The Bronze Serpent
Download MP3Tonight's reading comes from numbers 21 and John 3. So we'll start numbers 21 verses 4 through 9. From Mount Hor, they set out by 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 out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
Speaker 1: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 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.
Speaker 1: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 will look at the bronze serpent and live. And now John 3, starting in verse 9 going through verse 16. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?
Speaker 1:Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. 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.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord, we thank you for your word and for the power that it has through your spirit to come alive and to change hearts. We believe that. That's what we ask would happen in this moment. I pray that no one would leave the same person that they walked in.
Joel Brooks:Lord, my words are death, but your words are life. No one needs to hear from me. I've got nothing to offer, so we we desire to hear from you. Remove whatever pride I bring here, whatever agenda that I have, remove that. I'm incapable of doing that.
Joel Brooks:Remove it so that you might speak clearly to us. I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, let your words remain and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. This is one of the most bizarre stories in the Bible.
Joel Brooks:It's also a story that, you you know, we're constantly reminded of especially being here in Birmingham with all of the the hospitals and all the ambulances and everything in which you you see that emblem, you know, of of the pole that's up, and it has this snake wrapped around it, and and for some reason that got to be identified with healing. Well, the reason it's identified with healing is because of this story which happened 34 100 years ago, in which people who would look at this that that pole with the serpent, they would look at it and they would live, they would be cured of the sickness that had consumed them. This is our last week in which we are looking at the gospel through the life of Moses, and so I thought in picking a a ending story, that we would pick one that Jesus himself pointed to and said, you want to understand me, you want to understand the gospel, you look at this. You look at this right here. And we just read from, John 3 in which Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, about being born again.
Joel Brooks:Tells Nicodemus says, you must be born again, and Nicodemus is really puzzled by this. And Nicodemus, he is one of Israel's leaders. He's a he's a Pharisee. And he, as Jesus is explaining things to him, he finally he mentions about just as Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the son of man be lifted up. And then we get to John 3:16, 3:16 or or recently, you know, Tim Tebow, which you couldn't see enough of them.
Joel Brooks:Every time his eyes underneath there, John 3:16. And it's the most famous verse we have, and it comes right after Jesus says, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. Nicodemus is a teacher of the law, and the fact that Jesus tells Nicodemus that he has to be born again is somewhat surprising. Because Nicodemus is a really good man. He's a really good man.
Joel Brooks:I mean, he's got great respect. He's tried to live a good life. He's he's served others. He he knew his Torah, and he tried to obey it. And yet Jesus looks at him and says, you know what?
Joel Brooks:If you wanna be part of the kingdom of God, you've gotta completely change to the point where you don't even resemble the person you are. You have to be born again. Born again. Now, you can understand how hard this had to be for Nicodemus, you know, to understand this and and That's awesome, Ben. That's that's good.
Joel Brooks:You know Jesus, when he tells me you have no chance of entering the kingdom of God unless you completely change, That would be like me, going up to Billy Graham, and saying, Billy Graham, I know I know you're old and you're a really good preacher and everything, but you know what? You need you need to change some things. You need to change your style. You need you need to change your message. A matter of fact, you need to change how you present yourself, how you how you relate to others.
Joel Brooks:You need to change your understanding of the Bible, and and you need to restudy everything. And and Billy Graham, if I were to say that to him, he would look at me and he'd say, well, I can't do that. I mean I mean I'm a I'm a older guy. I've been I've been doing this for a long time and it and it's worked. Maybe I could tweak a few things, but I can't go back and restudy everything.
Joel Brooks:I can't reinvent who I am. That's, that's too hard. I can't become a completely new person. And And that is what Nicodemus, when he hears this from Jesus, he understands what he's saying when Jesus says, you have to be born again. Nicodemus just says, that's impossible.
Joel Brooks:I can't go back and restudy everything. I can't come to a completely new understanding. I can't change my I I can't. He is not the the idiot that I think a lot of contemporary preachers make them out to be, in which, you know, he's asking, well, do I really try to reenter my mother's womb? He's talking figuratively here.
