You want me to look at a snake?
March 4, 2008
Numbers 21:4-9 NET
(4) Fiery Serpents
Then they traveled from Mount Hor by the road to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, but the people became impatient along 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 bread or water, and we detest this worthless food."
(6) So the LORD sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit the people; many people of Israel died.
(7) Then 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 would take away the snakes from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
(8) The LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous snake and set it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live."
(9) So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that if a snake had bitten someone, when he looked at the bronze snake he lived.
I am not sure that if I was in the desert, being attacked by snakes, that if someone told me to look at a snake on a pole, then I would live. That would take
a lot of faith. I mean it is not natural to do this.
Jesus talked about this event in the book of John. He said just like that snake was lifted up, so would the son of man. Today, we have the equivalent of that snake on the pole in the desert. It is not easy to understand how looking at Jesus on a cross,believing that He died for our sins will give us eternal life with Him and the Father in heaven. It is so much easier to say I can do something to get me in. I can go to a Bible study or I can write a devotional, or any number of other things. Jesus said none of them would do it.
It is not easy to look at that cross and accept the blood that was shed on it to make me whole. It takes faith. Just like looking at the snake in the desert took faith. Logic will tell you that it will not work. Logic will tell you to take life in your own hands. Logic will get you dead like those people who refused to look at the snake. Faith will make you whole. Faith will set you free.
So, do you look to yourself, or do you look to the cross.
Read through the Bible in one year in Historical order
Today
Numbers 21:1-22:41
Tomorrow
Numbers 23:1-25:18
http://tinyurl.com/24beby for a daily reading tool
