The Unseen War Part II 1 Peter 5:8-11

The Unseen War in 1 Peter 5:8-11

Last week, we looked at part 1 of our sermon in 1 Peter 5, verses 8 -11, where Peter describes the unseen war that is happening all around us. It is a war where Satan wants to defeat God and he wants to keep as many people as he can from following the Lord.

Instead, he desires that people all over the world follow and worship him. As he desires to oppose God, he desires to thwart the effort of believers to advance the Lord's work. Satan's end goal is that he wants to reign over this earth, which reign only belongs, of course, to the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this text, we have seen that he is described as a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. We need to understand this about him. We need to understand that he has various tactics that he employs. What we learned one week ago is that as he employs these various tactics, the people of God are to resist him, standing firm in the faith.

This leads us to part 2. We will begin by reading the text once again, 1 Peter 5, verses 8 -11, so I encourage you to turn there with me at this time, if you haven't already. 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. Our big idea that we've seen, that we saw last Sunday and that we're going to see today, is to understand the reality of the constant spiritual battle with Satan. This is something we live in every day, whether we realize it or not.

There's this constant spiritual battle with Satan. And here is the fourth way how, we're going to see way four, five, and six this morning. The fourth way how is this, keeping in mind that other believers are facing the same battles.

We'll see this in the second half of verse nine. As we think about all that Satan does to cause problems, we need to understand that this is not unique to only a few Christians. Let's see what Peter writes in the second half of verse nine.

He writes this, once again, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. When Peter writes brotherhood, this is general terminology communicating Christians.

This is all brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world. What Peter is saying is that believers all over the world are experiencing attacks from the devil. What he specifically writes in verse nine is that believers all over the world are experiencing the same kinds of suffering.

Last week we looked at the different ways that Satan attacks believers. He tempts believers to sin, he brings discouragement, and he persecutes Christians with the goal of hindering the work that God is doing through his people.

Every believer all over planet earth faces these kinds of attacks. Think about where his persecution is taking place right now in the world. In Nigeria, the Muslims there desire to kill Christians if they do not convert to Islam.

In fact, one of the directors of the documentary that many in this church have seen, Enemies Within the Church, Judd Saul, started a ministry called Equipping the Persecuted. The purpose of this ministry is to help the saints in Nigeria whose lives are on the line because of their faith in Jesus.

There are other places in the world where it is a death sentence to be a Christian. This is so in places like North Korea, Iran, and Somalia. In North Korea, it's because of a dictator like Kim Jong-un.

In Iran and Somalia, it's because of Sharia law, which says that if you don't submit yourselves to the Islamic law, it's a death sentence. As we think about this, it makes our persecution in this country seem minor.

That is true, but there is a spectrum of persecution, and we do experience persecution in America. In Matthew 5, verses 11 and 12, Jesus said, This is the experience of believers in this world. Opposition.

We've already seen this in 1 Peter. We are called all kinds of names. The elites of our society, found in the media, academia, and Hollywood, believe that biblical Christians are the greatest problem in American society.

As I've explained before, even in broader evangelicalism, those who are more biblical are seen as too rigid and unloving. In fact, that was seen in the last couple weeks with the Alistair Begg situation.

Some of you have heard of Alistair Begg. He's a well-known preacher. Sermons go all over the radio all over the country. He was asked the question, by a grandmother, His response was quite startling.

He said, Think about that statement. What is a wedding? A wedding is a place where there's a marriage between a man and a woman, and everybody who goes to that wedding is throwing their support behind the couple being married.

You are eyewitnesses. God is an eyewitness. You are an eyewitness. By giving a gift, you are saying we support you. What are gifts for at weddings? They're starting out their life together. They're going to live together.

So can a Christian go to a gay wedding? No. Biblically speaking, you cannot. Alistair Begg, sadly, was confronted on this and did not repent. In fact, doubled down. And guess what he called the people who went after him?

Pharisees. Fundamentalists. That's what you're called even in broader evangelicalism. You're called too rigid. You're called Pharisaic. You're called fundamentalist. That's the experience of being a biblical Christian in this world.

What this means is that the closer you follow Jesus, the greater persecution you will receive. But this is what it means to be a Christian. Jesus said it would be this way, not only in the passes I just read in Matthew 5, but he said it would be this way all over the place in the Gospels.

One of those places is Luke 9, verses 23 and 24, where he said, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. The uphill battle for Christians that they face in this life, that you face in this life, is described in a well-known hymn that we sang this morning.

Am I a soldier of the cross? I love these powerful words. Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas? Are there no foes for me to face?

Must I not stem the flood? Is this thy world a friend to grace, to help me unto God? Since I must fight if I must reign, increase my courage, Lord. I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, supported by thy word.

