God Hanged the Serpent and the Christ

God Hanged the Serpent and the Christ

Body

Turn in your Bible to Number 21, Numbers 21 and we will be in verses 4-9 this evening. Numbers 21:4-9

God was continually using the events within the community of Israel as guide post to lead us to Christ. To night we read of the bronze serpent that was an icon to to save the people from death by venom.

Read with me

Numbers 21:4–9 ESV

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

May God bless the reading of his Holy and Infallible word

Let’s Pray

Many can many can quote John 3:16 from Memory, but how many would know John 3:14 and 15 off the top of their head?

John 3:14–15 ESV

And 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.

Jesus points himself in the events we just read about. Jesus says, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Why must he be lifted up? Because there is only one cure for the venom of sin. The typology is heavy in these events. We see a impatience sinful people that loath the bread of heaven, Christ comes as the bread from heaven, (John 6:32). These blessing loathing impatient sinners are beset by the serpents. No less then fiery serpents, that like the fiery darts of the devil (Ephesians 6:16), had the power to kill. The bountiful provision of God for them was worthless to them and like Cain sin was waiting at the door. (Genesis 4:7) The image of the serpent, a image made of the sin that was to be looked upon, just as Christ was made sin, the image of sin itself on a tree so that all that (2 Corinthians 5:21) just looked on the image of of the serpent were saved from physical death for a moment, those that look on Christ have eternal life.

Transition

Point number 1 this even is “The People Became Impatient” on the Way. Lets look at verse 4 and 5.

The People Became Impatient on the Way (1)

Text

Numbers 21:4–5 ESV

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. 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.”

Exposition

They are marching in the wilderness for their sin and they add to it instead of being humble.

“The People Became Impatient on the Way”

Allowing our minds to become accustomed to complaint

Miracles do not change hearts and minds

Remember James Exhortation to Patience? That Pastor Gabe gave us Sunday.

Patients is so important for holiness.

Impatience lead to malcontent to the point of despising God’s perfect miraculous provision.

“We loathe his worthless food”

Exposition

They say no food and then they say we loath the food.

There was good that God faithfully provided everyday. Manna.

Manna, is worthless they say

Manna is analogous to Christ

“Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” (Jn 6:32, ESV).

Application

They say familiarize breads contempt. For the believer we understand that we battle contempt for the things of God, is not by feeding on God’s provision for us less, but we battle impatiences by practicing patience.

“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”

Exposition

How many times had God already provided for them,

The army of Egypt destroyed (Deuteronomy 20:1)

Pillar of fire and cloud (Nehemiah 9:12)

Water out of rocks (Numbers 20:10)

cloths that did ware out (Deuteronomy 29:5)

Food from heaven (Exodus 16:35)

Application

How wicked the heart of man is?

We are the same, every day, “in him we live and move and have our being but how often do we complain.

Illustration

Since it is Reformation month we have many example of faithful men in the reformation that held true even to the death. For example, John Howie writes, “On the 29th of February [1528, Patrick] Hamilton was summoned for trial. He refused to deny his beliefs and was sentenced to be burnt at the stake the same day for being a heretic. His death was slow and painful because the fire kept going out, and it took him six hours to die.” [1] Another author wrote of Hamilton, saying, that during those 6 hours the “myrter never gave one sign of impatience or anger.”

How many of us are angry when we have to wait at a red light longer then we want?

We need to conditioner ourselves.

Transition

As a transitional thought to the next two verses, think about this for a moment, If God’s glory is the highest thing and God will be glorified within his people, than we know God will respond to this sin directly, even if we had not already read the story. Look at verses 6 and 7 with me and see God’s justice and mercy in handling hardhearted sin.

Fiery Serpents Among the People (2)

Text

Numbers 21:6–7 ESV

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

Exposition

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

Exposition

Fiery serpents, like the fires of hell, and the fiery darts of the evil one.

The wages of sin is death.

Application

Impatience leads to death. See some urgency in the exhortation from James we had this Sunday.

It was the same impatiences that got Nadab and Abihu killed.

They say the fire from down from God and they rushed in so they could be apart of the thing God was doing.

For Nadab and Abihu being a part of what was happening right then was more important than glorying God.

“We have sinned”

Exposition

Confession and admission

Seeking a mediator

They recognized their guilt and sought to be reconciled

Application

Remember the repentance that Pastor Gabe talked about two weeks ago?

He asked the question this week, how often do we repent like James tells us to?

We have every reason to weep considering how good God has been to use that he did not spare his son for us. Yet we are such an impatient people.

“Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.”

Exposition

God allowed moses a earthly mediator role so that he could point to Christs eternal role as mediator

Application

There is only one perfect mediator, (1 Timothy 2:5 )

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” (1 Ti 2:5–6 ESV)

Moses’ intercession worked for a short time. Christ saves forever.

