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“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. 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 would look at the bronze serpent and live.” (Numbers 21:7-9,ESV)

Paster Abel’s sermon on this passage is titled, “What It Means to Believe”.

Throughout the book of Numbers, there has been a repeating pattern. The people of Israel are in the wilderness, they grow discontent due to their hardships and complain, God punishes the offenders (many of whom die) and continues to provide for the rest.

Take the following examples:

  • In Numbers 11, people complained, and God sent fire to burn the outer sections of the camp.
  • Again, in Numbers 11, the people complained about the food, God sent quail along with a plague that killed many.
  • In Numbers 13-14, the people refused to enter the land, so God said that they would wander in the wilderness for forty years until the whole generation of disobedient people had died.
  • In Numbers 16, Korah challenged Moses, and through him God, and God caused the ground to swallow up Korah and all who followed him along with their households.
  • And now here in Numbers 21, once again the people complained about food, and God sent serpents to bite, killing some while others, those who looked at the bronze serpent, lived.

What is the common pattern between those who die, and those who live? In Numbers 21, the key is faith. Those who believed the promise, looked to the bronze serpent and lived. Those who lacked that faith died. Also, in Numbers 14:24, as God is passing judgment on the generation that will die in the wilderness, he says, “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it” (ESV).

This pattern shows us the refining process that God used in Numbers to purify his people, to make a people who had faith in him, and in that faith, would live lives of holiness that honored him.

 

Further Study