At our last gathering at The Table, we heard our Lord Jesus warn His Apostle Peter that Satan had requested permission from God to put him to the ultimate test.
Satan asked for God’s consent to prove if the Apostle’s faith was true, even as he was authorized by God to try our Lord Jesus in the wilderness.
The devil is God’s approved examiner for us all.
However, his goal is not to examine, but to get us to fail by all means.
We saw that it was The Lord’s intercession that not only saved His friend from disaster but also kept him on The Way to obtaining the glory of God.
We also saw that Satan is not after your health, your physical life, your family, your finances, or your ministry: he is after your Faith.
The great dragon’s objective is to abort The Word of Faith — The Christ in you.
We concluded our meal with the understanding that by reason of our will shall none of us prevail against the dragon.
We overcome Satan when we trust in our Lord’s love for us, looking to Him in us all, for all we need to be, and all we need to do the will of our Heavenly Father, even as it is written in Colossians 3:11.
Today, we would continue with the events that ensued in the Apostle Peter’s life after our Lord Jesus by a word of knowledge revealed to him Satan’s desire to prove him.
Subsequently, our Lord Jesus went with him in the company of the other disciples into a place called Gethsemane.
He went there with His friends to pray.
And He requested in particular Peter, James, and John to stand with Him in the most crucial time of His life.
We will take the account of the most critical, pivotal prayer session written in Matthew 26:36–46.
However, we will read verses 40 & 41:
(40) And He came to the disciples and found them asleep.
And He said to Peter, What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?
(41) Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Our Lord Jesus was alarmed that He found asleep those He counted on to support Him at the decisive hour for Him, and for man.
Little wonder, he found them sleeping for it is often said that “no one knows it, like he who feels it”.
And it is said that “it is he who wears the shoe who feels its pinch.
The crushing weight of the eternal destiny of man which hung in the balance was not felt by His friends but was known only to our Lord Jesus.
Hence they could and did sleep
Yes, to stay on This Way, we must have the support variously and the intercession of our brethren; however, the prayer-support of friends may not always be there as we might expect even as our Lord Jesus found out to His chagrin.
In 2Timothy 4:16, the Apostle Paul wrote of his being forsaken by all in a time of trial.
The import of this is that you and I must take personal responsibility for prevailing prayer in our difficult seasons.
It is written in James 5:13:
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
In other words, you must pray by, and for yourself in your time of trial.
We are constrained to mention that the trials being spoken of are not those common to the believer and the unbeliever in this broken and evil world.
They are also not those that we suffer as a result of acts of commission or omission.
And most certainly they do not include sin; sickness and diseases; demonic torments and afflictions; and premature death.
These are dealt with through the illumination of the Word of Christ.
And where need be, in addition, they are resolved by repentance through Godly sorrow, and not the sorrow of the world.
The trials being spoken of are persecutions and afflictions that arise for the sake of The Word of The Kingdom planted in our hearts.
And when, not if, but when we are assailed with these, you and I must not be lulled to sleep at the time we should be praying.
We are strengthened within by The Spirit of God in the place of prayer and thus enabled to stand against the wiles of the devil in the evil day.
After His exclamation at His friends’ slothfulness in the place of prayer, our Lord Jesus turned to the Apostle Peter in particular and wondered if they could not watch with Him for an hour.
And He said to him, to watch and pray so that they may not be trapped by the Tempter’s snare.
Regardless, thereafter, Peter and the others slept for the next two hours that the most crucial prayer session lasted.
They neither stood with The Lord nor prayed for themselves.
And no doubt, like the Apostles of The Lamb, a few of us at The Table would admit to sleeping when we should have been praying.
(Thank God for His Tender Mercies over us all.)
Our Lord Jesus concluded His admonition of his friends who could not stay awake during the pivotal prayer session with these revelatory words:
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
He gave a true and valid excuse for their failure, saying that the old man is incapable of doing the will of God even when it earnestly desires to.
We would go further by seeing the events that unfolded in the Apostle Peter’s life after the prayer session with a view that we all may be instructed.
We will take the account written in Matthew 26:69 -75:
(69) Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard when a servant girl came up to him and said, “You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean.”
