Pleasant Hill Baptist Church of Quitman MS
Pastor Michael DePhillips
www.forministry.com/39355PHBC
Message: "A roaring lion" 1 Peter 5:8 (scripture text)
The first rule of warfare is to know your enemy and the more you know about you enemy, the better able you’ll be to come up with a means of defeating him.
*General Matthew B. Ridgway, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff wrote in his autobiography, SOLDIER, "there are two kinds of information that no commander can do without – information pertaining to the enemy he faces which we call "COMBAT INTELLIGENCE" and information on the terrain where the battle will be fought.
We must know how our "spiritual enemy" thinks, what motivates him and his intrinsic nature to overcome him but the first thing we must study is the nature of our enemy, the devil. Peter described the devil as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Most big-game hunters consider the lion to be one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. Near our home in Louisiana there was a man who kept some lions in cages he had set up in his yard out in the swamps. I used to love to go there and watch the lions and the tigers but the best time to go was when they were feeding them! They would roar and fight with each other to get the biggest portion of food and it would almost make you hair stand up on end. With the wealth of information available to us today through media, one of the things we’re able to know is how a lion hunts. They watch their prey to see which ones are slow or weak or sick or young or crippled or old and then they launch their attack by charging.
This is really a tactic to push the animal they’re hunting towards one or more lions that have concealed themselves for the ambush. Sometimes lions lope towards a herd of animals and roar to get the herd moving around so they can see which animals are the easiest prey.
* You might find it interesting to know that a real lion actually suffocates the victim by clamping its mouth over the nose and mouth of the victim or by holding the throat. Our enemy suffocates the Christian by shutting off his ability to pray and suffocating us "spiritually".
There have been some who would tell you that the devil is a toothless lion with no ability to hurt us but I would say to you that Satan is a fierce opponent and a deadly enemy. We do ourselves a serious disservice if we discount his existence, take him lightly or believe that we can defeat him in our own strength. Peter also called the devil an ADVERSARY which is someone who opposes us. A real enemy is one who doesn’t like you simply because you exist and who takes personal pleasure in opposing you.
Want you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation 12:7-17 (read) Prayer for confusion in demonic ranks and a binding of their hindrance over the remainder of this service. Pray for a loosing of holy angels to minister unto the saints that they might process the message into their hearts through angelic protection. Jesus once told the disciples when they returned from a great soul winning and healing and casting out demon campaign that they were to rejoice in the fact of their salvation and that he had given them power to trample on scorpions and serpents and to overcome all the power of the enemy yet the average Christian is living a defeated life because we have our eyes focused in the wrong places. Jesus told Peter that the gates of hell wouldn’t prevail against the church and that there was to be a binding and loosing of things on earth to loose things in the heavenlies. The Apostle Paul told us that our battle isn’t with flesh and blood but a "spiritual battle in the heavenly places against principality and power and spiritual wickedness in high places".
And we still choose to show up with a pocketknife at a gunfight and wonder why we lose the battle! There is a story told by a preacher friend of mine whose father fought in that war with a boy from Alabama. They were in boot camp and the whole base was in an uproar because a General had shown up unexpectedly to inspect the troops. They were standing in formation out in the sun in the middle of the day and the General was going up and down the line asking each soldier questions when he finally came to this old boy from Alabama.
Now this old boy wasn’t exactly the pick of the litter and he had been struggling all through bootcamp when the General came up to him and said, "Son, what’s your serial number?" and the boy from Mississippi shouted at the top of his lungs, CORNFLAKES SIR!
Some of you will get that joke on the way home. Yet there are Christians in the church who at the moment of testing think that if they can just say it loud enough and believe it hard enough, they can get by without learning and practicing the fundamentals of the faith. CORNFLAKES SIR!
(1) Mike Taliaferro, a pastor in South Africa wrote in his book, The lion never sleeps, "I have seen lions hunting. They are territorial and won’t follow the migrating herds but rather hunt a specific area. When a herd moves near their territory, they will approach slowly keenly aware of wind direction and staying downwind of their prey. Many times the lions don’t care if the herd is alerted to their presence because they have confidence in themselves to succeed. Frequently the lion will run at a herd, not sprinting but more like jogging to frighten the herd and get them moving. To human eyes the retreat of the herd may seem quite normal but to the keen eye of the lion hunting for prey, dinner becomes obvious. He notices who is old, who is tired and who is injured with a slight limp or any mannerism portraying weakness imperceptible to the human eye. Sometimes he roars to create panic as he runs at the herd in order to spot the weak ones in the herd and once he decides on a target, he will run past others to get to the one he has chosen for his prey."
(2) Peter tells us that we have an invisible, camouflaged enemy stalking us to see whom he can devour yet he also said he was our ADVERSARY.
A. You don’t have to do anything to make the devil hate you other than have breath in your body. You can’t be friends with the devil and hope that he’ll leave you alone. He wants to destroy you and everything that you love!
