One time a missionary had a very exciting experience with a big poisonous snake, and the Lord proved how wonderfully He could fulfill this promise for him! Listen while he tells it: "One day I was riding on my bicycle in Central Africa. In this part of Africa there are no roads-just narrow, winding footpaths with tall grass and 57 bushes on either side. When a tree falls down, the Africans go around it. After many years, and many trees falling, you can imagine how full of turns these paths can be! Because these paths are so crooked, a person cannot go fast on his bicycle. Then, too, he never knows when he may come upon a fallen tree across the path, and if he cannot stop in time he might break his bicycle or hurt himself.
"This day I was riding along slowly, looking for villages where the people had never heard of Christ, in order to tell them how the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, died to save them from their sins. Coming suddenly to a path that was three or four feet wide, and unusually straight, I thought, Now I can go faster. What a dandy path this is!'
"Speeding along, I suddenly saw before me a huge snake! He was stretched right across my path! I was going too fast to stop, so there was only one thing to do-and that was to ride over it!
" 'Bump, bump!' the two tires went over it.
"I became so excited that I fell off my bicycle about twenty or thirty feet beyond the snake. The maddened snake darted for me!
"Within reach of where I fell there was a dead piece of tree branch. I grabbed this branch and struck at the snake-but missed it! I wondered why the Lord let me miss it, when I was in such danger!
"The snake immediately caught the stick, and I could hear it crunching it in its mouth! It was now only three or four feet from me. The crunching stopped, and it raised its head about three feet in the air and started to sway to strike at me. I expected any moment to be in terrible agony of death. The seconds seemed like minutes while I waited, helpless upon my knees before it!
"There was only one thing now that I could do, and that was to cry to the Lord for help!
"The snake lay coiled, swaying to strike, but still hesitating to do so. All at once I noticed that there was something peculiar about the snake's mouth, which was wide open. Then to my great surprise, I saw that there was a piece of wood stuck in the jaw of the snake, so that it could not close its mouth!
"I had tried my best to hit the snake with the piece of branch, but the Lord had allowed me to miss it for a much better purpose of His own! Had I struck the snake, perhaps I should have angered it the more! But God used my miss in order to allow that snake to bite into the wood, and He permitted a piece of the wood to catch in its jaws, making the snake powerless to bite me!
"When I saw this, I quickly scrambled to my feet and found another stronger branch. With a few hard blows the snake was soon killed!
"How wonderfully the Lord heard my prayer, and protected me from death that day! Truly, 'The Name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.'
"This day I did not run into it. I guess I fell into it-but I was safe just the same! God always keeps His word, and we can safely trust in Him!"