Pam Ford Davis

“There is a rattlesnake in our house!” The woman’s voice was wild and nearly incoherent; the one at the other end of the line had to pass the phone to his wife in hopes she could understand. He heard her say “snake” and he headed to his pickup truck to go on search and rescue. He rushed to the home of his son and daughter-in-law with a plan of action. Step one: Search for the snake and destroy it. Step two: Rescue his frantic daughter-in-law.

The search and rescue story had a happy ending. They killed the snake and removed it from the house; a deadly serpent did not harm his innocent victim. The young woman had good reason to fear snakes; many carry deadly poisonous venom. Her ancestor Eve could have used a good dose of fright when she first caught sight of the snake in the garden. “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord had made (Genesis 3:1a NKJ).”

A rattler used cunning to devise a way to invade the security of a well-constructed house. The Serpent Satan pulled out all his tools of deception and placed doubts in the mind of Eve in attempts to persuade her to doubt God’s words and eat from the forbidden fruit. Sadly, it had a tragic ending; she yielded to temptation and Adam followed in her deadly steps. If only Eve would have called out for help…. “There is a serpent in God’s garden!”