1 Peter 5:8-14 

We come to the final message in this letter of 1 Peter. The overall title of the series has been Living the cross centred life. The cross permeates Peter’s writing for he understood how important it was to a right understanding of discipleship. We can never get too far from the cross. The cross centred and cross shaped life brings us to the themes of holiness, submission, enduring suffering, obedience. These are not glamorous concepts – the cross is not glamorous - but it is necessary if we are to live lives that delight God and lead to eternal glory.

So much of what Jesus did and the way he lived went against the current thinking of not only the world but the religious leaders. As we continue to live in the world we need to constantly come back to the cross and remind ourselves of what it is to be a disciple of Jesus. We never get away from the cross and we never rise above it. Our faith is cross shaped. We owe everything to the cross. It is woven through 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1:2 Peter tells us that we have been sprinkled and cleansed by Christ’s blood; in 1:18-19 we are told that we are redeemed, bought out of an empty way of life and slavery by the precious blood of Christ; in 2:24 we are reminded that he bore our sins in his body on the tree at Calvary so that we might live to righteousness and know healing through his wounds; in 3:18 we are reminded that Jesus died for our sins once for all and through that one act of sacrifice we have been reconciled to our heavenly Father and then, like our Lord, in 4:13 and 16 we are reminded that we too are called to suffer in following him but we should not be ashamed of suffering for the glorious name of Jesus.

We are called to the cross centred life and all of us need this reminder from time to time especially as we live in a world of comfort and where we expect things to get easier, but following Jesus will never be easy. As we have said before it is a war we are engaged in, all around us a spiritual battle is raging and we need to be aware of this. In Peter’s day the war could more easily be seen – people were being openly persecuted and killed for their faith. That is happening still in parts of our world but in the west such suffering is not common although it may come in the future. But Peter ends his letter with what he felt was a necessary warning and in our culture it is definitely necessary to hear. In v.8 he says “be self controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Many in our world today do not take satan seriously, but many in our churches do not either. CS Lewis once warned about the two errors of not believing in the devil at all and in being pre-occupied with him. We should not be obsessed with him but we do need to take him and his strategies seriously.  He is real and e is our enemy and he will try everything to bring down the church. And so I want us to take Peter’s warning seriously and look at some of the strategies that satan employs to undermine the church.

Peter here speaks of satan as like a lion roaring. The roar of the lion had been felt throughout the Roman empire with many christians suffering for their faith and even being thrown to literal lions. This was a huge test of their faith but many came through and stood firm in the test. Listen to these words of an early well known Christian called Ignatius who was ready for whatever would be thrown at him in the Roman Colosseum – “Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God. I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread…come fire and cross and grapplings with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, hacking of limbs, crushings of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me. Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ.”

Ignatius not only heard the roar of the lion but he smelt the breath of the lion’s mouth and he stood firm. Satan launched a full assault upon the young church through the persecutions of the Roman emperors like Nero who put Christians on crosses and set them alight as a party trick. And we see this kind of full assault in areas where the church is young and growing like in China or in former communist countries. Satan will work through the powers and the governments to keep the church suppressed and oppressed, he does not want to see it gaining a foothold so the roar of the lion is louder and more terrifying there.

But lions do not just roar, they also prowl and hunt quietly, secretly, subtly, until they get close to their prey. Satan is clever, he is a deceiver, and he is good at prowling around exploiting our weaknesses and we need to be aware of his strategies. Let me give you five strategies that satan uses to undermine us and to bring us down.

1.Temptation All of us have weaknesses and the devil and his allies are good at spreading temptations around. The Bible tells us that we need to be careful in case we think that we are standing firm lest we fall. None of us are above temptation, that may be a temptation to pride, or lust, or covetousness, or telling lies or gossiping. When we look into our hearts we can see areas where satan can attack us and we need to be strong. James 1:13 says “When tempted no-one should say God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown leads to death”

Know yourself and know the areas where you are weak and when you fell tempted then the best thing to do is to flee from that temptation, do not flirt with it, do not dally with it, but flee from it. He uses attractive things to get us lured in. John Blanchard says “the devil is usually good looking”. He knows how to put on an attractive front.

