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Well, please remain standing, friends, for the reading of God’s holy word as we approach
the end of 1 Peter.
My sermon text this evening is 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 8 through 11.
You’ll find that on page 1206 in your Pew Bible.
I’m going to read verses 6 through 11, but our focus again will be on verses 8 through
11.
Dear friends, this is the word of God, so let us hear it with reverence and with awe.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he
may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
Be sober-minded, be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced
by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to
his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
To him be the dominion forever and ever.
Amen.
Let’s seek the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word.
Our Lord and Father in heaven indeed to you alone with the Son and the Holy Spirit be
the dominion forever and ever.
We pray, Lord, that you would exercise your dominion over our hearts and lives, that you
would subdue us to your will.
We pray, Lord, that by your spirit you would use the word that is declared this evening
to edify us, to strengthen us, and to subdue us to your will that we might faithfully humble
ourselves before you and be of effective service in your kingdom.
Be with us now.
Bless your word as it goes forth.
And may Jesus be exalted this evening in the proclamation of your word.
In his name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.
You may be seated.
This evening my sermon is entitled, Standing Firm in the Faith, and the five key words
to be listening for this evening are, Vigilance, Devil, Faith, Persecution, and Promise.
Well beloved in Christ, in our passage from God’s word for this Lord’s Day evening, the
Apostle Peter is offering his readers a series of exhortations as he nears the end of this
marvelous epistle which we today call First Peter.
Now we saw on the last several Lord’s Days in verses 6 and 7 that we believers are instructed
to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and we are urged to cast all of our
cares upon him, for he cares for us.
These verses are deeply comforting, especially they would have been deeply comforting to
the persecuted and suffering Christians that Peter is writing this epistle to, because
they assure God’s people that our God is almighty in power to deliver and to vindicate us, and
that we can trust in his tender watch care over us, for he does indeed care for us.
We can trust him, for he is trustworthy.
However friends, what the word of God teaches in passages like this one about God’s sovereignty
and God’s power and his tender watch care for his people, these truths must not lead
us to the erroneous conclusion that we as God’s people can therefore just sit back on our
easy chairs and take on an attitude of passive indifference in our faith walk with Jesus
Christ.
Dear ones, our loving Heavenly Father is indeed sovereign over all, and he does indeed cause
everything to come to pass according to his sovereign will and decree, including his sovereign
decree to protect and to keep his elect people from ultimate spiritual ruin and from being
devoured by the devil.
The scriptures make it clear that God does infallibly preserve his people in Christ so
that they never fully nor finally fall away from the faith.
We confess that earlier in the service as we recited together that chapter from our
confession of faith on the perseverance of the saints.
However, the scriptures also indicate that God ordinarily designs for his sovereign plan
to come to pass through secondary causes and through secondary means.
And so he does indeed preserve his elect in the faith and from being devoured by the
devil.
However, one of the ways that God does this is through the believer’s resistance to
the devil, a resistance which of course is produced and strengthened by the Holy Spirit
who is at work in the hearts and lives of God’s children.
So indeed, in terms of the context and setting of our passage for this evening, it seems
that Peter is concerned here, as I mentioned, that we as his readers not imagine that just
because we can cast our cares upon God and be assured of his care for us, therefore,
we can just settle into sort of a passive, quietistic, let go and let God approach to
the Christian life, an approach that ignores the reality of the fierce spiritual warfare
that rages around us.
Perhaps this concern is why Peter in verse 8 exhorts us to sobriety and to vigilance
and to a firm resistance of the devil.
In other words, dear ones, Peter basically seems to be saying something along these lines.
He seems to be saying, look, God most certainly does care for you.
Praise him for that.
He certainly cares for you.
And this is a precious and comforting truth.
But that doesn’t mean that you can become a spiritual couch potato.
That does not mean that you can get lazy in your walk with Christ or that you can get
lazy in your exercise of spiritual discernment or that you can drift off into the slumber
of spiritual indifference.
