and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. So we're going to preach tonight. The title of the message is that the title of the message is Lunch for a Lion. Lunch for a Lion. All right, and we're going to pray, and we're going to get into it. Yeah, honey, father, I pray that you would use me today. You know I'm nothing. I need you. I pray that you would use what you gave to me. I pray you use me, and I pray you help somebody today. I pray you help me to speak with power and clarity. I pray that the truth would come forth in a way that it will change somebody's life today like it changed mine. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen lunch for a line. I read out reading this verse Just coming across the verse and reading and thinking about it Let me go go back to it Here we see Peter, he's talking to the church and he tells them, he gives them a description of Satan. He gives a description of how we can look at Satan and in verse 8 it says, be sober, that means to watch and be vigilant. because we have an adversary, the devil. The adversary, that's an enemy, that's a person, that's an opponent, that's somebody that's against you. It says your adversary, the devil, so by that we know that we have an adversary. It's a war, it's a battle, it's a fight, so we got an opponent, and we need to be ever mindful of that. And then he said that opponent, that adversary, the devil, is as a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he made the vow. So I read that and I was like, man, we, I'm like the lion, that's a pretty tough animal. Like, you know, that's, that's, that's big league. I like to watch the nature shows and stuff like that. And I know, man, the lion, that's a tough dude, you know? So I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, okay, Lord, what? What am I then? If the devil, he a lion, you know, I must be like a T-Rex or something. You know, I got Christ. And come to find out, take your Bibles, you're going to run. If Satan and the devil, if he's a lion, what does the Lord characterize us as? And I'm sure most of you know What I found out really quickly, the only characteristic, what is he liking us to, take your Bible, go to Ezekiel. Ezekiel 34, and I got a few of them, 34, 31. And we're going to see what the Lord likens us to Ezekiel 34, uh, 31 and saying, yeah, my flock, the flock of my pasture are men. And I am your God said the Lord. Okay. So we, we, the flock. Okay. What, what'd you try and say? Okay. We'll fly. They don't tell us what type of animal we like. So turn to, um, Psalms, the book of Psalms, Psalms 100. Psalm 100 and we're gonna read verse I believe let me let me get to a verse 3 it says Know ye that the Lord he is God and that It is he that maketh us and not we ourselves We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. So if Satan is a roaring lion and Best I got is I'm a sheep, you know? And we can go to different passages in the New Testament and more in the Old Testament, but we got a lion, which is our adversary. Then we got me, you, which are sheep. So I began to think, I was like, Lord, that don't sound too good. I don't know how this is going to work out. If we got an adversary, this guy is against us, and he a roaring lion. He hungry. He looking for some lunch. And I'm a sheep. That don't bode too well. You know a sheep, if you've ever seen a sheep, a sheep don't got any type of defenses for nothing. It don't got no horns, it don't got no claws, it don't even got sharp teeth to eat grass. So it's like, Lord, okay, what am I, you know, okay, I should be encouraged by this, okay. And I begin to think about it. One, how many people have seen a lion play tag with a sheep or go out and play on the monkey bars? You've never seen a lion play with his food. A lion don't play with his food. If a lion is up and he's hungry and he's seeking who he may devour, like the Bible says, He's not playing. It's game time. I'm coming to take you out. And most of the time, us Christians, we walk about and we want to walk the line and we want to get close as we can get to Satan and to sin and to the things of this world. And we have an adversary. Just like in John 10, what he say? He come to steal, kill, and destroy. He won't be satisfied till he steal your kids from you, till he steal your joy from you, till he steal everything that you got. He ruin your testimony, and till he kill you, he make you ineffective for the cause of Christ. That's his goal. His goal is not just to wound you, to hurt you. He wants to kill you and take you out and render you ineffective for use for the master. So we have an adversary and he's not looking to play games with us. So we got we got an adversary which is this lion which is Satan and we sheep. My wife would tell you anybody around me long enough to tell you I love to watch the Discovery Channel and National Geographic all the animals. I don't want to see them in person but they fascinate me you know. And I watched this video one time. I was telling, I told Brett about it. I'll tell y'all about it. It's kind of a gruesome video, but it illustrates the point I want to make. It was this guy, a bunch of people, they was on one of those, uh, uh, nature, uh, well, you know, where you drive and you see all the wild animals and you supposed to stay inside your safari. They were, and they was driving. And this is older guy, he's, you know, all these cars pull up, they pull up on these lions. You know, the lions, they just land there most of the time. That's what they do. They sleep all day till they get hungry, then they go and hunt, eat, then they go back to sleep. So these lions, they land there. And this guy, he was in the car, they was about maybe 40 feet, you know, from these lions, they're sleeping. So he's in the car, he's taking pictures, and all of a sudden that wasn't good enough. So then he went to roll down the window. and he taking pictures and then that wasn't good enough. He, he sat up on the edge of the window, hanging out, taking pictures. And then you know where he went next. He rolled the window back up, opened the door and got out. Now that's what they tell you. Don't do it. Don't get out of the car. Don't roll down the window. But He got comfortable with this lion, because the lion was just sitting there looking at him, you know, and that's how