Snake Handling in the Church

Snake Handling as a Fundamentalist Spectacle

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Steve, give me that quote you just gave me. Putting the fun back in fundamentalism. That is what we do here.

Always biblical, always provocative, always putting the fun back in the fundamentalist. Sure, why not? Now Steve, describe what I'm holding in my hot little hands for those in Radioland, and they can't see us.

So what is this that I have right here?

That is the largest, most vicious-looking python I have ever seen.

We are having a VBS at church, and it is some goldmine, I don't know, I think it's maybe answers in Genesis or something.

I thought it was Indiana Jones.

Yeah, I hate snakes. And it is a rubber snake that I have in my hand. And by the way, Steve, it says this is for ages three and above. So it's suitable for you. Yeah, that's exactly right. I just like it when you make me laugh.

Snakes and it got me thinking, we should do a show on snake handling. After all, we take the Bible literally, don't we? And we don't think the snake handling passages are in a different genre.

No, we absolutely don't think they're in a different genre.

Today on No Compromise Radio, we'd like to examine the snake handling phenomena that is known of some in Canada, but mainly in the Appalachian area and in some of the states in the South. It's sweeping the nation.

It is. Steve, you're really going to like this show. I've been waiting to do this show for at least 20 minutes.

Well, so it's been percolating for quite some time compared to normal then.

1909 Tennessee preacher George Hensley. Here's what he said, that if you don't handle poisonous snakes, congregation, you'll be condemned to hell.

Now I would say that man was putting the fun back in fundamentalism.

See, and when he brought in those poisonous vipers, I'd like to know how many people, A, Steve, sat in the front rows, maybe that's where we get back row Baptist, and B, did anyone fall asleep in such services?

But you know that the contrary to that, of course, I always say as the front row Presbyterians, I can guarantee you the Presbyterians weren't sitting in the front row. They have more sense than that.

Can you imagine snakes in the service? And I guess if you're out in a log cabin, Daniel Boone or something, Davy Crockett and a snake slithered up, that would be one thing. But this is purposely bringing in poisonous rattlers, poisonous, what are some other snakes that are poisonous?

Copperheads, water moccasins. Yeah, that's what I was after, water moccasins. Now bringing them into church service and then talking about faith. Now this Hensley man, he basically said that if you do get bit, you know, the snake bites you and you survive, it proves that you were saved.

And then sadly, in 1955, he was bitten by a snake, he refused treatment and he died.

Yeah, I guess that would be the third blessing, you know, right? Second blessing is the operation of tongues, the third one being you're bitten by snakes and you survive.

1980 to 1955, this man was handling snakes, so that was when he was born and when he died. How about this? This guy, James Miller, he didn't know about Hensley's quote unquote ministry. He got a direct revelation from God, a revelation from God to handle snakes and included with that, Steve, he was supposed to baptize in the name of Jesus only and use only the King James Bible.

Problem number one was when God told him something, that was problem number one. If God tells you something that's not in the Bible, it wasn't God.

As I was studying this topic in the last 20 minutes.

It's extensive research by our No Compromise staff.

Now, by the way, I'm going to put the snake down because I was handling that snake the whole time we were talking so far, the last four minutes.

Did it bite you or did you ward it off by some, you know?

No, it was a live snake, but I had so much faith, I turned it into plastic. Woo, that's power. How about, Steve, the general kind of churches that handle snakes? Wouldn't you say that they were one, maybe not one as Pentecostal, but Pentecostal, charismatic, revelation from God, ongoing?

Yeah. And, you know, sadly, I would just have to say this, that the pastors and the leaders of such churches are probably not very well schooled or they wouldn't be doing such things.

It's interesting. Lots of these churches have strict dress codes. You can't cut your hair if you're a lady. You have to have ankle length dresses and no cosmetics. What's the problem? I mean... Ankle length.

Now, how about this? Short hair for men and long sleeve shirts for men. I'm wondering if that's going to help with the vipers.

It couldn't hurt, especially if they're lined with Kevlar.

And P .S., no tobacco and no alcohol. Steve, how about this? And no playing cards.

No playing cards. That'd probably be the mark of the beast. Yeah, all the vital things, you know, the essentials of Christianity. Vital vipers.

We have that new ministry. Actually, what if we had, let's bring this full circle, what if we actually had real vipers at VBS? Do you think that would draw a crowd?

A crowd of people trying to get out of the parking lot. A crowd of policemen.

Yeah. All right. In 19, excuse me, in 2001, there were 40 small churches that did practice snake handling. And in 1998, Steve, you're going to think this is A, sad and B, funny. Snake handling evangelist, John Wayne Pumpkin Brown.

