THE LION’S ROAR
October 19, 2014 morning service
I Peter 5:8-11
Take your Bible. As the choir’s finding their place, you find your place in I Peter
chapter 5 and we begin reading today in verse 8 and we will read through verse 11, a
message that we entitled, “The Lion’s Roar.” We find the lion in scripture in three
different ways. He is the wicked one. We’ll look at that. He is the Lion of Judah. He is
Jesus Himself. There are also physical lions in the Bible. In I Kings 13 the lion killed a
lying preacher. God gave him a message and power and for a while he obeyed and
then he disobeyed and on the way home God sent a lion to kill him. There are physical
lions that we deal with in our lives. There are spiritual adversaries that we deal with but
there is the great Lion of Judah that we can trust with all of our heart and soul. So this
morning I want us to look at the lion’s roar. In I Peter 5, beginning in verse number 8,
hear the word of our great God.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a
roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that
the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in
the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you
to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
To Him be dominion forever and ever. [And that word is what?] Amen.1
The lion roars. This text says that we have an adversary. This word adversary
where you find it here in verse 8, the devil, your adversary is the word that is most often
used as an opponent in a lawsuit. How many of you have ever been sued, not that
you’ve sued, how many of you have ever been sued in your life? A few folks. I
remember as a young boy growing up, my daddy ran a grocery store and he was sued.
It was an old man that came through our grocery store. Somebody had broken a jar of
Crisco oil and it ran the floor and you couldn’t see it. We put up a sign and we began to
hurry to clean it up and said, “Don’t come this way.” We had someone standing there
and said don’t go that way but that elderly gentleman walked right through, fell, and
broke his hip. He told my dad, “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have gone. They told me
and I saw.” But his kids rose up as an opponent in a lawsuit that eventually was settled
out of court.
I’ve only seen my father angry a few times in his life. Most of the time it was
pointed at his only son. But this time it was pointed not at his customer but the children
of a customer because they came as an opponent in a lawsuit that we had to spend
money to defend ourselves and something that was really not our fault. We had done
what we thought was the right thing and the man had said. Nevertheless, we had an
opponent. You have an opponent today and he’s coming after you. The Bible says
he’s coming to devour you. This word devour, he is seeking someone in verse 8 to
1
®
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible , Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963,
1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
devour. It literally means in its Greek formation to swallow. What he wants to do is
crush you and eat you and swallow you and digest you. The lion roars like an
adversary coming against you in a lawsuit. He wants you and he wants your life. He
wants to devour you to swallow you. We’re in a battle today. We’re in a battle because
the lion is roaring. We’re in a battle for our body.
We saw last week that we’re to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Let me
tell you, the devil’s after you physically because if he can get your body, then he has
your attention because we all, first of all, respond in the flesh. When you hurt, you
respond. Your flesh. And if you’ve not given your body as a living sacrifice unto the
Lord then the devil will have you because you cannot get to the spirit man if you’ve not
dealt with the physical man. The devil comes and we have a battle for the body.
Secondly, there’s a battle for the family. Families are under attack all around us.
Your family, my family, your children, my children. All of us, we find our family is under
attack. He’s wanting to swallow us, to devour us, to divide us not only with our domestic
families but with our church family. He comes against us wanting to chew and tear not
only your family at home but your family at church. We are in a battle for the body. We
are in a battle for the family but those two things are really not my application today.
We are in a battle for the mind.
This word where we find in verse 8. Be on alert, your adversary, the devil, prowls
about like a roaring, roaring lion. In the background of the word roar, we have a word
that speaks of vocalizing words. There is the battle that we must win first. It is the
battle for the mind. For as Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinketh in his mind, so is
he.” The way you think, some scriptures say within your heart, but you know that your
heart is a muscle that beats and it speaks metaphorically of how you’re thinking, of who
the man is. As a man thinks in his head, in his soul, in his mind, that’s who he is. You
see, the howl of the enemy is with words. He howls against us with words.
There are five great arguments that I believe the devil makes to us today. I’ve
outlined them for you right there. Number one is the creation argument. Here is what
God is putting forth. I’ll speak a little longer to this probably in the second service
because I’ll have more teenagers there. The creation argument says to us that God did
not create us. This is what the devil comes against us with. He roars against us to say,
“You are nothing more than an intelligent animal having evolved faster than the other
species around you.” There’s nothing different really from you and everything else that
is a lie. Therefore, people like PETA will elevate animals to the human side.
