Numbers 20, 21
Peace be with you, listening
friends. We greet you in the name of God, the Lord of peace, who wants everyone
to understand and submit to the way of righteousness that He has established,
and have true peace with Him forever. We are happy to be able to return today
to present your program The Way of Righteousness.
Last time, in the fourth section of the Torah, in the
book of Numbers, we saw how the Israelites arrived at the border of Canaan, the
land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants. God
planned to drive out the wicked giants which lived in the land and turn
everything over to the Israelites. However most of the people of Israel were
afraid of the giants and would not believe God's promise to give them the land of
Canaan.
Thus, we read how God judged the Israelites because of
their unbelief. He said to them,
"Not one of you
will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except
Caleb…and Joshua…because they have a different spirit and follow me
wholeheartedly. Their descendants will inherit it. And
also, as for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will
bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected! But you, your bodies will
fall in this desert!" (Num. 14:30-32)
What we must understand is that God wanted to bless
the Israelites abundantly, but He could not bless them because
of their unbelief.
Since they refused to believe what the Lord had promised them, God condemned
the Israelites to wander in the desert for forty years, until all those over
twenty years old who had not believed Him died.
Now, let us continue in the book of Numbers to see
what happened at the end of the forty years which the Israelites wasted in the
wilderness due to their unbelief. In chapter twenty, we read:
(Num. 20) 1After
the Israelite community had walked in the wilderness for about forty years,
they arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh [where they had
first refused to believe God and enter the land of Canaan which He had promised
to them]. There Miriam (the elder sister of Moses) died
and was buried.
2Now
there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to
Moses and Aaron. 3They quarreled with Moses
and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! 4Why
did you bring the Lord's community into this desert, that we and our livestock
should die here? 5Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this
terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there
is no water to drink!"
Do you hear what the Israelites were saying? After all
that God had done for them and their fathers in Egypt and in the wilderness,
were their hearts full of thankfulness and trust? No! They were doing exactly
as their fathers had done. They were grumbling! Of course, they were weary of
the wilderness, but they should have remembered that it was because of their
unbelief that they had not yet entered the land of Canaan. True, the Israelites
did not have water. But why then did they not pray to God? The One who had
cared for them for forty years in the parched wilderness-could He not give them
water to drink? Of course He could! God wanted to supply all their needs!
However, the Israelites did not yet fully trust the Lord their God.
Let us continue in the chapter to see what happened.
The Scripture says:
(Num. 20) 6Moses
and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and
fell face down, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7The
Lord said to Moses, 8"Take the staff, and you and your brother
Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before
their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock
for the community so that they and their livestock can drink."
9So
Moses took the staff from the Lord's presence, just as he commanded him. 10He
and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to
them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" 11Then
Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.
Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. 12But
the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough
to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this
community into the land I give them."
Did you grasp what happened? What did God command
Moses to do so that the multitude of Israel would have water to drink? He said, "Speak
to that rock!" Did Moses obey God by speaking to the rock? No! In his
anger Moses hit it twice. This did not prevent God, in His goodness, from
causing the rock to spout forth water, but what Moses did displeased God. That
is why God punished him, saying, "Because
you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the
sight of the Israelites,you will not bring this community into the
land I give them."
Perhaps in our thinking, the punishment that God
imposed on Moses was too severe. However, we must remember that what pleases
God is faith in His word and obedience to His word. God cannot accept anything
that is against His word-even if it came from the prophet Moses!
God does not show favoritism. Moses was a great
prophet, but he was a human like all of us. Therefore, he was a sinner like all
of Adam's offspring. Even the prophet of God, Moses,
could not save himself because of his good works. Like all of
Adam's descendants he had defects and did not fulfil all that is righteous. The
prophet Moses, like all the Israelites, had to come by the way of salvation
which God had established, by the way of the blood sacrifice. Through the sin
of Moses, God wants to remind us that all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. All are guilty before God. Everyone has sinned. No
one is righteous! There is no one who has not strayed from the way of
God-except for the perfectly righteous Redeemer who came from heaven to save
sinners!
Continuing with the story of the Israelites, in the
end of chapter twenty we read how Aaron, Moses' older brother, died on the
mountain called Hor, and the community of Israel mourned for him there for
thirty days.
