IN the epic 1956 film The Ten Commandments, the heir-apparent to the throne of Egypt takes the ostracized Israelite Moses to the Midian desert and tells him: “You have the scorpion, the lizard and the serpent for subjects. Rule over them if you can.”
When the son of Ramesses uttered these words, he in reality threw an everlasting challenge to those who profess to follow the God of Heaven.
Many are the scorpions, lizards and serpents that torment both the world and the Church in these evil arid times; creatures that we Christians can only ignore at our own peril.
These creatures signify spiritual cannibalism or eating one another up (scorpions), uncleanness and ever-present bad habits (lizards), and lethal deceit (serpents).
Today the Church is in mass production of broken people hurt by financial deception, sex scandal, betrayal of HIV victims, disappointment, church injustice and other evils.
It would appear that the upcoming pharaoh’s remarks were responded to by Jesus Christ who said (Luke 10:19): “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” He proceeded to say that Christians should rejoice primarily that their names are written in Heaven rather than that the evil spirits are subject to them, meaning that it is of greatest importance to be first of all identified with God, which provides the means to deal with the spirits.
“Rule over them if you can.”
Moses eventually did rule over them and even over nature itself until Joshua succeeded him.
Today, there are serious questions about how many believers have assumed this kingship in spiritual terms.
In November 2003, a pastor of Chelston in Lusaka was with his wife sentenced to death, proving how calamitously things have changed in some of our churches.
It came just months after another church shocked the nation when some of its members were arrested for harbouring arms illegally.
In between, pastors had gone to court for adultery as reported in the media almost daily.
We who consider ourselves Christians, shepherds and sheep alike, should not forget so easily that two of our own kind were sentenced to death for being what a judge called “tabernacles of evil.”
They were convicted for having slain their housemaid in conditions that suggested that the pastor had been sexually involved with the maid.
We should not forget so easily that while it seems convenient that scores of shepherds and sheep are now behind bars for having committed various crimes in recent years, we on the outside are ourselves behind bars for failing to rule over the creeping things.
The sort of Christianity we are pursuing today is, to a very large extent, Christianity of the people, by the people and for the people.
It is far from the kind that the early Christians died for.
It is far from the kind that takes people to Heaven. It is far from the kind that takes people out of poverty.
It is far from the kind that enables people to rule over themselves and to “rule over them.”
Instead, it makes people prisoners of barren religion and takes them to jail. It allows moral instability among those in top church positions.
It makes people subjects of scorpions, lizards and serpents instead of empowering them to trample on these demonic powers.
Money
The entire realm of Christendom has suffered heart seizures because of money. Taking a coin, Jesus asked the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians (Matthew 22:20): “Whose image and inscription is this?”
While the Bible says that money answers all things, it also shows that money does not bear God’s image. It bears the image of earthly power.
This is why money is not neutral; it is sufficiently powerful in and of itself to bring the most upright to their knees. It buys thrones, it forges university degrees, it breaks marriages and it buys sex. It can do all these things but cannot buy love, honour, security and a home.
Money is not neutral, and those who seek it with all their being pierce themselves with many sorrows.
In his 1894 release The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling tells a story in which, among many things, people attempt to penetrate The Monkey City and get hold of its white gold, diamonds and pearls.
The story, now acted out in a range of popular movie versions, shows how those people who venture into the depths of the structure to collect the untold wealth perish at the fangs of a massive serpent that resides therein.
It simply illustrates that wherever there is an abnormal accumulation of wealth, the serpent rules.
We learn in the Scriptures that life’s goodness shall follow us as we follow Christ (Psalm 23: 6 and Matthew 6:33). If we follow riches for their own sake, the serpent in the pearls shall follow us (I Timothy 6:10)
In that case we shall not “rule over them.”
This is one place where we believers keep missing the point. The only place in Christ’s earthly life where He ever used a whip was in the temple when money changed hands.
This is precisely what many of us are doing today; luring the people after mountains of white gold that we promise they will get if they give. Therefore few give to God out of love and in some cases they give and lose terminal benefits and household goods.
It is also up to the sheep to awake. Many current teachings circulating in our churches simply do not even make common sense at all.
Because of expectations of reaping after planting a seed, many of our youths are unwilling to work.
Some have graduated into adulthood and are still dependants, the fault of some of our church teachings.
Bishops are qualified by having no greed for money (Titus 1:7).
Deacons too are required to be free of greed for money (I Timothy 3:8).
The plain and raw truth however is that many bishops, pastors and deacons and some spouses too are consumed with passion for money.
