The Devil and the King
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in 1 Peter. We'll be on page 658, if your Bible looks like this. If you have one of the blue and white Bibles from the Rose, we're on page 658.
We'll be in 1 Peter chapter 5. We've been walking verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter, and we're coming up on the tail end of it. Halloween is coming up this Saturday, and I find that when it comes to Halloween, you've got people kind of in different groups. We're going to take some—we're going to kind of figure out who's in the room this morning. So when it comes to Halloween, there is the group of people that are like, oh, yeah, Halloween was last week.
Like, you were at a place where, oh, look, there's bats on the wall. I guess Halloween's coming. Like, you just don't care. It doesn't even show up on your radar. You could care less about—couldn't care less about Halloween. That's the one that makes sense, that Americans say could care less.
Anyway, raise your hand. You just couldn't care less about Halloween. It doesn't show up on your radar. You don't care. Okay. Cool.
Yeah, we got a handful of people that are in that zone. Who falls in the—there's the other group of people that, like, care maybe too much about Halloween. Like, they're a little too excited. Like, to them in their brain, it's one of the major holidays. Like, it is the—it's a big deal. And so they're going to decorate their house a little prematurely.
They're going to—you're going to have some—when you throw a party, it's like a legit party. Like, people come over, and there's, like, cups with things bubbling out of the top, and they don't even know how you did that. And, like, you just—who's that? Who's that person? Cares a lot about Halloween, is excited about Halloween. Okay.
So I got two more questions that kind of fall along the same lines. If you're invited to a costume party, there's groups of people here. There are the people who get excited and show up, like, make the party good because they're there, because they know how to dress up. They know how to make it amazing. Who's that? Who shows up to a costume party just ready to roll?
Yes. Okay. Cool. I appreciate y'all. I like the people who go to costume parties dressed up. Who says no to a costume party because you don't want to dress up?
Yeah. Okay. I thought there were people there, too. Yeah. Who says yes, thinks they'll dress up, and decides not to, and just shows up anyway? Yeah.
Okay. That's the one I do. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to dress up this year. And then by the time I get there, I'm like, I'm my evil twin. Like, I'm the bad version of me. It's like, but you look the same.
Right. That's what I want to—I'm tricking you. Like, I'm my doppelganger. Like, that's how I go to Halloween parties. All right.
Last one. Horror movies. To be careful how I pronounce this horror. Raz, a friend of mine from Australia, he came over here. I think it was he was dating his now wife, and she asked him, you like horror movies? He's like, what?
He's from Australia, and he pronounces things. Like, actually pronounces things as opposed to Southern Americans who just kind of slur everything together. She's like, you know, horror movies. And he's like, no. Why would I like a horror movie? Why are you even asking me this question?
So horror movies. Who likes horror movies? Scary movies? Who likes them? Gets really excited. Yeah, I find people fall in different camps on these.
Like, they're like, you should see that movie. It's terrifying. I didn't sleep for three days. Why on earth would I want to watch that? I swear, when you get home, there's going to be a small child in your bed. Why would what?
No. You won't be able to walk alone for a week. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Who is the, I have no desire whatsoever to see a scary movie. Not going to watch it. Yeah, that's me.
Like, I do not want to see a scary movie. Unless it's Troll 2, I don't want to see it. Don't care about scary movies. Just don't. Well, we're coming up on Halloween, and we've come to this section in 1 Peter where Peter is going to talk about the devil. And in some ways, it's fitting because this is the time in our culture where everybody just, it collectively, we kind of think about these things.
Creepy things, demonic things, spooky things, ghosts, all that kind of stuff. And so what we're going to do is Peter's come to this section. He's talking about the devil. He's going to encourage Christians on how to respond to the devil. And so what we're going to do this morning, because I think we've been a church plant for going on three years now, two and a half years something, we've never taken a whole lot of time to talk about Satan. Never taken a whole lot of time to talk about the devil, talk about demonic things.
