What Brought the Baron Down

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen better known as the Red Baron was the top flying ace of the First World War with eighty combat victories. He was a meticulous and disciplined fighter pilot that established a set of rules to never chase an enemy too long or too far and never go to low into enemy territory.

But the Baron broke those rules on April 21, 1918, when he encountered a rookie Canadian pilot Wilfred May. May was out on his first mission but had been ordered to keep out of combat but was lured by an enemy triplane that passed close by. His inexperienced cost him as he jammed his gun by firing them too much and was forced to flee.

That is when the Baron spotted him. May, panicking and losing altitude, tried every wild maneuver he could think of to stay out of the Baron’s sights. It was only the unpredictability of the inexperienced pilot’s maneuvers that kept Richthofen from picking him off quickly. ‘The only thing that saved me was my awful flying. I didn’t know what I was doing,’ May would say later.

It was probably that inexperience that made the Baron break his rules and stay on May’s tail. However, those broken rules cost Richthofen his life. To this day no one is sure what killed the Baron, either ground fire or another pilot that was able to catch up to the fight, but it didn’t matter. The Baron was just as dead. He broke his rules and it cost him dearly.

We could learn a lesson from the Red Baron. Most folks know ‘rules’ to do to remain faithful; Avoid bad company, study your Bible, go to church. But like the Baron, there are times we ignore them. We get too low into the world, too long from God’ word, and too far from the assembly. Then Satan picks us off. No matter how ‘good’ we are if we ignore these principles we will crash and burn

And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:24-25

We need to “take heed lest we fall”. The Bible is full of warnings telling us to not slack up and remain disciplined. If it could take the greatest ones down, it can surely take us as well.

Comments

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. ...

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog