Look and Live
Are you afraid of snakes?
Beware; there are snakes in this story.
There is also a fair share of discouragement, bad attitudes, and poor behavior.
There is also a salvation story, and a snake is involved in that too.
Some people are fascinated by snakes. Others are fearful.
The first snake in the Bible is not presented in a very good light. He comes as a tempter, offering an eye-opening experience.
We’ve been tempted by snakes, bitten by them, cut off their heads, and have thrown them in the fire.
But God made snakes and God made everything.
There are snakes in the story I am about to read you. They come in a context of discouragement and complaining, but they also remind us that there is more to the story than we often see up front.
Numbers 21:4–9 — (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, but the people became discouraged on the way.
We get easily discouraged. When we get discouraged, we often complain. When we complain, we look for scapegoats upon which to assign our blame.
The lives of the people had been seriously disrupted, but it was part of their liberation, redemption, and hope.
But their bellies were empty, and their prospects were seemingly bleak. So, they got crotchety and out of sorts and they needed to learn some things.
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 we detest this miserable food.”
They did not like the food and there was not enough as far as they were concerned. God was providing, but they were dissatisfied.
They thought they were going to die.
They blamed God and they blamed God’s prophet, Moses.
We are chronic blamers.
So, God, knowing that it was necessary for them to learn some important lessons as part of the process of saving them, sent snakes.
Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.
The snakes’ bit some of them and they died.
Now, get out-of-sorts with this if you must, but if it were not for the people learning this lesson, they would have all died. And … we do all die…some time.
Don’t get mad at God about the lived-out-story.
You and I do not know the whole story.
Good storytellers like God and Moses only tell you the pertinent parts, the parts that drive home the lesson.
The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.”
Now they start learning. They are now ready to stop blaming and start taking responsibility for their own choices and attitudes.
“Please take away the snakes.”
How did God answer?
So, Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”
First, God had already started to answer. He had an intercessor in place: Moses. Moses prayed. We do not know what he prayed, but we know for whom he prayed.
Then, God provided an answer, but it was not what the people had requested.
God did not take away the snakes.
There will always be snakes among us, for good and for bad.
So, Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it upon a pole, and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
God transformed the curse into the sign of salvation. He used the bronze serpent to direct the attention of the people back to himself seeking salvation.
Look and live.
Snakes bite, but even in Genesis, snakes that bruise end up getting crushed. Metaphors live in the land of transforming meaning and redemptive purpose and God is always taking us along the road of progressive revelation in scripture until Jesus comes and shows us the serpent in the light of his own redemptive purpose.
Listen to these words from the gospel.
Listen, all ye who are discouraged and complaining.
Listen, all ye who are dissatisfied and disdainful.
Listen before you build your own idols and altars to the false gods that wear righteous garments to deceive you in the gardens and deserts of your lives.
John 3:13–17 — New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just 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.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Here, Jesus takes the role of the golden serpent.
Jesus starts by telling us that no one knows everything about God. No one’s gone to heaven to really Get it all. No one’s got all the answers. No one has arrived.
He puts it this way: No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just 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.
There’s pause, look and live. Look and live. Look to the one who lived among us, but descended from above us.
Next verse: for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him may not perish, have eternal life.
Humanity proceeds from God, but so does divinity, so does salvation.
God made snakes, but God created a plan.
Next verse, indeed, God did not send his son to the world to condemn the but in order that the world might be saved from him.
Here, Jesus takes the role of the bronze serpent, and we are to look and live.
Like the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so is Jesus about to be lifted up on the cross from God.
God is coming among the people, and God is making the sacrifice, and God is turning the curse into the cure, and God is taking the same snake that symbolizes the bite and the venom around us and turning it into the symbol and the means of hope and redemption and salvation, forgiveness, and grace.
Look and live.
Even if you’ve been bitten by the snake, God doesn’t take away the snakes in our lives.
God doesn’t take away the problems in our lives. God transforms them. He uses them.
Jesus is the central figure in this story of redemption. You have a story in the wilderness, and you don’t know the whole story, but in Jesus, you get the whole story.
You get the completion.
You find the author and the finisher of our faith.
You find the redeemer.
You find the one who comes as God man to sacrifice for us, the bridge between God and man, the key. The one who holds the keys is the key.
The one who opens the door is the door.
The one who comes among the sheep to be the shepherd, to lead us look and live, look and live.
There are many problems in the world. Problems come and problems go.
I don’t know if you know this or not, but your country, my country is America. And your country may be Nigeria or Kenya or India, Pakistan or some other place, Senegal, Canada.
Your country is not the center of the world, and the world is not the center of the universe.
Your time, our time, is not the center of history.
What’s going on around you is not the be all end all of everything.
What happens in America is not the core of every interpretation of the meaning of our existence. Our time is not the center of time, and our problems are not the only snakes in history, and especially in the history of salvation.
Lots of snakes Lots of snakes that wear righteous clothing.
Lots of snakes that talk the talk.
Lots of snakes that come amidst our complaining and blaming and looking to God and the prophets and the circumstances and stirring up our discouragement and dissatisfaction, but even so, in the midst of it all, as we’re getting bitten by the snakes, we’re not at the center of things.
No, there’s a serpent, a bronze serpent on a pole, crying out, “Look and live, look and live.”
Somehow or another, we need to come out of that snake infested pit of our own time and our own making and our own attitudes and our own bickering and dickering and our own dissatisfaction with the way things are, and look to God and God’s Son and God’s redemption and live.
We need to change the direction of our view. We need to change our focus. We need to change our attitudes.
In looking, the Israelites were believing. They were trusting. They were committing to a new center, to a new reality.
You haven’t been to heaven yet, so you don’t know it all. There is one who has descended from heaven that says, look at me and live. That’s the message. That’s the call to action.
Look and live.
Don’t look at the snakes on the ground. Don’t look at the desert. Don’t look at your wants and needs. Don’t get caught up in the discouragement of the moment. Look up to the serpent on the pole.
Look to Jesus and live. May the Lord bless you and keep you.
In this message, we focused on a biblical narrative involving snakes, discouragement, and redemption, drawing from Numbers 21:4–9 and John 3:13–17. We considered the Israelites’ journey, their complaints against God and Moses, and the subsequent sending of poisonous snakes as a lesson.
The core message was about transformation and redemption, as God instructed Moses to create a bronze serpent for the people to look at and be healed, symbolizing salvation through faith.
We connected this to the New Testament, where Jesus is likened to the bronze serpent, emphasizing the importance of looking to Jesus for salvation and redemption. We beheld themes of faith, responsibility, and the transformative power of God, and were reminded to shift our focus from worldly problems to divine solutions.
We concluded with a call to action to “look and live,” encouraging a change in perspective towards faith and redemption.
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Key Questions for Your Group:
* How does the metaphor of the bronze serpent relate to Jesus?
* What lessons can be learned from the story of the Israelites and the snakes?
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