Rerun Article: The Blood-Thirsty Lion?

Hi! We had our first official somewhat-chilly day today. Brr! I only wish I brought my jacket. I'm just glad it's warm indoors! (I know, and I thought last week was nippy!) We've also been pretty busy around here too, getting things ready for the youth rally this Saturday. Fortunately, I still have time to publish an article that I wrote close to when I first started this blog. But first, it's time for...

Days till:
It is: 5 days till the first day of Fall
It is: 24 days till Columbus Day
It is: 68 days till The Good Dinosaur's theatrical release

In the Spotlight:
Unfortunately, I have nothing to share in this section today either.

Topic of the Week by Christian Ryan

Think you know everything about the “King of Beasts”? Well, we’ll see about that! First of all, some of you might be thinking that lions and tigers don’t really meet in the wild because they live on two separate continents -- lions in Africa, tigers in Asia. For the most part, that’s true, today at least. But back in the day, lions were quite numerous on both continents. Their range went from the Kalahari Desert in Africa all the way to South East Asia! The Bible even talks about this to some extent, as you will recall that the shepherd boy David killed a lion when it came to attack his flock of sheep (with God’s help of course). Another account of lions in the Bible was when Daniel was put into a den of lions when he refused to worship the king. And another event was when a disobedient prophet was killed by a lion (1 Kings chapter 13). This prophet (the Bible doesn’t give us his name) was told by God to go deliver a message to a town and he was told not to eat a thing. After delivering the message, he visited a old prophet who insisted that God said he could eat now. Then the old prophet really did get a message from God: that the unnamed prophet had disobeyed by eating on his trip. Then God had a lion kill him. So after looking at these and countless other ancient accounts (in and out of the Bible), it would be impossible that lions did not live in the Middle East.

The "Panthera Leo's" former and present habitat.

Lions were revered in many countries. They are very dangerous animals as we all know. Now, let’s pretend you had a pet lion. What would you feed it? Meat of course! I mean, lions are carnivores so they have to eat meat to survive because they simply can’t digest plants and other non-meats . . . right? Well, I guess nobody told “Little Tyke” that. From 1946 to 1955, a female African lion was owned by Georges and Margaret Westbeau. They nicknamed the lion, “Little Tyke”. She was born and raised in America. Now they fed this lion liked a strange diet: grain, raw eggs and milk. If even one drop of blood were added to her milk, she would sniff it and walk in the other direction! This is a meat-disliking carnivore! What’s wrong with her? Folks were sure that lions had to eat meat to survive, but Little Tyke proved this was not the case. For her whole life of nine years, she didn’t eat a single speck of meat. Little Tyke isn’t the only “vegetarian-carnivorous” lion. 

In 2002, Lea, a lioness arrived at Rhino & Lion nature reserve all the way from Rome in Italy. Like Little Tyke decades before her, Lea didn’t eat red meat either. Instead this seven year old lion was raised on a diet of potatoes, green vegetables and cheesy pasta (speaking of cheesy pasta, I’m feeling hungry just thinking about it). There was just one food however she liked more than any other: spaghetti. Then it’s no wonder she got the nickname “Spaghetti Kid”! Now only was she picky on what she liked, she was also picky on how what she liked was prepared. When her new keepers fed her spaghetti with cut tomatoes, she refused to eat. The keepers had to be corrected: Lea only like tomato sauce, not cut tomatoes. So she’s a “picky-vegetarian-carnivore”. Apparently the keepers didn’t feel good about this diet so they were able to switch her diet to red meat within a week.

These images were taken from http://creation.com/lea-the-spaghetti-lioness

Some lions don’t like eating meat, as we just learned. However, some lions even have trouble killing the meat. In 2002, one wild lioness named ­­­­Kamunyak (which means "blessed one"), did a weird thing with a baby antelope she just caught. Instead of killing it like she normally would, she started to take care of it! Many people were surprised that a ferocious killer like Kamunyak could actually take care of her prey. Scientists were astonished! Kamunyak was so devoted to the baby antelope that she even neglected her own health to ensure the baby was protected. Unfortunately however, the baby was killed by a roving male lion (that’s just plain tragic! I’m going to have to give that male lion a call and tell him he just upset hundreds of people!). But one baby wasn’t enough for Kamunyak. She adopted five more baby antelope, and while they didn’t survive nearly as long as the first, we can plainly see that this lion was not the ferocious killer that we’d expect her to be!

