Skip to main content

The Ghost and The Darkness


  In March 1898, the British started building a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. During the next nine months of construction, two maneless male lions stalked the campsite, dragging workers from their tents at night and devouring them. The two man-eating lions were credited with killing 135 people in less than a year before they were eventually killed by the project leader John Patterson.


  As the attack intensified, hundreds of workers fled from Tsavo, halting construction on the bridge. Crews initially tried to scare off the lions by building campfires and bomas( thorn fences) around their camp for protection to keep the man-eaters out, but to no avail. The lions leaped over or crawled through the thorn fences. The lions were ruthless, attacking patients in the hospital tents, ambushing water carriers during the day. In his memoirs Patterson wrote: "(The lions') methods became so uncanny, and their man-stalking so well-timed and so certain of success, that the workmen firmly believed they were not real animals at all, but devils in lions' shape."  .

  In 1st Peter 5:8 the Bible tells us, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”. The comparison is one we need to understand. The devil is an uncanny and patient hunter. He knows when to strike when we are most vulnerable. When we are alone, injured and hurting. He moves in the darkness as quite a ghost and when he attacks, he leaves carnage in his wake.

As dangerous as the Devil is, the Bible does tell us that he can be thwarted.  
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you
( James 4:7).

 We need to respect the great danger that Satan is but that danger shouldn't keep us from our work.  God has provided us the tools and protection we need to defeat the Devil. He is a dangerous but he can be overcome (1st John 2:14-15). Don't flee from the work, stand firm and resist. Then the devil can be dealt with.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Until Midnight

    In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back.       I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...

The Mighty Gulf

  It is hard to get people on two sides of an issue to come together. Each has their own viewpoint, their perceptive, their own foibles, their own understanding.  To gain any common ground there must be something in common. Something or someone that can bridge the gulf between the two.   Could there be a greater gulf than there was between God and man? How could a holy perfect God find a way to connect to the fallen, imperfect mankind? How can one without temptation connect to those who are beset by it? How could limited mortal beings understand an omnipotent eternal God?   In 1 Timothy 2:5, we read, “ For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus .” The phrase mediator here describes a person that bridges the gap, a go-between. Jesus was one who could stand in both worlds. A perfect holy one who can understand our temptations, a man who would die yet live eternally, One who was God yet became flesh and dwelt among us. ...

You Are Not Getting Away With It

  It is hard to find a place in New York City to park unless you are a United Nations diplomat. They park wherever they want.   It’s not that they are allowed to but their diplomatic immunity keeps them from paying the cost. In one year alone the diplomats racked up 143,508 parking summonses, which would have cost them $15.8 million. Yet, because of the immunity, the punishments they incur are not enforced. So, they tend to park very badly   Solomon recognized this tendency. In Ecclesiastes 8:11he writes; “ Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil .” If we do not pay for our wrongs quickly, we tend to think they are OK.  This however is a terrible practice to have in our lives. In Romans 2:4-6, Paul warns us about the danger when we look at God’s tolerance and patience of our sin as acceptance. He warns it will make things worse for us in judgment since God wi...