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Wow, yeah, that's just using their twisted scripture to blast something that just isn't so about snakes! I did a write up on this on another forum. Just say the word and I'll copy and paste it here. I really need to update it again as I've found further passages in my bible that stick the point home.
It's pure ignorance on your religious side of the family to claim that somehow having snakes is a sin. Ask em, where does it say keeping snakes is a sin? In the book of James the Apostle Paul talks about taming snakes but no man can *drum roll please* tame the tongue which is exactly what these people are doing! But no matter how right you are, and you can throw the bible right at them but their own ignorance an fear isn't going to change them. But it does help YOU to know that the bible does not curse the snake any worse than it does mankind. The bible places the curse of death to mankind, snakes just get to run around on their belly and are doing just fine doing just that! Anyhow, I truly feel for you! Whenever someone tries to bring up just such a topic...I pull out my King James bible and show them from the very word of God how wrong they are!
Oh heck, I'll copy and paste it anyway! Here it is. It's lengthy but does a good job of exposing the truth! Hope it helps you out!
Snakes are EVIL!
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Oh don't you just love this line? Someone sees you out and about with your snake shirt on and shoot you dirty looks. You know the crowd, the stick their noses up so high... How about those who go, I thought you were a Christian? Ever have that one shot at you? I have!
Or how about sitting at a local place and noticing as you and your visiting snake buddies are being stared at and listened in on as we are conversing the aspects of our snake hobby? We actually had another table where my wife noticed some friends of ours in town made the reply to someone at their table, oh, that's just Russell, they are talking snakes. LOL! But yet another table where the head gossiper in town was giving us all an odd look and listening in as hard as she could. I so badly wanted to stare back and go, huh interesting huh? LOL!
Anyhow... I find the thinking that somehow, because I'm a born again bible thumper that somehow I'm supposed to "act" perfect and hate snakes!
Snakes are evil! Oh really? What does God have to say about that? You get blank stares from some people cause they see that look of knowlege sweep across your face along with a smirk as I get ready to unload!
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:24
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and the creeping thing, and the beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.
Ok...so we see here using the bible, comparing a few verses of scripture, that God created everything. Why would a perfect holy God create so called evil creatures? Why?!?!? That uppity religious nut told me snakes were evil! Oh really?!?!?
Genesis 1:31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Um, yoo hoo... If everything that is, is made by God, then this verse we just read...says he saw that everything was....VERY GOOD. I could park it right there and say, goodbye Mr. Stuffy Religious person!! God said it was good. He didn't say his creation was evil! That's man made up drama!
But let's not stop there! We could, but oh I want to dig into this a little further!
Yes, the serpent in the Garden of Eden... Pick that up in Genesis chapter 3. Some of you know the story, the serpent was picked on by Satan, and Satan spoke through the serpent to Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And so God finds them hiding and the blame game gets started!
Genesis 3:13
And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because though has done this, thou are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon they belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life:
Ok, a preacher could probably pull a hundred messages out of that passage! Where did it say the serpent was now evil? It doesn't! It just says as a result the snake would go on it's belly. And they have done quite well this way haven't they? It's mankind that's had to struggle! I don't know about you, but mankind got a trip to the old woodshed on this one! So people totally fall on this one when you make them really LOOK and READ what it actually says! There was no pronouncement that says at this point, that they are evil.
Oh but Russell, can't you see, the serpent was cursed! Oh really? What about the rest of that passage then? The people were cursed too! And even worse than the snake! But nothing about the snake being evil!
Genesis 6:5
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Did you know, that this was the first time in the bible that the term evil is used? And God sees even the evil thoughts and evil imaginations of people? So where is evil? What is evil? It never said anything about the snakes! Just about the blatant nastiness we are all guilty of from time to time if we are truly honest!
