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Tag: serpent

  • Because the days are evil – 3 -satan.שָׂטָן

    Because the days are evil – 3 -satan.שָׂטָן

    Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.

    Psalm 109:6 KJV

    Previously we observed the existence of Satan in the Supernatural Before Adam as a serpent tempting man to question God.

    If you acknowledge the Almighty Creator of all things and all men, yet recognize that evil pervades creation and the hearts of mankind, then you must ask about this power who deceives the minds of men.

    Who (or what) is Satan?

    You may have read scripture seeing little reference to Satan, but a deeper understanding of our English translations will reveal a willing and powerful opponent of the Lord God in places beyond the garden and circumstances considerably beyond original sin.

    Psalm 109

    Several translations of this same verse in Psalm 109 suggest, “Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser bring him to trial.” RSV

    The man after God’s own heart pleads:

    O God of my praise,
    Do not be silent!

    Psalm 109:1

    He prays to the living God – ruler above the angels, spirits who serve and the fallen. The Lord rules over creation whether spirit or wicked man.

    5 Thus they have repaid me evil for good
    And hatred for my love.

    6 Appoint a wicked man over him,
    And let an accuser stand at his right hand.

    The Hebrew word for accuser here is satan – שָׂטָן

    The heading of Psalm 109 in the NASB reads: Vengeance Invoked upon Adversaries. Our best understanding of Satan is that this fallen angel of darkness is accuser of the faithful and adversary of Christ.

    Job

    A description of Satan in the Hebrew book of Job occurs in a setting of heaven unseen to mankind.

    The NLT reads: “One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.” – Job 1:6

    The King James describes them as the “sons of God [‘elohiym] and the NIV describes them as “angels.” Satan is one of these supernatural beings unseen by Job (and mankind).

    The LORD [Yĕhovah] said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”

    Job 2:2 NASB

    Consider it: Satan, an unseen angel opposed to God, walking about among men inciting us (with the Lord’s consent) toward evil.

    διάβολος – diabolos

    Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil… And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God…

    Matthew 4:1,3a

    Of course Satan knew the incarnate Son of God, led by the Holy Spirit of the Lord God! Yet the devil, the accuser of man, tempted Jesus just like he did deceive man in the beginning of creation.

    the Dragon and Serpent

    Fearful images: mythical? Perhaps. The great deceiver would have you believe that. But possibly these serpents command such unimaginable evil that man dare not give these any hint of existence.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John uncovers a fearful glimpse into the end which includes these representations of evil power.

    drakōn – It is the same beast of eden from the Hebrew of Genesis 3:

    Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.

    In another unseen future apocalypse in heaven John reveals:

    And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war… – Revelation 12:7 NASB

    War — between the unseen forces of good and evil. Can you imagine that? Could a decisive defeat of these devils and Satan soon inaugurate a new heavens and a new earth without evil?

    Surely men of dust decaying with each mortal day will become caught in the middle of this battle between good and evil.

    Where do you stand? Who is your champion in this life — and the next?

    Who will stand beside your soul at the Judgment when the Accuser recounts all of your sins before the Judge Who IS?

    This October series, Because the Days are Evil,
To be continued, God-willing...

  • God’s Love Through John – Sign of a Raised Serpent

    God’s Love Through John – Sign of a Raised Serpent

    He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

    Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 20:2 CSB

    A Sign for followers of Moses

    The Apostle John mentions the serpent in Revelation and also as a sign to the Jews in the Gospel of John. Jesus knew well the symbolism presented to Nicodemus associated with Moses, but He presents a connection to the Cross and what the Lord will teach to all as the purpose of His Incarnation.

    And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

    John 3:14 KJV

     

    You may have missed the familiar symbolism of the serpent in some translations using ‘snake’ or ‘bronze snake on a pole,’ so we will explore this from the Book of Numbers. But first, let’s return to the context of this conversation in John’s Gospel.

    “Are you a teacher of Israel…?

    We began our look at a theological debate between Nicodemus and Christ Jesus which the Apostle John records in God’s Love Through John: Of water and the Spirit. We associate Nicodemus mostly with Jesus’ clear answer to the initial question of the Israelite leader.

    John 3:4 KJV Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

    Nicodemus is already old by measure of lifespans of his day. He is a ruler of the council and the most prominent Pharisee of the Temple, who must come to Jesus at night to have this conversation.

    He receives reports from others, including Pharisees and other Temple officials sent to John the Baptist, who testified that Jesus IS the Messiah, the Promised One. And Jesus’ bold actions have already made this Messiah even more controversial than John the Baptist.

    Most certainly, Nicodemus was either present at the Temple as witness to the earlier destruction by Jesus in the Temple courtyard, either as it happened or immediately after the disruption of the order of ritual sacrifices.

    John 2:

    15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

    Do you suppose Nicodemus and other officials of the Temple council had a few questions for Jesus about this incident during the profitable Passover pilgrimage festival? Of course they did.

    John records (perhaps from a later memory after the Resurrection), 17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

    He quotes the scriptural songbook of Israel of the day.

    from Psalm 69

    • 4 They that hate me without a cause…
    • 7 Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.
    • 8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.
    • 9 For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
    • 12 They that sit in the gate speak against me…
    • 19 Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee.
    • 21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
    • 32 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.

