IN AFRICA one day a missionary was riding his bike along a jungle trail on his way to visit the natives in some nearby villages. He loved to tell them the story of Jesus, the Son of God, who came to die for sinners everywhere.
The trail had many turns and as he sped around one corner he suddenly came upon a huge poisonous snake stretched right across his path. He had no time to stop, so the only thing he could do was to run right over it. “Bump, bump!” went the two tires as he went over the snake, and then the missionary was so unnerved that he fell off his bike, twenty or thirty feet beyond the snake.
The enraged creature made a dart at him, its tongue shooting from its open fangs dreadfully. Unable to rise in time to get away, the missionary grabbed a branch from a dead tree and struck at the snake, but missed. The maddened serpent, now only three feet away caught the stick and crunched it in its jaws.
Then it coiled and raising its head three feet in the air, it began to sway back and forth in preparation to strike at the man.
It seemed to the missionary his last moments had come. All he could do was to cry to the Lord for His mercy.
And the Lord heard his cry. Has He not said, “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear"? Isa. 65:2424And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. (Isaiah 65:24).
Helpless on his knees the missionary waited. The snake seemed to hesitate. Suddenly the man noticed its mouth seemed propped open, and he could see a piece of the dead stick lodged in its fangs. That was why it could not strike. It was powerless to bite him.
Seeing that the missionary jumped to his feet, hastily found another stouter heavier stick, and after a few good wallops Mr. Snake lay dead on the ground. Unharmed, the missionary knelt down on the jungle trail and poured out his heart to the Lord in thanksgiving and praise for saving his life that day.
The bite of that snake would have meant death to the missionary. And there is another serpent whose bite means death for people everywhere; that is that “old serpent the devil.” It was he that led Eve first to sin, then Adam, and sin has brought death upon the whole race. That bite is fatal, and only the Lord Jesus, who came to destroy the work of the devil, can save a soul from it.
When the children of Israel were in the wilderness on one occasion fiery serpents bit the people and many died. The Lord told Moses to make a brazen serpent and put it upon a pole and any one who was bitten, if he looked at the serpent on the pole, was healed. The Lord Jesus has told us the meaning of that in John 3:14,1514And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:14‑15).
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” He must die upon the cross if sinners were to be saved. God treated Him as sin and poured out His righteous wrath upon Him, the holy spotless One, that we might never see death, but have everlasting life instead.
The serpent “lifted up”
Could life and healing give;
So Jesus on the cross
Once died that we might live:
For “Whosoever will believe
Shall everlasting life receive!”
ML-01/02/1972