Is that a hyphenated last name or was pumpkin his nickname? Pumpkin was his nickname. Or was that what he looked like after he got bit by the snake? He actually

He swelled up like a pumpkin. He was bitten by a timber rattler at the Rock House Holiness Church in Alabama. And he died. And here's what happened. The family said that it was probably due to a heart attack.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. The poison induced a heart attack.

Yeah, but it wasn't from the snake because this is all biblical. And his wife, Pumpkin's wife, died three years earlier when she got bit by a snake in Kentucky.

I mean, words fail because, I mean, it's sad that people are dying like that. But on the other hand, you just go, what part of the Bible would lead you to do such things? And you don't have to be honest with you.

If my family and I, if we were out on a vacation, now my family being my wife and I, if we're on a vacation, we drove by some church and we thought, oh, maybe we'd like to stop there on Sunday and go to service.

And it said, live snakes, you know, we're not going there. That's just not even, you know, it's like a raw fish. It's not on the menu. Snakes are not on my theological menu.

I probably would go though, because I would be some Mark 16 theological rubbernecker, and I would have to go there because I would want to see the car crash or something. Rubbernecker?

Does he write books, theological books?

This is actually his name is... Oh, Longenecker. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Rubbernecker, Longenecker, Cisprou. This is Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley on No Compromise Radio, talking about snakes and handling snakes.

We'll get to Mark 16 in just a moment. But Steve used to be in LAAR, and he was a LAAR enforcement agent.

LAAR enforcement, yes.

And Steve, I thought you'd find this quite mentally provocative. Snake handling in Kentucky is a misdemeanor and punishable by a $50 to $250 fine, depending on the size of the snake.

You know, you've got a problem when you have to pass laws like that. I had my own way of handling snakes when I was in LAAR enforcement. Would you call the animal control? No, I would. Load snake shots and blow them away.

Yeah, you know, some of those snakes I heard died of poisoning, lead poisoning.

I used to... I mean, my favorite reports to write were saw, snake, shot, same. And that was... I like that.

That was it. I like that. Now, in 2008, 10 people were arrested and 125 snakes, venomous snakes, were confiscated. And it was... You'll like this, Steve. This was a undercover sting operation. And you know, when you have an undercover sting operation, you have to use code words.

So if you were the cop, what would the code words be for the undercover sting? I'm covering the paper so Steve can't read. Steve does not know. Rattler. Cobra. Twice shy. What does that have to do with anything?

Once bitten, twice shy, babe. That's it. Yeah, that is it. That is it. Wow. I'm learning. The practice is legal in West Virginia. How about that?

You know, I actually know people in West Virginia. I'm going to have to... And I know they're Christian folks, so I'm going to have to see what kind of church they go to.

Well, maybe for background music, instead of playing the English beat for No Compromise Radio, we could play Ray Stevens' Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat. And that is a song that the comedian singer, it would be a singer-comedian, he wrote a song about a man stomping on rattlesnakes to death, and maybe that would be the theme song.

That would be beautiful. I'm surprised you didn't download it today, you know? I mean, what's a little 99-cent investment for the good of our no-co listening audience? Yeah, Ray Stevens.

Well, at least it wasn't Cat Stevens.

Oh, very young. Yeah, also known as Yusuf Islam.

Mark 16 and the Snake-Handling Proof Text

Oh, that's right. Now, Steve, in all seriousness, I do have some respect for snake handlers. It isn't a great respect, but they do take what they think is in the Bible, and they take it literally. So where would we go in the Bible?

This is not just some, to use your theology, some Gizroid theology. It just came out of their Gizroid. What would this be?

This would be from Mark 16, Mark 16, and unfortunately, though, I think if you have any kind of Bible, I mean, I use NASV, and the one I use for the show is kind of a, well, I was going to say compressed.

It doesn't have any fancy notes on it, but it does show that Mark 16 ends at verse 8, and then it has everything else set off by double brackets, and says it's not in the best manuscripts. But these folks take Mark 16 verses 9 and following literally as literally the word of God, and so you wind up into some interesting situations here.

For example, verse, I'll just start in verse 15, and I don't know why anybody uses this as their mission statement, not that I'm pointing any fingers, but, and he said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. Okay? Verse 17, and these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

Well, at least we know where they get such a thing. Before we talk about that in detail, Steve, listen to some other verses that they tend to use to back their support of having snakes and poisonous vipers in the church.

Isaiah 43, 2, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you, and when you walk through fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.

Where was the snake part? I don't know. But that's one of the passages they cite in support of fire handling.

That's not really a strong one, and you know, here's the kind of thing I would want is some kind of letter to the church in general saying, hey, you know, I know there are a lot of snakes, say in the Galatian area.

