Sermonette: Snakes Alive

Sermonette: Snakes Alive

Don’t Tempt God
#624s
Mike Ford (1955-2021)
Given 02-Aug-03; 16 minutes

listen:

description: (hide) Mike Ford, referring to Mark 16:14, rebuts the ill-conceived notion to handle snakes as an outward evidence of having faith. Snake handling has some following in the rural southeast, where some Pentecostal preachers actually have taken poisonous timber rattlers into the pulpits, suffering numerous fatal bites in the process. Poisonous snakes are generally afraid of people, but will strike if they are "handled." The intent of this verse was the promise of protection (as the apostle Paul experienced in Acts 28:16), not a rash challenge to tempt God, expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy 6:16.