Alligators

Escaping Satan’s Clutches

Watch out the Alligator teaches Sunday School! Yes many of the teachers in our Sunday Schools put Zacchaeus down to put Jesus the Teacher up. They do the same with the Woman Caught in Adultery. They do this with Simon the Pharisee and lump all the Simons together. And then they release Jesus Barabbas as the notorious robber who steals Simon’s thunder and robs Zacchaeus of “her” virtue and resurrects the Son of the Father and claims he is the only one who kept all 10 commandments!

Preserving the 10 commandments is noble! However, as the Apostle to the Apostles states…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 

Grace is forgiveness that comes when we have faith in the blood that pulses through the veins of Christ Jesus. When young Christians see Christ hanging on the Cross, the alligator lets them think Christ’s death is something so horrible they would never ever want to imitate that death and let themselves be crucified! The alligator also convinces them that everyone who participates in crucifying Christ is a murderer.

Yes…dear children, don’t let the Alligator devour your faith. In the Christian Faith Story, do as Rachél did in the true story above. Grab both sides of the gator’s jaws and pry them open. Take the gator’s own words and pry open the words of Scripture and see the miracle of how Jesus the Christ comes to life eternally as a perfecting Trinity.

Hint…let the math concept of a triangle based pyramid help you understand and conceptualize how the transfiguration of James, John and Simon-Peter standing on home base at the foot of the mount of transfiguration in Martha’s hometown…trusting in divine hospitality and grace come together as ONE faithful divine body that serves as a model for others to follow.

Now don’t let the name James fool you or the fact that James is a son of Thunder. Technically thunder and lightning always come together. Lightning is quicker than the sound of lightning…yet which one really comes first?

• While the two events occur simultaneously, you see lightning before you hear thunder because the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.

The Alligator also uses the word “son” and lets you think the word “son” is male as in the name Zacchaeus and in the name James aka Jacob who loves Rachel! Jacob remember wrestles with the angel of the lord all night and becomes a new man, bearing the name Israel. In that story, Jacob is a man with more than one wife.

Stay on your guard. Remember when a man leaves his parents he dies to his old bachelor self…and unites with his wife and the two become one new man, one flesh (Matthew 19:5; Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:31).

In the olden days, when a woman married she would have taken her husband’s first and last name. If they divorced the woman would likely have reassumed her maiden name, but it was not and is not mandatory. 

Today things are changing and the legal approval of same sex marriages are complicating things even more…so it is more important than ever to be aware of the Alligators in our churches. Alligators swim in “shallow” water. This generation and the next need to push out into “deep” water. Christians in shallow water are in danger of losing sight of Christ as the Bride who belongs to the Bridegroom as the Forerunner testifies (John 3: 28-29; Hebrews 6:19).