When you're walking through the mountainous terrain and you're looking at snakes, don't worry because when they bite you, no big deal.

Well, Steve, unfortunately you don't know that the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, he too was a snake handler. I was not aware. John 20, verse 30, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which were not written in this book.

Oh, no, so the secret things belong to the Lord, you know. That's the kind of thing where you could just sort of import everything you want to say, you know. Well, that many other signs. That was a sign that just wasn't recorded, you know.

Okay, and before we get back to Matthew 16 on No Compromise. Did you know Jesus levitated? Did you know that? Did he levitate? Well, it's right there in that same verse. Who were you just trying to be, some Appalachian snake handler accent?

Pretty much, yeah. We got an email the other day from a lady, I think she's in California, and she said she's glad to hear New England accents on No Compromise Radio and the Bible Church. When is that exactly?

I don't know. When is she sore on that? I don't even know. After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. The native people showed us an unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and it was cold.

When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer.

Though he escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live. Hold on, hold on, just one second. He however, Paul, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead, but when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

Well, the fact that the local people knew it was a poisonous snake would indicate to you, yes, that is a poisonous snake. Now the question is, you know, and we talk often about this, this is a matter of hermeneutics.

Because it happened to Paul, a poisonous snake bit him and did not harm him, does that mean we should all go out and handle snakes and wait and see what happens? I know, Steve, this is so ridiculous.

I'd like to ask our listeners out there driving in their cars or wherever they might be, did.

Paul look for the snake?

Was he trying to say, well, let me try to pick a stick that looks like the snake and I'll purposely seek out and search for a snake?

It's a wicked and perverse generation that seeketh after a snake. That's it. Oh, that's out of context too?

Paul wasn't trying to find snakes. This is, of course, showing the supernatural protection of God in Acts chapter 28. That's where it comes from. Verses one through six, I almost sounded like Pradeep for a second, verses.

I go to India and they don't say the V, they say the W, verses instead of verses. And then I go to Germany. And the W becomes a V. Uh-huh. Yeah. Da support. So what do you do with W-V-N-E? That would be V-W-N-E.

Could really mix people up. All right, let's get back to Mark chapter 16. Okay. And let's specifically talk about drinking deadly poison. Now some people do drink watered down strychnine and if you drink enough of it, often enough, your body becomes, it tolerates it.

Right. Yeah. You can build up an insult. What's the word I'm even looking for? It's not really toleration, an immunity. You can build up an immunity. Yeah, yeah. It's an inoculation immunity. But I mean, there are all sorts of things that are poisonous that you could drink and I don't see people glugging Drano at these things or, you know.

Speaking of poison, Steve's got a water in front of him and I want you to know that it's about 110 days that I personally, Steve, have not, I didn't drink any.

You've not had any water for 110 days?

That is amazing. Well, it said something about that in the Bible and if it's in the Bible, that must be true. Yeah. 40 days and 40 nights, right? I had 40 days of purposely not drinking any water. I have not had any, oh, but I guess that's a good book again.

The Purpose Driven Life. All of a sudden We're not going to do a show on that today, are we? The Pope in Minnesota has said it's good, therefore it must be good. It's pretty sad times. Okay. I've not had aspartame for 110 days, so it's like strychnine.

You know, aspartame just turns into formaldehyde in your body and so no Diet Cokes, no Diet Mountain Dews. Allegedly.

No way. How do we know that that really happens? I don't know. Just because some kook told you that? Yes. I do know it's full of chemicals though.

Yes, it is. And I think oranges are probably made out of certain chemicals. Absolutely.

I think the world is made out of chemicals. And I've got 110 days without any oranges.

That's good. So here it says, if they drink any deadly poison, verse 18, Steve, is there any place in the Bible that commends presuming on God and his grace and his protection, jump in front of a car, oh, come to the corner of the temple mount and then jump off that?

What does the Bible say? Yeah, I think actually Jesus said when he was being tempted, you know, that you should not basically presume on God, on his grace. And that was his response to Satan saying, catch yourself off, the angels can catch you.

On No Compromise Radio Ministry, if you see a snake that's not poisonous, how does that go again for cobras and stuff? Leave three, let it be. I was thinking red on yellow, kill a fellow, or is that yellow on red, you're already dead?

I was a really bad Boy Scout. If I see something that looks like a coral snake, I'm running anyway.

Well, I'm not hanging around and just kind of, you know, I'm not going to play 20 questions. Tell me, Mr. Viper.

Let's see. You can, the viper can only strike one and one quarter distance of its body, pi r squared.

I told you this, and I don't know if I mentioned it on the air before, but you know, my dad once killed a rattlesnake with his baton. He had that thing mounted and it was up on our, you know, above our fireplace for years and years on the mantel.

