Man bitten by severed head of rattlesnake

A man in Texas nearly died when he was bitten by the severed head of a four-foot rattlesnake.

Jennifer Sutcliffe told a Corpus Christi news station that her husband had been clearing their yard over Memorial Day weekend when he saw and decapitated the snake. When he picked up the dead rattlesnake to dispose of it, the head bit him and released an almost fatal amount of venom.

He was flown to a hospital and treated with twenty-six doses of antivenom.

“When poisons become fashionable”

Like the dead rattlesnake, our crucified “old self” can still attack us.

Paul declared, “We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).

And yet the apostle admitted, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Romans 7:18-20).

Is his dilemma familiar to you? It is to me.

Some sins in the news are beyond our comprehension. For instance, an Arkansas man admitted in court this week that he intentionally contracted HIV so he could expose others to the virus. He also pled guilty to several other heinous crimes.

A twenty-three-year-old driver in Boston allegedly struck and killed an eighty-year-old man on Wednesday. Following the fatal crash, he told reporters that he did not intend to hit the man. “People hit and run people all the time,” he said.

Other sins are more mundane. Lying, coveting, and refusing to forgive people seldom make the news, but they are nonetheless just as sinful as crimes that generate headlines. And just as deadly (Romans 6:23).

C. S. Lewis warned: “When poisons become fashionable,…