The Bronze Serpent

TRIAL NUMBER 9.

Numbers 21:5 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 our soul loathes this worthless bread.” So the Lord sent fiery serpents (fiery - from the copper colour plus the poisonous inflammation) among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
So 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 the serpents away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

NOT TRUSTING GOD ALLOWS THE SERPENTS TO BRING DEATH.

‘The Lord sent fiery serpents’. The serpents were already out there – copper coloured poisonous desert snakes. Because the people could no longer trust the goodness of God to them God lifted his protection from Israel and the snakes came in to bite and cause death.
In the Garden of Eden the serpent was also already out there, and God let the serpent in to do his tempting with the forbidden fruit to show that Adam and Eve no longer trusted the goodness of God. And that allowed the serpent to bring death and separation.

The fruit was seen by them as good and pleasant and desirable. But when the desire to grasp and eat the fruit was fulfilled in them the drastic separation of sin occurred. ‘In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2:17). The desire for self gratification overcame their desire for God.

GOD SETS ABOUT TO OVERCOME THE SEPARATION OF SIN IN US.

Isaiah 59:2 Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you…
Sin comes from the lurking mindset of separation that was always resident in humanity and causes us to miss the mark, looking in the wrong direction.

Isaiah 45:22 Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.
This looking is directed at our minds (Isaiah 12:6 – ‘you will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed upon you).

The Law was designed to get people to walk closely with God and not be separate from him. David loved the Law for this reason - but the lurking separation mindset remained, always at the door. David’s sins came back to bite him. The law was unable to fully deal with the mindset of separation.

THE STRATEGY OF THE SERPENT’S TEMPTATION IS TO BRING SEPARATION AND DEATH
James 1:14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires (longing) and enticed (trapped). Then, when desire (longing) has conceived (is grasped), it gives birth to sin (missing the mark, going off course); and sin, when it is full-grown (totally off course – 180), brings forth death (separation)

In this trial (NUMBER 9) he sent serpents to bite them to get them to look in the right direction – to turn back to God and not live in separation from God in their minds and hearts.

We look to Jesus (Hebrews 12:2, 2Corinthians 10:5) who became sin for us on the cross and caused the serpent to be judged (John 16:11).

John 3:12 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Looking to Jesus is bringing our thoughts into captivity to him – from separated to non-separated.