It’s amazing to me how at the same time liberals will elevate the animal kingdom
to man’s side and they will protect turtles on Pensacola Beach but they’ll let you murder
infant children in the womb. This simply does not make sense but it is the creation
argument and it all goes back to say that God is really not the creator of man becoming
the apple of his eye but we are all just in an animal kingdom and the lion roars with this
non-creation argument.
2 Secondly is what I call the sexual argument. The wicked one comes against us
and he’s making an argument about our sexuality. Here’s the phrase and you hear it all
the time. “Practice safe sex.” For the life of me I did not know that it was dangerous.
Hello. I’m just astonished at words but our youthful culture today is more sexually active
than ever. What they mean by safe sex is take precaution so that you don’t have a
pregnancy and have to abort that pregnancy. Be safe and protect yourself so that STD
does not come your way. There’s much disease.
I am doing counseling now for several young couples getting ready to get
married. I’ve been thrilled because this is not always the case but of late it seems –
hey, church, I just want you to know right now, 9:30, there is a host, a host of young
couples in small group right now. I am talking about a growing phenomenon in the body
life of Olive Baptist Church. These are newly married, got little kids, and they’re filling
up the preschool area down there with them and the children’s area and some of you
are in this room but the great majority of them are in small group right now and will be in
the next service. So many coming out of that singles and college division.
Two couples I’ve had of late have both asked me in my counseling time with
them, they say, “Pastor, I want to bring my purity ring and give it back to my father
because I made a pledge when I was a teenager and I said I would not be sexually
active until my wedding night.” What a joy it was just a few days ago to take that small
little silver band and hand it back to a father and see tears come down his face. For
that girl to say, “Daddy, I’ve made good on my pledge. I have been faithful in this
regard.” Now I know it’s just hogwash and, you know, old fuddy duddy, but let me tell
you, dear friend, it’s still God’s way. It’s God’s way that sexual intercourse is not to
come into your life outside of the bonds of matrimony. We are to keep ourselves pure
but the lion roars. Practice responsible, safe sex.
The third is the alcohol argument. Here’s the words you hear. When you drink,
drink responsibly. Have you ever met a responsible drunk? Don’t drink and drive but
just drink responsibly. Hmmm. Stats that I read say that 54% of high school students
9th through 12th grade drink occasionally and 35% of them binge drink. These are high
school students. Alcohol is found in 70% of the American homes. I realize that
scripture only condemns drunkenness. You say, “Well I just have a little bit at my
home.” I understand that. There’s a great argument to be made there biblically. You
find wine in scripture but to drink responsibly is the lion’s roar because it’ll put you in a
car, it’ll put you in a circumstance. It’ll put you in a place that is not responsible nor is it
safe. Most of the time when you turn on the evening news and you see tragedies that
as the media often says, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Most of the times if it bleeds and it leads
it started with an open container. Often, often, oftentimes alcohol comes to be the
poison.
I’m amazed today that you cannot advertise cigarettes on television but you can
advertise alcohol. That just seems backwards to me. If it is as dangerous as we know
that it is – I’ve been amazed to see the Anheuser-Busch Company condemning things
3 of late that drunken people do. He roars with this alcohol argument. Just drink
responsibly.
He roars with a theological argument and here’s what he says. Christ can be
equal but not exclusive. The exclusivity of Christ, the devil knows that is a problem for
him but if Jesus is just level, if He’s the same as Islam, if He’s the same as Mormonism,
if He’s the same as Judaism, but if you elevate the Christ, the wicked one will roar, roar.
It’s been amazing.
I wrote a little bit about it there in my word today of what’s going on in Houston,
Texas the last few days. An amazing phenomenon that the mayor of Houston who is a
lesbian that has been married now to her partner for a while, number one that she was
elected in Houston, I couldn’t understand. But then coming out with her hero, H-E-R-O
acrostic speaking about the equal rights for everyone. What they’re simply saying is
that if you’re male or female or transgender that you can use any bathroom. Here’s
what that means. That means if my daughter with my granddaughter is in the mall at
Houston and goes in the ladies room that a man who decides he’s a woman can go in
that bathroom with them. That’s what that’s about. That, my friend, is stupid. That, my
friend, is ignorant. That, my friend, is sin run amuck. We have become so blinded to
common sense, we’ve lost our ever loving minds.
