The venom of the African black mamba is one of the deadliest poisons. Within minutes of a bite, the central nervous system begins to shut down culminating in convulsions, paralysis, and a suffocating death. Researchers have discovered that this deadly venom also contains a potent painkiller known as mambalgin, which is as effective as morphine. But unlike morphine, mambalgin does not lead to tolerance or addiction, and has no dangerous side effects. The same snake that causes horrible death also holds the key to incredible relief. (Chaya Shuchat)
As we continue our Moses: Made for More sermon series, we’ll see how a snake caused the Israelites both pain and relief. What’s more, this snake incident will help us understand how God brings us eternal relief from our sins. Listen to these selected verses from our text.
In our sermon last week, the Israelites were camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai where they had received the Ten Commandments and promised to obey them. But we also learned how they smashed the very First Commandment when they worshipped an idol in the form of a golden calf. Today’s sermon takes place about 40 years later. We’re skipping over how the Israelites once stood on the edge of the Promised Land, but like the toddler who won’t jump into a pool because he thinks it’s filled with sharks, the Israelites refused to take possession of the Promised Land because they thought there was no way they would be able to dislodge the Canaanites who lived there, even though this is what God promised he would give them the ability to do. For their lack of faith, God threatened to destroy the Israelites. Again, Moses intervened as he did with the golden calf. He said: “In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” (Numbers 14:19) God responded: “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times— not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. …Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.” (Numbers 14:20-23, 33)
It would take 40 years for the rebellious generation to die off. Those 40 years were now coming to an end. A new generation of Israelites was poised to enter Canaan. But were they any different than their parents? No. When they ran out of water, as had their parents shortly after leaving Egypt, the new generation too complained: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?” (Numb. 20:5)
I love Moses’ response. When confronted with this challenge for which he had no immediate answer, he ran to the Lord in prayer (Numb. 20:6). Do you do the same thing? I know I often don’t. When people share their troubles with me, I often feel so inadequate. Can I give relief to someone who has back pain? Can I cover a family’s financial shortfall? Can I fix a marriage? No. But I know someone who can, and so do you. Like Moses, let’s not hesitate to go to the Lord in prayer. In fact, offer to pray with the person who is hurting and then continue to look for solutions to the problems, trusting that God is on the job.
God had a solution for Israel’s latest water shortage. He directed Moses and Aaron to take that special staff, the one they had to use to strike the Nile River and turn it to blood 40 years earlier, the same staff that Moses had waved over the Red Sea so that it parted, and the staff with which Moses had struck a rock near Mt. Sinai and caused water to come gushing out. With that staff in hand, they were to go to a rock in full view of the Israelites and…speak to it. God promised water would come pouring out when they did. Just as when God spoke at Creation and brought forth light, water, and air out of nothing.
When’s the last time you had a conversation with a rock? While there are many who think that the red rocks in Sedona can do amazing things, I’ve never seen a rock play the role of vending machine—like the rock Moses was to address was going to do. But Moses never did end up speaking to that rock. Instead, he scolded the Israelites: “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” (Numb. 20:10) He then proceeded to hit the rock with his staff…twice. Water came gushing out in abundance and quenched Israel’s thirst. But the Lord was not pleased with Moses and Aaron. He said: “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” (Numb. 20:12)
What exactly was the nature of Moses’ and Aaron’s sin that they should be disqualified from entering into the Promised Land? Was it simple disobedience—they hit the rock instead of speaking to it? Is this why it took two strikes for water to pour out? But couldn’t God have refused to provide any water no how many times Moses hit that rock? Was it because Moses said: “…must we bring you water” as if this miracle depended on him and Aaron rather than God (cf. Numb. 20:12-13)? We certainly can make a case for these points, but the most pressing issue seemed to be this: God wanted to treat this rebellious new generation to a display of his grace, but Moses used the teachable moment for a scolding and God was not amused. Concerning this event, the psalmist remarks: “…rash words came from Moses’ lips.” (Ps. 106:33)
Picture a restaurant server, new to her job. She gets the orders wrong. She spills coffee on customers. Her jokes fall flat. At the end of the night, the manager says to a seasoned server: “Hey, Betty had a rough first night. Encourage her and tell her that these things happen. She’ll be alright. We’ll keep working with her.” How will the manager react then when he finds out the next day that instead of embracing and encouraging the rookie, the seasoned server lit into her, yelling at her until she cried? Won’t the manager have some choice words for his veteran server? That’s also why God wasn’t pleased with Moses. In striking the rock twice, Moses called attention to his anger rather than pointing to God’s grace (Adolf Harstad).
