How Satan and the World are Like a Pack of Dogs
While visiting Loretta’s parents in Indiana last summer I spent each morning walking several miles. They live in the middle of farm country. The roads are straight and long with corn and bean fields lining them. There are few houses and fewer cars. As I was walking one morning with my “Ipod” playing a dog charged right at me from a field where they were building a grain silo. Needless to say, I was startled. They were there for several days and so after a couple of days being charged at by this dog I decided to walk “in town”. There are only 100 or so residents of State Line and so walking the entire town doesn’t take too long. I made one lap around the main part of town and decided to go down another road that would take me around the “suburbs”. As I approached one house I thought to myself “that looks like a shady place with dogs”. Sure enough as I got to the corner of the house I saw in the side yard at least 4 dogs. These weren’t Chihuahuas. These dogs were Cujo’s kin! Amazingly they weren’t chained and there was no fence. They didn’t look both ways before crossing the street. They made a bee line straight for me. Now I had a little stick and wish I had mace. The lead dog came right up on me and I put that stick right in his face. It worked. He couldn’t figure how to get around it and the others stayed at a distance watching what he was going to do. When I had walked about a block with them trailing, they gave up and retreated home. I didn’t make another lap past them.
That experience with those dogs is much like the experience we can have with the devil and this world. He comes after us and brings everything he’s got. He bares his fangs, he barks, he lurks, he stalks. We can be overwhelmed. We can wonder what we’re going to do. But if we realize what we have on our side and we don’t give in or panic we find we can make it away from defeat. What has the devil been barking at you?
From a sermon by Brian Matherlee, All Bark and No Bite, 12/9/2009