Numbers 21 - "Everyone who looks up will live."Summerstrand 09:00 17  February 2019

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We start with a song in which we worship God the Father.

VONKK 53 Hiding At The Father – sit

Votum and Greeting

Praise

We continue our worship and praise with two songs. The one about the joy that Jesus brings. The other about the Holy Spirit working in us.

Song 258 Joyful news, source of heartwarming – gospel word! – stand

Song 439 O Holy Spirit, O God in us – stand

Prayer

Scripture reading combined with children’s time

Numbers 21

Raise your hand if you 've ever been to a restaurant. How was it? Describe to me the menu . How was the service? What did it cost?

Have you ever eaten food that you didn't like?

Did you know that when the Israelites travelled in the wilderness, God gave them good food every day? He gave them manna (it tasted like honey ) and gave them meat to eat (quail, like small chickens).

It was like eating at a restaurant every day and having to pay nothing!

But, do you think people were happy with what God has given them?

Not really. They got used to the food, so they wanted other foods.

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Then there was war. The Canaanite king of Arad fought against them and some of them were captured.

The Israelites, however, prayed and vowed to the Lord: If You give us this people and their cities into our hands, we will sacrifice their cities to You.

The Lord answered their prayer and surrendered the Canaanites in Israel's power. The Israelites defeated the Canaanites and completely destroyed their cities. The Lord saved them! Wonderful, isn’t it?!

The Israelites then went on their way to the Promised Land.

Some people, however, became impatient. They were tired of the long road. They started complaining to Moses. They didn't like the food. They wanted more water. They were just unhappy.

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Then they began to complain about God. They said He didn't give them good bread to eat. They said He gave them miserable food. The Israelites said they wish they were back in Egypt!

The Lord was very upset with his people. He gave them good food to eat and water to drink. He always cared for them and protected them from the wild animals and snakes in the desert.

The Lord then decided to teach the Israelites that He was the only one who could save them. He sent poisonous snakes into the camp.

The snakes bit the people and many of them became ill and died.

Now the people knew they needed the Lord to protect them.

They knew they were wrong to complain about the way the Lord cared for them. They told Moses they were very sorry for all their complaints.

They confessed: “We have sinned against the Lord and against you with what we have said. Pray for the Lord to take away the snakes from us. "

Moses prayed to the Lord over the serpents. He told the Lord how sorry the people were. The Lord answered Moses' prayer.

However, he did not take the venomous snakes from the camp, but he did something that would help the Israelites remember that they should always seek him for help.

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He told Moses to make a copper snake. Moses had to put the snake on a pole o that all people could see it. If someone was bitten by a poisonous snake, they could look at the copper snake and be healed. It would help them remember that God would take care of them.

Many of the Israelites who had been bitten by the snakes looked at the copper snake on the pole and were healed.

They remember that God cares for His people. Only God could heal them. They learned to be happy and content with the things the Lord gave them. They learned not to complain about the Lord's gifts!

When Jesus died on the cross, the deeper meaning of the copper snake became clear to us.

Jesus said: As Moses put the serpent in the wilderness on a pole, so will I hang on a cross, so that everyone who believes in Me will have eternal life (John 3:14-16).

Preaching

The pace begins to accelerate with the trek around the Dead Sea and east of the Jordan.  The first victory of the second generation of Israel is against the Canaanites of King Arad, whose cities they utterly destroyed.

One would think that the problems of the past have been overcome. They overcame those people to whom their parents lost 38 years ago (Num. 14:45). I preached about that in my message about the four intercessors before the people in Numbers 14 three weeks ago.

And one gets excited about the fact that this time they call on the Lord in prayer, even make a vow to Him, and give everything to Him, every piece of the loot they got in the war.

Resistance leads to condemnation

But no, the second generation's excitement evaporates when this great victory is followed by another valley of tears in their resistance over food and water. The author describes it a perfect idiom: "The souls of the Israelites became short.” They became tired of this bad food.

The joy of victory was therefore short-lived. Instead of praying to the Lord as with the threat of King Arad from the Canaanites, they set out against Moses and the Lord over their circumstances. The journey through the desert took a huge toll on them. Perhaps there were reproaches against their parents. But deeper was the impatience with the Lord.

The Lord's response this time to their resistance is once again drastic. He sends poisonous snakes among them and many of the Israelites die. The poison of their opposition is greeted by the poison of God's judgment. Resistance leads to condemnation.

Trust leads to salvation

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The Lord's judgment, however, is graciously greeted with repentance by the people – to the Lord as well as to Moses – and the next one of the countless intercession by Moses for the people in opposition. At the command of the Lord Moses this time made a copper snake with the promise: "Whosoever is bitten and look up, shall live."

The snake portrayed the curse that hit them. By "lifting up" the snake against the pole, the curse was taken away, so that when they looked at it, a sign of faith and trust, they would be healed.

And that's exactly what happened. As they looked up to the copper snake in confidence, the poison disappeared from their system and they returned to life and were healed. Trust leads to salvation.