After that, in chapter twenty-one, the Scripture says:
(Num. 21) 4They
traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea…But the people grew impatient on
the way; 5they spoke against God and against Moses, and said,
"Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no
bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6Then
the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people
and many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said,
"We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the
Lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8The
Lord said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is
bitten can look at it and live." 9So Moses made a bronze
snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at
the bronze snake, he lived.
Let us think about this amazing story. Why did God
send venomous snakes among the Israelites? He sent the snakes because of their sin. We heard how they
spoke against God and Moses, and despised the food which God sent down to them.
That is why God sent venomous snakes to bite them, causing many to die.
What could the
Israelites do to escape death? Could they save
themselves from the plague of snakes? Could they heal themselves of the deadly
poison? Impossible! What could they do then? They could cry out to God! And
that is what they did. We saw how the Israelites repented and went to Moses,
saying to him, "We have sinned! We have transgressed against you and
against God! Pray to the Lord for us that He might have mercy on us and take
away these snakes!"
Did God take the snakes away from them? He did
something even better than that! God told Moses to make a bronze snake and
raise it up on a pole so that "anyone who is bitten can look at
it and live." This was God's
remedy.
If a snake bit someone, all that a person had to do was to look at the bronze
snake which was hung on the pole and he would be healed! This was the way of
deliverance that God arranged: Look and live!
God promised to heal whoever
looked at
the bronze snake which Moses suspended on the pole. What happened then to those
who refused to look? They died a painful
death. But whoever believed God and looked at the bronze snake was delivered
from death, because God had promised them, saying, "Anyone who
is bitten can look at it and live."
Truly, this is a fascinating story, but it is more
than fascinating. It was written to instruct us. God wants to show us that we
all are
like the Israelites. We too are sinners, which is why we often grumble against
God and man, and offend God in our thoughts, in our words and in our deeds. Satan is like the venomous
snakes that were biting the Israelites. And sin is like the poison that
was killing them. Satan has bitten all of the children of Adam and the poison
of sin will cause us to perish forever, unless God provides for us a
remedy!
The payment of sin is to perish in the eternal fire and, in ourselves, we have
no means of escape! However, we praise God, because just as He designed a plan
to save the Israelites from the poison of the snakes, so also He has
designed a plan to save the children of Adam from the
poison of sin!
You who are listening today, do you know what God has
done to save you from the curse which sin has brought? Listen
to what the holy Redeemer said about fifteen hundred years after Moses
raised the bronze snake in the wilderness. He said,"Just
as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man (the Redeemer of the
world), must be lifted up…that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life!" (John 3:14,16)
From this verse in the holy Gospel {Injil}, we learn that the
bronze snake, which Moses raised up in the desert, was an
illustration {shadow,
picture, symbol} of the Redeemer who was to come and die on a cross so that He
might defeat the devil who holds the power of death. (Heb. 2:14) Oh, how
wonderful this message is! As we will discover in coming lessons, through the
death and resurrection of the Redeemer, God has opened for the children of Adam
a door of salvation, peace and joy forever! All God wants is for you to admit
that you cannot save yourself from the power of sin, and believe in your heart
what God has testified concerning the Savior who died on the cross to pay for
you your debt of sin. God says: Look to the Redeemer and you will
live! Believe
on Him and God will heal you, save you from the poison of sin and reserve for
you an eternal dwelling place in His presence in heaven!
Old and young, men and women, rich and poor, God is
saying to everyone: Look and live! Look to the mighty
Redeemer whom God has sent and you will be saved! But God is also
saying: If you refuse to look, if you do not believe
in the Savior through whom God has provided the only cure for sin, then "you
will die in your sins!" (John 8:24) God's
righteous law declares that whoever does not accept the remedy that He has
provided will perish. God has no other
remedy by which the sons of Adam can be cured from the poison of sin. Have you
looked to the Redeemer of whom all the prophets have written? He will cleanse
you and give you eternal life if you will simply put your trust in Him alone.
Listen again to what the Scripture says: "Just as
Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man (the Redeemer of the
world), must be lifted up…that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life!" (John 3:14,16)
Fellow listeners, our time is up today. Thank you for
listening. Next time, God willing, we will consider the final words of the
prophet Moses, and thus complete our study in the holy Torah.…God bless you as
you ponder this promise from Him:
"[Look to Me, and
you will be saved!]" (Isa. 45:22)
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