In his sermon titled "You Have an Enemy," Trent Moody emphasizes that believers must recognize the spiritual dangers surrounding them. He references 1 Peter 5:8-9, warning that the devil, likened to a roaring lion, seeks to devour souls. To safeguard against this threat, individuals must walk circumspectly, acknowledging the world's hostility. Moody highlights the soul's value and vulnerability, emphasizing its need for redemption through Jesus Christ. He identifies three main enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil, with a focus on the devil's relentless pursuit. Believers are urged to be sober-minded and vigilant, understanding that the natural inclination is to be spiritually unaware or intoxicated by worldly pleasures. The sermon advises resisting the devil through spiritual preparedness, including putting on the armor of God, and stresses the significance of teaching the next generation to be steadfast in faith. Prayer concludes the sermon, seeking divine protection and the strength to live for God's glory.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we just thank you for again another beautiful day that you've given us. Thank you Father that you have ordained that every man and son would be here together, that we are sitting before your word. We are wanting to receive the Word of God And Lord, we just pray that you would give us hearts that are ready to hear. And Lord, not only to be hearers, Lord, but to be doers of the word.

And Lord, I pray as we open up your word that you will teach us by your Holy Spirit. Help us to be filled with the Spirit. I pray in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated.

You can turn to turn in your Bibles to 1st Peter and much like Jason's message, it'll be chapter 5 and verse 8. 1st Peter chapter 5 and verse 8 and I'm going to pick up just the first part of verse 9 as well. 1st Peter 5, 8. This really comes in a section of Scripture that Peter is comforting the believers and in that comfort he gives them this warning and it says, let me get my clock going, and it says this, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith." Now fathers if you were here for the father-daughter this is the same passage but I have revamped just a little bit, so I hope that it'll still be fresh for you and a great reminder.

In our memory verse, we are learning that we should walk circumspectly. Part of walking circumspectly is that we understand what our terrain is, we understand what's going on around us. And if I could teach you anything this morning it would be this, in this world you are not on friendly territory. This world in a sense is our home but again it's not our home. Ultimately we are looking for a city who's builder and maker is God.

David said this in Psalm 57. He said, my soul is among lions. That doesn't sound like home to me. My soul is among lions. I'm here to talk to you about your soul.

Your soul is your greatest possession. It is that which will live forever. It's that part of you that must be redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. And your soul, David said, my soul is among lions. I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue as a sharp sword.

And the temptation for men and boys is that we do not live on a playground. However, we live in a world that is fascinating. It's an exploratorium, if you will. We live in a world that is beautiful. Just the other night we were right out here in this field and we were looking up into the sky and with our cameras we were getting fascinating pictures of the northern lights and it's beautiful.

And it's a declaration of the glory of God that he declares his glory for us and he shows us his handiwork. The heavens declare the glory of God. And in some way, though, even though this world is an exploratorium and this world is full of wonder, we also need to understand that there is a warning for our souls in this world. And this warning is, is that your soul though is not on a playground, your soul is on a battleground. Your soul is in grave danger.

You have three main enemies. You have the world, you have the flesh, and you have the devil. All three of them are wanting to destroy your soul. Even your own flesh is tended towards evil and destruction apart for redemption in Jesus Christ. But the one I want to focus about this morning is the devil.

Did you know you have an enemy? You have an enemy of your soul. He never sleeps and never slumbers, even though we do, like I spoke about last night, that we must be watchful. And so this devil, this enemy of our soul, the slanderer, the accuser, that serpent of old, the lion who wants to devour you. He's not a kitty cat, he's a lion.

He wants to devour you. So first I want to ask you a couple questions. How do you walk circumspectly when you know you have an enemy that's like a lion. If I told you that there was a lion on this property, a real one, how would you be walking this weekend? I don't think you would be quite as haphazard as you have been.

