A Bag Full of Rattlesnakes: A Story of Triumph Over Tragedy

By Gene Hewitt

This is the comeback story of a pastor who, after 20 years of ministry, fell into the quagmire of an adulterous affair. A seemingly innocuous decision, made without consulting God’s will, precipitated his fall. The most difficult part of his comeback was getting beyond the lies of the enemy of his soul and his own flesh. His comeback was also hindered by the abandonment of others of the faith, some being those closest to him. However, through Christ he was able to triumph over tragedy. This book uses the pastor’s story, life lessons, and scriptural truth to help others achieve their own comeback. It emphasizes the truth that God never gives up on us, and the Father is always looking for our return home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385021253

Gene Hewitt

Gene Hewitt left his career as an instrument technician with Phillips Petroleum Company to pursue full-time ministry. He completed 4 years of study with Berean School of the Bible, culminating with being ordained with the Assemblies of God. During he and his wife Jan’s over 30 years of ministry, they have been blessed with three successful pastorates in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In addition to their pastoral work, this dynamic and anointed couple have traveled to Ghana West Africa where they conducted crusades and were instrumental in establishing four new churches. They are sought after in the United States as revival, conference, and camp meeting speakers. Today, the Hewitts pastor a growing nondenominational church they planted in Dewey, Oklahoma in 2017. Here a thriving congregation of new believers and seasoned saints from all walks of life are further discipled in their relationship with Christ and each other.

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Copyright © 2024 Gene Hewitt.

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WestBow Press

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Scriptures marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from the King James Version, public domain.

Scripture quotation marked (ESV) is taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2124-6 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2125-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024907082

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/17/2024

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1     Every Fall Begins with A Trip

Chapter 2     Unpiling the Pile

Chapter 3     How Did I Get Here?

Chapter 4     Bottoming Out

Chapter 5     Wallowing at the Bottom

Chapter 6     It Can Be a Long Road Back

Chapter 7     The Welcoming

Chapter 8     My Brother Is Back?

Chapter 9     Dead Babies

Chapter 10   A Bag of Rattlesnakes

Chapter 11   Came Out Better Than When I Went In

Chapter 12   What Would I Have Missed, Not What Did I Mess Up

Epilogue

FOREWORD

I thought I was doing a friend a favor by reading his book and offering a foreword, but I must admit the favor was on me! I felt deeply impacted by its powerful anointed message and by the writer’s renewed heart experience! I am better off after coming out from reading this book than I was before I went in!

Michael Tetrick

Dove Award-nominated singer/songwriter

To all those who never removed their hands from the bag. Without their love, encouragement, and compassion, I would never have come out better than I went in, let alone come out alive. Special mention goes to my son and daughter-in-law, Jared and Ashley Hewitt, and friends: Anthony McKinney, Jim and Faith Smith, Mike Bunch, and Roger Mattox and Oasis Ministries, all of whom helped drag me through the darkness, assisting in bringing me back to my Father’s house.

Most of all, I dedicate this book and my life to my beautiful wife Jan. Your grace, forgiveness, and love have overwhelmed me. You and Christ have made me all I am, my love!

INTRODUCTION

I have ministered to many types of people throughout my years in the ministry. Some have come out of bondage to drugs and alcohol and sexual sins. Others dealt with some completely different kinds of sins, maybe not as flashy as the others, but just as imprisoning. Being a shepherd to them is very much like dealing with a bag full of rattlesnakes. Just when you think everything has calmed down, the sin is subdued, and the battle is completely won, another tail begins to rattle.

That bag of rattlers always seems to be hanging around, ready to strike. I’ve ministered and prayed, prayed and ministered, and I thought those I was praying for and ministering to had finally arrived. I, in my ignorance, have declared them completely delivered. Then I receive the call a pastor never wants. They have fallen off the wagon, used again, slipped up again, and had another failure. You get snake-bit repeatedly.

Paul tells us in Romans 8 that even after we come into a relationship with Christ, we must still contend with our sinful nature. He tells us in Romans 8:23 (New Living Translation [NLT]): And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.

I love Paul’s writings. There are no grey areas. We (who?) believers (the saved) are yet to have our bodies released from sin and suffering! That means Christ’s followers are going to battle their fleshly desires. Just when you think you have spiritually arrived, your ugly, sinful flesh is going to rise up and say, So you think you’ve got it all figured out. Let’s see about that! Then the question arises, Hey, Christ follower, are you ready to rumble?

