Beware of Snake Berries: They Will Surly Bite In The End

Beware of impostors that plot to grow in your garden. They look like the real thing, but are revealed as counterfeits when examined in the light of truth. A snake berry looks like a strawberry but it is poison.

There are many such charlatans that grow in gardens. One of them, Johnson grass, looks like corn. I know of someone who hoed around this weed for weeks before realizing its deception. Snake berries are a fraud that looks like strawberry plants. Their fruit is almost identical to a strawberry with one difference: They are poison.

Jesus warned of tares, a plant that resembled wheat: “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way” (Matthew 13:24-25). Since pulling up the tares would damage the good seed, the tares were allowed to grow until the harvest—at which time they would be burned.

Tares in our life often take the shape of wanting to help God out in the form of a good idea. When God sows a promise into our life, patience is required. Too many times, this patience wears thin and we take things into our own hands. The resulting “tare” tears up our life.

The life of Abraham teaches us this principle. God had promised him a seed that would be as numerous as the stars: “And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” (Genesis 15:5). For years Abraham and Sarah tried to birth this seed to no avail, so Sarah gives birth to a plan: “The Lord hath restrained me from bearing: Go in unto my maid; it may be that I obtain children by her” (Genesis 16:2). Abraham hearkened and Hagar conceived.

When Ishmael was born to Hagar, no less than an Angel spoke to her: “And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude” (16:10). Ishmael looked like the promise: a multitude had been promised; he was going to be a multitude. The only problem was—he was not the promise: He would grow to become an enemy because he was born an enemy.

Ishmael came about because Abraham got impatient. He had waited ten years for God to bring about the promise and nothing had happened. Isn’t ten years long enough? Surly there was something that could be done about this! After all, as Watchmen Nee said, “We are so capable of doing it ourselves!”

Beware of anything that “drives” you to do something. The driving force of such actions is pride and unbelief; they will drive you into despair and confusion. Love is patient; flesh has to have it right now.

With Abraham, Hagar was something he could do. When Sarah suggested he have a baby by her, it didn’t drive him to the floor in dependence on God: It drove him to action! Fourteen years later, when he was “as good as dead in his body,” God promised him a son by Sarah, who was also “as good as dead.” This drove him to the floor in utter dependence upon God’s ability:
“Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear” (17:17)?

Do not settle for snake berries. They will surly bite in the end!!