Genesis 6:8
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
just for a second, notice it didn't say Noah was perfect, it's just apparent Noah was walking in faith with God. No one's perfect...it's those who know that and turn to God in faith acknowleging they mess up and believe in him. But more on that later... After the flood Noah got drunk one day...read it for yourself if you wish... Many people in the bible messed up from time to time but are still counted for righteousness! God isn't interested in perfect people, no, people who think they are perfect that is! Anyhow, that's another sermon...
Genesis 6:19
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Um ok, so this is the great Noah and the ark event. Apparently snakes made it on board! Cause we still have em around today. Evil? God tried to get rid of that by drowning the rest of mankind. But people still have a choice all their own what they want to do and worship. God isn't going to go around with a baseball bat and demand we bow down to him. That's just not love! Anyhow, just had to put the ark event in there to say hey, if snakes were so evil, how come they were on the ark?
Isn't this fun? Ok, for me it is, cause I love the bible. Oh but Russell, I know you! I know your not perfect! How dare you!
Oh get off your high horse! Since when did loving the bible mean that I'm some perfect sentient being myself? As if!
Let's move on!
Exodus 4
1 And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.
2 And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.
3 And he said, cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.
4 And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand:
Wow...here's HOLY God playing with a snake...and God trying to give Moses lessons in snake handling. Huh, imagine that. *grin* How cool is that? Wouldn't you love having a walking stick and be out someplace, and you want people to move for some reason or another, like say the only picnic table in the shade is occupied, so you toss down your rod and it turns into a snake and slithers over to the occupied table and...
Ok, back to the lesson!
Genesis 7:8
And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
9 When Pharoah shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod and cast it before Pharoah, and before his servants and it shall become a serpent.
10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharoah, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharoah , and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
11 Then Pharoah also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.
Another snake handling act. Still no reference to them being evil. But by this time the fear of snakes was obviously well entrenched as the earlier passage showed when Moses ran from it.
Let's look at another serpent passage...
Leviticus 11
41 And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination; it shall not be eaten.
42 Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon all four, or whatsoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat; for they are an abomination.
Now, here's two verses that someone COULD twist into saying, look, see, they are baaaaad... Um no, it is out of the dietary laws the Israelites were supposed to follow at that time. They were not to eat snakes. End of story, do not try to twist out more than there is!
But there's going to be the adamant ones. Oh ok, ok, fine, we'll let those people have their way, it does say, they are an abomination...yeah, and so are pigs and on and on!!!
There's another passage somewhere around here... Oh yes...here it is...
Acts 10
9 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:
10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,
11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth:
12 Wherein were all manner of four footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.
13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
14 But peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
16 This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.
Ok, we'll skip to another verse I want tied into this point...
1 Timothy 4:4
For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
Wow! what happened here? A contradiction of the bible? Huh, no, no no... You have to be able to know what is going on at the different times and be able to have a knowlege of the WHOLE bible to be able to understand why in the preceding passage God says, what I have cleansed, do not call unclean.
See, before sin entered the world, that is, man disobeying about eating the forbidden fruit, the creation also was perfect and good. After the fall of mankind, the creation also was no longer perfect, and thus you had some dietary rules saying different critters were unclean. And then you come to these last two passages saying...they are clean now...
What happened? Well if you notice, Acts and Timothy come after the books of the Gospel aka the ones where Jesus is here, and then dies on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, he died for the sins of the world. His shed blood was for all and his desire is for us to simply repent and turn to him in faith and accept that gift.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Romans 5:8
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 3
23 For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a proptiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.
Now, sin is defined as mans rebellion of Gods laws. So AFTER the death and ressurection of Jesus, the debt of sin was paid and the whole mess of clean and unclean no longer applied. As these earlier passages point out. AND! shall we notice something else? Recall Peter saw the sheet come OUT OF HEAVEN... did anyone else catch that? These things came out of heaven! Now some will jump on me and say, oh it was just a vision... Well ok, so they why didn't it just appear to him on the ground, what was the point of it coming out of heaven? I believe we have only what the bible tells us and I'll go with what IT says and say, yep, guess there's snakes in heaven... Now doesn't that make you all warm and cozy?
