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Roaring Lions, Snarling Dogs, and Stampeding Oxen
May 18th, 2016
Psalm 22:12-31
Some years ago, a television network featured a series titled When Animals Attack. I didn’t watch. It is not my idea of entertainment to see some poor person get mauled by a bear, gored by a bull, or bitten by anything. Isn’t that one of the things the Romans did in their coliseums?
However, it is the picture David uses in Psalm 22 to describe how being hunted by a merciless foe. To know you are the prey of a cunning and powerful adversary with no regard for your life must be the very definition of panic. Yet, when you think about it, we all are prey: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
That’s why cowboys ride around their herds in the night. They sing low songs and play the harmonica while the coyotes howl and the mountain lions snarl. In his night, David sang, “For he [God] has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Psalm 22:24). I don’t think David had a harmonica.
Author: Duane Brush
