In this sermon, Peter concludes his letter to the harassed and scattered Christians of the first generation. He urges them to be self-controlled and alert, as their enemy, the devil, is constantly seeking to devour them. Peter emphasizes the importance of being sober and watchful, as these attitudes are necessary for living a life of hope and resisting the enemy. He shares his own personal experience of being in Satan's hands and being tripped up by a seemingly insignificant temptation.

I feel constrained of the Lord tonight to ask you to turn with me to the eighth and the ninth verses in that fifth chapter of Peter's first letter, and perhaps it might be helpful if we read our text again and try to get it clear in our minds as we come to meditate upon it. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. The enemy. The closing paragraphs of this inspired apostolic document are as full of truth and of grace as was the very wonderful first chapter. Those of you who are familiar with it will recognize 1 Peter as one of the great monumental chapters of the New Testament. But the grace that enabled Peter, Peter of all people, to write such a chapter and to write these four chapters that precede this one, that same grace enables him to conclude the message that God had for these harassed, scattered, sometimes bewildered Christians of the first generation. Grace gave Peter the ability to show the flock the way through the darkness and the way through the storm in such a manner as would honor their Lord and their God and bring glory to themselves. Now, what is Peter to say as he concludes this letter? Well, there are so many things here that would normally, would naturally invite our attention. This is so full, so very full of truth and so very full of precious truth that we need to grapple with that one is really hesitant to know where to begin. You take that word. He tells these people, most of them have lost their employment, means of livelihoods, their homes, their friends, they've lost everyone apart from their God and their Savior. And yet the great Apostle Peter tells them to cast all their anxieties upon God because God cares for them. And it is Peter's word. He knew something of life's troubles. He knew something of temptation. He knew something of having to fight and battle with Satan. He knew something of the fury. And he knew what it was to worry. He was a worrying type. Nevertheless, he has told them that. Cast all your anxieties, all of them, roll them over, he says, roll them over onto him who cares for you. And you might be tempted to think, well, now there's nothing more to say. There are some people who thus conclude that when once we get rid of our anxieties and roll them onto the strong shoulders of the God of Gilead and the God of Gethsemane and the God of Calvary and of the empty tomb, there is nothing more that there is. Having got rid of our anxieties and learn to humble ourselves before God and in relation to one another, this is Peter's thought pattern. Now, he says, there's an enemy on the prowl, get into battle with him. Be self-controlled, be alert, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, resist him, standing firm in the faith. And then he gives one or two reasons. You know, there is a danger that we think of the Christian life as something passive. Getting rid of all our problems, getting rid of all our troubles, hurling them all on the Lord, and precious though that truth is, it is not all the truth. Having got rid of our anxieties, what then? Then, says Peter, look into the eyeball of the enemy who is prowling around to destroy you and make war against him. Don't suffocate in your spiritual luxury of having your anxieties cast upon God, but stand on your guard, declare war, and standing steadfast in your faith, march on. This is a great word, and I find it a very challenging word to me at this present time, and I'm sure it is likewise for all of us. Whatever our circumstances, it points to the inescapable pathway of Christian duty, irrespective of our circumstances. There's an enemy to encounter, there's a warfare to wedge, a warfare that we can only effectively tackle whilst we are resting in God, who alone is our sufficiency. Whilst we have ceased to worry because he cares for us, and we are prepared to be wounded for the glory of our God and the well-being of our soul. This is a soul-stirring passage. Were we to say nothing more, but you see, there is something more that must be said. The apostle is not simply the exponent of divine truth here. He's not simply expounding the word of God. He's doing that, but he is a vital witness to the immense issues involved here. He's actually dipping the pen in his own ink, in his own blood, metaphorically. He has been this way. Peter had known something of the fury of Satan. Peter had been humbled and humiliated, wounded sorely by the evil one. But the Lord God of all grace has brought him back again, and now he is able to minister to his brethren, to his brothers and his sisters, just as Jesus said he would. When thou hast turned around again, you will help strengthen your brothers. And here he is involved in that very ministry that was given him by his master. Now, there are two things I want to focus upon tonight. Only two things in this particular passage. We shall look first of all at the roaring lion prowling for prey, and then at the resisting prey defying the attacker. The two evident pictures that emerge from the passage. First of all, let's look for a moment at the portrait that we have here of the roaring lion. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Without any word of explanation or apology, we are faced squarely with this apostolic portrayal of our arch enemy, the devil. The apostle doesn't find any need to explain his belief in the existence of the devil any more than he does to explain the existence of God. The devil was not just someone he happened to believe in. He had been confronted by him, humiliated by him. He knew him, recognized him. Many have known him but have not recognized him. Many have been involved with him but they've not recognized him. Peter knew the foe. Christianity inherited the Jewish belief in the actual objective existence of a malign being whose set purpose is sinister and evil. But Satan was no mere item on their creedal confession. Let me repeat that. The New Testament shows us a community of men and women that grappled with Satan, that made war against him. And they did so by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto death. Paul warns us of the hosts of hostile agencies that gather around him to menace the Christian positions in the Christian church. Whilst Peter refers to him as an all too familiar foe. And Jesus was tempted by him in the wilderness. Now Jesus Christ wasn't shadow boxing for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. When he came out and when he told his disciples what had been going on, he wasn't teasing them, he wasn't leading them astray. That had been a real fray. And the New Testament believed him. And later on, as we've indicated, the apostles and the whole community of the Christians came to know something of the power of this malign enemy of our souls. If it be cynically asked where the devil may be encountered, as someone did once ask me for his address. Clearly we can't do that. But I'll tell you what we can do. We can show you his handiwork. We can show you his footmarks. We can show you the works of his hand. From Eden to the fall of Babylon. From Eden to the end of the Old Testament. And from Herod to Hitler. To this sex ridden age in which you and I are living. We can show you the damage. We can show you the problems he causes to emerge. We can show you the hurt. We can show you the wounded lives and homes and societies and nations warring against each other. We can show you the works of Satan. And we can tell you how to discover his character. It is at this point that Peter must have been writing with great emotion. You see, as we've indicated, he had passed through the peculiarly harrowing experience of being in Satan's hands. In the lion's paws. He had not only been cowed to cowardice by his loud roaring so that a flimsy damsel could trip him up. It's the kind of thing you'd really never expect in Peter's life. A sweet little girl. Tripping up this big burly fisherman who could stand for himself in any storm and in any trouble. Just a few quips from her and he was down on his face in the mud. She had Satan on her side. Peter had gone that way and he knew something of the fury of the enemy. David Livingstone somewhere says of how he was helping someone who had been caught between the teeth of a lion and had been rescued. But almost every bone in his body had been broken. Some to a pulp and his body was a mess. And David Livingstone says that there were occasions when all the hideous terrifying pains of that experience would come back to him even years afterwards because he lived for a number of years. And he would relive the whole experience and I don't know whether somehow or other there are times in the experience of the Apostle Peter when all the anguish of that awesome moment when he denied his Lord with oaths and curses don't come back to him. Peter is writing out of a felt poignancy of soul as the memory of his galling experience lives on. And his words are the more profoundly relevant on that score. You see, Daniel was saved from the lion's den. The paw of the lions didn't touch Daniel. Peter was saved from the lion's mouth. Yes, Satan exists all right. It's true that the medieval church completely and outrageously outdrew the biblical presentation and went to unwarranted lengths. But the pendulum nowadays has swung in the other direction and apparently very few people believe in the existence of Satan. And of course that serves his purpose very well. He's able to do so much better when people don't think he's around. But the word written as well as the word incarnate speak to us of an enemy. Satan, the devil. The tale of his non-existence is paying dividends to the cause he represents. Let us believe the word of God. An enemy indeed. Actually, the Greek word has often been used for an opponent in a lawsuit. And he is something of that. He's the arch-accuser. Have you noticed that in your experience? First of all, he's the accuser of God. The devil loves to put any blame on God. And he will whisper the most sinister notions in your ear to blame God for all kinds of things. But when he doesn't accuse God, he accuses the brethren. He accuses Christians falsely. Now, it's one thing to have to face our own faults and our own sins. That's very humbling for all of us. But he is the false accuser. He will make you believe that you have sinned when you have not. And he will remind you of sins that God has forgiven and put under the blood of his Son. And God will never do that. It's only the devil does that. You know the language of Scripture. God says, As