“He led you through the terrifying wilderness, with its’ fiery serpents’ (Deuteronomy 8:15)
Are you aware that there are over three thousand species of snakes in the world, and that there is at least one type of snake on every continent except Antarctica? Now, if you’re like me just the mention of any snake makes your skin crawl. But I do want to talk about one type of snake in my blog this week. I want to talk about it because it reveals a critical principle in the spiritual realm. That specie of snake is called the dasypeltis scabra. Or in layman’s terms, the egg eating snake.
We are aware that the first time a snake is mentioned in scripture is at the beginning of the bible in Genesis 3, when one boldly slithered his way up to the woman in the garden and tempted her to sin. Revelation 12:9 clarifies him as the Devil. Satan embodied the form of a snake because metaphorically speaking, he is an egg eating reptile. From eggs life emerges. Satan loves to destroy life of any kind before its’ arrival, because life comes from God. During the days of Moses’s birth Pharoah decreed that all male babies born of the Hebrews were to be killed. That was true in the days of Jesus’ birth by King Herod also. The goal of Satan is to destroy life before it enters this world. Satan’s goal with Eve was to eat up and destroy her life with sin.
Satan will always attempt to assault and destroy a work of God before it begins. A perfect example is when God promised to gather the Jewish people from the nations and resurrect the nation of Israel. But just before that was fulfilled in 1948, a satanic fury broke out on the earth in the form of Nazism, to wipe out the Jewish people. The enemy doesn’t simply attack the purposes of God, he attacks the purposes of God before they begin, in order to preempt them. How would the Devil know about the gathering of the Jews back to Israel, you might ask? The old serpent reads scripture too. We know that from his quoting Psalm 91 to Jesus in the temptation in the wilderness.
I’m telling you this to encourage you this coming year. When you feel like all hell is coming against you, do not be discouraged. It is a good sign. It tells you that the enemy is doing everything he can to keep God’s purpose from being accomplished in your life. Or it may be that he is aware God is about to bless you, and he wants to get you to doubt God’s goodness before you see His goodness.
So, in this new year, I encourage you to never give up. Never allow discouragement to hinder your faith in God and his purposes for your life. The attack is a sign that God is about to do great things in your life. Remember in Acts chapter 28 when a poisonous snake came out of the fire and bit the apostle Paul on the hand? Paul shook off the snake and sent him back into the fire. Keep your eyes focused on Jesus this coming year and shake off the old egg eaters’ attacks.
Darlene