5-24-26 Saving People from Themselves (Numbers)

Join Pastor Ken as he looks at Numbers 21 and its connection to John 3 and our salvation in Christ.

Transcript

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It is great to be in worship with you today. This is a lot going on. You know, today is Memorial Weekend. It's also Pentecost, the birthday of the church, Old Testament festival when the Holy Spirit came down in the book of Acts. And so I tried to choose carefully. I got my red shirt for Pentecost and my blue pants, and then I got that one little white spot on my head that never tans, so I can be patriotic too. We also got a great worship time planned for you. We got some folks that are gonna come and be a part of our church membership, excited about that. And then this is the Sunday that we offer anointing with oil as well as prayer during our time when we have individual prayer. Do you have a sworn inveterate enemy somewhere out there? Somebody that is out to get you, somebody that's going to be an enemy forever, somebody that you know you can count on to be angry at you all the time. Ellison D. Cotton Ed Smith was a South Carolina Democratic senator. He was elected in 1908 and served until 1944. One of his opponents said, quote, he is a conscious, conscientious objector to the 20th century. And Smith was for no change whatsoever in race relations, no progress whatsoever in our country. And it wasn't long before he went head-to-head with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was in the very progressive branch of the Democratic Party. And Roosevelt, FDR, tried to primary Smith by having another Democrat run for his position, and it didn't work. So some years later, another Democratic senator said to Smith, you know, FDR is his worst enemy. And he said, Not as long as I'm alive, he's not. Most of us, however, remain our worst enemy. When we look in the mirror, we see the person that causes us the most trouble, the one that we have to deal with all the time. So look with me at Numbers chapter 21, beginning with verse 4, and stand as you're able for the reading of God's word as we talk about saving the people, maybe us, from ourselves. Numbers 4, 6, or 4 through Numbers 21, 4 through 6. From Mount Hor they went out by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people became discouraged on the way. 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 detest this miserable food. Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many Israelites died. This is the word of God for the people of God. Please be seated. We have seen again and again that the Israelites are their own worst enemy. They constantly complain, they constantly moan, they constantly rebel. And this time they don't just complain against Moses and Aaron, their usual targets, they even complain against God and say, God has bad motives. God is out to get them. He just brought them out there to destroy them. We've heard this over and over, haven't we? In the book of Exodus, in the book of Numbers. And it's typical with these types of situations. It's very exaggerated. In fact, they contradict themselves. They say there's no food, and then they say we don't like the food. That we don't want the same manna stuff all the time, the same quail all the time. When my mom stayed with me, she was in her 80s, and I'm a firm believer that by the time you get to your 80s, you can eat anything you want to. But she loved those salt-coated cheese puff things. And after the third time to the emergency room for congestive heart failure and retention of fluids, she said, I want you to get me a package of those. And I said, No. And she did this set in her jaw that, as I learned as a kid, was you're in trouble. So I come into the house and I hear her talking to my niece, saying, and he refuses to even feed me. And then I see her caregiver coming in, hiding this package that she's got. Now you have to understand my mom was blind, and so she takes the cheese puffs that she has her caregiver get her, puts her under the bed. Everybody can see them but her, and she thinks they're hidden. I'm like, mom. So God responds this time with the plague of snakes. I've got my little fake snake here. I don't touch real snakes. I mean, snakes among them, and the snakes bite them, and they're poisonous snakes, and it just gives me a shiver to think about that. Let me share with you a quote from T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia fame, about dealing with the snakes a little ways to the east of Jordan, where the children of Israel were. He writes, the plague of snakes, which had been with us since our first entry into Sirhan, today rose to memorable heights and became a terror. This year the valley seemed creeping with horned vipers, puff adders, cobras, and black snakes. By night, movement was dangerous, and at last we found it necessary to walk with sticks, beating the bushes on both sides. Oh, didn't I give you a creepy shit? I think of Indiana Jones suspended over that big pit of snakes, and he'd say, it had to be snakes, didn't it? But aren't people usually, when you get down to it, their own worst enemy? I mean, we get in trouble if we drink too much, and nobody causes it to do it but ourselves. And we make