Parents, I think there is a special message here for us. How can we get our kids to behave better? Not by nagging them more, nor by giving them guilt trips for not pulling their weight. Point out sin, yes, but then point them to the God of grace who forgives and empowers. Share with them true Bible stories like the one we are studying today. Does this seem so inefficient—like talking to a rock and expecting water to pour from it? But here’s the thing, we are talking to a rock! No, I’m not saying that our kids are as dumb as a rock, but they were once spiritually as dead and as unmoving as one, and so were we. But God’s Word has the power to bring the inanimate to life! For through the Word, the Holy Spirit works to soften disobedient hearts. Keep at it. See our role as parents as agents of grace rather than agents of wrath. In time, our children will want to do the right things for the right reasons—not because they are scared of us or because they want to impress us, but because together with us, they will have come to know well their Savior Jesus who empowers them with his love.
With their thirst quenched, the Israelites travelled to the border of Edom. Again, they were in spitting distance of the Promised Land. But the Edomites would not let them take the shortcut through their land. This forced the Israelites to detour through a hot, dry, wilderness known as the Arabah. What the Israelites had to do would be like travelling to Albuquerque from Flagstaff, not directly east along I-40, but by way of Phoenix, then Tucson before heading north again at Las Cruces. You would complain too about such a detour, even if you could cover the distance in an air-conditioned vehicle! (The point here is not that the Israelites covered the same mileage, but that they had to detour through the same kind of hot, dry, terrain.)
The Israelites of course had no air-conditioned vehicles. Soon, they began to complain again about the lack of food and water. It wasn’t that they didn’t have food, no, God continued to provide manna—that bread-like substance which rained down from heaven every morning. The Israelites just didn’t considered manna worth eating anymore. They called it “light,” as in not very filling, and “detestable,” the same word God would use to describe the sins of the Canaanites. This new generation was just like their parents. They were chronic complainers. Come to think of it, they were a lot like we are—never fully content with what God provides in the way of a job, co-workers, teachers, a place to live, or the weather. What’s so foolish about our complaining is that, like a two-year-old, we think that God will respond more quickly if we whine! If we need something, God says that we only need to ask and he has promised to provide what we really need when we need it.
While the ungratefulness of human nature has not changed, neither has God’s way of dealing with it. He still lets us suffer the consequences of our sin just as he made the Israelites suffer in the Arabah by sending venomous snakes into their camp to attack the people. Hmm. How does that square with how Jesus once said: “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?” (Luke 11:11) His point being that if human fathers know how to give good gifts so does our heavenly Father. And yet here God was literally giving the Israelites snakes when all they wanted was better food! But here’s the thing. Snakes are what the Israelites needed. God let the Israelites suffer, not so much as a punishment, but as a call to repentance. The snakes helped the Israelites realize just how dangerous and harmful their sins of complaining and ungratefulness were.
Thankfully the Israelites did repent of their sin. They asked that “the snake” be taken away from them. Yes, the Hebrew uses a singular noun when referring to the snakes. Were the Israelites thinking about the snakes as one big problem, or were they perhaps thinking about that snake in the Garden of Eden who had tricked Eve? Were they acknowledging that their real problem was with Satan and the sins he was leading them into? (Tom Kock) We can’t say for sure, but Moses did pray on their behalf.
You have to like Moses’ response because it was one of true forgiveness. It would have been easy for him to say, “Pray for you? Ask God to save you? Forget it. First prove to me that you’re really sorry.” Are we as quick to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us? Are we as quick to pray that God would bless them? Not usually. And that’s why Jesus teaches us to pray for help in this matter when we plead in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”
After Moses prayed for the Israelites, he was told to do something quite unusual to provide healing for the people. Instead of giving Moses medicine to administer, God told him to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. He promised that all those who would look at that snake would be healed. There may have been some Israelites who refused to do that because it sounded like dumb idea. How could looking at a bronze snake heal anyone? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to look for a plant that could provide healing before it was too late? It took faith on Moses’ part to make such a snake. What if he made it, hoisted it up on to a pole, and nothing happened? The people would be really angry then!