No, believer, up and awake like a sentinel, like a watchman on duty.
Keep spiritually awake and alert.
Be sober and self-controlled.
Keep your eyes open to the schemes of the devil.
He prowls about like a roaring lion.
Resist him.
Being firm in your faith.
And that firmness in your faith, what does that mean?
That means keep looking to and clinging to and resting in the Lord Jesus Christ and him
alone for your salvation from sin.
Now, friends, with all of this in mind, let’s dive into our passage for this evening.
And first of all, as we turn our attention to verse 8, understand, beloved, the reason
to be sober-minded and watchful.
We are given a reason here to be sober-minded and watchful.
He says in verse 8, be sober-minded, be watchful, and then he gives the reason why.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
Now the word that is translated here in the English Standard Version as sober-minded
could also be translated as self-controlled.
As Peter wrote this exhortation by the Spirit’s inspiration, perhaps he was thinking of a
time in his own life when he had neglected to be vigilant and watchful and he had ended
up denying his Lord three times on the night before our Lord was crucified.
Remember Peter’s denial?
Remember how Jesus had predicted that all of his disciples would abandon him, and what
does Peter say?
Peter says, not me, Lord, I’m better than those guys, I’m strong.
I’m not going to deny you, I would die for you, Lord.
And that very night, Peter denied his Lord, even with an oath, a curse, calling a curse
upon himself.
So far did he fall because he was not watchful.
Remember the Lord had said to him, Peter, the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation.
Perhaps this is in the background of Peter’s mind as he writes this exhortation to the
believers who were facing persecution for their faith in this epistle as he writes this
epistle to them.
Now of course we can’t read Peter’s mind, we can only read what he wrote, but we do
know that Peter himself understood at a very personal, at a very experiential level what
it was like to be sifted by Satan, what it was like to fall into grave temptation.
He knew the consequences of not heeding his Lord’s warning to watch and to pray.
And while our Lord prayed for him and Peter was graciously restored, nevertheless his
fall was great.
And so Peter knew the consequences of not heeding his Lord’s warning to watch and pray.
He had experienced deep spiritual wounds as a result of being mauled by this roaring lion
known as the devil.
And so here he is urging us not to make the same mistake that he made on the night when
Jesus was betrayed.
He urges us to be vigilant and watchful.
And again the reason is that we are to be sober and vigilant.
Why?
Because the devil seeks our destruction.
Dear listener, the devil would love nothing more than to have you join him in hell.
The reason for such watchfulness is made abundantly clear in this verse.
Again to read verse 8, he says, be sober minded, be watchful your adversary.
Notice the devil is described as an adversary.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
I don’t know about you folks, but I would not want to encounter a lion roaring after
my destruction.
Believer, the point is that someone is out for your blood.
You and I are on somebody’s hit list.
We are all marked men and women, boys and girls.
The devil and his demonic hordes seek our eternal destruction and damnation.
Now in the Bible we are told that the devil or Satan is a personal spiritual being and
not merely as the liberals might say a symbol or personification of evil.
The devil is a real being.
There is a supernatural spirit realm and the devil is part of that spirit realm.
Now the Bible does not tell us a whole lot about the devil’s origin, but we can infer
from the biblical data as we compare scripture with scripture that he was created as a good
angel, but he and the angels who chose to follow him rebelled against God and thus they
fell from their state of original righteousness into eternal damnation.
Peter uses the simile like a roaring lion in verse 8 to describe the devil.
And we can infer from this language beloved that the devil is a powerful being just like
lions are powerful creatures.
The devil is a powerful being who stalks us, seeking opportunities to subdue and to destroy
us like a roaring lion looking for an opportunity to pounce upon and subdue and devour its prey.
And as a lion desires to devour its prey, so the devil’s desire is, as I said, to destroy
us.
So we believers must be spiritually on the alert.
We must be watchful.
We must be aware of the devil’s schemes.
We must be self-controlled.