You would be walking circumspectly. If I told you this field had mines in it and they were explosives and if you step in the wrong spot you're dead. How would you be walking? You would be walking circumspectly. Well you have something much worse than a real lion and something much worse than a minefield that you're walking through.

You're walking in a world in which you have an enemy and that enemy is like a lion but he's a thousand million times more deadly and powerful than a lion. He's the enemy of your soul and you're not safe here. He's the enemy of your soul. So this implies here what we see in this passage of Scripture, the first command that Peter gives us is to be sober. We tell this, you know, Paul told Timothy, or told Titus, excuse me, that we are to teach the young men to be sober-minded, that they need to be awake and aware of what's going on.

This word means to be clear-headed. It means not to be drunk. It means to be restrained. It means to be self-controlled. And whenever you find a command in the Bible, it's because there's a real temptation and a natural tendency that we're not what he's commanding us to be.

The natural tendency of men is not to be sober. Men, I'm not just talking about the boys. Men is not to be sober. But boyhood also has great challenges in this very specific command to be sober. There's this temptation, if you would, to be under the influence of the world, to be under the influence of the pleasures of the world and over all of the things that the world is throwing at you, but we must be clear-headed, we must be clear-minded in what's going on around us.

He tells us to be sober. We must be clear in our thinking. Boys are impetuous. They act without thinking. Men do too.

Sometimes we say things without thinking. I know I do. I relate with what James was saying. I have many words out there that I will give an account for. One of the things dads are to teach their sons, enabling them to become men is to think beyond their actions.

You know, a little boy will run straight down that hill and think it's a great idea to jump right on one of those floaty boards and just see what happens. In my mind yesterday I was watching this and I'm thinking if you step on that board and it slips out from under you and your head smacks the back of that big millstone down there, you're either dead or drowned. To think beyond your actions is a mark of manhood and it's a mark of being sober minded and so we need to understand what the results of the lack of sober mindedness is. Peter gives this warning here he wants you to be sober minded he wants you to be clear minded. This command to be sober minded also implies that the natural state of most people in this world is to be drunk upon this world.

And boys, I want to give you a strong warning. Do not be drunk on this world. This world will offer you a million pleasures and you must be sober to understand the result of drinking the Kool-Aid of this world. This command to be sober implies that there's something that you can actually do about your problem. Your problem is to not be sober-minded, but there's something that you can do about it.

Again, Paul tells Titus, he says, likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded. Peter says, therefore, in chapter 1, he says, therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober. Do what it takes. Our minds are running everywhere. Pull in the outstretching or the outward thoughts of your mind and be sober.

The idea there is of a robe and you reach down and you pull the backside of that robe and you pull it up and you tuck it in so that you can actually run and work. And so often we're not sober minded and we're in every direction and we're not being sober-minded. Colossians 3, 2, set your mind on things above and not on things of the earth. Thessalonians also gives a warning for this, but the next thing that Peter warns here is that we are to be vigilant. Why are we to be sober and vigilant is because we have an enemy.

This vigilance here is means to stay awake. It's watchfulness that I talked about last night. 1st Corinthians 16 13, How about that? Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Again, the implication, which I will not reiterate all of the implications of this, but to say that the reason that Peter commands us to be vigilant is because our natural tendency is to not be vigilant, is not to be watchful, is not to recognize the dangers and not to recognize and acknowledge who our enemy is and how he attacks us.

He has a plan. He has a scheme by which he is wanting to destroy your soul. Listen to this song that we have already sung this weekend, To Come Thou Fount. Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wondering heart to thee.

Prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." Have you ever noticed that you have a wondering heart? It is prone to wonder. We need to understand that we have an enemy. Why should you walk circumspectly?

Here's your second question. This is not the second question I'll give you at the end, but a second question of this message. Why should you walk circumspectly? It's because your enemy's like a lion that we've been talking about in verse 8. He's called an adversary.