2. Dilution  Satan is the great diluter. He will dilute our enthusiasm for God. He will say sure you don’t need to be at church each week, sure you don’t need to read your bible every day, sure you don’t have to go the small group tonight. Bit by bit he can dilute our faith and water down our enthusiasm. People do not tend to lose their faith and enthusiasm for the Lord overnight – it tends to be over a process of time as we let things slip and we replace good habits with bad habits. In Hebrews 10:25 it says “Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but let us encourage one another”.  We need each other, we need to meet together for these are difficult days, faith sapping days we live in and we need to encourage one another to keep growing and going in the faith. Are you letting things slip. The summer time can be a time where we let things slip instead of using the time to keep spiritually strong. Read a good Christian biography or a christian book that you have not had time to read. Take time to grow spiritually. Beware, the lion is prowling, he is wanting to dilute your enthusiasm for the Lord.

3. Infiltration. Satan loves to infiltrate the church. Vance Havner says “Satan is not fighting churches he is joining them. He does more harm by sowing tares than by pulling up wheat. He accomplishes more by imitation than by outright opposition”.  We all know that satan can masquerade as an angel of light. He knows scripture and he can get people to deceive themselves and quote scripture out of context to enable them to do something that is just plain silly. But we say it’s ok, I have a verse. But often the verse is wildly out of context – a text out of context is a pretext for anything.

Satan is also a theologian and he quoted scripture at Jesus and he is still doing it today and we need the church sometimes to give us that wider perspective, that balance that we need to stop us going down routes of heresy or so obsessed with one issue that it leads to division which of course is something that satan loves. He loves dividing churches. It does not matter whether it is over doctrine or practice, he knows that a divided church is a weak church. So beware of his schemes, let’s pray for unity and harmony in the body. Let’s pray against people majoring on minors, or also minoring on majors. Be alert to satan’s schemes.

4. Prevarication. We know the old saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. When it comes to our salvation we have a habit of saying I will put it off to a later time. The bible says today is the day of salvation. Satan is quite happy to have us put off that time when we deliberately and decisively bow the knee to Jesus. He is happy even to have us attending church as long as we do not take it too seriously.

5. Accusation.  Another name for satan is the accuser. He is good at attacking our worth in God. When we come to Jesus we become a child of God but satan would not want us to have this assurance and so he will sow doubts and fear and undermine our confidence in Christ. He will have us try and prove ourselves before God instead of acknowledging God’s wonderful grace and the righteousness that is ours in the blood of Christ. So many problems in the Christian life stem from a lack of assurance that we are God’s children. Don’t listen to the whisperings of the evil one telling you that you are no good and what could you do in God’s kingdom, and your just a nobody in the church. These are the whisperings of the evil one, for you are precious in God’s sight and he has a purpose for you and he has given you a gift of the Spirit to serve him in the church.

We could go on for there are many other strategies that satan uses to undermine our faith. Be aware of him but also be aware that we cannot fight this battle alone or in our own strength. We need the help of fellow Christians and we need the help of God’s Spirit. He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). John 12:31 also says “the prince of this world will be driven out.”  We are on the victory side so we do not need to be bullied or cowed by satan, but we need to be aware that he is a dangerous enemy, treat him with care, do not treat him lightly. He is a lion, but he is a tethered lion. In Christ we have the victory over him.

Peter says in v.9 “resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”  Knowing that others are undergoing suffering or persecution or are fighting satan helps us as believers. I can think of four ways in which it helps me

-    Encouragement knowing that I am not alone in the battle

-    There is a spiritual bond which joins me with brothers and sisters all over the world  and that encourages me

-    Suffering is inherent in Christian faith. The cross and the normal Christian life involves an element of warfare and struggle. Do not be surprised when the testing comes, when the trial comes, when the temptation comes. Rather be surprised when it does not come.

-    There is hope. The promised land is in view and it will be worth it.

And this note of hope is how Peter ends this marvellous letter. “The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (v.10).

When life is hard, when suffering comes, or even when life is mundane and you are tempted to ask the question, and it is a good question, why am I here? What is life about anyway with all its trials and tribulations, its mixture of joys and sorrows? When we ask these ultimate questions we are driven to an authority above us – the word of God – and we are driven to consider that we are here for a purpose. That purpose is the glory of God – man’s chief end or purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever – and God intends for us to share in that eternal glory. In a world and culture which is confused, a world living for the instant and which has lost its moral bearings we look to the one who has made us, the one who calls us, the one who died for us in Jesus Christ and there we find assurance, hope, certainty, firmness. May the God who has his hand upon our lives lead us deeper into love for him and love for others, may he equip us to serve him more faithfully in this world until that day when he calls us home and we sing with the saints around the throne and we say one to the other it was worth it.   

Yes, beware of the lion, but we know that he is a defeated lion for we worship a stronger lion, the lion of Judah who is also a lamb. One day earth and heaven will resound to his song for he is worthy of all our praise and To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen

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