However, you might be wondering, okay, pastor, this is a serious call to be watchful and
to be aware of the devil prowling about seeking our destruction.
Does that mean that we are to live our lives in fear of the devil, that we are to be afraid
of the devil, terrified of the devil?
No, not at all.
While we must be vigilant and sober-minded in our spiritual warfare, we who know Jesus
Christ as our Savior from sin, we need not live in fear of the devil.
Yes, we must be aware of his reality.
We must be aware of his schemes.
We must be watchful and careful and prayerful.
But at the same time, we need not be fearful.
We need not live in terror or fear of the devil.
Friends, on the cross of Calvary, Jesus Christ, our Savior, not only made full satisfaction
and propitiation for the sins of God’s people, not only did he pay the penalty for sin on
our behalf in our stead as our sin bearer, our substitute, but on the cross, Jesus Christ
also conquered the devil.
Yes, the devil prowls about.
He is active, but he is a defeated foe.
The strong man is now bound.
The dragon has been chained.
Though the devil is a roaring lion who prowls about, he is limited and constrained by the
Savior’s victory.
Satan, the roaring lion, has been defeated by a greater lion.
He has been defeated by Jesus Christ, the lion of the tribe of Judah.
And his conquest will be fully manifested on that final day when our Lord Jesus returns
in glory.
Dear listener, do you know Christ as your Savior from sin and as your deliverer from
the devil?
The conquest of Satan on the cross is part of the good news.
It’s an aspect of our Lord’s saving work.
Certainly, we focus rightly, we center on the fact that Jesus died for our sins, that
he made propitiation for our sins, and that is at the heart and center of the Gospel.
But this Gospel truth is also comforting because of Christ’s victory.
We who are in him need not fear the devil, though we must be aware of him and alert to
him.
And so are you trusting Christ not only as your Savior from sin, but your deliverer from
the evil one?
Jesus Christ in his saving office offers himself to you in both aspects and in the fullness
of his saving work.
Believe in him, trust in him, rest in him, and he will give you the power and grace to
stand alert and he will keep you in his sovereign care.
And so that brings me to my next point as we move on to verse 9.
Beloved, let us resist the devil, firm in our faith, knowing that we are not alone in
our sufferings.
Let us resist the devil, firm in our faith, knowing that we are not alone in our sufferings.
Look at verse 9, resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are
being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
Dr. Blum writes that the Christian response to satanic opposition is not panic or flight,
but firm resistance in faith.
When we are confronted by a danger, there are often one of two responses.
There’s the response of flight.
There’s also a response of panic.
Peter is not calling us to either response in the face of the devil’s opposition and
attempt to destroy us.
Rather, Peter, or the Holy Spirit, I should say, through Peter, is urging us to resist,
to stand firm, resisting him in the faith.
Now the word resist here means to withstand, not to fight against, for that is beyond the
ability of human beings faced by a spiritual foe like the devil.
Only in Christ is there victory, as Dr. Hillier points out.
Now if this is the case, then we are here being called to take a defensive posture against
the devil.
In our spiritual warfare, yes, we go on the offense against the world, the flesh, and
the devil.
We preach the gospel.
We share the word.
We pray for the victory of the gospel, but we also take a defensive posture, and that’s
what Peter is focusing on here.
But exactly how are we to go about resisting the devil?
How are we to go about this spiritual warfare that we are called upon to engage in?
Well, Peter doesn’t explicitly answer that question, but friends, when we consider the
scriptures, when we consider what the rest of the Bible teaches elsewhere, when we compare
scripture with scripture in terms of how we are to engage in spiritual warfare, we
are told to use such weapons as, wait for it, prayer, the word of God, righteous living,
and so forth.
Now I bring this up, brothers and sisters, not only because the text leads us in this
direction, but because there are, quite frankly, are a lot of wacky and kooky ideas out there
about how Christians are to engage in spiritual warfare.
You turn on some Christian TV programs, and you might hear a preacher talk about binding
Satan or binding the demons in the name of Jesus.
