What can be more irresistible than a kitten. These guys might look cute now, but some of their ancestors have grown into man-eaters. We're here in a lion park in South Africa now where we can view these creatures in well of a safety, but there's a reason they're known as the king of beasts. What is it that people find so enchanting and frightening about lions? Is it their speed, their claws, their sharp teeth, or all of the above?
Might also be some of the stories about man-eating lions. Like in 1898, right here in Africa, they were building a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya and to brother lions terrorized the construction process eating 135 workers. Did you know lions are mentioned in the Bible over a hundred times. You can find them all the way from Genesis to Revelation. It's usually in reference to their ferocity and how dangerous they are. Of course Samson killed a lion with his bare hands, David killed a lion, there are man-eating lions in the Bible.
The way that they punish criminals was by throwing him in the lion's den. Early Christians were even fed to Lions but amazingly as the Bible mentions, not all lions are to be feared. There have been a few friendly Lions in history. For example, in the 1950s a couple, George, and Margaret Westpal, who lived up at a ranch near Seattle Washington adopted an abandoned lion cub.
They named it little Tyke because they felt sorry for it, but they discovered as they tried to feed her she refused to eat any meat at all. They were concerned thinking there was no hope for this little lioness to survive and everybody told them the same. We know in the wild, lions survive on almost an entirely meat diet, then someone showed the West bowels that verse in the Bible that talks about in heaven the animals are vegetarians, and the lion will eat straw like the Ox, that encouraged them. They began to feed little tyke a purely vegetarian diet.
Not only did she survive, she thrived growing into a lion that was over 352 pounds and over 10 feet long. In fact zoologists, that examine little tyke when she was full-grown said, they have never seen such a perfect specimen of a lioness in their life. A pure vegetarian. When we hear incredible stories about that of little Tyke, it reminds us that God's original plan was to make a world of total peace. It describes it here in the Bible in Isaiah chapter 11 verse 6, the wolf also will dwell with the lamb.
The leopard will lie down with a young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child will lead them. Nothing is going to hurt and destroy in the new heavens and the new earth that God is going to create. Wouldn't you like to live in a kingdom where there's perfect peace, where there's no more death or killing or pain, God says that he wants you in that Kingdom. The Lamb of God made it possible for you to have an encounter with a lion of the tribe of Judah. Wouldn't you like to meet him today.