A woman was sitting in her parlour one day when a poisonous snake suddenly appeared and slithered across the floor under her couch. Terrified of snakes, she ran to get her husband who was taking a shower. He rushed from the shower with only a towel around his waist grabbed a broom and began poking around under the couch. The dog woke up and curious to see what was happening came up behind the husband and touched the back of his heel with his cold nose. The man thinking the snake had outmanoeuvred him and had bitten him on the heel fainted dead away. The wife thinking her husband had suffered a heart attack ran to the hospital which was adjacent to the house and asked for help. Two medics rushed to the house and placed the man on a stretcher. 

 

As they carried him out of the house, the snake re-appeared from under the couch. This frightened one of the medics so much that he dropped his end of the stretcher and broke the husband’s leg. Seeing the husband’s twisted leg the wife fainted. Meanwhile, the snake slithered quietly away. 

 

The moral of the story is to keep your head in all situations. Many Bible characters “lost the plot” just as we do. In the story one of the central players is a snake and so it was in the Garden of Eden and in our lives today. The snake, that old serpent Satan, slithers into our lives causing fear and calamity. Sadly we forget that Jesus is the perfect antidote to his poison. 

 

The husband in a panic grabbed the nearest handy object to combat the snake, a broom handle! Later he must have realised how inadequate this was for the job. Poking under the couch with it angered the snake and made things worse. The husband was near naked and vulnerable. How similar it is in the spiritual realm. When Satan attacks, how do we respond? Do we rely on our own strength and judgement, or do we call upon the Lord Jesus Christ who conquered him at the cross? 

 

When it comes to tackling Satan in our own strength we are no match for that fallen angel. We are like the husband tackling the snake naked but for a towel and armed with a spiritual broom handle 1 Corinthians 10 v 12-13. So be careful! If you are thinking, oh I would never behave like that; let this be a warning to you for you too may fall into sin! But remember this, the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new or different! Many others have faced exactly the same problems before you and no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.”