Don’t Be Devoured • 1 Peter 5:8-14

40:25 Teaching begins

Notes

The world is going to come unglued. You are going to be persecuted. The government is going to go against you. The devil is looking to devour you.

Peter wrote that almost two thousand years ago. It’s still true today.

Peter doesn’t write to terrify us. He writes these things to strengthen us and give us hope. You have to know where you are going and the good things you are expecting in the future. If you lose hope, there is no reason to keep going. Life becomes futile. But we have a great hope, the best hope, the only hope. We have every reason to keep going, unless we get discouraged.

The devil is going to do his very best to consume you. But you can resist the devil, because God has everything you need, that is, God Himself.

We’re reading in 1 Peter 5 from verse 8.

1. The devil is looking for an opportunity to kill you.

A. You have an enemy. He is supernatural, immortal, indestructible. He hates you and wants to kill you. The only one smarter and stronger than him is God. Which means you are no match for him at all.

B. He has been successful to steal, kill and destroy with nearly every person in the Bible. We don’t read of Joseph’s sins, or of Daniel’s sins. But those kind of people are very few. Great saints have been deceived to sin, lose hope, lose the plot, finish their lives badly.

C. Peter warns us that the devil is looking around for an opportunity, some kind of opening, for him to attack, kill, and devour.

1. You are born again of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Your old self died with Jesus on the cross. You rose from the dead with Jesus into newness of life created in the image of God. You are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who is God. You have the inherent ability to resist evil and weakness and temptation. 1 John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

2. Yet the devil is still very difficult to resist. We still fall to temptation into sin.

3. It happens because the devil finds in us an opportunity. Opportunity is made up of favourable circumstances that work together.

4. One favourable circumstance is that you are not sober.

a. When you are sober you think and see clearly. You remember who you are: born again, freed from sin, headed to heaven. You can see clearly to make right choices. Right is right, wrong is wrong.

b. When you are intoxicated with some kind of poison, in the natural world that would be alcohol or drugs, you have made yourself weaker than you would be if you were sober. You don’t think clearly, it’s all muddled up. You can be exhilarated, emotionally high, really having fun, this is living! Your physical and mental control is weakened.

c. You are getting your happiness and satisfaction and life from some other source than God.

5. Another favourable circumstance for attack and killing you is not being awake.

a. When you are asleep you are unconscious, unaware of what is going on around you. You are oblivious and careless. lacking remembrance, memory, or mindful attention.

b. You are indifferent to danger, apathetic, lack of interest. I’m not especially following Jesus. I don’t care. “Jesus isn’t that great” equals “the devil isn’t that bad.”

6. It is opportune for the devil to attack when a lot of favourable circumstances come at the same time. Weak, weaker, weakest.

D. The devil is right there to give you a gift that doesn’t give life, it takes your life.

1. Knock, knock, knock on the door. Inspector Closseau opens the door, someone hands him a lit bomb, he accepts it. What a dope.

2. Temptation doesn’t look like a lit bomb. It looks like a gift that gives life if you take it right now. And it won’t cost you anything! The devil tempted Jesus like that. “Here’s all the kingdoms of the world, I’ll give them to You if you just bow down and worship me right now.” What a gift. Only it’s not a gift, it’s an attempt to take Jesus’ life if He accepts the devil’s gift.

3. In reality, when you receive the devil’s gifts it always ends with you getting killed. Always has, always will.

E. The devil is looking around, waiting for you to be weak in your relationship with Jesus so he can take opportunity and kill you. If you stay weak you will die. Paul says in Romans 8:12-13 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

2. Peter commands us to resist the devil, firm in our faith.

A. “Resist” means to not give in, not to submit to the devil. Not to give in to superior force, or overpowering appeal or desire. It means to be successful in resisting. If you resist for a while but then give in, you didn’t resist.

B. Resist means never receiving anything from the devil. If he offers you a gift, you refuse it.

C. You resist the devil by pursuing you faith, your relationship with Jesus.

1. Why don’t you go out with that girl over there? She’s pretty. She’s probably smart, too. I won’t go out with that girl because I’m married to this girl, here, that’s why!

2. You are in a committed covenant relationship with God. Pursue that relationship, because that is your satisfaction and happiness, which together means, life. You can’t be happy if you’re not satisfied, you can’t be satisfied if you’re not happy. You need both.

D. Do you get your happiness, your satisfaction, your life, from God?

1. When you were in the world you went after your own happiness, whatever it took. You tried as hard as you could to satisfy yourself. Even when it was sinful, you did it. But it didn’t work, you couldn’t be satisfied or happy.

2. The real problem all along was you tried to find your own life apart from Jesus, against Jesus. You came to Jesus and said, “Please save me.” You were washed from your sins. You were cleansed. You knew peace. You were satisfied, not with a thing, but by God, and by being right with Him through Jesus. Relationship with God through Jesus satisfies, makes you happy, gives you life.

D. You can stop seeking Jesus and go back to seeking your own way. Then the satisfaction tapers off.

1. You become open to other sources of happiness that promise, “I am a pretty good alternative, you can have happiness and satisfaction and life with me.”

2. You do life alone, and not with Jesus. That will exhaust you. You will run dry of life. You will break together, as the Germans say. Collapse.