And I'm just going, tell me again. I used to ask him all the time, tell me again, a six foot rattlesnake and how did you, well, he goes, I just held up my baton and it struck at the baton a few times and then I whacked it over the head when it got tired and I'm like, in a million years, I would never think, you know, my dad was a snake handler.

I guess we could say that, you know. That is amazing. I did not know that you were raised in the Appalachian area.

Well, no, my dad was a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles County, too. Got up in the mountains and, you know, got himself some religion there, Mark 16, and.

Whooped up on that snake. What we'd like you to do if you're listening to No Compromise Radio today is go home, open up your Bible, and then start reading the notes that begin with the brackets around Mark 16, 9 through 20, or 9 through 22.

Most Bibles don't have the 21 and 22, although there are verses 21 and 22, depending on which ending you'd like to look for. And just begin to read through that and so you'll see quickly that the best manuscripts don't have these and there are inconsistencies, too.

Here's an inconsistency. How about believe and be baptized to be saved? Is that a biblical notion or an unbiblical notion? It is an unbiblical notion.

Whoever believes and is like baptism is a requirement for salvation. That's just not right.

These signs that we see, like speaking in tongues, casting out demons, I think those were for the apostles in general. And then there might have been some spillover to small a apostles and a few others.

But if I were... Now tell us why, quickly, why these verses do not belong in the Bible, why they should not be taken literally.

Well, I'm not going to read the MacArthur Study Bible, but I think that's probably the best place to go to if you'd like to know why these aren't the best manuscripts and why the grammar doesn't match up to Mark and some of the vocabulary doesn't match up to Mark.

You have manuscripts. We don't have the original Mark manuscript. So we don't really know why. We don't know when this actually ends because this doesn't make any sense. I'm thinking of two things at once because now it dawned on me why you asked the question.

Here's the issue. Mark 16. Just rewind that. That was really... I thought this was going to be a good show. And then now, see, I just blew it. Mark 16, 8. You can still pull the snake out of the fire.

Oh, please. Here we go. Mark 16, 8. And they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. Now I finally have the answer.

Steve was throwing me a slow ball, but I mistook it for a fastball. And so we don't like somehow for the gospel account to end in verse 8. But it makes a lot of sense if you realize every time you see that kind of fear in Mark, it's because something supernatural happened.

Mark 4. And they became very much afraid and said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and sea obey him? Steve, what was the supernatural event that happened at the end of Mark?

Well, all the supernatural event at the end of Mark, well, the resurrection.

That's exactly right. See, Steve, slow balls underhand sometimes come at you like fastballs.

Well, I thought you were going to talk about the, you know, who is this and, you know, kind of thing. So I was going to be talking about the sea. And then, you know, at the end of Mark 16, I'm going, wait a minute, that wasn't the question I was looking for.

Well, it fits perfectly also with Mark's truncated, abrupt style. He says lots of things I saw here in Mark chapter 1. Immediately the Spirit impelled him to go out in the wilderness. It's just this blunt, some people call him stump fingered Mark.

And so these are not in the earliest manuscripts. They're in the later manuscripts. The perfect ending is in verse 8 because of the supernatural event.

And so when you see it in only the later manuscripts, and by that we're talking about a few hundred years after the earlier manuscripts, you know, the tendency is after the manuscripts have been around longer that sometimes people feel like, well, that ending is not right.

And so they add something in there to just kind of finish the story off the way they think it should be finished. That's right.

Listen to Sinclair Ferguson. I think you'll like this, Steve. The closing verses of Mark's gospel leave us with some fundamental questions about Jesus and our relationship to him. That is exactly what the gospel was intended to do.

Right. So, see, I like that. So to come full circle with snake handling, A, do not attempt this at home.

Please do not. And don't attempt it at church. At church.

Can you imagine, Steve, we don't do altar calls at the church and we don't do liturgical dance and we certainly don't do live snake handling. Where would we keep them?

In your office. But how about this? You know, how about we just, you know, instead of communion some week, we just go, everybody belly up to the bar. We're going to be dishing out poison. We'll see who the saved people of God really are.

I mean, that's Jim Jones-like. I mean, that is crazy.

So in No Compromise Radio Ministry, let's just stick to what we do know and let's just stay away from any kind of animal that might bite you or your children and kill you.

Well, and while that might amaze someone, you know, if you can handle snakes and not die, would it save anyone? Does it cause anybody to believe that they're a sinner? Good.

The sign's in the gospel. And if this was a real gospel sign, it should promote the gospel of Christ Jesus, pointing to Jesus's perfect life, death, and resurrection. Amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.