do is just stand. That's all we can do. And whatever happens is going to happen. But with the armor of God, with the power of God, when we stand, God will stand there with us. So we don't need to compromise. We don't need to bow down. We don't need to say, yeah, I'm just I really like the Xbox logo with the rainbow on it. Look at every well, everybody's pain. They're all bowing down to these sodomites and just letting them do whatever they want. Who's really assaulting who? It's assaulting my eyeballs every single time I look at anything now. Nobody wants to see that allowing children to go into some drag queen thing and put dollar bills on a transvestite's waistband or something, they should be thrown in jail. They should be executed, actually. If Pastor Menes took his kids, which this would never happen. Well, I'm just using them as an example. This is my friend. If he took his kids to a strip club, they would arrest him and throw away the book and his kids would go probably to some side of my family or something. But you can take you can drag your kids to pride. You can take them in a bar that serves alcohol. And a cop is standing right there and they do nothing about it. What in the world is going on today? And we just have to sit here and take it. But you know what? To compromise. Is not the answer that we should have to not come. We need to not compromise again. So the sifter attacks God's people when they preach the word of God. The sifter attacks God's people when they do it to themselves. But the sister attacks people when you are starting to try to serve the Lord. If you're not serving the Lord, he doesn't care. But you know what? If you are serving the Lord or you're trying to serve the Lord, that's when he's going to come after you and he's going to give you everything he's got. But he you know, only God knows and you know what you're willing to compromise for. Don't compromise. You know what? Why don't you make a decision tonight and say, you know what? I'm going to serve God no matter what happens, no matter what comes against us. I'm going to serve God. I'm going to walk with him. I'm going to follow him. I'm going to separate myself from this world. And you know what? I'm going to say I'm going to set my face like a flint and I'm going to serve my Lord Jesus Christ until the day I die or until he comes back. And you know what? There's going to be a day when the sifter goes down and revelation chapter 12, I'm not going to return there for sake of time, but. Revelation 12, 11 says they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. Excuse me. Let me back up. Revelation 12, 10, it says, And I heard a loud voice in heaven. Excuse me, saying in heaven. Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. Someday the sifter is not going to be allowed to accuse us anymore. A lot of times he lies about us or tries to say, hey, does Job serve thee for not? Does Brad serve thee for not? Well, let me sift them a little bit. You know, but there's going to come a day when that all comes to an end because God is going to throw him into the lake of fire for all eternity. So we might not be able to completely stop the sifter from attacking us completely, and especially if you're living godly in Christ Jesus, you're going to suffer persecution. He's going to send his minions after you or him himself. But let's not make it easy for him. Let's not make it easy for him. Let's stand in our adversity and in our affliction and our persecution and stand strong for the Lord and be steadfast. So number one, to avoid the sifter, we need to follow Jesus close. Number two, we need to come out from the world and be separate. Number three, don't compromise through outside or inside pressure. That's including your family and all those. I didn't have time to get into all that. I'm done. Number four, if you're sifted by the devil, be converted. And you know what? Rise back up again. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for the word of God. Lord, I just pray that you would watch over all of our friends and all the people that are going through this sifting process. Lord, we especially pray for steadfast Baptist Church right now for all the things that they're going through. Lord, we're standing on the word of God. Pray that you just bless and protect them and keep them safe, Lord. And we know you've prayed for us, but we're asking you for protection, Lord, and for guidance and more that you help us to stand strong in that day of adversity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.