So the mayor of Houston’s attorneys subpoenaed the sermons that preachers
would preach just like I just said, in America. They have told preachers, “You must
submit your sermons now before you preach them.” I shared this with John Sullivan
sitting downtown in Pensacola this week, my good friend, Dr. John and his sweet wife,
Nancy. We sat down on the waterfront in Pensacola. It was a good day on Tuesday
and we got a free Blue Angels flyover while we were having our sandwich. I brought
this up and he said, “Well I’m not familiar with all of that.” I outlined that to him and I’ll
never forget that old 77-year-old prophet just kind of raised up out of his chair. He said,
“I’ll tell you this, it’ll be a cold day in hell when I give them a sermon.” I said, “Dr. John,
they didn’t ask for your sermons. It’s alright.” He said, “I’ll send them all the sermons I
want but not because they want and make me come.” He said, “I’ll go to jail if need be.”
I’m here to tell you, there’s some preachers going to go to jail in our nation.
There’s some preachers headed to jail in America for preaching the gospel and for
simply reading the Bible. It’s coming. I don’t know when it’s coming. I don’t know if it’s
coming on my watch but I’m telling you, it is coming to America and when you get down
to this text, to the bottom of it, you’re going to see that it’s only after we suffer for a while
that God’s going to do a great work. It’s on the way. You can mark it down. It is coming
and it will come over the theological argument of Jesus and His exclusivity that He is
Lord and when you say He is Lord and that other gods are not Lord, you’re going to be
accused of hate speech and hate crime. They’re going to come and take preachers and
they better take some deacons and they better take some Sunday School teachers that
we stand against the devil’s roar that Jesus is not the exclusive Christ.
4 You say, “Preacher, that’s just harsh.” Well it is but I’m just telling you, if He’s not
Lord let’s go play golf. Amen. I get too tired to do this if it’s not true but it is true. That’s
why we stay in the game so that lady that walks in out there this morning and says to
me, “Pastor, Jesus changed my life here last Sunday. Thank you for preaching the
gospel.” Amen.
It’s the lion’s roar of creation, the sexual argument, the alcohol argument, the
theological argument, but then there’s the tolerance argument. All claims are equal and
must be viewed as such. Just tolerate, tolerate, tolerate. Just back down, back down,
and be tolerant. America’s tolerant of everybody but the Bible preacher. We tolerate
everything but not the exclusivity of Christ. If you’re going to be tolerant you’re going to
have to tolerate us all. But tolerance, he roars. I’m telling you, your high schools are
filled with this teaching of tolerance. You’ve got to treat everyone the same. I’m telling
you, friend, I’ve got two kids. I don’t even treat both of them the same. They’re
different. When you deal with issues, everybody’s not the same. There are some
righteous; some unrighteous. Some going the right road; some going the bad road.
You dare not call everything equal. He roars the tolerance argument.
So what do we do? There’s the introduction to the sermon. So what does He tell
us to do? We know we have an adversary and he’s trying to swallow us and he’s trying
to kill us so what do we do? He gives us three faith calls to action. Here’s what we’ve
got to do. Since the old devil’s roaring, we’ve got to do some things.
Number one. He says to us in verse number 8, be sober. Be sober. Now that
word has nothing to do with alcohol. That word means to be of a sound mind. Have
your mind trained. Think. Will you just say that word with me? Think. Say it out loud.
Think. Just one more time. Think. You’ve got to learn to think. You’ve got to read
good books. You’ve got to watch good programming. You’ve got to listen to the right
preachers. You’ve got to have the right friends. If you’re going to be sober, you must
be of a sound mind. When you go to Mark’s gospel chapter 5 and verse 15, there was
a demoniac. He was full of the devil. Jesus dealt with him and the Bible says they
found him sitting at Jesus’ fees and in what? His right mind. He was in his right mind.
He was thinking for the first time.
That’s why our apologetics school at Olive that I started about four years ago that
is now finally gaining traction. It’s taken us a little while but apologetics is beginning to
run and cut a deep furrow through the life of our church. We’re teaching on Wednesday
night and other times and we’re going to see that. It’s the growing need in the American
church today to teach the church what it thinks and what it believes and so that we can
defend the faith out in the world with an apologetic. It doesn’t mean you apologize. The
word apologetic is to defend the faith. Apologia means that we defend the faith. You do
that with a sober mind. You’ve got to learn to think. Take two brain cells, run them
together, and see what you can come up with.
You ought to just read this book. It’s a great place to start. Read the word.
Read the word. Be sober.
