Snake Bit—Sunday online only number 7

“Snake Bit”

Online only week 7

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”—John 3:14-15 ESV

“Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”—Numbers 21:6-9

As we gather today to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, I want to remind us of what exactly Jesus did for us when He died on the Cross for our sins.

In our text when Jesus was talking to the Jewish priest Nicodemus, He refers to the event in the Wilderness when God sent fiery serpents against His people for their unrepentant sins.

We read in the Bible that while the Children of Israel were journeying through the Wilderness they were chronic complainers.

And one day they set their complaining tongues againstg Moses and even God Himself, charging them that they had brought them into the wilderness to die.

God then sent “fiery” serpents, highly venomous snakes, amongst the people and they began to be bitten and die.

As always, they turned to Moses and repented, asking him to pray to God to remove the serpents.

But God had a better solution, a solution that pointed directly to what His only begotten Son would one day do for us on the Cross.

He instructed them to make a bronze likeness of a snake and put it on a pole, then set the pole in the ground, which placed the snake between heaven and earth.

God then promised that when a bitten person looked at the snake on the pole, he would be healed.

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Now, this event was designed by God to teach us something about the human race and how God would one day make our own healing available.

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First, it’s no mistake that God sent serpents—not lions, hyenas, wolves—but snakes that bit them.

It illustrates what happened to the first couple—Adam and Eve—in the ancient Garden of Eden.

You’ll note that the first time we encounter the devil in the Bible he is a serpent.

And he was poisonous—his venom was the venom of lies.

In the very first temptation to stain God’s beautiful creation, we see him approach Eve and contradicting what God had told the first couple, which was:

“But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen 2:17 NIV).

Satan starts in with Eve, “4 ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. 5 ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

The more she listened the weaker she got, until...

6 “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Gen 3:4-6 NIV).

When Eve believed the serpent over God, we could say she became snake bit—the venom of Satan’s lies entered her spiritual system in the form of sin.

And when Adam also disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit, he too was snake-bit with the venom of sin.

And the Bible goes on to say that, through Adam, the entire world became snake-bit through the same venom of sin.

The Apostle Paul writes: “When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die, for all sinned” (Ro. 5:12 LB).

And that first snake bite of sin has resulted in all the woes, pain, sickness, crime, depravity and misery that afflict the human race.

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Now hold that thought and let’s jump back to the wilderness and the 911 crisis of the fiery serpents.

People are dying....The situation is desperate.

And what is God’s solution?

Notice, He didn’t remove the snakes as the people requested.

Instead he commanded they “Make a bronze replica of one of these snakes and attach it to the top of a pole; anyone who is bitten shall live if he simply looks at it!”—LB

Imagine the scene!

A man is bitten. His leg begins to swell. His heart is racing. The pain is growing.

And he has one desperate desire—“Get me where I can look at the serpent on the pole!”

And in obedience to God’s instructions, as soon as he cast his eyes on the serpent on the pole, the swelling stopped, the pain subsided, and he was healed.

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There are few types and shadows of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ in the entire OT more graphic than this one!

The reason God orchestrated this entire event was to point to the day when His only begotten Son would be placed on a pole—the Cross—be lifted up between heaven and earth, and die for a snake bitten world!

Think about it: God had said to Israel, “Make a likeness of the very thing that is biting you and put it on a pole.”

The Bible says that when Jesus hung on the Cross, as the song says: “He became sin, who knew no sin, that we might become His righteousness.”

Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21 NIV).

While Jesus did not literally become a sinner, He took on Himself “the iniquity of us all.”—He was our sin sacrifice!

And what does God say to our snake bitten, sin sick world world?

“Look at Him! By faith, turn to my Son, Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will be healed of the venom of sin and the death it brings!”

This is why Jesus so often said things like, “Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death” (John 8:51 NIV).

And, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live’” (John 11:25 NKJV).

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So in the Lord’s Supper today, we celebrate God’s great gift—the body and shed blood of His Son who, when we first looked to Him, took away the poison of our sin and condemnation!