1 Peter 5, verse 6. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are throughout the world. We ask Heavenly Father your blessing on our considerations this morning. Perhaps it's a little more theological than ordinary, but Father, this is a doctrine, a theology that we need to understand. We ask Father that from this truth, we may proceed into salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Bless, we ask this morning, in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. I have a two-part message for you today, and we'll finish up this evening. This isn't one long lesson that I'm dividing into two parts for convenience sake. It is two distinct sections, but they're obviously tied together. I think we can turn this microphone down, can't we? It just really rings up here. And I've got this other mic on. Our subject today, throughout the day, will be the devil. But there's another way in which these two messages are tied together is with a little pronoun, your. Peter says in this context, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. But as we also read a few minutes ago from John chapter eight, the Lord Jesus said to a relatively hostile crowd, ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father will ye do." We have your in 1 Peter, we have your in John chapter 8, and they're referring to two different people. Yet, they're tied together with Satan, with the devil. To one group of people, the devil is an adversary. To the other group, he's not so much an adversary as he is a father. Something that I noticed at the outset is that neither Christ nor Peter tried to define or explain who it is that they're talking about. They each assume that their audience already knows the devil, knows about him anyway. The Jews were introduced to him through their Old Testament scriptures. And those in Asia who had Gentile backgrounds apparently have been informed about the devil by Peter, by Paul, by the others who were ministering the truth to those folk. Many of those people in Asia had also seen the handiwork of the devil. As in Macedonia and Philippi, where there was a demon possessed woman. But we live more than 2,000 years removed from the days of Christ and the days of Peter. We have been raised in a satanically inspired atmosphere of skepticism and biblical denial. The culture of this nation's founding fathers, a culture of at least biblical basis, has dissolved away. It's no longer here. I'm not saying that our founding fathers were all believers in Christ, but there was a biblical nature to their society. It is necessary today that we introduce the devil into the conversation. Whether recognized or not, the devil is a part of today's society, but he is working incognito, we might say. Without trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, I believe that he plays a key role in the downward spiral of our society. Most Americans don't realize this because they intellectually pick and choose what sort of mystical or spiritual things they want to recognize. But you and I as believers in the Word of God do not have that option. There he is, right there in the Word of God. We have to accept what the Bible teaches. We are obligated to accept the reality of the devil because the Holy Spirit has pulled back the curtain, so to speak, and we see him in all his nakedness throughout the Word of God. Satan the devil is an actual evil creature. We can make that conclusion through the process of logic, even though we might be doing that in a little more unusual way. Let me show you what I mean. Does God exist? Well, certainly God exists, without a doubt. The fact that we live in a complex, organized universe demands a creator, and that creator is Jehovah. God, I saw a cartoon the other day. I don't know that I have it exactly correct in my mind because I passed over it so quickly. There was a mother snowman talking to her child snowman. And she was telling her little snow child that a million snowflakes fell down from heaven and gathered themselves together and made the little snow baby. It doesn't work that way. Most Americans are not willing to admit to the truth. Until we convince our heart to reject the obvious engineering of our body or our universe, that heart knows intuitively that there is a God. The necessity of justice demands that the evil in this world be judged at some point in time, and that means a just and righteous God. There are other intellectual arguments for the existence of God. There's the cosmological argument, and the teleological argument, and the ontological argument, and the anthropomorphic, excuse me, anthropo, The human argument. I'm losing it. Pray for me, I'm losing it. But the most important argument for the existence of God, none of these things, this is the most important argument. You don't have to know what all those words that I can't pronounce mean. It doesn't matter. This is what we have to trust. Similarly, Why do most cultures and societies believe in some sort of hell? Some sort of punishment for the wicked? Why do most religions have some sort of heaven? We could run through some of the arguments that I just mentioned, but again, for us, the most powerful argument for the existence of hell and the existence of heaven are the pages of the word of God, where we are instructed about these things. God declares in his word that there is an eternal heaven for God's people, and there is a lake of fire and brimstone for those who live and die without the Lord's salvation. We find it all over the Word of God. If someone is willing to admit to the existence of God, if someone is willing to admit to the existence of heaven and hell, then logic demands that he also believe in the