That's the Christian life. This is what it means to be a Christian in this world. When you follow Jesus closely, you get the attention of God's greatest enemy, Satan. I've given some examples of persecution around the world, and as I already mentioned, he tempts to sin and he discourages believers.

Once you start doing the Lord's work, which means sharing the gospel, living out your faith, courageously following him, Satan takes notice and he attacks. He's a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Jesus said it would be this way. Every Christian carries a cross. And if we're not following him closely, it's like you put the cross down. But we're never supposed to put the crosses down. He gives us these crosses that we are to bear.

Every Christian faces opposition from the world, and from the one who temporarily runs the world, Satan. 1 John 5 .19, as I read earlier, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. What Peter is telling us in verse 9 is that what you experience is not unique.

As he once again writes that all Christians all around the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. The Apostle Paul says something similar in Ephesians 6 .18, where he writes,. Pray at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication to that end, to keep alert, with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

What Paul is telling us is that we need to be aware of the devil's activity. As we pray for different people, we need to pray for the devil's work to be thwarted, because we know his schemes. When people come to our minds, this is one of the ways we should be praying.

We need to pray that whatever plans Satan has to cause problems, we need to pray that those plans would be stopped. We need to always understand that he uses the same old tricks of temptation, persecution, and discouragement.

The reason he uses these is because for thousands of years, these methods of causing havoc have worked. But we need to pray that he doesn't succeed. So understand the reality of the constant spiritual battle with Satan.

And the fourth way how is through keeping in mind that other believers are facing the same battles. The fifth way how you are to understand the reality of the constant spiritual battle with Satan is through knowing that the suffering you endure makes you stronger.

We'll see this in verse 10. Now we get to the portion where Peter explains there is a purpose behind the different sufferings that you experience from the evil one. In verse 10, Peter writes,. 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.

You'll notice that what Peter writes is that the trials that Satan sends your way take place for a little while. This may sound familiar. Earlier in this letter in 1 Peter 1, verses 6 and 7, Peter wrote,.

In this you rejoice, that now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

What Peter is saying is that the Christians in Asia Minor, the Christians to whom he is writing, have been grieved by various trials. And all of this happened to refine their faith, just as gold is refined by fire.

When gold is discovered, it doesn't look all pretty. Some women here have gold on their fingers. It doesn't look that nice when it's found. For gold to be purified, it has to go through a refining process.

It goes through heat to remove the corruption to give it a pure, shiny look. In a similar way, the Lord allows trials in a believer's life in order to purify you to rid the corruption of sin and replace it with holiness.

We need to understand this about ourselves. We come into this world as sinners in need of a Savior. And when we believe in Christ, the Holy Spirit is given to us, but we still have indwelling sin. The Lord's plan for us in this life is to put to death this sin through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8 .13 says,. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. One of the ways the Lord rids the sin in our hearts is allowing trials in our lives. These trials Peter once again describes in 1 .6 as various trials.

He's describing one of these trials in our text. Think about the Christian life, all the different trials we face. Physical trials, mental trials, relational trials, persecution. This is all the experience of a Christian, and God has a design for all of them.

But what he's focusing on here is the trial of attacks from the devil. As Paul describes in Ephesians 6 .16, these are the flaming darts of the evil one. We don't see what he's doing, but we feel the effects of what he's doing.

It's important for us to understand that the Lord does allow these trials in our lives. We have to conclude this from a logical standpoint and a biblical one. Logically, God is all-powerful. He is fully sovereign over the universe.

Satan is not. If God wants to stop Satan at any time, he can. But sometimes he chooses not to, and this leads us to the biblical reason we must conclude that the Lord allows the devil to do certain things.

The Bible tells us that the Lord allows Satan to cause problems, to serve his greater purposes in history and in our individual lives. Look at the story of Job in the Old Testament. Satan goes to God and tells God that the only reason Job is following you, the only reason Job is so devoted to you, is because of what you've given him.

He's got all this stuff, he's got this large family, he's got a wonderful wife, he's got a great life, and the only reason he follows you is because of your gifts. So what the Lord does is he tells Satan, you can take all of it from him.

Just spare his life. While Job did struggle mightily at times to trust God as he suffered greatly, his true faith did remain. And in the end, there's no question that Job grew through the enormous trials because that is what the Lord accomplishes as one endures.

So the story of Job tells us that God uses Satan for his good purposes and that is precisely what our text is telling us as well. As Peter once again writes in verse 10,. 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.

We have four terms here. Restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish. These four words describe the after effect of the devil's attacks. And they're all positive. They're all good things that happened to us through these trials.

