The title of the message is simply the same as last week, The Praying and Prevailing Christ Part Two. As I mentioned last Lord's Day morning, the words of our text were spoken by Christ in the upper room in Jerusalem on the night before his death. They were solemn words of warning because he referred to the evil intentions of Satan. to inflict serious harm upon his disciples. Peter was singled out for special attention. Jesus warned him about Satan's attack on him personally, for he said to him, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you. But then the Lord went on to say, but I have prayed for thee. Now we all know the story. that Satan did attack Peter, and sadly, Peter failed the Lord miserably. He was very foolish to ignore Christ's warning. But Jesus continued to speak to Peter and said, I have prayed for thee. As I said last time, there was a warning to alert Peter. The Lord always gives to his people a warning before they meet danger. to impress that warning upon our minds and upon our hearts. And then there is a word to assure Peter. He said, you're going to be attacked by the devil, but I have prayed for thee. In these verses, we also learn of the adversary of God's people. And of course, the adversary is identified here as Satan. And the advocate of God's people is Christ. And the difference is this, one stands against the believer, the other one stands for the believer. Now get that into your minds and hearts right now. We have an enemy, we have a foe. We have one who opposes us as the people of God. He opposes the gospel. He opposes the work of God. But there's one in the glory who prays for us. who upholds us, who strengthens us, who guarantees us and keeps us by his grace. Peter failed Christ, but he was not forsaken by Christ. And we need to think about that as well. We have our faults and our failures, but there's one thing our great high priest cannot fail us and never will forsake us. Last time I spoke of the seriousness of Simon's predicament, because the Lord said unto him, Satan hath desire to have you. Today we're going to think of another thing, the subtlety of Satan's plan, that thy faith fail not. The subtlety of Satan's plan. Now the serpent appears for the first time in the Bible in Genesis chapter 3 verse 1, under the guise of the serpent. The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. And that word subtle simply means cunning, crafty. One author actually said that he thinks that it means wiser. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3, the Apostle Paul is dealing with the incident there in Genesis 3. And this is what he said, the serpent beguiled Eve. That is, he deceived Eve. Or the sense of the word there really means he deceived her completely. How did he succeed? How did he do that? Through his subtlety, meaning craftiness. The devil was crafty. He was a deceiver. Job tells us in chapter 15 and verse 5 of the devices of the crafty. Then in verse 5, he talks about the tongue of the crafty. So he tells us what the crafty do and what the crafty say. By doing this, they let us know who they really are. And when you think of the devil, you think of the attack of the devil. We know who he really is. He's the deceiver. And he has many ways to deceive and delude God's people in these times. The only weapon that Eve had against the serpent was the Word of God. But unfortunately, Eve was not really skilled in the use of the Word of God. That was the unfortunate thing. This was her hope. This was her stay. This was the only weapon she had to resist the devil. But she was not really skilled in its use. That's the reason why we as the people of God need to fortify ourselves against the wiles of the devil by getting to know the word more and more. So Satan planted the seed of doubt in her mind, caused her to doubt the word of God, and then he overcame her easily and completely. So you go back to the Garden of Eden, there's the truth. God has revealed truth. The servant comes, he comes to the lie. Here's the contest. between truth and lying. And because she doubted the word of God, that brought about her fall. That brought about her fall. Now, Satan has a particular objective in attacking believers. Listen to what Jesus himself said in verse 32. I have prayed for thee that thy, that singular, He's referring to Simon Peter, that thy faith fail not. So here we see the objective of the devil, as his purpose to undermine the faith of the people of God. John Gill, famous commentator said, Satan strikes primarily at the faith of God's people. Now, let me define this faith that we have before us. The general definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11 verse one, faith as the substance of things, hope for the evidence of things not seen. But I'm sure from time to time, you've heard reference made to the term, the faith. Now, what does that mean? The faith is the general description of the entire gospel revelation. I think, for example, of Jude verse three, where we are exhorted to earnestly contend for the faith, that is the general content of the gospel, the entire gospel revelation. So you can see what that term really means. And then there's saving faith. Saving faith is God's method of saving sinners. It's the work of the Spirit of God that enables sinners to believe, accept, receive, and rest upon Christ for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. So, I think we're talking here about this saving faith that is the treasure of every child of God gathered here and listening to my voice today. This is the treasure that we have. I think of 2 Kings chapter 24 and verse 11, and we're told there about Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, he came against the city, that is the city of Jerusalem, verse 13. And what did he do? He took away all the treasures of the house of the Lord, including the vessels of gold. So the enemy came to attack the temple of God, the house of God, to rob the temple of God of the valuable treasures that were contained therein. And Satan, in a similar fashion, comes to attack the people of God, who are the temples of the Holy Ghost, to take away the treasure, the treasure that we have, this faith, to undermine faith. 