Roaring
Most people in the western world live in the urban jungle where the closest thing to a lion’s ferocious roar is a graying, grinning middle-aged man screaming down the street on his “lookie here at my very cool new toy” Harley-Davidson motorcycle. While it’s true that the average first-time Harley owner is 47 years of age, I say if you are graced with the opportunity for a second childhood, why not?
If you’ve ever been to a zoo when a lion lifted his kingly head to roar, you well understand why there is 20 feet of blessed Please Don’t Eat The Humans concrete between you and him. He is a hunter and anything moving is fair prey. Falling off a Harley in mid ride can give you a nasty case of road rash, but falling under the paws and jaws of a hungry lion can make you instant road kill. Lions aren’t called The King of Beasts for nothing.
Lions need to be dealt with wisely. However, there are some fearsome-sounding lions that roar but lack the teeth to make good on their threat.
Recently, in the small German hamlet of Darmstadt, pandemonium broke loose when the town’s people thought a crated lion had been abandoned in their town square. When the roaring began, the good citizens of Darmstadt understandably freaked out, or, as the locals say, “ließ das Schreien laufen,” and called the police while promptly skedaddling for their lives.
Oh, those witty marketers. From the mentality that brought us junk culture innovations like e-mail spam and toothpaste ads, this incident turned out to be a marketing stunt to promote a Land Rover. Inside the crate wasn’t the king of beasts looking to feast on – forgive me – German delicacies, but a televised video of a vehicle spliced with shots of lions roaring in conquering dominion. The crate for this lame-brained idea was even marked, “Wild Animals,” but it turned out to be just a poorly conceived publicity stunt.
It can only be hoped that the good townsfolk, in fine classic horror film tradition, grabbed their torches, pitchforks, and other handy farming implements and stormed en mass the marketers’ castle determined to be rid of the inhuman jokester responsible for terrorizing their beloved little burg. The German way to scream, “Kill the bums” is “töten Sie die Gammler!”
TV lions can only roar, but in person the real thing is lethal.
The saints of God are warned of another kind of lion, a spiritual one; a killer. And while he was defeated at the Cross of Christ, we are yet admonished in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” If the enemy of our souls came crated, it would indeed be proper to have it marked “Approach With Extreme Caution: Wild Beast Within.” God would not warn us to be sober, to be vigilant, to beware if there were no real danger.
The good news is that victory is assured to us if we will do one wise thing. When confronted with spiritual danger, heed James 4:7, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” He will… flee? Flee means to run away! If we will submit ourselves to God and trust that the battle belongs to the Lord, the devil will literally run away shrieking in terror. However, if we try to defeat his schemes in the power of our flesh, we are in danger of risking being devoured. That is, we will be preyed upon voraciously, consumed, and eaten up greedily.
When the Apostle Paul was faced with a life and death dilemma, he cast himself upon God, submitting to him. He later testified, in 2 Timothy 4:17, “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might bepreached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”
As a middle aged man who fantasized about hearing the mechanical roar of a Harley Hog as I ride off into the sunset, I also strive to keep my spiritual wits about me in case there happens to be a roaring lion within the vicinity. I plan to ride low, with humility gracing my heart, so that when spiritual conflict strikes, I know my enemy will flee!
Bryan Hupperts © 2003 -2009
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