Big Ol' Mean Dog

Today I was reminded of a testimony of an encounter with a dog when I was in either 1st or 2nd grade.  We lived in a trailer park in Muskogee, Oklahoma where a neighbor had a dog that was kept in a pen. To this kid, that was a big, mean dog.  I remember that dog being let out one day and it started  after me.  I ran being afraid the dog would get me.  I was trying to run inside our home, which being in a trailer house, meant I would have to run up the steps.  As the dog closed in I turned and said, "I rebuke you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ my Savior".  That dog stopped and I got up the stairs and got inside.  You can read in scripture where and angel stood in front of a donkey and that donkey would go no further.  This dog could not go anything further either.

When I was in sixth grade, my mom and the man she was married to at the time, were in an argument late at night.  Knowing I had school the next day, I was trying to go to sleep but couldn't because of the arguing.  I played baseball in those days so I had a bat in my room.  I got up, grabbed the bat, and headed to the living room.  When I got there I said, "If you don't shut up and go sleep, I'm going to hit you up side the head with this bat."  You may think no man was going to listen to a kid, but God would not let that go any further.  That was the end of the arguing.  Everybody went to bed.  Not too much later, that man raised his hand to hit me and my mom stepped in.  Soon after that, they were no longer together.  

Psalm 44:6-8

⁶ For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.

⁷ But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.

⁸ In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah.

Although God was with me in both of those situations, I did not know that we are to trust in the gospel for everything we have need of.  Verse 6 above says, "For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me."  Jesus tells us in Mark chapter 1 what we are to trust in when he came in to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.  He says, "Repent  ye, and believe the gospel."  In other words, change from what you are trusting in and trust the gospel for what you have need of.  The gospel of the kingdom of God is power and is defined in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 as "How that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scripture."  Everything you have need of was provided right there in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That's what we are to trust in.  That's what will bring salvation.  And salvation can be as simple as not getting bitten by a big ol' mean dog.      

The entrance to the trailer park where we lived in Muskogee.  Our trailer was just a few lots down on the left.