Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm19990324.htm

LUKE: GOSPEL OF CERTIFYING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Part LXXV: Certifying Christianity By Viewing Christ's Arrest As God's Allowing Satan's Reign For Glory
(Luke 22:31-62)
  1. Introduction
    1. The question often arises, "If there is a good God, why do bad things happen to relatively good people?"
    2. Luke 22:31-62 pulls back the veil of the angelic conflict to answer that question, and puts blame where it should be and shows why evil coexists in the same universe as an all-loving, all-good sovereign Lord.
  2. Certifying Christianity By Viewing Christ's Arrest As God's Allowing Satan's Reign For Glory.
    1. Luke's Gospel was written to give Theophilus insight on the credibility of the Christian faith, Luke 1:3-4.
    2. In the process, Luke reveals the workings of Satan's reign as permitted by God's sovereign oversight to accomplish greater good as it related to the arrest of Jesus and his abandonment by the disciples:
      1. Luke's Gospel uniquely emphasizes the role of Satan in the events leading up to the crucifixion:
        1. Only Luke reveals that Jesus spoke of Satan sifting the disciples in reference to their either denying the Lord or abandoning Him during His arrest, Luke 22:31 in light of Mtt. 26:31-35, Mk. 14:27-31 and John 13:36-38 and A. T. Robertson's A Harmony of the Gospels, p. 194.
        2. Only Luke shows Jesus in Gethsemane yielding to His captors in reference to the event belonging to the reign of Satan ("this is your hour, and the power of darkness") under God's permission, cf. Luke 22:53 in light of Mtt. 26:55-56, Mk. 14:48-50 and John 18:11-12 (Ibid., p. 208).
      2. Accordingly, Luke explains the workings of Satan in what might at first appear to be a weakened Jesus when in reality even SATAN was subject to the plan of God for His glory (as follows):
        1. As we discovered in the last lesson, Jesus' reference to Satan's sifting the disciples and focusing particularly on getting to Peter (Luke 22:31) shows God's permitting Satan some latitude for the purpose of perfecting quality leadership development in the disciples: (a) Just before mentioning the sifting of the twelve by Satan, Jesus had just countered the argument of the disciples as to which of them was the g reatest, Luke 22:23-25a. (b) Jesus' lesson on this was that the leader would have to submit to serving humbly to meet the needs of others unlike the typical worldly view of self-help, dominating leadership, Luke 22:25b-30. (c) Well, to enforce such a change, Jesus announced that God was letting Satan sift the disciples so that they would be allowed to fail and humbly repent. That way, Peter, the one who would fail the greatest of the twelve would be able to show mercy to the others and thus become their true servant-leader, 22:31-32. (d) Thus, God would let Satan tempt the disciples into failure so as to make them shift from Satan's leadership style to God's gracious one!
        2. Jesus further affirmed that trouble lay ahead for the disciples in the process of their facing temptation: (a) They were thus warned that they would not have Jesus' help, and would be on their own, Luke 22:33-38. (b) Thus, they were to adjust to trusting God by faith through dependent prayer to overcome the humanly ov erpowering temptations of Satan, Luke 22:39-46. (c) When Judas with the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, and Peter (we know from John 18:10-11) cut off a man's ear, Jesus intervened, critiquing His disciple's errant, self-centered brashness by healing the man's ear and stopping the disciples from attacking any more, Luke 22:47-51.
        3. When facing the hostile multitude, Jesus revealed that He was willingly yielding to them in accord with the will of God to let Satan's reign through the throngs arrest Him, Luke 22:52-53.
        4. When Jesus was arrested and Peter tried his best to follow Jesus without getting into trouble himself, Jesus' words predicting Peter's denunciation came home to haunt Peter when he failed the Lord in the excruciating crucible of leadership training, Luke 22:54-62.
Lesson: Jesus was arrested and the disciples failed Him due to God's allowing Satan the liberty to pressure people around Jesus to sin, for then (a) Jesus could suffer in accord with God's redemptive plan and (b) the disciples could be put in a crucible of failure en route to turning into godly leaders.

Application: Since bad things happen to RELATIVELY "good" people as God uses unleashed evil to backfire on itself to exalt God to His glory, we must never be dismayed when evil seems to run rampant! This condition actually means that things are ge tting ready to glorify God all the more!