Let me show you something else!
In a passage of Isaiah, it's talking about the restoration of the Messiah's kingdom. I'm not going to type in the whole passage, but there is a verse in this restored kingdom passage that makes me grin...
Isaiah 11:8
And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
Now, if you look it up, cockatrice is a hebrew term meaning venemous serpent. But anyhow, kids get to play with snakes! Whoo hoo! LOL! I'm looking forward to playing with Gaboon Vipers. I love Gabbies!
Oh, so Russell do you like some of those other fundamentalist churches dance around to wild music with venemous snakes in your hands believing that faith will save you?
Ah, I know what you are talking about, let's look at that once.
Mark 16:18
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
Ok, nowhere can they claim that they should dance around and chant and play around with venemous snakes! There is NO clear and dry whatever to do with serpents here! This is not a commandment to go out and do this as some act of a Christian like baptism and the Lord's supper. In the book of Acts chapter 28, the apostle Paul gets bitten while gathering firewood with some locals in a city he was at. Flings the snake off and goes on gathering. And the locals flip out and want to call him a god. Fantastic timing for Paul to give them the gospel and tell them of the true God. Another sermon for another time...
Matthew 4:7
Jesus said unto him, it is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
huh, imagine, if something is now able to hurt you, and your dumb enough to keep playing with it...your gonna get bit... I'm just not part of that movement, sorry...LOL! Very interesting to see clips of it though. You'd swear those people are demon possesed! They make headbangers look like decent folk!
Now there are other passages in the bible where snakes pop up, but I feel I've done a nice job of putting down this idea that snakes are evil and stuff. People so often try to point at things being evil rather than the things that they do and think. Instead of taking care of themselves they try to act all upright and point fingers at other people. God hates that! I can point out passage after passage, we'd be here all day! And we don't have all day! So let me say this, I'm proud of my Christian faith. But I'm not about to shove it down anyone's throat!
John 6:44
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
See, pointing towards the bible passages and talking of my salvation in Christ is all that I, a mere sinner myself, now forgiven, can do for you. I can't shove this down your throat, nor am I supposed to! I laugh when people find out I'm a Christian and tell me; Well, your not going to convert me! Uh, no kidding! I can't do that! That's God's job! Totally between you and him! I have nothing to do with it! It's a one on one relationship between the two of you on how you sit with him. It's really quite simple. You either acknowlege to him in sincere prayer that you are a sinner, which we all are if we were honest. And say your sorry about that sin, and believe in him and what Jesus did on the cross, and that he rose again, and for him to save you. Simple!
Ok, so if it's so simple why do we have so many different religions and ideas and...
Well you tell me! Ok, I'll spill, I believe it's cause if the devil can keep us a wee bit messed up thinking our good works, or baptism, or trying to act like we are following the laws, or some other religious garbage some group has come up with INSTEAD of the true gospel, the simple teachings of the bible... Hey, the devil's all into religion! Really! he is! He's got two sides, he's got the self righteous religion crowd... And the obviously ugly side! Did you know the bible calls Satan an angel of light?
2 Corinthians 11:14
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
So what does it say about stuffy religious acts?
Isaiah 64:6
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
So much for the religious crowd!
there's many other passages I could fill here on the subject of trying to be religious rather than having a one on one relationship with God in faith.
So hope this was an interesting subject for SOMEONE! I guess I belong to a very stick to the bible only please type of church, and if you wish to look into any of this, go ahead and visit here.
Faith Baptist Church's Audio Sermon Web Page.
Some of these messages actually include me in there by name...
I believe it was the second to the last message by Pastor Davidson where he was making a point how some people brag about their pets...their dog...their cat...and he suddenly spies me and goes, or their snakes... LOL! We all had a good chuckle! Pastor himself years ago had a kingsnake, so he's sorta one of us...LOL! Anyhow, it's been fun. I better go play "animals" with little one as she's pulling on my arm here!
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