Look up and Live
The Israelites were led by Moses and Aaron and Miriam out of Egypt. God showed them the way by a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. God delivered them from the pursuing Egyptians by blowing the water back from the tip of the Red Sea – they crossed on dry land, but then the wind of God, the Spirit of God stopped blowing, and the sea crashed back, drowning the Egyptian army with its chariots. The people gave thanks. Moses then led them to pastures he knew about.
They sent spies into the land of Canaan, twelve spies. But except for Joshua and Caleb, the spies focused more on the obstacles to their success instead of the benefits of the new land. The ten faithless spies were afraid of the people in in the Promised Land – Joshua and Caleb reported that the Army of Israelites could win, because they had God’s support and protection. But the people chose to listen to the ten faithless spies rather than the two men who had a strong faith in God’s support and power.
And so God declared that none of the adults in the entire group of Israelites would enter the Promised Land except for Caleb and Joshua. After Moses died, Joshua would lead the Israelites and Caleb would lead the tribe of Judah, the largest tribe.
And Miram died and then Aaron died and they were buried. Aaron was buried on Mount Hor, south of the Dead Sea in the land of Edom, on the Southeastern side of the Jordan Valley. And Moses turned to the Southeast, to go around Edom and go east of Moab along the desert as they walked north.
But the people began complaining again because they were impatient. They complained that they were in the wilderness with no bread and no water. And they said they detested this miserable food, meaning the manna that God had graciously provided to them.
Since they were so ungrateful and were complaining once again, God sent venomous snakes among them.
Sometimes we fall into a habit of complaining. We have nutritious food, but complain because it isn’t exactly what we want. When we have spaghetti, we want pizza. When we have pizza, we want a particular brand of pizza. When we get the pizza we want three days running, we want spaghetti.
The weather is too cold and snowy. Now the weather is too hot and dry. Now the weather is too rainy. Too much wind, not enough wind.
Life is dull and boring, we say. Then, there is too much stress because of the uncertainty in the news.
Our homes keep us warm and safe, and protected. But we’d like a new kitchen because our current kitchen is too small. But the house is too much for us to keep clean. We like our home, but we’d like to travel. A flood washes us out of our home and we have to move, so we complain about moving.
It seems like people just enjoy complaining. The Israelites were that way. So the Lord sent them some venomous snakes to complain about.
Many of the Israelites died. Some of the survivors came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” And so Moses prayed to God.
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.” That sounds pretty weird, right? But Moses trusted God, so he made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole and told the people that anyone bitten could look at the snake and live.
And you know what? When anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Why was this so? Is there something magical about a bronze snake on a pole? No, but that symbol of a snake on a pole is still used today as a symbol of a healing place or a doctor.
The reason the snake on the pole worked is because it required faith. If a person was in rebellion to God or Moses, the person would not turn to the snake and look at it. They would simply say that this was a bunch of “hooey”.
But the person who had even a shred of belief in God and Moses would walk or crawl or have themselves carried to the bronze snake and look upon it. And because of that faith, God would let them live. God would heal them.
There was nothing magical about it being a snake. God could have easily put an apple on a pole, or given a carved ring to be put on a finger for five minutes. But God chose the snake, perhaps because the snake was the symbol used by Satan in the Garden to harm Adam and Eve and all of the humans for centuries. God was playing a joke on Satan – God was saying “I will use the very symbol of evil but make it a symbol of healing. Remember who’s in charge of the Universe.”
And so the Israelites moved on and continued their travels around the deserts to the east and south of the Jordan Valley until God told Moses it was time for them to enter the Promised Land. Forty years passed while all the adults who had come from Egypt except Joshua and Caleb died. And then, Moses got a look at the Promised Land from a tall mountain, and he also died, because at one point Moses had not had faith in God’s ability to provide.
Fifteen hundred years later, Jesus was teaching his disciples. On night after dark, a man named Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council came to see Jesus. Nicodemus, who’s name means “the victory of the people” told Jesus that he knew Jesus had come from God. The two of them then had a discussion about being born again of water and the spirit, and how those who want to see the Kingdom of God must be born again of both water and the Spirit. Jesus refers to Himself here as He commonly did, by calling Himself the “Son of Man”.
Baptism is necessary in most cases and is commanded, but the visible part of baptism, the water, is only half of the situation. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath, the Holy Wind must be accepted and allowed to change the heart of the person and restart it correctly, for our hearts are out-of-balance when we are born. Our hearts are focused upon ourselves. We may do good things, but we do them for selfish reasons. But when our hearts are restarted – the classic word used in theology is “regenerated” – by the Holy Spirit, our hearts will operate properly and we can learn to love God and love one another. We will do good for good reasons.