we do. We get comfortable in sin, we get comfortable living like the world, and sin has its pleasure for a moment, you know, and then he got out and he closed the door. He even closed the door behind him. He was real comfortable with this lion. As soon as he closed that door, That's when he knew he messed up, man. That lion got up. It was like in a split second, man. It was on top of him. And it's a very gruesome video, but this lion proceeds to devour this man in front of his wife and his children and all these people that's in these cars. And that's what Satan will do with us. He will get comfortable. And we get out, and we want to play with him, we want to pet him, we want to do all these things with the world, and we get comfortable. Then he devour us, and then everybody looking like, man, you remember, you seen what happened to such-and-such? Because they got too close to the world. They forgot that they had an adversary. I want to preach for the next few minutes about how not to become lunch for a lion. And because I watched all these hours and hours of, I've been to all this study and all this study, I didn't know I was studying for it, but all these hours and hours, I noticed that there's certain things that a lion will look for because lions actually have like almost the lowest percentage kill rate far as when they go out hunting. You would think they hunt a pack and they're pretty successful, but they're not. So in order to combat that, they look for certain things so that they can have a more successful hunt, right? All right. So the first thing that a lion looks for When he goes out on the hunt, he want to be successful, he want to make it easy. The first thing he looks for, most of the animals that a lion hunt, they all, they roam in herds or flocks, they all roam together. But the first thing, as he looks out on the horizon, he looks at all these thousands of animals, the first thing he's looking for, he's looking for a wounded animal. If you're wounded, then you're an easy target. So that's the first thing we don't want to be. We don't want to be lunch for a lion. We don't want to be wounded. And what do I mean by being wounded? That means having a wounded spirit or being bitter. Being being having a hate towards your brother and sister in Christ or or not getting a long one You know how we do well sister such-and-such sat in my seat, you know I sit in that seat every week, and she just sat there She know I was coming and she didn't even try to get up and move over or you know Deacon you know what you would call it. You know he didn't come visit me while I was in the hospital and So now we get bitter, or sometimes we get bitter at God. We might say, oh, well, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and God didn't answer me. So now I'm bitter at God. But we got an adversary, the devil, and he lay back and he sit back and he look at you on the horizon, he say, oh, that person, they bitter right there. And you stick out like a sore thumb and you'll be lunch for a lion when you let bitterness creep in. Take your Bibles, go to, Hebrews, Hebrews 12, Hebrews 12. We're going to try to, try to run here. Hebrews 12. Y'all probably know where I'm going. Probably get that before me. Hebrews 12. verse 15 Hebrews 12 15 say look diligently lest any man fail the grace of God lest any root of bitterness spring spring up uh trouble you and thereby many be defiled so he even say he said look you need to be diligent you need to be and and that's what peter said over there over there and pete he said look you need to be sober and vigilant you need to be watching and let's bitterness creep in and and somebody gonna get defiled and you're gonna open your you're gonna open Yourself up to attack from say this this one is even better second Corinthians Second Corinthians chapter 2 Second Corinthians chapter 2 verses 8 Was the 8 through 14 says wherefore I beseech you that that she would Confirm your love towards him for it is this end. Also, uh, did I write that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient and all things to whom he, uh, forgive anything. I forgave also for if I forgave anything to whom I forgave it for your sakes, forgave by it. in the person of Christ, lest Satan, here it is, should get advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. So here Peter said, look, we got an adversary, the devil, and he's watching, and he, look, I want y'all to forgive one another. If I forgave anything, I forgave it because of Christ. Christ forgave you, and we all need to forgive each other, because if we don't, bitterness creep in, and then now, That's a device that Satan used to pick out his target. So if you don't want to become lunch for a lion and then Well, most of us probably know that Ephesians chapter four, verse 32, it says, uh, uh, be kind one to another, tend to heart and forgive one another. And it talks about how, uh, you supposed to forgive one another because Christ forgave us. So forgiveness is how we combat being bitter. So the, uh, and we're going to move on to, so the first thing you don't want to be, if you don't want to be lunch for a line, the first thing you don't want to get wounded, you don't want to be wounded. The second thing moving right along wayward, Like I said, all the animals that lions hunt, they all roam in herds and in packs together. So the first thing they look for, they look for an animal that's wounded. That's an easy target. So next, they look for the wayward. They look for that one that done went off chasing that blade of grass all over there by itself, and now he done isolated himself. And this goes to what Brett was talking about about the church. I didn't create the church. Pastor Chappelle didn't create the idea of a church. Jesus Christ created the idea of a church because he knows we need one another. We need to be flock animals. Sheep, they in a flock. They in a herd together. So wayward, what do you mean by being wayward? That means stay in the church. And we all know the verse, I ain't going to go to it. Back over there in Hebrews, Hebrews 10.25. We need to stay together. We need to get to the house of the Lord. We need to get amongst one another, with one another. We need to help one another. The Bible tells us that if we bear one another's burdens, we will so fulfill the law of Christ. We supposed to be together. So when we step out of the church, the first thing we do, we get bitter than what? We leave the church. So not only are we wounded, but now we isolated. So now that adversary that we got, he walking around, look, oh, okay. They hurt and they by themselves. They left the flock. You lunch for a lion, that's what you're going to be. And I'm going to move on to the next one. The next one, not only if you don't want to be lunch for a lion, you don't want to get wounded, you don't want to be wayward, and you don't want to be weak. That's the next thing. The lion, he going to look first. Man, I'm going to try to find an easy meal. Who's leg broken? They can't run. I can easily get him. or who done went out by themselves. A lion is a pack animal. It might be one of them that got all the mane and the big male, but he got a whole bunch of lionesses with him and they gonna take care of you. So they look for the ones that's wayward, then they look for the weak. That's those that ain't ate much. And some of us, that's the way we are. When I talk about weak, I'm talking about us being spiritually weak. And we're going to look in a second at the verses that talk about how I love Pastor Pell. Pastor Pell always talking about the, he always talk about, come get your food, come get spiritually fed. Some of us walking around here, our spiritual rib cage showing. We ain't ate nothing. Let's go, first Peter. First Peter chapter two, verse two, and we'll see what we're talking about. First Peter chapter two and verse two, it says, uh, I'm in the wrong book. Hold on. First Peter chapter two and verse two. All right. It says as newborn babes, uh, Yeah, as newborn babies desire the sense of the word that you may grow thereby. See, if you're not reading your Bible, you're not praying, you're not devoting yourself to spending time with the Lord like Brett talked about, you're going to be spiritually weak. And now you're an easy target. Because, hey, if I'm a kid, I ain't even got to Look, I'm just going to tell one of my lines. You don't even got to take the whole package with you. You just go. They weak. I see a real case showing. They've been in a drought. You know, sometime out there in Africa, the water dry up, and man, them animals, they be looking. That's what they do. They journey all the way to where they know the water going to be. So when they go on that long journey, they weak. They ain't have the water. We ain't have the water. of the word or nourishment of the word, we walk around and our rib cage is showing. They say they weak, they been on a long journey, they dry, they thirsty, they can't run, now you lunch for a lion. Second, where is it? What is the other one I want to use? I think it's Hebrews. We're going to go really, really, really, really, really fast. Hebrews. I'd be wanting to leave some of these verses out, but they just be so good. I just got to read them. Hebrews chapter five, 11 through 14. If I can get there. Hebrews chapter 5, 11 through 14, it says, of whom have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing that you are dull of hearing for the time that ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracle of God, and are become such as need milk and not strong meat for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in in the word of righteousness uh and righteousness for he is a babe but uh strong meat belongs to them which are full age whom full age even those who by reason of the use thereby since exercise the discernment both good and evil so he tells them he said look i'm i'm writing to y'all y'all y'all supposed to be teaching other people the word y'all need me to go back and teach y'all from the beginning He said, y'all can't even handle the deep things of God. Y'all can't handle, you know, we, we supposed to be past that. I got to go back and get y'all milk. So we need, we need to grow, uh, in the grace with God. We need to grow in his word and our walk with God because we don't. Then now we become lunch for we are easy target. So when when Satan come, we don't got nothing to grab hold to. We ain't got no promises to grab hold to. We don't got nothing, nothing that can give us the faith to make it through when that attack come. So and the last thing I'm I'm I'm gonna breeze over that one really fast. The last thing you don't want to be wounded. You don't want to be, um, Wayward you don't want to be weak and the last thing you don't want to be wimpy and that's all of us I got got children here, but I That's more so for like teenagers and stuff like that when they in that in-between stage they they they not a kid But they not a adult, but them the ones that that that Satan looks for because they inexperienced They don't know and the Bible say train up a child the way you should go and one illustration I'll be done just like when Those animals, you ever see them go down to get something to drink, and they go down to get something to drink. Now, when they're kids, they had to be taught that when you go down to get something to drink, you just don't stick your head down in the water and just start drinking. Why? Because we got an adversary. We got people that's coming to get us. If you ever see them drink, they drink, and they always got their eyes scanning, looking. They got alligators in the waters, lions trying to come get them, because they know that's when. They're vulnerable, their heads are down, so they have to learn different tactics like that and that's why the Bible says train up a child in the way it should go. So they can fight so they can stand. So if you don't want to be lush for a lion, don't get wounded, don't get wayward. Don't be weak in the things of God, and don't be wimpy. And we'll pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for that word. I thank you. I pray that everything that was said, everything that was illustrated, I pray you use it. I pray you help us to not to be lunch for a lion. We got an adversary. We got somebody that's seeking to devour us. I pray that you help us to be sober and vigilant. I pray that you help us to not flirt with sin. I pray that you help us to not flirt With Satan and won't that close line And I pray you help us to be ever conscious of An enemy that wants to take us out and I pray that you'll help us in Jesus name. Amen