And so what we're going to do is just, in order to even understand what Peter is teaching us today, we have to understand who he's talking about. We have to understand who Satan is, how all that works, what demons are. And so we're just going to read what Peter says, and then we're going to zoom out and get a big overview on who Satan is, what he does, how he works, what the Bible says, big picture. And then we're going to come back to 1 Peter and say, okay, given that that's what, that's who he's talking about, that's what the Bible says about Satan, this is how we get to respond. And so this is going to be a little bit different than most of the time where we just read a passage and talk through it.
And if this is your first time hanging out with us, this is the first time we've ever spent any significant time talking about Satan and the devil and the demonic. So welcome. It's everybody's first time for this kind of a conversation too. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to, we're going to spend, we're going to read 1 Peter and then we're going to kind of zoom out and just spend some time talking about this. So God, we thank you that your word tells us what we need to know.
God, it doesn't always give us all the answers that we want to know, but it tells us what we need to know and we can be confident in you and in your word that you've provided so that we might study your word and know and be equipped with the information that we need so that we might be able to understand the world that we live in. And so God, we just pray that as we study this this morning, that we would learn what scripture says about the enemy and appropriately learn and that you would still get all the glory and it would still be about you. In Jesus name, Amen. Okay, so we're going to read 1 Peter 5, 6 through, no, 8 through 11 and then we're going to just kind of talk a little bit and see kind of big picture who Satan is and what the storyline is here.
So, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Okay, so that's the section in 1 Peter, but he just says, your adversary, the devil, and so if we're not familiar with what he's talking about, it's like, well, what? Like, you just, you just going to bring him up at the end of the letter? Like, you just, I'm just supposed to know who you're talking about? So we're just going to take a second, zoom out, look at this big picture. I do want to read this. This is a, C.S.
Lewis was a theologian and an author in the 1900s in Britain. And this is, this is a quote he says about the demonic, and I think it's helpful. There are two equal and opposite errors in which our race can fall about the devils. There he just means demonic spiritual realm. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive, unhealthy interest in them.
They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. So what he says is there's kind of two ditches on the road of understanding the spiritual realm and understanding the demonic. One is just, they don't exist. It's not a real thing. The other is to be way too concerned, way overly interested, way overly afraid of. The demonic.
And so, I find that in our culture, we have some people who are overly spiritual. You see some of this. You've met the person that everything is like some sort of a spiritual thing. Like Christians sometimes will over-spiritualize things or everything's an attack. So you'll be talking to somebody and be like, yeah, my car broke down, just locked up on me.
And I got out and I said, Satan, get out of my car. Or, because I knew Satan was after me. And it's like, when was the last time he changed the oil? Like, maybe you should just take it to, like if a mechanic can fix it, it might not have been Satan. I'm just saying, maybe, maybe he didn't want you to go to the grocery store. What were you doing?
Like, what? Like, I mean, you've met some of those people that are like, the devil's after me. Like, every time something's happening, oh, the devil's trying to get us, we gotta pray. Like, okay, there's spiritual things, but that's a bit too much. I remember my dad telling me there was a lady that lived kind of out in the country and on some farmland and she worked at their house helping watch them during the day because both of his parents worked. She told him one day, she said, last night, the devil was looking in my window.
And he and his brother said, the devil? The devil was looking in your window? She said, Satan himself. And they went, what did he look like? She said, a cow. They were like, you don't think maybe it was just a cow?
She's like, no, it's the devil. So, there's some people like that, that just everything is some sort of, most of us in this room probably are more on this side. Everything has an explanation. We can arrive at everything through scientific method, through reason, everything can be explained. And even for Christians, you take one step in and you say, yes, in theory, I believe, because I believe the Bible, that there is Satan and demons, but you just, on a real practical level, have no room for that whatsoever. So, you believe it, but actually don't feel like that ever really shows up in any kind of way.
