One of God's Creatures

We had friends over for dinner last night and since it was a beautiful evening we ate outside on the patio.
We had just finished eating and were lingering over our coffee when we had a visitor in our back yard !
A very big brown Black Bear! Vic ran after him and got some shots for the record!!

Bear are the biggest wild animals we have here where I live, and they have no predators.

There have been no reported incidents of a bear harming anyone here but I wouldn't want to corner one or get between a mother and her cubs !! We let bears have the right of way!

Bears are one of God's creatures and there are several bible references to them - in all of them the bear brings home a message from God!

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God warns us of the predictable destruction of a fool in your life.... it is better to meet a mother bear robbed of her cubs !!

Pro 17:12 "Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, Rather than a fool in his folly."

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God says a wicked ruler does not have the good of the poor in mind any more than a charging bear!
Pro 28:15 "Like a roaring lion and a charging bear Is a wicked ruler over poor people."

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God describes to us the peace and safety we will enjoy in the new earth ... Isaiah speaks of it as a time when the bear will harmlessly graze and its young will play and rest with calves!
Isa 11:7 "The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox."

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When we saw the bear in our back yard he walked down the back country road that I had walked earlier by myself. I wondered if he had been watching me.

Jeremiah describes the afflictions of the Lord that come to all of us to test us, as a bear watching, waiting for opportunity to attack.

Lam 3:10 "He has been to me a bear lying in wait, Like a lion in ambush."

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When God's mercy is exhausted because His people, instead of being grateful for His blessings to them lifted up their hearts with pride and forgot the Giver of the gifts! He then describes His judgment against them as a furious bear !

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Hos 13:8 "I will meet them like a bear deprived of her cubs; I will tear open their rib cage, And there I will devour them like a lion. The wild beast shall tear them."

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God's judgment cannot be escaped.... it is as if a man escapes from a lion and then meets a bear!

Amos 5:19 "It will be as though a man fled from a lion, And a bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, Leaned his hand on the wall, And a serpent bit him!"

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And we all know the old testament story of Elisha, who was mocked by a group of youths. It was not Elisha personally they mocked but the very God whose prophet Elisha was. Such blatant rebelliousness could be not left unpunished! and two mother bears came and attacked 42 youths. 2Ki 2:24 "And he turned around and looked at them and pronounced a curse on them n the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the youths."

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All of God's creation is meant to teach us and the bear was created to teach us the fear of God.

We all respect the brute strength and wrath of an angered bear --- yet that same bear feeds on berries and insects !

Just like the bear - our God can be to us the most gentle of Fathers.... caring over His children with the tender love we see in a mother ... yet He is also to be feared if we think we can live in disobedience and rebellion to Him!

Even in creating the animals we fear ... God's mercy is revealed. He put a fear of man in the heart of the beasts - to make them flee from us ! After Noah's flood, the earth was a different place and God spoke to Noah telling him .. "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth... " Gen. 9:2

Have you ever recognized that the reason wild animals are afraid of you is because of God ordered them to be afraid to protect you from harm ?

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Let us learn the lessons the bear was sent to teach us ... Let us fear God and we need fear nothing else !!

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