far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your transgressions from you. I've buried your sins in the depths of the sea. I've cast your sins behind my back. These are all biblical metaphors. The devil will bring them up from the bottom of the ocean. The devil will go to the outermost parts of space and bring back your sins and remind you of them and throw them in your face. God will not do that. When the blood of Jesus Christ covers them, God will never bring them out. That would be to dishonor his Son and to dishonor his covenant. But the devil does. And he taunts you and he tantalizes you with them. And when he doesn't accuse the Father or accuse the brethren, then he'll get us to accuse one another. And this is as sad as anything. He'll make the saints little accusers of one another. And we begin to bite and to devour one another and play the devil's game for him. Oh, brothers and sisters, we have a malign, we have a bitter, we have an awful enemy to battle with. Let's beware of him. That lion is still abroad tonight. And what's he trying to do? Well, Peter puts it in this way. He describes Satan's endeavors in these words, seeking whom he may devour. Devour. Having first described him in general terms, he now becomes more pointed and particular. And, of course, his words have a peculiar relevance to the historical situation in which these Christians lived. They have been overwhelmed by an evil power, a power of a state that is evil. And it is snarling bitterly at them. But now listen to, look at what he has to say. Let's just try and examine, albeit very briefly, some of the things that Peter wants us to get hold of. The murder of Satan's approach is described in terms of a roaring lion. It would appear that the apostle still has in mind the image of the church as God's flock. You notice he has referred to us as the flock of God in verse 2 back there. That's the image of the church that he had at the beginning of the chapter. And he seems to have the same image of the church in his mind right here. And so he speaks of the enemy as a lion roaring. The picture is of the creature encircling the little flock. The lion walking around, parading around the little flock in the center, eyeing them, looking at them, watching at them, frightening them, making them a little nervous, a little timid, and more and more timid as the moments go by, waiting to pounce on his prey. And the great apostle Peter would remind you that there is such a thing going on in your life and mine right here on earth. There is an enemy that is prowling around, seeking whom he may devour. A roaring lion. Now not that Satan always appears as such, of course. He dons this gate only when it serves his purposes. At other times he will masquerade as the angel of light, as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11, as the champion of culture, of education, and enlightenment generally. He loves to do that. I think that's the gate he loves best. He can as easily assume the philosopher's ponderous air as the high priest's vestments, and he likes to do that. He likes to have a foot in the religious life of the day and the cultural life of the day and to come out from the university hall or from a church or a cathedral and be known as such. And as an angel of light, speak with authority. He has mastered the art of hypocrisy and he can play any game he likes. And there are times when it is most rewarding from his point of view to plug the arts or champion the sciences. He can sometimes produce results of extraordinary proportions by giving sin the veneer of art or otherwise rationalizing it so that it becomes acceptable to people. But when that guise fails, Satan condescends to another. He becomes, as he was in the book of Genesis, the serpent, or as he is called in the book of Revelation, that serpent. He put this guard on, as we've said, in Eden. And as serpent, of course, he's no longer the champion of the arts or the sciences. He's not concerned with religion or with culture of any kind. As a serpent, he's the enchanter. He's the seducer. He's the one who entices. He appeals to the sensual. And once he casts his ugly spell over men and women and begins to get his poisonous fangs going, brothers and sisters, we're in for trouble. Nothing but the blood of Christ can shield and shelter us. Here in 1 Peter 5, however, Satan is the roaring lion, frightening the saints, or trying to. Arrogantly and threateningly he surrounds the bleating sheep and the defenseless lambs of the good shepherd, savagely roaring in order to strike terror into their hearts, ready to pounce. Where his damnable philosophies are rejected and his seductive approaches rebutted, this is what he does. Oh, his psychological warfare is well thought out. When I meet him in this capacity, I love the words of our Lord and often turn to them. My sheep listen to my voice. There's another voice even when Satan roars, the lion roars. I know them, says Jesus, and they follow me. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. Those words are precious anywhere and anytime, but I tell you they're precious when the lion is abroad. The motive of Satan's lion-like tactics is to devour, seeking whom he may devour. The psychological harassment is but the prelude to his ultimate hope of gulping us down. That's literally what he said. You're gulping people down. Satan aims, you see, at nothing less in the long run than the total destruction of the saints. He tried to destroy the Savior. Now he tries to destroy the saints who owe their being and their existence and continuance to the same Savior. That is of our goal. And as he moves toward it in the might of his fury, he will first do his utmost to devour your testimony, to get you to do something that would so bring you into disfavor in the public eye that whatever you say for God from now on will not count. And you know there are many testimonies that have been forever spoiled by Satan. Not only to devour your testimony as a believer, but to devour your experience of grace and of God so that even you begin to think that what you experienced of the grace of God yesterday was not real. And it is as if you were never born again, as if you were never converted, as if God had never laid hand upon you. He gets you to believe that that was all a figment of your dreamy imagination. And it's all evaporated. Oh yes, and your potential as a saint and as a servant of God. He would take your gifts one by one and he would misuse them or he would misuse you in such a way that you will never be capable of using the gifts that God has given you. We have a very real enemy here. Not a man of straw, not a person of straw, not an enemy of straw, but a live, malign spiritual being. Saints of God, let us get this clear. We have to deal with a devouring lion abroad, not with a petty wasp. He's the king of the forest. And listen, you and I can't afford to play with him. He's not a plaything. Don't pet Satan. Don't get near to him, if you can help it. Keep a distance between you. Keep the cross of Christ between you and him. Keep the Word of God between you and him. Keep obedience to God between you and him. Be separate from him. He even entered that little community of apostles who gathered around the incarnate Lord of glory. And he even with his fan sought to get them. And he left the marks of his teeth upon their Lord and upon some of them, as we've already indicated. Now, let's look at the other picture that we have here, over against that. And it's a remarkable picture, really. It's a kind of contradiction here, isn't there? We speak of a resisting prey. This is one thing that sheep and lambs don't do. They don't resist very much. Oh, I know you've seen sheep battling with their horns occasionally, but it's a comparatively rare thing. But Peter brings in this image of making war here. The sheep making war. A flock making war with a lion. Be sober, he says. I'm using the older translation now. Be watchful. You have self-controlled and alert. Be sober, be watchful. Whom resists steadfast in the faith. Tread carefully, says Peter. Now, brothers and sisters, this is a word for us. And if this is the word of God, you and I were seen and foreseen by God to have need of this word tonight. Tread carefully. Yes, even you. Oh, I know you know the word. You have an experience of the grace of God. And you've grown in grace and in the knowledge of your Savior, yes. And you've overcome him a thousand times by the grace of God. Yes, even you. I want you to notice Peter's commands to be sober and watchful. They embody the minimum safety measures required of those who know that they are encircled by such a hostile superhuman foe who plans nothing less than their total destruction. This is the minimum we can do. Be self-controlled, be alert. Or as I'm going to use them, be sober, be watchful. Be sober. Now, what does this mean? I deliberately use the English be sober because it brings out something that the other translation doesn't. Peter has the same kind of underlying attitude in mind here as he did in the opening chapter. You remember, he pleads with his readers to gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober in order to hope fully for the grace that is to be revealed at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be sober in order to hope fully. As if to say you can't really live the life of hope unless you're sober. What do you mean, Peter? Well, you see, what he really means is this. You and I are living in a fallen world. And there are all kinds of things in this fallen world that can make us spiritually like drunken men and women. We can get drunk on different things in this world. Now, you may not touch the bottle. You may not have anything to do with drugs. You don't touch liquor. But I tell you, in Peter's language, you can get drunk. You can get drunk on pleasure. And you can be seeking pleasure from morning to evening. And when Monday comes, you're thinking of the weekend. And when the weekend comes, you're thinking of the next weekend. And you're all thinking and planning for the pleasure of your body. Many people live for that. Pleasure drunk, that's all they think about. Or you may be thinking of just sheer material well-being. You can be quite drunk with it. You only think about this. You only dream about this. You don't work just to make a living and to pay your way and to have something to use for God. But really, this is what you live for. It's your soul. And taking this, if this is taken away, there's nothing. There's nothing in life. It's money. It's possessions. And the prestige and the power that goes along with it. And so we're drunk, quite dead drunk. Now, I could use many other analogies. There are people like that, who are drunk and they've never touched the bottle. Now, what does Peter say? He says, listen, he says. It's a very dangerous thing to be drunk when there's a lion around. Whether you're drunk physically because you've been on the bottle or whether you're drunk with pleasure or whether