Bible Reading: Galatians 5:1-18
Key Verse: Verse 15 – “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”
Key Words: But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
J. Vernon McGee writes: “I have always wanted to preach a sermon on this text, and I would entitle it ‘Christian Cannibals.’ Did you know that in many churches today the Christians bite, eat, and devour one another? And the bite is as bad as that of a mad dog. There is nothing you can take that will cure the wound. All you can do is suffer. There are a lot of mad dogs running around today. They will bite and devour you. Unfortunately, the world has passed by the church in our day, and I’m sorry it has because there are many fine people in our churches and many wonderful preachers throughout this country. But the lives of some Christians are keeping the world away from certain churches. I personally know examples of this. I know churches in which the Christians have no love for each other, but they bite and devour one another. It is a terrible thing!”
Thomas Rolfe could have been an Indian chief. Instead the son of Pocahontas and Jamestown planter John Rolfe became a wealthy landowner, inheriting his father’s 400-acre plantation plus thousands of acres from his grandfather, Chief Powhatan (his real name was Wahunsunacock, but because he was chief of the Powhatans, the English called him Chief Powhatan). When the time came to make a choice between his two heritages, he donned an English uniform and helped to wipe out his mother’s tribe.
Raised by an uncle in England after Pocahontas died there in 1617, the young man returned to his Virginia birthplace around 1635. Relations had been tense between colonists and Indians since 1622, when the Powhatan tribe – led by Pocahontas’ uncle, the war chief Opechancanough – had massacred 347 people, including John Rolfe.
Colonists were forbidden to “speak or parley” with the tribesmen, but young Rolfe petitioned the governor in 1641 “to let him go see Opechancanough to whom he is allied and Cleopatra, his mother’s sister.” No record of the meeting exists; we must imagine the confrontation between the Anglicized 26-year-old, hearing his mother’s tongue spoken the first time in his adult life, and the Indians, gazing at a face that bore a striking resemblance to that of their beloved lost princess.
In 1644, Opechancanough, who was said to be over 100 years old, mounted another assault. Carried on a litter, he led his warriors in raids that killed more than 400 Virginians. The colonists, among them Lieutenant Thomas Rolfe, fought back. Opechancanough was captured and killed. By 1646, the General Assembly reported that the American Indians were “so routed and dispersed they are no longer a nation.”
Dr. Mike Rouse
What to do:
✞Know that if a church bites and devours one another, we will eventually consume one another.
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