The mnemonic device used down here in coral snake country is:
"Red next to black is a friend of Jack. Red next to yellow can kill a fellow."
Posted on 05/30/2012 10:45:10 AM PDT by C19fan
A Pentecostal reverend known for preaching with the help of a rattlesnake coiled around his arm lost his life when one of the creatures suddenly bit him. Mack Randall Wolford, pastor at the Full Gospel Apostolic House of the Lord Jesus in Matoaka, West Virginia, died hours after receiving the deadly bite on Sunday - the day after his 44th birthday. Wolford’s father, who was also a serpent-handling pastor, died in the same way nearly 30 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Actually this quote is more appropos...
Matthe 4:7
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Snake Handling and other acts to “prove” God are the behaviors of fools and the ignorant. Tempt God to protect you, by willfully doing dangerous things to prove your faith in him, is idiotic and blasphemous.
correction-that should have read ‘proof’, not ‘prove’.
“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”
Tempting God to protect you, as proof of your faith is not only idiotic, its Blasphemous and directly ignorant of the word of God.
The mnemonic device used down here in coral snake country is:
"Red next to black is a friend of Jack. Red next to yellow can kill a fellow."
Snake :1
Idiot :0
The only good snake is one dipped in cornmeal and fried.
Stupid is as stupid does.............
This is the going to be the next reality TV show.
Right now they are doing Amish, Gypsies and Hutterites on NatGeo. SnakeHandlers is next, I’m sure.
There was a Southern Gospel music group, “Wendy Bagwell and the Sunlighters.” They’d be getting pretty old by this time. On one of their albums, Wendy, a guy, told the story of how they were invited to sing at a church back in the mountains, possibly in West Virginia.
Once the service had started and his group had taken over with their music presentation, he noticed that the pastor and several others had come up front and were moving around right close to his singing group. When he finally looked around he saw that all of them were holding rattle snakes and dancing to the music.
He said a lady in his group then saw the snakes and blanced white with terror. He said to her, “Don’t panic! Just look around and find out where the back door is.”
She said, “I already looked, and there ain’t none!
Wendy replied, “Reckon where do they WANT one?!”
It was hilarious to hear him tell it.
Was Jesco there?
Mea culpa.
It’s been part of Christian philosophy for years, that recently has gone by the wayside - people don’t seem to know it anymore.
The Christian American Philosophy in a nutshell (One of my favorite all time quotes from my favorite books):
“Pa, How can the muskrats know?”
“I don’t know how they know,” Pa said. “But they do. God tells them, somehow, I suppose.”
“Then why doesn’t God tell us?” Laura wanted to know.
“Because,” Pa said, “we’re not animals. We’re humans, and like it says in the Declaration of Independence, God created us free. That means we got to take care of ourselves.”
Laura said faintly, “I thought God takes care of us.”
“He does.” Pa said, “so far as we do what’s right. And he gives us a conscience and brains to know what’s right. But he leaves it up to us to do as we please. That’s the difference between us and everything else in creation.”
“Can’t muskrats do what they please?” Laura asked, amazed.
“No” said Pa. “I don’t know why they can’t, but they can’t. Look at that muskrat house. Muskrats have to build that kind of house....But folks build all kinds of houses....So if his house doesn’t keep out the weather, that’s HIS lookout - he’s free and independent”.
On some scientifical show I watched they claimed that by killing rattlesnakes that rattle, leaves the ones that do not rattle to survive and reproduce. Therefore they claim humans are selectively promoting the rise of snakes that do not rattle. That's what they claim, not me.
“I guess that would have shown lack of faith.”
He lacked something for sure
I had a dog pick up a jelly fish, his face was swollen, called the vet and was told to give him a half a benadryne.
Next day he was a right as rain.
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard (him); God also bearing (them) witness, both with signs and miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will? (Heb. 2:2,3)
You will remember that the giving of oral precepts of The Law, the Old Mosaic Covenant, was introduced with miraculous signs. But once written down, further stupendous and extraordinary events were not needed to bolster that the Law was continuously valid and binding upon all.
Likewise, in its own time the "Good News" of the New Covenant was given by oral communication by Christ, and further expanded in oral precepts that He gave to His Own primary disciple-apostles and relayed by them. God validated these precepts by confirmation of Christ's personal students, and by concurrent miraculous accompanying signs and miracles of these, and only these, witnesses.
Once thus recognized and validated at the first, written down into a body accepted as the perfected and completed Canon of the New Covenant, and closed upon the death of the last of The Christ's personal pupils, the 'time of the first' was closed and sealed, never again to be repeated in kind. Once "That Which is Perfect" (the complete inscripturation of the New Covenant) had arrived, the 'first' (first phase) of God-given temporarily effectual partial measures (predictions of the future, unacquired tongues, revelation of previously mysterious secrets of God) were also finished, and the practice of those sign gifts ceased because they were of no further use to the furtherance of Christian evangelism.
Thus in this time (since circa 100 A. D.), no further miraculous powers or events are required or desired to prove the efficacy and saving power of the Word preached forthrightly without the embroidery of further "spiritual pyrotechnics" (No "laughing revivals," no "spirit slayings," no speech unintelligible to anyone, no "faith healings" without any diagnosis, no "second-touch" fragmentary salvation, etc.), nor of overwhelming rhetorical persuasiveness (1 Cor. 2:1).
Handling of deadly snakes is a theologically unscriptural and pragmatically totally irrational wicked and foolish practice inferred as a result of mishandling of The Word of The God. God warns:
"Be not righteous over-much, neither make thyself over-wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over-much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?" (Eccl. 7:16-17)
Are such practitioners giving their followers godly advice?
"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, (it is) because (there is) no light in them." (Is. 8:20)
The answer is a firm and resounding, "NO!!"
Do I hear an "Amen!"?
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