Joel Brooks:He's he understands what Jesus is saying. But he says, just as being born again literally is impossible, what you're asking of me is impossible, Jesus. I can't do it. So then Jesus tells this Pharisee a story. One that you have been very familiar with.
Joel Brooks:A story that we just read in numbers 21, and he says, if you want to be born again, you need to understand this passage. Need to understand this. You know the law, you've studied the scriptures, but Nicodemus, do you know what this story means? And do you know to whom this story points? So let's look at this story.
Joel Brooks:I feel like for the past, I don't know, 2 months, I've begun every single message with, now once again, the Israelites are grumbling before the Lord, and I have to say that again. Once again, the Israelites, they're grumbling before the Lord. Same same complaints every single time, you know, no food, no water, that's what they're doing here. But this is the last time they will ever complain. This is the last one.
Joel Brooks:After this, they're gonna enter into the promised land, and God deals with them fundamentally different than he has every other time that they have grumbled and they have complained and they've gone to him. He does not deal with them the same way. He does something completely different than those other times. Now look at verse 5 again in Numbers 21. It says, and the people spoke against God and against Moses, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
Joel Brooks: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 of the people of Israel died. So the people complain and God sends fiery serpents. I don't know if any of you have really old translations, some of them are great. They actually say fiery dragons, and you just gotta love that.
Joel Brooks:You picture these little dragons breathing fire all over the place, and and really it it should best be translated fiery serpents, which is a poisonous, a venomous snake, in which when it bit you, it felt like fire. Your body lit up burning. In ancient Greece, they had a snake that was called dispus, which just meant thirst, Which means when the snake bit you, that is what you felt. An insatiable thirst out of control. You just you you you were burning up inside, and that's similar to what we have here, these fiery serpents when they burnt you, when they when they bit you, they it was like this burning, this intense burning.
Joel Brooks:You, your your leg would probably be been terribly thirsty, and then ultimately you would die. You would have be terribly thirsty, and then ultimately you would die. It was a horrible death. I mean, I can't imagine how terrifying this would be because you can't run away from the serpents, you're in the middle of the desert, you know. And so as you're walking along behind every bush, you wonder if they're there behind, you know, under every rock when you go into your tent at night.
Joel Brooks:You're just looking all around because the serpents were all around in the wilderness, but God sent a lot of them now. So where all these serpents are all over the place, and it's had to be terrifying to these people. When you read this, maybe your first thought is, well that's that's a little overboard, God. You know, a little overboard, they complain about food, and you send fiery serpents, you know, all out there, start biting them, and it's killing people because they complain about food. You know, my kids complain about food all the time.
Joel Brooks:I'm not gonna get like a little serpent and put it in their bed or, you know, punish them that way. I mean, this this punishment doesn't really seem to fit the crime here, and God doesn't react like this in the rest of scripture. This is a very unique reaction. I don't believe it's an overreaction. I do think that the punishment fits the crime.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 5 again, when they say, for there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. It's a contradiction right there. I don't know if you caught that. God, there's no food. We loathe this food.
Joel Brooks:So so it's not that they don't have anything to eat, they do. God's been giving a manna for 39 years. He has provided for them. Every morning, they wake up and they get the sweet manna. They have food, but after 39 years of it, they're loathing it.
Joel Brooks:They're just thinking how many different ways can I prepare manna? You know, you you really, I mean you can you can make it into a dough and I'm sure they they had, you know, the the manna pancakes, waffles, the bread, the the manna, everything, but after 39 years, they loathe it. They call it worthless. Yet this is God's gracious provision. This is how the people know God is with them every day, that his mercies abound every morning, that his presence is there, is through this manna, and yet they want to trample on it.
