According to news reports, Pastor Jamie Coots of Middlesboro, Kentucky died from a rattlesnake bite at the age of 42. Now this wouldn’t be altogether unusual, except that the snake was in his church.
The Full Gospel Tabernacle uses venomous snakes in their services. They take their peculiar practice from Jesus who said, “In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them.” (Mark 16:16ff)
They err by taking Jesus words promising His supernatural care to the apostles and making them into a mandate for themselves. To be consistent, these people should also drink Drano in their worship services and see what happens.
We shake our heads at such twisting of Scripture, yet we can all be guilty of doing the exact same thing. Jesus called it tempting God.
You recall the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness when the devil asked Jesus to jump off the top of the temple. The devil even quoted Scripture, Psalm 91, assuring Jesus that God would keep Him from hurting Himself. Jesus response was to quote the Law, “You shall not tempt the LORD your God.” (Deut. 6:16)
The snake handlers are not exercising faith; they are tempting God. It would be similar to you driving down the interstate at 110 mph rationalizing, “There is nothing to fear, God promises to protect me.” Well, God does protect His children; however, to purposefully put ourselves in harm’s way is not just foolish–it is sin.
We can surely trust God to watch over us. We can walk fearlessly in the way He lays before us with the certain conviction that our lives are in the grasp of the omnipotent God. In faith, we live confident that no harm can come near us apart from His perfect will and purpose. We can rejoice that our God loves His own and preserves His people.
But let us never try to force God’s hand by putting Him in a corner where He must act in a certain way to validate our “faith”. We are called to submit to the will and commands of our Lord, not twist His arm to do ours.
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