Be sober, be vigilant because he's telling you why you should be sober and vigilant is because you have this adversary that is like a lion. He's a devil, he's the devil who's walking about. He's a hostile enemy. He is the devil, the Satan, the slanderer. He's the prince of the world, the prince of the power of the air.

He's the god of this age who's blinded the eyes of humankind and he wants to destroy you. Job tells us there was a day in which the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan also came among them and the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it. Young men have a tendency to be idle in what they do.

You need to understand that idleness, as the old saying goes, idle hands are the devil's workshop. Well, an idle mind is the devil's workshop as well. An unwatched soul is a devil's workshop as well. The devil, however, is never idle. He's walking to and fro, and the Bible says he's like an enemy, like a lion, and he's seeking whom he may devour.

He's looking for an opportunity in your life. He's looking for an idle opportunity when you're not gainfully employed in some good work for the Lord, and he's looking to devour you. Chrysostom said, he doesn't want to bite you, he wants to devour you. He wants to destroy your life. He wants to make an example of you.

He wants to display your failure to everyone just to show that the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ didn't fully fix you. Now we understand what the true gospel is. It doesn't mean that we're going to be sinlessly perfect, but we know that we've been fully forgiven. And in God's eyes we stand before him justified. We stand before him in Christ's righteousness.

But you need to understand that this enemy, he's wanting to shame the name of Jesus Christ by devouring you. I want you to think about ways in which he is wanting to do that. He's always on the prowl, he's always looking for his next victim, and the difference between you and the devil is that the devil never for one second forgets his business. We forget our business. We forget that we're children of the king.

Sometimes we seek our own kingdom instead of his. The devil never forgets what his business is. Satan wants to prove that you have more affection for this world than you do for God. And don't think that this is only for teenage boys and dads, this is for little boys too. You need to realize this that the devil is your enemy and he's like a roaring lion and he's coming after you.

And this roar is interesting. The roar of a lion can be heard for five miles. This roar of a lion is one of the reasons they say that the lion roars is because He's declaring his territory. And our enemy would love to declare his territory and you to be in it. He would love to devour you.

First, second Corinthians four says, but even if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. You need to understand that your enemy is a roaring lion and he is called the god of this age. He's after you. You need to be sober, you need to be vigilant, and you need to be watchful because you have an enemy. He's a prince of the power of the air.

Ephesians tells us that and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin in which you once walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as others." Listen, he wants to destroy you and he wants to devour you and he's seeking an opportunity to do that. The Bible tells us to make no provision for the flesh. You need to understand that the devil is watching in areas in your life. He's not omniscient, he's not omnipresent, but he does have demons that are that are here, that are active and they're watching and they're seeing what you're doing with your free time. They're watching what you're doing when no one else is watching what you're doing.

He's had 6, 000 years to be understanding the nature of fallen man. He knows your temptations. He knows your failures. He knows my failures. He knows my weaknesses.

He knows the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And brothers, We need to be on guard. We need to walk circumspectly. We need to be filled with the Spirit. So thirdly, how do you fight the battle when your enemy is like a lion?

Run. No, don't run. They can run faster than you. Lions will catch you if you run. The Bible does not tell us to flee the devil.

The Bible actually says resist the devil and he will flee from you. Jesus didn't run from Satan during the temptation. He resisted him steadfast with the Word of God and the devil left him. That's what the Bible teaches us to do. Our natural response is to run when a lion is after us.

But when the spiritual lion is on your tail, you turn and you face him and you resist him. And I'm not talking about rebuking the devil. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that we set our mind on the things of God and we resist Him. It means to be hostile, to oppose, to rebel, to set oneself against the devil.

But how do we do it? This is not hand-to-hand combat. You would lose that battle. This is spiritual battle. This is spiritual weaponry.

