The Roaring Lion

I think we have all had an encounter with what we believed was a roaring lion that was about to destroy us, I know I have. I Peter 5:8 says
 Be sober, be vigilant; because  your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

The key word here is like, you see the devil is not a lion at all, he just makes a lot of noise. He walks around you and your family roaring so loudly that if you don't have the word of God in your heart, you won't be able to hear anything but his roar. Satan's roar isn't that of a lion though, it's thoughts of you aren't good enough to be used by God, you will never measure up to so and so, you will never get out of this mountain of debt, you're never going to recover from this illness, your family is sick, the list goes on and on of the lies he tells you. Sometimes his roar is just a whisper to get you in that place of fear. Job said in chapter 3, the thing that I feared the most has come upon me, that which I was afraid of has come unto me. Fear brought everything to Job, the enemy got him in fear, he was consumed with it.

In biblical days, when one nation went to war with another nation,  the nation that won the war came back home with the spoils. I have heard this my whole life, but when I finally got revelation on it, it changed everything. The spoils of war were all the possessions of that nation, including it's people, animals, money, jewlery, food, everything. The winning nation would have a massive celebration in which the King and his men would parade through the city on their horses and show off the spoils of war. Following the King and his men, would be the leaders of the army, then would come the prisoners that they had taken to make into slaves, followed by the leaders of the defeated nation, wrapped in chains, humiliated, powerless, shamed. Then they were followed by all the animals, and gold, silver, jewlery, and other possessions.  The victorious nation made a show of them! Here's where it gets good...

Colossians 2: 15 says And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

When Jesus died, and went to hell for three days, he didn't come back empty handed. NO, he came back the the keys to death, hell, and the grave. He came back with the principalities and powers (those are demons) and it says having spoiled them, he made a shew of them openly....oooohhhhh, this is so good!

Jesus had a parade in the heavenlies, where the King of Kings was followed by the spoiled principalities and powers, where they were humiliated, shamed, powerless, defeated!!!!!  This is what we have to shout about, we are victorious. The enemy only seems powerful and scary. Fear is what gives him power and we have nothing to fear!

So when the enemy starts roaring at you and your family, you remind him that he is a defeated foe. He is powerless, he is under your feet, and then...

1 Peter 5: 9
 Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset--rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined],
James 4: 7 Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you  the Message translation says it like this...Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper.

I love it... I hope you show the enemy who you are this week, yell a loud no at him and watch him scamper...