From this message I want to draw some conclusions for your own spiritual life.

1. Don't just complain, pray!

The first conclusion is that there is a big difference between complaining and praying. However, the difference does not lie in the content, but only in the focus.

The Israelites complain about God when their needs are not satisfied, with destructive consequences.

The Israelites pray to God when they are bitten by the snakes, with positive results.

The same happened when they were just attacked by the Canaanites. Prayer brings salvation. Complaints bring destruction.

I want to pass it on to you as encouragement. As Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians: "In everything, make your desires known by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:6-7). Don't just complain, pray!

2. God brings salvation to those who trust in Him

The second conclusion, God saves those who trust in Him. In Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, he refers to the brass serpent as an OT shadow of the salvation God brings: “ Moses put the serpent in the wilderness high on a pole; so shall the Son of man be exalted, that whosoever believeth in him may have eternal life." (Jn. 3:14-15).

This is the context in which Jesus gives the well-known statement of John. 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that those who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life."

I want to give you the wonderful assurance today that Jesus has been raised for you on the cross of Calvary so that you will not perish but have eternal life. This is the promise He gives you. This is the promise you can trust.

Jesus goes on to say: “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved by Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned.” (John 3:17-18). He hangs on the cross for our salvation. If you believe it, you are not condemned, you will be saved, you will have eternal life.

3. God brings condemnation to those who do not believe in Jesus

However, there is another side about which people are not talking enough today, the third conclusion. Jesus' message of salvation is truly just as real as the copper snake in the desert. Those who looked up were kept alive.

But it is just as true, those who did not look up, who did not trust in God's salvation, did not live. Whoever preaches otherwise is bringing a false gospel.

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As Jesus puts it in John 3 to Nicodemus: "Whoever does not believe, stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the only Son of God.” (John 3:18b). What was true in the desert is true to us today.

There is a separation between darkness and light

"And so comes the separation," says Jesus. Something John already said in the first chapter: "The light came into the world, and yet the men loved the darkness more than the light.” (John 3:19a). Why? "Because their deeds were evil. Whosoever doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his deeds be revealed.” (John 19b-20).

As John later wrote in his Revelation, we will see this separation more and more clearly in world history. Those people who disobey God's Word will hate the light so that their deeds are not exposed. They will welcome a message to their liking, adapting to how they want to live.

4. Come to the Light so that it can clearly be seen that you are obedient to God

That is why I urgently urge you to live in the light. To use the grace of God in a life of obedience.

Because, that's how people live who trust in God. Those people who trust in God, will hold on to His Word and obey it more and more. Like Jesus says: "Who does the truth comes to the light, so that it may be seen plainly that his deeds are done in obedience to God."

This is why the call to a holy life is so important and so consistently emphasized by the NT. Faith in Jesus Christ always leads to obedience to His will for life. Without it, faith is dead and useless, and people come under his judgment: "He who believes in him is not condemned; whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he does not believe in the only Son of God."

5. Let us not defy Christ by coming in opposition to God

When Paul therefore refers to the story of the serpent in Numbers 21, he uses it as a warning that God should not be provoked by idolatry and immorality, because such a rebellion against God will bring about your death, because it is a resistance and rejection of Christ.

Therefore, I would like in the fifth place that you see in Paul's writing to the Corinthians that Paul gives a double meaning to the pre-existent Christ's actions toward the people. He says, "Let us not defy Christ, as some of them provoked Him, and they perished by serpents. And do not oppose God, as some of them have come up against Him, and perished by the angel of death. These things have come upon them as an example to us and have been written as a warning to us who have experienced the end of times.” (1 Cor. 10:9-11).

Note, therefore, that for Paul, Christ was the one who caused the people to perish in the wilderness. A clear reference to the double meaning Jesus has for people in terms of salvation and judgment, as Jesus himself says in John 3.

6. God provides abundantly for people who trust in Him

I want to end with a sixth conclusion, something we actually find further on in the story of the copper snake. You can read it at home in the rest of chapter 21.

The salvation from the poison of the serpents is not the only provision of the Lord here in the wilderness when the people's "souls have shortened". On their further trek north along the Dead Sea, where they would combat the Amorites and the Rephaids, the giants, the Lord provided water to them at a well. In a beautiful song, this event is commemorated.

They also defeated a number of kings on their way, even before they invaded the promised land. Read how Israel took an existing poem of the Amorites in which the Amorites are lyrical over their own victories, and how the Israelites subtly mocked the Amorites by adding: "But now we have been unleashed on them"! Even Og of Bashan, the giant with a bed of iron, about four feet by two feet, fell before them.

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God provides abundantly for people who trust in Him. You can remember it this week, with confidence.

Prayer

Thanksoffering

Vonkk 107 Lord God Almighty – choir

Congregation’s survey

Final Song

Song 532 Congregation v1 and 3; Chorus v2 Our Father, take our hands and make us one – stand

Benediction

Amen

Response

Song 189 Hallelujah!

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