What creature do people despise more than any other living thing?

If you guessed, "snake," you're probably right!

Hardly anyone likes snakes, even though some snakes are beneficial. Kink snakes, for example, eat rats and other bothersome rodents. But most people become alarmed at the sight of a snake, whether it's helpful or not.

More people received poisonous snakebites in Arizona than in any other state in the United States. Being mostly desert, Arizona is home to rattlesnakes (11 varieties), coral snakes, and other poisonous creatures such as scorpions, brown spiders, black-widow spiders and Gila monsters. Authorities often receive calls from residents who are desperate to be rid of snakes who linger in their yards. (i)

In parts of Africa, snakes are even more prevalent than in the U.S. Imagine walking into your bedroom and discovering a long green snake slithering its way along the top of your curtain rod and down to the floor. Or imagine discovering a snake hiding in the mission hospital. These incidents really happened to missionary families now living in Nigeria. You can be sure these missionaries were glad to be rid of the snakes whether they were poisonous or not!

While most snakes are not poisonous, it's best to leave them alone. If you discover a snake while you are playing outside or hiking, do call for an adult and do keep away.

Did you know that the Bible explains why most people don't like snakes? In the Garden of Eden, Satan appeared to Eve as a beautiful serpent, or snake. Eve didn't expect the evil one would appear in such a lovely disguise, and so Satan succeeded in convincing her to eat the forbidden fruit. After Adam sinned, God spoke to the serpent (Satan). Look up Genesis 3:14,15 in your bible and read what He said:

"Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all _____________, and more than every beast of the field; on your ________________ you shall go, and you shall eat _____________ all the days of your life. And I will put ___________ (hatred) between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your _____________, and you shall bruise His heel."

In this text God promised to put hatred for sin in the heart of every person born into this world. The fact that people almost universally hate snakes has its beginning in the Garden. But sin, like the serpent in the Garden, is a deceiver.

Just as He promised, God has put into each of our hearts a hatred for sin. Satan realizes this and so he continues the deception begun in the garden by disguising sin. He makes it look interesting and appealing. Sometimes he tempts us to play with sin as people sometimes do with poisonous snakes. We think, "I can handle this. It won't hurt me," or "No one will see me do this, so I can get away with it."

But just like the bite of a poisonous snake, sin kills. The Bible explains, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 14:12

Like Adam and Eve, we are vulnerable to Satan's deceptions. Like theirs, our hearts are "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9

But, praise God, our story does not end here! The theme of the Bible is God's plan to rescue us from sin. What Satan tried to do in bringing our race to ruin, God has reversed.

Look up the following texts to discover the phrase that describes the greatness fo what God has done for us:

Matthew 6:30: "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not _____________ clothe you, O you of little faith?"

Matthew 7:11: "if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how _____________ _____________ will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

Luke 12:24: "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how _____________ _______________ value are you than the birds?"

Romans 5:10: "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, _____________ _____________, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

Romans 5:17: "For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, _____________ _____________ those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."

Romans 5:20: "Where sin abounded, grace abounded _______________ _____________."

Much more! Our last view of Satan, "that serpent of old," is found in Revelation 20. Sin is destroyed, along with all those who refuse God's much more abounding grace. No one need perish from the deadly bite of sin, because "He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him since He ever lives to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25

Now that's Good News. Believe it!

Facts about snakes in this story were obtained from the article: "Something Just Bit You?," Smithsonian, September 1999, Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 83-90.

_____________ * These texts are from the New King James Version, but you may use the King James or other versions to fill in the blanks.

Published in the 1888 Message Newsletter, March-May 2000.

Used with permission.

Published in the 1888 Message Newsletter