"It's been a real wake-up call!" We sometimes hear this said after a surprising defeat in basketball, after a shocking downturn on Wall Street, or after a respected leader makes some startling disclosure. Wake-up calls tend to catch us off-guard, often shake us up, and always demand our attention.

In Luke 22 we find one of the most jarring wake-up calls in the Bible. In four verses we discover four truths which will help us to discern a great deal about ourselves and about what Christ is doing on our behalf. In this brief but telling exchange between Jesus and Peter, we realize that Satan is our adversary, sin brings adversity, Christ is our Advocate, and serving others offers new adventure.

I. Satan Is Our Adversary

While Matthew and Mark also speak of Jesus' predicting Peter's denial, Luke alone mentions Satan's part in it. With compassion and care the night before His crucifixion Jesus told His disciples, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat." Jesus is speaking directly to Peter, but the pronoun "you" is plural in the original text which tells us that Jesus is referring to all of His disciples. From those early believers, through the centuries, and to this very day Satan remains our adversary.

Some twenty-five years ago, in the mid-70s, I visited my sister and brother-in-law who were then living in California. At the time my brother-in-law, Glenn, was serving in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in San Bernardino. One night we enjoyed a long conversation, and Glenn talked about how the United States government spends considerable time and money to train its military officers to recognize the tactics of our nation's enemies. He said that to be successful in warfare you must know your enemy well. You must know his weapons. You must know how, when, and where he uses those weapons. This kind of data provides a critical edge in preparedness and for readiness to do battle.

As Christians, we wage war each day against our spiritual enemy. Although our Lord has defeated this enemy on Calvary's cross, Satan still wreaks havoc in our lives. He knows that his time is short. He knows that one day, perhaps soon, he will be fully and finally destroyed. He knows that he is a defeated foe. But in these days Satan cunningly executes his evil in order to tempt us and trap us in sin.

He wants us to deny and dishonor the Lord. He is the father of lies. He is the master of deceit, and he will never hold a cease-fire in his mission to destroy us. Today, this adversary has made prisoners-of-war of millions of men and women and young people. There are millions of Americans who are lost, living without hope and dying without the Lord. All the while Satan is trying to deceive, delude, and destroy Christian believers, and derail the work of Christ's church.

Jesus told His disciples that night in the Upper Room, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat." In a kind of spiritual and emotional threshing, the adversary wanted nothing less than to crush, grind, and scatter Jesus' disciples, and particularly Peter, their leader. Satan came to Jesus, perhaps boasting that Peter wasn't a rock, but a disciple of straw -- all talk, no walk, little more than hot air. Satan likely boasted that he could easily blow Peter away, just like chaff when the wind separates it from the grain at threshing time.