Echoes From the Campfire

When I’m in Rattlesnake Gulch I don’t aim to pick posies too unobservant.”
              –William MacLeod Raine  (Crooked Trails and Straight)

    “Lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
              –2 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)
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I remember, way back a long time ago, when we visited relatives in South Carolina.  I was a young kid, around seven, and we went out to the Plumley farm to pick blackberries.  Mister Plumley had a large stick in his hand and he would walk in front of us, slashing at the bushes and vines, the purpose–to scare away the snakes.  It seems that snakes and blackberries go hand-in-hand.  I might mention that poison ivy seems to like to intermix with the blackberry bushes.  
    Let me pass on another story.  I wasn’t picking anything, nor looking for anything in particular, but I learned a lesson.  It was something I already knew but at the time I wasn’t practicing.  I was up in Boulder Canyon, fishing down in the creek.  It was time to leave and I started walking straight up the embankment which was rather steep.  I was maybe a third of the way up and reached up to grab a rock to help me pull myself up.  As I placed my hand down, it handed on top of a snake.  In the twinkling of an eye I flung that snake up and down toward the creek and I scrambled up to the top.  Whew, my heart is beating almost as fast now remembering it as it did when it happened.
    Friends, we need always to be observant.  Sometimes we can be caught unawares.  However, when we know that we are in dangerous territory we should be even more alert.  Don’t be deceived!  Don’t be deceived in any way, means, or words.  Far too many people are gullible or they just tip-toe through the tulips of life and all of a sudden the find that there may be a thistle in the tulip patch.
Get in the word of God, learn and observe the doctrines of the Bible.  
    Therefore, watch out where you’re picking.  Don’t think you can go to a place of questionable amusement and not think that there may be snakes slithering about.  What out what you’re watching and listening to.  Music, including that in the church must be doctrinal.  Watch out that you’re not beguiled by the slick words of the enemy.