3. Everything you need to live is right there in your relationship with Jesus Christ. All the words Peter uses in verse 10 have to do with strength and life:

A. Perfect. It means to refurbish, to repair, to mend, to put into correct working order. Have you ever felt like you’re broken? You are! God is your Maker. He will fix you so that you live the way He means for you to live. Ultimately He will glorify you, make you immortal, along with Jesus. All tears will be wiped away. There will be perfect happiness and perfect satisfaction. Eternal life.

B. Confirm. It means firmly fixed in place, steadfast, not subject to change. It’s so tiresome to be blown here and there, unstable as water. When God confirms you, you resist forces that will warp and twist you.

C. Strengthen. Here is more strength and more life. This word is only used here in 1 Peter. The New Testament uses the negative form of this word all the time. We put the prefix un- before a word and it becomes its opposite. Unstrong. The opposite to strength is weakness. But what God gives us is strength, power to resist attack. 1 John 2:14 I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.

D. Establish. This means be founded, get a foundation that cannot be shaken or pushed around. Solid, unshakeable, unchanging.

E. As we push into our relationship with Jesus God uses our suffering to perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish us in Him. We don’t get stronger. He gets stronger in us. He works in us.

4. God Himself will do these things in you and overcome the devil because He is the God of all grace.

A. Grace is God giving where there is no ability, no deserving, through Jesus. God gives enabling to the one who says, “I can’t do this. I don’t have what it takes.” God saves, He transforms, He keeps.

B. God has all power. Peter says to Him be dominion forever and ever. The Greek word is kratos, strength, might. Dominion is that strength manifested and revealed.

C. Now, we do not underestimate the devil. Paul has a word for him in Ephesians 6:12 kosmokrator. Kosmos, meaning this world, krator, force. Paul calls the devil the god of this world. The devil and his angels are the rulers of this present darkness. Kosmokrator.

D. The proper word for God is not kosmokrator, but pantokrator, all kratos, all power. This is used of the Father and the Son. You see it often in Revelation.

E. God has all power and He will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

5. This is the true grace of God.

A. Yes, even though you will suffer for a little while. It’s still the grace of God.

1. This suffering purifies your faith in Jesus. It separates the gold from the dirt so that there is no trust in anything else, no impurity, you trust only in Jesus for everything.

2. You know that everyone else who believes in Jesus is going through the same process. Our lives are not out of control, everything is not going wrong. Suffering is absolutely necessary. We commit our souls to God as to a faithful Creator and keep doing what is right and good.

3. There are Christians who teach that when you believe in Jesus you will always be victorious, always be healthy, always be prosperous. If you are not it means you don’t have enough faith. But this true grace of God makes you like Jesus, and Jesus suffered. He looked to God to help Him and save Him. God perfected the Captain of our salvation through suffering.

B. The purpose of God’s grace is to finish the work He started. He called us to follow Jesus. The end of that calling is receiving eternal glory with Jesus. We know that before honour is humility, just like with Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this.

C. So Peter commands us to stand firm in the grace of God. It is true grace, that will never deceive us or disappoint us. He tells us plainly that we will suffer, that God will help us, that we will be glorified with Jesus. He’s telling us the truth.

6. So what?

A. Learn to recognize your enemy and when you are in danger.

1. The enemy is not flesh and blood, but spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. They have the advantage over you by yourself. So you never fight alone. You always fight in Jesus, in the power of His might.

2. Remember that the devil is looking for favourable circumstances that open you up for attack.

a. You’re in danger of attack when you feel bleah and apathetic towards Jesus. There’s a distance developing between you and Him. It feels like He is a million miles away. That’s a danger sign.

b. When you are indifferent to following and obeying Him, that’s a danger sign.

c. When you’re tired, that’s a danger. When you are weak, that’s dangerous. When you are discouraged and lose hope, that’s dangerous.

d. When all these happen at the same time, the devil is going to offer you the gift of a lifetime, it’s going to look really good, you want to take it right now.

e. You are dead meat. You are food on a plate for the devil.

B. So don’t go there. You don’t need another video, a bunch of memes, looking at your phone to get you out of your rut.

C. Instead, push into your relationship with Jesus.

1. Why not get out of the house and tell Jesus, “I’m apathetic, I hate all the difficulty. I’m tired and upset and angry. I’m discouraged. I’ve lost hope.”? Say the unsayable. God can handle it.

2. That’s humbling yourself before God. James 4:6-8 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

D. The real issue is your relationship with Jesus.

1. All that the devil does is to turn you aside from your relationship with Jesus. He wants to distract you with sin or difficulties or side issues that aren’t Jesus. He tempts us to focus on lesser issues. Some people will break fellowship in order to protect their health. If you are not vaccinated then you’re practically the anti-christ. Others say if you take the vaccine you’re apostate. Neither side is being loving like Jesus. When we are turning away from Jesus we aren’t loving, and there is no witness to Jesus.

2. The answer is Jesus Himself. David said, I have set the LORD always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope. Psalm 16:8-9

3. In all this life that you face, set Jesus right in front of you. You stay at His right hand. You are already resisting the devil.

Let’s pray.