Easter According to Numbers
Easter • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:27
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· 14 viewsGod must deal with man’s ruin in judgment; but His remedy of love is mercy in salvation.
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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.
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.”
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
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.
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.”
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.
Notice how John 3:16 begins.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
It begins with a grounding statement that links it to the previous verses.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Everyone loves fairytales.
They love the stories of the hero that saves the princess from the evil master.
We love those stories for one reason.
They tell us something of the TRUE STORY.
The book of Numbers has been described as the book of two generations.
One generation was promised that they would not inherit the land.
Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.
The first generation that was led into the wilderness literally saw fire on Mt. Sinai.
They experienced all the wonderful works of God to lead them, and yet they did not persevere.
They saw many amazing things and yet still fell short of the promised land.
Their spiritual experiences were NOT enough to prevent them from falling in the wilderness.
The first generation is dying away every day.
The first generation is dying away because of their disobedience to the covenant with Moses.
But the second generation has started to rise up in their midst.
The second generation is told they would inherit the land.
In Numbers 21, there is likely a mixture of both the first and second generations.
The people just experienced a military victory which the first generation lost the first time.
This would have likely inspired a measure of hope that they would be different.
But the question still looms for the reader, will this second generation be different from the first?
Is there hope that they will enter the land for the first time?
Numbers 21 shows us two generations enroute to nowhere.
38 years, 3 months, 10 days
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.
Have you ever had the experience of thinking you were almost arrived somewhere but realized you’re not even close?
Story in the Smokey Mountain
They set out from Mount Hor to continue on their journey.
They would have gotten extremely close to the promised land but with the knowledge that they would never inherit it.
Probably close enough to see it but unable to enter it.
Israel had a whole generation of people that knew by their disobedience they will never inherit the land.
But they were close enough to smell it.
Heading back toward the Red Sea would have been a gut wrenching reality.
The wandering they have endured for generations was not done.
They were headed directly back to it.
Will this second generation be different from the first?
God is still providing for them every day manna from heaven.
He is still caring for their every need.
It would be as if you have been camping for any period of time and have been living in a tent and wandering around.
Numbers 21:5 (ESV)
And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
The Israelites became disgusted by the manna.
The manna served as a reminder to them that they would continue to wander.
Numbers 21:5 (ESV)
“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.”
They are upset that they are still wandering in the wilderness.
They refer to the provision that God has been giving them, “worthless” or “contemptible.”
They despise the food that God has provided them.
More than that they are angry at the LORD for leading in the wilderness this long.
“Our souls detest this worthless food!”
“We despise the food you have given to us every day!”
“Send us back to slavery before you feed us another meal!”
What were they really despising when they hated the manna?
Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
We need to remember why the judgement broke out against Israel.
They were grumbling against God’s daily provision of “manna” in the wilderness.
“Murmuring is the daughter of unbelief.” — Thomas Watson, The Fiery Serpents
They were murmuring against Christ.
They were murmuring of the daily supply that God had given them to feed upon.
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
A “fiery serpent” was likely called this because of the burning effect of poison that came from the serpent.
The snakes were venomous and would lead to death.
The LORD was not haphazardly throwing punishments at the people.
If you’re familiar at all with the biblical story.
You know the long blood feud happening between the Seed of Eve and the Seed of the Serpent.
This blood feud goes back to the beginning of time.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The bloody war between Eve’s offspring and the serpent’s offspring is significant.
There is this battle raging from the beginning of time.
But more specifically, the people of Israel have just come out from Egyptian rule.
Pharaoh’s crown had a serpent on it.
“We’d rather go back to Egypt and serve under the harsh serpent Pharaoh, than You, LORD!”
“We’d rather go back to slavery and live under the toil of Egypt!”
“Oh, how suitable to their sin was this punishment! Israel burned in the heat of passion—and God made their flesh burn with extreme heat. Their speeches were venomous—and they were punished with venomous serpents.” —Thomas Watson, The Fiery Serpents
Your ruin in sin brings you judgment.
Your ruin in sin brings you judgment.
**Man’s Ruin & God’s Remedy, modified from C. H. Spurgeon**
Example of the Serpent in Medicine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4439707/
There is a symbol within the medical world called the “caduceus”
Its a symbol of one or two serpents around a pole.
You’ll see this image on the side of ambulances and other medical things.
Rebellion receives judgment.
Rebellion receives judgment.
For God to send serpents upon the people of Israel in this moment is to give them over to their desires.
If they want to serve the people of Egypt than they can have the full measure of Egypt.
God handed them over to the “lusts of the flesh” by giving them what they desire.
If they desired to go back to Egypt, then can taste all the the rulers of Egypt.
Romans 1:24 (ESV)
…God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…
The Bible talks about God judging often as Him giving someone over to themselves.
So rebellious in fact…
Later have to destroy the very pole that God instructed Moses to erect because they began worshipping it.
They began worshipping the pole rather than the God who provided the deliverance. (2 Kings 18:4)
Unbelievers
Everyone one of us at one time were walking away from God.
If not with our mouths, with our lives.
This is partially the judgment of God upon all humanity.
Allowing them to walk away from Himself.
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
The poison of the “fiery serpent” is your sin.
