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sermon: The Bronze Serpent of Moses

Looking to God
James C. Stoertz
Given 10-Oct-26; Sermon #1896A; 36 minutes

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On the way to church each Sabbath as Paul and I travel Route 85 southward, we pass a billboard that simply says Thank God. It has no label, sponsor, no contact information, no website, and at first we ignored it and then we thought this is a little bit of those nominal Christians. And now that simple plain billboard reminds us to thank God. It's actually a pretty good reminder. But coming home from the feast each year, we return to the ordinary. The contrast can produce a kind of a spiritual whiplash. Discouragement, illness, financial pressure, or relational conflict can bite. There is an event recorded in the Bible that actually addresses this. And I want to dissect the narrative of the bronze serpent of Moses. It encouraged Israel to thank God. Think God is an abbreviation to say, every thought and action of ours should be directed by the knowledge of God's will. So please turn to the book of Numbers and we will go over that story, starting with reading it. Uh, but first I wanna go over a little background. Numbers 16 to 19 span most of the years that Israel wandered in the Sinai Desert, a long time covered by just 4 chapters. But by the time you get to Numbers 20 and 21, God has led Israel for nearly 40 years. For most of these Israelites, it was their whole lifetime. They were fed manna every single day. They were encouraged with great promises. They were separated from their old Egyptian routine, living in temporary dwellings for so long that temporary life has now become their new normal. Then in Numbers 20 and 21, the 40th year, several things happen that are very dramatic, creating a great deal of upheaval. Miriam dies. You can actually follow these, some of these headings if you have them in your Bible. But Miriam dies in Numbers 20:1. Moses strikes the rock at Kadesh in frustration. God tells him that he will not enter the land of Canaan, Numbers 22 to 13. Israel is right on the edge of the Promised Land at the same place where 12 men had spied out the land 38 years ago. Numbers 13. Back then, the people angered by God complained bitterly. And so God punished them with 40 years of wandering. When that punishment is almost complete, it looks like it's about to happen again. The Edomites deny passage through their land. We might assume that because God is with Israel, they should just go anyway. But God specifically said in Deuteronomy 2:45, do not meddle with them. The Israelites are turned aside and find that they have another 240 miles to go to get around Edom. Numbers 21:4 says this was a discouraging journey. Then Aaron dies on Mount Hor near the border of Edom. That's Numbers 2022 to 29. So except for Joshua and Caleb, this leaves Moses as the last man standing of the old guard who had come out of Egypt. Not exactly, but pretty close. When we read Moses' final instructions and speeches before his death, we can sense sorrow. But the Bible portrays him as a very patient man through his actions. It doesn't specifically say that, but you can tell by the way he behaves, specifically enduring the Israelites' complaints. Exodus 32:11 to 14 or Numbers 12:3. Keep that background in mind as we review the narrative of the Bronze Serpent, which is in Numbers 21:59. So we will read the story. I'll read it carefully. You can read along carefully if you like. So that would be 2159 and 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 our soul loathes this worthless bread. Deja vu. This is exactly what they said 40 years ago, well, 38 years ago. So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and so it was. If a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. One thing that strikes me when reading this is that for once the people repent pretty quickly. And in addition, Moses responds with more patience than usual. There is more to this story. This banner that God told Moses to make is referenced in two other places in Scripture, and both of those later references nail down what God intended. So the first one is II Kings 18:3-4, and we will turn there. II Kings 1834. Here we find that 691 years later, King Hezekiah destroyed the very object Moses had made. So II Kings 18:3, he Ezekiah did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. Kind of tells you the kind of man he is. He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image. It's kind of singular, and I wondered what is that? That's Asherah, a Canaanite goddess of fertility. And broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nehushtan. Nahushtan means the bronze thing. So kind of descriptive. Nhushtan and Ashura are apparently on the same level as one another. The main point is that even under a reforming king, the bronze serpent that Moses had made at God's command had become an object of worship and superstition. The people called it Mahushtan. Hezekiah rightly destroyed it. This is an example of why the churches of God do not make images of God or Jesus Christ. While they may not be idols to us, they clearly are to the rest of Christianity. The bronze serpent was never intended to be a permanent fixture in Israel's worship. It served its purpose in a specific crisis and then centuries later had to be destroyed when it became a snare. That fact should make us cautious about any spiritual tool or practice that begins to take on a life of its own. The moment we start trusting the method more than the God who gave the method, we