Snake-Bitten 2

Snake-Bitten 2

Bad things happen to bad people; good things happen to good people. WRONG!

John 9:1-4:

As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.

And his disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

“We must work the works of Him, who sent Me….”

We want to know the cause of evil, why people are snake-bitten. We like to believe somehow that it is because of their bad choices or the bad choices of those around them. Sometimes, bad things just happen. In the instance above, the disciples gave Jesus a choice-blindness because the man was bad or blindness because his parents were bad.

Jesus’ answer was out of the box. In this instance, Neither answer was correct.

The one who brings sunshine on the good and the bad, would bring sunshine into this sick person’s life and the one born blind would see. This is the uncorrupted goodness of God invading a world that is both corrupt and blinded.

As we submit the wounds of our life, our failures, our faults, and even just the plain old hurts that we neither deserved or asked for, to God -He brings sunshine into our lives to give us light instead of darkness. He brings the soothing rains that anoint our arid and cracked wastelands. We do not always receive the instant relief from our problems (although sometimes we do). However, we just as often find something working deeper in our lives.

In our hurts, we experience an opportunity to do the works of God. Those who stand near those who are hurt and afflicted have an opportunity to help with good words, contributions, prayers, and encouragement. Those of us, who for the time are among the afflicted, may also experience the works of God in our life. Those works may be healing. They, however, also may be grace, endurance, perseverance or love.

In 2nd Corinthians 7-10, Paul complained about a thorn in the flesh. He asked God three times that the thorn might be removed. The answer of God in this instance is found in verse 9:

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

We don’t always get the immediate deliverance we want. Even Jesus before the cross prayed in Matthew 26:39 :

My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will but as You will.

Three times Jesus prayed this. But the cup could not pass from Him and He would be forced to drink the cup of suffering and death to the bitter end. But on the otherside of the bitter end was resurrection life.

Resurrection life would crush the power of the Serpent. And that crushing occurs not only by feet of Jesus, but by the feet of the suffering seed of Eve, you and me.

Romans 16:20 says:

The God of peace shall soon crush Satan under your feet.

So if you have been snake-bitten ( and haven’t we all), we will someday have the opportunity to join in with the Messiah as the Snake is crushed.

A lot of time has passed since the crucifixion, and the seed of Eve continue to fight against the evil that so persistently inhabits this world. Regularly the people of God are delivered from the power of evil; but some are so wounded or attacked that they become the martyrs of God. They are the ones who are faithful to death. Theirs is a special place and a special award. And one does not become a martyr by killing the innocent or even the guilty for that matter.

But on a regular basis the followers of God deal with evil receiving deliverance more often than not. We find promises such as :

Mark 16:18—They will pick up serpents and if they drink any poison, it will not hurt them.

Luke 10:19—Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.

On a daily basis, many of us experience the deliverance of God from evil about us. We are even taught in the Model Prayer in Matthew 6:13: “Deliver us from the evil one.”

As we experience evil in the world, we the Children of Eve (and especially we who are also children of Christ), keep moving on.

There is a great story about “moving on” in the face of adversity in the Bible. It is the story of a snake-bitten Christian who had his full share of adversity. He had been beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked and jailed. The story is found in Acts 28:1-6:

When they had been brought safely through, then we found that the island was called Malta.

The natives showed us extraordinary kindness; for because of the rain that had set in and because of the cold, they kindled a fire and received us all.

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.

When the natives saw the creature hanging from is hand, they began saying one another, “Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.”

However, he shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm.

But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they waited a long time, nothing unusual happened to them, they changed their minds and began to say he was a god.

Well, Paul went on to heal the father of Publius, the leading man of the Island and many other sick on Malta. And Malta would have a thriving Christian population thereafter.

So sometimes, when we are snake-bit”, we simply shake the snake off and move on with what God has called us to do.

H.D.