you're drunk with materialism or whether you're drunk with this or that or the other, it doesn't matter. If you're intoxicated, that you're only thinking of one thing and you're absorbed with this, that or the other, with the devil prowling around seeking to devour you, you're not safe. You're trebly unsafe. You see, my friends, in God's good world where we are placed, our lives are fallen to us in very pleasant places. But the tragedy is, we can, in this graphic language of the apostles, we can get drunk on anything. We can become intoxicated with anything. We can misuse everything. This is a sad and a very challenging matter. But it's a very urgent call to us in our day and generation to be sober. But not only sober, be watchful. Be on the alert. You can't be watchful if you're drunk, of course. But these two are there to be separated. Oh yes, we are to be both sober and watchful. Now, we are not simply imperiled by over-excitement or over-indulgence in something. But we can also be imperiled by the very opposite tendency, drowsiness. You see, if you just simply fall asleep when there's a prowling lion looking for you, you're as much in danger as if you were dead drunk. And brothers and sisters, if as a saint you're just fast asleep, you're as much imperiled as if you are dead drunk. In this situation. Oh, I know many Christians who just because they're asleep, they don't think they're sinning against God and they don't see any danger anywhere. Scripture would deny that. It would challenge that. And so the Word of God calls upon us, awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light. It's only a matter of degree between a groove and a grave. And we need to arise from the dead because when we sleep, you see, we become very much like dead people. We're unaware of what's going on around us. If you're really sleeping, you don't know what's going on. My wife told me this morning, she got up twice in the night. I didn't know she'd moved. I was asleep. I didn't know it. Well, nothing happened. She didn't do anything sinister. But my friend, when there's an enemy around looking whom he may devour, you can't afford to be asleep. And you know, there are multitudes of people in our churches who are fast, fast asleep. As a matter of fact, there are some people and there are whole tracts of their natures that don't ever seem to have come alive. They will never be tempted to get drunk. They'll never be tempted even with sensual pleasures. It seems that they're even beyond that kind of temptation somehow. They've never really come alive sexually, sensually. And there's no thanks to them somehow. They're like stones. And when they come into the things of God, they're like Christian stones, christened Christians, but stormy. It's not only that they're unemotional, but the manifestation of life is negligible. They're like corpses that have been painted. Men and women, are we alive? Then we should be alert to the enemy. And finally, not only alert to the enemy, but we should resist him. Yes, being sober and vigilant, we may and we ought, says Peter, resist the very lion we set upon our destruction. We must refuse to be cowed by his roar or to capitulate to his demands. Our Lord has commanded us to fight the fall. Our Lord has commanded us to resist the devil. Whereas we are summoned by Peter to humble ourselves before God. Remember in this context, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, he says. And to humble ourselves before one another and to think well of one another and to play the humble part. He says, resist the devil. Make war against the devil. But you know, we've turned things topsy-turvy. So often within the church, what we do is not humble ourselves before God, but we resist God and His Word and His Spirit. Not bow down to one another, but stand up for our rights and say, no, no, no, you can't go that way. I want this and I want that and I've got to have this and I've got to have that. And we fight with one another. And rather than resist the devil, we just cow down before him like, I don't know what. See, sin turns the whole world upside down still. So that the saints of God resist their God and give in to the devil. Whom resist steadfastly in the faith. Firmly entrenched in the faith. These words firm in your faith or steadfast in your faith have been legitimately interpreted in two different ways. I see some students here tonight and I see some people who know much more New Testament than I do. And let me say that I'm not dogmatizing here. I don't know which is to be preferred. The one or the other. I'll give you both. Steadfast in the faith. Entrenched in your faith. It could very well have a reference to our subjective faith. Our confidence in God. In other words, go into battle with your faith in God. Not with your faith in yourself. Much as the pastor of the Crystal Cathedral says you can do it. With your faith in God. In God and God only. We can do battle and win only in so far as our faith is in God. It's not a matter of do it yourself. It's not a matter of having the capacity innate in ourselves. It is only by His grace that we can win through. And it could be a reference to that. That we must be entrenched in faith. We must make sure that we have real faith. This is the victory that overcomes the world. Even our faith. Our confidence in God. You see it elaborated in the illustrations we have in Hebrews 11. By faith, Abel. By faith, this one. By faith, that one. They all live by faith. And by faith they conquer. It