are already repeating Israel's error with Nahushtan. Now here we are going to turn to the 3rd place, John 3. Just lay this foundation. So John 3 and particularly verse 10. This is the 3rd time the bronze serpent appears, and here we finally get to God's explanation for why it is recorded in Numbers. Jesus Christ Himself explains it. This is a conversation in which Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. A leading member of the Sanhedrin, Israel's ruling council. Nicodemus visits Jesus after nightfall, indicating spiritual doubt. He does not understand the concept of being born again and asks whether a man must enter a second time into his mother's womb, a somewhat absurd question. Jesus makes an incriminating observation in verse 10 and 12. I'll read them back to back. Jesus answered and said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Then in verse 14 and 15, Jesus reaches way back before Hezekiah to Moses. More than 14 centuries to explain the bronze serpent. John 3:14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. What seems like a strange and even troubling command to Moses in the wilderness was in reality a prophecy of the crucifixion. It may have been understood by Moses more than 1400 years earlier as a promise of life in exchange for obedience and simple upward-looking faith. A teacher of Israel should have recognized the metaphor. Jesus expected Nicodemus to understand it. So, I want to flash back to the first time many of us heard or read the snake on a stick narrative in Numbers 21. At least I can speak for myself. We do not like snakes much. It's always seemed a little odd that God would instruct Moses to do this. At first glance, this seems like the behavior of people who make and use idols. There are many things we just take on faith. But faith is strengthened by fact, and there are a number of facts surrounding this narrative. So let's lay some of them out. There is a lot of debate around the snake on a stick, particularly among Talmudic writers. Some propose that the story was added to numbers later to explain why there was a pagan totem amongst the things of their revered temple. This argument though discredits the wisdom of God and the authority of the Bible. Without the New Testament, Jewish commentators cannot accept Jesus Christ's own explanation. In fact, a lot of the understanding of the Old Testament is lost without the prophetic fulfillment in the New Testament. Archaeologists sometimes describe the snake on a stick as a transitional emblem left over from old alliances with Egypt. The pharaonic headdress contains a brass cobra that sticks out of the front. It's called a ureus, and it dominates the forehead and serves as a symbol of divine authority. Some scholars suggest that when Hezekiah reestablished certain alliances with Assyria, all Egyptian-style paraphernalia had to go. This of course, completely denies the Bible as authority to explain an occurrence recorded in the Bible, somewhat hypocritical, and, but it's pretty typical of of archaeology. So there are cultural parallels today. They're two similar modern icons. We see these every day. Whether it's idolatry or not, it is ubiquitous. One is the rod of a sclepius. It's a single snake. wound around a simple staff, it's on most ambulances and on the badges of many medical professionals. This is the predominant symbol for medicine and healthcare. The 6 main tasks that it's actually displayed on the middle of a blue star of life which represents the 6 main tasks of rescuers throughout the industry. Asclepius is the Greco-Roman God of medicine and healing. The city of Pergamos, one of the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Hosted a major temple dedicated to Asclepios where people sought healing from snakes or with snakes. The symbol is very pagan in origin, though most people who wear it today are probably not consciously worshiping it. Um, the other one is called the caucus, and it's surprisingly similar, but they, they are used for completely different things. It's got two snakes wound around a staff and then wings at the top. And you'll notice these are very different. They're symmetrically intertwined and it's generally the symbol of commerce. It comes from the Greek God Hermes, or actually his full name Hermes Tresmegistus, which means thrice greatest. In esoteric Catholic circles, this God is an apostle in the line that includes Enoch and Noah. The word indicates that it is likely origin of the Catholic trinity. The Catholic cathedral Duomo de Siena in Italy contains, it's a beautiful cathedral, contains a large mosaic of Hermes Tresmegistus. According to Greek mythology, Hermes tried to separate two fighting snakes by planting his staff in the ground between them. Instead, the snakes entwined peacefully around the staff. Both the staff of Asclepius and the Caucus trace their roots all the way back to Mesopotamia. There it was associated with the God Ningishzida, a deity of plants and the underworld. That's a guy with two snakes coming out of his shoulders. Ugh. When when traveling to the Far East, even more double yuck. We might encounter the literal snake on a stick. I've seen it available at festivals or in front of temples as a snack. But I've also seen it in doctors' offices as a Chinese medicine. People will eat almost anything on a stick in many places in the world. The image has remarkable staying power across cultures and centuries. So let's switch focus and turn to Exodus 20. The second commandment 20 versus 4 through 5. Let's see 4, I got my tabs labeled. Exodus 20:45. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, and there is more to it, more to that commandment, but that's what I want right now. The Hebrew word in Exodus 20:4, which is translated carved image. In the King James and the New King James's Pel, Strongs 64:59. This is not the same word that God uses in Genesis 1:26 when he says, Let us make man in our image. But it is used 31 times in the Old Testament, and it's used exclusively for something that replaces God. Basically we would call it an idol. Some translations prefer the broader word image, reflecting an iconic, which means without using icons, reflecting an iconic instinct that appears strongly in Islam. The idea that there should be no images of sentient life at all. Taken to an extreme, that view would require us to discard paintings, most books, cameras, televisions, computers. This is why Islamic architecture, like the famous Alhambra Fortress in southern Spain, is decorated with geometric mosaics, but little else. While personal sacrifice in that direction can be admirable, It's important to remember the problems of the Pharisees who strained at gnats while swallowing camels. Why is there a tendency to think of the serpent on a pole as an idol? Well, human nature cries out for something tangible to help us understand God, especially without the Holy Spirit. It's therefore easy for our carnal mind to latch onto representations of God, especially when healing is associated with it. But do we really understand what the 2nd commandment forbids? I think we all do here. Both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 forbid the making of images that are then bowed down to and served. People make images, but we are not to make images that we worship. Solomon's throne was surrounded by 12 carved lions. The giant laver that stood before the temple was supported by 12 bronze oxen. The veil before the altar in the temple was adorned with seraphim. God made man in His own image. And it is not the same word, as I said before. Artists among us paint beautiful images of God's creation. If the commandment forbade all images, we would have to throw away far more than we think. The issue is not the existence of an image. The issue is the warship. Turn with me to Isaiah 44. Isaiah 44 there. We can follow along together because I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but I will paraphrase here God gives a graphic, almost satirical attack on the makers of idols rather than the inanimate idols themselves. He's going to the source. The language is blunt and clear. In Isaiah 44:8, God declares that there is no other rock besides Him. No matter what they carve out of it. Then he describes the folly of the idle maker. The blacksmith works with tongs and hammers until he is hungry and faint. That's verse 12. The point is that what he works on cannot even feed him. In Isaiah 13, the craftsman marks out a figure with chalk and compass and shapes it into the form of a man so that it may remain in the house, his little friend, but it cannot even speak to him or love him. He cuts down trees with part of the wood. He builds a fire, warms himself, and bakes bread. With the rest, he makes a God, falls down before it and prays, Deliver me, for you are my God. That's 14 to 17. Now verse 18 is devastating. And it's an incrimination of the idol makers. Isaiah 44:18. They do not know nor understand, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot understand. Basically, that's the definition of debased, is not it? A man is a fool if he cannot see that he himself is making the distinction between the wood that warms him and the wood he calls a God. As a result, he's shut off from the true God. The whole chapter is filled with the language of animism. Men imputing life or spirit to something that is obviously not alive. They're lying to themselves, but more importantly, they are playing God. This is the heart of idolatry. An idol is not merely a statue. An idol is anything to which we transfer the trust, devotion, and dependence that belong to God alone. The bronze serpent of Moses became an idol when the people began burning incense to it and treating it as the source of power. Until that point, it was a temporary visual aid that God Himself had commanded. So the words, there is a deliberate Hebrew wordplay at work in Numbers 21. There are 8 occurrences of the words fiery, poisonous, snake, and serpent. And they are somewhat intermingled and interchangeable. In particular, the phrase fiery serpents should grab your attention. We generally think, Ah, that's descriptive. The snake bite must have burned. And in fact that's what a lot of the commentators say. In reality, all eight of these words are closely related, and the repetition is intentional. The root involved the idea. Of shining, burning the Hebrew root, burning spiritual beings and seraphim, the same word is used in Genesis 3:1 for the serpent in the Garden of Eden. For all we know, God had released fiery serpents, a Satanic instrument, to cleanse the last of the old generation, much as Aaron and Miriam had already passed from the scene. When God speaks to Moses in Numbers 21:8, He says to make a fiery serpent. This is really a single word seraf. Sounds familiar, doesn't it, which means fiery or burning. The word serpent is added by the translators in some versions. The word for the serpent in the Garden of Eden is also used in Numbers 21:59. But not for every occurrence. The plural form of seraph is seraphim. This is the name of the fiery angelic beings with six wings who appeared to Isaiah above the throne of God