The Vipers Series

What is a viper?

Vipers eat their way through their mother’s belly. They have no mercy. They are very dangerous. The female viper is worse than the male. When the male viper bites a person, there will be two holes on the body, but if it is the female, there are four holes. The Lord showed me in a vision that He has exalted many people but serpents and scorpions are surrounding the ladder, so they cannot climb. The disturbing aspect of the vision was that I saw a fellow who, instead of climbing a ladder surrounded by serpents and scorpions, was busy feeding them. Satan has hidden the vipers of seduction, arrogance, pride, anger and strife in the lives of many and they strike at the appointed time. Many have fallen and never rose after being bitten by these vipers.

I know a very powerful man of God. He and his wife were about 50 years old. One day he said, "Well, this woman is not modern, I want a modern woman." He was told that it was wrong for him to take another woman. He said, "The Holy Spirit asked me to do so." He did and that was the end of the power of God in his life. What happened? A viper bit him.

There was a sister who was very powerful spiritually. Before her husband got to a crusade organized by his church, she would start singing, and healing would be happening. One day, we learnt that the woman ran away with an unbeliever who was living in their house. What happened to that woman? The viper that was hiding inside her life came out. It is a bad testimony to say that Mr. so and so was on fire for God in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s but now he smokes and drinks all over the place. One of the most powerful men of God who ever lived was one American. When he was preaching, you could physically see the halo of fire around his head. A lot of preachers have to pray and study hard before they can make any headway. But all that this fellow did was to read his Bible and any time he wanted to preach, an angel would be standing by his side telling him what to do. If you attended his meeting, the only way you would go away with your problem was if he was too tired to get to you.

Sometimes, he had to be carried out on a stretcher because he was tired. He was that powerful. But after sometime, he began to preach strange things. He said the fruit that Adam and Eve ate was not fruit but sex. He was preaching things like that. Little by little, this spiritual man backslided and eventually, died as a drunkard. This is why we must be prayerful. When we look at the story of Paul, we can see that the devil carefully selected the kind of audience before whom he wanted to disgrace him. These were:

1. His captors, Roman soldiers.

2. Other prisoners like himself.

3. The barbarians of the Island of Melita.

Remember that in the ship, Paul had preached to them and they had seen signs and wonders. It was before this selected audience of the enemies of God, church members and strangers that Satan wanted to disgrace Paul. It is amazing how Satan plans the kind of places and people before whom he plans to disgrace God’s people. He plotted to disgrace Samson before the same Philistines God had used him to disgrace, and he succeeded. He went to the war-front and died there. The same devil plotted to disgrace Moses before the same people that he led out, and he succeeded. The same person who said, "Let us go to the promised land. Let my people go that they may serve me," the same man did not enter the promised land. This was what satan tried to do to Paul. But at the end, he was disgraced before the same audience.