To Save A Life - Numbers 21:4-9 / John 3:14 - July 1, 2012
Communion Sunday
Folks, if we’re honest this morning we’re going to admit that there are many things that God has done throughout history, and continues to do in our day, that we can’t fully wrap our minds around. Book after book has been written about some of these things as people have wrestled to understand them and to make sense of them and often they don’t make a whole lot of progress. There are some things we’re just not going to understand this side of heaven.
And then there are other things that we read in God’s word that are just as difficult to understand at first glance but which God Himself helps us to understand as we take into consideration the whole of God’s word – both the Old and the New Testaments. We’re going to look at one those passages this morning. And we’re going to see how it points the way to something far greater that was yet to come when these events first unfolded.
Turn with me please, to the book of Numbers. Numbers, chapter 21, beginning in verse 4. As you’re turning there, let me set the stage for you. What we’re about to read takes place during the Exodus – that time between when Moses led the people out of slavery in Egypt and time in which they entered into the Promised Land. There were 40 years of wandering in the desert for the people of Israel between those two benchmark events and what we’re about to read takes place during that time. This is what we read beginning in verse 4 …
“They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 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. 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.” 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, he lived.” (Numbers 21:4–9, NIV84)
A few things we should see in these verses this morning. First, like the Israelites, we are a short-sighted people. If we’re not intentional in giving thanks, we quickly lose sight of God’s many blessings. During 400 years of slavery the Israelites cried out to God for deliverance. The conditions in which they lived there were harsh, the people were oppressed, and their children were dying in captivity. God leads them out from under the thumb of their oppressors, provides them with manna – food from His own hand – and water as they need it. Their clothes do not wear out, He travels with them night and day, and He goes before them and prepares the way. But instead of responding with thankfulness and gratitude and worship, they respond with groaning and complaining and rebellion. And if we’re not careful to consider daily the blessings we have received from the hand of God – whether it be the strength of our own hands, the roof over our heads, the food on our table, the people He has brought into our lives, and so many other things – we will be prone to fall into sin similar to that to which the Israelites gave themselves in those days.
Which leads us to point number two: Sin brings death. There are always consequences to our sin. They might not be immediate, they might not be visible to those around you, but when we turn to sin there is always a consequence in our lives. And in direct judgment of the sin of the Israelites, God sends poisonous snakes. The snakes bite the people and sometime later, whether it was minutes, hours, or a day or two, the people who were bitten, died. Probably a painful and unpleasant death. Our hearts cry out, “Unfair!” “How could a loving God do such a thing?”
We can only ask that question because we see sin as a small thing. We are not offended by sin as God is offended by sin. Therefore when God brings judgment, whether that be the natural consequences of our sin – and by that I mean things that logically flow from the choices we make – for example if I robbed a bank and got caught - I’m going to prison for a number of years – that would be natural consequences where one thing logically follows another. Or, if the judgment is more divine in nature such as the poisonous snakes, we tend to cry, “Foul!” And wonder, “How could God do such a thing to me?” when really we have brought it on ourselves by our own sin. God does not take sin lightly and neither should we.
Point number three, before healing and wholeness and restoration can come, we must acknowledge our sin before a holy God. It isn’t until the people confess their sin – until they see it as God sees it – that any possibility of salvation exists. Because when we acknowledge it, when we see it as God sees it and confess it before Him, are hearts are filled with a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and brings salvation. We want to turn away from that sin and seek the things of God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. When Jesus comes preaching the kingdom of God He calls the people to repentance – to turn from their sin and to turn to God.
Fourthly, by God’s grace we receive life. I want you to notice that the Israelites pleaded with Moses to pray to God and have Him take away the snakes. God did not answer that prayer the way the people wanted. We have no indication that God took the snakes away. God did not remove the consequences for sin. That’s important for us to understand this morning too. God does not tend to remove the consequences for our sin in our day either. But what He did do for the people was to provide the possibility of life. He made it possible to save a life. Moses, by God’s command, made a snake on a stick – a bronze snake attached to a pole that was raised up in the middle of the camp. When those who were bitten by the serpents that swarmed through the camp looked in faith upon the snake that had been raised up, they were healed, restored, made whole and received a new lease on life.
This was by God’s grace – not something they deserved; not something they could earn. I’m also certain that it’s not something that all of them received. Likely there were some, in the hardness of their hearts, who refused to look upon the snake. Perhaps they thought to themselves, “I’m not going to die!” or “What good could looking at this bronze snake do? What’s the point? What good could it possibly do?” or maybe even, “God brought this pain and misery upon me, why should I do what He asks now?” We don’t know all the reasons people might have had but we do know that those who had faith enough to look upon the snake as God had said, received healing and a new chance at life.
