Rattlesnake Roundup

Common Sense Commentary:  "Pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." Num.21:7.

I was raised in West Texas ... also known as Rattlesnake Country.  That's because our rattlesnakes are bigger and more numerous than anywhere on earth.  My home town, Sweetwater, has an annual Rattlesnake Round-up.  Our West Texas good ole boys crawl up into them rattler dens and drag them post sized old diamondbacks out by the tail and sack em up for the show.  They put a hundred or so of em in big four feet tall by twenty feet wide, empty water tanks at the Fair Grounds.  Then they walk around in the tanks keepin a close eye on them bad boys to entertain the crowd gathered around the tank ... watchin them snakes.  You can eat a meal of rattlesnake meat or buy a rattlesnake belt, boots or western hat ... if you like. It tasts like chicken with a big neck bone in it.

There's another kind of serpent country called Washington D.C. and Wall Street  where the snake dens are full of Politicians, Bureaucrats, Central Bankers, Vipers and Dope-heads. Not every occupant there is a snake or a criminal, but you have to wonder why those who are not don't grab those who are by the tail and throw them in a tank where we can keep an eye on them or make some boots, western hats and belts. If you think that is cruel and unusual punishment, the least we can do is send them back to their home dens wherever they came from.  Jesus showed His generation of snakes little mercy.

Several times the Lord sent serpents among a rebellious people to get their attention and bring them to their knees and obedience or to destroy them. Num.21:6, Deut.8:15, Deut.32:24, Jeremiah 8:17.  That is a tactic which He appears to be using on America and the world, today. I do not doubt it.... we have earned it, as a nation.

Jesus also spoke plainly His opinion of the Leaders of the Jews, to their faces, and called them "vipers" and "serpents".

 Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees... he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Matthew 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

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

You might ask, "where was His grace, mercy and Christian forgiveness when He said such things?"   There is a line beyond which there is no grace, mercy or forgiveness.
It is a degree of sin which reveals a lost conscience ... "Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron...."  1 Timothy 4:2.

"Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness."  Ephesians 4:19

If you are not a Christian, but still want to be, you don't have to be hopeless and have not crossed that line of "past feeling" with a "seared conscience". You can still be a Christian ... even if you are a politician or crooked Central Banker. Believe on the Lord Jesus and repent of your sins. He wants anyone who wants Him.
"That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." Epesians 2:12

It's long past time for a Rattlesnake Round-up in D.C. and Wall Street.