Wilder Smith is my name, and when we
were considering getting engaged, we made a policy
that if we should have children, we would
bring them up to love God's Word.
And that needs a definite engagement to do
that in the, between the two partners.
And that means collaboration from your wife, and
this is my wife, Beate, here, and she'll
tell you how we set about doing it.
It was our habit every evening, before our
four children went to bed, to tell them
a gripping Bible story from the Old Testament
or from the New Testament.
If they heard the Word of God as
the last thing of the day, we thought
it would sink better into their minds.
And how they loved the Bible stories.
They loved David and Goliath.
They loved the Daniel stories.
They loved Joseph, Samson, and Delilah.
They just couldn't go to bed without their
Bible story, and they lived in it.
So when, in the evening, the call rang
through the house, the story, the Bible story,
everybody ran and came and gathered together in
the children's, in one of the children's bedroom,
and father and mother came, the children came,
even our au pair girls came.
And sometimes if we had guests, they also
came, and they listened to the Word of
God.
And this was the daily family hour, the
family event.
And the moment was, this was the great
moment of the day.
The stories we told were after this sort
of style.
Once upon a time, there was a people
known as the Israelites.
Now you all know who the Israelites were,
don't you?
They were the sons and daughters of Israel.
Okay?
And they lived in an awful captivity.
They were slaves for 400 years.
You know, as the people died off, grandfather
died off in slavery, and they remained slaves
in that country, Egypt, 400 years.
What they had to do was go out
and collect straw, reeds from the riverside, the
Nile, you see, and with the soil, adobe
sort of soil like you have here, they
made bricks.
And they had to deliver so many bricks
every day, and they worked until they couldn't
pick up one foot after another.
And they got very little to eat, but
they did get something to eat.
They had onions.
You all like onions, don't you?
And they had steaks to eat.
They did get a little bit of that,
but not very much.
And if they didn't deliver enough bricks every
day to help build the pyramids and things
like that, and houses, what they had to
do was to bend over and get whacked
with the overseers.
And they were the Egyptians who did that.
And they stood it until they got thinner
and thinner and thinner and more depressed every
day.
And then one day there turned up two
men.
One was called Moses.
You all know about Moses, don't you?
And the other one was called his brother,
the elder brother, Aaron.
And God spoke to them and said, you're
to take the people out of Egypt because
they can't live like this.
This is awful.
He says, God heard their crying and their
groaning as the people whacked them with big
whips because they didn't produce enough bricks.
Now, when they got out into the wilderness,
they had first of all to go through
the Red Sea.
Now, the Red Sea wasn't very deep, but
they could get through it.
It was very muddy on the bottom.
And while they were going through the Red
Sea, Pharaoh, the king of that country, found
that they'd run away.
And he came after them with his chariots
and horses, because he had lots of chariots
and horses.
And he said, if the children of Israel
can go through the Red Sea, I can
too.
And he drove his chariots into the Red
Sea after the children of Israel.
And they were on the other side, and
he was coming in the middle.
And just as the last Israelite got out
of the Red Sea, the wind stopped blowing,
which had blown the water back in both
directions so they could go through on dry
land.
The wind stopped blowing, and all the water
came in.
And Pharaoh and his horses were engulfed with
mud and water and drowned.
You know, some years ago, they were looking
for the remains of this Egyptian army, and
they found the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, who'd
been drowned in the Red Sea, trying to
follow the Jews.
The Israelites had got through free, no trouble
at all.
Now, after that experience, they'd seen all the
armies of Egypt drowned in the Red Sea,
which they'd just gone through, because God blew
on the Red Sea and blew the water
back.
When they got into the wilderness, they weren't
very organized.
They'd been a band of slaves, you see,
for years, and they weren't much of soldiers
or anything like that.
So they got out into the wilderness, and
there was no water and no food, nothing
to eat.
And so they started to grumble.
And when they started to grumble, God heard
their grumbling, and they'd seen what he'd done
to the Egyptians, and that he'd taken them
out of captivity.
So they listened to God again, and God
said, if you don't stop grumbling, you'll have
trouble.
And so he sent them little fiery serpents
about that long, and they looked like brass.
They reflected in the sun.