    Zeal for the Temple; and reproaches of those who disgrace the LORD will shame the Son of Man, the Son of God to be lifted on a Cross!

    Jesus is well-known to many witnesses. Nicodemus, no doubt, has both seen and heard the evidence of the Messiah, the Son of Man.


    So the Jews replied to him, “What sign will you show us for doing these things?”

    John 2:18

     

    19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.”

    23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing…

    The Sign of the Serpent

    Numbers 21: CSB

    4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom, but the people became impatient because of the journey.

    5 The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”

    6 Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes [fiery serpents – KJV] among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died.

    7 The people then came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the Lord so that he will take the snakes [serpents] away from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.

    8 Then the Lord said to Moses,

    “Make a snake image [a fiery serpent] and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.”

    9 So Moses made a bronze snake [a serpent of brass] and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.

    A Sign of Healing

    Moses lifts up the brazen serpent in the wilderness

    The great symbolism of the snake raised in the wilderness connects

    to the very power of the Lord and Creator as well as the intercessor for the people; in the wilderness, Moses, and in the presence of Nicodemus, the miraculous intercessor healer, Christ Jesus.

    שָׂרָף saraph described as a poisonous serpent (fiery from burning effect of poison) is also the description found of a seraph or seraphim – majestic beings with six wings, human hands or voices in attendance upon God.

    … and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

    Numbers 21:9b KJV

    Are you a Teacher of Israel…?

    John 3:

    9 “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.

    10 “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied.

    Every teacher of Israel knows that the LORD requires sacrifice as substitution for sin. And all Pharisees knew the significance of the ‘Lamb of God,’ as the Prophet John had witnessed of Christ Jesus.

    Teachers of the Law and the Prophets recognized the challenge of the analogy of Jesus. Jesus next addresses the association of the healing of the Cross and the Resurrection to Nicodemus.

    John 3:

    13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven —the Son of Man.

    14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

    15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

    To be continued…

  • And they knew that they were naked

    And they knew that they were naked

    Genesis 3:7  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

    SIN – Original Sin. Let’s talk about the relationship of man and woman. Let’s talk about the relationship of a husband and wife to God.

    The question is always: Good or Evil?

    Righteousness or Lawlessness? Obedience or Disobedience? God or Satan?

    We are free to choose in each circumstance of life.

    What will it be: Life? Or will we choose sin and death?

    Let us look back to the creation of mankind before sin and the consequence beyond.

    The Creation of Man and Woman

    7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (soul).

    15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

    One Commandment. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    Why would you want to know that? God will tell you what is good. You have no need to know of evil. (Surely the angel Satan plots evil against God. Satan has already fallen from heaven as far as the earth, though this is yet paradise before sin.) “You will know good from evil, like God. Choose whatever you want. You do not have to obey God.”

    18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

    It is NOT good that a man should be alone, nor is it good that a woman should be alone. God creates a special intimate relationship. The KJV states: ‘ I will make him an help meet for him.’  That is: one who helps the man.

    21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

    “This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

    The woman is NOT made from the dust of the earth, but from part of the man. She is near to him – part of him. And she is his helper.

    Note now that the Bible calls the woman his wife. They were naked and were not ashamed. (It was not evil to be naked.) They were naked before God, in whose image they were made.

    Enter Satan and evil (of which Adam and Eve had no knowledge). One commandment from God: Do NOT eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Simple. No other rules. Paradise! Obey God’s one rule and that’s it. The man and his wife had complete blessing from God and they knew nothing else.

    The Fall

    3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

    He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

    Obedience does not require knowledge, only discernment to obey.

    The tempter will always question God. “Did God really say…?” The tempter will always seek your disobedience to God’s will by causing you to question God’s motives.

    Thy will be done? Yes but, MY will be done first! The sin of disobedience.

    6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

    The tree looked to be good for food. The fruit was a delight to the eyes. No, Eve was not blind prior to this, nor was Adam. They beheld the glory and beauty of each other. They beheld the glory of paradise, of all of the garden of God’s creation which they tended as gardeners or caretakers – God’s garden, with man the caretaker. Yet the only commandment of their Lord they willingly disobeyed: original sin.

    And now, consequence.

    Adam and Eve now know that their disobedience is evil. In fact, they see and know all good and all evil. They were naked and ashamed (perhaps not of the desirable site of each other, but certainly of being looked on by God their Lord and Maker).

    They make excuses to God for their sin. (Sound familiar?) Then God pronounces judgment.

    16 To the woman he said,

    “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
    Your desire

    (We are talking ‘sexual desire here.)

    shall be for your husband,

    (Perfectly natural: a woman for her husband and a man for his wife.)

    But now, more than being his ‘help mate,’ the punishment of authority (since she did not accept God’s authority).

    and he shall rule over you.”

    17 And to Adam he said,

    “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

    (rather than obeyed the voice of God)

    and have eaten of the tree
    of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
    cursed is the ground because of you…

    This is the first use of cursed in the Bible in relation to man. The very first use was in the condemnation of the serpent. Good and evil; blessing and curse. We must hear much more of these in the Law, now that we have knowledge of good and evil. We must discern what is good to obey God and discern what is evil to avoid further sin.

    Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. Now mankind would learn the consequences of knowing good and knowing evil.

    To be continued…