Our Enemy (Covid And The Christian) Series

COVID-19 has been front-page news for most of us for about 6 months! Now, the virus has been around a little longer than that, but for most of us, it was about 6 months ago (March) that it smacked us in the face, and life took a major shift! It was in March that everything was shutting down fast! Working from home quickly became the everyday norm for many of us! Saturday, March 14th was the last in-person worship service before we moved to online only! By the 3rd week in March, school was online-only, most (if not all) major sports (college and professional) had suspended their seasons. No one could buy toilet paper or hand sanitizer! Grocery stores were lean on inventory. And everyone was staying indoors and wondering what they were going to do with nowhere to go, and no end in sight! Many people were wondering how are we going to fill all of our time stuck at home?

And then on March 20th, millions and millions of Americans had their answer of how they were going to fill their time! Does anyone happen to know what I may be referring to that happened on March 20th?

• March 20th is the day that Nexflix released the documentary Tiger King! And over-night, in the middle of a pandemic, our nation had something else to talk about.

o And no, I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand if you’ve seen it, and please know that me referencing this documentary today is in no way an endorsement or a recommendation for you to watch it because it isn’t!

? All I’m going to say is that I had no idea that on our planet, there were scenarios and circumstances that could provide the content necessary for a documentary like the Tiger King.

I think there has always been a fascination in our world with Lions and tigers! Long before the Netflix documentary Tiger King, people have been fascinated with these animals (I think especially the lion).

The lions are always one of the major attractions at any zoo. Visit any zoo with lions and just watch people. They’re captivated! And the closer people can get the better! It’s exciting for many to be in such close proximity to an animal that can be so dangerous.

The lion is called the “King of the Jungle” for a reason! It has earned that reputation for its ability to hunt, stalk, pursue, pounce, destroy, kill, and eat just about anything it wants! No matter how you look at it, lions are extremely dangerous animals. Why is it that we are so drawn to dangerous things? Why do we sometimes want to be so close?

This fascination with lions is not a modern trend. No, for thousands of years, people have been captivated by them. I wouldn’t be surprised if even Adam and Eve (in the Garden of Eden) saw a lion and was like, “Whoa! Just look at that thing!”

There is a cave in southern France called Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc. This cave was only discovered in 1994 and many believe that this cave contains the oldest cave drawings and cave paintings in the world. How old are they? Well, that is an ongoing argument among the experts in that field. But they all agree that this cave art is thousands of years old. Besides the cave art, they also found other interesting things, like bones and artifacts; including what they believe is the oldest preserved human footprint anywhere in the world.

The theory is that a mudslide covered the entrance to the cave shortly after that footprint was made (all those years ago) and this mudslide made the cave completely inaccessible and undisturbed for all these years preserving all the cave drawings and paintings inside.

They’ve been able to catalog many animal species drawn on the walls of this cave; even animals that are now extinct like woolly rhinoceros and mammoths! My understanding is that as they went deeper into the cave, they came to the end and discovered what they call the gallery of lions! Obviously, they were fascinated with the lions which says to me that this is one animal that has been making lasting impressions on people since God created them.

Even in Scripture, there are amazing accounts of lions! There is Daniel in the lion’s den! David killed a lion with his bare hands! There is Benaiah, who went down into a pit, on a snowy day and killed a lion. Why are these incidents so incredible to us? It’s because the lions are supposed to win! Let’s face it, Daniel wasn’t thrown into a den of baby kittens! No, he was thrown into the den of lions so that they would tear him apart and eat him!