reality of an evil being, one that we call Satan. If we accept what the Bible teaches about one truth, and we believe it, then we need to believe the rest of the things that the Bible tells us. It's just logical. Moses. The biographer of the Old Testament saint, Job, asserts the existence of the devil. The Lord said unto Satan, one of the names of the devil, whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it, sounds very much like what Peter tells us in chapter five, walking about seeking whom he may devour. Moses also suggests that Satan possesses the characteristics of personhood, there's probably a better word than that, but he has personal will. He makes choices. He observes things. He learns things. He responds to things. He is acquainted with God and responds to God. Moses and Job, Zechariah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. They reveal more facts to us about the devil. They describe his origination. They describe his intent, what he's trying to do. As I said a few minutes ago, the Jews of Jesus' day believed in the devil. They knew about the devil because they possessed the Hebrew scriptures which told them about Satan, the devil. And then we come to the New Testament. All four gospel writers reveal things about the devil, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John and Luke also speak of him in their letters and in the book of Acts written by Luke. Then follow others like Paul and James and Peter teaching us more about the devil. If someone claims to believe what Paul says about salvation, then they are obligated to believe there is a being called Satan, because he teaches both of these things. And finally, there is the Lord Jesus, who spoke of the devil and also to the devil. If Christ cannot be trusted when he is speaking about Satan, then Christ cannot be trusted for anything. He can't be trusted at all. If reason be taken to its logical conclusion, someone who does not believe in the reality of a literal devilish being called Satan, the person is probably not a Christian. because he's rejecting what Christ has said. There should be no doubt about the reality and the existence of the devil. So he's laid out before us there by the apostle Peter. What sort of creature is he? First of all, Peter tells us that he is an adversary to the Christian. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Notice that the Apostle does not say, Satan the devil is your adversary, as though it might be some new thought to those people. No, he implies you already know that Satan is your adversary. As you already know, the devil is your adversary, but you should also know that he walks about seeking whom he may devour. That's the gist of the statement. That's all that I'm going to say about the devil's adversarial character, because that's more in more appropriate for our message this evening. I'm just laying that out there. Rather, I would like to skip over the adversary part and come to the second part of Peter's statement. Be sober, be vigilant, because as a roaring lion, the roaring lion, the devil walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Now, there's a little tiny word there in verse number eight. A little preposition. He walketh about as a roaring lion. It tells us that there is a simile coming up. Satan is not actually a lion. He's not a king of beasts. I don't believe that anyone has ever seen Satan as a lion. We will not see him as a lion. No, Satan only displays certain characteristics that are leonine, that are lion-like. But why does Peter say the devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour? Picture a huge male lion. He's got the big mane where the females don't have that. He looks intimidating. He walks about with a swagger and the mannerisms of the boss. Yes. He weighs a hundred pounds more than the 400 pound females that are in his family. He has a harem of 12 lionesses who generally kill the prey for the family, kill the prey for this big male, usually. He sometimes hunt, but more often he just lets the ladies in the family fix supper for him. He just lays there until it's done. Why does this big lion roar? The answer is he roars to keep other males at bay. Simple answer. Most line vocalizing is done early in the morning and early in the evening. They roar to declare, I am here, this is my territory, and these are my ladies, the rest of you stay away. They roar to tell, other males to stay away, and the louder their roar is, the more successful they are at that purpose. They don't roar in order to terrorize antelopes. Is that right? Or plural, antelopeses? It would be counterproductive. Why scare the prey? Let's just keep them Unaware of our presence, the lions usually hunt by stealth as much as possible till the last moment. They don't roar after a kill either because they have no intention of sharing this antelope that they've killed. They don't want the hyenas and the jackals and the dogs coming by. No, they just want to sit down and have supper. So they stay quiet, although he argues with who should eat first, I suppose, but that's all relatively quiet. No big roar. Satan, like a lion, roars to boast about who he is, telling God and others to stay away from his family. And by the way, do you remember what a group of lions is called? We have a flock of sheep. We have a murder of crows. We have a herd of cows. But a family of lions is a pride. Isn't that... What's the word? Ironic? Is that the right word? Interesting. What's that? Well, I don't know that the lion ever actually called his group a pride, but nevertheless, we have that in there. You could say that Satan is proud of his wives and his children. Just making an application. He roars to