The Saga of the Serpent

Satan is the master of disguise. He is the master and god (little g-o-d) of all carnaldom, yet much of the world’s “enlightened” deny his existence. Satan’s first exposure to man is found in Genesis 3:1:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Subtle, in Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, is defined as, "sly; artful; cunning; crafty; insinuating; deceitful; treacherous." Satan is a deceiver. What he portrays to the world as freedom and life is actually 180 degrees out. What Satan portrays as life, is in reality, bondage and finally, death. An excellent example would be the issue of pornography. Satan’s "erudite" social machine portrays many forms of pornography as artistic expression, and as the expanded, uninhibited and sophisticated modern mind. But what he portrays as good invariably results in bondage and death.

Today’s world is bound by sexual addictions in a variety of sorts. The door of pornography has been opened and it has led to immeasurable damage. A short list of situations augmented by pornography follows:

∙ Abortion;

∙ Adultery;

∙ Bestiality;

∙ Broken homes ;

∙ Child abuse;

∙ Depression;

∙ Divorce;

∙ Fornication;

∙ Homosexuality;

∙ Murder;

∙ Pedophilia;

∙ Psychological disorders;

∙ Rape;

∙ Serial killing;

∙ Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs);

∙ Spousal abuse; and more.

Satan, the serpent, is real and he is a deceiver. On the surface, the flesh is gratified, experiencing pleasure for a season, but the end result is bondage, death, and a cognizant eternity in a place called the Lake of Fire. Turn away from uncleanness while there is still time. Jesus Christ will break the yoke. Click onto “Further With Jesus” on this website for deliverance and life. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Revelation 12:9:

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

MAN SAID: There is no God and there is no Devil. We are the captain of our ship.

Now THE RECORD. For the righteous, the story starts good, even marvelously, and for the righteous, it ends good, even beyond marvelously, but all through the middle, the picture is fraught with evil. In the beginning, our great-grandparents were immortal and lived in Paradise, but one day, evil raised its ugly head, and that head took on the personage of a serpent. Satan, taking the form of the serpent, challenged the truth of the Word of God, the first voice in the garden. Satan, the second voice, suggested to Eve that there was another way. Eve, in an act of unbelief and disobedience, chose Satan’s words and his leadership over God’s, and Adam followed her pernicious ways. As a result of the choices made in Eden by our great-grandparents, they died spiritually and were booted out of Paradise the very day they ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve were now spiritually dead and unable to pass the sinless spirit of life on to their offspring—us. Consequently, we were born carnal; thus, we have the critical need to be born again, as Jesus said. Psalms 51:5:

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Ephesians 2:1:

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins

Evil is ever with the sons of Adam as a matter of inheritance, but is soon to be annihilated. Satan chooses the serpent as his ensign and the serpent is woven in the most intricate way into every aspect of society, which will become so apparent in this short series.

Consider the following paragraphs from GodSaidManSaid, “Dragons, Dinosaurs, and the Devil (Part Two):”

You can be confident of this one thing: no academic or spiritual discovery has ever controverted the Word of God. Never. Stand fast.

The intricacies of Satan’s spider’s web, by which the souls of men are snared, are beyond impressive; yet most of the time, his deceptions are hidden in plain view. Let’s take a more in-depth look at one colossal Satanic snare that’s hidden in plain view.

When one arrives at the house of faith, he or she is greeted by the Word of God and His Christ. When one arrives at the cathedrals (museums) of the anti-Bible people, he or she is greeted by a dinosaur, a dragon—their Goliath—a symbol of their organized rebellion against the credibility of God and His Bible. Should it then be any surprise to you that Satan—the enemy of the Cross of Christ—is known as the old serpent and great dragon?

Revelation 12:9:

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Revelation 20:1-3:

1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

At our house of worship, we meet Jesus Christ and the God of the Bible. At academia’s house of worship—their universities and museums—they meet the dragon, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and his companions. [End of quote]

The greeter, the ensign, of the local museum—their Goliath—has been toppled over, over and over again, but they continue to prop him back up. They must cling. The serpent continues to challenge.

Adam and Eve answered the standard questions asked by their children and their children’s children, such as “where did we and all of creation come from; why are we here; what is our eternal destiny?” and so on. These accounts were passed down from generation to generation, and as they passed, they were accumulating a myriad of distortions. These accounts are imbedded in the ancient, non-Biblical societal record: God, creation, the first man and woman, the forbidden fruit, the serpent, the fall, and so on. When Biblical accounts, such as the ones just mentioned, are discovered in ancient histories (albeit distorted) that preceded the writing of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the suggestion is that Moses, who penned the books, was simply passing on a hand-me-down account. The skeptics claim that the accounts and claims of the Bible are just old folklore and legend, and not the original record, which could not be further from the truth. Moses received from God, the Creator, a hands-on, eye-witness account of the making and history of the world. Moses was instructed by God to write the words he was being given very clearly. GodSaidManSaid has spent considerable time confirming the absolute inerrancy of these Biblical accounts via archaeology, paleontology, geology, microbiology, ancient history, and more. God’s critics often challenge the originality of the laws written by Moses, citing the Babylonians' 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar attributed to their King Hammurabi. Skeptics are obviously not aware that a host of the commandments and sacrifices were commanded by God and observed by the righteous long before Moses. Examples would be the Sabbath day, the blood sacrifice, “thou shalt not kill,” capital punishment, dietary laws, and more. All of mankind knew of these things, but Moses wrote it very clearly as well as new directives given by God. The book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is a hands-on, eye-witness record from the Creator Himself.

The serpent’s prevalence in both ancient and today’s societal fabric is staggering. All through this life, Satan will challenge the Word of God and those who follow him will end up where he is going, but to those who are willing to follow God’s leadership, the serpent is turned on its head, as will be so gloriously apparent as we answer the following email:

Please, I would like to know more about Nehushtan being worshipped as a god, or as one of the gods, of Egypt. I think I am in some form of spiritual trouble as I keep seeing myself in my dreams with raised hands, shouting “Nehushtan.” I am a born-again Christian; I need your help to understand what is going on.

—Brother Anthony

Please note that we have changed the emailer’s name to protect his privacy.

The following excerpts are from the GodSaidManSaid feature “Nehushtan:”;

The Word of God commands in I Thessalonians 5:18:

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

“IN EVERY THING!” What a magnificent idea. This marvelous position is enjoyed when we walk before God in faith and obedience. In Numbers 21:5-9, Israel is far, far from this principle. It reads:

5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread.

6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

God hates complaining and unthankful spirits. It behooves us as Christians to give them a wide berth. Of the original Hebrew adults who escaped Egypt’s bondage, only two were permitted to enter the Promised Land, the famed land of milk and honey.

Because of Israel’s sin, God sent fiery serpents into their midst. By God’s direction, and after Israel’s repentance and turning from sin, Moses is instructed to make a brazen serpent and place it at the top of a staff. Those who were bitten would look upon the brazen serpent and be healed. This is a prime example of the principle that the commandments and accounts of the Old Testament are a schoolmaster bringing us unto Christ—a very shadow of the Christ to come. In the New Testament, Jesus said in John 3:14-15:

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

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Again, in John 12:31-33, it reads:

31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

33 This he said, signifying what death he should die.

The serpent, of course, represents sin. Jesus hung on the cross on Golgotha’s hill, suspended between heaven and earth, even as the brazen serpent. He carried on the cross the atonement for the sins of the world. As we look upon that Christ of Calvary, we find atonement for our sins and the glorious, most magnificent new life that’s in Christ Jesus. The brazen serpent foretold the cross.

Were there really fiery serpents sent by God to plague the offenders of Israel? Did a man named Moses receive a remedy from God which entailed a staff and a brazen serpent? Is this Biblical account reliable history?

The following paragraphs are from the book The Bible as History:

Surprisingly enough, quite recently we have had archaeological confirmation of two occurrences in the Biblical account of the journey through the desert, which nobody would have expected in this connection. In spite of all the planning and systematic work, chance nevertheless has its part to play in archaeology, and chance does not always pay any attention to what the scholars expect! In this case, it enabled the Israeli archaeologist Benno Rothenberg to discover a “serpent of brass” and a tabernacle in the copper mine area of Timna (Wadi Arabah).

It is reported that there was a similar idol in the temple at Jerusalem which was not removed until it was broken in pieces by King Hiskia (Hezekiah) of Judah, who reigned around 700 B.C. (2 Kings 18:4).[End of quote]

Many years later, the children of Israel transgressed against God in the matter of the brazen serpent. II Kings 18:4 speaks of King Hezekiah and Nehushtan:

He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

The Bible as History continues:

The serpent idol naturally reminds us of the Sumerian serpent staff on a vase dedicated to the god of life, Ningizidda. It reminds us, too, of the Aesculapius’s staff of a later phase of Classical Antiquity, as well as of the numerous serpents of Ancient Egypt. Already at the beginning of this century, a German scholar, H. Gressmann, had asserted that the “brazen serpent” in the Bible must have been taken over from the Midianites with whom the Israelis were in contact during the journey through the desert.

According to the Bible, the Midianites were descended from Abraham’s wife, Keturah (Gen. 25:2-6) and Reuel (or Jethro), a priest of the Midianites, who was the father-in-law, adviser, and co-celebrant “before the Lord” (Ex. 2:16, 3:1, 18:1) of Moses. The Israelites are supposed to owe the strange cult of the brazen serpent to Reuel. It is not without a touch of dramatic effect that we note that it was at an archaeological site showing signs of Midianite occupation that Benno Rothenberg’s found an idol in the form of a brazen serpent five inches in length and partly decorated with gold. As though this sensational confirmation of an important part of the Biblical accounts of the journey through the desert, which have been the object of so much discussion, were not enough, this small bronze serpent was found in the Holy of Holies of a tabernacle! [End of quote]

Moses? The brazen serpent? Archaeology says yes. [End of quotes]

Brother Anthony, fear not! The interpretation of your dream is not the worship of Nehushtan, but of lifting up the Christ of Golgotha, the Saviour of all who bow before His feet. May the face of our God shine upon you with light and truth.

Next week, the Saga of the Serpent continues.

GOD SAID, Revelation 12:9:

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

MAN SAID: There is no God and there is no Devil. We are the captain of our ship.

Now you have THE RECORD.


KEEP READING


References:

Authorized King James Version

GodSaidManSaid, “Dragons, Dinosaurs, and the Devil (Part Two)”

GodSaidManSaid, “Nehushtan”

GodSaidManSaid, “Pergamos — Where Satan Dwelleth”

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