The people of Moses’ day must have struggled to understand what it was all about. But it becomes clear in the New Testament what all these things were meant to point to. Beginning in John 3:12, where Jesus is speaking to a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus, we read these words … He says, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:12–18, NIV84)
What took place in the desert so long ago, what transpired because of the sin of the people, was a type of what was to come. It becomes a living illustration for us of what God has done through the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord! For He too was lifted up that those who looked to Him in faith would be delivered from their sin and receive new life. That is a promise for us today!
For we too are a short-sighted people who so often choose the immediate gratification of sin over the holiness to which we are called by God. That sin brings death and eternal separation from God. The only way to find healing and wholeness and restoration is as we are broken by the realization of our sin, as we confess and repent, as we cry out to God and place our faith in Jesus who took our sin upon Himself that we might receive His righteousness and live! This is God’s grace to us and in a few moments we are going to share together the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper – an ordinance which reminds us of the true cost of sin and the true grace of God that is offered to each one of us. But before we do that I want you to consider the closing verses of Psalm 126 where we read these words …
“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:4–6, NIV84)
Now Del Tarr, a missionary who served for 14 years in the western portion of Africa, says he never understood those verses until he “went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savannah more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year's food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.
October and November...these are beautiful months. The granaries are full -- the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday's Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.
December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal.
Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals a day.
By February, the evening meal diminishes.
The meal shrinks even more during March and children succumb to sickness. You don't stay well on half a meal a day.
April is the month that haunts my memory. In it you hear the babies crying in the twilight. Most of the days are passed with only an evening cup of gruel.
Then, inevitably, it happens. A six-or seven-year-old boy comes running to his father one day with sudden excitement. "Daddy! Daddy! We've got grain!" he shouts. "Son, you know we haven't had grain for weeks." "Yes, we have!" the boy insists. "Out in the hut where we keep the goats -- there's a leather sack hanging up on the wall -- I reached up and put my hand down in there -- Daddy, there's grain in there! Give it to Mommy so she can make flour, and tonight our tummies can sleep!"
The father stands motionless. "Son, we can't do that," he softly explains. "That's next year's seed grain. It's the only thing between us and starvation. We're waiting for the rains, and then we must use it." The rains finally arrive in May, and when they do the young boy watches as his father takes the sack from the wall and does the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Instead of feeding his desperately weakened family, he goes to the field and with tears streaming down his face, he takes the precious seed and throws it away. He scatters it in the dirt! Why? Because he believes in the harvest.
The seed is his; he owns it. He can do anything with it he wants. The act of sowing it hurts so much that he cries. [And brothers and sisters who have gathered here to worship today, know this: To save a life - to save your life - God sowed with tears of sorrow that a harvest might be brought in! The blood of Christ was shed for the forgiveness of our sins. The body of Jesus given over to death to pay the price for sin which was really ours to pay, for sin brings both physical and spiritual death. God sowed with tears of sorrow that a rich and bountiful harvest might be brought in!]
At one point Jesus spoke to His disciples and “He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:2–3, NIV84)
Brothers and sisters, as the African pastors say, “this is God's law of the harvest. Don't expect to rejoice later on unless you have been willing to sow in tears." And I want to ask you: How much would it cost you to sow in tears? I don't mean just giving God something from your abundance, but finding a way to say, "I believe in the harvest, and therefore I will give what makes no sense. The world would call me unreasonable to do this -- but I must sow regardless, in order that I may someday celebrate with songs of joy." (Leadership, 1983. Adapted from illustration at: http://www.sermonillustrations.com)
See, every day there are people dying without Jesus – not just in the far corners of the world – but right here at home. Some of them are friends, some of them are family members, some of them are strangers – but every one of them needs to know where to look to find new life! Who among us will go? Who among us will tell them? If not you, then who? Are you willing to sow in tears that you might share in the joy of the harvest?
Let’s pray …
Shortly before His death, Jesus spoke these words, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” … Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. … Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.” (John 12:23–36, NIV84)
And you who are sons and daughters of the light we invite you to share the bread and the cup with us this morning. As the servers come and pass the elements out, I’ll ask you to hold on to them until all have been served and then we’ll eat and drink together.
… God has demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us therefore let us eat and drink together with hearts full of thanksgiving and praise!
Let’s pray …