keep them in line and roars to keep other lions and other creatures away. Leave us alone. Even though lions are the apex predator on the savannah, they still have to deal with hyenas and others who come and try to take away their cubs and the weak of the pride. But woe to that hyena. who meets up with the pride male who weighs probably twice as much. Why does the devil roar? I don't know anyone who could definitively answer that question. But trying to put myself into Satan's paws and his voice, I'd say that it was out of pride. I'd say that he roars to challenge God. Look what I've got here. These are mine. Yes, his roar does sometimes frighten the saints, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was not primarily to frighten us. His roar may increase their cares, but that's more for the message tonight. What does Satan actually intend to do? The devil is a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. That's what it says. Satan is not like the dog whose bark is worse than his bite. Satan's bite is worse than his roar, than his bark. He goeth about seeking whom he may swallow, is the word, swallow down. How far should we stretch Peter's simile? How far do we use this illustration? For example, how and to what purpose is it that Satan devours prey? Does the devil have to eat two meals a day in order to stay alive? Does the devil need 2,000 calories a day or is it 3,000 calories a day? Assuming that you ate yesterday, how many meals was it? Or maybe I should say how many times during the day was it? Why? For what reason did you eat? Don't we eat in order to sustain our lives? We know that we have to eat. We know that we have to take in fuel in order to continue living. And sometimes we eat certain things because we really enjoy those things. So we eat them because they taste good to us, we like them, they smell good, we eat them. Or sometimes we eat because someone we love went to a lot of trouble to prepare that meal and I think I better have a good meal here to say thank you for those preparations. In the old field's house, there's one cat, definitely not a lion, who often eats just to make sure that the other cat doesn't get to eat. Why do we eat? What is it that Peter might be saying about Satan and his eating habits? Keep in mind that Satan has been around since just before the beginning of things, shall we say, since the first day of human existence. Billions of people have been born, lived their 100-year lives, and then passed away, while the devil just keeps going on and on and on. And he knows that this generation is going to die. He's aware of that. My point is, you are not Satan's primary concern. Devouring us is not really his objective. We're told in Isaiah 14 that Satan's foolish goal is to unseat the sovereign God, Jehovah. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. There's Satan's goal. But he has learned over six millennia that a frontal attack upon Jehovah doesn't work. He's not gonna win that fight. For example, his temptation of the Savior, described in Matthew 4 and elsewhere, it ended up in a defeat, essentially, as far as Satan is concerned. As a result, right now, rather than facing the armies of God with his armies, he has his gun sights set on you and me. on us, the pinnacle of God's earthly creation, and according to Peter, the pinnacle of God's salvation. He feeds his personal pride on spiritually consuming the weak and sickly stragglers among the vast herds of humanity. He seems to think that by attacking and defeating God's creation, or more particularly, God's saints, he will ultimately defeat the Lord. He's got no other place to go, because he can't face the Lord himself. But Satan is not a spiritual cannibal. He doesn't actually or physically eat anyone. The Bible is not the script for a horror movie depicting Satan with blood dripping from the fangs of a grotesque, devilish-looking creature. Peter uses the lion only as a simile. We'll come back to 1 Peter tonight, but for the rest of this morning's lesson, let me take you back to John 8. In fact, you might turn there. John chapter eight. At the beginning of the chapter, we see the Lord Jesus in one of the courts of the temple, preparing to teach the people once again. Quickly, a handful of satanically inspired men brought a sinful woman to him, captured in the very act of sin. What are you gonna do about this? It was a test for the Lord Jesus. They didn't care about the woman. They certainly didn't care about the man who was involved in it. It was a test for the Savior. Ultimately, he drove those people away with the truth and he said to the woman, go and sin no more. Disarming everybody there. Then there was some instruction and some debate there in the chapter where the scripture says some of these people believed on him. It was that they professed to believe on him. He exposes the lack of true faith in them. Then there was a debate between Christ and another group of Jews, a bunch of self-righteous Pharisees. And he said to them, year from beneath, I am from above, year of this world, I am not of this world. They replied, pointing to their genetic relationship and allegiance to Abraham, the father of Israel. He is our father. Christ responded by saying, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard from God the Father. This did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father, not Abraham. Then they uttered, a despicable comment about the Lord Jesus. And Jesus said unto them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? because you're dead in trespasses and sins. Why do you not understand my speech? Even because you cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there's no truth