Last week, in The Serpent in the Wilderness, Part 1, we saw that the only reason the poisonous snakes hadn’t always been a problem to Israel was that God was protecting them. It was their complaining against God that pushed His protection away.
Today, we pick up the story in verse in verse 7, just as the children of Israel repent of their complaining: “‘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.” (Num 21:7 NKJV).
Isn’t it interested how quickly the Israelites repent? As soon as the snakes began to bite, they have a sudden change of heart.
Aren’t we exactly the same? It’s human nature. We are all praise when things are going the way we think they should, but as soon as they take a turn from the path we have pre-programmed in our hearts, we begin to complain. The moment we begin to experience God’s judgment for our complaining, however, we are also quick to repent. We need to remember that no matter what happens to us, God loves us, and He proved this to us through this story of the serpent in the wilderness. As soon as the people began to repent, God moved. He did something!
Now you and I might have simply removed the serpents, but God, in His wisdom, did something very different: “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” (vs. 8).
So why didn’t God just remove the snakes?
Jesus tells us the answer: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:13-15, NKJV).
This entire incident would serve as a forerunner for Jesus’ mission on Earth. It was an example given so that we might better understand the reasons that brought Jesus to the cross.
In the same way the people of Israel were being bitten by poisonous snakes, all of mankind is also being killed by a poisonous “snake,” the same one who deceived Eve in the garden.
Just as the Israelites in the wilderness were being bitten because their complaining had pushed away God’s protection, we have all been pushed away from God’s protection as a result of Adam’s choice to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.
And just like the people in the wilderness were dying from the snakebites, we also are dying: “The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23)
God, in His mercy and grace, provided a solution to both problems. In the wilderness, He instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift him up on a pole, and the people were instructed to look to that bronze serpent. In the same way, Jesus was also lifted up (See John 3:13-15), and we are instructed to put our trust in His saving power.
Let’s remember that the people weren’t healed by the serpent. It was in their symbolic act of obedience to God’s command to look to the serpent that they showed faith in the One Who could heal them. Just like the people had to choose to look to the serpent, we must also choose to look to Jesus, and in this symbolic act of obedience, we show our faith in the One Who has provided the solution to sin.
God doesn’t always “remove” our problems, but He always provides a way out. That “way out” comes by looking to the cross, where Jesus was “lifted up.” We have hope because Jesus laid down His life for us. We can be healed of the fatal bite of the “serpent,” the devil, simply by putting our trust in the One who gave of Himself for all of mankind.
Why not look to Him today?
In His love,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two, Author — “Aboard God’s Train — A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer”, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, and Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, with Answers2Prayer Ministries. Follow Lyn on Twitter @lynchaffart.
(To access the entire “Serpent in the Wilderness” mini-series, please click here.)