Many of the people of Israel died from fiery serpents, poisonous serpents, because of their complaining. The people recognize their fault. And they repented and said. “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpent. So God told Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole and whoever will look upon it will live.
Now imagine that you were an Israelite bitten by a snake. You are in pain from the burning wound. You are terrified. People around you have already died in a pool of blood. And now you are next. Blood begins to come from your mouth and nose. Death stands before you. You see no hope.
It’s bite causes a slow death by bleeding. After hours, bleeding begins in the gums and nose. Then it appears in the urine. Then you hemorrhage from the abdomen, with much pain and vomiting of blood. Then blood comes from your bowels. After two or three days, the suffering one dies.
But there in the camp there is a rumor of a cure. Moses has made a bronze snake. And everyone who looks will be healed. Moses has lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. There it is. A bronze serpent, hanging on a pole.
You ask yourself, How can this take away my sickness and death? But you look at it. You gaze upon it. After all, you have no other hope.
And then—a miracle!—you begin to feel better.
There were those that refused to obey these simple instructions. This was the easiest thing that they could have done but their foolish stubborn hearts refused the cure. Instead of allowing their eyes to behold something that would cure them their eyes became glazed as death came and claimed their life’s.
The same lesson that Christ commanded Moses to give to the children of Israel in the wilderness is for all such souls suffering under the plague of sin.
John 3:14
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
Because Adam and Eve did not take God at his word, the serpent managed to bring death to this earth, the human race was in a hopeless state. We cannot imagine the grieve and hopelessness that Adam and Eve experienced when they were expelled from their beloved home in Eden. As they were driven out and a angel was positioned with a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. They lost access to the tree of life through the serpent, now as they faced death God came up with a plan. He gave up His one and only Son as a sacrifice to save humanity.
Are we truly looking up and beholding our Redeemer, hanging on this rugged cross? Hanging there willingly, with arms outstretched as if it was His duty to clean up our mess. Imagine the day when a heart overflowing with love started beating in the womb of a virgin? Being born into a world where almost no one noticed that their Redeemer had just been born. Or do we look up and behold something or someone else? Assuming that they will lead us to eternal life? How many of us will accept the remedy in beholding Him and being healed? Will we refuse to behold Him and rather die? Seeking our own way which will lead to eternal death with no chance of life. May we behold him and as we behold Him life will flow through us.
If there is anything that’s lifted up higher then the Son of God then we are failing in drawing people to Christ. We can’t just come to the cross once a year and quickly glance at Him and hurry away thinking we came to do our part. If we have once stood underneath that cross with a heart filled with sorrow then surely our hearts will be constantly drawn back to that scene that should be burned into our mind as long as breath remains in our lungs.
Seeing and believing with our whole heart that He is high and lifted up because of me, seeing and believing that He is my one and only hope. Having faith that if I can only behold Him hanging there, my life and my heart will be become changed. We need to go to that cross and help Nicodemus and Joseph lift down our Lord from that cross, and as we take Him into our arms we will forever be changed as we see up close the man who showed the world the actual meaning of true love. We will behold the man who believed we unworthy sinners were worth it. As we see Him up close and the disaster that our sins did to His human body, then surely our hearts will no longer take His grace for granted and in our heart will spring up a great desire to be transformed into His character.
When someone has a loved one that is murdered, it is highly unlikely that a day will pass that they will not think about It. This has so deeply affected them, that day changed their whole world. So will it be with us, when we realize that our first love, pure innocence sent from heaven, has been murdered because of us. We are all in this situation, heaven had to let go of the Son of God so that He could serve a death sentence that so belonged to us.
In fact this thought should be burned into our minds even more because we are the reason why the Son of God was slaughtered. If we truly understood what our substitute did for us then we would never allow anything on this filthy earth to take his place. We would never allow earthly things to come this close to our hearts for this place has been reserved for Him alone.
2 Corinthians 3:18
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
As the mind dwells upon Christ, the character is molded after the divine likeness. The thoughts are filled with a sense of His goodness, His love. We examine His character, and just like that, He is in all our thoughts. His love surrounds us.
John 12:32
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.
Humanity has a tendency to look up to parents, siblings, friends or pastors or be who it might be and they feel comfortable in following after them and doing the things that they do. If this was not true then we would not be in this dilemma that this world is in. Because the great majority does not have faith to look up and behold our blueprint, our Lamb, hanging between heaven and earth, we have a world that is walking In darkness and confusion.
If only many more people would behold their Redeemer so that they could be transformed into His character. Many of us may say yes, we’ve been to Calvary and we have shed some tears and it’s unreal what took place there. Yet most of us forget to keep beholding Him so that we may be transformed into His character. We are not called to form characters that resemble humans but rather we are to be transformed into His Holy character and it is by daily beholding Him that we become changed. If our mind is directed towards the things of this world then we will be molded according to that.
We all know what happened when Peter was out in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, the winds beating upon the boat. He with confidence steps out on the water, walking towards Jesus. He looks at his master as he draws power from Him and he is able to walk on the water, that is crashing up against him but the moment his eyes look somewhere else he immediately starts going under.
It can go no other way with us. When we look to our troubles or to the things of this world, we too will sink and unless we again refocus our eyes to where they belong we will surely be swept away with the pressure of the current. Peter was also lacking faith so he starts looking at his surroundings instead of focusing on the one that he was supposed to behold standing there on those wind tossed waters.
I think most of should be able to relate to Peter. At times I have aloud this world to take my focus away from my Redeemer. Even though it was just for a few days at a time this was enough and I started noticing that things were shifting. These things may seem harmless but if these things have the power to make you spiritually weak at the end of these few days then there is a problem.
I notice that after my eyes are not focused entirely on Him I feel like I’m sinking deeper and deeper and I feel like the closeness that I share with Christ slowly fades. I feel Him drift further and further away and if you know what it means to be close to him then you can’t help but panic as the distance between Him and you becomes broader and as soon as possible redirect your eyes.
It doesn’t just so happen that this world has managed to keep us busy with the things of this world. They are specifically designed to put some distance between us and our Redeemer and if we allow them to do their job then how unfortunate is that gonna be? If our heart has fallen in love with Him and knows His voice and His presence, then our heart will be quick to shut down all those things that are pulling us away from Him. I have yet to see a single earthly thing that can compare to having a personal relationship with Him and it is no wonder king Solomon confessed that all is just vanity. He saw how the things that are fleeting and temporary can never compare with being surrounded by Gods presence. He had the best that someone can possibly have yet those things couldn’t satisfy his heart.
Ecclesiastes 2:11
“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation (irritation) of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”
The things of this world are just vanity that can never please your heart. It will just cause your Spirit to be irritated and that is God’s way of alerting us, telling us that something isn’t right. Telling us to look away from those things and plant our eyes back on Him.