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.
Question: Have you ever felt your life was regressing instead of progressing? Ever felt like you were going backward instead of forward? Are you frustrated with your current circumstances, whether it be your professional or personal life?
Well, if you’re like me, I’m sure you’ve experienced times of discouragement. Especially in this pandemic season, people’s patience are being tested. Every day we wake to new challenges or changes that continually frustrate, but be of good cheer, you are not alone!
Numbers 21:4-9, describes a people traveling in the wrong direction. This passage takes place near the end of the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and at the end of these 40 years they find themselves going backward (as if 40 years in the wilderness was not bad enough). Literally, the Israelites are traveling back the way they came toward the Red Sea. From an external perspective, the Israelites are not progressing, but rather regressing (see map from #12 to #11).
The end of verse four says the people became “impatient,” in other words, they were fed up! I’d say so, wouldn’t you? Literally, the word means they became “short.” In verse five, the people’s “short-temper,” spoke against God and Moses saying, “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.” The Israelites’ words put on display their inward attitudes, they were completely frustrated and at wits-end! All this time in wilderness and they were going the wrong direction.
Plus, the Israelites claimed they had no food or water. But did they really have no food or water? No, of course not, God had already miraculously provided both manna and meat. Rather, the problem was, the people grew discontent. They simply did not want the food they already had. Their food and water were adequate for them, but they coveted something else and become ungrateful.
Verse six highlights God’s response to this heart condition. God chose to discipline his people by sending snakes to turn his people from their sins. Verse seven proves God’s discipline worked! Through this discipline, the people acknowledged their ungratefulness and their need for God. After receiving discipline, the children of Israel responded by acknowledging they were in the wrong, they came clean and confessed their sin, their attitudes of ungratefulness (Hebrews chapter 12 testifies that discipline is a good thing, it corrects).
In verse eight, the Lord responds to this confession by giving Moses a special method of deliverance. As strange as it sounds, God instructed Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and whoever is bitten, if he looks to the serpent will live. The word for “look” in the original language is interesting, this word is greater than just “to see”, rather “look” carries the connotation that you are gazing at this serpent believing it will save. You are gazing believing in God’s method of deliverance.
God’s method of deliverance was for the people to look to the pole and live! “Pole,” is another interesting word in the original language. This word is used 21 times in the Old Testament, but in all these uses, only twice does the word refer to “pole,” and both those times are found in Numbers 21. All the other 19 times the word means “sign” or “banner,” which I believe becomes a key literary insight that this pole was to be a sign or banner pointing to a better deliverer to come in the future.
Now, fast forward and put yourself in the story. We, like the Israelites, at some time or another, have been guilty of the sin of ingratitude. Today, we may feel like we are going backward instead of forward, especially in the pandemic season. We may only see regression instead of progression. From this, we may be discouraged, impatient, discontent, and coveting something we don’t have. This posture of discontentment is sin.
So, we’ve all been bitten by the snake of sin and have this poisonous venom in our veins, it’s our sinful nature. Humanity inherited this sinful nature from the garden of Eden and as a result, we are all destined to die. Just like the Israelites, the only way to be saved from death and ourselves is to acknowledge our inadequacies, our sin, and look to the pole, i.e. look to the sign that is to come and live!
If you don’t look to God’s method of deliverance you will die. But good news, in the fullness of time, that sign did come. God inserted Himself in the story as that chosen method of deliverance. Jesus attested in John 3:14-15, when he says, “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.” John’s gospel continues to proclaim in the very next verse, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
This is God’s method of deliverance, therefore look to Jesus and live! Unbelievers can look to Jesus and be saved, today! Believers can look to Jesus and grow in satisfaction with where they are and whose they are. In this pandemic season, we discover what looks like an external regression really becomes an internal progression when we look to Jesus for life.
““In this pandemic season, we discover what looks like an external regression really becomes an internal progression when we look to Jesus for life.””
This is a most interesting story, we find God’s people going backward instead of forward and ungrateful for what they do have. God however was faithful to provide a way of escape. God chose to provide the bronze serpent and whoever looked in faith lived. In doing so, this was a sign of God’s faithfulness to provide a remedy for humanity’s sin for future generations. In the fullness of time, God Himself came to earth and climbed a tree in order to provide that eternal sacrifice for sins, and in doing so, he says, look to me and live!