Lions refusing to eat meat, lions caring for their prey . . . hmm, this is strange! This has never happened before in the history of the planet! Actually, it has. As a matter of fact, the Bible clearly states that this sort of behavior isn’t new. It is actually rather . . . old. In the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 30: “ ‘And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.”  This is God’s voice commanding every animal on the planet that they were to eat fruits, vegetables and other plants. You see, God created everything to be perfect. Even the lions, or whatever cat God created, was to eat plants. However, when man sinned all of Creation was cursed and everything became corrupt. But let’s look at another book of the Bible, Isaiah 65:25: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox . . .” This is a section of the book of Isaiah that explains not the past or present world, but a future. This future world is different than anything we have experienced before. If you read on in the book of Isaiah and Revelation, you would see that this new world is when God creates a new heaven and a new earth. There will be no more sin, curses, death, disease, struggle, hardships, sadness, pain, etc, etc, etc. And it appears that in this new world, God will create animals that will eat plants, just like Lea and Little Tyke did. And best of all, we will be able to see God Himself. Boy, I’d better book a permanent visit to this new world. Wait a minute, I’m already booked! Would you like to be booked to this permanent visit too? Well, first you should know that God has a problem with sin, the bad things that we do. And believe me, we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (and yes, that includes me, too). Sin would include things like stealing (even a rubber band of CD), hating someone (God compares hatred to murder), being disobedient to parents, lying (even the so-called “white lies”) and committing adultery (God says that even looking at a person with lust is committing adultery). A common way people sin every day is saying the expression “Oh my God.” This is misusing God’s holy Name. People who use God’s name as a curse word have also sinned. Due to all the sin we’ve done throughout our lives, we don’t deserve to even book a visit to this new world. Instead, we deserve a booked permanent visit to Hell. Fortunately, God doesn’t want us to miss out on this permanent holiday destination. Instead, God provided a way for even us sinners to get to Him. He sent His only begotten Son named Jesus Christ to take the punishment we deserve: death, even though He did nothing wrong. However, three days later he rose again and went back up to live with His Father. Would you like to book a permanent visit to the new world? It’s not hard to do. You just need to follow these simple steps that are as simple as A-B-C:

·         A: We must Admit to God that we’ve sinned and turn away from it

·         B: We must Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and accept His gift of forgiveness

·         C: We must Confess out faith in Jesus as our Savior and Lord and live our life for Him.

See? Can’t get much easier than that! Would you like to make those steps right here? Right now? Well, say this quick little prayer to God:

“Dear God,

I know that I’m a sinner, and I also believe that Jesus is Your Son and that He came into the world to take a punishment I cannot pay. Please come into my heart today, oh God, and help me to live for You for the rest of my life, amen.”

If you said that prayer and meant it with ALL your heart, you are now officially booked into that permanent trip to the new world! Congratulations!* Please be sure to send me an email to the address near the bottom of this post so that we can help you get on the road to living a brand new life with God as a Christian.

Oh! I almost forgot! The “new world” isn’t quite open for business yet! However, after we die, God has provided a perfect place for us to wait for its opening. A cool place called heaven! Oh boy, won’t this be exciting! A permanent holiday destination that’s absolutely free. Thank you for joining me today and be sure to check back next week for more cool stuff. Good bye!
Disclaimer: Many (or in some cases all) of the photographs and images above are not mine. If you own one or more of them and would like them to be removed, politely let me know via my email address.

*Update: Remember, it's not saying the sinner's prayer doesn't actually save you. In fact, you can pray a different prayer than the one mentioned above and still be saved. True salvation from Jesus Christ comes from our willingness to truly and wholly surrender our lives to Him.