SCRIPTURE: Numbers 21
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
What happens when we go against God? We go against life! All of creation, all of life, is shaped towards God. Resisting God is like spitting in the wind, it will come back in our face. This is what Arad, Sihon and Og discovered. This is also what a wise Jewish leader named Gamaliel observed regarding the Jesus movement [Acts 5:34-39].
Sin is defiance of God. The reason our world is such a mess, and our lives often too, is because of sin. It is a curse of our own making, and there is no way to fix it apart from getting right with God. Repentance, not defiance, is the way to healing and hope. This was a hard lesson to learn for the Israelites as well. Again and again they turn against God. And again and again God shows them the consequences. He is not being mean, He is just showing them reality!
But He also always offers hope. The serpent on the pole is a symbol of the hope that comes through rejecting sin and receiving God. The serpent (representing the curse of sin, suffering, death) is crucified, so to speak, which is symbolic for repentance and hope in the Lord. “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.” [John 3:14-15]. Life that is really, truly LIFE, the everlasting, neverending kind of life that comes with fellowship with God, can only be found by turning away from sin and turning to God. God makes Himself visible in Jesus. He becomes the curse (the serpent) crucified on the cross.
Think about your own life. What happens when you keep the Lord at a distance, or when you do things you know are wrong, or when you rely on your own worldly smarts, or when you react out of emotion, or when you blame God, or defy Him, or resist Him. Are you better or worse off in the end? Do those choices, those attitudes, those behaviours, not come to ‘bite’ you (like a serpent) in the end? Are you better off, happier?
Again and again the Lord shows us the picture of His being on the cross, the natural outcome of rejecting God, and then calls us to repent and look to Him for help, for healing, for hope. Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Will I resist Him, or rest in Him?
PRAYER:
Lord, in my mind I know that rest in You is the best way. But in many ways, I still resist You. And it bites me. Help me to look to You!