5 Number two. You’ve got to be alert. Look at it right here in this text. Be of sober
mind and be on the alert. That word means to be watchful. Look out. Watchful. We
find this in Matthew 26:40-41 when Jesus comes to the garden of Gethsemane and He
speaks to His disciples when He comes back and He finds them asleep. He said,
“Could you not for one hour watch and pray?” Friend, when you’re alert, you’re praying.
You’re thinking because you’re sober-minded but after you think, then you watch. You
pray. The watchman on the wall is an intercessor and a prayer warrior. Did you pray
this morning? Did you rise up and pray? Did you kneel before you came to church or
did you just say, “Well, I’ll let somebody else do my praying at church?” No, no, no.
You must be alert, not asleep but alert. Watch and pray.
The most important thing you can do about our coming capital campaign is ask
God what you should do and what our church should do. Be watchful. I shared this in a
blog and I’ll say this over and over and over. You’ll probably get tired of hearing me say
it but our President of the Southern Baptist Convention, my good friend, Ronnie Floyd,
is calling us to prayer for awakening in America. We’ve talked a lot about that before
but he came up with a new little way. It’s really kind of gotten in my heart. He calls it
180 prayer. Here’s what he means by that. He’s asking us to pray that I and Olive and
America would turn 180, that we’d turn 180, we’d repent. We’re going the wrong way
and we’d go the right way. He’s asking us to pray that for 180 seconds. That’s three
minutes. Pray 180 seconds about yourself, about your church, and about your nation to
turn 180 degrees and to do it when you see the sun rise and when you see the sun set.
So I’ve started that. At my house I’m up before daylight most of the time. Not all
the time but most of the time and I have a little deck out back now and the sun comes
up over those pines. So either in my office, I see out the window, or just go out there
and sit on the deck and just as the sun begins to rise, I just begin to pray for Ted
Traylor. “Lord, shine your light in my heart and help me repent and be right with you.
God, help me do what you want me to do. Lord, I pray for Olive. Help us to be obedient
to You. Help us to do what You want us to do. Turn our church where You want it to
be. Lord, I pray for our nation, that You’d turn us.”
You’d be amazed how much God will speak to your heart in three minutes. 180
seconds for 180 turn. Be on the alert. Watch and pray. It doesn’t seem like I pray as
much when the sun goes down. I get busy, I guess, when the sun’s going down. But in
the morning when I’m up – hey, I challenge you. I challenge you to take your
sweetheart, go to Pensacola Beach some day at sunset. Pray for three minutes as you
see the sun set. There’s not a more beautiful place in all the world, is there? It’s hard
to believe we get to live here. Amen. That sun goes down on that horizon. Pray, “O
God,” for 180 seconds that we’d turn 180 degrees.
You’ve got to watch and pray. Why? Because there’s a roar. There’s a roar.
Be sober. Be alert. There’s a third call to action. It says in this text we must be firm.
Be firm. Look in verse 9. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing the same experiences
of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. Be firm.
6 That word means to be steadfast, to stand fast, resisting the devil and you’re firm in
your faith, that you believe.
Then He says, after you’ve suffered – now I want you to hear this preacher.
Anybody that tells you that you will never suffer for your faith if you stand for Christ, is a
devil. I’m not telling you that everybody suffers but anybody that tells you that anytime
you suffer for your faith, that you’ve just not believed enough, they’re a devil. Why
nearly everybody in this book that stood for Christ suffered. Did they not? There are
some things you will never understand until you hurt. As he says in this text, after you
suffered for a little while, God of all grace, God gives grace in your hurt and in your
suffering. Here’s what He does for you. He will Himself perfect you. Amen.
You’ll be closer to Jesus than ever. He’ll confirm you. You will know the peace
of God within your heart that you’re doing right. He’ll strengthen you when you think
you can’t make it. He’ll strengthen you and then He will establish you and when you
speak, oh my, there will be an establishment of your faith. You’ve got to be firm. I’m
telling you, when the old wicked one comes against you and he will and when he roars
and when you suffer and when you’re ostracized or when you’re put in jail or when you
don’t get a job because you stand or your family turns their back on you because you’re
standing for Christ and they won’t hear any of it and you’re suffering, I’m telling you,
God will perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. Some of you are suffering right
now. You say, “Preacher, I can’t see it.” Hang on. Hang on. You may never see it all
in this world but you’ll see some of it in this world.
