Old Timers Called Sinners “Snake Bit”!

The Old Timers, our grandmothers and grandfathers knew how to read their bibles…and did. These were folks that were devout and went to church every Sunday without fail, rain or shine. One of the sayings they had, was “We’ll be there, the Good Lord willing and the Creek don’t rise”. Many of you youngsters have probably never heard that one, unless the saying was passed on to you by your great grand parents. because that goes back a long ways when they really did have to traverse streams and creeks on dirt roads in horses and buggies to get to church, or a neighbors. Another saying, the one in my post title, had to do with someone these old timers knew to be a “sinner”, who may have been a drunkard, or a “loose woman”, or some other individual who was thought of as dishonest, or immoral. They called these people “Snake bit”. The reason for the “snake pit” moniker was because of the scriptures in Numbers where the Hebrews had been sinning by speaking out against the Lord, murmuring and complaining, and the Lord sent fiery poisonous snakes among them, and some were bitten and some died. Then the Lord God made provision in His Mercy and goodness, and had Moses to make a brazen serpent on a pole, so that when they would look upon this image, they’d be healed. As you will see, in the scriptures, this was a shadow and type of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, that is to say, “Him who had been made sin for us”. The serpent on the pole represented sin. So, you see, there is a correlation between sin, sickness and disease. The Lord wants us to look upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified, who suffered death on the Cross, for our healing from sin, sickness and spiritual death. I hope you will see the connection the Lord made for us to understand, because it is a very powerful revelation that has to do with our being able to appropriate our healing, whatever the need.

Here is how it went…

“And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

⁶ And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

⁷ Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

⁸ And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

⁹ And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”

Jesus Himself made the connection between the Brazen Serpent on the pole, and His own death on the Cross, when He said:

“ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” John 3:14