Sermon Illustrations

In November, 1987, a large group of anti-government rebels in Soroti, Uganda, had targeted a rural army post and airstrip for take over. A company numbering in the hundreds gathered in the dense surrounding brush for the attack. But this was to be no ordinary invasion. The task force would use some strikingly unconventional tactics.

According to the Associated Press, the rebels attacked half naked. A few wore old army trousers, a few more army boots, and all of them had their pants rolled up above their knees. Curiously, all of the attackers were smeared with oil. As they advanced on the air strip, they marched boldly, even fearlessly toward government defending forces. In unison they chanted, "God is there! God is there!"

When the hour-long attack was over, the rebels were routed. Out of seven hundred men, two hundred were killed, many more were taken prisoner. One of the prisoners, a man named Obone, explained the bizarre event. The rebels were members of a disgruntled religious/political group called the "Holy Spirit Movement." The founder of the movement, a witch doctor named Alice Lakwena, convinced her forces that she had concocted magic oil that would protect them from bullets. She instructed them to take off their shirts, roll up their pant legs, and smear their bodies with the oil. She promised that rocks would explode like hand...

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