Dear friends in Christ: a bit of background for you... As the
Children of Israel were camped near the Promised land a local king attacked
them and took slaves. God heard the prayers of His people and gave them a
total victory ("Hormah"); then told them to go around Edom. The people
rebelled.
They grumbled against God and muttered against Moses. They pronounced
the manna as miserable and said they had no water. They whined that the
journey was hopeless: God could not keep His Promise to rescue them. He
kept detouring! They felt they were going to die. For about 38 years they
had been on foot in the desert. More than an unruly child in the back seat;
they were beyond screaming 'are we there yet?' They were ready to revolt!
But let's think about what had gone on those 38 years. God delivered
them from slavery with 10 miracles. They were fed daily with manna and
quail. Their clothes and sandals did not wear out. God was there
(Shekinah) in a cloud by day and fire by night. They were having problems
believing God's Promises? Would you?
Many times they voiced their complaints. Put yourself in their
sandals. Their lives were filled with stress, hardships, struggles, and
aggravations. They had faced four decades of foes; and that 'land of milk
and honey' was nowhere to be seen. NOW, they were told they had to take
another detour!?
Perhaps the faithful action would have been to fall down to thank God
for all the previous blessings, beg for courage and confidence, then
petition God to be gracious by bringing them relief. THAT didn't happen.
These ancient followers felt they deserved better treatment from God.
Don't you? When you are sick, scared, or short on cash don't you get
discouraged? And when suffering occurs, aren't you ready to question God?
Yes. Such is our fallen nature.
We also fail to recall all that He gives us in life: air, water, food,
clothes, friends, family, and the like. We also are tempted to believe God's
goal for us is a plump wallet, wellness, and victorious living: living in
our beloved USA which at times seems to flow with milk and honey. We also
fail to see that His goal is for us to believe Him. No. We are not so
different than those folks in the dessert - and maybe not even that good.
At this point, God sent His people trouble. He sent snakes.
(Saw-scale viper?) Their bite was deadly. It felt like fire. It took days
to die. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echis)
Did you catch that? Moses recorded that God SENT snakes. Saint Paul
warns in 1st Corinthians 10 that this event was also a warning for us to
obey God's Commandments and believe in Christ Jesus. God will send trouble
when His people abandon Him. :) Better to be warned here than warmed
here-after in hell! (Ephesians 2:1-3).
The good news? The Children of Israel saw their sins. Their grumbling
was as deadly as the snakes' poison: it was killing their faith in God.
Gossip for the Christian is just as deadly. So are foul words at a ball
game. These poison faith in Christ, just as grumbling against God's will
acts like poison.
But while it is good that they confess their sins, the next thing they
do is tell God what to do: "deliver us from consequence of our sins! Quit
penalizing me. I deserve better!"
God did not like their rebel attitude; nor does He like yours.
But God really does love the world, and His Promise of the Savior would
come thru these people. So the LORD acted.
God heard their repentance; He did not obey their demands. He did
something far greater. It would have been a miracle to stop the deaths with
a word, or wave of Moses' staff; or remove the snakes. But God had Moses
make a model of that snake out of bronze (88% copper, 12% tin) which takes a
very hot fire (1740 degrees F) and can't be done in the desert in ten
minutes. It took faith on the part of Moses to obey God and make this fake
snake!
It also took faith to be cured. Not a quick glance, but a lasting look
IN FAITH saved the person from a fiery death. Knowing about the snake was
not enough. Agreeing it was a sign of God's work was not enough. Trust was
needed; trust in God's promise was needed to prevent a fiery death and give
life. There had to be knowledge, agreement, AND trust to halt the poison.
Faith in the promises of God was the channel of God's work of healing.
It was NOT the brass serpent that healed and was to be worshipped.
(Hezekiah eventually destroyed it as an idol 2 Kings 18:4). It was God's
healing thru the look of faith. It was trusting God's Word, looking up at
the representation of their sin in confession, and trusting they'd be spared
the fiery death by the Savior of all. (Wisdom of Solomon 16:7).
* Centuries before Moses, there was another deadly serpent. He did not
bite with fangs, but with words. He was far more deadly. He encouraged
grumbling; and he convinced God's people not to trust the Lord and go
another way, even though God had cared for them in His great love.
The poison of that old snake never goes away. All the children of Adam
have it from conception to the grave. You could say every ache, pain,
misery, and disaster of nature comes from that one bite. With out a doubt,
that bites always ends in eternal fiery death.
There is also only one healing, only one solution to this certain death.
'Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of
Man have been lifted up on the cross, so that whoever believes in Him may
have eternal life.'
Jesus is the one greater than Moses Who 'was fashioned as a Man'
(Philippians 2:8) in living flesh, not dead metal. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells
us "God made Christ, Who knew no sin, to be sin in our place." All the sin
in our world that poisons us and damns all to fiery hell is placed on Him.
The antidote to Satan's poison, the remedy to hell, is Christ crucified for
all sin.
Not a singular rebellion, but for ALL the sins of the world He was
lifted up. Not for relief from fiery venom; but for relief from fiery hell.
Not to make life a bit easier for a few years on a journey on earth to a
Promised Land in the Middle East; but for healing during our journey of
faith to the Promised Land of heaven. THIS was why God sent His
only-begotten Son.
By grace alone, just as the bronze snake had the form and appearance of
sin and its deadly venom, so Christ had the form and appearance of our
fallen flesh. The bronze snake had no poison; and Jesus had no sin. Simple
trust in God's promises saves in both cases.
John puts it this way... In this way, God the Father did not just like
the rebellious world, He so much loved the entire world: that the only Son
of God was given for the purpose (of giving His life as our ransom - 1st
Timothy 2), so the ones who are believing in Him shall not be in the fires
of hell, but rather have (present tense) eternal life. No middle ground:
saved believers or waiting-for-fire UNbelievers.
The Father did not send Him into our world to condemn us; but rather to
save the world thru Him. We have all been bitten. The poison is not
removed. The crisis won't go away. The Old Serpent, Satan, keeps on biting
and poisoning. God works in us so we will keep looking at Jesus on the
cross every snake-bite time (and constantly) in faith, safe from the eternal
effect and outcome.
God's people then trusted in the promise God put in that bronze snake
as a fruit of faith. God's people today trust in the promise He put in the
Son of Man Who was lifted up for us. On the basis of God's promises we
continue our journey of faith: following Jesus, obeying all the
Commandments, telling others about "the antidote" and relying on Christ
crucified for all our failures, flaws, and fiascos.
God did not remove all the snakes then (that is to say: all the sin,
poison, and consequences) nor does He remove them from our world today,
either. But thank God He does not send snakes every time we grumble or
stumble! :) For He has sent His Son to be lifted-up so we will not die
eternally.
May the Holy Spirit continue to work in us that gift of faith - so we
'fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith' then look up
constantly in faith to Christ crucified as the world's Savior! May the
whole world come to believe in the immeasurable riches of His grace in
Christ Jesus! Amen.
Pastor Michael Harman
St. Peter - Newell, IA FtW `87
vacancies at First - Fonda; and Immanuel - Pomeroy
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