“FEAR OF THE LIONS’ ROAR OR FAITH
IN THE FATHER’S FINISHED WORK?”
By J. Farrell Fisher, June 23-25, 2017
I pray that you clearly understand a ‘metaphor’ because when the Word of God speaks about a ‘lion roaring’, it was not a physical lion but it represented Satan, demonic activity, and, yes, even some human lives “roaring against God and His people”!
At the same time one must consider his/her choices that puts one at times in perilous, dangerous circumstances, yes, opening the door and inviting “the roaring lion” in! As a result, most live on the edge, or even have already invited spiritual warfare, opening the door to the ‘wild lion’ of devilish intent with one’s life as the “wild lion’s battlefield”.
As Hebrews 4 talks about the promise of rest, and especially in examining “the fear of the lions’ roar”, this passage is highly relevant. Hebrews 4:6-12 tells us, “Since therefore it remains that some must enter it (God’s ‘rest” in Christ!), and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, ‘Today,’ after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts”.
For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from His works as God did from His.
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. {Rest from the bondage of sin? Certainly! Rest from demonic world influences? Without a doubt! Rest from the “lions’ roar” or deafened to Truth by it?}.
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. [Exposing reality as it is – all-out surrender to Christ’s Lordship or compromising with Satan as the ruler of darkness?]. And there is NO CREATURE HIDDEN FROM HIS SIGHT, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
It was Shakespeare, in “Measure for Measure,” [Act 11, sc.2. l. 73], who wrote: “Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy.. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgement, should but judge you as you are?” Oh, and in Daniel 5: 27, I read: “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting,” which is true of every life without Christ, or true of the ‘disciple’ who followed Him, then abandoned Him, or, yes, true of every man in the kingdom or out who opens the door ‘playing with the lions’ roar’!
Sadly, many men ‘laugh’ about the “Lions Roar”, and, yes, ridicule those who examine themselves as to whether they ‘fear the lions’ roar’ or “rest” in the faith of Father-God’s finished work through Christ through the cross and resurrection! Sin, rebellion, disobedience, denial of life in the spirit-realm only through Christ’s shed blood, eternal plan, purpose, and power to fulfill it, are ‘blinded by the “fear of the lions’ roar” rather than resting in Christ’s gracious gift’!
“Fear of the lions’ roar” even closes many minds to the inevitable doom of their deplorable minds as they journey, yes, in darkness that they really think is ‘light’, living loftily in the flesh, blinded to the tomb of their impending death and a death that will not die, because they had no faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross in and through His eternal plan of “His Shed Blood and Gift-Offering of intercessory death”!
The greatest tragedy of all human existence? A fleshly heart that has no awareness of God’s great love, interceding sacrificially on the Cross, yes, Christ taking the toll, enduring the suffering, so that the “lions’ roar” would be silenced by the Hallelujah Chorus of the Savior’s Resurrection, but unbelief, rebellion, and the captivity of demon forces, hold them forever in the devil’s prison!
Tragedies as the result of the “lions’ roar”? “The wages of sin is death”, a death that will not die, a death that eternally has to hear the “lions’ roar” – no ear-plugs in Hell! “The wages of sin is death”, a death capitalized by Satan himself without any dividends, only pain, heart-aches, and bankrupt wages, a death that is not gentle but eternal in its pain of lost fleshly dignity, ill but no physician, a death that turns ‘fleshly pleasures’ into constant hellish torment, a death that constantly, twenty-four hours a day, reminds the “devil’s new classmates”: “There is no graduation, no cap and gown, no awards but only curses, no open doors or even windows but closed to light, love, and liberty – only darkness, only hate, only bondage – and the chains are heavy”!
Dare I tell you? There will be, in Hell, “good men” who were deaf to Amazing Grace who will share the tortuous consequences of men who refused to be “washed in the blood of the Lamb”, offering themselves to be, yes, Christ’s Holy Temple, but they said, “No! I’m my own man determining my own fate!” The death of a “good man” but deaf to the call of God is fleshly obstinateness and can only, in Light of God’s love, be described as ‘a cheapened life’!
Don’t you find it strange that mortuaries or funeral ‘homes’ are voiceless concerning deaths, and I’m sure would never want to have to talk about the Christ-filled life OR the finished product of the lions’ roar? But be assured, I’m sure that there are ‘guardians of the bivouacs of the dead’ because both Heaven and Hell will protect its own! I found Socrates’ words in “Plato’s Apology” to be so unsound when he wrote: “Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.” Really?
Later, in the same writing, as I read it, I said to myself: “Plato should have apologized, but he couldn’t because I’m not sure he knew anything about the “fear of the lions’ roar” or “Faith in Father-God’s Finished Work” at the Cross through Christ! Plato wrote: “To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing other than to think oneself wise when he is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know. No man knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest of blessings for a human being; and yet people fear it as if they knew for certain that it is the greatest of evils.”
No – death is not the greatest evil; the greatest evil is rejecting God’s love through Christ to transform men now from sons of Satan into sons of the Savior and Lord! I say to you, that men fear death because they have no fear of God! I even read one man writing about “fine dying is a man’s privilege”, but without Christ dying is an unceasing scourge, not the ‘fine wine of pleasurable living’! There are no “sweet hopes” after death for a Christ-rejecting life lived out under the “sweet tyranny” of a sour Satan!
I’m not sure what John Greenleaf Whittier was trying to prove when in his “Maud Muller” he wrote: “Ah well! For us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes; And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!” Really? Slaves of Satan have no “sweet hope”, and what Satan plans to do is not hidden away but clearly revealed in the Holy Word of God, and heavenly angels will not be “rolling away stones” for those who’ve already chosen their assignment to the devil’s ‘playground?’! “Holy God, continue to open blind ears, deafened ears, hardened hearts, even stubborn, rebellious men who ‘dance the dance of death and Hell’!”
Considering “Fear of the Lions’ Roar Or FAITH IN FATHER-GOD’S FINISHED WORK?”, how could one ignore the message and truth of Job’s journey unless the Holy Word of God to them is unimportant? Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone but by EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD!” And Job’s journey is highly enlightening!
In Job 2:1-10 we’re introduced to the Sovereignty of God, to Satan’s attacks on all mankind, to ‘divided allegiance’, and to True Faith sustaining the “blood redeemed” even through Satanic attacks! It says:
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”
Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” [Have YOU witnessed Satan’s ‘walking back and forth’ around you, your home and family, your city, state, or nation, even your ‘church grounds’?’].
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who FEARS GOD and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity (a Gift of God’s grace!), although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
But Job said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” [Have YOU ever seen the “troubles of your soul” as stepping stones into the fullness of His blessing and His protection and watchcare over you?]. IN ALL THIS JOB DID NOT SIN WITH HIS LIPS.”
Oh, YOU may find yourself at certain times “sitting among the ashes” like Job because, just as Job, true followers and disciples of Christ will be “tested” by the powers of darkness, or if you’re really a threat to Satan, you may be met by him face to face! But, praise God, He wants us to know: “True Faith IS Faith In Christ’s Finished Work”, and even when “crucified”, HE AROSE three days later!
And Satan’s darkest ‘night’ surrounding your soul may put you into a moment of doubt and desperation! But, child of the True Faith, be reminded of Gypsy Smith’s song of the early 1930’s, “Jesus, Revealed in Me”! It says: “Christ, the Transforming Light, My love, my strength, my will; Piercing the darkest night, Making His glory shine. Oh, to reflect His grace, Causing the world to see, Love that will glow Till others shall know Jesus, revealed in me.” (Like Job?). AMEN?!?