To get attacked by Satan will make you feel wounded. Your life will become difficult as he attacks. But scripture promises that you will be restored as he attacks. So being restored is the first positive result that occurs as Satan attacks you.

To come out restored means that Satan's efforts to take you down failed. And your relationship with the Lord holds true. As he goes after your faith and attempts to hinder the Lord's work that you are carrying out, you will be confirmed.

Being confirmed is the second positive result that happens as Satan attacks you. For the Lord to confirm you, this means that your faith will stand his testing. You belong to the Lord. And the Lord is working in this trial and the devil can't change that.

The third positive term that Peter uses to describe the after effect of Satan's attacks is that believers are strengthened. I already mentioned this. The Lord strengthens his people and this includes attacks from Satan.

You come out better than you were before. Think about that. When the devil goes after God's people, his plan is to destroy. As verse 8 says, he roams around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

But if we heed the Lord's counsel as to how to stand against him, Satan's efforts fail. And in fact, they backfire. Earlier I explained that what often happens is that when Satan persecutes Christians, the Lord's work not only survives, but also advances even more.

This happened to the Apostle Paul and his efforts during his ministry. This is what Paul wrote in Philippians 1 verses 12 -14. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

So that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

Think about that. They put him in prison thinking this is going to stop this. Paul is going to want to quit. Nobody else is going to want to keep going. The opposite happened. Paul was even strengthened even more.

And then the church was strengthened even more as well. But Satan wanted to stop the spread of the gospel. Satan's efforts failed. As he tries to push us around in our lives through opposition from the world, the Lord uses that to build courage in us.

Just like we sang in the song, Am I a soldier of the cross? Would you produce courage in me? So instead of persecution stopping our work for the Lord, we keep going and this becomes contagious where others are inspired as well.

Think about that. We more boldly follow him as we no longer fear persecution and others find courage they didn't have before as they see others standing for the Lord. The devil also loves to tempt believers to sin.

But this backfires as well. As the devil tempts believers over time, they no longer succumb to those temptations. They become stronger by building a stronger resistance and believers develop godly character.

This is God's design for a believer. That one grows in holiness over time. As one resists in temptations to sin, what takes the place of sin is the pursuit of godly living. To think, talk, and act like Jesus.

The third area we have focused on is that Satan also loves to discourage believers. But what happens is that when believers resist him, what takes place is that believers aren't discouraged but rather they're encouraged.

But in order for the Lord's good design to take place in the believer, they must do their part. And that part is described in the beginning of verse 9 as we saw one week ago. Believers are to resist him firm in your faith.

Here's what's interesting too. Let me just say something here. I think Satan is more active during preaching than any other time. Right now. The parable of the sower tells us that. He tries to snatch the seed away.

Sometimes someone might leave a service and they're like, I don't remember one word that guy said. Well, Satan accomplished his purpose. So we have to understand his designs. He is here to distract. He's here to thwart God's work.

I just feel like I needed to say that right now. But we need to resist him firm in your faith. So before we listen to a sermon, we need to pray, Lord, help me not to be distracted by what your word is saying.

Help me to be focused on what your word is saying. And may this word plant deep into my heart and help me to be transformed by it. That's what we need to be praying before we sit under the preaching of the word.

Not just sit under the preaching of the word, but also when you read the Bible. He loves to distract. When we pray, he loves to distract as well. Leonard Ravenhill, he's a famous preacher, old preacher, he used to say, when you pray, the phone's going to go off.

It's going to be ringing. There's going to be all sorts of distractions because Satan doesn't want you to do what you're supposed to be doing. That's going to further God's work. So we need to understand that.

So the God of all grace, as we hear his word, as we fend off Satan's attacks and the different ways he attacks, he restores, confirms, strengthens and establishes you. Satan wants you to lose your faith and he wants to make you ineffective in your faith.

But as we resist him and stand firm, look at what the Lord accomplishes as he allows Satan to try and cause problems. There's an old saying, what doesn't kill you makes you what? Stronger. There's truth to this.

John 15 -2, Jesus said, Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Derek Jorgensen knows what this is all about as a tree trimmer. To prune is to cut. And the reason that Derek trims these trees is because he wants more fruit to grow.

He wants the branches to grow. So he has to do that maintenance on these trees. It is painful. But think of the fruit. Think of the growth that comes when that cutting takes place. And God does that in our lives.

The cutting, the pain that he sends us through. All of this happens under God's sovereignty for the good of his people. As Romans 8 -28 says,. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.

It is remarkable that the Lord even uses his greatest enemy, Satan, his destructive efforts against you for your good. Understanding Satan's efforts and the Lord's positive plan for you through his attacks should fill all of us with great hope.

Peter reminds you and I of our place as a follower of Christ in the middle of verse 10 when he writes that God has called you to his eternal glory in Christ. It is God's design that Satan will not ultimately win in our lives.

