A scenic route, snake bites and the cross

First off, let me assure you that the title for my blog has everything to do with the Sunday school lesson and nothing to do with drugs, alcohol or the age old art of snake handling. However, I was tempted to bring in a fake snake for visual stimulation but refrained. And who says I'm not maturing...

We had yet another combined Sunday school with a packed house of eager young minds awaiting some prophetic word from their world class bible scholar (oh, wait... that was Dr. Lamerson's class).

However, we did have all of our lovely students together and it was a great time of storytelling and fun. We looked at Numbers 21:4-9. It is a great story about Israel, their frustration and impatience and how God dealt with them. For, Israel's impatience led them to speak out against God and His chosen leader, Moses. They were tired of wandering and eating such bland food and being nourished by water from rocks. So they basically told God that they were fed up with Him and His ways. We would probably chalk this up to stress and brush it off as just blowing off some steam. But God saw it another way; He saw it as sin! Therefore, God sent fiery serpents amongst the people that would serve as a visual manifestation of their sins. Now, when the snakes bit the people many of them died, thus demonstrating for the people both the result and seriousness of their sin.

Now, with the snakes all around them, the painful bites and people dropping dead left and right, Israel quickly became aware of their sin and sought forgiveness and relief. Yet, they recognized that they could not help themselves and thus asked Moses to pray to God to take the snakes away and save them. So Moses did and then God told him to do something pretty peculiar. God told Moses to make a fiery snake, put it on a pole and anyone who is bitten when they look at it shall live. What a crazy way to save the people! I mean where's all the bells and whistles of the Red Sea parting or bread from heaven or water from rocks? What's up with the snake on the pole? All the people have to do is look at it and live? What's that all about?

Well, God answers that for us in John 3:14, 15. Here Christ revives for us this interesting old story that took place back in Israel's wilderness journey. He tells us that just as Moses lifted up the snake so too must He be lifted up. For as the snake on the pole represented Israel's sin, it is Christ on the cross who becomes His people's sin for them (2 Cor. 5:21). As the people of Israel looked to the serpent on the pole, believing God's word of rescue and finding life; we must now look to Christ on the cross, believing His word of salvation, that He took our place and paid for our sins and find eternal life!

That's what the whole story in Numbers is about... it's about Christ! God was preparing His people for the way He would bring redemption through Jesus Christ. The cross is the bells and whistles of rescue and salvation! Therefore, let us all boast only in the cross of Christ and revel in its magnificence and glory!

God was not about to leave His people then to perish in the wilderness and He certainly is not about to leave His people now to perish in their sins. For if you have never been relieved of the deadly and painful bite of sin, then do as the Israelites did and look... look in faith to Christ! It is only in Him that you will find healing and life!

For His Kingdom...