THE NEW EWE

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'"

Luke 15:4-6

September 15, 2021

LIFE IN THE FOLD:

I hate snakes! I don't care what if they are little or big, poisonous or non-poisonous..... there is nothing about snakes that I like and they give me the heebie-jeebies! I don't even like seeing snakes on tv shows or movies; and when people make posts with pictures of snakes on social media, I will either delete the posts so I don't have to see them again, or scroll by as quickly as possible.

A few years ago, I was walking outside to our back porch. I opened the storm door and had my head down to see where I was going, and felt something hit the top of my head.... then it bounced down hit right in front of my feet. It was a rat snake! Apparently, it was crawling over the top of the door right as I opened it up. Jon was surprised at how calm I stayed. I backed up inside the house as quickly as I could and hollered, "Jon! A snake just fell on top of my head!" Knowing my dislike of snakes, he ran in to check on me.... and the snake.... and got rid of it.

A few weeks ago, I opened our garage overhead door and was walking outside when something fell off the door right in front of my feet. It was another rat snake -- I think. At least that one didn't fall on my head!! I grabbed something and flung it out the door, not wanting it inside the garage or the possibility of it somehow getting inside our home.

Jon and I went to my family property in Missouri over Labor Day weekend. To the back of the house is an old wooden out-building that Daddy built when I was a little girl. My parents always planted a big garden and I think they may have hung onions from the rafters and would put potatoes on a shelf, with lime on them to preserve. Daddy would store our mower and other things in the building, also. I've never liked going inside the building, because it only has one small window and the interior is unfinished and it just seemed dark and dreary; like a place where spiders, mice, and snakes might hide out!

My oldest sister had told me that she had left an old wooden trunk in the shed filled with quart canning jars. She told me to take as many as I and another sister, who lives nearby me, could use. She used to always have huge gardens when her four boys were all small, and did lots and lots of canning. Nowadays, with them all grown, she doesn't need to can in such huge quantities as she used to did, so thought we might as well put the jars to good use instead of leaving them all sitting empty.

Friday afternoon, after Jon and I arrived and got everything unloaded, we decided to go ahead and go out to look for the jars. There's other things that have been stored in the shed, so we were looking around for the trunk. Being the big brave girl that I am, I stood right inside the door to look around. Jon was walking around inside the shed and saw the trunk towards the back. The latch and hinges were rusty, so he had to work to get it open. He said that right by the latch was a hole, where there possibly used to be a lock.

Jon opened the lid, and it was filled all the way to the top with quart jars! There were probably well over 100 jars inside. Jon was bent down, looking inside, and had one hand on the lid and one hand down by the top of the opening to the trunk. I saw something and my first thought was, "Is that a mouse or rat inside?" Then suddenly, before I could say anything to Jon about it, a black head popped up above the jars about 4-5 inches. It was about as big around as a golf ball. I yelled, "JON! THERE'S A SNAKE!" My voice tone is generally fairly low-pitched, but Jon said that it was very high-pitched -- and he didn't quite understand what I had said. He asked, "What?"; and I once again repeated, "THERE'S A SNAKE INSIDE THE TRUNK!"

Jon hadn't seen it, until I pointed it out to him. He said he would catch it and let it go down in the woods. I told him to forget it -- that I didn't want the jars that bad. He laughed and said it was fine. I thought he intended on trying to catch the snake with his hands, and I wasn't going to stand around to watch. I took off to the front of the house as fast as my short, chubby legs would go to sit in the swing in the front yard. Even though I knew that the snake wasn't poisonous, I didn't want to watch Jon messing with it!

It was only a few minutes later when Jon came around to sit beside me. He had actually tried to catch the snake in an old fishing net, but it moved where he couldn't get to it. It, also, was agitated and hissed at him. Jon said that the snake was 6-9 feet long, so it was a good-sized snake! He closed the trunk lid, closed up the shed and left the snake alone.

In all three of these stories, the snakes were hidden and showed up unexpectedly. I couldn't see the first snake, because I was coming from inside the house and it was up above the door when it fell on my head. In the second example, the snake was crawling or lying somewhere on the outside of the garage door, where I couldn't see it until it fell right in front of me. The third was making itself at home inside of a closed trunk, filled with jars. We had no way of knowing that when Jon opened up the trunk to get jars that it would be lurking within.

In Revelations 12:9 and 20:2, both say, "The ancient serpent, called the devil and satan." The first scripture adds, "who deceives the whole world." So satan is called the ancient serpent; and he is definitely a deceiver!

We first see that in Genesis chapter three. Adam and Eve were living in the garden called Eden and God came down to walk with them each day. How amazing would that have been?! He just gave them one instruction -- to not eat of one particular tree in the midst of the garden. They had full reign of the entire garden, but just one rule to obey.