And may we not let him have those small victories or big, big victories. So understand the reality of the constant spiritual battle with Satan. And the fifth way how is through knowing that the suffering you endure makes you stronger.

And here's the sixth and final way how you are to understand this spiritual battle. And that's through rejoicing that God gets all the glory in the victory. Verse 11. And this point is very short. To him be the dominion forever and ever.

Amen. In the previous point, I explained that the Lord uses our trials for our good. But what Satan means for evil, the Lord means for good. Remember what Joseph told his brothers, the evil they did against him.

In Genesis 50 verse 20, Joseph told them, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And this is what happens. The Lord gets the glory. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Now what does dominion mean?

It means power. It means power. It means strength. What Peter is doing in verse 11 is worshiping the Lord for His hand and His sovereign governance over history. And this includes your personal life. The Lord has power.

He has authority. He has dominion over your life. Earlier in this passage, in verses 6 and 7, we looked at the reality that because the Lord is sovereign over your life and has great interest in the details of your life, you have no need to worry.

We praise the one who has dominion, the one who has full power over all of human history and over the details of our personal lives. I mean, think about the things you're facing. I was thinking about that this morning.

I was praying about this this morning. Everyone in this room is coming in with a trial. I personally know some of those trials because you share those with me. But some of you are facing trials I don't even know about.

But the Lord knows what you're going through. And some of these trials aren't attacks from the devil. It's just living in a fallen world and God just has you in this place for His good purposes. And life is hard.

And we have to recognize that. But we have a loving and wise God who takes care of us through it all. It's amazing how the Lord uses Satan though in our lives and how He is glorified through letting him try to cause problems but really when we do what we're supposed to do, it backfires.

And this is what I want to leave with this morning as we conclude kind of these two Sundays on spiritual warfare. We have victory over Satan in Christ, yes. But we attain victory in the battles of life as we do what God tells us to do.

And what has God told us to do? In verse 9. Resist him firm in your faith. Resist him. And we talked about this one week ago. We throw the Bible back at him. He lies. That's what Satan does for a living.

He's a liar. He's a slanderer. He accuses us before God. He accuses us before each other. This is the conflict he causes. He's a liar. And what we do is we communicate back to him the truth of God's Word, the standing we have in Christ.

And when he does that, he flees. He can't do anything to us. And so when this happens, as the Lord lets the devil do these things in our lives and we do what the Lord tells us to do to fight back, think of what great things are accomplished through that.

Think of how much stronger we get through that. I mean, we see this. I mentioned Paul's efforts, how the Gospel just advanced wherever he went, even though Satan tried to squash it out at every turn. It's amazing.

You feel invincible when you pursue the Lord, fending off the attacks of the devil, realizing that he can't really do anything. And then you see the great work of God that is done through you. That's the kind of life we want to live.

We don't want to live a safe life where we're just trying to get through Am I a Soldier of the Cross? says flowery beds of ease. Just Lord, just don't make it painful. Let's just go through life. Let's coasting through it.

That's not the kind of life the Lord has called us to live. We're supposed to follow him closely, which means you will be attacked by the devil, which means that we stand when he attacks. Okay? That's what I want to get across so clearly here.

So as we conclude here, understand the reality of the constant spiritual battle with Satan. And in this two Sunday sermon, we've seen six ways how through having your mind in a place of vigilance, through realizing that the devil seeks to destroy, through resisting his various tactics, through keeping in mind that other believers are facing the same battles, through knowing that the suffering you endure makes you stronger.

And lastly, as we have just seen, through rejoicing that God gets all the glory in the victory. We need to understand we're at war and we're involved in the greatest war in the history of the world. I have a picture on my desk of my great-grandfather and my grandfather.

My great-grandfather served in World War I. My grandfather served in World War II. The two largest wars in the history of the world my family members served in. It's kind of neat to think about that, but as I think about that, those aren't the greatest wars ever fought.

The greatest war ever fought is the one we are in every single day with the works of darkness that disguise itself through different ways. Through persecution, through distraction, through discouragement, through temptation.

And we need to fight every single day knowing that He is there attacking. And as we fight and as we gain the victory, the Lord is glorified through that and we experience the great benefit. Now next Sunday, we are going to look at the last portion of 1 Peter where he gives his final exhortation.

And this will be our last sermon on Peter's first letter before we begin his second letter. So I look forward to looking at that with you next Sunday. But this time let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in heaven, what a wonderful God you are.

Lord, I think about the parable of the sower. May what was preached today plant deep into the hearts of everyone here, including myself. Help us to live out the word that you have taught us and apply this to everyone right where they are at.

In Jesus' name, Amen.