The Long Way Around.

Sermon Title: A Long way around.

Scripture Text: Numbers 21:4-9

Opening:

The title of my sermon is “Long way around.”. A year ago we were ask to close most stores, which caused many to hog up a lot of supplies. Toilet paper was gone and cost a small fortune if you found it anywhere. Why toilet paper? Don't know. Many people ask why the marijuana and liquor stores were left open but Churches and the stores we used everyday were closed. Why did the big box stores like Walmart’s and Lowe’s stayed open but the corner market was closed along with all the restaurants. We used shopping company's to go to the grocery stores and shop for us and believer it to our homes.

The country was split almost 50/50 on everything. Some states handled things one way and other states another way from March 2020 to February2021. Some terrorist or demonstrators “depending” burned billions of dollars in city businesses down. Nothing was done to them in a major way. Even our elected government officials gave money to get them out of jail if that city required it.

The burning kept up but people got tired of the lock down. Recalls of Mayors and Governors cranked up to remove the ones that seemed like they would never give up the power they felt they had during this crisis. After the recalls started these Governors started to loosen up and move to be inline with the people.

A person could see this change in the News every night.

During this time the frustration levels and even aggression on both sides.

Now you might ask why are you bringing this up. I’m bringing this up so you can feel the anger and frustration and aggravation and helplessness that these folks felt.

Now hear the reading of Gods Word:

Numbers 21:4-9 NLT

4 Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, 5 and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!”

6 So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. 7 Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people.

8 Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” 9 So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!

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Here the escapees from Egypt by Gods help and leading was headed to the Promise Land. They had two major battles and won both of them. If they kept moving forward they would walk straight into the Promise Land. They seemed to be happy. They had water they had collected and real bread to eat or it was close enough in their minds it seemed real and the going was smooth in many ways. Traveling forward they could enter Canaan land this way. They could defeat them and be in the Promise Land.

To their surprise God tells them to turn and almost go backwards. The land is horribly rough, rocky, and no real roads to travel on. The clear clean water that came from the Rock that God provide for them was gone. There was just that old left over puddle of water that seeped into certain places, unclean and smelly, to drink. Their feet, legs and backs were killing them as they struggled to move in the direction God told them.

They were feed up with it. The rotten water, non tasty manna and horrible way they were traveling were just too much.

They started complaining. I mean really complaining about what God was doing to them and complaining about Moses because he was God’s person leading them.

Well God gave them something that took their minds off of that problem. He sent a brass colored snake that was very poisonous to visit them. If you got bit you were sure to die. They asked Moses to pray to God to deliver them and he did.

God directed a replica of that snake be put on a pole and when the person that had been bit looked on the bronze replica of that snake they were healed.

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Most of us agree that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We especially subscribe to this when we are thinking of our lives. It challenges our faith when God does not take us immediately to what we think is our destination.