You know, snakes often do have a skin
that reflects.
And these little snakes were very, very poisonous.
When they bit you, you had just a
little tiny mark on your leg or wherever
they bit you, and then that little tiny
mark swelled up, and you got a red
stripe right down your leg.
And when that red stripe started to grow
right down to your foot, you suddenly couldn't
breathe anymore, and you died.
Now, thousands often died from the bites of
these awful little snakes.
So the people went to Moses and Aaron,
and they said, we won't grumble any more
about our food, because God gave them every
day manna every morning, which was like bread.
It was like Swiss rolls, you know, really
nice to eat.
And he also gave them, because they needed
a bit of protein, he also gave them
quails.
Now, you know what quails are, don't you?
They're little birds.
And they came up over the camp every
night and settled on the camp, because they
wanted to be near human beings, so birds
are like that sometimes.
And the Jews could just go out and
take as many as they like and put
them in their pots and cook them.
So they had Swiss rolls, manna, and quails
every day.
Now, it's very nice if it's nicely cooked,
isn't it?
A bird like that, like chicken, just breast
of chicken, you say, but tastes nicer than
chicken.
And they said, after two or three months
of Swiss rolls and quails, they said, we
don't want to eat this miserable food anymore.
We've had enough.
So when that happened, the Lord said, okay,
now what should we do about these snakes
which are killing so many of you?
So Moses said, yes, what shall I do?
Will you take them away?
The Lord said, no, I won't take them
away, but I'll tell you what to do.
You'll make a snake out of bronze, because
this was in the Bronze Age when they
worked with bronze.
So he made a little snake, just like
these little terrors that were biting them, and
he put it on a pole, and he
stuck up the pole in the middle of
the camp, and he said, if anybody's got
bitten, and that red stripe starts to go
down his leg, if anybody's bitten, all he's
got to do is look at the snake
on the pole, and that will heal him.
He won't die.
Now, people didn't know what that meant, why
they had to do that.
It sounds like black magic, doesn't it?
Just to look at a snake, and you're
cured of the snake bite.
It sounds like homeopathy, you know, but it
was God's method of dealing with the snake
plague.
So everybody who got bitten had to look
personally at the snake on the pole, because
you see, if you stick a snake through
behind its head with a pole, it's dead,
isn't it?
You kill it that way.
Or when you get a rattler, you get
a sort of a stick with two branches
on it, don't you?
You stick it into the ground over the
rattler, so the rattler can't get away.
Now, the people didn't know what that meant,
and they didn't know why you should have
to look at the snake.
Why should I have to look at a
snake to get healed?
They didn't know.
It was only Jesus, thousands of years later,
who told them what it meant.
Do you know what he said?
He said, as Moses, in the wilderness, put
up a snake in the wilderness, so that
anybody who looked at the snake to get
healed from his disease, he was cured.
And that was the first time the Jews
ever learned what that meant, in the wilderness,
to look at a snake, to be cured
of snakebite.
Now, why do you think that he did
that, put the snake up?
Any ideas?
Yes?
Jesus, who's crucified, if anyone comes to him,
he'll be saved.
Yes, but why did he connect him with
a snake?
It means that Jesus is connecting himself to
be compared with a snake.
Do you think we ought to compare the
Son of God with a snake?
I don't.
I mean, he was the most beautiful among
ten thousand, it says in the Holy Scripture,
doesn't it?
Do you think a snake is beautiful?
And a snake that's being killed on a
pole, I don't think that's very beautiful.
Yes?
Do you think that God did it so
that they would, like, trust him?
So, like, if they looked at it, that
they would be told so God would know
that they trusted?
Oh, certainly, that's perfectly right, that they had
to trust the snake would do it, because
God said so.
If he said so, that's it, isn't it?
That they had to do that, you're right
there.
But why did he compare himself to a
snake?
Because he said, as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of
Man must be lifted up, so that all
who trust in him should be cured of
the snake bite sin.
That was what he said.
Now, why do you think he did that?
Think about it just a minute.
Well, sin is like a snake bite, it
kills you slowly, doesn't it?
It runs down your leg, and in the
end you can't breathe, and you're dead.
You're right there.
Okay?
Any more comments?
Thought about it?
