Why Serpents? 2

I want us to look at this topic differently, slightly, though I may repeat some things I wrote earlier.

Remember Jesus was talking about His ministers, especially those He was sending.

A snake does not waste its energy on unnecessary things.

For one, snakes move very slowly, normally. It therefore preserves its energy for the time it would need it.

Other animals will be jumping up and down exercising their limbs but unless a snake senses danger or food within reachable distance, you will never see it rushing. It always moves very slowly, flicking its tongue this way and the other to smell its environment since that tongue is what it uses as other animals use their noses.

Please keep in mind that Jesus was talking about those He was sending. It means He was talking of those who would move out of their normal environment and what we call comfort zones. Though I am convinced all believers have been sent, even those who will remain at home because He must remove our hearts from those environments before releasing us to minister His love to them.

Why am I saying this?

We must become the enemies of those structures Christ takes us from to be able to effectively share His love with them.

I am saying this as someone who grew up in church and faced enough persecution when I responded to God’s call from the same church and fellowship I had grown up.

So in some way I am addressing all believers.

I am simply saying that after responding to God’s call, Christ expects us to start acting with the shrewdness of a serpent.

I want us to look at two key things in the snake’s operations to help us appreciate this lesson.

Distance is one and its mode of operation the next.

Where was the serpent to strike the seed of the woman? The heel

This tells us that the snake does not overreach its target. Rarely, very rarely will a snake strike above the knee. And even then, it would be because it was met in an elevated place.

What am I taking about?

A snake limits its ambition to the attainable. Though striking above the knee would be far more lethal, it does not attempt the same because that will expose it to greater danger as it would then not be able to flee the scene of crime undetected or be seen before it can strike.

Snakes do not announce their intention to bite. They will hiss to warn you not to approach when their path of escape is not open. Others that will warn you about their presence are those very heavy snakes, vipers and adders because they are unable to manage any speed due to their girth. That is where puff adders and rattlesnakes fall under.

Most snake bite victims will tell you that they did not know that a snake had bitten them. They felt a prick which on investigating discovered it was a snake bite. It is telling that the snake with most bites is not the cobra or mamba which are very fast. It is the puff adder due to its lethargy. The others will sneak as you approach while the adder will strike on contact as it is unable to flee from danger.

This tells us another fact. Snakes do not look for opportunities to bite unless it is their food. They bite when the enemy becomes unavoidable that they must defend themselves with that bite.

Our efficacy as ministers depends on our proximity with our targets. We cannot bite from a distance.

On ministry terms, we cannot be effective from a distance. And I will elaborate on that further as I look at another aspect.

We do not advertise our intention to bite our ‘enemy’. He should feel the prick of our ministry and discover much later that our venom has started killing them.

I am using dangerous words because that is how our enemies look at our ministry.

Rarely will a drug addict or harlot look at you as a friend since their life is perfect. You will be throwing shackles on their otherwise perfect lives by your ministrations.

We do not throw The Four Spiritual Laws on enemies of the cross since that is what an unbeliever really is. We create an opening for that venom to be injected. We bring ourselves close enough to get an opportunity to bite them with those laws.

Let us look at constrictors (incidentally the physiology of most snakes means that they can constrict).

They also must get close enough to their prey before attempting that hug. They must get close enough to bite their prey, not with venom as with venomous snakes, but to make sure that they can’t escape that hug.

It is that hug I want us to examine.

It is the only thing that will ensure this enemy can’t escape before they become part of us.

That hug is our love.

Do you wonder that Jesus commanded us to love our enemies and pray for those who misuse and persecute us?

That is the hug He was meaning since nobody has the capacity of escaping real unadulterated love.

Christ therefore meant that we are, like serpents, meant to draw our enemies into our embrace through our love and nothing else.

Incidentally, like a serpent, we can not use that love remotely. We must get close enough for that hug to have any effect.

And that hug has the capacity to harm us for that simple reason. It can even be fatal.

Imagine a snake hugging a porcupine!

Many times a snake will die because the prey also has its defence. Many snakes are killed by birds because by the time the hug takes effect, the beak will have dismantled the serpent’s head. Other animals have teeth and horns that they will use with great effect against that hug.

What am I saying?

Though love is a conquer all weapon, it must be used with much care and wisdom. And that is where obedience to the call of God comes in.

In my previous post, I mentioned preachers who became drunks after taking that hug to drinking dens and others who became whoremongers as a result of taking that hug to brothels.

That is what I mean. The prey activated their defence, a defence that the serpent did not think existed.

Incidentally, the world knows when we have been released before we realise the same. We may think we have just visited when the other world knows we have been released with an assignment.

Let me give my example.

I moved where I am about three years ago.

I have never in my life introduced myself as a pastor anywhere. The closest I have said is that I am a preacher. I also do not pastor any church.

Yet in this whole place I meet people I have never met and they will call me a pastor in their greetings.  And it is not a small place.

This is also not the first place this has happened as I am sure is true of very many ministers.

It means they will have prepared their defence before we approach them for that hug because they already know that God has taken us to them with the purpose of making them believers.

Or haven’t you encountered somebody who in the middle of talking about things completely unrelated to the Gospel all of a sudden told you why they do not want to get saved or why the Christian life is impossible. Have you never been stopped by someone out of nowhere and asked to explain a spiritual reality?

The awareness that we cannot be hidden is the reason we should be shrewd to ensure we are close enough before attempting that hug. Not that we have any other option.

We are therefore being shrewd to maximise the power of our hug by ensuring we are not only close enough but also that we have through that hug disabled any weapons our prey may have to counter it.

Among those weapons are arguments about what we believe in.

1 Peter 3: 15 is addressing that. Once our love has started bearing fruit, people will, instead of looking for arguments, come to us asking the real questions and looking for answers. That because our hug has constricted them.

We are supposed to have both tools to be effective ministers. That is what Peter is implying here.

The venom is the presentation of the Gospel. It needs to be clear and understandable to our prey.

The constriction (what I am calling the hug) is our unfeigned love. A love so irresistible and encompassing that they have no way of escaping its hold. A love just like God’s.

Allow me to give an illustration.

A young man came looking for menial work at my place. We got talking as he continued coming for work and I discovered he was lost in drunkenness.

One day his drink is spiked and he was at the point of dying but we were able to rescue him.

We then became quite close as he started treating me like the father he never had in many ways.

I started sharing the Gospel in earnest but as you know with Catholics, it is a most difficult mission field.

But he continued to come for this and other help. He would come for counsel and comfort. He would borrow my tools to be able to get a job somewhere.

He rarely comes for work nowadays. But he comes for that hug. He can come just to greet me.

He knows I am a minister since I still share the Gospel with him. He knows he is not ready to respond to the Gospel I am always sharing with him.

But he knows I am his friend. My love for him is unquestionable, at least to him.

And that is what will finally bring him to faith in Christ.

What have I been saying with all these words?

We can never be effective as ministers remotely. We must dirty our hands to be able to get people from those sewers.

We must share the Gospel as clearly as we can. But we must follow (sometimes precede) that Gospel with God’s love.

The fangs are the presentation of the Gospel and the constriction is our unfeigned love.

I need in closing say that Christ also called on us to be as harmless as doves.

It means that our shrewdness is not that of a go getter who must have what they have targeted.

For me this means a surrender to God’s will after pursuing all the shrewdness we could.

We do not hammer someone to salvation since we are not the ones doing the saving. We do not force someone to be convicted because we are not the Holy Spirit.

We are supposed to rest after releasing the most portent of our weapons; those fangs and that mighty hug and leave the rest to God who sent us.