Only God can set us free

Belfast Zoo has recently been hitting the headlines because of some inmates who have chosen to escape from their enclosures — firstly a red panda and then more recently five chimpanzees. These escape stories prompted someone to write an article entitled ‘Exotic Animal Escapees in Belfast’.

Here we are told about an incident in 1977 when a lion managed to escape from a circus enclosure in north Belfast. Thankfully the lion — called ‘Monarch’ — was only on the run for half an hour before being successfully recaptured, but can you imagine the fear and anxiety that Monarch’s escape must have caused? In fact, a woman who had a close encounter with the lion fainted. I love her statement to the press afterwards: “When I saw it jumping over the yard wall it gave me such a shock.”

I’m sure it did! Few of us would want to be up close with a lion.

Of course in the Bible we read about a man — Daniel — who ended up getting close to a whole lot of lions. In fact Daniel was thrown into a pit full of them because he refused to obey King Darius. Darius had passed a law declaring that for 30 days no one was to pray to any man or god, except to him, the King. Now Daniel was a good citizen — paid his taxes, had worked in the Civil Service and all of that. He was no rebel but there was no way that he could obey the king’s new law.

God had made it clear that there was only one true God who alone was to be worshipped. It was this God in whom Daniel believed and it was his regular practice to pray to him.

On being discovered praying Daniel was arrested and thrown to the lions. But miraculously he was not devoured because God shut the mouths of the lions so that Daniel came out from their den totally unscathed. Incredible.

But God did it because he is the God of all power. Nothing is impossible with him. He’s able to do anything. And the good news today is that He who shut the lions’ mouths can totally transform our lives if we call out to him. He can set us free from our captivity to sin. He can make us a ‘new creation in Christ Jesus’. God can do it.