Genesis 3:1 begins by saying that the serpent was shrewder than any animal of the field that the Lord had made. One day a serpent showed up and spoke to Eve, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from all the trees in the garden?'" Eve replied, "Of the fruit of the trees, we may eat. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You must not eat of it and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"

The serpent replied, "You most assuredly won't die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Eve saw that the tree looked appealing, so she took of the fruit and ate. Her husband also ate of the fruit. Because of their disobedience, when they heard God walking in the garden that evening, they hid themselves from His presence.

God called out to them, "Where are you?" They had never had any reason to hide themselves from Him before. Adam replied that he was afraid; and because he was naked, he had hid himself. God asked, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?"

Adam said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me -- she gave me of the tree, and I ate." When the Lord asked Eve about it, she said, "The serpent deceived me and I ate."

God spoke to the serpent, "Because you did this, cursed you are. On your belly you will go, and dust will you eat all the days of your life." Adam and Eve also had severe consequences because of their disobedience.

Was that serpent satan himself? I don't know, but I do believe that satan spoke through the serpent and used it to deceive Adam and Eve.

In 2 Corinthians 11:3, Paul was writing to the church and said, "I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to God."

The people in Corinth were living amongst a sinful, evil culture. There were those who had accepted Christ and were living for Him, but Paul was concerned for them spiritually. He was concerned that they would be led astray by those around them and that their devotion to God would be severed.

We see in the world in which we live today how easy it often is to grow accustomed to the sin around us. We don't necessarily like it and often feel overwhelmed by how sinful and liberal and open-minded our nation has become, but it feels like there is nothing that we can do about it. In fact, in order to not offend or hurt feelings or be labeled as being a bigoted christian or narrow-minded, we often keep silent. Many times, that can lead to allowing ourselves to slowly be integrated into sin, thinking, "Well, it's not that bad!" We can often justify ungodly and sinful choices that family and friends are making that, "They could be doing things a whole lot worse."

Much as the church in Corinth were doing, we allow the cunning of the devil to deceive us from a sincere and pure devotion to God. We still love the Lord and have a relationship with Him, but it's not as faithful and strong as it once was. We become satisfied with a stagnant, non-growing relationship with God that is no longer maturing and deeply rooted.

Like those snakes were hidden and not right out in the open where they were visible, satan is sneaky and cunning and appears when we least expect him. It may be in our thoughts, becoming offended, holding onto bitterness or unforgiveness, or in just slowly adapting to the sin of the world around us and not being bothered by it anymore. It may be in watching things on tv or movies that we used to wouldn't have watched. It may be in allowing busyness to interfere with us spending time in prayer and bible study, making God less of a priority in our life. There are many ways in which satan deceives us.

It is vitally important that we live as James 4:7 says: "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." When we live a life that is totally submitted to God, then it will be easier to recognize the deception tactics that satan uses against us. When it happens, we have the authority to resist him, and he will flee from us.

JON'S PERSPECTIVE:

Later, I did collect quite a few of the jars. There were two of them with insulation stuffed into them to make a nest. The holes left into the nests were about the size of mice. But there were no mice around. That's the good thing about snakes. Where there are snakes, there aren't any mice for very long.

If we hadn't had mice in the building first, we probably wouldn't have had the snake. I'm sure it was too big of a snake to just live on bugs. So first, we let the mice in, maybe through some rotted corner of the walls. They found a nice spot for a nest, with lots of bugs to eat, and a bag of grass seed, and probably a few other inviting things. Then, the snake came in.

Sin commonly works the same way. When we invite smut, we get mild pornography. When we tolerate mild pornography, we get worse pornography. When we put up with prostitution on a small scale, we get prostitution on an abusive and slavery scale. When we tolerate drugs for recreation, we get robberies to pay for it. Sure, it may be illegal in many states, but the modern mass media push is to encourage it, whether it's legal or not. When we allow bullying to the point of abuse, we get adolescent suicides. When we allow slaughter of innocent people in other countries, we will get slaughter here, too.

When we allow all that sin to go on, it shouldn't be any wonder that we have sickness, hatred, fear, pain, suffering, and death.

ON THE MENEWE:

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Stir in shredded zucchini. Combine dry ingredients; add to zucchini mixture and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until bread tests done.

THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER:

My niece and her family recently moved into a new-to-them home. This is how the unpacking went:

Mom: Kids, I need to put your stuff away in your rooms.

Jax: We're playing World War I. I'm Russia and Jemma is Serbia, because she's under my protection. Jaycee is Germany. (They were using the unpacked boxes and suitcases as barriers to hide behind.)

Jovie: Mom, will you just read to me? I don't want to play this!

SO..... yay for a history lesson? Jax is an avid reader, which is where he gets much of his information.

THOUGHT TO PONDER:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

OUR HEARTFELT THANKS TO YOU:

We love you!

Loretta & Jon

http://www.graysheep.org