Why did he do that?
It's rather a funny thing to do, isn't
it?
To make a snake and stick it up
on a pole in the middle of the
camp so that all who've been bitten shouldn't
die.
Why did he do that?
Any ideas?
Has anybody done any zoology here?
Do you study zoology at all?
You will, being a teacher.
I'm not sure, but in the Garden of
Eden, the Satan was a snake, and he
could have used a snake so he could
show that he was greater than...
Yeah, he was a snake, and that's why
the snake is always a symbol of sin.
That's quite true.
But why did he use a snake?
Now, I'm going to tell you, if you
learn this, you'll have no trouble with your
biology when you get to doing your biology
for teaching little kids, you see, at school.
The snake in the Garden of Eden, if
you look at the old pictures of the
temptation of Eve, because it was Eve who
was tempted, wasn't it?
The lady who got the temptation.
And what did she do?
She brought her man down too, didn't she?
Her husband down too.
So you've got to be careful about you
ladies, okay?
Oh yes.
So you think of the snake, if you
look at the old pictures of the snake
tempting Eve under the apple tree, you know,
remember?
It shows, the old picture shows Satan, the
snake, with four limbs, that is legs and
two arms, and a beautiful creature he was.
Beautiful to look at.
One of the most intelligent animals on the
field, he says, of the field.
Now, do you think a snake is one
of the most intelligent animals in the field?
Do you think so?
How intelligent is a snake?
Is it intelligent as a monkey?
A monkey is quite intelligent, you know.
You get a gorilla, and a gorilla will
soon show you where you ought to be
if you're not careful.
Well, the thing was this, when Satan brought
Eve down, it says, Cursed shalt thou be,
and on thy belly shalt thou walk, and
with dust shalt thou eat thy food.
Because you see, a snake hasn't any limbs.
It hasn't any arms, and it hasn't any
legs.
Now, is that quite true?
You all know about the DNA molecule, don't
you?
That contains the program to make me and
you what you are.
Now, the snake, even the python today, is
programmed in his DNA molecule to have legs.
And under his skin, you will find little
tiny legs that aren't, that aren't to be
used.
They're too small to be used, and they're
under the skin.
So he's programmed, he once was programmed to
have limbs.
And he's also got little tiny remnants of
arms under his skin.
The bigger ones, the bigger remnants are in
his legs.
But he's programmed to have four limbs, just
like any other big animal that we know.
But when he sinned, and brought people down,
he degenerate.
He became degenerate.
He degenerated and lost his limbs.
And that's why he had to walk on
his belly then, and eat the dust of
the earth.
Because you see, he hadn't got the arms
to put food in his fingers, or to
put his food into his mouth.
So he had to take it, pick it
up from the ground, dirty as it was.
And that was the result of having done
wrong.
God let him degenerate, but he was originally
programmed to have four limbs.
He still is programmed to have four limbs
on his DNA molecule.
Now, you think what that means?
It means that sin brought him down, and
even made him physically degenerate.
Okay?
Now, he also was the most intelligent animal
of the beasts of the field, it says,
before he tempted Eve.
So he lost his intelligence, too.
He became dumb.
Now, if you look at the brain of
the snake, you'll find...
Can I use a hard word on you?
You don't mind, do you?
You're going to be teachers, the two girls,
so they won't mind if I use a
hard word.
He became secondarily degenerate.
That is, originally, he was much better than
he is now.
He's gone downhill.
You understand what I mean?
And that was a result of sin.
If anybody starts to tell lies, you know,
say little boys do, little girls don't do
that, not really.
If anybody starts to tell lies, do you
know what happens to them?
If you look at their eyes, you can
see they're not telling you the truth, in
most cases.
They get a sort of a funny covering
over their eyes, and you can't see what
they're really thinking.
They're sort of veiled, their eyes.
You know what I mean, don't you?
A person who isn't telling you the truth.
If you look at him very carefully, you
soon find out, don't you?
And that's what happened to Satan.
He degenerated, the sin took his limbs away.
And the old pictures, if you look in
the galleries, the art galleries, you'll find the
old pictures of Satan was a beautiful animal
which deceived Eve, but the sin brought him
down.
