THE SECRETARY!

  ‘Secretary Bird’ photo by Diego Delso CC BY-SA 4.0.        

Who ever heard of a bird called a ‘secretary’?  Don’t blame the bird!  The Europeans who first saw this bird in the 1800’s thought it looked like the attire of male secretaries of their time.  They typically wore gray tailcoats and dark knee length pants.  They also used goose-quill pens which they carried behind their ears.  You can see the resemblance in the photo above.  The ‘Secretary Bird has long dark feathers on its head which look like quill pens, gray upper body feathers that look like it’s wearing a tailcoat and dark feathers that go midway down its legs that look like short pants.                                           

Notice their long legs!  They are the longest legs of any other bird of prey.  Their ‘legs are made for walking’!!  They typically walk 18-20 miles a day in search of prey.  They are also the tallest bird of prey standing 4-5 feet tall, with a wingspan of 7 feet and indigenous to South Africa.

What makes them unique is their ability to kill snakes, even the most venomous snakes like the cobra!  ‘You will really get a kick out of them!  Their kicking strike is five times their body weight and is extremely fast, lasting only 15 milliseconds, or 0.15 seconds in duration!  That is faster than the blink of an eye!  Their legs are covered with scales that protect them from snake bites.  Their kick is so fast, the snake doesn’t have time to react before the foot of the bird hits them in the head, crushing their skull!!!  Their foot is a ‘precision guided sledgehammer’!

Sounds similar to Genesis 3:15 where God told the serpent, the devil what his reward would be for deceiving Adam and Eve.  ‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

God says to the serpent, that nasty snake, that He was going to administer a crushing, fatal blow to his head.  The ‘secretary’ is a preview of how this will happen!  WHAM!  And this is good news for us!  As The Matthew Henry Commentary makes clear, ‘Christ, by His death, gave a fatal blow to the devil’s kingdom, a wound to the head of the beast that can never be healed.  He destroyed all his politics and all his powers and gave a total overthrow to his kingdom and interests.  And by His death on the cross, He destroyed him that had the power of death!’ 
This is confirmed in scripture: ‘And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.’  Colossians 2:15.

And, because Jesus ‘disarmed the powers and authorities’ of the Devil, He gave us ‘authority to overcome all the power of the enemy; (the devil) nothing will harm you.’  Luke 10:19.

Do you recognize any works of the devil in your life, the life of your family or friends?
You can recognize him by his works!  He came to ‘steal, kill and destroy.‘  John 10:10.
Take authority over him in Jesus’ name and see what happens to this defeated enemy of your soul.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

If you want to watch the ‘Secretary Bird’ in action, click on the link below:

‘The Deadly Kick That Shatters Vipers:  The Secretary Bird’s Secret Weapon.’
https://youtu.be/NE65svOMBSI?si=8KDkOfpwI7I–Zby