Skip to main content

Ace Down

   Probably the most famous ace pilot was Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen or as he was called “The Red Baron. He racked up 81 air kills in combat during the First World War. What made him so deadly was his discipline. He had a set of rules that kept him from danger, rules he adhered to with precision.

Number One: Never follow an enemy for too long, there was too much of a chance one of his buddies would come to the rescue and get you.  
Number Two: Never fly too far into enemy territory, then enemies' ground fire might pick you off. 
Number Three: Never fly too low to the ground, not only would it put you in range of enemy guns, but it also risks a crash if the plane is damaged.

  He kept those rules until April 21st, 1918 when we got into a dogfight with a young and inexperienced Brit named Wilfrid May. May’s guns had jammed and as he fled the Baron saw an easy target.

  Maybe because it seemed such an easy target Richthofen broke his rules, he stayed on the target too long and flew too low and into enemy territory. Sure enough another pilot Canadian Captain Arthur Roy Brown was able to get in position behind the Baron and a group of soldiers on the ground were able to open fire as well.

  No one knows for sure who got him, but nevertheless, the Baron’s plane was hit, and since he was so close to the ground he could not recover. He crashed in a nearby beet field, where he would bleed out and die, still strapped to his seat.

 We know the rules as well. Don’t stray too far into worldliness. Don’t get too low into sinful temptation. Don’t get too far from God’s word and his people. But we too fool ourselves into thinking it will be easy to escape the world attacks.

We may think we can ace the test but we are better off avoiding the temptation altogether!

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. ...

How Dare You!

    Lewis Keseberg was tired of all the accusations against him so he filed a defamation lawsuit against Ned Coffeemeyer the man he saw as responsible for the rumors. The court found that Ned had indeed called Keseberg a “thief and murderer” without any proof but it didn’t rule very strongly in his favor by only imposing a fine of one dollar.  Maybe they were lenient because Ned Coffeemeyr had earlier rescued Lewis Keseberg from a terrible situation.  Maybe it was because the accusations while not proven were highly likely.  And maybe because Lewis Keseberg had admitted to eating people.   Lewis Keseberg was one of the members of the infamous Donner Party, a wagon train that got caught in the Siera Nevada mountain and resorted to cannibalism to survive. Keseberg wasn’t known as a very good person before those events and they certainly didn’t help improve his image. But to sue the very person who saved you seems to define the kind of person he was....