Maybe in other countries or something, but not here, not really a thing here. And so, what we're going to do is just kind of walk through immediately, I think, some of our pushback, and the biggest ones I hear are science and reason why we don't need Satan anymore. Or why we don't believe in Satan anymore, or why we don't believe in this kind of stuff anymore, science and reason. Science is just basically, we have science now, so we don't have the God of the gaps theory. People used to believe, like, whatever they couldn't explain, they just needed God, that we just say, well, we don't understand that, so God must do it.
But now we have science, we've figured it out, we know that it's natural, there's processes, we can test things, we can study things, we know stuff. The problem is, the Bible doesn't have this separation between the spiritual and the natural, so when the Bible says that God sent a storm, or God sent a flood, or God, he does it through natural means, the normal storm system, the normal, he just, he works in it. People say that, like, the reason, when the Bible says that God is the one who gives children, God blesses mothers with children, that they said that because they didn't know where babies came from. But now we know, in the Christmas story, where Joseph is going to divorce Mary because she's pregnant, the reason he was going to divorce her is because he knew exactly where babies came from.
And he knew that one wasn't his. And so he's like, this relationship isn't working, like, we can't do this anymore. And so we, honestly, the Bible doesn't have this gap there. The Bible is very much, God works through natural means, but it's spiritual as well. The Bible's even going to attribute some spiritual, some natural things that happen to demonic things. And if we're willing to believe that there is a God, a good supernatural being, a good personal, real being that is good, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that there is a real personal being that is evil.
So if you believe in a good God, it makes sense that there could also be a spiritual being that is evil. The other one is reason. And when I say reason, what I mean is, not the science side, not the nature side. So what we would say is, well, people couldn't explain nature so they needed science. And then people say, well, people couldn't explain behavior, they couldn't explain evil, but now we have reason. We have, we understand dysfunction, we understand pathology, we understand family history, we understand nature versus nurture.
We can, now, we understand that ignorance is what causes all these things. So what they, would they just say, this person's evil, we don't need that term anymore, like we understand that everything has a cause. And there's a quote from a guy named Andrew Delbanco. He was a, he's a professor and a scholar at Columbia University. And he wrote a book called The Death of Satan. And in this book, he says he's a secular liberal.
He's not, not a Christian, not coming from a Christian book. But here's, in his book, The Death of Satan, here's how he starts it off. A gulf has opened in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources to cope with it. A gulf has opened in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources to cope with it. What he's saying is this, when we got rid of Satan, we lost the ability to explain a lot of the things we now see. So when we just talk about pathology, when we just talk about dysfunction, when we just talk about ignorance, and then we had Holocaust, the final solution, death camps, that came out of one of the most intellectual, civilized, cultural giants in the world.
We have genocide. We have just heinous evil across the board. And if we no longer can use the term evil and we no longer understand that the world has an evil presence active in it, we have a really hard time explaining serial killers. We have a really hard time being able to step in. And that's the point of his book is, when we got rid of Satan, we began to lose our ability to cope with how much evil there is in the world. That we have a hard time explaining death camps without being able to say, no, that's actually evil.
That's actually broken and there's actually something working behind it, active in it, for evil. And so honestly, the Bible's not against science and it's not against nature, not against reason, but it is going to say that the natural and the supernatural are much more blended than we know and that there actually is an evil being at work. And so one of the big storylines in the Bible is war. So there's certain storylines that just kind of go through the whole Bible and one of them is that there's a cosmic war. And so we're going to read a passage from Revelation 12 as we begin to start looking.
We're going to have it up on the screen. We're going to read a passage from Revelation 12 as we begin to start looking at who Satan is, where he comes from. And so this is, Revelation gets misquoted a lot and people take it out of context and they draw big charts, but this is just explaining with some imagery what happened a long time ago. So it says this, Now war arose in heaven. Michael, and that's an angel that is named a few times in Scripture, just apparently a powerful angel created by God. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.
And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who was called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him. And later on it says that there was about one third of the angels rebelled with him. And so we've got this picture of God created spiritual beings. So he created physical beings like us and he created spiritual beings that are angels and some of those angels rebelled against him led by Satan.
This is part of the storyline of the Bible that there was a powerful angel and a few places in the Old Testament are going to be where God's going to be prophesying to specific nations. It's going to seem like he's also talking about some of what happened in this epic battle, but there was a powerful angel that basically believed that he needed more power, more glory, became prideful and fought against God. Now he doesn't actually fight God, he fights more angels and they win. And then he comes to earth. So the idea of Satan hanging out in hell, like that's his base camp, it's not a real thing.
So I know you watch South Park and he's there with Saddam Hussein and that was hilarious or whatever. That's not a real thing. He's actually on earth because he's no longer allowed in the normal realm that he was in and he's kind of trapped in this area where he's been kicked out of and Jude 6 and 2 Peter are also going to say that the angels that went with him that did not stay in their proper place. So Satan led angels to rebel in heaven. That's one of the pieces of the story that we get from scripture. And all demons are just angels, spiritual beings created by God that did not remain where they were supposed to, did not do what they were supposed to, but rebelled against God.
And Satan is just a demon, an angel created by God that rebelled with them and the Bible kind of uses him as a figurehead or it would just say the devil referring to all of the demonic in general or talk about Satan referring to all of them in general, not necessarily just him. Sometimes it is specifically that one angel. But here's the thing. This is just kind of weird for us. Like we don't, we don't talk about this other places. Like the only two places I know that we, we even address this or think about this in our culture is pop culture.
So you have stuff like South Park is going to bring it up. We've got far side cartoons that are going to have jokes about it. You've got the movie Little Nicky where Adam Sandler is Satan's kid but he's the nice one. Like we just got that kind of weird. Then you got all your scary movies that go along with that stuff.
And then nobody else talks about it until you get to the church. And then the church talks about it because the Bible talks about it. You were never in a math class where your teacher was like, or a class in elementary school where your teacher was like, put away your multiplication tables and for the next 30 minutes before we go to lunch we're going to talk about demons. She wouldn't be a teacher very long. She's not allowed to do that. Some of you maybe were homeschooled and you never saw those multiplication tables but you talked about demons a lot.
Welcome. Sorry. That came out meaner than it was supposed to be. But no. Most of us in school we don't cover these things. We cover it in the church but here's the thing.
We got to take what the Bible says about these things and begin to form our picture. Not what pop culture tells us but what scripture tells us and begin to form our picture. And as you study scripture a few things start to come out. A few things start to become clear. First of all God created everything and he created Satan. God and Satan aren't yin and yang.
They're not equals. God is above Satan. Even in what we just read when Satan rebelled he did not fight God. He fought other angels and lost. Now there were more angels on the other team but he lost.
There is a time in the Bible where Satan fights God and that goes like this. It's later in the book of Revelation. So this happened a long time in the past and then there's another time where God fights Satan. It says Satan was released and he leads an army and here's what it says. Fire came down killed his army and Satan was thrown into hell. That's how that fight goes.
When God steps into the ring the fight is over. But at this point he rebels and the angels kick them out and they are sent to earth. Now the story moves. So this war that begins in heaven moves to a new battlefield which is the earth. And that's where we pick up in the book of Genesis. That's where we begin to see the ancient serpent shows up in the garden to lead humanity astray.
And he shows up and he tricks Adam and Eve into rebelling against God like he had. And then God shows up and immediately proclaims the first gospel which is he shows up and tells them there's going to be a male born of a woman. Now that's interesting because throughout the Old Testament genealogies are this man begat this man begat this man or this man was the father of this man was the father of this man was the father of this man. Every once in a while a woman's mentioned but she's always mentioned in relationship to a husband. But what God steps in and says is there's going to be a woman and she's going to have a son.
And he's referring to the only woman who ever had a son outside of a man being present which was Mary who as a virgin had a son named Jesus. And what he says is there's going to be a man who's going to come and you're going to bruise his heel but he's going to crush your head. And he proclaims the gospel over this rebellion that Jesus is going to show up and fix the problem. So Jesus shows up. He's born. As soon as he begins his ministry Satan shows up to tempt him because all he knows from what we can tell from scripture is just Satan knows who Jesus is and that he's got to mess him up.