You might hear Christians advocating for speaking to the devil, speaking to the demons.
You demon of depression, I bind you in the name of Jesus.
Or by the authority of Jesus, I bind you, Satan.
Is that how we are to engage in spiritual warfare?
Now certainly our Lord, when he was tempted by the devil, spoke to the devil, he spoke
rebuke to the devil, but is that really how we are in the normative era of the church,
how we are to engage in spiritual warfare?
I mean that certainly attracts a lot of attention, those kinds of ideas about spiritual warfare.
I mean if I wrote a book on spiritual warfare and talked about the different ways to rebuke
Satan and the demons in the name of the Lord, I could probably sell a lot of books doing
that.
But when we read passages like Ephesians chapter 6, the focus is not on speaking to the devil
or rebuking the devil or anything like that.
The focus is on equipping yourself with the word of God, praying in the Holy Spirit, using
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, taking up the shield of faith.
In other words, using, diligently using the ordinary means of grace, and so I would exhort
you brothers and sisters, as you engage in spiritual warfare, how do you do that?
You do what you’re doing this evening.
You come and you gather and you sit under the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s
word.
You read the word yourself, you engage in private devotions, family devotions, you engage
catechesis, you engage in learning biblical truth and teaching that truth to your children,
equipping them in the word, you attend church, you engage in Christian fellowship, we encourage
one another in the body of Christ, we exercise hospitality.
It is through these simple, ordinary means that God does extraordinary things, and these
are the means by which we defend ourselves against the one who is described as a roaring
lion.
We stand grounded in the word of God and in communion with God through prayer and worship
in the sacraments.
And then it goes on to say in this verse, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are
being experienced by your brotherhood around the world.
When you face a difficult time in life, it’s encouraging to know that others have gone
through what you might be going through.
If you face a tragedy or you face a challenge in life, and sometimes you feel alone, but
when you learn that there are others out there who are going through the same struggles that
you are, that brings encouragement.
And I think Peter here is trying to give this kind of encouragement to these suffering Christians
that he’s writing to, to whom he’s writing.
Here Peter reminds his readers that the fiery trials of persecution which they face are
not unique.
They are not alone in their sufferings.
In fact, their Christian brotherhood throughout the world is experiencing the same kinds of
suffering.
Now, why does Peter mention this at this point?
Well, again, perhaps Peter mentions this because he wants his readers to gain encouragement
from the fact, again, that they are not alone in their sufferings.
Or as others have suggested, perhaps Peter wants them to consider that if they were to
give up in the face of persecution, that would be a great discouragement to their fellow
believers who were also suffering in other parts of the world.
Just as it is an encouragement to know that others who have gone through what you are
suffering and struggling with have gone through those struggles and sufferings and the Lord
has pulled them through it, that encourages us, doesn’t it?
But when we learn of Christians or professing Christians who cave and compromise with the
world, especially Christian leaders whom we trusted or respected, when we learn of such
a leader falling into gross sin or compromising with worldly ideas or even falling away from
the faith, that’s a great discouragement to the body of Christ when such things happen.
So perhaps Peter is saying, for the sake of your brothers and sisters who also suffer,
stand firm in the faith.
But friends, whatever reason Peter had for mentioning this fact in this particular context,
what Peter is doing here is he is encouraging believers who are suffering persecution not
to become blinded to the sufferings of their fellow Christians throughout the world.
Brothers and sisters, we should have a concern for the suffering persecuted church.
We in this country enjoy so many liberties and freedoms in terms of religious liberty,
religious freedom, and we should be grateful for that.
Of course, those liberties and freedoms, they could come to an end at any time.
God is sovereign and he may choose to bring the church in America to a point of persecution
at some point.
But whatever might be in our future, we need to stand firm and we need to remember our
suffering brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world.
In fact, if you read church history and especially if you survey the world today and parts of
the world where Christianity is growing, there is much suffering among the people of God.