Ephesians tells us this, that we are to put on the whole armor of God. Why? Because you're in a battle. You put on the whole armor of God. I'm just going to give you some little points you know, Ephesians chapter 6, but he tells us that we're to put on the whole armor of God that we would be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

He tells us to gird our waste with truth. So that tells us he's wanting to attack you in areas of your life where truth is on the line. He wants to distort the truth and you need to be girded with truth. We are told to put on the breastplate of righteousness. He wants to attack you in areas of your active obedience to God.

We are told here that we are to shod our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace because he wants to attack you regarding your understanding of the gospel. He wants to make you a legalist or an antinomian. We're told to take up the shield of faith with which we will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And there are all sorts of fiery darts. Brothers, can you think of a few?

We're told in Galatians 5, 19 regarding the works of the flesh, they're evident, they're clear. Sexual sins are among the top. He knows your works of the flesh and therefore he wants to attack you in those ways. He tells us to put on the helmet of salvation, Paul does, because the devil wants to attack your mind. 2nd Corinthians 10, 3 through 5 tells us this, that the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly.

They're not carnal, but it's actually us. It's a battle of your thinking, of your mind, of your philosophies, of your reasonings, that we must pull down strongholds and we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Think about that. Every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That seems impossible.

But we're commanded to do it. Then he says, take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. That's what Jesus Christ did. But keep in mind brothers, you better know the Word of God because Satan will come at you with a distorted version and an improper interpretation of the Word of God. It will be like the book of Judges and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

You'll take the Word and he will distort it and he will make you think all sorts of ridiculous things. But you are to take the sword of the Spirit rightly interpreted and you are to resist the devil with the word of God. And James tells us therefore submit to God, resist the devil And he will flee from you. We're not to turn our backs, but we are to watch for the areas in which the devil would attack us. List them.

Fathers, teach your sons the areas in which the devil will attack them as men. You know them. Forwarned is forarmed. If I told you there was a lion on this property, you would not be walking around haphazardly. You would be looking in every bush, you would be looking into the distance to see where he might be.

You would not slumber, you would not slept in a tent last night. We would have all been down in Scott's house. But listen, he tells us to be steadfast in the faith. Here's the key. Here's one of the keys anyway.

It means to be stiff, to be stark, to be firm, to be solid. Metaphorically it means to be stubborn. Got any young men here that are stubborn? There's some old men here that are stubborn too. I know you.

We're stubborn in what we believe, right? And we should be stubborn in what we believe. We want to be steadfast or stubborn in the faith, in the true faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because He wants to destroy you.

He wants to destroy your faith. He wants to make you a display to your wife and to your children of what a hypocrite you are. He wants to display your failures to the church and to the world and say, see, there's nothing to this thing. Be stubborn in the faith, brothers. Be stubborn.

Resist him steadfast. Do not go to sleep. Be sober. Be vigilant. Be watchful.

Always looking. Because he is always watching for an opportunity to pounce on you and devour you. Two questions. In What ways does the enemy attack you as men? Know them well.

Idleness is a open door for your enemy to attack you. Number two, what are some strategies that you have in resisting him? And teach these to your son. You know, a lot of times we learn the most from our failures. Dads, we learn the most from our failures.

And we can really help our sons in major ways by explaining to them the strategies in which to resist the devil. I wish I could stand up here and say, guys, man, this is going to be just like a vacation and a cakewalk. This is going to be just smooth sailing. Brothers, you're entered in on a battleground, And let me pray for you. Our Father in heaven, we ask you Lord, we acknowledge that in ourselves we are not able to do these things, but we know by the power of the Holy Spirit living in us and through the Word of God and through our faith and the helmet of salvation all of these things that you have given us you've given us all things that pertain to life and godliness and Lord help us to use every one of them.

Lord I pray for every man and every son here that you would guard them and protect them from the enemy of their soul. I pray oh God that you would not allow not one of us to fall prey to the lion that wants to devour us. Help us Lord to live for the glory of Jesus Christ from the things that we think to the things that we say and the things that we do. God help us in Jesus name. Amen.