He's got to keep this from working out. He knows that God is active. He knows that there's been some prophecies. He knows that this is coming and he's just got to mess it up. So he shows up and tries to tempt Jesus into rebelling against God because if he can get Jesus to rebel the plan's messed up.
And Jesus doesn't. Jesus withstands temptation and keeps going. So then Satan works actively through Judas Iscariot to kill Jesus because he's thinking okay Jesus will go to a cross not a throne. Jesus will get only crown he'll ever wear is a crown of thorns. Jesus will be destroyed. Jesus will die and he won't be able to fulfill his plan.
And so he works actively to kill Jesus and in the epic plot twist of all time in the most cosmic twist that God had worked up what Jesus did was he hid victory and defeat. He hid freedom in slavery. He hid life in death and on the cross undid everything Satan was working for. He Colossians 3 tells us that he disarmed Satan by going to the cross because what Satan's power was in sin and death and Jesus took our sin and our death so that it no longer has a hold over us. And so in the cross Satan was defeated because he didn't understand what God was actively after. He didn't understand how great power can be shown through humility.
He didn't understand how God had designed it for Jesus to come and not be exalted on earth but be exalted in eternity and to be exalted fully to show his glory fully through a cross not a throne. And so Satan is defeated but he's not gone. And so then we see how Satan now actively works to disrupt and cause problems until he is fully destroyed. So he's defeated in the cross but not fully gotten rid of until some future date. And as Christians when we became Christians we were invited into this battle. We were invited into this war.
Over and over again scriptures will say that our battle isn't against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spirits in heavenly places and that we're brought from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son that this is a cosmic battle that we've been invited into to see more people meet Jesus. So a few things we need to realize and understand when it comes to who Satan is. One is he's finite created being not more powerful than God not equal with God. He can't be in all places at once. He does not know everything. just the sheer fact that he can't be in all places at once.
Look I think you're wonderful. Did you know that? I think you're very special. I agree with your mom. I think you're special and like a snowflake. But Satan is probably not messing with you.
The actual being Satan himself is probably not messing with you. Now the Bible uses Satan as a covering or the devil as a figure head for all demonic evil activity. So we are attacked by biblically demonic activity but Satan is finite. He's only in one place at one time. He's somewhere on earth but he's only in one place at one time. But there are demonic spirits that work with him to lead to lie to destroy.
So let's start looking at what does he do? If he's already lost in the cross what's his goal? How's he work? What's happening at this point? And so a few things I want us to just kind of see as we walk through. So what we read at first in 1 Peter and we're not going to unpack this yet but we're just going to see one of the things that Peter's queuing us in on.
Lost in the cross what's his goal? How's he work? What's happening at this point? And so a few things I want us to just kind of see as we walk through. So what we read at first in 1 Peter and we're not going to unpack this yet but we're just going to see one of the things that Peter's queuing us in on. Be sober minded be watchful your adversary
The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Okay so he's active and he's trying to seek someone to devour. What does that even mean? And so let's take just a second and just look at a few places in scripture where we begin to see how Satan actively tries to work to destroy to disrupt to deceive.
