Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 5:8
Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter
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Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles
Message: Satan: The Roaring Lion
Airdate: 11/9/2026
Program: 2396
Satan: The Roaring Lion Part B
We’re going to be talking about our great enemy and spiritual warfare. How do we fight this enemy, and to do so biblically? So let me read what Peter writes here, 1 Peter 5, beginning in verse 8. Here’s what Peter says. “Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.”
Now, in these two verses, you’ll notice there are four things that Peter calls us to do in battling against Satan. They are, first of all, we are to be sober-minded. Secondly, we are to be watchful. Third, we are to resist him. And fourth, we are to know that others are suffering in this as well. All four of these admonitions are based upon the reality of a spiritual being, a dangerous enemy that is lurking amongst us.
Our enemy is Satan and all the demons. And they live in a world. The Bible describes reality this way, that there is the physical world that we can see. And there is another world. It is the spiritual world. And that world is as real as this world is. We just can’t see it. It’s kind of like if you’ve ever gone snorkeling. You put on the snorkel, you get the little thing, you know, and then you sort of swim out into the little cove or wherever you are, and you put your head down, and all of a sudden, there’s an entire world that you couldn’t see before. And there’s these pretty fish and all the things that are going on. You’re like, “I had no idea that was there.” There’s a day coming when all of us are going to be like, “I had no idea that was there.” This whole thing that is going on, if we had eyes to see, right here, right now in this place, I believe there would be beings, spiritual beings, right here.
Remember the story of Elisha when the army surround the city, and the servant’s like, “We’re gonna die. What are we gonna do?” And Elisha prayed. He said, “God, help my servant see what is really there.” And all of a sudden he sees the chariots of the armies of God. That world is just out of our view. That loved one that died in the faith, that’s the world that they’re living in right now. It’s as real as this world is. And it is in that world that these demons and Satan primarily are existing. But, so they live there, but they are seeking to influence this world. And they’re able to do so for their own twisted purposes.
And my dear friends, we need to realize something. Satan is completely evil. Absolutely, completely evil. There is no vestige of goodness in him. There is no Anakin Skywalker that needs to come out from the Darth Vader. “I knew there was goodness in him. Father, come.” There is none of that with Satan. He is absolutely, totally bent on demeaning and defaming the glory of God. That’s where our... you know, we’re in rebellion. We’re enemies of God. We’re born in sin, but we are different than Satan. The unbeliever can do good things, walk old ladies across the street, give money to good things like that. They can do that. It doesn’t favor with God. It doesn’t save them, but they retain a certain, although broken, goodness to them. Satan has none of that. So these people that, “I’m going to worship Satan. I’m going to see if maybe he’ll do good things to me.” It’s ludicrous. There is nothing good in him. There is no mercy in him. There is no kindness in him.
They are filled with pride. They are filled with hate and bitterness and murder. Their every thought and intent, all the time, always, is towards evil. The destruction of God’s glory, the destruction of God’s people, the destruction of anything that’s good that reflects the beauty and the glory of God in this world, they hate it. And how do they do this? They tempt, they influence, they corrupt, they compromise, they divide, they discourage, they defame, and they destroy anything intended to bring God glory. They’re like parasites. They can’t make anything good. They can’t make anything beautiful, but they can live off the good and the beautiful and corrupt it and twist it. That’s how they operate.
So guess what is the most glorious thing that God is doing in this world? It is redeeming sinners from the kingdom of darkness and bringing them over through the gospel into the kingdom of light, and it is the church. So guess where they primarily want to operate and to do their destructive work. It is within God’s people. It is the church of Jesus. Hebrews 2, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Describing the work of Jesus.
2 Corinthians 4:4, “In their case, the god of this world,” Satan, “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” Satan? Get that? How can people laugh about the lion lurking in the jungle? Their eyes have been blinded to keep them from seeing something. “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” They are doing all that they can. Maybe right now in this room for an unbeliever who’s visiting right now, they do all that they can to make you think this is silly. This is nothing to worry about. There’s nothing to it. To blind people to real glory and light, which is found in the face of Jesus Christ. It is in the gospel of Jesus.
What’s salvation, in fact? Salvation is “when I was blind, but now I see.” What do I see? I see truth. I see hope. I see forgiveness. I see a relationship with my Creator by believing in Jesus and His work on the cross. I see real beauty when I see Jesus by faith. My eyes are wide open. Now I am able to see, and I’m in the kingdom of light. But they obfuscate, they darken, they blind. They don’t want anybody to see that.
Christian, can I just say it this way? Satan hates you. He hates you. He hates every good thing God is doing in your life. He hates every good reflection of God’s goodness seen in your life. He is absolutely committed to doing everything that he can to destroy you. But it’s not about you. This is important to understand as well. It’s not really about us. This has everything to do with what happened between Genesis 1 and Genesis 3. Satan really hates God.