Now why did Jesus then compare himself to
the snake when he was put up in
the camp?
That's right, and it degenerated him.
You see, Jesus was one of the most
beautiful creatures, well he wasn't a creature, he
was one of the most beautiful organizations, organisms,
in the universe.
He was the fairest among ten thousand, it
says, doesn't it?
But on the cross, it says, we turned
our face away from him because we couldn't
look at him, because he was so ugly
and hateful.
You see, a man who's been put on
the cross has huge gaping wounds in his
hands, all bloody, and he can't breathe because
his arms are out like this all the
time, and in the end he suffocates because
he can't breathe.
And you know, when a man's like that,
suffocating, he's not very, or a woman, not
very pretty to look at, is he?
Horrible sight, to see a man, how they
could sit there six hours and see Jesus
on the cross, is a terrible thing, isn't
it?
The most horrible sight, to crucify the God
of life on a cross is the most
terrible thing you can do, to crucify anybody
is terrible, but to crucify God himself is
a terrible thing.
And just as the snake became degenerate, lost
his limbs because he sinned, or was the
means of bringing sin into the world, so
Jesus, the son of God, the most beautiful
of all beings in the universe, on the
cross he was the most hateful and ugly
sight you could see, because he took the
sin of the world on himself.
It had the same effect on him as
it did on the snake at the beginning.
It degenerated him, and the most beautiful among
10,000 became the most ugly among 10
,000, because he took our sin upon himself.
And that's why he said, as Moses raised
up the serpent in the wilderness upon a
pole, so that all who trusted in him
should not perish, but live and have eternal
life.
That's why he compared himself with a snake,
because he's the one who really took all
the things I've done wrong on himself, and
it had the same effect on him as
it had on the snake, and on any
man or any woman who does it today.
That's the reason why he took that particular
example to use, as Moses in
the So that all who trust in him
should not perish, but have eternal life.
Think of what that means.
Now, listen here.
This is one that I have talked to
my children about very often.
The four of them, just like the four
of my kids, you see, they were two
years apart, so we had them two years
upwards, two, four, six, and eight, and all
the girls in the house, and all the
guests who came along.
Now, there was once in the camp of
the Israelites an old grandfather, grandpa.
You call them grandpas, don't you?
And he was a bit doddery.
You know what doddery means, don't you?
Well, he was a bit frail, a bit
weak, and they were just setting the picnic
they were going to have, a barbecue, outside
their tent, when grandfather sat down on what
he thought was a log of wood, and
under the log of wood was one of
these wretched little snakes, these, you know, the
brazen, the red fiery snakes.
And just as grandfather sat down, he bit
him, just here, you see.
And grandfather stood up immediately.
He couldn't stand up very quickly because his
bones all creaked, you see, he was rheumatic.
And he stood up as quickly as he
could and called grandma.
And do you know what grandma did?
She said, where was it, dear?
And he showed her where it was, just
on, just here, you see.
And so do you know what she did?
She put her mouth to it and sucked
out the wound.
That's the only way to do it.
You see, snake poison in your mouth, if
you haven't got any wounds in your mouth,
is not poisonous if you eat it.
So she sucked it out for him.
And she got the wound as clean as
she could and put him to bed.
And he was all trembling, you know, and
the red line started to go down his
leg, the infection going from the bite.
And so they put him to bed.
And little Johnny came home from school.
You see, they took care that they went
to school, even in the wilderness.
They had to learn the Jewish, you know.
They had to learn the language and learn
to write and read and things like that,
which they did very well.
Just as he came to school, grandma said
to him, don't disturb grandpa.
He's very ill in bed.
He's been bitten by one of these fiery
snakes.
But you go and go and see him
when he wakes up.
So when he woke up, Johnny went in
and he'd heard what Moses said.
So he said, Grandpa, I see that's got
down to your calf of your leg, that
red line after the bite.
Have you looked?
Have you looked at the snake that Moses
has set up in the middle of the
camp?
Because if you do, you won't die.
But if you don't, you will.
So, Grandpa, do you know what he said?
He said, No, I sent grandma to do
it.
And she looked at the snake for me.
But it didn't work.
Well, Johnny said, Of course it won't work.
You have to look yourself.
