“Be Sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” (1 Peter 5:8)
This is war!!
In case you haven’t realized today, you are in a battle, as real as if this was 1941, and you were in the front lines in Germany. This battle has a real enemy and real casualties. You can look around in the world and see that a battle is raging, and the winner takes all. 10,000 children will commit suicide this year. 42 million babies will be murdered, in the name of abortion, this year. Almost 50 percent of Americans today believe God is not important anymore and don’t care anything about him. We are at war.
Our enemy is not the person sitting next to us on Sunday morning, he is a being that hates you with every fiber of his soul, and his name is Satan. Our passage of scripture today deals with the fact he is a roaring lion, walking about, looking for someone to kill, to steal, and to destroy. Did you get that? He is out to kill you, destroy you and your family and everything you have. A lion in the wilderness will not pounce on his prey the moment he sees him, he will pace, and walk around looking for the best way, the weakest defended spot, and then he will target and attack with such veracity there is nothing left of his opponent that is recognizable.
This is the same way Satan works on you, child of God. He studies you, learns your weakness, your pet sin that you won’t even tell God about, and then he forms a plan to destroy you. So many Christians have fallen, so many Pastors have shipwrecked, falling into scandalous sex affairs and satanic traps because of this; WE DON’T TAKE SATAN AND THIS WAR SERIOUS! If we did, we would be in prayer more, reading our word more, seeking the face of God like our life depended on it, and guess what; it does! Our scripture gives us some keys to fight Satan, and not fall in his traps.
Be Sober – take this war serious, your life does depend on it. Pray and read God’s word. Seek his face now. We don’t have to be ignorant of Satan’s devices.
Be vigilant - walk around with eyes full of the spirit of God, looking for trouble, be alert at all times, if you were walking around in Germany in 1941, you would be!
Beloved, we are without excuse, we have been warned. Jesus has told us the devil is real. It doesn’t matter to Satan whether your pastor and church don’t believe in him; he is real and will destroy you. Jesus has given us weapons of warfare to fight. We can defeat Satan, destroy his plans, and stop his traps in our church and family. But you must become serious about this. This war is 24/7 and he is playing for keeps. Get in the presence of God today; read his word, you don’t have to wait until it is too late, to realize the devil is loose. Your only protection is God. You better make sure you stay in his presence everyday. Your life depends on it.
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Scott, you're killing me.
ReplyDeleteSatan isn't a lion. Satan "is as" a "roaring" lion. He bears the attributes of a starved lion on a desperate hunt, acting purely from a visceral and primal instinct to feed. To suggest that Satan is an actual lion is to do disservice to lions everywhere.
First of, there are only two instances in the Scriptures where persons are said to be actual lions. The first is Judah (Genesis 49:9), and the second is, of course, Christ (Revelation 5:5).
The reason that a normal lion who is in harmony with his environment cannot be Satan is because...
1. Lions travel in prides, or groups, where there is an alpha male, where the males protect, and the females hunt for prey. This is the similitude of the church, where we hunt (or "fish" for a more Scriptural term), and Christ, the alpha male and the One who impregnates the females (us), protects the pride.
2. The alpha male is extremely protective of the pride, and will only fight within the pride when it is another male challenging his dominion. Satan bears no compulsion to care or protect anyone, even his own cohorts. He certainly has no compulsion to protect his own constituency. And his dominion is, truly, a house of cards.
3. Lions are majestic and marvelous, and more effort is expended in Scripture to this fact than any of their malevolent attributes. Samson, found honey in the carcass of a dead lion, where we find honey in the Christ's death.
So I disagree. Satan defintely IS NOT a lion!