ourselves sick if we eat too much, but then we tend to do it again. And people know better than smoking because of health risk, but they smoke too much, and we could go on more and more in different ways. We work hard all week long, and then we do more damage to ourselves on our celebration on the weekend than all through the week. One of my first jobs was working on the green crew at a golf course, and the guy that was the leader of our crew talked all week long. I can't wait to the weekend. I can't wait to get out. They would go down to the river and crawl into the water and stick their hands under rocks to try to find those big catfish. Noodling, they called it. And sometimes they would come up with a snake. And he would come back all beat up, and one time he didn't show up at all because he'd gotten in a bar fight and got stabbed. And it took him a couple weeks to recover. And I'm thinking, man, you're having a great time every weekend, aren't you? But then on my birthday, I have lunch with the staff at the Thai place, and then I go out to the Mexican restaurant with friends at suppertime, and I had to sleep propped up that night because I couldn't lay down after eating too. And I think, why do I do this stuff to myself? And that's even before we get into how much trouble we get ourselves into with our mouth, with the words that we say. You know, it's too often open mouth, insert foot, right? And sometimes I'll say something, and the minute those words come out, I'll think, oh, that was not right to say. But it's too late. It's been launched out there. And we say things that get us into all kinds of fights and trouble and rebellion against God. You know, in a sense, we're in the same situation as the Israelites because as sinners, and the Bible says all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we are in rebellion against God, and it's going to lead to our death, maybe not as quick as a snake bite will, but eventually, and we can't do anything about it. We are in trouble because of our constant rebellion. We are our own worst enemy in so many ways. But let's pick up the story. Numbers 21, 7 through 9. The people came to Moses and said, We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, Make a poisonous serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who has bitten shall look at it and live. So Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it upon a pole. And whenever a serpent bit someone, that person will look at the serpent of bronze and live. Moses once again intercedes for the people that have reveiled against him. And God once again gives an opportunity for mercy to the people who have complained against him and questioned his motives and attacked his motives and claimed that he's just out to get them. You know, over 40 years of ministry, I've had a lot of people get mad at me various times and places. And sometimes it was something stupid I did that really caused them to get mad at me. And sometimes I didn't feel like I did anything and they got mad at me. Sometimes they were mad at me because I represented God or whatever. But I learned early on from somebody very wise, don't get mad back if you can help it. Don't retaliate if somebody's upset and mad at you if you can keep loving them and don't stop providing pastoral care for them. And Moses, no matter how much they complain about him and attack him, he keeps praying for these people. He keeps interceding for them. And eventually, what I found was most people will come around. Most people will reconnect if you refuse to return curse for blessing, but instead bless back. Now it's fine to be clear with people. Don't get me wrong. I do respond and have responded, and I stand up for myself when I think a boundary is violated or somebody's doing something wrong. You have to do that. But you try to do it in a context of keeping caring and reaching out and giving that opportunity to reconnect. And here God gives directions to receive mercy. But the question is: all these times before, God has healed them, God has saved them, God has relented on his judgment, God has not done things that he had said he was going to do, God has given them another opportunity, but he never had a special procedure for them to go through. Why this whole bronze snake thing? Why this special procedure that Moses has to go through for the people to be forgiven and healed? Why a snake on a pole made out of bronze? Now it's interesting if you look at history, snakes are often associated with healing. Can I have that next slide? Anyone recognize that? It's the insignia of the United States Army Medical Corps. You see something pretty close to that on pharmacies, don't you? It's because the Greek god Asclepius was the healing god, and it was the god was presented as a snake. The Egyptians had a snake god that was associated with healing. Other ancient peoples did, and it's probably connected to the fact that people would find snake skins. I remember finding them as a boy in Oklahoma, and they would think, oh, snakes regenerate themselves. They maybe live forever. In fact, in the Gilgamesh epic, one of the earliest stories that we found from the ancient world, Gilgamesh can't find eternity because the snake runs off with it and keeps it hidden. And so that idea of snakes being able to bring healing, regenerate, maybe even be immortal may be a part of it. But when you ultimately get down to it, what God is doing here, and the rabbis recognize this, is God is building in a choice for the people, an opportunity to turn from their sin and to be received back. A test of faith and reliance upon God, if you will. They can persist in their complaints and their rebellion and die after they're bitten by a snake, or they can look upon the bronze snake and trust in God and live. The opportunity is there for them to choose life instead of death. Now later, the snake that Moses made becomes a problem. It becomes idolatrous. Look with me in 2 Kings chapter 18, verses 3 and 4. It's talking about Hezekiah here. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done. He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it. It was called Nehushtan. The temple had a jar of manna from the wilderness to remind the people of God's provision. It had the staff of Aaron, an old dead stick that budded again when he was in the wilderness to remind them. And they also kept the snake on the pole. But the time came when, instead of reminding them of God's mercy, they were making offerings to it, as if the snake had the power to heal them. They were gazing upon it as an object of worship, as an idol, as if it was that special magic power in it that caused it. And so Hezekiah destroyed it. Now I have another slide. I'm going to show you if I could, please. Anybody been to Mount Nebo where Moses looks into the promised land? I was there in 1990, and what you find there is this cross with a snake around it. It was done by the Franciscans, an artist by the name of Giovanni Fontani. You think he's Italian, maybe? And it was done to symbolize the snake on the pole that Moses did, but also the cross. Because of John chapter 3, verses 14 to 16. Please look at those verses with me. And just 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, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. God has a cure for our self-destructiveness, too. He has a cure for our self-enmity, for the way we get ourselves in messes and can't get ourselves out of them, the way we rebel and fight against God and do things that we shouldn't do. The snake on the pole is a precursor of Christ on the cross. And the situation is pretty much the same. We, like the Israelites, rebel against God. We embrace sin. We choose our own way, and it leads to death. Paul lays it out in Romans. All of sinned, the wages of sin, are death. But God, through Jesus Christ, has given us an option of breaking that cycle, of choosing life rather than death. We cannot cure ourselves. We've only got limited time to deal with the poison that is in our life through sin. But God has provided his own son as a way out. The cross is our option to look upon Jesus Christ, to turn to him, to trust in him, to rely upon him, and experience life rather than death. To see it what it truly is, an act of love by the God that we have rebelled against to accept us as his children, to accept us and make us his people. So the question that each one of us should ask is: Are we still warring against God? Are we still complaining and rejecting and blaming and saying all my problems are because of you, God? Why are you doing this to me, God? God, why are you so negative towards me? Or do we recognize the truth, the reality that he has provided his son to die for us, to give us life? Life that we don't deserve. Life that we have thrown away in our rebellion. Life eternal in his kingdom. Augustine, before he became Saint Augustine, was a young man that was struggling. He was living in a very sinful situation. He was dabbling in other religions. He was trying to decide the path in his life. And he was in a garden and he heard some kids chanting. Take up and read. Take up and read. And he picked up a Bible and flipped it open to Romans chapter 13, verses 13 to 14, that talk about being caught in sin, debauched in life in the midst of all these negative evil things. And then putting on Christ for salvation. In other words, looking to Christ on the cross for deliverance. And that's when he realized that God's love for him and his need to respond to that love. It was the turning point in his life. Have you reached that turning point? Do you recognize where you are in relationship to God? And do you need to make a change? Do you need to look upon Jesus Christ? Because otherwise you're going to perish in your sin. Do you need to receive what He has already provided? What He has done to open wide the family of God to receive us who are perishing and give us life. Have you taken Jesus Christ into your heart? Because today is the day if you have not. Will you pray with me, please? Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your blessings. We thank you for your incredible love that you've shown to us through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the options that you have given us when we don't deserve any, Lord. We thank you for the way you bless us and provide for us. Help us to make good choices, Lord, to be reconciled to you and even to ourselves by trusting in Jesus and following Him. Lord's in His name I pray. Amen.