Look and Live
Numbers 21:4-9
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
ESV
Look and Live
(Numbers 21:4-9)
Intro:
A. It was a favorite movie of mine for many years. But there is a scene in the movie when Indiana Jones drops a torch into the Well of Souls and sees snakes. Now let’s be honest, Indiana Jones is Superman with a whip and a wool fedora. But one thing he hates is snakes. Looking down into that tomb he says, “Snakes…Why did have to be snakes? His friend Sallah leans over and says, “Asps…very dangerous. You go first.” I’ve had a few friends like that.
B. Snakes are something many people are not fond of, especially poisonous ones. Snakes are not generally referred to as positive in the Bible either.
C. Some of you may remember Scott Johnson. He preaches for the Crosspointe church of Christ in Middletown, OH. He posted a picture of Mary comforting Eve with a caption that read, “Always remember, there is hope. Things don’t have to be the way they are. This isn’t the end of your story. God is restoring.”
D. When sin entered into the realm of mankind it was when Satan took the form of a serpent. What sin brought was death, pain, suffering, hardship and all the things that are “not good.” Yet, even in the garden when God was telling each the consequence of their action, hope was given. There would come a time when the serpent would have its head feel the pain of the heal of the offspring of woman.
E. This morning I want to take you to a story of hope in spite of the sin that was bringing death. It’s the story of learning to look to the right place to find life.
I. When God’s Not Enough
A. Num. 21:4-5. God calls this group of Israelites stiff-necked and stubborn people, but can we honestly say that doesn’t describe us at times? If we took 40 years of our life, would there times when our faith lacked, we complained about the spiritual leaders of the church, or maybe felt as if God was treating us unfairly?
B. It’s not that I am trying to defend their actions, I do want to hear God speaking to me. So I have to see what this scripture is teaching me. These people sin on several levels. But the real sin is that spoke “against God and against Moses.” God was not enough. The miracles, the freedom of the slavery in Egypt, the food they didn’t have to plant in order to eat was not good enough. God was not enough.
C. It’s one thing to want to go back to way we lived before God became the reason for our life, it’s another thing to say God isn’t enough to sustain us. This whole idea of “we loathe this worthless food” is a slap in the face of God.
D. In chapter 14, when the spies came back and the people raised a loud cry, they said, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt” (Num. 14:4). Let me tell you, you don’t need a leader to go backwards, you’ve been there and know the way. You don’t need a leader if you plan to sit and do nothing. But you do need God if you plan to have a life that takes you forward.
E. These people loathed the manna God gave them. But times didn’t change even 1500 years later when God walked on this earth in the form of Jesus. Jesus said that he was the bread of life that God has given and many of his day refused Jesus. Now, we are 2000 years from the time of Jesus and many still find the true bread of Life, Jesus, to be worthless and desire to turn back to sin.
II. The Consequence of Sin
A. Num. 21:6-7. The wages of sin is death. I don’t like consequences. I want to sin, I want to feel bad, then have God give me a bunch of grace so I stop feeling bad, but I don’t want to have consequences. But there are some truths I learn in this part of God’s word. The first is God sent the serpents. The second is when they started to die, they knew why the serpents were killing them. The third was the very ones they were grumbling against were now the ones they wanted to fix the issue – Moses and God.
B. Don’t get me wrong, we need to admit we sinned. I want us to see the request, “take away the serpents from us.” Ponder that for a moment. The serpents are the direct consequence of their sin and they want the consequence, the pain and suffering to be taken away.
C. This is so much a part of the lives of many of us today. We as God’s children fall back into sin. We start to feel the pain of our sin again, and we want that pain to go away. God wants us to look deeper and want something more than just no consequences. He wants us to want him.
III. Life Offered, Death Present
A. Num. 21:8-9. Here is the worst and the best part of what is still true to this day. God provided a way to live, but did not take away the reality of what sin brought them. God did not remove the serpents. He could have, but he didn’t. Instead, God gave them a way to live.
B. I want God to remove sin as a temptation, but He doesn’t. He continues to let me have a choice and Satan continues to do his best to make me think he offers something greater than Jesus does. The snakes of this world are ever present and still biting and poisoning me. But God gives me a way to live. He calls me to look to the cross.
C. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about entering the kingdom of Heaven, he finished by saying (John 3:14-15). I too need to look and live. Just as they did in their sin, I do in mine. I look to the cross where Jesus paid the ultimate price for me to live. I may still have consequences, but I now have life where there was only death in my future.
Conclusion:
A. Eph. 2:4-5. We all love passages like this. I need to hear this story and be reminded of the serpents that have come because I chose to sin against God. I need to be reminded that God provides a way even when he doesn’t take away my consequences. I am thankful that grace is extended to me because I need it more often than most of you know. That same grace is offered to you, if you will look to the cross.
Because of Jesus,
Jeffrey Dillinger, minister