Mr. and Mrs. Cameron had been fishing all afternoon, and yet in spite of their different kinds of fishing tackle they had not caught a single fish. Over on the shore, though, a small boy seemed to be pulling in one fish after another. Finally the Camerons decided to go over and ask him what he was using for bait.
“There are lots of worms under there,” he explained, pointing to a rotten log nearby. “They make good bait, but they bite your hand a bit when you put them on the hook. Help yourself. There are plenty of them.”
Worms that bite? That just didn’t sound right, so Mrs. Cameron decided she had better check up on it. Going over to the log, she lifted it and found... a nest of poisonous baby copperhead snakes.
In alarm she called out, “Hey, boy! These aren’t worms. They’re copperhead snakes! Let me see your hands.”
Sure enough, the boy’s hands were covered with tiny bites and were beginning to swell up from the poison. They rushed him to a doctor who injected some antivenin to counteract the poison, and the boy’s life was saved. The doctor estimated that the tiny amounts of poison from the bites of those baby snakes would probably be the same as the bite of a full-grown copperhead. If they had waited another hour, the boy would have been dead.
Perhaps some of you are doing something just as dangerous as playing with poisonous snakes. The Bible tells us that: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:1212There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12).
The little, baby copperheads didn’t look dangerous. In fact, they even helped the boy to catch a lot of fish. But they were deadly.
So it is with sin. It may seem to be just a “little” sin, but in God’s sight it is so horrible that He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, to die on the cross and shed His blood so that that sin could be forgiven. Even baby copperheads can kill, and even what may seem to you to be very small (not-very-bad) sins need to be washed away. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7).
Suppose that the boy who was fishing with copperheads had decided he didn’t want to stop fishing and go to a doctor. Suppose he had said, “But I’m catching lots of fish. I don’t want to stop right now. I’ll go tomorrow.” What would have happened to him? He would have died, of course. He had to have the injection right away, or it would have been too late.
ML-08/24/1986