[Herman Periwinkle]

It's that time of year again! The annual Test of Faith™ Petting Zoo and venom drinking contest is upon us! This year, we have seven new rattle snakes from all across the U.S.A. and a brand new pit viper exhibit! Praise God, we only lost two infants at last years's event. But never fear. New infant rattlers were hatched this year!

Be sure to pet Casper the Cobra! One ounce of faith missing from your soul, and you'll be making friends with Disney's favorite demon ghost toddler! There's also a faith-kissing booth, where the unsaved can kiss their sinful souls goodbye. Just kidding, unsaved are unwelcome as always!

This year's venom drinking prize is a nice plain soda cake with no frosting. That and the reassurance of an eternal reward when your time draws nigh. Good luck!

[Elmer G. White]

Brother Herman,

The question of Serpents is always most interesting from the viewpoint of Godly Creation Science. Of course, the basics are clear: the Serpent used to be a normal Created Kind with four legs but unfortunately it had an unhealthy disposition to seducing women, and as there was only one around to seduce (Genesis 3:13-14), we know the consequences that we all have to bear. But what happened thereafter? Are Serpents useful or should we avoid them? Well, God did find some uses for the repulsive Serpent not too long after Creation!



Exodus 7:10
And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.


Serpents helped Moses to deal with the Pharaoh.

This was the first indication that Serpents had their uses for God and Jesus, and probably these transformations were mediated by the Holy Spirit Himself! Glory! During the desert years and thereafter God saw the utilitarian aspects of Serpents many times, as deterrents and as punishments.

Deuteronomy 32:24
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

Thus, we are beginning to see the Big Picture. The demise of the Serpent (the first one in Eden) was no accident. As an omniscient being God must have known of the harlotry tendencies of the first woman and of the serpentine seduction. Hence, the practical applications of Serpents must have been designed from the Start.

Jeremiah 8:17
For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.

Amos 9:3
And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:

This was the situation before the Magnificent Temporary Sacrifice of God in the form of the second part of His Trinity, Christ, Jesus our Lord. The Serpent had become a pivotal weapon to smite sinners, of which there were plenty albeit not as much as now with the Sodomites swarming and filling the void that should have been filled with the Fear of God with pleasures of the flesh.

With Jesus, we began to see a change. Some of the qualities of Serpents - hidden perhaps for a few millennia but available in the nifty and Intelligent Design of the Serpent genome - were recycled to help the spread of the Gospel.



Matthew 10:16
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Luke 10:19
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

At the same time, we saw the micro-evolution from Created Kinds according to the principles of Genetic Entropy and pre-programmed genetic information (that can never increase, hence, biological evolution is impossible) into nasty vipers on one hand and into the wise serpents, whom the disciples could mimic during their evengelizing.

Matthew 23:33
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?


We can assume that pharisees had some viper genes due to genetic entropy.

Here we come to your Petting Zoo, Brother. After carefully following the path of the Serpent to the present day we can see, how there is a symbiotic relationship between revolting venomous serpents and True Believers™. They can coexist. The Serpent was pivotal with the Woman in making the world this vile place it is now, but the snake fears God and seeing the image of God in the True Christian™ person, it still reveres Jesus.

Mark 16:18
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.

And the time will come, when the True Believer™ has finally subdued all Created kinds with domestication and/or extermination, including the Serpent.

James 3:7
For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:

Finally, it is time to consider Heaven. Not all Created animal Kinds will enter Heaven with us. Among those left behind are dogs (Revelation 22:15). But Snakes will be there with lions and sheep, and they will do exactly what God commanded during those early days of Edenic pleasures.


Jesus does not allow dogs to enter Heaven.

Genesis 3:14
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.

Verily, this all must have been meticulously crafted by Jesus from the beginning. All the anguish and sin and lost souls (into Hell)were necessary to bring about the glorious New Earth and New Heaven (but no sea; Revelation 21:1) and the Snake that can eat dust.

To conclude: your idea of a Petting Zoo seems well-founded based on this Biblical narrative.


Yours in Christ,

Elmer

[Youth Minister Harry]

The Boys Youth Group will be there with bells on! Last year, Brother Periwinkle invited the boys to bring their own snakes into his private display tent for a comparison. I heard so many boys giggle, but I could tell just by listening when Brother Periwinkle showed the boys his Anaconda. There was a hushed awwe in the tent! The boys are still talking about it!

[Daisy Mae Johnson]

Oh no thank you, Brother Periwinkle. I handled your snake once when I was a teen - and that was enough for me! Remember? You said you could turn your snake into a rod..... I didn't hang around long enough to find out. I'm afraid of those things!

[Des]

Would these clash with my Komodo dragon skin boots and Galapagos green turtle skin wallet? Because I've been wanting a belt to go with the theme.

[Herman Periwinkle]

Originally Posted by Des

Would these clash with my Komodo dragon skin boots and Galapagos green turtle skin wallet? Because I've been wanting a belt to go with the theme.

Brother Des, much like the Landover Bistro, you may pick out which animal you would like to see slaughtered as it is still grazing (or in this case slithering). You just point to the future belt you want and I'll pull out my whittling knife and cut that little bugger's head off for you right then and there. You can walk out of the tent with the freshest belt in town! Praise God who gives us dominion over the animals (Genesis 1:26-28)!

[MitzaLizalor]

Originally Posted by Herman Periwinkle

Genesis 1:26-28

The very passage I was thinking of! And after the flood Noah was reassured that dominion should continue with AN ADDED BLESSING.

Genesis 9:1-2 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. kjv

Animals are not only to be dominated but they are to fear and dread us too. It is important to notice how God delivers Christians from serpents not only in the absence of biting but in the actual pumping of venom.

Acts 28:2-6 The barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. kjv

But serpents can also be used as prophecy. Is it an accident that the snake in Hieronymus Bosch's Eden scene anticipates arch-liberal Thomas Paine by more than two centuries? A man whose idea that THE RIGHTS OF MAN are not privileges or rewards for diligence seems to come from the same trough as Satan's idea about the RIGHT TO KNOWLEDGE even when God has prohibited it? How could the artist have known?

When you consider that Bosch died some 220 years before Thomas Paine was born, we see a word of warning connecting serpentine allure with the grotesque appetites at large in the world deriving from Paine's ravings we know so well today.

complete triptych here
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