Foxes in the Dark

My journeys home from evening chapel are now invariably occurring in the darkness. As well as allowing me opportunity to enjoy again the stars and constellations, certain members of the animal kingdom are more nearly observed. As my bicycle turned the corner on Brogden Lane before Kirk Clough, I nearly hit a fox which was out prowling. Coming upwind, he did not smell or hear me, and my front light gave him insufficient warning. I cried out to make him scarper and avoid a collision. I was minded of Ezekiel’s prophecy of 13:3-4:

Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.

O Israel, thy Prophets are like the foxes in the waste places. (Geneva Bible, 1599)

That fox was certainly stalking around wherever his nose led him, but a false prophet operates in thicker darkness, even though he claims the light. He speaks of what he cannot see, and asserts what he does not know. Men are natural liars and denizens of the dusk, but God’s word illuminates and radiates the brilliance of His truth. He who reads the Bible and lives by its message is wiser and more learned than he who makes great boasts but skulks in the shadow, like the fox of Brogden. They who spread darkness on earth shall suffer it full measure in eternity:

They are the raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shames: they are wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Jude 13

Image by Jevgeni Fil from Pixabay