(70) But he denied it in front of them all, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
(71) As he went out to the gateway, another woman saw him and told those who were there, “This man was with Jesus from Nazareth.”
(72) Again he denied it and swore with an oath, “I don’t know the man!”
(73) After a little while the people who were standing there came up and told Peter,
“Obviously you’re also one of them, because your accent gives you away.”
(74) Then he began to curse violently. “I don’t know the man!” he swore solemnly. Just then a rooster crowed.
(75) Peter remembered the words of Jesus when he said, “Before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Then he went outside and cried bitterly.
We should note the progressive downward spiral to disaster:
Firstly, the Apostle Peter denied The Lord before all.
Secondly, he denied Him, swearing with an oath.
And thirdly, he denied Him with violent cursing and solemn swearing.
Why did the Apostle Peter deny The Lord?
How did he get to the point where he ended up denying His Lord with violent cursing and solemn swearing?
The Apostle denied His Lord because he slept when he should have been praying.
If he had prayed instead of sleeping, he would have been strengthened by The Spirit in his inner being and consequently enabled to stand in his hour of temptation.
Now, sleeping is one of the good God-given bodily appetites.
Others include food and sex.
However, any one of these three is sufficient to derail you and I from The Way of Life when we do not subject it to the word of God and The Spirit of God.
Of the consequences of untimely slumber, it is written in Proverbs 6:10 & 11:
“I’ll just take a short nap,” he says; “I’ll fold my hands and rest awhile.”
But while he sleeps, poverty will attack him like an armed robber.
So how do you and I escape from the armed bandit of spiritual poverty occasioned by sleeping at the wrong time?
In 1Corinthians 9:24–27, the Apostle Paul wrote to us contrasting the spiritual benefit of disciplining his body with the danger of an untamed body:
(24) Do you not know that those running in a race all run, but one receives the prize?
So run, that you may obtain.
(25 And everyone who strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Then those truly that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.
(26) So then I run, not as if I were uncertain.
And so I fight, not as one who beats the air.
(27) But I buffet my body, and lead it captive, lest proclaiming to others I myself might be rejected.
He began his comparison of bringing his body to subjection with that of his body being out of his control, by exhorting us to run as one who is determined to win the race of
Life, with a view to receiving an eternal crown after completing our course victoriously.
He continued by saying temperance in all things, or, if you will, self-control in all is an absolute if we would win our individual races.
And he concluded by revealing that he disciplines his body and brings it into subjection to his inner-man so that having preached to others he would not be cast away at the end of the day.
How then do you and I subject our bodies to the inner man?
The Apostle gives us the primary way we bring our bodies to subjection in James 3:2:
All of us do many wrong things. But if you can control your tongue, you are mature and able to control your whole body.
The Apostle James wrote to us that we would be able to control our bodies if we control our tongues.
The words we speak determine the course of our bodies just like the tiny rudder does in a ship.
However, in Luke 6:45, our Lord Jesus said:
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth the good. And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth the evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
He said the tongue is the output organ of our inner being.
And He also said in Matthew 15:10 & 11:
And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand:
Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
Simply put, our Lord Jesus said the words we speak impacts our physical bodies.
Therefore if you and I would be able to control our bodies by controlling our tongues, it becomes imperative that we ensure that no evil slips into our hearts through those things we give ear to, and consequently meditate upon.
In other words, as it is written in Proverbs 4:23, you must:
Above everything else guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life.
In addition to bridling our tongues, the Apostle Paul gave us an insight into one of the means by which he disciplined his body in 2Corinthians 11:27 where he wrote that he fasted often.
And in 1Timothy 4:8, he wrote that however minimal, physical exercise does have some benefit.
As we conclude our meal for the day, here is the summary of our excursion thus far with the Apostle Peter:
Like the Apostle’s, our failures are oftentimes rooted in our failure to pray when we should.
And if you and I will not tarry in the place of prayer at the appointed time, our outward failure is guaranteed when the great dragon moves against us.
Dearly beloved, let us tame our bodies and not give in to sleep beyond the needful, in order that we may pray when we should, so that we do not fall prey to that relentless wicked one.
Amen.