Now, he said, I'll open the flap of
the tent so that you can look out
in bed just as you're lying there and
see the snake.
If I open the flap of the tent,
you'll see.
So Grandpa said, That's not necessary.
Grandma's done it for me.
No, said Johnny.
You've got to do it yourself.
You've got to trust yourself.
Otherwise it won't work.
Well, you know, Grandpa was rather pig-headed.
Some grandpas are.
You know what pig-headed means, don't you?
He was a bit stubborn.
You do use the word here, don't you?
If I say any word you don't know,
you tell me.
So he sank back into a coma.
And he went quite blue.
You know, his lips became blue.
And he couldn't breathe.
And Johnny asked Grandma what he should do.
So Grandma said, Get a cold towel with
cold water and wipe his face off with
it.
Wipe his forehead off with it to cool
him down.
He's in high fever.
So Johnny was a willing little boy.
He was a good little boy.
He rushed out and got some cold water
out of the reservoir they always took with
them on their desert journeys and came into
Grandpa.
Johnny wiped him off with his cold water
and he opened his eyes again to Grandpa.
Johnny said, Quick, Grandpa, you're not dead yet.
Let me open the flap of the tent.
So he opened the flap of the tent
and Grandpa looked out.
Grandpa shut his eyes and went to sleep.
Now, that was the sign that Grandpa was
healed, because if you go to sleep, you're
going to get better.
Okay?
So when he came round again, Johnny went
in and said, Grandpa, you see, I did
what I told you to do.
And it worked immediately because Grandpa was quite
sprightly now and he wasn't so rheumatic as
he was before.
So they started to go about their daily
work.
And Grandpa's job was to prepare the cups
and saucers, you see, for the table for
the barbecue they were going to have.
And he was out doing that.
And while he was doing it, he picked
up a cup and a saucer.
A little snake was underneath them and the
snake bit him here on the hand, right
good and drooly.
And he shook the snake off.
And Grandma came and she sucked out the
wound and pressed it, you see, to get
everything out of it.
But she didn't get everything out.
They washed it, but it didn't do much
good.
And then the red line started to come
out from the bite and go up his
arm.
So they put him into bed again.
And Grandpa sank into a coma.
Johnny came back and said, Grandpa, every time
you get bitten, there's only one thing to
do.
You know what it is.
And what was it?
Go and look at the snake.
And then you'll be all right every time
that that happens.
So they opened the flap of the tent
and Grandpa, after they put some water in
his face again to bring him round, looked
at the snake and he said, I feel
better.
He went to sleep.
So they let him sleep it out, you
see, and he slept for two or three
hours.
And when he got up again, he went
out to get some firewood to do the
cooking for the barbecue, because then they didn't
have any stoves like you do, you see,
they just cooked on wood.
And while he was picking up some wood
and he bent down his head to find
out a nice big block, one of those
rashy little snakes darted out of the wood
pile and bit him right on the cheek
here.
So he came in rather shaky after this
one because he had to pull it off,
you see, and it opened the flesh a
bit, the teeth, you see, pulled it off.
And Grandma came and she gave him what
they thought was a kiss, you see, to
pull it out of his cheek.
And she got out a lot of the
poison, but she didn't get it all out.
And the little red line started to go
down his face here.
In the end, very quickly, his mouth was
paralyzed and he couldn't speak.
So they put him to bed and he
went into a coma.
And little Johnny came along and put some
cold water over his face and brought him
round.
And when he'd come round, they said to
Grandpa, now you be careful, Grandpa.
If you go out there, you're sure to
get bitten.
You will.
What shall I do then?
He said.
Well, little Johnny knew immediately.
He said, Grandpa, don't put yourself in any
position where you can't see the snake on
the pole.
If you don't do anything which takes away
your sight of the snake, the snake will
bite you and it won't do anything to
you because you'll get healed immediately.
So Grandpa, always be in a position to
look at the snake.
So it means in our life, we've always
got to be in a position where we
can look to Jesus.
And if we can look to Jesus all
the time, the snake doesn't have any power
over us.
He can bite.
He'll bite too.
But it doesn't do anything to us.
We get healed right away.
You got it?
That's the story that I wanted to tell
you today.