Presented to Swift Current corps of The
Salvation Army, 21 September 2014 by Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay; Toronto's Warehouse Mission 614, 13 November 2017; and Alberni Valley Ministries, 07 May 2023
This is the original version. To view the 2017 Toronto version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2017/11/numbers-211-9-2-kings-181-4-john-31316.html
This is the original version. To view the 2017 Toronto version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2017/11/numbers-211-9-2-kings-181-4-john-31316.html
To view the 2023 Alberni Valley Version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2023/05/numbers-211-9-2-kings-181-4-1.html
Elements of this sermon were incorporated into Major Michael Ramsay's sermon to the Alberni Valley Community Lenten Service, John 3:16-21: Snake Clowns, 10 March 2024 which you can view here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2024/03/john-316-21-snake-clowns.html
.
.
.
.
The following is allegedly from the US Government Peace Corps Manual for
its volunteers who work in the Amazon Jungle. It tells what to do in case an
anaconda attacks you:
1. If you are attacked by an
anaconda do not run. The snake is faster than you are.
2. Lie flat on the ground. Put your
arms tight against your sides, your legs tight against one another.
3. Tuck your chin in.
4. The snake will come and begin to
nudge and climb over your body.
5. Do not panic.
6. After the snake has examined you,
it will begin to swallow you from your feet and always from the end. Permit the
snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Do not panic.
7. The snake will now begin to
swallow your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a
long time.
8. When the snake has reached your
knees, slowly and with as little movement as possible, reach down, take your
knife and very gently slide it into the side of the snake’s mouth between the
edge of its mouth and your leg, then suddenly rip upwards, severing the snake’s
head.
9. Be sure you have your knife.
10. If at this point you notice that
you have forgotten your knife, you may wish that you had paid attention in
class; and now would be a good time to pray if you aren’t already.
Our pericope today is also about snakes. It is actually a passage that
has interested me for quite a while, Numbers 21:1-9. We notice in Numbers
21:1-3 that the Israelites are on a spiritual high. They have just made a vow
to the Lord and the Lord has given them a victory against the Canaanites.
This would be like after next weekend when all of the men who are going
will be returning from Men’s Camp. We will all have great stories of not only
fishing but of praying and encountering God together. Men’s camps always have
such a strong spiritual component that you have the opportunity to come home
filled with great spiritual food. It was at a men’s camp a few years ago where
Dusty acknowledged that he was called by the Lord to Officership and he is now
a Lieutenant in The Salvation Army. Men’s Camp, like youth councils and I
assume women’s camp, often leaves people on fire for the Lord, on a spiritual
high.
It is very much this kind of feeling that the Israelites have at this
moment, verses 1-3, but there is even more than that. They have just won a
military victory, a physical contest. That would be akin to and even greater
than winning a significant football game, hockey game, or soccer match: the
adrenaline is flowing. They are excited. The Lord has delivered them. They are
celebrating and telling all the stories, I imagine.
And then, verses 4-9, the people revert to the complaining we spoke
about last week that led to the Exodus generation forfeiting the salvation of
the Promised Land.[1] They
complain against God and against Moses and they even refer to the very bread
from heaven that God has been lovingly sending to them to keep them alive. They
refer to this bread from heaven through which God is saving them from
starvation, they refer to this bread from heaven – to which the Lord Jesus
Himself is compared (John 6:22-59) – they say about this sustenance and
salvation from the Lord – they say, “We detest that miserable food” (Numbers
21:5). How does that make their Heavenly Father feel?
Just like there were consequences for their parents complaining
consistently about the Lord so too there are consequences for this generation
rejecting their bread of God’s salvation. This time the consequence is a plague
of snakes. Who here likes snakes? Who here likes big snakes and poisonous
snakes? And there is even more. “The Hebrew phrase hannehashim hasserapim,
[here means literally] ‘the burning snakes’ or, better, ‘the snakes that
produce burning’. The ‘fire’ was in their venom, of course… The poison in these
snakebites must have been particularly virulent, leading to horrible, agonizing
deaths.”[2]
The Lord sends these poisonous serpents among the Israelites and they bite them
and the bitten Israelites die probably painfully. They perish from the venom of
the serpents. Just as Adam and Eve died at the hand of the serpent – so to speak
- (Genesis 3) so too the children of Israel.
