Looking to Christ (Numbers 21:5–9)

Reading and Prayer

As we continue our worship, we’ll direct our attention to the book of Numbers... In Numbers 21:5-9, we’ll be reading out of the closing scenes of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. Numbers 21:5–9 “The people spoke against God and 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 loathe this miserable food.” The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 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. 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.” 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.”

Introduction

There is an essential truth to behold as we venture on with this generation of Israelites in the wilderness through the final recorded events of their wilderness wanderings. Consider now, a people that stand above the other nations by virtue of the God they worship. A nation indelibly marked by their Creator in every aspect of their culture. Their very foundation was set upon the character of the One who made them, they who proclaimed in their law the unalienable rights of men, and touted the greatness of their God among the nations.

And yet, these who have seen so much light are content to avert their eyes from the glory of their God and, instead, to stare blankly at the creation… not in gratitude to God Who has so richly blessed them, but in utter indifference to their Lord Who has provided it all.

How can people who have had real, unmistakable encounters with the living God fall away in rebellion? Did they not watch as God split the sea? And poured out bread from heaven?

What would cause you to fall away?

This is a real danger for the unbelievers masquerading in our midst and also a real danger for the believer. And some of you, if you do indeed believe, may say, “But I’m chosen by God and I have the Holy Spirit.” Yes and amen… and so did David before he took a woman who was not his wife, impregnated her, and murdered his friend to hide the evidence. A true believer can make a train wreck of their life...

We all, believing and unbelieving, stand in need of deep and frequent examination of the state of our souls. It all comes to a simple question: Where are you looking?

The reason David commited his great sin, and the reason the generation of Israelites hardened their hearts in the wilderness, and indeed the reason why you today, worshipping in this sanctuary, might get up, go out, and fall away from the living God… that reason can be uncovered by asking the question: Where are you looking?

Show me what a man looks at, and I will show you his soul.

So now, in Numbers 21:5-9, we’ll see four places you will look to consider the great salvation God has accomplished.

Looking at Circumstance (v. 5)

Numbers 21:5 “The people spoke against God and 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 loathe this miserable food.””

Moses kicks this verse off with a bit of inspired commentary, “The people spoke against God and Moses”. And they go on to complain of their present circumstances. They complain about the lack of nourishment and they especially loathe the manna God gave them to eat. But this is such a jaded and spiteful view of what truly was a display of the abundant provision of God. Deuteronomy 29:5–6 ““I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. “You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God.” So the complaining generation observes correctly that they have no normal food or drink, but God clarifies that He witheld those for a specific purpose, “in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God.”

And Moses in Numbers is essentially saying that this complaint against their circumstances is a complaint against him and what’s more, it’s a complaint against God. Consider this: if a man complains about the poor quality of a fence and house that he’s bought, we know that his grievance is truly with the builder for doing such a poor job, not with the inanimate objects. Or, if someone has been following a story from a beloved book series and the ending does not do justice to the story and they hate it… after all is considered, their frustration is truly directed at the author whether they realize it or not.

So also the Author of history, God Almighty, Who wrote every detail of history is the One we indict when we complain of circumstance. Our complaints are ultimately against Him.

And this is true for everyone in this room. All men sin - Romans chapter 3: verses 10 to 23 - plain as day. Whether it be with your lips in grumbling like the rebellious generation in the wilderness, or it be your actions alternately accusing you, that you have indeed seen God’s work on display in His creation and you have determined that His provision is not adequate, not right… “No, I will go after what I want, not what’s been provided… I will go after pleasure, I will lust after people in private, I will pursue what my eyes want.” Not only are all men determined to sin, they seek to establish the justice of their cause as they do it. “I am the way I am because of… circumstance.” “I’ve had these desires since I was born… therefore they can’t be wrong… come and kneel with me before my circumstance.” “My upbringing was disadvantaged… therefore the wrong in my life is really not my fault… come and surrender to my circumstance.”

