Deception... A Lesson From Turkey Hunting

This morning The Good Lord blessed me with the opportunity to spend the morning in the woods hunting the ever elusive wild turkey. Alarm went off at 5:15 and at 5:35 the trek was on. After walking across the farm and not hearing a gobble one sounded off right where we had began... The chase was on. After arriving on the scene the birds were on the ground and sounding off... GOBBLE... GOBBLE.... Set up five yards in the woods off of a logging road with the Birds hammering up on the ridge. My dad was about 20 yards off to my right calling the birds in (he has "seductive love calling abilities"). After about 10 minutes of suspense I saw the birds walking down the ridge GOBBLE followed by a drumming sound. Stepped into an opening at about 40 yards and that was all she wrote. My biggest bird yet... 11 inch beard and 1.25 inch spurs. What a hunt!!!



There is a lesson to be learned from this hunt... The turkey was deceived. He believed that the yelping, clucking, purring, and scratching noises that he was hearing was a hen (female turkey). He believed that he was coming into a potential mate when in fact he was walking right into a trap, his death. He gave into the temptation of the calling and was trapped in the deception. Many times we too are just like this turkey, we are deceived by sin.

James 1:14-15 "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown brings death."You see sin works much in the same way as calling in the turkey does. It gets our attention, it attacks our desires. The turkey desired to mate so the calling was appealing to that desire. Sin attacks our desires, whether its lust, gluttony, stealing, cursing, cheating, or whatever it is the devil attacks. "It's alright," "Everyone is doing it," "No one will ever know," "You know you wanna do it," "It will feel so good," are just some of the calls of the devil. And when we give into these temptations we sin, and when we sin we become just like that turkey. We give into our desires, listen to the calls, and die because of our sin....

1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."