1 Peter 5:8

Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

This warning against the devices and evil intentions of man's inveterate foe, Satan, should be strictly heeded. Nothing could be any clearer than the presentation in Scripture of the kingdom of evil as an organized wickedness, directed by a powerful and malignant leader, a personal ruler of darkness, having as his objective the destruction of souls. The current theology which downgrades this danger, or even denies the reality of Satan, is wrong. It is contrary to the word of God. The Saviour himself warned Peter of Satan's "sifting him"; and from this it is clear that Peter got the message.

As a roaring lion ... Satan is represented in Scripture under various figures: (1) the roaring lion; (2) the angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14); and (3) the serpent (2 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 20:2). These representations also answer to the three avenues of temptation: (1) the lust of the flesh; (2) the lust of the eye; and (3) the pride of life, the same being also the three avenues through which Satan assailed Jesus in the temptation (Matthew 4:1ff).

As a roaring lion ... In the time at which Peter wrote, Satan was indeed, not a sly and stealthy serpent, nor disguised as an angel of light; but he was a roaring lion elevated in the person of Nero upon the throne of the Caesars and thundering his decrees of death and destruction, like a roaring lion! Many of the Christians would be terrified and intimidated, and some under threat of death would renounce their faith. Satan's true nature is more visible in this than in the other Scriptural likenesses; because he adopts other methods only when circumstances make it impossible for him openly and wantonly to destroy, as was the case in the Neronian persecution. Paine was not wrong, therefore, when he wrote: "This passage may well be a veiled reference to Nero or to his amphitheater with its lions!"[29]