Unexploded Bombs

From today’s News: “Bomb disposal experts in the German city of Koblenz have successfully defused two bombs from World War II found in the riverbed of the Rhine.

They were discovered when water levels fell because of a prolonged dry spell. The bigger of the two bombs weighed 1.8 tonnes (4000 lbs) and was dropped by the Royal Air Force between 1943 and 1945.

Nearly half the city’s population – 45,000 – had been evacuated, including the inhabitants of two hospitals, seven nursing homes and a prison. It is the biggest bomb disposal operation in Germany since 1945.”

Unexploded bombs are an enormous hazard, and they have their spiritual equivalent in the lives of God’s people. Things that happened a long time ago can lie in the riverbed of our lives. These unexploded bombs can be unresolved sin issues that have been swept under the carpet, in the hope that no-one will ever discover them. But when they are discovered they can sometimes explode, causing enormous damage.

When such hidden secrets are exposed, especially of sexual, financial or other relational indiscretions, the effect on those involved, and their families, can be devastating. And when those hidden secrets were in the lives of Christian leaders, the consequential explosion can affect the lives of thousands. People feel betrayed and let down by those who were meant to provide a godly spiritual covering.

Mercifully, the bombs in Koblenz didn’t go off. They were successfully defused by the bomb disposal people. In the work of Ellel Ministries we sometimes feel like a spiritual bomb disposal squad, as we help people come face to face with the unexploded bombs in their lives and then carefully defuse them through God’s proven methods of confession, forgiveness, deliverance and healing.

Not only can these bombs be put there through our own ungodly choices, but they can also be left there through what others have done to us, for example through cruelty, abuse or unresolved traumas.

Often people have been tip-toeing round these bombs all their lives and have desperately struggled in their own strength to avoid setting them off – but the cost and the consequences have often been huge in terms of spiritual, emotional, psychological, psychiatric or even physical damage, to themselves and, sometimes, others as well.

If you know there are unexploded bombs in your life, may I encourage you to deal with them now and not wait for them to go off!

The good news is that when, with the Holy Spirit’s help, the bomb is defused and Jesus deals with the bomb, whatever it may be, you can start to live again. Then you don’t have to live your life under the constant tension of sitting on an unexploded bomb that could go off at any moment. The Gospel of salvation, bringing with it God’s healing and deliverance, really is the most wonderfully amazing and very good news!