Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from Unbreakable Courage by Max Lucado.
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On November 17, 2002, a rattlesnake bit twenty-one-year-old Matt George on the lip when he tried to kiss it. George caught the two-foot-long snake on a trip to Arizona and tried to make it a pet. While friends were at his home in Yacolt, Washington, George grabbed the snake behind the head and gave it a smooch. His friends told him, “You’re being stupid,” but George replied, “It’s okay, I do it all the time.” When he tried it again, the snake bit him under his mustache. George lost consciousness, went limp, and his eyes rolled back in his head before he was life-flighted to a hospital in Portland, Oregon.1
Although Matt George survived the ordeal, his bizarre actions illustrate a much greater spiritual problem. Too often we play with temptation as if it’s a pet or something we can control. We’re wrong on both counts.
Don’t kiss the snake.
Do not give the devil a foothold. — Ephesians 4:27
I don’t mean to disturb you, but it is necessary to remind you: We have an enemy. We do ourselves no favor by dismissing Satan as a myth. There is an evil one. He has subjects. And he has targets. We are at war. Satan has one objective. He comes “only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).
You have peace? He wants to take it. Do you enjoy your marriage? He conspires to kill it. Discovered meaning in life? He’ll do his best to spoil it. He is the enemy of your destiny and the destroyer of your soul.
Nothing pleases Satan more than the disregard in which he is currently held. When academicians dismiss his existence, he smirks. When theologians relegate the supernatural to the outer margins of doctrine, he claps his hands in glee. He loves to see the church buckle under the weight of rationalism and God-¬scrubbed science. As long as we say he is not real, he can do real damage.
Elijah took him seriously even though the culture around him did not. Why the Israelites continued to dance with the devil is hard to fathom, especially after the impressive show-down at Mount Carmel when all the people fell on their faces and said,
The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God. — 1 Kings 18:39 NKJV
We’d hope for a widespread return to Jehovah. But, alas, that didn’t happen.
The next time we find our main character, he was again called to confront the influence of Satan’s oppression of Israel.
By this point Ahab and Jezebel were dead, but they weren’t forgotten. Their son Ahaziah, a chip off the old, demonic block, had assumed the throne. His story includes only one event.
And Ahaziah fell through the window lattice in his upper chamber which was in Samaria, and became ill. — 2 Kings 1:2 NASB
He took a fall. Perhaps he broke a leg or his back. Maybe he was paralyzed and in pain. Whatever his malady, he sought relief.
Where do you go when you hurt? When your heart aches? When your body throbs with discomfort? When the pain leaves you desperate and in despair? Some people turn to alcohol. Others to opioids. Still others to a frenzied schedule. How many turn to Jehovah?
Ahaziah could have. He was a Jew. He could have returned to the God of his forefathers. But, no, he continued the toxic legacy of his mother.
So he sent messengers and said to them, ‘Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness’. — 2 Kings 1:2 NASB
You read that right. Pain drove King Ahaziah to consult a false god, despite knowing about Elijah’s victory on Carmel. The king was aware of the drought, then the rain. He had every reason to turn to the God of his ancestors for help. But “the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart” (Matthew 13:19). He awaits in the shadows, ready to steal the kernel of faith planted by God.
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. — 2 Corinthians 11:14 NLT
The most insidious work of the devil is counterfeit religion. His deadliest attacks occur, not in casinos or gentleman’s clubs, but in temples and sanctuaries and mosques. Why? Because the human heart longs to worship. It’s the most natural thing in the world. God has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and our reach for the divine reflects our longing for him. The devilish cunning of counterfeit religion is that it mixes in just enough truth to make the lie all the stronger. Satan sold a bag of lies to Ahaziah. The king saw a false god, Baal-Zebub, as an attractive and sure solution to his calamity. A bald-faced rejection of Jehovah.
Centuries before this scene God’s people had a very different reputation than the one earned under Ahab and Jezebel. They marched into Canaan as a people known for bold faith in a mighty God. Such was their character that the prostitute Rahab risked her life to save two Israelite soldiers scouting out the city of Jericho.
I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in Heaven above and on the earth below. — Joshua 2:9–11
Ahaziah may have forgotten this legacy of faith, but Elijah hadn’t. He knew that he served the same God who had parted the Red Sea and toppled the walls of Jericho.
But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?’ Now therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘You will not get down from the bed upon which you have lain, but you shall certainly die.’” Then Elijah departed. — 2 Kings 1:3–4 NASB
The question was spot-on. “Is there no God in Israel?” Are you relegated to seeking help from an idol? Elijah dispatched the verdict to the king. You will not get up. You shall surely die.
Ahaziah responded to the news with one question:
“What did the man look like, who came up to meet you and spoke these words to you?” And they said to him, “He was a hairy man with a leather belt worn around his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.” — 2 Kings 1:7–8 NASB
Ahaziah asked the question, but we get the sense he already knew the answer.
