[x_custom_headline type=”left” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h4″]Throughout the Bible you will find that sin, the devil, and the devil’s works are typified by the serpent. Yet oddly enough, there are a lot of believers who seem to enjoy playing with snakes! They must, or why do they continue to break down the protective hedges the Lord has provided for them by participating in sinful practices, which includes gossip and slander and other works of the enemy.[/x_custom_headline]
[x_blockquote cite=”Ecclesiastes 10:8 KJV” type=”left”]“He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.”[/x_blockquote]
From the natural perspective, anyone who works with snakes eventually gets bitten by them. It is inevitable. Even the experts, who take all sorts of precautions, will eventually get bitten and feel the venom of that snake coursing through their body.
One time I was watching a television program about all of the pythons and other snakes that were plaguing parts of Florida. People were buying these snakes when they were young and small, but then once they began to grow larger and larger they couldn’t handle them. So, then they would take these snakes out and let them loose in the fields and swampy areas of Florida. But in the process of time, these snakes began to multiply, and were becoming a menace to the residents.
[highlight]This particular television show I was watching had a snake expert who specialized in handling pythons.[/highlight] He even made a business of capturing these huge snakes and getting them away from people’s homes. So, on this show they were called to a house with a huge python in the front yard that the expert was going to capture and remove from the property. I am not usually interested at all in this type of program, but because this snake was so large, I decided to watch the expert capture it.
This python expert was wearing a microphone, and as the camera crew walked up to the yard with the python in it, he began to explain exactly what he was going to do to maneuver himself in order to place his hand on the back of the snake’s head. This, he said, would keep the snake from biting him. And then he further explained to the TV audience where he and his assistant would grab the snake to remove it from the area. He made it sound really simple. However, the snake had different plans all together.
As the expert approached the snake, whispering in the microphone to explain his every move for the sake of the television audience, the time came for him to make his move towards getting his hand on the back of the python’s head. And from that instant, everything about the expert’s plans completely came apart.
[highlight]The first mistake the expert made[/highlight] was not getting his hand close enough behind the head of the snake to control its head movements. And that single miscalculation changed everything. Because in an instant, that python turned its head around and bit into the forearm of the expert, and then immediately started coiling itself around him.
The expert is doing everything possible to free his arm from the mouth of this huge snake but to no avail. In fact, the more he tries to pull his arm loose, the more the snake seems to hold on, and the more the man’s arm bleeds. The man is rolling on the ground doing everything he can to free himself, and the snake is continuing to wrap itself around him.
The expert’s assistant was immediately on the scene and doing everything he could to try to uncoil the snake from his boss’s body. And seeing how deadly this situation had quickly turned, the camera crew sat their camera’s onto the front lawn of the house and jumped in to help get the expert free from the snake, as did other members of the TV crew. With the half dozen of so people assisting this expert, they were eventually able to get the man’s arm free from the snakes mouth, and also to uncoil the snake to free him from being squeezed any further by the python.
When I saw what happened to the python expert, I couldn’t help but think of the many Christian’s who have told me that their sinful practices aren’t really that big of a deal, and that they can handle it. Yet, just like the python expert above, they eventually get bitten by that sin, and its venom begins to flow through their bodies. Or, their sinful and disobedient practices eventually begin to squeeze the life right out of them.
[highlight]Perhaps you’ve never considered this but you can’t train a snake.[/highlight] You can’t make a pet out of a snake. You can’t make a snake obey you. They won’t stay or sit or roll over just because you tell them to. A snake is going to do what it wants to do, period. And sin and the works of the devil are the exact same way. You may have tried to convince yourself that you have your sinful habit in control. But you must understand that sin won’t obey you, because it is designed to kill you.
In one way or the other, a snake will eventually get out of control, just like sin. And depending on the type of snake it is, it will either kill you with its venom, or it will kill you by squeezing the life out of you. Either way you are just as dead.
If you don’t avoid snakes, and if you continue to mess with them, you will eventually get bit. The way most people deal will snakes is to run from them. And this is exactly how you have to handle sin, too. Just stay away from it and refuse to participate with it. This is how you keep yourself from getting snake bit.
