Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion,

seeking someone to devour.

1 Peter 5:8

Last night I was lying on the couch with my man watching the National Geographic channel… it’s sometime of cat week and my husband explained to me that if you are a man and you are flipping through the channels and see lion chasing down to kill… you just have to stop and see what happens. So therefore he watched and I peeked through my fingers while gagging and “awww-ing”.

There was one part of the show that struck a huge cord of truth.

God is very clear with us that we have an adversary. Our adversary’s name is the devil, the serpent of old, Satan. He comes to kill, steal, and destroy. He comes to lie, deceive, and distort. The sad thing is so many believers are so weak in the Word of God and choose to walk by their own understanding instead of God’s… that that stinking adversary wins many battles… or at the very least manages a many crippling wounds.

As we were watching the lion vs cheetah’s in the below clip, we saw it as the two men were trying to figure out the why’s that the narrator in the clip uses. What the two men saw was four cheetah’s. Three of the cheetah’s were brothers. They had grew up together never separating after they were weaned. These three brothers saw this one female. This one female was in heat… so these three brothers begin the chase after her.

These three brothers are so consumed with fighting over this object of their desire they have no clue that the lion is creeping up on them. All they can see is what they want and they are willing to fight each other to the death until they get it. So the three brothers are fighting over the  one female and the female is trying to fight off all three brothers… and they are all consumed with lust and mere survival.

The lion finally rushes in on the fighting four and the three cheetah brothers flee the bush as the lion steps out with the female cheetah between his teeth, crushing her skull.

And here’s the sad part…

The three brothers have just survived a lion attack, but they are so consumed with lust that they are still fighting over the now dead female. The lion is standing there with a dead sister cheetah in his teeth and they continue to fight with each other instead of fleeing the scene.

The lion then rushes them again… and they still FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER!

Finally the lion brings in a reinforcement and they kill another brother cheetah… this one having been wounded by his brother cheetahs in the fight with each other.

Oh precious one do you see the picture?

Our adversary the devil is out…

Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 

and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Ephesians 4:26-27

How many times in the church, I mean the whole church, the body of Christ, and our individual community church… how many times are we so consumed with fighting with each other to get what we want that we are completely oblivious to the creeping roaring attack of Satan. He can come up on us roaring because we are so stinking loud and crazed with having our own way that we are not watching our own backs much less the backs of the brother or sister in Christ we are fighting with…

Flee immorality.

Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body,

but the immoral man sins against his own body.

1 Corin 6:18

How many times have we seen a brother or sister in Christ with their head between the teeth of Satan while he crushes their skull because they were caught in the snare of immorality, sexual sin, whether it be fornication, adultery, homosexuality, pornography… whatever… we see them dead in his teeth. Caught. Destroyed. Damaged. Broken. Yet we stand there and are so consumed with our own lust… with getting the object of our desire… that we don’t flee our own immorality. 

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

1 Corin 10:14

How many times do we see our brothers and sisters crushed under the weight of the world because they chose to put their trust in someone or something besides the One True Living God and instead of running to God ourselves, instead of stopping and examining our lives for idolatry… instead of fleeing we stay in our sin. Choosing to trust in our jobs, our money, our health, our minds. Choosing to worship at the football field, at the Lazyboy, at the Sealy, instead of the altar of our Creator God

But flee from these things, you man of God,

and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love,

perseverance and gentleness.

1 Timothy 6:11

Oh church, beautiful bride of Christ, let us flee these things!

Let us stop fighting with each other and instead stand ready, firm, watchful, keeping vigilant as we prepare to fight the attack of our enemy. Let us be ready to pick up and defend a wounded brother not leave him to be destroyed… and for the love of Christ let us not be the ones who wounded because we were so consumed with our lust and desires that we didn’t care who we hurt in the process. Let us number our days and be mindful that our adversary is out and about seeking whom he may devour.

We are supposed to be fighting FOR each other not WITH each other.

How many attacks of the adversary would never be accomplished if we were not consumed with fighting with each other but with praying for each other?

 

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? 

Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 

You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.

You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.

You do not have because you do not ask. 

You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives,

so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? 

Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose:

“He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? 

But He gives a greater grace.

Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 

Submit therefore to God. 

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

James 4:1-7