The poison of the “fiery serpent” is your sin.
It’s NOT enough for you to say things like,
“Yes, I know, we’re all sinners before God like the rest of humanity.”
It’s NOT enough to simply acknowledge in some general sense that you’re imperfect with the rest of humanity.
It’s NOT enough for you to only give lip service to this.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
The poison of the “fiery serpent” condemns you to death.
The poison of the “fiery serpent” condemns you to death.
“Okay, okay, my sin is bad but is it really deserving of punishment? Is it really deserving of this kind of judgment?”
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
“The judgment of Israel….anticipates a greater and more serious judgment, one that is eternal and not merely temporal.” — Tom Schreiner, 1 Corinthians
Non-Christian
Your sin condemns you even today.
It’s NOT that you’re waiting to be condemned.
You already are condemned!
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
“You are to-day as much in the hand of God's justice as a little moth beneath your own finger.” —Charles Spurgeon
Church
We need to learn to view others in this way.
We don’t need to tell them about a condemnation that is coming as much as one that has already come.
The poison of the “fiery serpent” leaves you helpless.
The poison of the “fiery serpent” leaves you helpless.
The NON-CHRISTIAN still tries to play the game.
They think that their NOT as bad as Hitler, but they know their worse than Mother Teresa.
The Christian knows their utter helplessness before God.
The Christian knows their own inability to save themselves.
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.
The LORD sent this plague.
It’s only then that they returned to the LORD to seek forgiveness.
They came to Moses to intercede for them before the LORD.
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.” 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.
The people repented and the LORD commanded Moses to fix a bronze serpent as a symbol to be looked upon for the people to live.
When they looked upon the object that was judging them, they would be saved.
The lifted up serpent would both judge them and save them.
It was the object of judgment and salvation.
The word for “pole” in verse 9 is really interesting.
It’s the same word that is used to describe Moses’ staff in other places in Scripture.
And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner,
Now “Banner” here has nothing to do with a flag.
It is essentially a pole.
God could have given 1,000 ways to heal the wounds that were afflicting them.
But His remedy had everything to do with beholding.
The cure that the LORD was going to bring could not be confused with anything else.
Think what would have been credited if God sent down a divine ointment.
The people would have praised the ointment.
Think what would have happened if God told them as at other places, to go and wash in the river.
Then the river would have been credited with the victory.
But by looking on the image of a serpent being crushed under the banner of God, they were healed.
By looking on the serpent that was the object of their judgment being crushed they would be healed by the power of God ONLY.
There would have been no question to the origin of the power.
God’s remedy of love in salvation.
God’s remedy of love in salvation.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
The bronze serpent and the Son of Man are similar in likeness.
The bronze serpent and the Son of Man are similar in likeness.
Just as the bronze serpent was similar to the serpents, so to Jesus Christ was like us in every way.
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
“He had no more sin—than the bronze serpent had sting or venom in it.” —Thomas Watson
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is the best news possible for YOU!
Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, was sinless.
Jesus Christ, died in your place if you trust Him.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
Receive Him today!
Trust Him today!
The bronze serpent and the Son of Man are similar in manner.
The bronze serpent and the Son of Man are similar in manner.
Just as the serpent was lifted up, so to Jesus Christ was lifted up.
Christ was lifted in Crucifixion.
Christ was lifted in Crucifixion.
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Christ was lifted in Resurrection.
Christ was lifted in Resurrection.
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
We can be confident today that we will be received by God because of His Son.
The resurrection is proof that God has accepted the sacrifice of Christ for sinners.
The tomb is empty and the Prince has won His bride back.
The bronze serpent and the Son of Man are similar in design.
The bronze serpent and the Son of Man are similar in design.
Just as the serpents were the judgment, so to the bronze serpent saves.
Notice again what Moses fixes the serpent to in the wilderness.
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.”
The same “banner” that is used to defeat the enemies of the LORD at the Red Sea (Exodus 17:15-16) is the same banner that is used to (symbolically) strike Himself (Exodus 17:5-6).
The same banner that both judges and heals the people of Israel later with the bronze serpent (Numbers 21:8).
Numbers—God's Presence in the Wilderness Faith Needed and Rewarded
At the cross, Jesus broke the serpent’s power, just as in the wilderness the serpent was transfixed on the symbol of God’s power. Yet in the fulfillment of the sign, Jesus took upon himself the curse when he was lifted up on the cross.
Look and live!
Look and live!
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
When we behold the Lord Jesus dying in the place of sinners, we are healed from the poison of sin.
Christianity is the only religion that the leader dies for the followers.
We serve a God who takes on flesh bears are punishment and rises from the grave.
When we look at the crucified and risen, Savior, it compels us to lay down our own life.
Christian Life
This helps us in our war against sin.
The Christian life becomes a story of death by living.
All we do is place our lives over and again into the grave and watch the LORD resurrect them as we behold Christ.
Ignore and Perish!
Ignore and Perish!
I am sure there were those around this bronze serpent lifted in the wilderness with the refusal to look.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
God must deal with man’s ruin in judgment; but His remedy of love is mercy in salvation.
God must deal with man’s ruin in judgment; but His remedy of love is mercy in salvation.