My hope is not to say that you can’t have genuine and godly grief or even anger over certain circumstances… that can be justified… but my hope is this… to persuade you to not look long at circumstance, lest you forget about the Creator of the circumstance… and when you grumble, because God has meticulously planned every detail of the ongoing history of the universe, you grumble against Him. This is the great danger of looking to circumstance alone… it can become idolatrous rapidly.

Instead of looking AT circumstance, we should look THROUGH circumstance. Circumstance should be seen as a window through which we may see the greatness, or the glory, of our God. And indeed everything He has made is a testament to His glory.

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.”

Isaiah 6:3 “And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.””

The heavens and the earth is a description of everything, we can look through it all, as if it were a window, to see the glory of God.

Next, in verse 6, we see the nation in the wilderness “looking at wrath.”

Looking at Wrath (v. 6)

Numbers 21:6 “The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”

These are venomous snakes, probably cobras. Called fiery due to the burn of their venom. Evidently, God does not take kindly to grumbling. He doesn’t think it’s cute. He hates sin - He hates it with an all-powerful, eternal, omnipresent rage. This is an attribute of God, His wrath, which is simply, His hatred of sin. Conversely, the pouring out of judgment is not an attribute of God. It’s an action. God’s judgment displayed in the creation is the outward expression or manifestation of an inward reality. God works judgment because He is wrathful.

This is important to know so we can properly understand God. As God judged these people for their sin in the wilderness… as the snakes slithered in, and began to strike… as the people screamed and fled and were bit and began to burn like fire in their bodies… dying, it was, as if, God was hiding his wrath that day.

For the infinite hatred of sin that God has, for He is infinite, cannot be displayed fully in this finite universe. Not even 1% of His wrath was revealed that day. God’s displays of judgment in creation when compared with His actual character, are like burning your hands on one of the hot rocks on the bottom of an active volcano… vs. being dropped into the center of the magma. In fact, God’s final display of wrath in judgment is described as the lake of fire. Every part of you burning with blinding pain… a fire that does not consume, but only inflicts… night after night after night… in the land where light has ceased and the worm does not die. This is God’s final and eternal judgment.

And you all, as natural men and women stand condemned before God for violating His law and will face that judgment… this is essential to see. If you have not known that God’s wrath burns hotly against men in their unrighteousness, then what use is the Intercessor and Savior of men to you? Christian salvation is predicated on the understanding that God’s wrath is reveled against us.

Before any man is able to confess along with the apostle John that our God is love, he must first see along with author to the Hebrews that our God is a consuming fire. The wrath of God is the pitch black backdrop of a night sky that reveals with all the more splendor, the glory of the sunrise, the glory of God in salvation.

Going back to the generation int the wilderness, this salvation started in verse 7 by “Looking at the Intercessor.”

Looking at the Intercessor (v. 7)

Numbers 21:7 “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.”

The people realized that they had sinned not only against Moses but also against God. And they recognized that they couldn’t bring the matter to God themselves. A criminal being prosecuted in a court of law has two options with regards to how they will be represented in the court. They may choose to represent themself OR they may choose to have someone who knows the law and is skilled in it’s procedure to represent them instead. Hopefully this isn’t news to you, but it is complete folly to represent yourself in court… many people go to traffic court to appeal against traffic violations and speeding tickets and many a self-assured adult are disappointed when they do not get the outcome they expected. More notably, we may be able to think of some famous court cases where the representation was able to defend a client that seemed to be dead-to-rights, guilty.

Israel realizes that they have no hope to represent themselves before God… but that they need Moses who would speak to God regularly on their behalf. For you, it makes all the difference who will represent you before God… as it stands, you will go before God representing yourself, or as Paul describes in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 being represented by Adam. Adam is the attorney of death… everyone that follows after his pattern of self-determined righteousness leading to sin will invariably be condemned before God. If Adam be your representative, hell be your destination. The intercessor you need, and have access to is Christ. Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” 1 John 2:1 “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we HAVE [right now] an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;”

The Man who stands between God and man is the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Look to the one who presently intercedes before the Father. Know that He prays for His beloved people on this earth that their faith may not fail.

