The New York Daily News carried a frightening article today about two boys, 7, who were watching television in a Brooklyn apartment. Suddenly they felt something on the sofa behind them. When they moved the cushions to investigate, a huge snake slithered across the fabric and fell into a ball at their feet.
They screamed for help, and soon the police evacuated the apartment on 62th street. But even the police were spooked, and it was the Animal Care and Control Center that finally removed the boa from the room. The snake had apparently crawled into the apartment through the plumbing.
It’s a lesson to us all. The “old serpent” is closer than we think. He creeps into our homes, slithers through our offices, and tries to deceive us just as he deceived Eve.
Satan is snake-like and diabolical, and Paul warned the Corinthians, “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).
That means our greatest defense is a “sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” The devil can’t do much with a person who is sincerely and purely devoted to the Lord Jesus. He has no answer to a committed disciple, and no weapon formed against us will prosper. And one day soon the great Animal Control Center of heaven will throw that old serpent into the “lake of burning sulfur” (Revelation 20:10), and we’ll be done with him forever.
PS – You can locate one of several newspaper accounts of this story here.
PPS – There’s also a story in today’s Christian Post about a poll that only 3% of today’s teenagers see clergy as role models. Click here for this story.