There may be a legacy after you’re dead and gone of God’s testimony in your
life. Be sober. Be alert. Be firm. Why should we do that? Well everybody take your
Bible. You’re in I Peter. I want you to hang a right and go to the Revelation chapter 5,
verses 5 and 6. Look at this in Revelation 5:5. John is in heaven and he’s looking up to
the heavens and he saw a book. Nobody could open it. He started crying because
there was no one that could open the book so he could see the future but verse 5 says:
And one of the elders said to me [John], “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the
tribe of Judah [we get our word ‘Jew’ right out of that word. Judah. That’s where the
word ‘Jew’ comes from. Stop weeping because the Lion is from the tribe of Judah], the
Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.” And I saw
between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if
slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out
into all the earth.
Notice he saw two things. He saw the Lion of Judah and he saw the Lamb of
God. I want you to know the person who will get the last word in this world is the Lion of
Judah. I did a little reading about lions this week. Did you know in a short distance they
can run up to 50 miles an hour? They live to be somewhere between 15 to 20 years of
age according to whether they’re in the wild or captivity. They’ll weigh between 300 and
500 pounds. They are called the king of the jungle. Of course there’s the movies that
some of us have seen. Aslan. I love that old movie. There’s the old lion. He’s laid
over. They think he’s dead but God raises him. Amen. He goes against the wicked
7 one and when he opens his mouth and roars it makes the hair fly back on everybody’s
head. Because greater is the roar of the Lion of Judah than is the roar of the adversary.
He is the victor. Amen.
He has come and He died for you as the Lamb of God. He has come and they
buried Him. He has come and He got up from the grave and He roars today. He roars
today. That’s why in China thousands are coming to faith in Christ. That’s why in Africa
there’s a great revival of people coming to faith in Christ. That’s why in Cuba today we
are seeing hundreds come to faith in Christ all across the world. I keep praying, “O,
dear God, would you not roar again in a place called the United States of America.” He
says, “If you’ll stop listening to the wrong roar, lift your ear to the roar of the Lion of
Judah, I’m ready to come and do a great work but I’m looking for some people that’ll
bow at my feet because I am the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. If you
will come and bow at my feet and love Me, I’ll do a work for you.” The roar. The roar of
the lion.
I’m pretty hopped up about our church. I’m pretty excited about what God’s
about to do because I see a stirring. I see a stirring. There’s some folks that are ready
to walk with the Lion. Amen. What disturbs me is there’s some folks that just want to
move into safety. They say, “You know, preacher, I’ve served my time and I’m done
and I just kind of want to coast on out.” Oh man, that’s a boring life. We live in an age
where we can’t coast. I understand that you don’t run as fast as you used to run, you
don’t jump as high as you used to jump but the lion roars as loud as it ever roared.
I want to tell you something. When you were a little boy or girl, there were some
old people standing by the stuff and you saw it in them and it’s time for that crew that’s
over here in the building to see it in you. Those young couples say, “I see the heart of
the Lion, the heart of the Lion within you.” England takes the lion as its face. The lion.
Churchhill, they saw him as the lion. When he’d been defeated and down here
he came as the lion. God wants to put the lion in you, that within you there’s a strength
and a power of the Lion of Judah. That’s why I asked them to put that banner out today,
the Lion of Judah, that He would roar within you. Jesus came as a Lamb and died for
you. He’s coming back one day as King of kings and Lord of lords. If you would but
trust Him, He’d save you. If you would but link your life with this church, we’ll go
together in strength. He looks for you to bow.
What would you do if you met a real lion? Don’t go up a tree. He’s coming after
you. The king threw Daniel in the lion’s den. He didn’t want to. He went back and slept
and he got up early the next morning and he came running and said, “Daniel, has your
God delivered you?” He yawned and said, “Yes, sir, what’s for breakfast? I’ve been
sleeping on the mane of this lion because God has closed his mouth and has delivered
me from his paw.”
Never forget that the Lion of Judah is greater than the lion who roars in your life.
Trust Him. Trust Him. He’s coming back to get us. Are you ready? Are you living for
8 Him? Is the Spirit of the Lion of Judah within you standing for Christ and is the Spirit of
the Lamb and gentleness in you living for Christ? The call of the invitation today is to
come to Jesus and be saved, to come to the church and be a part, to come to the altar
and bow and say, “O God, have your way in my life.”
We’re on our feet all over this room. Jon’s beginning to play the keyboard and as
he begins to play, you step out and you get ready to come saying, “All to Jesus, I
surrender.” Is it your day? Out of that balcony. Is it your day? Come on. On this
ground floor, is it your day? Come on. Come on. It’s your day to come. We’re singing
this song all together. Jon’s singing. God’s calling. That’s it. You come. You come.
You come.
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