Sin, Snakes, and Salvation: God's Gracious Provision for a Dying People

Snake Bite Statistics

According to the World Health Organization an estimated 5.4 million people are bitten each year. Around 81 000 to 138 000 people die each year because of snake bites, and around three times as many amputations and other permanent disabilities are caused by snakebites annually.

This test teaches us about two very important truths.

We See the Ruin of man.

Numbers 21:4–5 ESV

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And 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 loathe this worthless food.”

We have a tendency to detest God’s mercy.

There is something with in us because of our fallen nature that creates a dissatisfaction with God’s good provision.

It is like your children they say we don’t have any food in the house. Your response - we just went to the grocery store. There is sandwich meat… “I don’t want that”!

They didn’t want what God provided for them.

Mana came every day except Saturday. Friday they gathered a double portion that lasted through Saturday.

It was a really good deal because Publics didn’t operate in that part of the desert and Chick-a-fila had not invented the chicken just yet.

In other words bread from heaven is much better than a dirt sandwich.

This bread was life - it was God’s provision.

Yet that called the good things God gave bad!

Is God’s provision enough for your satisfaction?

Where there is no sports, no Disney, no beach, no fine dinning, no parties, no distractions is God enough?

The implication is that we were better off without you!

We have a tendency to question God’s motives.

Numbers 21:5 ESV

5 And 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 loathe this worthless food.”

They essentially said, He is not working for my good!

Bottom line they felt they were better off without God!

They felt that things were better in Egypt!

Notice what God does in response.

Numbers 21:6 ESV

6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.

They detested manna so they received moccasin.

Why Snakes?

Tim Keller Notes.

It is not as if the Lord saw his people sinning and then said to himself, “Now what shall I afflict them with today? I think I’ll send snakes! I haven’t tried that punishment before.” Nor was the form of the judgment simply due to the fact that snakes were a convenient commodity with which to afflict people in that part of the desert. Rather, it was a sign that was full of meaning for the Israelites, who had only a few years earlier emerged from Egypt and were therefore well-versed in Egyptian symbolism. These serpents were a potent representation of the power of Egypt, to which they were apparently so eager to return. Snakes were well-known symbols of power and sovereignty in ancient Egypt, as the familiar image of a cobra on Pharaoh’s crown reminds us.6 Having once been freed from Pharaoh, did they really want to be subject to the power of the serpent all over again?

Even more profoundly, though, the serpent (nāḥāš) is a symbol of the ultimate enemy of mankind, Satan himself. It was in the form of a serpent (nāḥāš) that Satan deceived our first ancestors and brought about the sin that caused us to be cast out of the garden into the desert of this fallen world. It was not the Lord who had brought them into the wilderness to die, as they alleged (v. 5). Their death was not due to his power failing to give them that which he had promised. On the contrary, death in the wilderness was the result of their own sin and that of their forefather, Adam. It was their refusal to submit to the Lord that led to bondage to Satan, who is the real hard taskmaster.

Is it not amazing how God shows us how very fragile and vulnerable and dependent we are.

God takes a nation that was experiencing economic strength and might and unparalleled wealthy and with a tiny virus imperceptible to the human eye brings her to her knees.

Yet that is not the end of the story!

Spurgeon Said it this way!

It not a story just about ruin but redemption.

We don’t get the glory of God’s redemption until we understand the depravity of man’s ruin.

We See the Remedy of God.

There is a remedy for snake bitten people!

Numbers 21:7–9 ESV

7 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. 8 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.” 9 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.

God’s salvation looks strange.

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive The Serpent in the Desert

What is the medicine itself? This is the weirdest, oddest, most counterintuitive, enigmatic possible thing. Of all the things God could possibly tell Moses to do to bring healing, this takes the cake. He says, “Create a huge image of the thing that’s killing everybody, a huge, bronze serpent. Put it up on a pole and have them come and look at it.”

There are all kinds of reasons why this doesn’t work. First of all, it doesn’t work psychologically. How in the world could it be of any help or comfort to go look at a huge representation of the thing that’s killing you? I mean, what would be more demoralizing than that? Surely, people would go up there and just burst into tears!

What is the medicine itself? This is the weirdest, oddest, most counterintuitive, enigmatic possible thing. Of all the things God could possibly tell Moses to do to bring healing, this takes the cake.

They didn’t understand!

Jesus tells Nicodemus when they were having the famous discussion about being born again.

John 3:14 ESV

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

John

Christ was treated as the curse so that we might receive the cure.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:7 ESV

7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.

This is what Isaiah was teaching us!

estimated 5.4 million people are bitten each year with up to 2.7 million envenoming. Around 81 000 to 138 000 people die each year because of snake bites, and around three times as many amputations and other permanent disabilities are caused by snakebites annually.

Isaiah 53:4–6 ESV

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Today is day one of passion week. In a time were we are looking and sickness and death up close and personal

we need to look to Jesus.

We believe.

Numbers 21:4–9 ESV

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And 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 loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 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. 8 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.” 9 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.

Why a Snake?

Preaching the Word: Numbers—God's Presence in the Wilderness The Same Old Grumbling

To understand what is going on here, it is important to recognize that neither the judgment nor the remedy was a random phenomenon. It is not as if the Lord saw his people sinning and then said to himself, “Now what shall I afflict them with today? I think I’ll send snakes! I haven’t tried that punishment before.” Nor was the form of the judgment simply due to the fact that snakes were a convenient commodity with which to afflict people in that part of the desert. Rather, it was a sign that was full of meaning for the Israelites, who had only a few years earlier emerged from Egypt and were therefore well-versed in Egyptian symbolism. These serpents were a potent representation of the power of Egypt, to which they were apparently so eager to return. Snakes were well-known symbols of power and sovereignty in ancient Egypt, as the familiar image of a cobra on Pharaoh’s crown reminds us.6 Having once been freed from Pharaoh, did they really want to be subject to the power of the serpent all over again?

Even more profoundly, though, the serpent (nāḥāš) is a symbol of the ultimate enemy of mankind, Satan himself. It was in the form of a serpent (nāḥāš) that Satan deceived our first ancestors and brought about the sin that caused us to be cast out of the garden into the desert of this fallen world. It was not the Lord who had brought them into the wilderness to die, as they alleged (v. 5). Their death was not due to his power failing to give them that which he had promised. On the contrary, death in the wilderness was the result of their own sin and that of their forefather, Adam. It was their refusal to submit to the Lord that led to bondage to Satan, who is the real hard taskmaster.