The first is through sin and disbelief in the gospel. So a few different places in scripture and I included a few references in our community groups this week we'll actually read a good bit just so that all of our information comes from not Little Nicky not South Park but comes from our scripture we begin to inform ourselves through scripture
But we'll spend more time studying these things but I included some reference for people who want to follow up but sin and disbelief in the gospel basically one of the ways that Satan is active is in just leading us to sin because sin is destructive sin leads to death and sin keeps us
From God sin is so he gives us what we want a lot he baits us entices us says no what you need to be happy is this no no your marriage isn't good but this person would make you happy oh if you just made this much money if you just did this like he just leads us
To sin leads us to chase after other things to believe that other things will fill us up bring us joy the other thing that Jesus says specifically is that he tries to get us to not believe the gospel so when the gospel is proclaimed
That Jesus sets us free that Jesus gives us life that Jesus paid for our sin that Jesus makes us whole Satan tries to disrupt that and take that away another one and I don't think we realize this or think about this much
One of the other ways that Satan works actively to lead us astray and to disrupt is through religion and self righteousness okay now when I say religion some people are always like wait I thought Christianity was a religion what we mean
When we talk about religion quite often the Bible does use it sometimes in a good light a lot of times it's using it in a negative connotation we're using it in a negative way to mean the belief that my behavior saves me my behavior is what
Makes me good my morality my actions because all of that is my righteousness my goodness comes from me and the Bible is clear our righteousness comes from Jesus so Satan is active in as long as you trust you that's fine with him so most
Of us think that Satan's only working in harmful things but actually he can work through generosity he can work through really good behavior he can work through morals as long as there's no Jesus that's fine so I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 11 13-15 it's one of the references
But for such men are false prophets deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of Christ Jesus and no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light so it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness
There are people who will even say the name Jesus and be pointing you away from him pointing you towards your behavior towards your actions towards your goodness as long as you're trusting you Satan doesn't care there are multiple times where Jesus
Is interacting with the religious elite and he calls them broods of vipers which means you're the child of the serpent he's saying you're sons of hell sons of Satan he says you go over land and sea to get one convert and then make him twice as
Unhell as you are what he's saying is your religion your good work your effort your memorization your hard work like they used to like connect the bible to their wrist and their forehead like you thought your grandmother was religious because her
Bible weighed 47 pounds these people had the bible strapped to them until your grandmother gets a backpack bible she ain't nothing he doesn't care we can be as religious as you want to as long as you're not trusting Jesus actively at work in that another one
Is so he's actively at work in leading people away from Jesus which makes sense actively at work in making people confused about the gospel which makes sense but then he if you become a christian genuinely trust Jesus with your life with your sin then the next thing
He works after is disunity in the church and ineffective christians he just wants you okay if you're a christian well I lost that one but I gotta keep you from helping other people become christians some of the ways he does this is through just letting us be really comfortable I
Think keeping us distracted some of the ways specifically that are mentioned are Ephesians 4 26-27 says be angry and do not sin do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil second corinthians 10 talks about forgiveness and he says if you forgive him I forgive
Him we're to forgive one another and we're not to be ignorant to satan's schemes one of the ways that he works is he he gets you mad at you and doesn't want you to talk to each other that as long as we're frustrated as long as we're infighting as long as we're not sharing the gospel
That's fine whatever we can do to keep us aggravated to keep us frustrated to keep our feelings hurt and to keep us from talking to each other and having unity and being on mission is fine okay satan's a created being who rebelled against God who was
Defeated in the cross and now actively works to keep people from Jesus actively works to keep us in sin actively works to keep us ineffective in sharing the gospel now let's go to first peter and see what he says about him how we're to respond verse 8
Be sober minded that means think clearly think correctly one of the ways that we do that is we have incorrect information that's what we're trying to do just a second ago is get at least some correct information so that we know what we're thinking about how to respond so
Be sober minded then he says be watchful so be on alert just have your radar up for anything that looks like it might be enemy activity so if someone comes and is proclaiming Jesus to you but the whole point is here's how you be good here's
How you behave here's how you be religious here's all the things you have to do have your radar up they're not preaching Jesus they're giving you morality they're giving you religion they're giving you behaviorism they're giving you performance ism but it's not Jesus and