Joel Brooks:And we can see from this complaint that they actually have what I would call a venom in their hearts. Bitterness boiling inside of them. Their souls are poisoned with ungratefulness. And so when God sends these serpents to bite them and make them physically burn, what he's doing is he's trying to show them this is what your heart looks like. This is what it looks like.
Joel Brooks:And so the punishment perfectly matches the crime and, and parents do this all of the time, you know, if a if a child has a filthy mouth, what do you do? Wash it out with soap. In which the physical punishment is to show them what is happening inwardly in their heart. And so the punishment matches a crime, and that's what God is doing here. Inside they're full of bitterness, they're full of poison and venom, and so God says, okay I'm gonna show you what your hearts are like by sending you real serpents, real burning.
Joel Brooks:Maybe you'll understand the state of your soul. And I think this passage, it teaches us something profound about human nature, who who we are as humans. Every human has this infinite capacity to be unsatisfied at all times. Even in the midst of God's bounty, we have this infinite capacity to be unsatisfied. I mean, and you see this in one of the first stories of the Bible.
Joel Brooks:If you go all the way back to Genesis and you see Adam and Eve, God creates Adam and Eve, and he puts them in the garden of Eden, and he puts them in paradise. Paradise. I mean temperature, perfect. They don't even have to wear clothes. They're absolutely fine.
Joel Brooks:All the food they want, wonderful garden. Every evening, God himself has says he comes and he would walk with them in the cool of the eating evening. So they have perfect fellowship, they have great food, they have a great climate, they've they're they're in paradise, yet they're unsatisfied. The serpent comes and it's no coincidence that it's a serpent who comes to them. And and he begins to shift their focus away from, okay, has God really given you everything?
Joel Brooks:Has he really provided for you? Has he really taken care of you? It if you ask me, it looks like he's holding back. I mean, he's withheld the best. This tree here is the best fruit.
Joel Brooks:This this, I mean, what kind of God do you serve? And so in the middle of paradise, there becomes this discontentment. They become unsatisfied, and they begin thinking, that's right. I mean, God's withholding his goodness, and they begin loathing the other food that's there. And they keep thinking, I've got to have that.
Joel Brooks:I've got to have that. And so even in the middle of a perfect setting, man is unsatisfied. And we've all experienced this. Have you ever noticed that we can complain about everything? I like to complain about people who complain, but it's just the same, I'm I'm always complaining.
Joel Brooks:We can be unhappy anywhere, I mean, we we could go to the beach, we could be at the beach, great weather, good seafood, and we could say, well, you know, last year my lobster was bigger. You know, well, last year I think that really tasted better, or you know there was seaweed, a lot of seaweed. The shells weren't as big as last year, and we can complain. This is why some people switch jobs every few years. It's because they're unsatisfied wherever they are, and they're thinking, you know what, I don't want a desk job, I want to travel.
Joel Brooks:And then when they get a job where they travel, they're like, you know, I'm sick of traveling. I like to just kind of be home more. Or, you know what? I want more creative freedom in my job. And then they get that and they're like, you know what, I need a little more structure.
Joel Brooks:And and and so they're always bouncing from job to job, never satisfied. People move from relationship to relationship. Never satisfied. Always finding fault. You know, a guy's gonna go on a date with a girl and think it's gonna be great.
Joel Brooks:This is gonna go, Yeah, but, she didn't laugh at all my jokes. Next. Goes on another day, beautiful girl. It's like, you know, she was really wonderful, but her ears were just, you know, they weren't quite quite straight. They were a little crooked there and you know, you find a fault and you fixate, and soon that becomes the only thing you can notice and look at.
Joel Brooks:You know, a girl, I heard a girl say this one time, she really loved her date, but her date didn't like Jane Austen, and that was it. She's like, I don't know how I could date a guy who doesn't really love Jane Austen movies or books. You know, guys don't be too hard, you're like, you know, I went on dates, you didn't even know who's playing in the championship game. I mean I can't date somebody like that, so out of touch with reality. And so we move from relationship to relationship and then even when you get married, you're not satisfied.
Joel Brooks:And it's good, and you recognize, oh I'm in a good, I'm in a great setting, but you know what? Those other marriages have, man they're they're better. Man, their kids are better. Or you think, oh, man, their sex life is a lot better. You know, mine's great, but no, I I that that would I bet theirs is great, you become unsatisfied.
Joel Brooks:Now unsatisfaction grows. And, I mean, the most obvious example that I see all the time is people in churches. I met somebody who went to 21 straight churches every week, went to 21 different churches. They would say, you know, it was great, but you know, this preacher, he was just trying to be funny all the time, and and the next preacher, well, gosh, he was way too serious, Wasn't engaging at all. Well this one, gosh, all they sang was hymns.
Joel Brooks:This one, all they sang was praise songs, and every church fault. They find a fault. Every one of them. We all do that, And what we're looking for is paradise. You're looking for Eden.
Joel Brooks:But here's the thing, if you get it, you're still gonna be unsatisfied. If you are in the middle of the garden and have everything perfect, It's part of human nature. You're gonna walk away wanting more. One of my favorite pastors, Tim Keller, he says this when describing the human condition, he says, all of us have a raging fever. Nothing is good enough for us, and success actually accelerates the sickness.
Joel Brooks:Success accelerates this process of disappointment and dissatisfaction. I mean, heaven forbid that you finally get what you're after. You know, it and when you when you don't have it, at least it's that carrot of hope in front of you. It's the excuse you can always point to and say, I don't have that. That's the reason I'm not happy, and you can keep pursuing and pursuing it.
Joel Brooks:Heaven forbid you ever get it. You know, you you reach the pinnacle in your job or or or that you get the exact house you want or you're in the relationship that you've always dreamed of, and you finally get it and you hold on to it and you're like, wow. Now I have no more excuses for my discontent in my heart. Now now what do I point to? And he began falling apart at the seams.
Joel Brooks:Success accelerates this. And this is what is going on here with these Israelites. They've got venom in them. God has provided for them, graciously given Himself to them, and yet they loathe this worthless food. And so God sends snakes.
Joel Brooks:Interesting, he doesn't talk, doesn't say a word, it is past time for words at this point. Every other time when they do something, God tells them something, there's a dialogue, not now. Words haven't gotten through, snakes. And it worked. They instantly cry out, Lord, we repent.
Joel Brooks:We repent. They realized that they did have venom in their hearts, and so God, he he sends the cure after they repent and they're truly sorry. And the cure is even more bizarre than the snakes, I I think. This is this is when things really get odd because God doesn't say, okay, you've repented, snakes go. He says, nope, leaving the snakes, they're gonna keep on biting.
Joel Brooks:But this is what you're to do, get a pole and mount up there this bronze snake. Whenever you get bit, look at it, you'll be healed. Now raise it really high so everybody can see it and it's really simple. Look at it and you live, don't look at it and you don't live. And I've read through a number of Jewish commentaries on this, and it's interesting because all of them are somewhat puzzled by this.
Joel Brooks:All of them. And that they wonder why in the world would God have to make an image earlier, he just forbid graven images, and yet now he's asking him to make an image and then to look at this, he doesn't deal with people like this throughout the rest of the Torah, and what's going on here? Jeff, Haines, who's being ordained tonight in Kentucky. We were studying this together and it was really interesting because the man is terrified of snakes, terrified of them. He won't go to the zoo, he will not go to the reptile house, you cannot force him to.
Joel Brooks:And so when we're even looking at the pictures of this, you know, in different commentaries, he is borderline freaking out. And, he said, I don't understand it. Why would you have to look at the very thing you're terrified of? That's what they're they're asked to do. That very thing that you were terrified of it bites you, and now you have to look at it again to be healed.
Joel Brooks:But that's all they have to do. They have to look. God doesn't say, alright, I don't want you to do a great work. I want you to do a little song and dance. I don't want you to present me a big sacrifice, you get bit.