And continuing out of our view of intercession, we’ll look at the savior, and what an unlikely savior it is in this wilderness account.

Looking at the Savior (vv. 8-9)

Numbers 21:8–9 “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.” 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.”

Moses, as the human intercessor advocating on behalf of Israel was then instructed by God to make a fiery serpent, the very likeness of the God’s means of wrath. He made it of bronze or copper likely due to the red color that may have matched the appearance of the snakes. This all serves to show a striking parallel between God’s means of expressing His wrath and His means of expressing His love. The judgment and the salvation are made to look alike. Both the likeness of this same serpent.

And it was hoisted up on the ancient equivalent of a flag pole. High enough so that people can see it. And those people that look at the bronze serpent are made to be alive - though they are surrounded by serpents, though they be bitten, though they burn, yet they will live! IF … they look. If they look.

One of the most famous verses in the Bible, if not the most famous verse, is John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This describes the motivation and then the action of God the Father in saving those who believe. The motivation was love and the action was giving His Son. But this is really a suboridnate point that supports what comes before it in John 3… we know this because John 3:16 starts with the word “For”. “FOR God so loved the world.” So, what is it supporting?

John 3:14–15 Jesus speaking here, ““As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [Jesus calls back to the events that we are reviewing today and says in essence, just like that], even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”

Moses lifted a serpent which was the very likeness of the curse and wrath brought to Israel, and so Christ must be lifted up in the very likeness of the curse and the wrath brought against men. Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—” And again in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Christ being fashioned into the likeness of sin or as as the Bible describes, becoming a curse and being made to be sin all points to the singular event of the cross in which the sins of all men who had believed and would believe were put onto Christ and God poured out His wrath against their sins fully, once for all time, so that all men who believe would not have to face God’s wrath. What’s more, as a result of Christ’s work God rewards Him. Isaiah 53:11–12 “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the [spoil] with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”

Conclusion

This is the Savior we are to look to. Look and be healed, look and have eternal life. Notice that in John 3:14-15 where Jesus mentions the story of the bronze serpent, He is likening Himself to the serpent and Israel to the men of the world, but also instead of saying that men are to LOOK onto Him, He says that they are to BELIEVE. Faith is looking at Christ. It is a weak connection by comparison to what we will have, but nevertheless, it is how God has ordained that we would behold our Savior in the present age until He calls us home or until He returns. And to look at Christ or to have faith in Him, means to behold Who He truly is! Or to know Him truly. Faith is seeing without sight. It’s the conviction of things not seen. Though you are not able to see HIm, you perceive Him plainly. And though the vision of Christ is blurred for the time being, rememeber 1 Corinthians says we see dimly right now, and we can’t see him FULLY, we can know Him TRULY.

Having reviewed the great judgment and deliverance of God, there were 4 different places to look.

Looking at circumstance… you must look through the window of circumstance to behold God Who planned it.

Looking at Wrath… this is the blackened backdrop of the night sky that is then pierced by all the brilliance of a sunrise… that is seeing the one who intecedes and saves.

Looking at the intercessor. First Moses in the wilderness, but then the greater intercessor, Jesus Christ after His death and victorious resurrection spending His time interceding for the saints. Christians, imagine how your life would change if you considered that Jesus is always interceding for us. Always.

Looking at the Savior… in the form of a serpent in the wilderness and now it is revealed to us that Christ would also bear the curse and take on the sin and all it’s due penatly for those He loves. And the exhortation is… look. Look at Him… raised up on the standard between heaven and earth on the cross dying, burning, facing the very wrath of God owed to you… if indeed you would look.. and believe.