But there is also a faith aspect. And Jesus specifically referenced the bronze snake episode and said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
Jesus was telling us that God was taking the bronze snake one step further. Jesus must be lifted up like that bronze snake had been lifted up, but now, those who believed and had faith in Jesus would not only be cured of the poison from a poisonous snake, but would be cured from the death that the snake in the Garden had brought into the lives of people. In this case, those who have faith in Jesus will live eternally.
And then, we have perhaps the most famous quotation of Jesus, the quote that is referenced at football games and baseball games and on bumper stickers around the world. “For God so love the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Do you believe that Jesus is Son of God, that Jesus has the power and love to give you eternal life? If you do, you have passed through the first gate onto the eternal path of holiness and eternal life. The second step is to go to God and receive the water of baptism and be baptized by the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands so your heart will be regenerated, and you will begin to do good things for the right reasons.
Now, the rest of your earthly life will be spent learning more about what God wants of you, learning how to live a good and holy life, and doing those things that will make you a more productive member of God’s Kingdom. This will continue after your earthly death as you move into your eternal life. And someday, most likely in the next life, you will achieve perfect sanctification, the day when all you ever want to do is what God wants you to do, for your selfish, earthly desires have stopped driving you and you have given yourself over to God completely.
We’ve all seen older people who have come close to this. But let me be clear. There is a difference between knowing about God – and knowing God. We’ve all run into the occasional person who knows a lot about the Bible, but doesn’t live like it. They may know a lot about the Bible, they may even know a lot about Jesus and God – but they do not know God well, because that only comes about by letting God’s Holy Spirit work within us, by listening to the Holy Spirit, and by surrendering our will to the will of God and the Holy Spirit. The proof in the pudding are the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians Chapter Five showing in the life of the person: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."
How about you? Is it a daily struggle to show the fruit of the Spirit? Ask your spouse or another person whom you can trust to be totally honest. And if the answer is “sometimes those fruit are not there”, then the answer is to ask yourself what you are not surrendering to God.
But let’s go back to Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus told Nicodemus this:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
So far, so good. The sacrifice on the cross showed us God’s love. But so many people in the world are afraid of God in a bad way, for they think that God is just waiting for them to mess up. Verse 3:17 answers this:
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
You see, the entire purpose of the ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus was to save people, billions of individual people. But it isn’t automatic. For God is polite – God set up the bronze snake on the pole, but asked people to come to it and look at it. God did not force. God also has a simple requirement for our salvation from death. We must look up and believe in the ability of Jesus to save us. We aren’t automatically saved and forced to spend eternity with God. It is our choice, but there are consequences to our choice. Jesus said:
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
You have the right to deny Jesus is Son of God, but then you are condemned to eternity apart from God. You have made your choice. For just as God only wanted those people who believed in the power of God through the bronze snake to continue to live in the camp of the Israelites, God only wants the people who have faith in Jesus to live eternally with God and Jesus. Rebels can go their own way and figure out their own future. God is polite. But there is a decision that God will make, a verdict that God will make, depending upon our personal decision to believe in and follow Jesus:
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Jesus is the light. Do you love the light or do you love darkness? Jesus continues:
20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
Many people avoid Jesus because they are smart and intelligent and realize that if they choose to follow Jesus, they will need to change their ways of living. They will need to drop old habits and take up new habits. They will need to change. God will know the evil they have done – and that is embarrassing, shameful, and difficult. But that is the price to be paid – We must speak directly to God about what we have done wrong. And the voice of God the Holy Spirit will speak back to us. Of course, the silly part of this is that God already knows what has been done. God is simply asking for us to admit it – and begin to change. Jesus said more:
21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Do you live by truth? If so, come into the light and confess your sins before God.
You see, believing in Jesus the Son of God is more than just accepting that Jesus is real. Believing in Jesus also means that we accept that He has the power to give us eternal life. But there is also another part to this.
Believing in Jesus means that we accept that Jesus actually loves us and can be trusted to follow what Jesus has promised, which is that when we confess what we have done wrong, the sins we’ve committed, to God, God will forgive us and accept us back like a long-lost son or daughter who is loved very deeply.
Decades after Jesus, the Apostle Paul explained much of this to the church at Ephesus in Western Turkey.
2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world… who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
We cannot be good enough for Heaven on our own. We only become good enough when we accept the gift that God has given us, the right to become sons and daughters of God with eternal life when we have faith in the One who was lifted up, Jesus the Christ. This is God’s gift – our only part is to say, “I accept the gift. Thank you.”
And then, after our belief and the regeneration of our heart through water and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we need to walk the holy path that God lays out for us by asking each day, “Holy God, what would you like me to do today.”