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.

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