crying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. When Isaiah saw this, he cried out, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. Isaiah 6:5. Then one of the seraphim flew to him with a live coal from the altar, touched his mouth, and declared that his iniquity was taken away and his sin purged. The parallel to the effect of the bronze serpent on the pole is close. Judgment and purification, death and life. When God speaks to Moses, he says to make a seraffe, not a snake. The word play, and this might be why it's called a bronze thing in in Hezekiah's time, the word play and the imagery together create a powerful visual sermon, the same fiery reality that brought death on the ground when lifted up at God's command, the means of life for those who look. So compare the miracle recorded in Deuteronomy 8, which also has a clear explanation from God. Through faith we know that the manna the Israelites ate in the desert for 40 years was real. There are both positive and negative ways to understand it. A cynic would say, otherwise they would starve. An Israelite in a complaining mood would say, Who will give us meat to eat? God makes the reason clear. He fed them with manna that He might humble you and that He might test you to do you good in the end. Deuteronomy 8:16. The manna served as a daily reminder of God's sustenance and of their need to rely on His promises. Jesus Christ later showed the danger of taking the physical provision too far or misunderstanding its purpose. John 6:32 and 4850, I'll read it to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, Jesus Christ speaking. Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that 1 may eat of it and not die. It really lays out a diagram of what metaphors are. The Holy Spirit leads us to understand a profound metaphor from the manna. We are to take in the body of Christ every day, study His word, internalize it, and live by it. But if we take the metaphor too far, much like Nicodemus returning to his mother's womb, we might think we should study God's word twice as much on Friday and not at all on the Sabbath. That's another example of straining gnats while swallowing camels. All the events of Israel's sojourn in the desert function as a simple metaphor for extremely deep and important spiritual principles. Moses' rod and the bronze serpent are no different. God forbids making idols. The Lord told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Therefore, it was not an idol. The the later abuse of the object does not change the original command or its meaning. The same principle appears in other places. When Israel fought the Amalekites shortly after the Exodus, Exodus 17, Moses stood on a hill and held up the rod of God. As long as his hands were raised, Israel prevailed. When his hands grew heavy and drooped, Amelek gained the advantage. Aaron and her supported his arms until sunset. The rod itself had no magic. It was a visible reminder to keep looking to the God who fights for his people. After the victory, Moses built an altar and named it Yahweh Nisi. The Lord is my banner. Contrast that with I Samuel 4 when the Israelites treated the Ark of the Covenant like a lucky charm and carried it into battle against the Philistines. The ark was captured. Or consider Micah in the book of Judges who had his own little shrine and his ephad and his little personal Levite priest. None of it protected him when the Danites came through and took everything. Accouterments are never the source of power. Now we will look back at the narrative of the bronze serpent with an eye toward present day application. I told you it would apply. Well, we will find out. This event parallels where we are in God's plan. It also parallels the experience of coming out of the feast season. The people of Israel are now so close to entering the promised land that they can almost sense it. They faced a great deal of upheaval in a short amount of time. The Israelites in the desert were within shouting distance of the fulfillment of the promises. Given to their fathers, but those promises are again deferred. This invites frustration, disappointment, and fatigue. The magnified emotions led to complaining about God's provision. We also sense something in the air. Now, right now in the modern times, we may see concentrated upheaval stirring in our own nation. And in the world We're close to the dawning of the millennium. We know there are expected signs, but we do not see them yet. How do we hold fast to the end? The problem is spiritual fatigue, exhaustion, and magnified trials that bite. Ephesians 6:10-12 reminds us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. We are involved in a war. The fiery serpents of Numbers 21 are a vivid picture of that spiritual conflict. The answer is to avoid staring at the serpents. Look up. The same God who convenes with us in the high places of the feast is the God who is with us in the wilderness of ordinary life. The bronze serpent worked for those who looked up in faith, but it failed as a permanent solution for an unconverted people who eventually transferred their trust from God to the effigy. By the time of Hezekiah, they were burning incense to it. Good gifts from God can become idols when we begin to trust the gift more than the giver. Jesus makes the application unmistakable. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Salvation and daily spiritual recovery comes from seeking God, taking on His will, and internalizing His Word. In our own experience, the looking is often the hardest part. The natural instinct is to stare at the problem. The snakes are right there biting. The temptation is to stare at the symptoms, the diagnosis, the bank account, the conflict, the unanswered prayer. God calls us to do the counterintuitive thing. The bronze serpent did not remove the snakes from the camp immediately. It provided life in the midst of the danger for those who looked. Likewise, looking to Christ does not always remove the trial at once, but it brings life and perspective in the midst of it. We are to look at him either way. David Graby said, Our part is not to focus on Satan or on our or on our sins. Our part is to focus on the Lamb and get to know Him. John Reitenbaugh said that the Israelites had allowed themselves to become lost in their problems. The purpose of the staff and of the bronze serpent. was to break the people's focus on their physical afflictions and redirect their attention toward the spiritual life where God resides. That is still the core issue. God gave Moses a tool to get the people refocused again. Their faith had dissolved. They had stopped believing what God said and what God had already done. A similar example of the need for spiritual focus is when Peter got out of the boat to walk on water in the Sea of Galilee. As long as he focused on Jesus Christ, he actually succeeded in walking on water. But when he instead focused on the wind, the waves, and the water, fear and doubt entered, and he began to sink. The object of our faith must be the Father and the Son. Moses himself is a model in this regard. He endured as seeing him who is invisible. Hebrews 11:27. He went through real challenges, frustration, emotional slump, and occasional loss of temper, but he always caught himself knowing that God was there. Um, now we've come too far to miss this one point. This whole snake on a stick episode was predicated on complaining. One of the recurring themes in the wilderness wanderings is the speed with which Israel moved from gratitude to grumbling. The same people who had seen the Red Sea parted, who had eaten bread from heaven and who had drunk water from the rock, could within hours speak against God and against Moses. Numbers 21 is not an isolated incident. It's the latest expression of a pattern that had already appeared many times. How often they provoked him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. Yes, again and again they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. Psalm 78. As Paul said, do all things without complaining. Philippians 2:14. What is Moses supposed to do about it? What is our wife supposed to do about it? What is the minister supposed to do about it? God knows our problems, but he too doesn't want to hear our complaining. Do we have faith that he will solve our problems? If we are with God, then we know that all things are for our good, and God is the author of all things. Any complaint is a complaint against God. Buck up and deal with it. And if you look at that phrase, it means to give encouragement. In everything give thanks. I Thessalonians 5:18. Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be judged. James 5:9. We tend to try to bypass the confrontation by complaining to someone else. I know I've done it. But we have precise instructions on dealing with this from Jesus Christ Himself. And turn with me to Matthew 18. We'll read verses 15 to 20. It's a long section. Not that long. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, so this is Matthew 18:15. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you've gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more. That by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established, and if he refuses to hear you then. Tell it to the church, but if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. I thought Jesus ate with the tax collectors. Anyway, assuredly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you that if 2 or 3 agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them. So there are 4 layers of escalation there you'll notice. Tell it to the church means tell it to the church leadership. Let him be like a heathen and a tax collector means. Kick him out, I think. Each escalation includes taking our brother along. If we bypass a single step, then we are fearing our brother more than God. By the way, this passage seems to indicate that we know our brother sinned against us. Even the first step may be acting like a judge. But the same steps can be applied if we think our brother sinned against us. I almost missed the most important step, which is in verse 21 through 22 and comes before this escalation. It doesn't actually in the written word, but in the process it does. Then Peter, so I'm reading Matthew 2018:21. Then Peter came to him and he said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to 7 times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to 7 times, but up to 70 x 7. If someone is offending us that much, we may need to do some work on our own salvation. Why are you getting so offended? The initial step may be a difficult challenge. That is to go to your brother, but it is a way for us to grow in character, and I'm sure it will please God. This whole episode underscores the patience and mercy of God. He had every right to let the fiery serpents finish their work. Instead, he provided a way of escape that was available to every bitten person who would simply look up. When the fiery serpents bite, the billboard on Route 85 still speaks, Thank God, look to Christ and live.

JCS/aws+/

 

 

Sermon Topics

False Gospels

Jesus Christ's Return

Life after Death

Repentance

Resurrection

The Gospel

The Kingdom of God