April, 2007
Are You Guided by the Roar of the Lion?
I Peter 5:8-11
INTRODUCTION: Satan gets to all of us from time to time through his roar tactics. Christians are not exempt from his search and often they allow him to guide their lives by his powerful roar. Does this sound familiar? Are you allowing yourself to be guided by the roar of the lion?
Probably you have not thought about it before. Just how does he guide us and devour us? Some of the ways he roars at us are very familiar--for example, we make decisions based on emotion--FEAR is followed up by an irrational decision. When we PANIC we make hasty wrong decisions. Another is when the lion roars and we become DEPRESSED. We make another irrational decision based on how we FEEL when we are down. He roars and we are scared. Or how many times do we react to the roar of CRITICISM and make a hasty decision to QUIT or to RETALIATE? When we fall for his roar, we mess up. Peter calls Satan “our enemy, the devil,” and likens him to a lion in search of prey.
Peter may have remembered his own experience when Satan tried to “sift” him when he had failed to be watchful (Luke 22:31). He relayed this to the struggling Christians at that time, and it still applies to us today.
We, too, must realize the tricks of the devil and not be guided into wrong decisions because of his intimidation. We can defeat the enemy by learning to not respond to his roar. How can we do this?
I Peter 5:8 gives us FOUR ways. Let’s look at this verse again. It points out four things to do:
1. Be self controlled (NIV) sober (KJV) keep a cool head (Message)
2. Alert vigilant stay alert
3. Resist resist keep your guard up
4. Stand firm steadfast firm grip on
The Message Bible says: “Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The devil is poised to pounce and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith.”
Let’s talk about these four things that we can put into practice in order to keep from being guided by the devil’s roar.
1. Be Self-Controlled: Scripture says to be self-controlled and choose not to react to the tricks of the devil. We must learn to recognize his tactics when we are gripped by fear, worry, tempted to panic, feel depressed, or want to run away. When these emotions come our way, it should signal a “red flag” going up where we say, “I don’t care how I FEEL, I’m going to do what is right. When we are gripped with these negative emotions, it is often good to delay making a decision until we can make a more rational one after we have calmed down and are thinking more clearly. For example if you are extremely angry or upset about something, you can’t make a good decision.
Many times you hear people saying, “I was just out of control. I just couldn’t control my drinking or my eating or my spending. May rage was just out of control.” Many people have thoughts that just become out of control--depression or worry, for example, that leads them to the brink of self destruction.
What are some ways you can bring control back to your life once the devil has gotten to you?
Scripture tells us we have weapons against Satan’s destructive tactics.
II Corinthians 10:4, 5 says, “for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exhalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
Paul was telling the Corinthians that they have tools for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. We are instructed to take authority over the tactics of the devil rather than to allow him to run roughshod over our lives.
How do you do this?
It is a good idea to think about ways we would handle a situation based on the roar of the lion before it happens. What would you do if…” What is my plan of action? For example if you don’t have any control over:
Chocolate cake
Cigarettes
Alcohol
Gambling
Depression
Overspending
What would you do?
Get the chocolate cake out of the house
Get the cigarettes out of your pocket
Don’t go to a bar where you will be tempted
Schedule other plans on gambling night
Don’t hang around with people who drag you down
Don’t sit and stew over problems.
Many people can’t regain control because they are allowing these things to have freedom
In their lives. If you don’t have any control over chocolate cake--you have difficulty if there is one sitting right there in front of you.
What about thoughts of DEPRESSION and WORRY? When the thoughts come, you’ve got to do your part not to DWELL on them for hours at a time. The roar of the lion--believing that the Lord has forsaken you, believing the lies of the devil that makes you feel depressed in the first place. When you allow the devil to keep roaring, you continue to sink more and more into out of control thoughts. Do these thoughts just sweep you away? We don’t want to allow this to happen to us.
What if you don’t have any self control? Many people say I don’t have any self control. Scripture teaches us to building ourselves up by ADDING to your faith:
Virtue goodness
Knowledge
Temperance Self control
Patience
Godliness
Brotherly kindness
Charity love
For if you add these things they give you FIRM FOOTING and you will not be uprooted by the roar. We add these things to our lives CONSISTENTLY by coming to church, by becoming more skillful in knowing and using the Word of God, by knowing how to pray and by being with other Christians who can help us to become stronger in our faith.