Think about the Nazis and ISIS for a moment. I think they give a good example of this. When you study the Nazis in World War II, there’s a lot of people that they hated, but who did they hate the most? They hated the Jews the most. Now, why did they hate the Jews the most? If you go into the story, you see that Hitler and the leadership were involved in occultic activities. I believe they were led by Satan in the things that they were doing. And guess what you find when somebody is being led by Satan? They hate people like the Jews who have a genetic connection to the promises of God in the Old Testament, which is why anti-Semitism continues to be found in the world around us. They are genetically tied to something good that God promised to them, and the Nazis sought to exterminate them.
Or think about ISIS in our modern day right now. What do we see sadly and tragically in the news and online? Who does ISIS hate? Christians. Why Christians of all people? Because they are led by demonic doctrine and influence, which leads them to hate God’s people. That is not an accident. And it goes all the way back to somewhere between Genesis 1 and Genesis 3. And Satan hates us much more than Hitler, the Jews, or ISIS Christians. The Bible calls him lawless, a murderer, and a liar. And he is far more powerful than any of us begin to imagine. So powerful, Jude tells us, that even Michael the archangel would not mess with him.
So here now in Peter, let’s come back to 1 Peter then. Peter calls him a lion. If you’re going to pick somebody to describe Satan, how about the most powerful animal on the planet? A lion. That’s a good one, I think. Here again is what Peter says. “Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” These are now words that get our attention when we realize who the lion is and what he is bent on, and his motivation. And Peter says that this lion is doing three things. Notice that he is prowling, he is roaring, and he is seeking to devour. Let’s talk about all three of those.
First of all, he is the prowling enemy. Prowling is all about secrecy, isn’t it? You’ve probably seen, like, the National Geographic videos of the lions on the Serengeti or wherever it is, and they get down. Somehow they can hinge like that, and they can... you know, they kind of get their things going like this, and they’re down below the level of the grass, right? Because they’re trying to blend into the grass. Prowling is all about camouflage and blending into the surroundings around you. Lions are able to walk quietly. In fact, somebody after first service said to me, “Did you know that they cup their paws so that if a twig breaks, they muffle the sound?” I didn’t know that, but here now I’ve added it in this message. They’re able to, like, run almost silently and under the grass. Their coloring blends them in. They don’t want anyone to know that they are there. 2 Corinthians 11:14, “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
Satan is all about disguise and camouflage. In fact, right now, I doubt Satan’s very happy that we’re even talking about him like this. What are we doing? We’re bringing him and his activities into the light. And he does not want that. He loves darkness. He has to cloak himself. He’s a very good prowling lion. He doesn’t draw attention to himself. That’s why if somebody comes to you and says, “You know, I saw a demon,” I doubt it. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves. They’re all about prowling and hiding.
That doesn’t mean that they aren’t able to do things, though. They tempt God’s people towards unbiblical thinking, counterfeit idols. “Hey, this is really what we’re supposed to be living for.” Little compromises in moral behavior. “It’s no big deal.” And a thousand other indiscernible activities, no doubt, at work in our lives. This enemy prowls through anything that God intended to be good. That means that he is prowling through Christians, your marriage. Your marriage is to reflect the glory of Christ and His love for the church. Satan hates Christian marriage. Satan hates Christian families, little churches where Jesus is to be held high, a little oasis of gospel living. He hates families, Christian parents. He hates your children. He hates churches, and so he sows little seeds of disunity and distrust and seeks to drive a wedge within the church. I think you could expand it to friendship, government, courts of justice. Anything that God established and declared good, Satan hates it. And his goal is to defame the name of God in the world.
One Puritan said this, “Satan casts down none suddenly from the pinnacle of a high profession into the lowest abyss of wickedness, but rather leads them by oblique descents and turnings, lower and lower, until at last they take hold of hell.” Our enemy, friends, is sneaky. He is incredibly clever. And he has been studying human behavior for millennia. And he is always surveilling us. He knows our tendencies. He knows our weaknesses. As an example, he used Eve to get to Adam and Adam to get to God. How’s that for a clever device in Genesis 3? He is our prowling enemy. We can’t see him, but we can often see his effect.
Secondly, he is our roaring enemy. Now that sounds kind of like an oxymoron, right? Because a lion that is on the prowl is not a lion that is roaring, right? Roaring is about making yourself known. So why would he be roaring? This is Peter, I think, describing his power and his dominance. That’s what a lion’s roar is about.