The king reacted in fear-filled vengeance. He sent fifty soldiers to do battle with Elijah. Again the odds were against the prophet. Again the prophet was unimpressed with the numbers.
My imagination sees the captain in his regalia, a platoon of weapon-bearing soldiers behind him. They ascend the hill to reach Elijah. The leathered Tishbite, having just heard the voice of an angel, remains steadfast in the power of Jehovah and displays unbreakable courage. Long and heavy locks of unshorn hair hang down to his shoulders. His eyes are firm. He is so calm he sits on the top of the hill.
Nearer they come until within shouting distance the captain declares,
You man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.’” But Elijah replied to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from Heaven and consumed him and his fifty men. — 2 Kings 1:9–10 NASB
White-hot heat fell upon the soldiers. Just like that they were cremated.
Ahaziah, thickheaded and stiff-necked, sent posse number two. Fifty more commandos took on the leather-girded prophet. The result? Fifty more dead soldiers.
Ahaziah was obstinate to the core. He was on his deathbed. He’d sent 102 soldiers to their destruction. Yet he persisted in shaking a fist at God’s anointed. What would it take to soften his granite-hard heart? The king embodied this proverb:
Pound on a fool all you like—you can’t pound out foolishness. — Proverbs 27:22 MSG
Ahaziah commanded a third captain to take on the bedouin. This captain was smarter than his charcoaled comrades. When he saw Elijah, he climbed down from his high horse and begged Elijah to follow him to the throne room and meet Ahaziah face-to-face.
The meeting was arranged, and the prophet restated the unwelcome news.
Since you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron—is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His word? Therefore you will not get down from the bed upon which you have lain, but you shall certainly die. — 2 Kings 1:15–16 NASB
Once again Elijah does not shy away from standing up to sin. It is much more pleasant to speak words of peace. But evil actions must be rebuked. Moses rebuked Pharaoh. Samuel rebuked Saul. Nathan rebuked David. John the Baptist rebuked Herod.
Take note of this lesson: Steadfast faith confronts sin.
Consider the unbreakable courage of Elijah. He was alone, standing before a younger king who was surrounded by warriors and guards. Yet Elijah never hesitated, flinched, or paused. He stood on his conviction: There is only one God—the living God—and He alone is to be worshipped.
Ahaziah’s choice to consult a false god rather than Jehovah was a choice to play right into Satan’s hands. If Satan could destroy Israel, he could thwart God’s plan.
Remember what worshippers of Baal believed. They could earn the favor of their god through violence or promiscuous sex. For that reason the priests cut themselves on Mount Carmel, had prostitutes in the temple, and offered babies in the fire.
What would such paganism do to a culture? We don’t have to look far to know. What two themes dominate our society? Violence and sex.
On average, American youth will witness more than two hundred thousand violent acts on television, including more than sixteen thousand murders, before age eighteen.2 Weapons appear on prime-time television an average of nine times each hour!3 And what about video games, movies, and music? We are as violent as the Baal worshippers.
And sex? Thirty-five percent of internet downloads are for pornography.4 Every second more than $3,000 is spent on porn. Every second almost thirty thousand viewers are watching porn on the internet. Every day thirty-seven porn videos are created in the United States.5
Spilling blood. Selling sex. Sounds to me as if Satan is alive and well. And he would like nothing more than to be dismissed as a figment of people’s imagination. He propagates the lie that the ills of society can be cured by more programs, money, and research. Yet we find ourselves awash in the most violent and sex-crazed generation in this country’s history.
It’s time to take evil as seriously as Elijah did.
If you want to be faithful in a faithless world: Dare to defy the devil.
Yes, he is powerful. Yes, he is a roaring lion. Yes, he is a fallen angel. But yes, yes, yes—you are a child of the living God! You are sacred space. You are a member “of the household of God... a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:19, 21 NKJV). You and I are that special place where God resides!
The One who empowered Elijah will empower you.
1. “Man Almost Dies After Kissing Pet Rattlesnake” Gainesville Sun, November 19, 2022 https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2002/11/20/man-almost-dies-after-kissing-pet-rattlesnake/31619850007/.
2. Committee on Public Education, “Media Violence,” Pediatrics 108, no. 5 (1998): 1222–26, https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.108.5.1222.
3. V. C. Strasburger and E. Donnerstein, “Children, Adolescents, and the Media in the 21st Century,” Adolescent Medicine 11, no 1 (2000): 51–68, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10640338/.
4. “Internet Pornography by the Numbers,” Webroot, accessed March 2, 2026, https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/internet-pornography-by-the-numbers.
5. “Internet Pornography by the Numbers,” Webroot.
Excerpted with permission from Unbreakable Courage by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.
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Your Turn
Don’t kiss the snake! Dare to defy the devil. Sin is nothing to mess around with. We are called to be faithful in this faithless world! ~ Devotionals Daily