1 Corinthians 6, 19 tells us that our body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. So the devil's object was to cause Peter's faith to fail. We're the temples of God. We are the possessions of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have deposited within us by faith. Faith, faith, faith. Faith that relies upon Christ. Faith that depends upon Christ. And the enemy is going to attack. When the phials of the air came in Matthew 13, they attacked the seed that was sown. There's the gospel seed. And the phials represent the works of the devil coming to steal away the good seed of the gospel. And in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the enemy attacked to take away the treasures, the vessels of the house of God. And Satan still comes today. to rob us of the joy of the Lord and the peace of God with them that comes through believing in Jesus Christ our Lord. The first Kings 22, Ahab the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah entered into an ungodly alliance to fight the king of Syria. Wicked Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, listen to it. And you see how gullible the man of God really was. He says, I will disguise myself and enter into battle, but put on my robes. That was a crafty move, was it not? Certainly it was. Ahab wanted to safeguard his own life. But he was prepared to sacrifice the life of Jehoshaphat to the enemy arrows or swords. The godly man was really gullible. He were facing the craft of the devil. Remember that commentator talking about the translation of that word subtle wiser. Sometimes the children of the world are wiser than the people of God. Ahab pretended to be someone he wasn't. It's very easy to do that, you know. That's what he pretended to do. He laid aside his garments, he laid aside his robes, and while he was dressed like a soldier, I don't know exactly how he dressed himself. It's easy to pretend that we're somebody we're not. God forgive us if that is the case. The strategy of the king of Syria is revealed in verse 31 of that particular chapter. He told his captains, listen to this, he said to his captains, fight neither with small or great, save only with the king of Israel. Now Jehoshaphat in his royal garments was targeted. because he was wearing the royal garments, and the soldiers thought, well, this has got to be the King of Israel. But the King of Israel was disguised, and now here was Jehoshaphat out there with the robe upon him. And so the command was, target Jehoshaphat. He's got the robes on. Now, if we take Jehoshaphat to represent the people of God, clothed with the glorious garment of righteousness in Jesus Christ, Being a child of God clothed with this garment of righteousness, you can be absolutely sure the devil is going to aim his arrows at you. He wants to defeat you. He wants to remove your faith. He wants to undermine your faith. And Jehoshaphat identified himself just in time. He cried out. And the amazing thing about it is even when we're gullible at times, When we are easily deceived by old Ahab, and we make a mistake and we go astray, God is yet merciful to us. And God was merciful to Jehoshaphat. He could have been killed on the battlefield that day, but God spared him because at heart he was a good man who had been easily deceived. Now here's the word coming to Peter. that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And that word faith is an interesting word. It means to give out, it means to die out, it means to cease. It's the root of the English word eclipse, our English word eclipse. And sometimes it is used of a race dying out, of bankruptcy. or even of the eclipse of the sun, when the sun disappears from view. It's only found four times in the original in the New Testament. I think of one of those times, Luke 23, verse 45, the sun was darkened at Calvary. The sun was eclipsed. Darkness prevailed. It was gone. The light was gone. In Luke 16, verse 9, it refers to the cessation of life itself. So Satan's plan was to cause Peter's faith to cease altogether. Satan would eclipse our faith by causing us to sin that we might lose our testimony. Now we can't lose our salvation, but we can lose our testimony. That's always a sad thing when a person loses their testimony for God. There's not one of us here above that. We need to look to the Lord every single day that we live to enjoy his blessing and his fullness. Keep us near the cross, Lord. May we be men and women of the word who know to use the word when the devil comes to attack us, to undermine our faith. Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed, finding, as he promised, perfect peace and rest. The devil is busy. He's always coming. Therefore, when Satan assails a believer, The main assault is upon the grace of faith. And from Galatians 5, we know that faith is a fruit of the Spirit, produced in everyone that the Spirit of God regenerates. And Ephesians 2, verse 8 states that faith is the gift of God. And Satan's aim is to rob us of faith and joy and assurance. The illustration that we can use here is a familiar one. Look at chapter 10. Here's a man traveling on the Jericho Road. We don't know his name. We don't really know his circumstances, but we know that he's traveling alone on the Jericho Road. He's surrounded by an enemy or enemies, thieves. They smite him. They strip him of his garments and his possessions. They robbed him of his possessions. and left him wounded and almost lifeless, a pitiful sight there on the Jericho Road. The man could not continue his walk. He needed help. And the good Samaritan drew near and gave him the help that he needed. And that's the way the devil works, you know. He wants to hurt us. He wants to shame us. The man was stripped of his garments. What a shameful sight. What a shameful experience for him to have. Robbed, his treasures are gone. Everything he possessed probably was gone. The devil wanted Peter to look bad. Did he succeed? I think he did. Why do I say that? Well, let's move to Gethsemane. There's a crowd approaching the Lord and his small band of disciples. They're coming to arrest the Son of God. So here we have Peter, what does he do? He has got a sword attached to his belt. He draws the sword and he launches out and he cuts off the ear of a man called Malchus. Well, that must have hurt Malchus. That hurt him physically. Can you imagine getting your ear cut off? That was Peter's solution, you see. And by the way, it was night time when that happened because the crowd came with these torches, you see, these flaming, these torches of fire. So what does that suggest? Well, here's Peter. He'd made a great boast. These other men may fail you, but I won't fail you. I'll go with you all the way. That's what he said. He was walking in the flesh at this time. And the fact that this happened in the night time would prove that. He was not walking in the light. So he did what he thought was the solution to the whole problem. He drew a sword and reached out. and it brought hurt to another man, another individual. He acted very foolishly. So here we see this disciple of the Lord making a fool of himself. He's made to look bad, you know. And no doubt he would have accompanied the Lord to the cross and placed on a cross himself had the Lord not intervened and healed Malchus and restored his ear. And many a time the Lord has helped us with sad things, cruel things, harsh things, hurtful things. We all have been guilty, haven't we all? And yet in spite of our faults and failures, the Lord has mercy felt to us by his grace. So he could have ended up on one of those crosses himself, but the Lord was gracious. So we see it looking bad now, the devil has succeeded. But then, the Lord always wants his servants to look good. The day of Pentecost comes, and on that day, he uses a different kind of sword. It's the sword of the spirit, the word of God. He preaches the gospel. He's full of the Holy Ghost. He's doing the right thing. He's walking in the light. He's intuited with power from on high. He's preaching Christ. About 3,000 souls are raised with the gospel. He's helping people spiritually, because these people have gotten saved. He acted faithfully. So, the purpose of the devil, make Peter look bad. And in Gethsemane, he looked bad, but it is the will of God for his people to shine brightly. And in the day of Pentecost, the Lord did exactly what, Peter did exactly what the Lord wanted him to do. He echoed faithfully. And then the devil wanted Peter to feel bad. Well, Peter felt bad. He's denied the Lord. Matthew 26 and verse 75 tells us that after the cock crew for the third time, Peter looked to Jesus and it says he went out and he wept bitterly. He felt bad. And you know, when the devil attacks us, he wants us to look bad. And unfortunately, that happens many a time. But there's also another idea or thought behind it. He wants us to feel bad. When you feel the Lord and when you sin, what happens? You feel bad. You feel you can't pray again, you feel you can't read the word of God. It's a futile exercise. You can't open your mouth for the glory of God because the devil makes you feel bad. So how can you do such a thing and pretend to be a believer, pretend to be a servant of God? How can you ever show your face again? The devil's a liar, hallelujah. Thank God for the victory of the cross. But that's the way the devil operates, you know. So you're wearing the robe of righteousness, the garment of righteousness. You've got a target on your back. The devil is on your case. The devil knows who you are, where you live at, where you work at. He knows your shortcomings. He knows your failures. He knows what you're like in the secret place. He knows everything about you. And he uses these things. He uses our failures in the secret place to weigh us down, to prevent us from getting in touch with God, even to prevent us getting to the house of God, away from the seed that will be planted in our hearts to bring forth the blessing of God and the fruit of the Spirit. Remember the story of Judas. The devil moved Judas to steal from the bag. And sometimes the devil uses other people to rob us of joy and peace by the things they do and the things they say. Judas criticized