In fact, suffering for the faith, experiencing persecution for the faith has been the norm
throughout most of church history when it comes to the faithful in Christ.
So let us remember those who suffer in the faith.
Dear ones, if or when we are called upon to suffer persecution for our faith, let us remember
that we are not alone.
God has always been faithful to his suffering people in the past and he will be faithful
to us as well.
So let us entrust our souls to his sovereign keeping.
Let us lean upon his breast and let us know that he cares for us and will sustain us.
And that brings me to my final point, beloved, as we move on to verse 10.
Let us take to heart God’s promise in the face of satanic opposition and persecution.
Let us take to heart God’s promise in the face of satanic opposition and persecution.
We are told this in verse 10.
Peter writes, and after you have suffered a little while, now again, when you go through
a period of suffering, that period of suffering can seem to last a long time.
But Peter is helping to lift our eyes and to take on an eternal perspective.
He is saying, look, in the bigger scheme of things, the sufferings that we endure in this
present age for the sake of Christ and his gospel, those sufferings are but little compared
to the glories and the comforts of eternal life in Christ.
So he says, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has
called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen,
and establish you.
Notice how God is described.
He is the God of all grace.
He is the God of justifying grace.
He is the God of sanctifying grace.
He is the God of preserving grace.
He is the God who will in his grace glorify us in the end and so forth.
He is the God of all grace and all goodness toward us so we can continue to rest in, to
trust in him.
Friends, this passage contains a wonderful promise that God will help his people in their
afflictions.
And Peter uses four verbs that bring out different aspects of the Lord’s help for his struggling
and suffering people.
And I’m quoting here from Dr. Marshall.
He says, first of all, God will restore or repair whatever is damaged so that the believer
will be fully complete to face up to whatever lies ahead.
Number two, God will make us strong or stable, imparting courage and strength to weak believers.
Number three, God will make us firm.
Number four, God will make us steadfast.
He will establish us so that our defenses rest on a firm foundation and will not be
undermined.
It may be hair splitting, he says, to differentiate the senses of the various verbs used in this
way.
They are piled up rhetorically to emphasize that God will strengthen us in every way to
face up to persecution.
Dear ones, when I read accounts from church history about precious saints and faithful
martyrs from of old who were willing to be torn to shreds by lions or to be burned alive
at the stake or tortured in other brutal and cruel ways rather than renounce their savior
and gain relief, when I think of them, I often wonder how they possibly could have stood
firm in the face of such unimaginable suffering.
But one important truth that passages like this one remind us of is the truth that these
dear saints and martyrs of Christ did not stand in their own strength.
For our Lord preserved them in faith and granted them the grace to stand firm to the end.
And beloved, what he did for them, he will do for us whatever we may face as we by sovereign
grace rest upon him.
And in Christ, what a comfort to know that he has promised to sustain us and that nothing,
not even persecution, not even death, can separate us from his love.
And indeed, no wonder Peter ends this section by saying to him, be the dominion forever
and ever, amen.
And so I would leave you with these very familiar but very comforting words that Paul writes
in Romans 8, beginning at verse 31.
What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with
him graciously give us all things?
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn?
Perhaps Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who is at the right
hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.
We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor
things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Can I get an amen?
Amen.
God is good.
Let us pray.
Our Lord and Father in heaven, sovereign and eternal God, we thank you that we need not
fear the roaring lion for he has been defeated by Jesus Christ, the lion of the tribe of
Judah.
And Lord, we pray that as we have heard this, the truths from this portion of your word,
we pray that you would help us to take these truths to heart, that you would grant us the
grace to be watchful and to pray lest we fall into temptation.
We pray that you would keep us in your sovereign care, that you would make us firm and make
us strong, and that you would help us to live not in fear of the evil one, but help us to
resist him in faith, standing firm, grounded in your word, grounded in the gospel.
For it is in Jesus’ name that we pray and all of God’s people said, amen.
As we close our time of worship this evening, let us remember that our God is a mighty fortress.
We will rise and sing hymn 244, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, 244.