Satanic Attack

Mark 16:17-18 “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” These words did not mean much to me until my family and I surrendered to go to the mission field in 1990 while I was attending Hyles-Anderson College, but they began to mean more as our family started on the adventure of following God's will.

While at Hyles-Anderson College, God had given me the ability to speak, understand, read, and write the Spanish language (new tongue).

While raising support on deputation at one of our first meetings, I left a Gospel tract at the front desk of the motel at which we were staying. A demon-possessed man came to our motel room wanting to know more about the tract. He bothered my family and me for several hours until we called the front desk for help. The lady at the front desk informed me that this man was harmless even though he was bigger than I was (I am 6' 4”) and had shredded 17 Bibles in their rooms while staying at their motel. That was in the good ole U. S. A.

A couple of years ago I was out visiting in Mexico when a young man named Ismael came running over to me and fell down on his knees weeping and begging me to help him know God. After talking to Ismael for about an hour, I realized he was being controlled by demonic spirits. I made sure that he got saved. He promised to bring his whole family to church. Now they are all saved and baptized and winning souls. Recently I gave Ismael's wife a position as a Sunday school teacher.

When I think of the word serpent, I think of the many times we have encountered poisonous creatures. My son Mark was the first to encounter one. He was only about five years old when he saw a hill of red ants and decided he was going to stomp them and try to kill them all! We had a Mexican college student from Mt. Hebron Bible Institute watching our children that day. My wife Kathy and I were in language school. The babysitter found Mark standing on this red anthill screaming. She quickly ran over and stripped him of all his clothing to get rid of the ants. Praise God he is still alive!

A couple of years later Mark saw a caterpillar and decided to stomp it in his bare feet. What he didn't realize was that this was not a normal caterpillar. It was what the Mexicans call a quemador (burner). I came home to find my poor son screaming in pain on the bed. The only relief he received was when we put a bag of ice on his foot. Later our youngest son Gregory accidentally put his hand on one of these “pleasant little creatures.” Thank God we had learned from Mark's experience how to treat the burn from their venomous spines. My oldest daughter Julia and I both have been bitten by small scorpions called alacranes. The sting from their tail feels like a wasp bite magnified ten times. It sends a tingling sensation up the arm or leg followed by the numbing of the tongue. Some people are more sensitive than others. Thank God these are not fatal like the scorpions in Durango, Mexico, of the Colorado River Valley.

One of my favorite things to do in Mexico is to find and kill (search and destroy) the hideous creatures. Tarantulas dig a hole in the ground about the size of a man's thumb. They are very easy to note. When I see one of these little holes, I immediately get some gasoline or bleach and pour it down the hole. I always make sure I have a machete in hand for when they come scampering out of their lairs. Then I chop them in little bitty pieces.

My favorite experience occurred one day as I was helping one of my church members harvest his bean crop. I lifted up a bean plant to pluck off the bean pods, and laying there all coiled up and ready to strike was a two-foot long rattlesnake. Thank the Lord he did not strike! He was in the process of digesting a field mouse, which probably kept him from being active. He met the same fate as all of the other serpents that I encounter as a missionary.

As deadly as these serpents can be, the things Galatians 5:19-21 calls the works of the flesh are so much more deadly. I believe the physical risk we have faced on the mission field is far less than the risk of not following God's will and seeing our lives being ruined by the works of the flesh.