It makes me think of years ago when my brother was a missionary in South America. We went down to see him in Paraguay, and they took us to a Paraguayan zoo. Okay, now this is a very poor country, and so don’t think Lincoln Park Zoo with this. You know, you go to Lincoln Park, and you got all the big animals, you know, the big scary animals, and what do they have? Big, thick glass, distance, there’s a moat around it. It’s all there designed to keep the scary animal from getting amongst the people. The Paraguayan zoo was much different. We get there, and basically they had all these big lions and tigers and all of that. They were basically in, like, chicken coops. Wood, with chicken wire, you know, between the animal and the people, and you could walk right up. Literally, here’s the chicken wire, you could walk right up to the, uh, cage, and here’s all these, you know, all these big... they’re going around like this. And at first you’re kind of like, “Whoa, this is kind of unsettling.”
So we were there, and my dad, at one of the cages, sort of family moment for us, at one of the cages, one of these big... I don’t remember, it was a big tiger, big lion, leopard, whatever it was. It had stopped prowling and was just leaning against the chicken wire. Well, my dad’s standing like eight inches away from this lion. And he later said, “I thought to my... myself, this is the only chance I’ll ever have to touch one of these animals.” So my dad goes like this, and he pokes the lion. And as fast as you could blink, this lion goes like that. We all, “Wow,” you know, we all jump back. Oh, my mom was mad at my dad.
What was that roar about? “Don’t mess with me. Do not mess with me.” Satan’s roar should communicate to us that he is not to be messed with. He exerts incredible authority in this world. He offered the kingdoms of this world to Jesus, and Jesus didn’t deny his right to do so, which means that more powerful than any president or king, more powerful than the U.S. Army, more powerful than all of our nuclear weapons combined, is Satan. Don’t mess with him. Not even Michael the archangel would dare mess with Satan.
And finally, it says he is our devouring enemy. “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” Like those lions at the camp, he’s a man-eater. He has an appetite for human beings. In fact, the Greek word there, it means to eat with one bite. To eat with one bite. He’s about gulping us down. He’s not a nibbler. This speaks to his desire to destroy us.
So, friends, what do you think? Is this somebody to ignore, not think about, pretend doesn’t exist? I think that Peter would call us to be vigilant. In fact, he says, be sober-minded, be watchful, resist him. Know others are struggling with him as well.
The last thing I want to say about this is not only is he a prowling enemy, a roaring enemy, a devouring enemy, but Scripture is also clear that he is a conquered enemy. He is a conquered enemy. We go all the way back. We go all the way back to Genesis 3. When God judges Adam and Eve, He also has a judgment on the serpent, as he’s described there, on Satan. And here’s what God says to Satan. He says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” The very first prophetic word that there was somebody coming who was going to do something to this serpent. And by the way, how do you kill a snake? You take care of its head, don’t you? And God says, “He’s coming for your head. You’re going to bruise His heel. He’s coming for your head, buddy.”
And we have that prophetic word about Jesus. He is the fulfillment of this prophecy, the Son of God. You talk about why did Jesus come into this world. There’s all kinds of reasons that you can say that He came into this world. He came into this world to save sinners. He came into this world to fulfill the will of the Father. But amongst the reasons that He came into this world was to defeat Satan, to conquer death, which is Satan’s sword that he wields.
How did Jesus do it? He came into this world. He lived a perfect life. He fulfilled the law, which the Bible says meant that the law had no rightful claim upon His life. We have violated the law. The wages of sin, therefore, is death for us. Jesus never sinned. Therefore, death had no rightful claim on Him. But when He died then, He was qualified to die for all the other people that it did have a claim on. And so Jesus died, conquering death, fulfilling the law, and by doing that, giving a blow to Satan’s head. It’s a fatal blow. This victory has already been won.
You say, “Well, why then is all this struggle going on?” It’s kind of like World War II, where the peace was declared in Tokyo, but you had all those Japanese soldiers that kept fighting on the islands, right? Same thing is going on here. Satan has been conquered. He has been dealt a fatal blow. But when is a lion most dangerous? When it is wounded. When it is desperate. And Satan knows that every day we live, this day is one day closer to Satan’s final day and the demons’ final day. And they know that, and they wield their influence in this world with a kind of desperation and a hatred and a bitterness. They’re active in this world.
And the Bible says there’s coming a day where Satan’s fate will be secured. This is Revelation 20. “And the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire.” That is Satan’s future right there. And he knows that verse. He knows that verse. And until that day comes, he is going to do all that he can to defame the name of God, especially in the church of Jesus Christ. But he is a conquered foe, friends. Jesus has won the victory. And with that, victory gives to us power and authority.
But I want to give you encouragement, friends. We do not leave here in a battle that we’re ultimately going to lose. We are fighting a battle that we are ultimately going to win. And in a sense, it’s already been won because of what Jesus has done. And because He won, so do we. So do we.
