Genesis 3:1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
I haven’t met too many people who would say that their favorite animal is snakes (serpents). And I think we all know why. Snakes are creepy. They slither around with their little tongues going in and out. Snakes are solitary animals which means they live alone. You rarely see a group of snakes together. That tells me you just can’t trust them. But worst of all snakes are venomous. Actually, out of 3500 species of snake only 600 species are venomous, and only 200 species can hurt humans with their venom, but it sure feels like every snake could kill you (and wants to kill you).
In the Bible serpents are always trouble. In Exodus, God told Moses to throw his staff on the ground and when it turned into a serpent Moses ran away from it. In the Book of Numbers when the Israelites were rebelling against God, he sent serpents to bite them. Only when they looked at a bronze serpent on a pole would they be healed. And in the New Testament, Jesus called the wicked Pharisees a “brood of vipers” to show just how bad they really were.
Why are snakes so negative in the Bible? It all started in Genesis 3 when Satan decided to take the form of a serpent when he tempted Adam and Eve.
Genesis 3:1. [The serpent] said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
You might know the rest of the story. The serpent deceived Eve, he made her question God’s word, and he convinced her that she could not trust God. So Eve sinned and ate from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then so did Adam. Then so did you and I when we also decided to trust ourselves over God.
But why did we say that the serpent in Genesis 3 is Satan? Because that is what the Apostle John says in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 12:9. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.
This is exactly why we need Advent. We need Jesus to come to Earth to tell us the truth because Satan has been deceiving us ever since the beginning of time. Satan has been lying to us, telling us that God is bad. So Jesus came to show us the truth about God; he is good. He loves us. He wants us to be happy and enjoy all that he made. But we can’t do that if the great Serpent, Satan, is slithering around tricking us. We need Jesus to come to Earth to destroy Satan. And that is exactly what Jesus did at the very first Christmas. But he didn’t come as a great warrior to kill the great dragon-serpent, Satan. He came as a little baby who would one day grow up and be killed by Satan.
But that was all part of the plan – to defeat death by dying and rising again. Once Jesus did that, he can now come again (second advent) and crush the Serpent once and for all. Hallelujah!
Questions: Is there anything about God that you question or find hard to trust? How does Jesus and his death on the cross help you to trust God and reject Satan’s tricks?
TLICfamily 