B. February 1997 I met a man called Joe Galindo
* lost his home, lost his family
* almost lost his life
All because he thought it would be okay to play with a Ouija Board, he opened a window into his home from the depths of hell and the lion roared! Joe was supernaturally delivered and is still walking with God today because he knew to take the devil seriously.
( Finish explaining mimeograph)
My friend Joe suffered a satanic attack because he thought playing with the devil could be good, clean family fun. About a year later, Joe went home to visit some of his family in San Antonio and the devil was waiting for him. Came in contact with some deceived people who thought that you could use a little "white magic" or Santeria and Joe almost lost himself again in the oppression of a Satanic attack but he had a little faith. He knew that I had truly helped him and when he came home he asked me about some of the things he’d been told and then he believed his pastor when I told him to leave that stuff alone!
Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey them that have rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you."
You can’t play with the devil church because his one and only goal it to strangle your faith and ruin your testimony. He wants to destroy you completely! He doesn’t want to twist your arm behind your shoulder and make you say uncle like the bully back at school but he wants to rip your arm off and beat your skull in with the bloody end of it. He’ll take his time and he’ll be back when you least expect it because he’s patient and persistent! He’s not a toothless tiger but walks about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour and while he is powerful…
HE’S NOT ALL POWERFUL! While he’s knowledgeable…
HE’S NOT ALL KNOWING! While he’s got his iron in a lot of fires…
HE’S NOT IN ALL PLACES!
Glory to God for Calvary’s Hill and an Old Rugged Cross where Jesus died for you and me. Thank God for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Bright and Morning Star, the Holy Lamb of God that was slain and fights on our behalf if we’ve been saved and had our name written in His Book of Life.
Revelation 12:11 (read)
· Satan can’t overcome the blood of Jesus
· If I’m washed in the blood, then and only then by His Stripes am I healed from my sin
· By His blood I am saved and forgiven of my sins
· By His victory over death am I made alive forevermore with Him in glory
Satan can’t get through the blood! For Satan to steal my soul from the family of God, he would have to be able to swim through the blood of Jesus and he can’t do it! He would have to be able to storm the walls of Salvation and whip every angel in heaven BUT HE CAN’T DO IT! Somebody should be shouting because Romans 8:37 says…
NAY IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM THAT LOVED US. FOR I AM PERSUADED THAT NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE NOR ANGELS NOR PRINCIPALITIES NOR POWERS NOR THINGS PRESENT NOR THINGS TO COME NOR HEIGHT NOR DEPTH NOR ANY CREATURE SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD!
Christian you need to have your soul refreshed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ because nothing but the blood of Jesus can wash your sins away. Recommit your life to him and get back in the battle by asking God to wash you again in Jesus and fan the embers of your heart back into a roaring fire. Will you come? Will you come with no music and with no singing right now to say in the presence of these witnesses and the witnesses gathered at the balcony of heaven according to Hebrews 12:1 that I will give all I am and everything I ever hope to be for the kingdom of God by fighting in the army of God.
Some of you are scared to death right now because you know that God has never saved your soul from the onslaught of the devil and the sin in your life. Friend there’s still a fountain filled with blood that flowed from Emmanuel’s veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. You have a real enemy that is even as I speak coming to your mind to steal the seed of the gospel that you might be lost forever without Jesus. At this moment he is deceiving you that maybe tomorrow or next week or when I’m wearing better clothes or after I think about it a while, don’t let the devil have you anymore. You come quickly as we open this time of decision!
Father I ask that you glorify your son and send confusion into the demonic realm right now as you loose holy angels to guard your word and remove any hindrance from these that you’ve appointed this day as the time they encounter you. We ask you to search our hearts with your blessed Holy Spirit and break our stone cold hearts so that you can replace it with a heart of flesh you can write your word on. Help us Lord for the devil is a roaring lion and he wants to kill us and we have no strength to overcome him unless you have mercy on us through the blood of Jesus.
PHBC Spiritual Warfare Series
"Like a roaring Lion" 1 Peter 5:8
The first rule of warfare is KNOW YOUR ENEMY!
A. How does he think?
B. What motivates him?
C. What is his nature?
What is the nature of our "spiritual" enemy?
(1) As a roaring lion
· dangerous
· powerful
· deceptive
· swiftly attacks
(2) Adversary
· someone who opposes you
· hostile towards you
(3) Thief (John 10:10)
(4) Father of lies (John 8:44)
(5) Deceiver (Revelation 12:9)
A Satanic Attack: an experience in which we feel Satan has assaulted our lives for the purpose of destroying us or our testimony.
Satan is PATIENT and PERSISTENT!
What Satan cannot do:
A. Omnipotent (all powerful)
B. Omniscient (all knowing)
C. Omnipresent (all places)
*A great thing to know is the Satan cannot read your mind nor know your thoughts. Many times Christians believe that if they rebuke Satan in their mind that he will flee but Satan must be rebuked in an audible voice. While it is possible for Satan or one of his demons to oppress our minds [put thoughts into our head] only Almighty God knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts.
REBUKE SATAN OUT LOUD IN JESUS NAME AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU!