So we need to be ready when our sinful nature arises. We blame the people for falling back, but too often, the truth is we have not prepared them for the battle. We declare them saved, but we don’t warn them about their sinful nature. We declare them delivered, but we don’t equip them to live in their deliverance. We declare them victorious, but we don’t prepare them to live victoriously. The first essential is for them to realize their sinful nature, the very flesh wrapped around them, will attack them. The second essential is also revealed in the same verse: We have the Holy Spirit as a foretaste of future glory! We don’t have to overcome our sinful nature on our own. As believers, we now have the Holy Spirit living on the inside to equip us for the battle. Now, we can answer the question, Yes, we are ready to rumble. Let’s get it on!

Through time, the religious have tended to muddy the water when it comes to serving God. Before Christ came, they added to God’s law until it was impossible to keep. But this unholy custom didn’t stop after life was breathed into the first church. Even then, there were those who added laws to what you needed to do to be Christ’s followers, which were mainly continuing the old Jewish laws. The time I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s was the same. Our denominational membership cards contained their own do’s and don’ts.

How ignorant we can be when God Himself had already taken care of it all, way back in Genesis. Adam and Eve were given one law, just one law: Do not eat that! That is not complex. That is not muddy water; it’s plain and simple. Do Not Eat That! Now, let me simplify what God was saying to Adam and Eve even more: Obey God! Wow, is that it? Yes, like my daddy used to say, That sums it up in a nutshell! Today it is still the same, simply obey God. Paul says in Romans 8:26 (NLT), And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Listen to His voice and do what He says.

But in this book, you will find out it wasn’t one of the sheep that fell but the shepherd. It was a shepherd with a bag full of rattlesnakes, and God was left holding the bag. Yes, pastors fall too. Pastors just like everyone else must contend with their sinful nature. This signifies two things. First, everyone is susceptible to the temptation of the flesh. Secondly, keep your eyes on God, not man. Man will fail you, but God never will. Yes, God is bitten by the rattlers of the pastors. The cool thing is He never lets go of the bag.

So my prayer is this book will get into the hands of those who need to read it. I hope it will help restore them, bring them peace, help them overcome the enemy of their soul, and help them avoid the falls. Who needs to read this book, you ask? Someone who has had a failure. Someone who is still in sin. Someone who has just come out of sin. Someone struggling with sin. Someone who knows someone who has fallen. Someone who wants to minister to the fallen and the lost. In short, everyone!

CHAPTER ONE

EVERY FALL BEGINS

WITH A TRIP

If you think you are standing strong,

be careful not to fall.

—1 Corinthians 10:12 (NLT)

After twenty years of full-time ministry, I found myself a pastor without a church. I had allowed the enemy to lie to me. Not just one lie but lie after lie after lie. When I was a little boy and I wanted to do something, I thought my parents might be against, I would think up a plethora of reasons as to why I should be allowed to—no, why I should be required to do it. It was a snow job I generally used on my mother because she was much more easily convinced than my father. When Mom would see through my act, which was seldom, she referred to it as piling on.

Satan is the best at piling on lies! And wow, did he really pile it on me! Your wife no longer loves you, he piled on; God wants you to have someone that loves you the way you ought to be loved, he piled on; God created this relationship for you, and as it seemed my preaching was more anointed than ever he piled on; If God was against this relationship you wouldn’t still be anointed, and the piling on continued; You can be involved in this relationship completely against God’s Word and continue going where God wants to take you. I had forgotten the first rule concerning Satan—The truth is not in him! When he speaks, it is always a lie. I had also forgotten the first rule concerning God—His Word is the truth!

Satan’s first scene in the Bible reveals him as the liar we know him to be. He slithered into the garden on a mission. First, he lures Eve with a half-truth. Did God not say you could eat of every tree? He begins with a vile manipulation of God’s Word. He left out the exception, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We must beware! The enemy manipulates God’s Word to bring death and destruction. If we are not careful, we will find ourselves believing the lie of the manipulation or manipulating His Word ourselves, so we can make ourselves feel good about fulfilling the lust of the flesh. Manipulation of the truth is an attempt to dress up a lie into reality. Usually, we find ourselves manipulating the truth in an effort to make our wrongs appear less severe or transform our guilt into innocence. I found myself doing just that with my parents.

My dad kept a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol in the top drawer of his dresser in my parents’ bedroom. To my knowledge, it stayed unloaded, and my older brother Randy and I were lectured to never touch it. When I was ten and Randy was fourteen, our parents went out of town for