ENCOUNTERING THE ACCUSER

Early, on the morning of the 8th of November, my ever faithful wife and I walked into the hospital to begin the final procedures before my surgery.  Those "final procedures" were, of course, another round of paperwork and the prep work to ready my body for its most invasive and stressful time ever.  Sometime during this prep work, Sue, my wife, and I were separated.  She now had to wait for the outcome and I was anesthetized for the surgery.

From that point I knew nothing of what was being done to me or around me.  As I discovered a couple of days later, after my initial operation and closure, a bleeding vessel outside my heart in my upper chest was persistent and would not stop bleeding on its own.  The surgeon asked permission from Sue to "go back in" to repair this vessel.  Of course, this meant reopening my chest and re-stretching my rib cage along with more anesthesia.

During this time frame of "going under" until the time I came completely out from under the influence of the anesthesia was when I had an encounter with the "Accuser" himself.  "Accuser" is one of the several descriptive nicknames the Bible gives to the devil.  And, the scripture teaches us that "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (I Peter 5:8b-NIV)  (I suggest reading all of I Peter 5:8-10.)  He uses every opportunity he finds to accuse, to deceive and to defeat.

In my case it was a drug induced, or initiated, dream, several, in fact.  The most specific one was of a long line and display of nurses, male and female.  Some of them were nurses whom I remember as they cared for me.  Others I never recall seeing before.  But, each of them seemed to have an attitude as they paraded in front of my room, pausing to look in briefly.  Each would shake his or her head woefully with the implication left, "You're going to die and you didn't make it to heaven."  At the ending of the dream sequence, one final nurse would be standing at my doorway.  This nurse would not look directly toward me, but, rather, would look slightly aside with an accusing manner.

Now, I know, without a doubt, that I do not, nor can not, deserve eternal life.  Because of my sin, I do, in fact, deserve eternal death.  However, read Romans 5:8-11.  So, to all the doctors and nurses working on me, to all those nurses in my dreams, to the world around me and, most of all, to the old "Accuser" himself, I would say seemingly aloud, "The blood of Jesus covers all my sin."  The Bible tells me so (Rom. 5:1-2).  The Spirit witnesses with my spirit that it is so (Rom. 8:16).  I claim the blood of Jesus to cover my sin since He died for me.

The "Accuser" comes to us all.  He even came to Jesus and accusingly said, "IF you are the Son of God..."(Matt. 4).  The devil will use your weakest moments, physical, spiritual or emotional.  He will attack you whenever and where ever he can to "devour" you.  Keep your sins confessed and under the blood of Jesus.

This will be my last blog about my operation.  However, it is only the beginning of my blogs about how Jesus has changed my heart.