Mary. He said, why was this waste made? Well, Mary knew what was going to happen to Jesus. She had insight into what was going to happen to Christ. She believed, she had this revealed to her that Christ was going to suffer soon. And so he calls us a waste. But really it was the good part that Mary performed for him because she loved him. Faith is God's instrument by which we rest in the finished work of Christ. The Bible says that just shall live by faith. Over there in 2 Corinthians 2 verse 11, we read these words, lest Satan should get an advantage or gain the victory over you, for we are not ignorant of his devices. That word device there means purposes and plans or plots. We know that the devil is a liar. We know that he is a murderer. We know that he is a deceiver. He's a divider. He pulls down, he doesn't build up. Jude talks about being built up in our holy faith. The devil wants to undermine that faith and rob us of the joy of it and the benefit of walking close with God. And Ephesians 6 verse 11 talks about the wiles of the devil the tactics of the devil, the schemes of the devil, and there are many. It's amazing, and I thought this was rather amazing, that the devil really knows the Bible. The devil has studied the scriptures, you know. He knows the Bible, and he loves to quote it in order to destroy our faith. Why do I say that? Well, they tried to persuade the Lord Jesus Christ to throw himself down from the temple. And they argued from Scripture. Oh, this has got to be right. Here's the Scripture coming, Jesus. This has got to be right. Every cult that you know may quote Scripture, but they distort Scripture out of context. Can almost teach anything. But here we see the devil coming and he's tempting the son of god. and he says, if I be the son of god, cast thyself down for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee. Matthew four verse six. Satan doesn't always try to to ruin faith by saying the Bible isn't true. but tries to destroy our to lead us into disobedience. The Christian life, the believer draws life and energy and strength from the word. We cannot really survive without the word. But be careful, be careful, because the devil can distort the scriptures to get you to do things that you ought not to be doing and ought not to be believing. His one aim is to destroy our faith. The word of God alone keeps faith alive. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Keep close to the book, keep in the book. But we cleave to the book. And if we do cleave to the book, Satan cannot tear it away. So he studies that. How else could he quote Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12 to Jesus? He studies it in order to distort it, to pervert it by plausible interpretations. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. When Satan quoted scripture, well, Jesus knew the scripture better, and he said it is written Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. He quoted scripture against Satan's use of scripture. He knew the Bible better than Satan. And Ephesians 6 and 16 tells us, above all, taking the shield of faith, the most important piece of the armor. And the Eastern soldier, the shield that he would have had was like a large door covering him completely. And so we have the arrows coming from a distance. We have the soldiers here, and they've got these doors, and you have them all joined together, and the Irish come, and there's all-around protection because of the shield of faith. Every part is completely covered, and every part of him and every piece of the armor is covered into that. So that, in a sense, faith quenches all the fiery darts of Satan. Hebrews chapter 11 is a tremendous chapter of faith that represents and tells the story of the great heroes of the faith. Little wonder Satan attacks the faith so fiercely. People of faith are a threat to him. A quotation from Thomas Brooks, one of the easiest Puritans to read, I think, in a way. This is what he said, Satan promises the best but pays with the worst. He promises honor and pays with disgrace. He promises pleasure and pays with pain. He promises profit and pays with loss. He promises life and pays with death. Now, when you think of some of the strategies of Satan, well, he wants to annihilate the church. He wants to neutralize its witness from within. Acts chapter five. In chapter four of Acts, there is the attack from without. But in Acts chapter five, there is the attack from within. Then you have the various persecutions from without. The devil wants to disturb the unity by creating discord and division and subversion of the church through apostasy and heresy. These are some of the strategies of the devil. What happened to Elijah the prophet? A great man that he was. The devil attacked his faith. He sat down under the juniper tree, depressed. If you listen to the devil and give place to the devil, there's no telling where you might end up. It might bring you to under the juniper tree. The thing about Demas, he hath forsaken me. He hath departed from me. I don't believe that he departed from the faith. He departed from the apostle Paul. We never hear tell of him again. He goes away from Paul. He abandons him. The devil attacked his faith. What about Moses? Great man that he was. Oh, he takes the rod of God and he smites the rock and out comes the water. Amen. Tremendous man. Great man of God. Great man of faith. So he was. But then the next time the Lord says to him, I don't want you to smite the rock this time, I want you to speak to it. Just speak to it. It'll break the type, you see, because the smiting of the rock is the type of Christ smitten. Only once is required. But he was under pressure. His faith was under attack. Oh, it took the smiting of the rock the first time, but God said, just speak to it this time. But what did he do? His faith failed him in that hour, that crisis hour, and he smoked the rock again. And God said, okay, Moses, great man and all that you are, you'll not get into the promised land. After all those years, after all the trials and troubles in the wilderness, Moses, you let me down. You're not gonna lead the people into the promised land after all. Oh, you can imagine how Moses must have felt after all those years, after the great stand that he took. And he went up to the top of Mount Nebo. We don't know where he was buried, but God buried him. Had people known, they'd probably would have erected some kind of statue there, but God was wise. He didn't want man to get the glory or praise. He just buried him there himself. He failed, but let me tell you something else. God didn't forget about him. Because in Matthew 17, there on the Mount of Transfiguration, two men appeared when Christ was there with three of his disciples, Moses and Elijah. Elijah never died, but he went to heaven in a mysterious, miraculous way, and he was there. Moses, yes, he died okay, and God says you can't lead the people in, but there he was, he got in eventually, by grace. The devil is out to destroy us. What about Peter? Was that the end of the story for Peter? When he denied the Lord? Not at all. The Lord had a plan for his life because Jesus said, Peter, I prayed for you. I have prayed that thy faith fail not. I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. Now there's a time when we feel we're completely lost, we're complete failures. I failed the Lord so miserably. How could he ever forgive me? How did I ever get into this mess in the first place? How will I get out of it? Remember this. Remember what Jesus says, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. Yes, Peter failed, but the Lord was saying, I have prayed that your faith may not fail. And yes, he demonstrated his faith. When he looked to Christ again and he wept, he was sorry for his sin. There was faith still there. Yes, he failed. But the very thing that Jesus prayed for, he prayed that his faith might not fail. It didn't fail, because Christ had prayed for him. And no matter how we may fall, we can stand again in his keeping power. For the risen Christ is praying even now for his people in glory. And he's saying, I have prayed for thee, I have prevailed for thee. Now writing, and I come to a close, writing in the Moody Monthly, a writer encountered the experience he had one day at the zoo in the States. He was watching a wildcat in the zoo. And he said, as I stood there, the attendant entered the cage. All he had in his hand was a broom or a brush. He closed the door and proceeded to sweep the cage. He had no weapon to ward off an attack by the beast. In fact, when he went to the corner where the wild cat was lying, he prodded the wild cat with a broom. The wild cat hissed at him and then laid down in another corner of the enclosure. And the writer said to the man, you certainly are a very brave man. No, I ain't brave, he replied. Well, then the cat must be very tame. No, replied the man again. He ain't tame. If you aren't brave and the wildcat isn't tame, then I can't understand why he doesn't attack you. The man chuckled and replied with an air of confidence. Mister, he said, he's old and he ain't got any teeth. Now, I'm not speaking lightly about the devil. Don't take that for one moment. But what I am saying is this. Christ broke the devil's teeth at the cross. He has destroyed his mighty power through his work on the cross. So we can say with a hymn writer, but though the accuser roar, of all that I have done, I know them well, ten thousands more, but Jehovah findeth none. Isn't that a happy state, child of God? Isn't that good news? Wearing the robe of righteousness, you are a target for the devil. He's gonna aim all his arrows against you and at you. But there's one in the glory who is interceding now on your behalf, praying for you. He's given the promise to you. I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And he said to Peter, when they weren't converted, strengthen thy brethren, when they aren't restored. He needed to be restored. but Jesus said, I have prayed that thy faith fail not, nor did it fail. Here we have before us this subtlety of Satan's plan. The devil's a liar. He's a deceiver. He's a divider. He's a destroyer. He's on your case. Beware. Saturate your soul with the scriptures of truth. Be much in prayer. Lay hold upon God as never before. And the Lord will give you that needed grace. He will build you up in your holy faith. Make you strong in the Lord. This is the only way that we triumph as God's people. Only way. through the praying and prevailing Christ at God's right hand. May God bless His word. We'll close now in prayer. Father, dismiss us now with thy blessing and go before us and maybe not forget the message today from Christ. May we ever keep it before us. And may we not be ignorant of the devil's devices, but may we ever look on to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Dismiss us with thy blessing, and in thy fear, for we ask these things in Jesus' name.