Self control. Have you got it in your life so that you don’t allow the roar of the lion to get you off track?
2. Be Alert: Where are these emotions coming from? Why am I fearful, depressed, angry? When we learn to be alert to the source of the roar, we can more easily choose not to fall for it. Know how the devil operates, but don’t be impressed by it. He is real, but don’t be impressed. Learn to say, “Devil, I’m on to you and won’t fall for it this time.”
We’ve got to be alert to Satan’s tricks especially when we are feeling alone, weak, helpless or cut off from the encouragement of other believers. When we are so focused on our troubles that we are not alert for danger, we become especially vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. Lions attack sick, young, or straggling animals. They choose victims who are alone or not alert.
The roar of the lion can come to us in indirect as well as direct ways. It can be very subtle at times. Let us be alert to the subtle ways as well as the more direct and obvious ways. Sometimes the roar will come to us through what people say to us--”You’ll never get that job. You’ll never be selected. People don’t like you very well…they don’t want you. You’re not competent…” We believe the roar and get discouraged and give up. Sometimes we hear what people are saying about us behind our backs and we allow the roar to make us depressed.
3. Resist: Scripture tells us to “resist the enemy and he will flee from you” (James 4).
The Message Bible sheds a little more light on this scripture by saying, “Yell a loud NO to the devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet YES to God and he will be there in no time.”
You must be convinced, though, that you have authority over his tricks. If you are half-hearted by saying, “Devil, I resist you in the name of Jesus--I THINK,” he won’t leave you alone. He will continue to roar and seek to devour you. You have to mean business when you resist him. What does it mean to resist?
The Greek word used here is anthistemi
To push against
To oppose
To withstand
If someone were trying to get in your front door, you would do everything in your power to keep them from it. You would push as hard as you could against that door. You would RESIST all of their efforts to come in.
To resist takes some effort on our part. It is an ACTIVE resistance to keep the devil out of our life and to keep him from taking over. Too many people passively sit by and say, “God’s in control. Whatever will be will be.” We have to care enough to stand up and say,
“Devil, you have come far enough. I take authority over you and I drive you back. You’re not going to destroy my home, my marriage, my children.”
The Message Bible says, “Yell a loud NO to the devil and watch him scamper.”
When you make the devil believe that YOU believe it, then he will get the message and leave you alone.
4. Stand Firm: Most of all we need to stand firm when the devil roars rather than panic, forgetting everything we know to do. We can resist him by standing firm in our faith. Who are we in Christ? What does the Word tell us? Is it possible to stand firm on what Scripture tells us and not budge when the lion roars and tries to overwhelm us. You can’t be double minded or wishy washy. James clearly points this out.
James 1:6 says, “he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
“a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not that man think he shall receive anything from the Lord” (vs. 7 and 8).
Ephesians 6:11 “put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to STAND AGAINST the wiles of the devil (his roar).
Ephesians 6:13 “and having done all to stand STAND FIRM, STAND YOUR GROUND.”
We don’t want to give any ground back to the devil. He will try to rob us of our peace, our joy, our abundant life. He comes to “steal, kill and to destroy (John 10:10) but Jesus has come to give us life and that more abundantly.”
CONCLUSION: There is an old song that says, “I’m standing on the promises of God.” We are not standing in our own strength. We are not standing against the devil’s roar with our own resources but with the empowerment of God.
We can have the victory over the roar of the devil in our lives because of Jesus. We don’t have to live defeated lives of fear, worry, depression, out of control habits.
Let us rise up through being
1. Self controlled
2. Alert
3. Resist
4. Stand Firm
Peter concludes this scripture with a promise of “divine aid.” He says, “after you have gone through problems for awhile that the Lord will RESTORE you, MAKE YOU STRONG, FIRM, and STEADFAST” (vs. 10).
The Message Bible reads, “It won’t be long before the Lord has you “Put together and on your feet for good.”
Praise the Lord!!!
Let us Pray:
