Judd climbed up the steep embankment. Climbing like this on a warm spring day was hard work, but to be able to fish in mountain streams made it worth all the effort. He knew about the danger of timber rattlers and had seen some, but he had never been frightened enough to take them very seriously.
Struggling upward, he heard a sound like the shaking of the small lead line sinkers that he carried in a metal can in his pocket. It sounded as if a hand had reached into his pocket and were rattling that little box. “What gives here?” he thought to himself. He stopped climbing and looked around. There it was... only an arm’s length away! The large blackish timber rattlesnake had reared its head, and its cold, beady eyes were staring straight at Judd. Partly coiled, it was angrily saying with its rattling tail, “One more step, young man, and you’re asking for it!”
Well, it did not take very long for Judd to make a decision and quickly retreat by sliding back down the hill. A bite from that rattler out in the wilderness would have been very serious. He knew that it could easily have killed him. Slowly the reptile unwound and slithered off the rock where it had been sunbathing.
Snakes make us think of the devil, for God even calls him “that old serpent.” He is our most deadly enemy. However, the devil doesn’t give a warning like Judd got from the rattlesnake. The devil lures us into traps by whispering things like, “Be your own boss and don’t obey. Have your fun. Don’t listen to that old-fashioned Bible teaching.” His list goes on and on. Now the Lord Jesus Himself says in John 8:4444Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44) that “he (the devil) is a liar, and the father of it.” Are you listening to lies? Listen to God’s warning! “By the words of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.” Psa. 17:44Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. (Psalm 17:4). Satan, or the devil, is the destroyer. His power over us is sin—those awful sins you love. You must repent, or turn around, and ask the Lord Jesus Christ for the cleansing He gives. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7). Then Satan, the old serpent, will be a defeated enemy for you.
ML-04/17/1983