Snake in the Road

In Porto Veiho the radio shop was just across the road from my house, which was
convenient since I was the radio technologist/radio operator. Mornings in the Amazon
region can be beautiful: birds are singing, the forest is refreshingly green, the sky
above is blue and the sun is causing the mist to rise above the trees. Sometimes,
though, a person can be so distracted that he fails to notice his surroundings..

One morning as I headed for work I was concentrating on my job and was walking with
a kind of “tunnel vision”. About the time I reached the far edge of the road one of the
Brazilian workers called to me from just down the road.
"Is that your snake?", he asked.
"What snake?", said I.
"That one right there”, he replied.
Stretched across the road not 20 feet from where I had just crossed lay a 10-foot snake!
I had been so preoccupied that I entirely missed seeing it.

Sometimes like Eve in the Garden (Gen 3:1) we recognize that the serpent is there but
we find his offer so very attractive that we believe his lies and so we are snared! You
may hear such things as “I know it is wrong but just think of the good it can do”. It is
possible even to cite Paul’s statement in 1 Cor 9:20 – 22 as justification for “denying”
Christ in order to gain a hearing. I once heard of a missionary in Africa who converted
to Islam so he could have credibility in the Muslim community, which might be one
action justified by a misapplication of Paul’s statement.

You don’t have to be on a mission field to be enticed to join the guys in the carousing so
that you will be included in their group and have a hearing. There was considerable
presure to do just that when I was in the Marines – but, far from gaining a hearing, such
an approach will cost me my credibility.

In Matthew 4 Satan approached Jesus to try to divert Him and frustrate His mission.
Satan presented some very subtle temptations:

1. Jesus was hungry... why not use His power to provide food? After all, a fellow has to
eat. Surely it wasn’t wrong to use miraculous powers to provide food or else Jesus
wouldn’t have later turned water into wine or multiplied the bread and fish. However,
this was a temptation to provide for Himself rather than depend on God to provide.

Now this isn’t to imply that we shouldn't be willing to work for our support. 2 Thess. 3:l0
clearly says that a person who won’t work shouldn’t be fed by the fellowship of
believers. Even when God's provision is by means of our working we must never shift
our trust from Him to ourselves.

To Jesus the appeal was “use your divine power to provide for yourself.” It is different
for me. I’ve never been tempted to turn stones into bread. I have been tempted to

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divert my efforts from the job God has given me on the mission field in order to provide
for myself by getting a paying job. “My support is way short. I have a responsibility to
provide for my wife and family. I need to get a real job!”. Yes, this sort of temptation
can come to Christian workers, including missionaries. The other variation is "You've
paid your dues. After all these years working for 'the church', or 'the mission', or even
'the Lord', it is time to think about yourself. Surely you can concentrate on providing for
yourself, now.”

Possibly this temptation implied more than simply for Jesus to use His divine power for
self-gratification. Satan opened the conversation by saying “If you are the Son of
God...” The temptation carried with it the suggestion that He should prove that He is
God's Son, either to Satan or to himself. (You are divine, aren't you?).

Jesus resisted the tempter, not by drawing on some mystical divine power but by a
means open to each of us: the intelligent use of the Word of God.

2. The second temptation was subtle in a different way. Satan may have tried to
conceal his identity the first time but the second time he was more open. He couldn’t
very well pose as a fellow-traveller in the wilderness and yet carry Jesus up to a
pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. The subtle part was that he used the scriptures,
too.

"Oho! I know the Bible, too. And there is a scripture someplace that says that God will
send angels to protect His servant. Jump off this high place and see if He does."
“prove to me (or yourself) that God will care for you.”

I’ve never been tempted to jump from a high place to prove that God will take care of
me. However, a verse like the one satan quoted could be used to encourage a believer
to ignore danger. This is not to say that I should allow perceived danger to keep me
from doing the work God has given me but I must not deliberately go into danger so that
my own reputation will be enhanced when God delivers me. It is very well for me to set
out on a trip in the jungle to visit and indian village, knowing that there will be some risk,
as long as I am not doing this so everyone will think highly of me. Self-glorification is
not the point of my existence!