could be that. But it could also mean something else. It could be, be entrenched in the faith. And the reference could well be to having knowledge of the word of God. Of the teaching. Of the revelation of God. Given us in the Old Testament now and in the New. In which case you might ask, well what does it mean then? Well what it would mean is that we should become more and more like our Lord in His temptation. By Satan in the wilderness. You see, he was so entrenched in the word of God. In the faith. That he could even discern when Satan was quoting scriptures. As a smoke screen. And even when Satan was putting on his best spiritual garment. His religious garment. And he was really putting on a good front. The blessed son of God could see through it all. He could see through the mask. He could see the enemy behind the mask. And tear it off. He was entrenched in the word. In the faith. Now fortunately we don't need to choose between these two. I think both are true. You need faith, confidence in God. But you also need the word of God to do battle with it. After all the word of God is the sword the spirit uses in battle. Says Paul in Ephesians chapter 6. Whom resist steadfast in faith and in the faith. Remembering this. At the same kind of experience of suffering. Is required of your brotherhood throughout the whole world. One of the things that breaks our hearts so often in Christian battle is. The devil whispers in our ears that it's far worse with us than with anybody else. Don't you get that? Haven't you heard somebody whispering that in your ear? Why is it so bad with you? With you after all. You're such a good person. You're such a decent man or woman. Why should these things happen to you? Says Peter listen. It's true you've lost your homes and you've lost your jobs. It's true you've gone through the mill. But listen he says. This is true in one way or another. Suffering is a universal phenomenon. It belongs to the brotherhood to all the family. It's one of the marks of the family. Our blessed Lord Jesus went into the glory via the cross. And he brings his brethren into glory via his cross and their cross. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abides alone. And he brings us also into fruitfulness and into glory. Through the way of. He said don't don't don't don't get sorry for yourself. Don't think that you're the only one going that way. Suffering is a universal phenomenon within the church of God. Whom resists. Set up the standard then. Humbled before God to the very ashes of penitence. You and I must learn to rise above the prince of darkness. In fellowship with all the saints. We must make war against our common foe. And that unremittingly. That's the summons of scripture. Oh holy spectacle. That of once proud men and women. For we were all proud in Adam. Now humbled as worms before God. Thus humbled. Yielding to one another. Yielding to one another casting all our anxieties upon God. And flock of sheep though we are and lambs. Daring to make war against the lion of all lions. And the lamb in the midst of the throne. If I may change. And move on to the book of Revelation. The lion in the midst of the. The lamb in the midst of the throne. With his spirit in us. Is able to enable us. To deal with the lion. On our tracks. Sheep and lambs. Of the great shepherd. May defeat the lion. Of whom Peter speaks. In that atmosphere of humility and self-denial. The Holy Spirit's mighty power. Is expressed. And experienced. And makes the weaklings. Strong. Your real peril and mine. Does not lie in the fact that we have an objective. Forecall the devil. Our real enemy. Is in here. That we think that we can cope in the power of flesh alone. And we cannot. Whereas if we are humble to see. That we cannot do that. And are given confidence and trust in the God of the promises. And the Savior of the promises. Then we may rise above our circumstances. And above our enemy. And trample him underfoot in the name. Of our great Savior. I don't know what's ahead of me. And you don't know what's ahead of you good people. Individuals or congregation. We don't. But be sure of this. There's an enemy around prowling. In whatever circumstances may be. He will find some way whereby he pushes his nose in. And roars to frighten you. Into submission. And he'll do the same with me. All of us are subject to it. But none of us need be defeated. Says Peter. He by the grace of God. Came back again. Because his Savior sought him and found him. And healed him. And rehabilitated him. And that Savior has not changed. He is able to serve to the uttermost. And to retrieve his lambs and his sheep. Even from between the teeth of the enemy. And to rebuild faith. And hope. And love again. That we may help one another. In the Christian warfare. So may it be. To God's glory. Amen. Our Heavenly Father. We thank you for the good news. Good news at all times and for all circumstances. You have sent us a deliverer. We thank you for the knowledge of him that we have already. Even though we may have but sipped of the cup of salvation. We thank you for the foretaste of him. And we bless you in anticipation of that day. When we shall know him in all his glory. And all his fullness. Oh Lord we thank you for such a hope. And we pray now that you will enable us to draw both from our past experience. And from our future hope. The inspiration we need to battle today. And tomorrow if you give us tomorrow. And to do so entrenched in faith. Through Jesus Christ your son our Lord. Amen.