So be aware another one is this say you're hanging out on a Sunday and you think huh that's the second week that person didn't say hey to me I think I just saw a look did I see a look I saw a look I bet they're mad at me why would
They be mad at me I guess because they're a jerk I'm special when mom told me that it can't be my fault and then you'll come up with some reason oh I bet it was this I bet this is what they're thinking I bet they're mad about this you know what I'll do I'll be
Mad at them boom accomplished as opposed to being watchful and going hold on a second one of the things that I know that Satan actively tries to do is get me frustrated I'll go talk to him hey are you mad at me no I'm not mad at you why didn't
You say hey I don't know why didn't you say hey oh good point that person didn't say hey to me did you say hey to them no jerk like that's how that works like have a conversation be watchful know what's going on
Know that these things can happen and have your radar up that's what he says be sober minded be watchful your adversary so he's against you the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking
Someone to devour so we talked about how he works to devour I want you to show you two of the things he does first of all he prowls he's intentionally sneaky people have said well if Satan was
Real why he'd just show himself because that's a terrible plan terrible plan do you know how many anti-gun people would be at the Walmart buying rifles if we confirmed that the zombie apocalypse
Had started I'm so glad I'm in America come on you foot dragon slobber monster like if we found out that werewolves were real you know how quickly we'd be producing silver bullets they're real full moon silver bullet time so as soon
As like if Satan just showed up was like I am Satan you know people would be here next week pretty sure Jesus wins that one didn't realize that was true so he prowls he's sneaky he doesn't want you to know where he's at work he doesn't
Want you to know where he's active he's hiding it which all right let's play a game you're on a safari but you're just walking around it's really tall grass you see a lion over here you do not see a lion over here which one do you run from
The one you saw y'all aren't good at this game you run from the one you see y'all were like I don't know I think you're supposed to play dead I don't think that works with lions they're like sweet I don't have to
Run you run from the lion you see that's how that works this one surprises you you run this way and go dang it hey buddy that's how that works so yeah he's sneaky because then you're not aware you're not paying attention
Your radar is not up you don't know he can be at work he'd love for you to not believe in him that's fine with him he'd love for you to believe there's only natural causes for everything everything can be
Explained he doesn't need you to believe in him one of my dad used to teach us how to fight and one of his pieces of advice was if you're fighting while the other guy is still talking you have a distinct advantage
He said if his mouth is still open when you punch it that's a good start and honestly the enemy's like that if he's already started the fight before you know it started he has a distinct advantage so one of the ways that he does this is he's sneaky and he prowls
Around the second thing though is that he's a roaring lion which I want us to see this clearly Colossians 3 tells us that Jesus has disarmed the enemy that those of us who placed our faith in Jesus he has no power over us anymore because his power was in
Sin and death and Jesus has taken our sin and taken our death and Satan has no claim over us no power over us no condemnation over us any longer so once you do believe in his existence one of the ways he works is through roaring
Hearing a lion roar is terrifying but the roar is actually not the scary part of the lion it's the power that the lion has so when I'm at the zoo and a lion stands up and roar I'm like that was scary but I
Don't run because it's that giant ditch thing like if the lion comes at me I should be like bro you didn't think that through there's a lion in the ditch face looks hurt so when with Jesus having already conquered the enemy one of the
Things he's going for at this point for Christians who believe in his existence is for you to be very scared of him so some Christians don't want to talk about Satan or demons they don't want to bring it up they feel like it
Jinxes them they feel like oh we shouldn't be talking and they're unnecessarily afraid we should be watchful we should be aware we should be sober minded we should think about it clearly we are not to be proud or arrogant the power and authority
Is not in us we are not amazing Jesus is but we're also not to be terrified one of the word glory has several different ways that can be described in several different meanings meanings one of them is weight is weightiness which just means that you
Give things glory by giving them weight or sway in your life so I recently shaved my face I usually have a beard I recently shaved my face and people feel the need to tell me they didn't like it or that I looked like I was 12 it's like oh hi you look like a child thanks good talking to you it's nice to see you too but I do that because my wife and I met in high school and she needs to see my face every once in a while she has more weight
In my life than every person who saw me and told me I look like a child I care more about what she thinks I'm sorry I do also like the beard so I keep it and this time I shaved and she went I see why people like the beard I was like yes we're making progress soon she'll just be like just keep the beard I've seen your face enough but she has weight and so one of the ways that we give glory