We know Satan can misquote Scripture as well as anyone, and better than most.
Frequently he throws out of context Scripture at us. Here he neglected to include the
contextual indication that this applies to God's servant who is serving God, not to
someone who is trying to prove his own spirituality or to test God. I suppose we all
have heard similar mis-application of Scripture, coupled with faulty human logic. One
that comes to mind is:
a) Isaiah 53:5 says "with His stripes we are healed."
b) Therefore, it isn't God's will that a believer be sick.
c) Therefore if we are sick it is because of sin in our lives
One point overlooked is that sometimes sickness is an instrument God uses for our

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development, rather than only for punishment. Job wasn't being punished – his
suffering was because satan was trying to make him turn his back on God.

Another one we sometimes run into is the one that goes:

d) John 1:12 tells me that I am a child of God.
e) God is the King of kings.
f) A child of the King of kings should go first class.
This is then used to justify pure materialism. These snares undermine the effectiveness
of our witness.

Jesus didn't use some exotic rebuttal, or lengthy reply. He simply used the intelligent
application of the Word of God.

3. In the third temptation satan made no attempt to be subtle. He simply offered Jesus
the world, on Satan's terms. If Jesus would follow Satan, He could rule the world. The
end, His kingdom on earth, could be achieved by Satan's means, bypassing a lot of
bother and suffering.

Does the end justify the means? We say no, but we don’t always act consistently with
our statement. What are the world's means of achieving an end?
a) Force. To the victor belong the spoils. Might makes right, etc.
b) Fear. The current rash of terrorism illustrates the use of fear to achieve some end.
c) Deception. Who really believes what a used car dealer tells you about the cool car
he is trying to sell? Or the claim that a certain insurance policy will protect you in
any catastrophe. Or the politician that tells you he is the one who will clean up the
mess in Washington.
d) Manipulation. Setting up a situation wherein the person's predictable reactions will
contribute to the "cause", as-- Taunt, provoke, etc., the police until they react, then
show the edited film depicting police brutality on the TV news.
e) Outright lies.

Evangelism, especially in tribal groups, carries with it the temptation to use questionable
means to achieve a worthy end. All you need do is imply that you will give medical help,
employment, food, or even approval and acceptance, to those who "enlist" in your
group, and you can produce impressive statistics of conversions. In fact, in the tribal
context you have to work to avoid giving that impression unintentionally. The same
temptation can appear in the US. Maybe we can argue circles around someone until he
capitulates. Maybe we can entice him to “come to Christ” by implying that he will gain
entry to a cool club or will have financial benefits. At some times in the past the
inducement was that the state-sanctioned church would simply kill you if you didn’t join.

Does the end justify the means? Em Griffin in "The Mind Changers" (Christian
Persuasion) has a chapter on the ethics of persuasion. He quotes a student who stated
the attitude of many evangelicals: "I don't care what the method is as long as it brings
people to Jesus Christ. If it works, it is OK. Being a Christian is so vastly more

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important than anything else that the end justifies almost any means."

Mr. Griffin points out that no one likes to be manipulated, forced, tricked into changing
his mind. Any persuasive effort which restricts another's freedom to choose for or
against Jesus Christ is wrong. Jesus let the rich young ruler walk away. In 1
Corinthians 9:22 Paul did say he was single-mindedly persuing converts but he was still
not willing to employ any and all means.

The world's persuasive tactics are usually ineffective for Christian persuasion. I don't
mean that a person who is saved because of a fear of hell is not really saved, or that
one who lives for Jesus out of an emotional response to His sacrifice is living a lie. Only
that God's kingdom is not brought about by the world's means. A person who "joins"
out of fear that you will harm him if he doesn't, or in order to get a job, or because you
have tricked him, is not really trusting Jesus to save him. He is only trusting some ritual
to avoid a beating or to gain financial advantage or to be accepted. By definition, then,
he isn’t really saved.

Jesus used the same weapon as before to resist this temptation: the intelligent
application of God’s Word.

There is a snake in our road. He has various approaches, and sometimes is hard to
recognize. As a roaring lion he isn't too hard to spot, but as an angel of light we might
not notice. The only sure way to recognize Satan is to be in communion with our
Shepherd.

(Jn. l0:4 - 5) “. . . the sheep follow him (the shepherd), for they know his
voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they
know not the voice of strangers.”

We shouldn’t know Satan's voice... we know the Shepherd's voice. We won't follow a
stranger.

The way to resist that old serpent is the way Jesus did it. That is, the intelligent
application of God's Word which, according to Ephesians 6:17, is the Sword of the
Spirit. If Jesus had employed some divine power that only He had, we would have
reason to despair. But He used only what He has made available to us.

From Revelation 20 we know that someday the snake will be removed from the road.

Copyright © 2009 Richard A. Need

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