“THAT Old Serpent” gives us another phase of Satan’s character and power. The name takes us back to the garden of Eden, when in serpent form he gained the spiritual control of our first parents by his lies. In 2 Corinthians 4:4,4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:4) the title “God of this world” or age is applied to him, in his blinding power over the hearts of men. Again he is represented as transforming himself into an “angel of light” in 2 Corinthians 11:1414And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14). All this is his serpent character, and manifests the mighty hold he has on men spiritually. The great deceiver of the human race, luring on souls to their everlasting destruction! This power he exercises from the air above us. The Devil is not reigning in Hell, as so many think. Scripture never even hints at such a thing. He is now “prince of the power of the air,” ruling and blinding the hearts of men, from his throne in the air; and whether in heathenism, or in Christendom, by his lies and flatteries deceiving souls. I say it unhesitatingly, that every unsaved soul is being led blindfold down to perdition, a willing dupe of the Old Serpent! You do not feel your danger? So much the worse for you! Before the American war a Southern planter had a slave who used to pray a good deal, and sometimes pretty loud, and rather late. His master said to him one morning, “Sam you prayed very loud last night, and kept it up late.”
“Yes, Massa, I pretty full last night, and it hab to come out.” “But you kept the Missis awake, and I don’t see why you have to pray so much, when you are a good man.”
“Oh, Massa, de Debbil he boders me a heap, and I jus’ pray to de Lawd, and he fly away.”
“Well, the Devil don’t trouble me any,” said the planter, “I don’t see why he should bother you.”
“Massa, we went out to shoot ducks de oder day.”
“Yes, but what has that got to do with it?”
“Well, you fire, and you kill some, and you wound oders, which did you send me arter?”
“Why, of course, after the wounded ones.”
“What for you send me arter de wounded ones, Massa?”
“Why, I knew I had the dead ones sure, but the wounded ones might get away.”
“Jes’ so, Massa, and de Debbil he know he got you sure, and he don’t boder you, but he don’t know he got me, and dat is why he keeps arter me.”
And we warn every unsaved soul, that until you accept Christ as your own Saviour, you are under the personal control of the Devil! Oh that men and women would awake to this awful fact! Listen no longer to the lies of the Old Serpent charmer. Believe the truth of God, that Christ died to save you, and from that moment you step out from under the power of darkness into the marvelous light of God!
J. J. S.