To something or somebody is by letting them have some weight some sway some leadership in our lives some ability to affect how we act how we behave and when we are terrified of demonic things terrified of Satan it keeps us up at night we can't talk about him it's like he who must not be named when we do that we're giving glory to a being that deserves none now sober minded watchful
Not prideful not arrogant but also not giving them weight not giving him sway over your life how you act how your emotions work so he prowls and he roars and he's seeking someone to devour so we have an enemy who wants to destroy us let's figure out how we respond that's a good question what do you do with a prowling roaring lion who wants to devour you resist him
What helpful advice Peter should do a self-defense class alright ladies if you're in a parking lot and a man attacks you here's your plan try to get him to stop just resist it's like what that's not helpful I need like show me how to hold my keys with my knuckles give me a whistle something like I need a plan now just just just resist that'll be 50 bucks class is over
Like so resist him how firm in your faith okay cool resist him trusting in Jesus what's our faith our faith is that Jesus has disarmed the enemy through the cross our faith is that sin once had a lot of power over us guilt once had a lot of sway in our lives death was looming over us but now we have been
Rescued by a savior who took our sin who took our death and who set us free and when we are faced with enemy attack we just get to step back and say no I trust Jesus I don't have to be amazing I don't have to be good I don't have to be moral I don't have to accomplish this I don't have to be strong I don't have to be smart I don't have to
Be the best I trust Jesus and we just get to stand firm in our faith which is that Jesus is the ruling reigning king of all and that Satan has already been defeated resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering now let me say this if you are not a Christian place your
Faith in Jesus you have a real enemy out to destroy you out to trick you into trying to be really good to prove something to God and to make him owe you out into tricking you into chasing after a million other things to find
Yourself to prove yourself to have value to be loved to find worth and you have a God who stepped in and rescued and redeemed you trust in Jesus trust the God who gave up his life
For you not the being that's after yours not the one seeking to steal your life but the God the creator of the universe who gave up his life for you he says knowing that the
Same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world what he's saying is realize you're not suffering you're not in this battle by yourself you ever exercise with a partner or go through something
Terrible with another person and you think to yourself I am I'm sorry that you're going through this terrible thing but man I'm glad you're here I remember in football camp watching someone else get cussed out and just being like I'm glad
That guy's here I'm glad I'm not the only one getting cussed at I'm glad I'm not the only one having to run after practice or being stupid there's just something about what he's saying just realize that
You're in a war and all of us are you've got a lot of teammates you're not by yourself the band's going to come back up here and we're going to sing and make much of
Jesus and we've got two more verses to look at here resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout
The world you're not by yourself you're not alone it's not up to you there are others in this battle with you and after you have suffered a little while the God of all grace all freedom all joy all hope all peace
The God of all grace that freely gives freely poured himself out for us the God who went to the cross shedding his blood and giving his life so that you wouldn't have to shed yours or give yours the God of all grace
Who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ he's talking to Christians and he's saying the God of grace that's already redeemed you already rescued you already called you into an eternity where there is joy and peace and happiness
And freedom forever where the enemy is ultimately and finally destroyed who's called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore confirm strengthen and establish you stand firm in your faith and trust that the God of grace is going to
Step in at the right time and make it all right it's going to step in at the right time and fix everything on your behalf to him be the dominion forever and ever amen one of the reasons we haven't talked a whole lot
About Satan one of the reasons we don't spend a whole lot of time on the devil is because the Bible is never about him he is never the focus he is never the point it is squarely on Jesus all the time Jesus is the one who gets the glory forever he's the one
Who has dominion forever he is the creator God that rules and reigns over everything to him be the dominion forever and ever amen to Jesus be the praise to Jesus be the glory to him be the strength to him
Be power to him be the kingdom to him be everything eternally it'll be him that's on the throne it'll be he that reigns and rules over all things forever it'll be him that makes his enemies his footstool it'll be him that is the king and glorious ruler of all
Because he hid life in death because he hid victory in defeat because he hid our sin on himself that he took it on himself so that we might be free so that we might be saved so that we might be rescued so that we might not have to walk around in fear of sin
Or death or Satan ever again it's to Jesus be the glory to Jesus be the kingdom to Jesus be the rule to Jesus be the reign to Jesus be the dominion forever and ever amen