But all those who did look at the snake in faith were healed. Why? Because there was some magical power in the bronze snake? No, because of God’s promise. Doesn’t this remind you of baptism and the Lord’s Supper? How can the water of baptism forgive? How can bread and wine also be Jesus’ body and blood and fill us with forgiveness? Because it’s magical? No, because it’s tied to God’s promise. So when you come forward to receive the Lord’s Supper, don’t come with your fingers crossed hoping that you’ll receive forgiveness. Come with open hands, confident and ready to receive what God has promised you.
Still, isn’t it strange that God would direct Moses to make a bronze snake? Why not a giant sculpture of a pill bottle? God doesn’t explain why he wanted Moses to make an image of a snake but we do know that it served as a picture of Jesus. Our savior himself said as much to Nicodemus. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:14-15)
How is the bronze snake a picture of Jesus? Well, I bet the Israelites were somewhat revolted to see a bronze snake looming over them. And isn’t this how many felt about the beaten and bloodied Jesus hanging on the cross? The Apostle Paul makes this point about Jesus: “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.” (Romans 8:3)
If the Bible didn’t tell us that Jesus was crucified between two criminals, and if Pilate would not have put a placard on Jesus’ cross to identify him as the king of the Jews, would we, who have never met Jesus before, have been able to distinguish him from the two criminals had we been there on Good Friday? Oh sure, the crown of thorns would have given Jesus away. But if he wasn’t wearing that, I doubt he looked much different than the criminals. But Jesus was different just as the bronze snake was different from the snakes that bit the people. The bronze snake carried no venom, and Jesus carried no sin. The bronze snake was made of something stronger than skin and bones. Jesus was more than skin and bones too. He was also the Son of God from eternity. That’s why his death actually accomplished something: forgiveness and salvation from eternal death for all people—so that all who look to Jesus in faith will be saved, just as all who looked at the bronze snake were healed.
In the introduction to this sermon I shared how the venom of the black mamba can bring both suffering and relief. Our relationship with Jesus is the same. If we reject him, if we take his grace for granted and sin with reckless abandon, we will face his anger come Judgment Day (Rev. 6:16). But this same Jesus invites us to repent of our sins. More than that, he sends the Holy Spirit to work a repentant attitude in our hearts, that we may see and believe in Jesus as the one who grants relief from our sins. Look to Jesus and keep embracing his loving grace. For you have been made for more than just suffering through this wilderness of sin and pain. You have been made and remade to live with Jesus in the heavenly Promised Land (Rev. 7:14-15). Amen.
SERMON NOTES
(pre-service warm up) Due to the length of the sermon text, Pastor will not read it in its entirety during the service. Do so now from the bulletin. Underline any detail that interests you.
(2 questions) When the Israelites came to the edge of the Promised Land, they refused to go in. Why? What was God’s reaction?
The new generation of Israelites also complained about the lack of water. How is Moses’ reaction worth copying?
Moses didn’t follow God’s instructions for getting water out of the rock. What three things did Moses do incorrectly?
What does the rock incident teach us about parenting?
Again the Israelites complained about their situation. Like them, we too are chronic complainers. But why is complaining so foolish and sinful?
God responded to the Israelites’ latest complaints by sending in snakes. But wasn’t this the exact opposite of what Jesus promised about our heavenly Father—that if his children ask him for fish, he won’t give them something harmful like snakes (Luke 11:11)? How were the snakes just what the Israelites needed?
What is again commendable about Moses’ response to the Israelites’ repentance?
God directed Moses to make a bronze snake to provide healing. What are the similarities between the bronze snake and the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion?
What are the similarities between the bronze snake and Jesus?
(not covered in the sermon – to do at home) The Israelites held on to the bronze snake for 800 years. What a prized memento and historical artifact it must have been! Unfortunately, the Israelites started to offered incense to it as if it was a god. Because of this, King Hezekiah destroyed the bronze snake (2 Kings 18:4). How might we be guilty of treating the cross in a similar sinful way?
