Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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ATTN
Like him or hate him, Neville Chamberlain teaches us this one fact: When someone wants to destroy you, appeasement is not an option.
You see, Chamberlain thought he was dealing with a reasonable man who was willing to coexist.
He was not.
Because he misjudged his enemy, he almost lost England.
Misjudging your enemy is deadly.
BACKGROUND
Peter knew as much.
Peter knew that he readers had adversaries.
For one thing, the government and culture distrusted Christians, thinking them incestuous, idolatrous, and worse.
So, since they didn’t really like believers, they made them the topic of their criticism, the butt of their jokes, and the objects of their discrimination.
But, as bad as these persecutors were, they really were not the enemy Peter describes.
Read about this enemy with me in 1 Peter 5:8-9:
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
The real enemy of Peter’s readers was not the governor on the throne, the business owner in the market, nor the neighbor next door to them who discriminated against them.
It was much bigger than that.
They were being opposed by Satan, himself.
One commentator writes: The goal of the devil is to devour, a graphic depiction of his desire to annihilate the Christian and, collectively, the church by assimilating them back to the evil ways of the world.
They were in a spiritual battle.
And so, by the way, are we.
Listen, things don’t just go bad in your life because you or someone else makes mistakes.
Things don’t just go bad because someone in your family or your circle of friends decides they don’t like you and that they want to oppose you.
O we bear a lot of the blame, surely.
But there is, many times, a spiritual component, too.
Things go bad because there is a force outside of ourselves which is evil and which wants to destroy us.
Peter says, “Wake up! Get a clue!
Some one’s out to kill you, and his name is “the devil!”
NEED
And I know when some of you hear that you go, “Really!? Really!? Are you really going to play the ‘Flip Wilson’ card . . .
you know, ‘The Devil made me do it.’
That’s nothing but an excuse for your own failure.
I tend to agree with Ebeneezer Scrooge.
There’s more gravy than grave about that!
The Devil? Bah, Humbug!”
See, I know that there may be some of you here today that, whether you would admit it or not, really don’t believe in this whole “Satan thing.”
If that’s the case, if you’ll permit me to be a bit forward, this morning, there’s a real good chance you are not really a child of God.
You see, because when you decide to follow Jesus, you don’t just gain a friend, you get an enemy!
People who are not sold out to Him really don’t experience, but people who know Him and love Him all know what it is to be opposed by a force outside of their own explanation.
If you don’t believe in Satan or in his power, I really want you to hear me out.
It may just be that God wants to speak to you this morning.
Others of you believe.
You are not unbelieving, you’re just uninformed.
You are a believer.
You know what its like to be accepted by Christ and opposed by Satan.
But that’s just the problem.
You’re accutely aware that the devil exists because you have been regularly defeated by him.
The reason you’re always losing the struggle is because you are ignorant of his mode of operation.
If that’s you this morning, I want you to listen.
In these two verses, Peter packs a peck of perceptive principles.
Listen to what he has to say.
It may mean the difference in victory and defeat.
You see, I believe that God has designed us to be winners.
He wants us to be world-class warriors for God.
He has already told us that Jesus in us is greater than Satan who is in the world.
So why is it, then, that so many believer are losing, and how can we snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Well Peter gives us a couple of actions we must take to defeat our enemy.
First we can
DIV 1: KNOW OUR ENEMY.
ILL
An old war cliche says, “Know your enemy or know defeat.”
George Patton was fight the German Warrior, Rammel, in the sands of Africa during the World War 2. Patton had prepared the battle field.
He had studied the tactics of the “Desert Fox” and he had set a trap.
He watched with field glasses as the German tanks moved closer.
As they rode right into his trap.
He began to shout, “That’s right, Rammel.
I read your book; I read your book.”
Victory begins when we know our enemy.
EXP
So let’s examine this enemy of ours for a few moments.
Peter describes him in v 8. First he says, Be sober; be vigilant, for your adversary . . .
The devil, first of all, is our adversary.
He opposes us, and he is hostile.
He’s not out to give us a good day.
He is against us.
As one commentator put it, Peter meant for his readers to understand
that satanic powers are at work in the sociopolitical system of the Roman Empire, under which his readers are suffering . . .
(and) that the persecution they feel (is the result of the fact that their love for God and His Son, Jesus Christ, has provoked the society in which they live.
They have an adversary who is hostile.
But not only is their enemy hostile, he is also accusing.
V8 says again, Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the devil . .
.The Greek word for “devil” is diabolos, which literally means “slanderer.”
In Rev. 12:10, Satan is called the “accuser of the brethren.”
He is our accuser.
He’s very sly.
He sets us up to sin by tempting us and, as soon as we fall, accuses us to God and to ourselves.
Our enemy is hostile and he is accusing.
But, He is also active.
He isn’t sitting around hoping that we turn our back on God and walk away.
He’s always working.
In fact, v 8 says of him, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about . . .
looking for someone to devour.
I looked up that verb “seeking” and it means, literally, “to try to learn the location of something, often by movement from place to place in the process of searching . .
.”
Satan is our active enemy, moving constantly and looking for the weak places in our lives.
And that leads me to the next description of him.
Not only is he hostile, accusing, and active, he is opportunistic.
That phrase at the end of v 8, looking for someone to devour relates to the fact that he is called a “lion.”
Let me ask you, how does a lion find its prey anyway?
Well, if you ever watch the National Geographic channel, you know, right.
There’ll be this herd of Zebra’s down at the river taking a drink.
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