Part 5 - Wise as Serpents and Harmless as Doves

“God is down in front.
He is in the tomorrows.
It is tomorrow that fills men with dread.
God is there already.
All the tomorrows of our life
have to pass Him before they can get to us.”
Frederick Brotherton (F.B.) Meyer


Wise as Serpents and Harmless as Doves – Part5

“Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves;
be wary and wise as serpents,
and be innocent
(harmless, guileless, and without falsity) as doves.”
Matthew 10:16 Amplified bible

How are Doves Harmless:

Throughout the world doves have become the symbol for peace.

When Noah wanted to determine if it was time

to come out of the arc, he released a dove.

When the bird returned it had an olive branch in its mouth.

Noah knew that God’s judgment on the earth was complete. (Genesis 8:8-11)

In the New Testament the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist,

the Word says “the Holy Ghost descended

in the bodily shape like a dove on him.” (Luke3:22)

The word that Jesus used for ‘harmless’ is akeraios,

which means “unmixed, innocent, pure,

without a mixture of evil, and free from guile.”

Paul used this same word when he wrote to believers in Rome:

“For while your loyalty and obedience is known to all,
so that I rejoice over you,
I would have you well versed and wise
as to what is good and innocent and guileless [akeraios]
as to what is evil.
And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
(the Messiah) be with you.
Romans 16:19-20 Amplified Bible

Solomon used the dove

as a picture of the purity of the bride (the church)

in the Song of Solomon.

“But my dove, my undefiled and perfect one,
stands alone [above them all];
she is the only one of her mother,
she is the choice one of her who bore her.
The daughters saw her and called her blessed and happy, yes, the queens and the concubines,
and they praised her.
Song of Solomon 6:9 Amplified Bible

How can we be both wise and innocent?
It is all too easy for us to search out evil

with our eyes and minds and become exposed

to the corruption of the world around us.

In doing so, we can find ourselves in the same trap

that enticed Adam and Eve, to know good and evil by experience.

If we fall short in this manner we prefer our own will above God’s will,

our understanding above His wisdom.

Since God desires us to be wise concerning good

and naïve about the shameful activities of evil,

we must depend upon the discernment of God’s Spirit

rather than our own intellect.

“Beloved, do not put faith in every spirit,
but prove (test) the spirits to discover
whether they proceed from God;
for many false prophets have gone forth into the world.”
1 John 4:1 Amplified Bible

Another characteristic of a snake

is that they rely more on their sense of smell

than they do on their eyesight.

They literally “test” the environment around them

with their olfactory senses.

Their complex sense of smell gives them

exceptionally accurate information about their surroundings,

often giving them more than they could gain with their eyes.

In the same manner Christ and we as His believers

are called to dependence not on what we see,

nor what we hear, but what we are shown by the Spirit.

“And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him—
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge
and of the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord--
And shall make Him of quick understanding,
and His delight shall be in
the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord.
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
neither decide by the hearing of His ears;”
Isaiah 11:2-3 Amplified Bible

The wise will avoid danger and conceal themselves from harm.
The wise man is one who allows the Lord to control his words.
“The plans of the mind and orderly thinking belong to man,
but from the Lord comes the [wise] answer of the tongue.”
Proverbs 16:1 Amplified Bible

To be continued…
Through Christ our Lord, before the ages, now and forevermore

30 - 5/7

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