Here we go again with the Israelites.
Numbers 21:4-9
4 Then they set out
from
5 The people spoke
against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of
What is wrong with these people?! By now they should have known God would provide.
6 The LORD sent fiery
serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of
7 So the people came
to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against
the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from
us." And Moses interceded for the people.
At least this time they realized that they had spoken against God! Now look carefully at the solution that God provides:
8 Then the LORD said
to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall
come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will
live."
9 And Moses made a
bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent
bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
Notice that all they had to do was to look at the serpent on the standard, and they would live. Hopefully you all recognize this as a reference to the cross. If not, look at what Jesus said:
John 3:14
14 "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
God didn’t tell them to crawl to the serpent, make a promise not to do it again, or work hard. All they had to do was look at it. They weren’t to fight the serpents (we can’t fight sin), or to run away from them. They weren’t told to look at their wounds. Looking at your problems won’t help – only the Word of God can change you!
2 Corinthians 3:17-18
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
These Israelites were not the most wonderful believers ever, but they WERE believers!
The important thing to understand is that the cross is the solution, not only for salvation, but for living every day as a Christian.
When we commit sins, no matter how horrible they may seem to us, God wants us to focus not on the sin, but on the solution that He has provided – the Cross. All we have to do is look to the cross, and live!