in him. When he speak of the lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. According to Peter, The devil is the adversary and slanderer of the children of God. According to Peter's master, the Lord Jesus, the devil is the father of those who reject Christ and his message. But remember, the people to whom Jesus was speaking were some of the most religious people in the world. They had all their theological ducks lined up perfectly. Dead ducks, brother. Bird referred to being dead. But they were all lined up perfectly, and they vigorously defended what they perceived to be the ancient religion of Abraham and the patriarchs. We are of them. And personally, they could probably produce notarized copies of their genealogy, taking them all the way back to Abraham and before that. But the Son of God declared that they were actually children of the devil. There is a physical lineage, there's a spiritual lineage. And oh, by the way, that declaration Jesus made essentially includes all the rest of us as well. We don't have to be Jews to be children of the devil. We don't have to be overly religious to be children of the devil. This is everybody who are outside of Christ. When Adam chose to rebel against Jehovah, his creator, he forsook the family of God, so to speak. Just as it is in some states here in this country permitting children to divorce their parents, Adam divorced himself from the Lord. Just as God had forewarned him, Adam, you disobey me in regard to this tree, you will die. And he died. Spiritually, he was dead. Ah, but his lineage went on. But he was dead. Spiritually, Cain and Abel, his sons, along with all the rest of Adam's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, have all been born into the pride of the Lion King. And as a result, we live and behave like our king. We lie, we cheat, we murder when necessary. It's in our genes, spiritually speaking. It's in our blood, it's in our DNA. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there's no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. That's not this preacher saying these things. This is the Lord Jesus. Then Peter adds, the devil is a roaring lion walked about seeking whom he may devour. How is it that Satan devours souls? Your soul. By striving with all his might to hunt you down and keep you from acknowledging your spiritual ancestors. by striving with all his might to keep his children from repenting of their sinful, Leonine character and nature. He works to keep us from acknowledging that we need more than what we have in this world. spirit of ours. The devil wants to hide you from the truth and he wants to hide the truth from you and in this he envelops you, he devours you. You are currently living and dying in the pride of the wicked one. And if you leave this world in that condition, you will be cast into the eternal fires, which have been prepared for the devil and his angels." Again, the words of the Lord Jesus. How can a child of the devil become one of the children of God? How can a sinner become one of God's saints? Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? No lioness can morph into a sheep. But with God, all things are possible. God, in his word, tells us that you can be born again. And if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, no longer a lion but a sheep. He's a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5.17. Despite what Satan may put in your heart, I implore you to not acknowledge before God that you are a sinner, that you are in that evil family. Admit that you're hopelessly enslaved to those things that God has condemned. Repent before God, and at the same time, reach out by faith to Christ, who gave his life on the cross to save sinners like you and me. Repentance and faith in Christ are found in God's sheep, creatures that were formerly in the pride of the lion. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved from the destruction which is going to fall upon him. Please stand. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that the Word of God might speak to our hearts, not the words of the preacher. cast every individual aside so that the lost might see the Savior, might recognize the love and the sacrifice, the willingness to save that is a part of the heart of the Redeemer. I pray, Father, that you'd touch every heart here, especially those that are still Lions at heart. In Jesus' name, amen. Please take your hymnal, turn to number 338, and I invite you to look to the Savior. 338, look and live. I've a message from the Lord, hallelujah. The message unto you I'll give. It is recorded in His word, hallelujah. It is only that you look and believe. Look and live, my Father, live. Look to Jesus now and It is only that you look and live. I have a message full of love, hallelujah. A message, oh my friend, for you. Tis a message from above, hallelujah. Jesus said it and I know tis true. Look and live, my mother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It's recorded in His Word, hallelujah. It is only that you look and live. Life is offered unto you, hallelujah. Eternal life thy soul shall have. If you'll only look to Him, hallelujah! Look to Jesus, who alone can save. Look and live, my sister, live! Look to Jesus now and live! Disrecorded in His Word, hallelujah! It is only that you walk and live. I will tell you how I came, hallelujah, to Jesus when he made me new. ♪ Plus believing on his name, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I trust him and he saved my soul ♪ ♪ Look and live, my brother, live ♪ ♪ Look to Jesus now and live ♪ ♪ His record and his word, hallelujah ♪ ♪ It is only that you all have heard ♪ Brother Kilgard, dismiss this please.