March 12th | Numbers 21

The book of Numbers is exhausting to read because people are constantly complaining. We can’t count the number of times they grumbled and complained against God! Once again, in chapter 21, they are complaining that they don’t have food or water and how they long to return to Egypt as slaves. We must once again check our hearts before we cast stones at the Israelites. In the midst of God’s great provision in our lives, do we still complain and grumble before Him?

What is the response of God? The same response God has for sin, judgment. 

Numbers 21:6, “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” 

While God is gracious, sin results in just judgment from a holy God. The people begin to perish under the mighty hand of God, and they ask Moses to intercede for them. God does something interesting in response to Moses’ intercession. 

Numbers 21:8, “And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”

The serpent is made, and the people look and live. 

What a statement. Look at this and live. Years later, Nicodemus found himself sneaking to talk to Jesus under the cover of night. He asked how he might be born again. Jesus reminds Nicodemus of this story from the Israelites. 

John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus knew that he must be lifted up. He would be lifted up on a cross to die for our sins. He would be lifted up out of the grave three days later. And He would be lifted up to heaven to rule and reign. Jesus has been lifted up, our job is to look to Him and live. 

In our world today, we often look down. Literally, we look down constantly at our phones, or metaphorically, we are looking down at the things of this world. Today, look up and live! Put the phone down. Put the concerns of the world down and look up to Jesus. He has been lifted up so you might have life. Don’t continue with your head down in death, but look up and live today!