Christian Blogs, Discipleship Encouragement and Correction, Evangelistic Messages
How to Starve a Vulture
“Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Mark 9:44
Thomas Brooks, ‘Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks, Collected Sayings of Thomas Brooks (1608-1680),’ wrote “Human doctrines can not cure a wound in the conscience. The remedy is too weak for the disease. Conscience, like the vulture of Prometheus, will still lie gnawing, notwithstanding all that such doctrines can do.” I remember reading a sermon last year from Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” In that sermon, Matthew Mead mentioned the gnawing of conscience and the vulture of Prometheus. One of the reasons it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God is that our flesh presently limits the extent that God’s wrath can be brought against a mortal. Quite simply, and considering the wrath that Jesus took on the cross and He was God, we could never bear up under even a drop from the cup that He drank from for us. However, once our soul takes flight, and we stand before Him, we are not subject to such earthly and fleshly limitations.
As for the gnawing and the vulture, I must ask. What gnaws at you? Is it some slight that you felt when another flipped you off in the middle of an intersection? Did someone humiliate you? Does it gnaw at you when you feel that someone has taken advantage of you; cheated you? Usually, what causes gnawing is our pride; followed by a desire for vengeance; payback. I don’t know about you, but it is an intense; ugly… angry feeling… hate… pure and unquenchable vitriol. Well, imagine carrying that for all eternity! This is the gnawing; when the human conscience becomes an open book to all that ever gnawed at us. As for the vulture? In lore, the vulture that was described was a creature of hell that forever picked and ate of the heart and torso of the damned, and that, for all eternity. What was worse, no sooner was a piece devoured, as the piece grew back, so that the vulture was fed forever.
I realize that this is a grotesque description, but let me ask you one more question: What do you feel when you allow something to gnaw on you? It certainly isn’t pleasant, and it’s not something that you can easily get rid of. It keeps coming back; even as the vulture. Well, if this is and has been true for you; then, praise God that there is hope. The hope is Jesus, and by repenting first of your own pride and sins, you will find the strength and grace to forgive others, and with forgiveness, the gnawing will cease.
Let the vulture starve.