At this point they realize what they are doing in blaming God and
complaining and rejecting the very life that He is providing for them. They
realize their sin and they repent of it. They call out to Moses; they beseech
him to speak on their behalf to God, saying that they are sorry and they ask
for deliverance from the consequences of their sins.
God then tells Moses that He will yet again deliver these people. God
will save them still. Verses 8-9, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and
put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So 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, they lived.”
This is great and this is exciting. This deliverance from the serpents
meant so much to the Israelites that they actually kept that bronze snake
around for a long time to remember this miracle. They kept this symbol of what
God had done with them their whole time in the desert. They kept this bronze
snake with them throughout the whole life and leadership of Joshua, son of Nun
during the conquest of Canaan. They kept the bronze snake safe and secure for
generations. They kept it through the roughly 400 years of alternating
oppression and liberation in the time of the Judges. They kept this bronze
snake with them through the entire existence of the United Kingdom: through the
reigns of Kings Saul, David, and Solomon. They kept this bronze serpent during
the divided kingdoms, using it during worship, through many kings and political
administrations, through many wars and trials and tribulations and throughout
all these generations. They used this snake in worship for much longer a time
period than the time between today and when the Europeans first organized in
Quebec, Montreal, or later landed on Plymouth Rock. For hundreds of years they
used this bronze snake that Moses had made in the desert as a part of their
worship and then, 1 Kings 18:1-4:
In the third year of Hoshea son of
Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. He was
twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem
twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did
what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father [ancestor]
David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut
down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had
made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.
(It was called Nehushtan.)
This is the snake that God had Moses himself make hundreds of years
earlier in the desert to deliver the people from the serpents. This is a
heritage item, an historic artifact; this is a part of worship. This snake is a
symbol of the healing that God did in the desert and this snake was originally
a symbol of salvation and now the King of Judah did what was right in the eyes
of the Lord by breaking it into pieces, destroying it forever. Why would God
have this originally powerful symbol of salvation created by Moses destroyed
after the people of God had gone to great effort over hundreds and hundreds of
years of adversity and affluence to preserved it? Why would God have destroyed
this powerful symbol of salvation that He Himself ordered created in the first
place?
He had it destroyed because instead of using it as a tool to worship
God; they began worshiping the bronze snake itself.[3]
It had become an idol. Are there things like this in the churches today? In Bible
study this week we had a great discussion around 1 Corinthians 10 and what
exactly are baptism and communion.[4]
Are these tools that help us to worship God or can they become ‘Nehushtan’? Can
people come to think that they are saved by being baptized or taking communion
rather than or as well as by Jesus? Can people take good things that may have
even been ordained and commissioned by God Himself – like the snake and maybe
like some contemporary church practices - and adore those things more than,
instead of, or as well as God?
Worship roughly means to adore. Are there things in the churches, in our
religions, in our lives; are there things – or people - that maybe God has used
to great effect in our lives that we now adore as we are supposed to adore God?
For those who grew up in the Army here: what if we removed the flag? What if we
removed the uniform? What if we removed the Mercy Seat, the very spot where we
are to come to meet with God Himself? Would we grumble every time we came here?
Do we love these articles as well as we love God? Is there an author or a
theologian or a pastor or a person that you follow so closely that whatever he,
she or they say must be correct; so much so that you don’t even bother to test
their words against the Scriptures or to refine them through the fires of
prayer anymore? But just accept them blindly? Returning to our Bible study on 1
Corinthians, I have even heard some people say that it is necessary to be
baptized in water to be saved. The water of baptism – just like any of these
other great rituals in the churches - is Moses’ snake:[5]
It was ordained to point us to the power of Christ; it is meant to point us
towards Christ’s Salvation. As soon as we start thinking that salvation comes
through any item like the Mercy Seat; or food like communion; or a rite like
baptism we are in trouble. If we think that without that rite, item or other
than we are going to hell, when we are supposed to know that salvation comes
from Christ alone, then that symbol of God Himself could very well become
‘Nehushtan’ in our lives and need to be removed.
So hear me correctly: it is when we start to adore things in and of
themselves that are meant to help us adore God that they need to removed from
our lives; when good things that used to help us worship God become things we
worship, then we need to remove them – no matter how important they are to us:
no matter how long we have used them as part of worship, if we start to adore
them alongside God than they become ‘Nehushtan’. (That is one reason why we
don’t take communion here on Sunday mornings.)
Now that being said – listen carefully to me here - communion, baptism,
the Mercy Seat, and any other aid to worship as it is a very important aid to
bring us close to God and as any of these aids help us express our love of
Christ and our joy at communing with Him, as these things bring us close to God
and lead us to think of and adore Christ than these are very important but
anything or anyone who we adore alongside or worship instead of Christ needs to
be removed from our life so that indeed we can worship Christ alone for
Salvation indeed comes from Christ alone.
There is one more thing that I want to point out here. Just like 1
Corinthians 10 points out that water is a symbol of our very important baptism
into Christ; so John Chapters 12 and 3 point out that that snake in the desert
is a symbol of our all important salvation in Jesus Christ.[6]
Jesus says, John 12:32: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will
draw all people to myself.” John 3:13-16: “No one has ever gone into heaven
except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up
the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man [Jesus] must be lifted up, that
everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the
world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall
not perish but have everlasting life.”
This bronze snake that God used was cast aside and destroyed after
centuries of use because it began to compete with the Lord -whom it foretells-
for the very hearts and minds and adoration of His people.[7]
But what that bronze snakes represents is alive and well and that is our
salvation through Jesus Christ, through Christ alone. So today I encourage us
all that if there is anything – even something in the church or a good person
or a good mentor in our lives – if there is anything that we have come to see
as our salvation other than Christ, I invite us to leave it here in the
sanctuary or even on the altar today and never to pick it up again. There is
only one who can handle all of our problems and there is not a single thing
that we can face in our lives that God cannot handle; so I invite us here today
in all that we are going through, in all that we experience, in all that we do;
to always look for our salvation from Christ and from Christ alone.
Let us
pray.
---
---
[1] Captain Michael Ramsay, Exodus 14, Numbers 14: Let It Go!
(Sheepspeak: 14 September 2014: Swift Current, Sk.) Available online at
http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2014/09/exodus-14-numbers-14-let-it-go.html
[2] Ronald B. Allen, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis
CD-ROM:Numbers/Exposition of Numbers/I. The Experience of the First Generation
in the Desert (1:1-25:18)/B. The Rebellion and Judgment of a Fearful People
(11:1-25:18)/2. A climax of rebellion and hope and the end of their dying
(21:1-25:18)/b. The bronze snake (21:4-9), Book Version: 4.0.2
[3] Donald J. Wiseman, 1 and 2 Kings: An Introduction and Commentary.
Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1993 (Tyndale Old Testament
Commentaries 9), S. 291
[4] Cf. Simon J. Kistemaker, ‘1 Corinthians’ in New Testament
Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007), 324. They are
‘spiritual food’ every bit as much as manna and water from the Rock.
[5] Cf. J. Paul Sampley, ‘1 Corinthians’ in New Interpreter's Bible,
Vol. 10, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002),
916.
[6] Cf. Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor's Bible Commentary,
Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/II. The Public Ministry of the Word
(1:19-12:50)/A. The Beginning Ministry (1:19-4:54)/6. The interview with
Nicodemus (2:23-3:21)/a. Nicodemus's visit (2:23-3:15), Book Version:
4.0.2
[7] Cf. Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary.
Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries 4), S. 112
Posts
