BOX JELLYFISH!

Box Jellyfish at Bakoven Rock by Peter Southwood is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0.                                                             

I happened upon the words to a very familiar and famous hymn the other day, 
‘This is my Father’s World’.
And I said to myself, “Oh yah?”  Is it really?  As I am writing these posts, I am beginning to see clearly the way things are.  YES, ‘It is my father’s world’ because He created it, but according to the scriptures, it is the devil who is currently ‘the god of this world’.  
2 Corinthians 4:4.  

According to Ephesians 2:2, he stole man’s dominion over the earth and is now called ‘the prince of the power of the air.’   As it says in 1 John 5:19, ‘The whole world is under the control of the evil one.’ He has used His dominion and control to pervert what God has made and now the natural world is not only a display of God’s attributes, Romans 20, but also a display of the attributes of the devil!.  He is described in John 10:10 as the one who ‘came to steal, kill and destroy.’  You can see these attributes clearly in the natural world.  Now animals and humans kill, steal and destroy, bite and attack.  The weather which he has dominion over brings us tornados, hail, tsunamis and blizzards.  We have earthquakes and fires.  The earth is full of all kinds of his perversions, his attributes.

Jesus said: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’  Matthew 4:17.  So now we have the world and the kingdom of heaven right here with us.  The whole meaning of life is summed up in one decision; to move from the devil’s world into the kingdom of heaven!  To be in the world, but not of the world’ 

Jesus prayer to God the Father asks Him ‘not to take (us) out of the world but that (He) protect (us) from the evil one.’  John 17:15.  And that is exactly what He did for Ian McCormack!     

Ian was stung five times by the ‘box’ jellyfish shown above!  It is no ordinary box!  It is the most venomous creature on earth!  One sting often proves fatal.

It is another of the devil’s tools he uses to steal, kill and destroy!  Although he is ‘the god of this age’, 2 Corinthians 4:4, THE TRUE GOD is still in control.  He can intervene!  Have you ever seen the movie, ‘The Perfect Wave’?  It is the story of Ian McCormack.

Ian was a surfer boy.  He and his buddies decided to surf around the world in search of ‘the perfect wave’.  Even though he was raised a Christian, he thought religion was for old folks.

Before he left on his around the world trip, his mother pulled him aside and said to him, “no matter how far from God you are, call out to Him and He will forgive you.”

He and the boys began their trip surfing around the world, going to night clubs, smoking dope and chasing girls!!!   They ended up on Mauritius Island in the Indian Ocean.  His buddies talked him into a night scuba dive in search of lobster.  Unfortunately, he came in contact with several ‘Box Jellyfish’ nick named ‘the invisibles’.  You can hardly see them in daylight, at night it’s almost impossible.  He was stung 5 times by the time he got back to the boat.  He began to feel the poison and knew he was going to die!  He eventually made it to the hospital, and they did all they could for him, but he flatlined.  They declared him dead and put a tag on his toe.     

His mother is a woman of faith and prayer.  She hears the voice of the Lord saying, “Your older son, Ian is nearly dead!  Pray for him now!   And she began to pray.  Ian experienced an NDE, a near death experience where he rises above his body and sees that he has flatlined.  He realizes that he might be dead.  He hears a voice say, “you’re in hell, you belong here.”  He remembers Psalm 23,  ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.’  Evil couldn’t touch him!  He calls out to God remembering the admonition of his mother before he left home.   

Suddenly he was delivered from the kingdom of darkness and drawn up into a tunnel of light.

He hears someone call him by name and becomes aware that they know all the things that he had done in his short life.  Yet he feels waves of love and acceptance and realizes that all of his sins have been forgiven.  That he is now clean.  He knows that he is seeing the Lord Almighty, Jesus Himself and feels a child like innocence.  He is so happy he cries and knows that he is HOME.

He asked Jesus to let him return to earth for the sake of his mother who would have thought he was in hell.  Ian was dead for 15 to 20 minutes.  During that time he spoke to God and said, “I’ve been led by my own will, now Jesus, let your will be done.  If you help me through this, I’ll seek and find your will and follow you.  I’ll honor you all the days of my life.”  He woke up on the slab and asked God to heal him.  He did and Ian walked out of the hospital and began sharing his testimony. 

As a result of sharing his testimony over the years, he has witnessed God’s Grace through many miracles, deaf people hearing, blind people regaining sight and quadriplegics standing up and walking.  
Ian McCormack has shared his testimony of healing with over 61 million people.

But the greatest healings of all are the changed hearts of the people who have heard his story and then accepted God’s unconditional love.

Ian ‘Found his perfect wave’ in Jesus.  FIND YOURS!

He is now the Senior Pastor of the King’s Gate Christian Fellowship in London.

If you want to hear his testimony, ‘The Sting of Death’ on CBN.com, click on the following link:

If you want to see a preview of ‘The Perfect Wave’, click on the following link: