Nose to nose with a black mamba
Sometime back in the late ‘80’s after a day at a lake in southwest Missouri, my friend Betsy and I found a local diner to eat some home-style cooking. As we enjoyed the plates of country goodness set before us, we couldn’t help but overhear snatches of conversation from a nearby table. It seemed our fellow diners were believers discussing miraculous exploits and supernatural interventions.
We paid our bill and commented to the owner about the small group. He told us that they were members of the “End Time Handmaidens” organization and that one of the men at the table had been their guest speaker. This man was also the owner’s personal friend; would we like to meet him?
Of course we would! As the others in the party paid their bills and left, Betsy and I were introduced to the gentleman, Phil Cooper, a missionary to Africa. He didn’t need much urging to share about the event we had heard bits and pieces of while we ate our dinner at an adjacent table—he, his wife, their one-and-a-half year old daughter, another couple, and two single ladies had been abducted from their remote mission by soldiers of the Mozambique National Resistance army in May of 1987.
It was closing time in the diner. Phil had just started telling us his story. The owner needed to clean up, but was happy to let us stay and drink coffee and talk as long as we wanted. As he locked the door and put up the “We are closed” sign, Betsy, Phil, and I settled back at the table for a conversation about God’s miraculous protection long into the night.
The divine intervention that most captured my interest and imagination had to do with a harrowing experience that Phil, his wife Vikki, and their toddler Abi experienced one afternoon. The missionaries had been trekking for months from outpost to outpost with their guerilla escort through the jungles of Mozambique, pausing only briefly to rest, eat meager rations, and to “bathe” in portable grass huts by pouring a pan of water on their bodies.
It was when Phil, Vikki, and Abi were in the grass bathing-hut that God showed up to deliver them—just in the nick of time.
Phil told it this way: He was standing closest to the doorway of the hut, rinsing himself off. Out of nowhere, in through the opening, vertically and at top speed, whipped a seven-foot black mamba. It stopped short and reared up, nose to nose with Phil. Despite the fact that the mamba is Africa’s most aggressive—and deadliest—snake, the family simply froze, too startled to be afraid. And then, as quickly as it entered, it left, zipping out through the thatched wall only to be shot and killed by the leader of the captors.
After they were rescued and safely back home, Phil and Vikki began to share about all the miracles attending their abduction and three-month forced trek through the jungle.
One woman, upon hearing the details of the mamba encounter, asked Phil to tell her the day it happened. As they compared notes, she wept. “I was sleeping and the Lord awakened me so forcefully that I almost fell out of bed. ‘Phil’s in trouble!’ the Lord told me. I knelt beside the bed and prayed like never before with a deep sense of urgency, and then—just as suddenly—the burden lifted. Now I know why!”
Betsy and I listened in amazement to this godly man’s testimony of deliverance and victory, knowing that our “chance” selection of that little diner was nothing short of a divine appointment.
And as I reflect upon the black mamba tale, I’d like to address three perspectives.
- When you are nose-to-nose with danger: God—and God alone—can orchestrate your deliverance. And because He is faithful, He will. “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Timothy 4:17-18).
- When you are “knocked out of bed” with an urgency to pray: You have just been chosen to be a key player in God’s deliverance of someone else. Pray! Yield to the urgency and pray with the Spirit and your understanding. God picked you for this assignment because He knows you are capable of following through. So follow through! Someone is counting on Him to orchestrate their deliverance—and you have become part of that process! Trust Him on behalf of the one He so dramatically placed on your heart—and He will show himself strong. “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
- Concerning the devil: Realize that no matter how big, how fast, or how venomous he is, victory always belongs to the Lord, and the devil is defeated. “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place” (2 Corinthians 2:14). “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20).
May you always walk in the triumph prepared for you in Christ!
Dorothy
Read MoreAn encounter with cottonmouths
I used to listen to Christian radio all the time when I was a young believer. And it wasn’t Christian music I gravitated toward; no, I gobbled up all the Bible teaching I could find on my AM radio dial—both national ministries and some very colorful local preachers.
One of those preachers from around here was a woman I believe by the name of Jo Ann Bateman. I’ve done internet searches for her and have come up short, so if anyone knows anything about her, please share.
Like many of the local radio preachers, Jo Ann had the voice of solid country stock, and I’m thinking she hailed from southern Illinois or rural Missouri. She was a gutsy woman, bold and full of the Word and the Holy Ghost, and she traveled around to small churches and meetings as she preached the gospel.
I’ll never forget the radio program when she described what happened to her late one warm spring night. I remember it this way:
She was driving home from a meeting through a light rain on a southern Illinois highway not very far from the Mississippi River. Somehow she lost control of the vehicle and slid across the wet highway onto the shoulder and then into the mud. The car was stuck, but not badly, so she and her traveling companion determined that it wouldn’t be too difficult to push it out and back onto the shoulder.
Then her friend saw something. The ground, illuminated by the headlights, was writhing and thrashing–not still, not stationary. Nervously, she whispered a quick warning to Jo Ann, hoping it was just her exhaustion playing tricks on her eyes.
“Jo Ann, don’t move! Look! On the ground! In the headlights!”
Right then I imagine Jo Ann’s heart skipped a beat or two. They had careened SPLAT into some mud in the middle of what appeared to be a convention of water moccasins—cottonmouths—the most aggressive venomous snake in the region. And this was no small convention, either; evidently dozens and dozens had awakened from their winter slumber buried in the mud and rocks by the highway on that warm spring evening. And those snakes were none too happy with the metal monster of a car that had just plowed, uninvited, into their territory.
But Jo Ann Bateman, the gutsy, bold woman of the Word that she was, snapped out of her fear and into action instantly. As the cottonmouths slithered ever closer to the car and the women, Joann pointed her finger at the lead snake and decreed in her country twang, “My Daddy’s bigger than your daddy, Mr. Cottonmouth, and in the name of Jesus, I command you and all your kin to LEAVE!! NOW!!”
The words had barely left her mouth when the lead snake turned around and slithered away. One by one, every other cottonmouth followed suit. She and her friend were then able to maneuver the car out of the mud unmolested.
And then, days later, I got to hear about it on the radio.
In Psalm 91, the wonderful protection psalm, the Lord declares, “You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down” (verse 13).
But there are times (like all the time!) when you just don’t want to walk on snakes if you can help it! And thank goodness, the Lord has an “app” for that—it’s called walking in your authority in the name of Jesus!
What an amazing blessing it is to know that we do, indeed, have authority in His name!
Dorothy
…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth…Philippians 2:10
Read MoreConcerning snakes and shoes
Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Luke 10:19
You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down. Psalm 91:13
…and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace… Ephesians 6:15
Concerning shoes:
They are important. They protect the soles of your feet from the varied and sometimes treacherous surfaces upon which you walk; they provide balance and support for the rest of your body, enabling you to continue for the long haul in an upright position.
God has given you shoes for your feet as part of your protective armor. These shoes also protect your soul from the varied and sometimes treacherous terrains upon which you step. The shoes God gives you provides support and balance for your life, as well, so that you can continue to run your race for the long haul.
God calls these shoes the preparation of the gospel of peace. Shod feet are safe feet; the person who wears the right footwear enjoys support and balance for life. Do you want safe passage and a well-balanced, upright life for the rest of your days? Then wear the shoes God has provided—the preparation of the gospel of peace. If you abandon the preparation of the gospel of peace, you will be vulnerable as you hike through the various environments you encounter. If you decide that being prepared with the gospel is not very valuable, you will quickly become unbalanced and find that an upright posture becomes increasingly difficult for you to maintain.
Concerning snakes and shoes:
When I was a little girl, my mom took my sister and me shoe shopping. Easter was around the corner, but we weren’t looking for Easter shoes. We weren’t looking for sandals; we weren’t looking for Keds; we weren’t even looking for saddle shoes. We were shopping for what my folks called boondockers—leather hiking boots that came up over the ankles.
My parents had just purchased some land in the Ozarks and it was “snaky”. Dad and my brother already owned boots, but we girls were bootless and needed to shop.
I remember the consternation of the salesman as he measured our feet for the boondockers. He was beside himself, trying to persuade us that what we really wanted were cute little patent leather shoes for Easter.
“No,” my mom insisted. “My girls need boondockers.” It would have been thoughtful if she had explained our need for snake protection to the “Mr. Whipple” look-alike serving us, but I think Mom rather enjoyed shocking him. It was 1960; little girls didn’t wear such footwear.
After much hemming and hawing on the part of our flustered salesman, we were outfitted with our boots; and as we left the shoe store, in my five-year-old mind I was imagining snakes snapping at the thick leather, hoping they would respect the boundary at the top of my boot and politely limit their strikes to below the line.
I was faithful to lace up my boondockers every time I wandered out into snake country. Everyone in the family was. One day the five of us went out to pick blackberries, growing wild all over the place. Each of us was armed with a cleaned out, empty paint bucket in which to stash the loot we picked. (I ate more than I put in the bucket.)
We found a huge patch by the side of a dirt road running down to the river. I was by Mom’s side as we spread out, picking and plunking away, when she squealed as she sucked in a lung-full of air, leaping straight up.
“I just stepped on a cat’s tail!” she gasped. “Jinks didn’t follow us out here, did he?!” She was referring to our big black and brown striped feline family member who always accompanied us to the country.
My dad started poking in the berry brambles, “Here, Jinks! Kitty, kitty, kitty!” And then he jumped back. “Freda, you just stepped on a copperhead!”
Sure enough, hidden under the blackberry brambles was a large copperhead with a squashed head. Dad poked it with a stick to make sure it was dead, and it was. Freshly dead. Killed. By Mom—or rather, by her lethal, boondockered foot.
Awed, we all huddled around the carcass for a closer look. There it was, beautiful copper body with telltale dark brown hourglass-like markings up and down its spine—with a squashed head.
I am often reminded of this snapshot from my childhood. I was witness to a literal treading-upon of a serpent. Mom was outfitted in the proper footwear, and although unaware of the viper’s presence, she hit the bulls-eye. With one step she stopped the serpent, dead in its track.
We have authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means harm us. We just need to keep our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and we will do damage to the enemy simply by obeying God.
So often we fear the “what if’s” of life and are incapacitated by “what if I miss God?“. Do you belong to Christ? Have you prayed? Are you in the Word? Do you walk in love? Then step out without fear. Your Father will lead you, and if you miss it, He’ll lead you out of that place and over to the right place. It’s far simpler than we believers of the 21st century have made it.
And I believe concerning you—an everyday Christian—that a trail of viper carcasses litters the path behind you. You have been outfitted to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and as you’ve obeyed God in your life—even in the everyday tasks—I can’t help but believe that you have destroyed demonic schemes without realizing it.
Next time Satan attempts to incapacitate you with “what if’s”—seeking to intimidate you to back off of obedience to God—just remember my mom’s boondockered feet and the squashed copperhead. Step out, do what you believe God wants you to do, and watch Him perform great things for you and through you.
But don’t forget your boots. It’s snaky out there!
Dorothy
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church…Ephesians 1:22
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Romans 16:20
Message in a motorboat
For a summer and a half I had the privilege of working at Ranger, a primitive camp across the lake from the main camp where I was a counselor for six summers. The boys and girls at Ranger slept on opposite hillsides in tents and lean-tos and met in a central valley between the two hills for cooking, camaraderie, jumping into the lake off of a huge two-story diving tower we built ourselves, and for massive games of flashlight capture-the-flag under the night skies.
The most memorable session at Ranger was a year and a half before I got saved. Two of my co-counselors that session were Gordy, the Ranger director that summer, and Carla, both of whom were bold, born-again Christians.
The first time I ever prayed out loud to the God of creation was after jumping off of the Ranger diving tower while taking a midnight dip with Carla.
“Let’s pray,” she suggested.
“Here? Now?!” I asked, incredulous at the non-religious setting.
“Sure! Hi, Jesus! It’s so fun to swim with You under the stars tonight. I love You, Lord…” and on she continued as we swam in the star-illumined, midnight water.
I talked to Him, too, telling Him how cool it was of Him to make nature and summer and camp and freedom. I didn’t ask Him to be my Lord that night, but how could I ever despise a God who listened so attentively and lovingly to two teenage girls swimming in a starlit lake at midnight?
A big deal that summer was the copperhead infestation at camp. As more and more of the snakes were discovered, it became a badge of honor among the guy counselors to catch a copperhead with their bare hands. Even one of the female counselors caught one. I was secretly envious of her; I wanted nothing more than to say I had captured a copperhead with my bare hands, but alas, I had already been bitten by three non-poisonous snakes that summer at different times while holding them. I knew something was off with my snake-handling technique, and therefore, catching a copperhead—although awesome—was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
Gordy did catch one late in the summer, though, and holding it, asked me to drive him across the lake in the motorboat so he could release it way back in the woods. (We didn’t believe in killing copperheads back then. We all thought that “the children and the flowers are our sisters and our brothers”, a la “Rhymes and Reasons”, a John Denver song. That included copperheads, too.)
Gordy sat in the bow of the boat facing me with the copperhead in his hands. I pulled away from the Ranger dock and motored toward the other side of the lake.
“He’s trying to get away. If he does, he’s mad enough to bite one of us before flopping out of the boat,” Gordy observed.
“Well, don’t let him go!” I demanded, one eye to the lake and the other on the snake.
After a while, the snake stopped lashing around—and that’s when Gordy started preaching a message I’ll never forget. “He’s relaxing. His muscles are not tensed up beneath my hands. He’s just like the devil. If Satan can’t beat you by fighting, he’ll bide his time and seek a different strategy, just like he did with Jesus when he left Him for a more opportune time.
“You see, this snake is very aware of my grip. He’s testing me, I can tell, just like the devil does. He thinks if he backs off, I’ll get lulled into complacency. He’s waiting for my hand muscles to relax. And if they do, he’s ready. He’ll swing his head back and latch onto my arm!
“If a believer stands his ground against the devil, then the devil will back off—but he won’t give up. He’ll bide his time and watch for the Christian’s guard to drop and his life to get sloppy—and then, just like this copperhead, he’ll swing back and strike!”
I didn’t even believe in a literal devil at the time, but eyeing that copperhead as it went through its stages of fight and relax, fight and relax, everything Gordy said in that boat made total sense to me.
You certainly do have an enemy over whom you have authority—the devil. Resist him, firm in your faith, and according to the Word, he will flee from you (see James 4:7). But once he flees, don’t drop your guard; live not only harmlessly, but also shrewdly (see Matthew 10:16), armed with God’s Word every day of your life. That way, when the enemy seeks to return for a more opportune time—and he will—he will find you alert, ready in season and out, and without a single toehold by which he can slither back into your life.
Dorothy
And do not give the devil an opportunity. Ephesians 4:27
Read MoreThe rattlesnake
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field…Genesis 3:1a
A well-known fable is found in American lore. The Cherokees told of a little boy and a rattlesnake. In other American folktales, a little girl encounters the rattlesnake. The story even made its way into 1960s rock ‘n’ roll when Johnny Rivers wrote and sang “The Lady and the Snake”, with an encore 45 record of the same tune sung by Al Wilson.
Due to recent international events, I have decided to share this fable. When we place our trust in those who have a history of deception, treachery, and violence, the outcome is fairly predictable.
Here’s my version of the Cherokee tale:
One day as he was walking along a trail, a little boy came upon a very old rattlesnake.
“Little boy,” asked the snake, “would you please take me to the mountaintop so I can see the sunset for the last time before I leave this world?”
“No, Sir. You’d bite me if I picked you up and then I’d die,” replied the little boy.
The rattlesnake responded, “No. You have my word. I won’t bite you. Please, little boy. Take me to the top of the mountain!”
After considering the rattlesnake’s promise, the little boy reached down, grasped the snake, and holding it close, carried it to the mountaintop.
There they watched the lovely sunset together. Afterwards, the rattlesnake wanted to be carried home again. The boy carefully picked up the snake, held it close, and trudged down the mountain. He took the rattlesnake to his home, fed it and gave it a place to sleep.
The next day, the rattlesnake asked, “Please, boy, will you take me back to my own home now? Soon I will die, and I desire to be in my own home as I take my last breath.” Since the snake had kept its word to the boy all this time, he decided to do as the rattlesnake requested.
Carefully he picked up the snake, carried it close to his chest back through the forest to its home to die. And just as the boy laid the rattlesnake down, it turned and bit him in the chest. Devastated by betrayal, the little boy cried out, “Mr. Rattlesnake! Now I’m going to die! Why did you do that?”
Looking up at the little boy as it slithered away, the rattlesnake hissed with a grin, “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”
Trusting in a treacherous man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips. Proverbs 25:19, ESV
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