Joel Brooks:Look. That's all you have to do. Don't look, die. Look and live. Now Jesus understood what God was teaching the Israelites here, and he applied this to himself.
Joel Brooks:Just as the son of man must be lift or just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. He uses this image and and when he uses this in Nicodemus, Nicodemus, I hope he got the point. He's saying, Nicodemus, I know you think you're a good person. I know you think you're great and you're kinda confused by all by all this, but you need to realize you have venom. When I say you must be born again, it's because you have venom in you.
Joel Brooks:And you gotta look to make the cure to be born again is looking at me. Looking at me when I'm lifted up. You don't have to do any works. All you have to do is look at me. And when Jesus says lift it up, he is using that word lifted up as a double meaning.
Joel Brooks:It is both talking about his crucifixion and it's talking about his ascension, when the Son of Man must be lifted up. The words used to describe both. And so at Jesus's crucifixion, He is lifted up, and that thing of horror is presented in front of everybody, and Jesus says, you look at that and you will live. And by looking, he is implying you believe that is the reason you look. One of the things that needs to be addressed, one of the problems is, certainly looks like Jesus is comparing himself to the serpent.
Joel Brooks:When he says, I'm just like this, and but the serpent throughout the Bible is representative of a curse, it's representative of evil, of Satan. And Jesus says that this image, that serpent represents me. We understand what this means when we come to 2nd Corinthians 5, it says, for our sake, He made him to be sin who knew no sin. So on the cross, Jesus became sin. Galatians 313 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
Joel Brooks:He became the very thing that has always terrorized us. And then later in Galatians 3, it says, and cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So Jesus takes the curse. Jesus took the venom, He took the real bite and that's why even on the cross, He screams out, I thirst. He's receiving that hellfire judgment.
Joel Brooks:He took it for us. And to be saved, we don't do a great work, all we do is we look and we look. And one thing, and I hope you walk away with this, was this is not just for the sinner, but this is for the saint. And I have that in that CS Lewis quote at the very start of, your worship guide. There's a CH Spurgeon, he said, look and live as both for the saint and for the sinner, in which we're always reminding ourselves of the cross.
Joel Brooks:And we read this in 1st Corinthians 15, what we opened up with. I don't know if you got it, but says, now I would remind you brothers of the gospel. Who is he reminding? Christians, I remind you brothers of the gospel that I preach to you by which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast. You don't ever outgrow the gospel.
Joel Brooks:We don't ever distance ourselves from the gospel. We will always be looking and living. When we sin, we look back to the cross and we receive, we look and we live. And it's so important for us to understand as a church that we never outgrow this. We don't ever get gimmicky.
Joel Brooks:We don't ever pump in, you know, the the the great music to try to draw people. Put out all the billboards to draw people, the the the fun or the games or whatever to try to get people in these doors because if they came here, it doesn't change them. But Jesus says later in John 12 that the Son of Man be lifted up. He will draw all people to himself. Or as Paul would say in 1st Corinthians, we preach Christ and we preach Christ crucified.
Joel Brooks:I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus and him crucified. Because I did not want the cross emptied of its power. And Paul understood that we must cling to the cross. That's what we hold to as a church. That's what we present to change lives, and we hold it as clear as we can and we say, look and live.
Joel Brooks:Look and live. We never outgrow this. We never move past this. Look and live. As the son of man, or as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.
Joel Brooks:Whoever believes in that receives eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Pray with me. Lord, ask that we would look and we would live whenever we're unsatisfied. We look to the cross and we'd be reminded of your great love for us.
Joel Brooks:Whenever we think that you're holding back, we will look at the cross and be reminded you didn't even hold back your son, father. Whenever we doubt your provision, we would look to the cross and know that in that moment, you have purchased for us everything. We will never outgrow your cross. Thank you. And we pray this in the name of Jesus.