Churches are to blame for this to a real extent; few of them have ever provided properly for the upkeep of their employees (pastors) to the level of facilitating social security schemes to benefit them. In most cases, pension schemes are not there; gratuity is not there; loans are not there; salary advances are also scarce. Yet no professional in those churches would accept to work under such conditions.
As such, many ministers do their work in fear for tomorrow. This fear has driven some of them into dubious financial activities that have landed them behind bars.
This is why we do not hear many of them give truly nutritious, substantial, heart-rending, life-transforming, earth-quaking messages anymore.
Many messages are about money, and on top of that, are full of rebukes and insults to those Christians or churchgoers who live poorly.
Let us teach God’s children about sound, sober financial management. Avoid careless financial messages filled with abuse and falsehoods.
People who love the Lord will give to support His work
If they will not give they do not love the Lord. As simple as that.
But you cannot help matters by promising them brand new cars if they give the only one they have.
Let them, out of personal conviction, give the widow’s mite, if we should think of Christ’s approval of a poor widow who gave her two last coins in the temple.
Christ told a man who was young, a ruler and rich, to sell his goods and give—not to His 12 disciples but to the poor
This is not what we preachers are saying today. We ourselves collect VCRs, satellite TV dishes, cellphones, i-pads, wristwatches, suits, lounge suites, electronic goods and everything that we scare the sheep into bringing. These are not still waters that the Lord leads us by; but turbulent waters of doom.
The children’s entertainment movie Jumanji is a story where at one point people do all they can to get a hold of certain gold coins.
To their calamity, the coins turn them into animals.
What is money turning us believers into in this day? Dishonest financial and business practices have plunged the integrity of strong believers into the water.
But then this is an American problem that we have adopted as our own. Many American preachers are exceedingly rich not because of having powerful business interests (which we Christians should have if we possess the grace and ability) but because of swindling the faithful
And anything American is influential, hence the trend among ourselves.
As money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10), it sustains and fuels even more evil.
Sex
“Rule over them if you can.”
We Christians in particular are called to show forth the glory of God, but we have underestimated the lethality of our enemy.
There are innumerable spiritual reasons why we should not commit sexual immorality—AIDS aside—but we seem blissfully unawares.
It was R. Kelly who sang, “Let me see you move like a snake.” For now, let us state that those people who move or dance like snakes also bite like snakes and should be feared
They should be feared because they calculate, and after that they amputate.
A person no less than Super Story character Toyin Tomato, speaking in the first episode of the An Eye for an Eye series about how women should handle men, said: “Find them, frame them, finish them, forget them.”
That kind of woman in our society has been content to finish and forget the trusting man all for the five C’s—the cash, cellphone, clothing, crib and car.
But because the battlefield is turning ever more vicious, there is another woman whose sights are aimed much higher than that. For her, the C’s that the real man should have will also include the computer (with serious Internet access), cologne, complexion, class and connections—to make ten Cs.
When all is said and done, she leave him finished and forgotten.
The exact opposite of this is seen in the 4-3-2-1 approach that men have towards women: “Have four, love three, trust two, marry one.”
If you must survive, stay away from dancing snakes.
It was the Sakala Brothers and other musicians who said in their song We Are the Cure that “if you try, you die.” If you must be balanced enough and well settled with yourself, if you must be able to rule over the scorpion, the lizard and the snake, stay clear of every sign of evil.
It is enough that many believers have lost their marriages because of adultery or fornication; the numbers of the fallen (known or hidden from the public) are too great to be increased by another scandal. Importantly, if illicit sex becomes common and church people only whisper about it in quiet, then we have fallen to the poison of scorpions, lizards and serpents.
In view of the lethal secrecy of these creeping things, every man and woman of God should be worried about how powerless many church services and other activities have become in changing people’s lives in all spheres, beginning with spiritual and moral life.
The tragedy of the matter is amplified in the increased numbers of mega-churches in the US and certain other countries, which have been reduced to huge supermarkets by ‘domesticated’ scorpions, lizards and serpents.
If you can
The challenge for us Christians remains: “rule over them if you can.” Snakes, lizards and scorpions represent specific evils that we Christians have to come to terms with, and prayerfully work to oppose and overcome.
It was American author and clergyman Charles Mylander who said: “Once Christians, especially committed believers, believe they are immune, they easily deny that they are being tempted. The greater the denial, the easier the deception.
Little compromises sneak up on them. They treat the snakes as if they were domesticated and no threat at all. In fact, they may not recognize danger until it’s too late.”
There are approximately 2,700 snake species, numerous lizard species and 1,500 scorpion species, representing the many dangers that assail every child of Jesus Christ.
Next week we discuss those snakes, lizards and scorpions and their global spiritual threat to children. Comment:
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