Illustration

On 4 February 1555 in Smithfield, London, John Rogers was tied to the stack and burned for being a protestant Christian. [3]

As the story goes John Rogers quoting Psalm 51 every step of the way to the Stake. “Against you and you only have I sinned” He repeated over and over again. As he walked there is got to see is littlest son, who had been born while he was in prison, for the first time. It was I distance as the baby lay in the mothers arms, he was not permitted to say good bye to his family.

Think of the patients it would take to be in those shoes.. and meanwhile, we get upset when the restaurant does not bring us our food on time.

Transition

How do we escape, we look to the cross to see our own sin crushed under God’s wrath. Look at verse 8 and 9.

Sin on display (3)

Text

Numbers 21:8–9 ESV

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.

Exposition

“Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole”

Exposition

The image of the punishment of sin on the pole

Lifted up for all to see

Application.

Romans 8:3 says “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh”

Christ suffered in our place and one of the reasons it was such a public spectral and record in such graphic detail is that we would be able to look on the punishment for sin.

Remember when James said to repent with morning, when we look on Jesus we see what our sin cost it should bring us to tears.

But we are as hardhearted as the Israelite and it takes a work of God in our hearts to soften them.

“everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live”

Exposition/Application

RC Sproul writes, “This event typifies both the sacrifice of Christ and the faith of His people. Just as the bronze representation of the poisonous serpent is lifted up, so Christ, as one born “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3), will be lifted up (John 3:14). The afflicted Israelites have no other means of rescue than to look at the bronze snake, just as sinners have no hope for salvation except faith in the crucified Christ (John 3:15, 16).” [4]

A final point about Idolatry.

Text “He [Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And 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).” (2 Ki 18:4, ESV)

Exposition

The bronze serpent that was ment to save an point to Christ had become an idol.

The worship of “holy” images is not only and old testament problem. By the 700s AD their were holy image all over the Roman Empire, people worshiped at that places. In the 700 AD there came a movement of people called “iconoclasts (or image-breakers)” [5] they believed that to worship with images violated God’s law.

Today in roman catholicism there is much that might accurately be called icon or image worship.

Application

Even we can do it if we are not careful. Its not the bible that we worship but the God that is revealed in it.

It is not the image of Christ in some picture but Christ as revealed that we worship. This cross behind me is only a reminder and it would be better burned than worshiped.

If we want to know what we worship we need only ask the question, what can’t we live without.

What can’t you live without

Your car

House

Flag

Are you ready to part with them all and even your life for Christ?

Don’t answer hastily, rather consider yourself.

Illustration

Lest we get comfortable thinking about martyr from the 1500s. In the first four months of this year in Nigeria. according to www.genocidewatch.com, 1,470 (that's 1 thousand 4 hundred and 70) christian lost their lives for their faith. [6]

We live in the safest and most pampered place to ever exist in the history of the earth, after the Garden of Eden itself, yet we are all to often ready to tell God how much we “we loathe this worthless” provision he has given us.

Conclusion

In conclusion friends, not only are we hardhearted, idol worshiping, impatient, unthankful, sinners, we are also saints. In true reformation style we confess what the 1689 says, in Chapter 7 article 5.

“God does continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure; and in that condition they have not usually the light of His countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.” [7]

Benediction

Now for those that are the sheep of God, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Ro 15:13, ESV)

Go in peace or stay and fellowship, both are good.

References

[1] John Howie, ‘Patrick Hamilton’ in The Scots Worthies (Edinburgh, 1995 [1775]), pp 11-17.

[2] Peter Lorimer, in Precursors of Knox (Edinburgh, 1857), p. 154.

[3] “John Rogers, Reformation Martyr,” Evangelical Times, November 23, 2017, https://www.evangelical-times.org/articles/historical/john-rogers-reformation-martyr/.

[4] R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 228.

[5] Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, Updated 2nd ed. (Dallas, TX: Word Pub., 1995), 148.

[6] Intersociety, “Nigerian Islamic Jihadists Massacred 1,470 Christians in First Four Months of 2021,” genocidewatch (genocidewatch, May 11, 2021), https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/nigerian-islamic-jihadists-massacred-1-470-christians-in-first-four-months-of-2021.

[7] R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 2484.

Bibliography

Howie, John, ‘Patrick Hamilton’ in The Scots Worthies, W. R. McPhun, Trongate and Simpkin & Marshall, Glasgow & London, 1835.

Intersociety. “Nigerian Islamic Jihadists Massacred 1,470 Christians in First Four Months of 2021.” genocidewatch. genocidewatch, May 11, 2021. https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/nigerian-islamic-jihadists-massacred-1-470-christians-in-first-four-months-of-2021.

“John Rogers, Reformation Martyr.” Evangelical Times, November 23, 2017. https://www.evangelical-times.org/articles/historical/john-rogers-reformation-martyr/.

Lorimer, Peter. Essay. In Precursors of Knox, 154. Edinburgh, 1857.

Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition). Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015.