Numbers 21:4-9 Bible Study | Episode 789

October 17, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 21:4-9   Bible Study | Episode #789

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter 21. We're in numbers, chapter 21, and we are studying verses four through nine, which is the story of the bond serpent. And that seems like some, some, maybe video game, the bronze serpent, or, you know, some. Some book that's written. It is a interesting story. It has a lot of levels to it, and I want you to be able to see all those levels. It is an important story just kind of historically, because this story brings about the symbol for medicine in our modern culture. Whenever you see someone wearing a pin, that's in the medical profession, and it looks like a. A pole with a serpent wrapped around it, which is the symbol of medicine in the world today, when you see that, that comes from the story. So it just has some very modern applications, you know, 3000 years later, it has some very modern applications in just symbology, but it also has some great application as far as the children of Israel. And some things you can just see on the surface. And then it has some depth to it, some real depth to it, and an understanding that's important and is so important not only just in the story of Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness, but it has some importance to it because Jesus mentions it in relation to him being put on the cross, meaning him being, uh, was crucified. And he does that in John, chapter three. So when. When you're studying through this, when you're thinking about it, remember in John, chapter three, Jesus uses this story as an illustration of him being placed on the cross. And so it has. It has its depth and breadth in that way also. So it says verse four. It says, then they journeyed from Mount or by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. That's pretty common. I don't know if you've noticed that, but it's pretty common for the children of Israel to become, you know, upset, discouraged, mad, whiny. This is why he struck the rock twice. Okay? Not saying he should have. He should not have. Moses should not have stuck the rock twice. Moses should have done what God said. But this is why. And the reason is, is because the people, they've been delivered out of Egypt, but they refused to go into the promised land. And they are in a, well, they're in just kind of a stasis here. They're, they're floating along because they've been taken from where they are used to, even though it was slavery in Egypt. And they're having to just live willy nilly because they refused to go in the promised land and because they refused to go on the mountain and because they refused to do the big things, the important things, the deep spiritual things that God had for them to do. They did not want to do that. And so now they're struggling with all kinds of stuff, and it makes people become money. And you need just me to know that. Just for your own knowledge, for your own life, for everybody else's life. When you feel whining, when you feel discouraged, when you feel defeated, and all the things that we feel in life, oftentimes it's because, well, you haven't been walking with God. You haven't been walking with God, and you haven't been allowing God to show you the things he has for your life, the things that he has for you in the future. Even though you may be in the midst of something that you really don't want to be involved in today, you don't like where you are in life today. When you, when you have a, when you do not have a kingdom, eternal perspective, you're going to get whining. You are. And even if you do have any kingdom, eternal perspective, you're going to get tired and you're going to get, you're going to have seasons where you, where you do a little struggling. But that struggling is always overcome by walking with God and knowing and seeing God's will at work in your life, even in the midst of the struggle. And I can tell you, I've been many, many, many years in struggle mode. You know, just, you know, we're, I'm struggling through this all the time. But I always was able to see the possibilities. I didn't necessarily see what was going to happen, but I knew that they were possible because I knew God, and God was revealing to me the possibilities. And when the possibilities become reality in your life, which happens, it does happen. Aren't you hear me? It's going to happen. When the possibilities become reality, they'll become reality in ways you didn't plan. They'll become reality in places you didn't, you never thought they'd be. And they'll be so much more wonderful than anything you thought before that you'll go, wow, I'm glad it was God who was planning this, not me, because I would have planned it not, not the same way and not as good. And so it just requires you to have some vision of goddess in the presence, even though you may not be experiencing what you consider to be all that God has. You might not be experiencing right now, but you got you have you. You're with God, and you just kind of know God's gonna handle it in a little bit. He is. And I mean, he just really is. That's just, I can't tell you any other way. 30 years of ministry, 52 years old. I just know now God kind of handles it, and he does, and there's no need to be discouraged along the way. If you walk with God, you can be tired. You can be not desirous of where you're at, but there's no reason to be discouraged. You have God. You have him living inside of you, and you should spend time with him. And if my words encourage you, that's great. God's words will really encourage you, and God's word itself does, if you'll study it, he said, and the people spoke against God and against Moses. And so what happens is all of a sudden, you go from discouragement to blasphemy, really. But it's not really that. It's psalm one. Blessed is a man who does not walk in the council of the wicked, nor stand in the way of the sinner, nor sit in the seat of the mocker. What's happening there is that's a progression downward from listening to those who are in the world, the sinners in the world, to standing where they're standing and beginning to act like they, and then eventually mocking the things that God is doing and the things that are going on in the world that God doing. And you saying, can I believe or do that? Yeah, you can. You can begin to mock what you perceive to be things that can't happen because you haven't allowed God to show you those things and you mock God. They began to mock Moses and God. They began to complain against them. They spoke against them. And he says, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness for there's no food and no water and our soul loans this worthless bread? Notice that? That's the key, really, sentence there. What happened here is they. They don't have any food or water. That's not true. That's a lie. They're lying. They do have food and water. We know because Moses is not going to be able to go in the promised land because he stuck the rock and gate. God gave them water. They did have water. They did have food. They just didn't want God's food. And so many times, that's one of the issues believers have. They got food, but they don't want God's food. They want their own food. They want their own way. They want their own will. You have message from God. You have access to God. You have a way to hear from God. You just don't want to hear it. You don't want to hear God's word. You want to hear that worthless bread. Jesus said, I'm the bread of life, and they say it's worthless. That's the way it works. You just need to see that. So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. This is a stark thing. You need to kind of take note right as you're going through oftentimes, that type of life for a believer, ultimately it leads to God going on and taking you, because a bitter christian is probably the worst type of human being there ever was. Okay? And, and bitter, uh, God, uh, denying christians. And you go, can you be that? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Uh, they're. They're just terrible. They're, they are, they're worthless to the kingdom, and they're worthless to the world. The world doesn't even like them. Nobody likes them. Uh, and, and so, you know, God sent these fire serpents to take them out. They dragged down everything. If you're in a church full of that type of stuff, you need to get away from it. It'll. It's infectious, too. So this is not one of those diseases that you can treat easily and, and not worry about it. The. This is an infectious disease, okay? And you need to stay away from those type folks. Okay? I'm being real with you. The uni, if you're. If you're not dealing with them personally, on a spiritual level, understanding what you're dealing with, you're going to get it. Boy, that's a hard statement to make, but it's the truth. You're going to get it. So, so they, they, God said, I'm, I'm taking them out. And notice that's, that's not an uncommon thing. God says. God says, don't, don't be around that. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray the Lord of that. He takes away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. Now there's a realization among those who, you know, get it, that are not the bitter, bitter clingers, they're the strugglers, the ones who are clinging on to their pain and suffering and not really walking with God. Those people, they don't ever get it, really. Some people do realize, you know, we can't, we can't do, act like this. What are we doing? And I mean, that's really what happened here they go. They don't do. And stop. We gotta stop this. And they did. They got go. Let's go to Moses and get him to pray for us. And the Lord said, 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. Now here's the depth of this, and it's important. Jesus said in John, chapter three that, you know, he would be lifted like the serpent. Like the fiery serpent. And you go, Jesus and the fiery serpent are used in connection with each other. Yeah, really they are. Obviously, the serpent's a picture of, you know, the devil and sin and everything evil in the world. But, you know, the embodiment of evil, a fiery serpent, I mean, really would be the embodiment of everything evil. I mean, I mean, that picture is just clear picture, right? And you say, well, the fire, well, that it has power, that, that death has power. And it's power over humanity. It really is the power of death over humanity. Now, the power of Jesus's life over death is greater, but it does have power, and it has a stain to it. And when Jesus was placed on the cross, this is why we glory in the cross, but we do nothing. That's not the most important event in human history. The most important event is not the crucifixion, it's the resurrection. The placement of Jesus on the cross is the embodiment of the sin of the whole world. In fact, the Bible says he bore the sin of the whole world onto the cross. He became sin. He became not some sin, not a little bit of sin. He became all sin that we might be redeemed. And so Jesus is this fiery serpent. And what do you have to do in order to be. In order to be saved from, you know, the biting and the snakes killing you, the serpents going around killing you because of your sin. You got to look at Jesus. You got to look at Jesus, who became death on the cross. You got, you. You got to take a real look at your own sin. And so that fiery serpent, that bronze serpent on the top of that pole was set up in the middle of the camp. And when they were bit, when they, you know, the bite is the realization that you. You've. You've done something wrong. You've put yourself in a bad position. When they were bit by that serpenthe, they looked at the fiery serpent, a realization of their own issues, and they were healed. Because when we really take a long look at our lives and where we are and we look at Jesus being sin on the tree, that's the beginning of life. And that's a realization because you go back to the beginning, and that's a realization that, you know, all this hope that I'm wanting, all this. All this having a sense of purpose, having a sense of direction. Why are we doing this? Where are we headed with this? What, is it going to have a good end to it? You realize it has to, because where did we start? Well, we started with the king of kings taking on sin on the cross, and we ended with the resurrection and the life that comes from that. And so when you kind of get that, you. When you. When you figure that out in your own head, when that, you know, the light bulb comes on, the. Your. Your heart begins to really take that in. But then you realize, you know, my. My present circumstance is really irrelevant. And not even just irrelevant. It's just not. It. Perspective is everything, and I'm just looking at it from a terrible perspective. From where I'm at right now, I need to have. I need to have a reality check, a perspective from God. And when you realize that Jesus became the embodiment of the fiery serpent on the cross, he became literally the embodiment of sin so that I could have life, well, then, you know, it can't get much worse than that. And if God was willing to go there to get me here, where he wants me to be, down the road, then I can trust in that. I can and I can reject the sinfulness of my life. I can tell Moses that I was wrong speaking against God. I can. I can disclaim the life I was living before of, you know, whining about God or bitterness about spiritual things or, you know, I can. I can get rid of that, and I can begin to trust God and lay those things aside and refuse to have them as a part of my life. And if I do that enough, well, then everything works, doesn't it? Everything works, and it all works well, and it's all wonderful and it's all powerful. And if I do it enough and I do it right, then all of a sudden, I'm full of hope and I'm full of life. So Moses made the blind serpent and put it on the pole. And so it was. Notice. I love that. And so it was. If the first serpent had bitten anyone, when they looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Yep. You keep your eyes on Jesus, you live kind of simple. Not easy to do, but simple. It's not. Not something I've got to really look at and say, how does this work? Not really. I don't really have to figure that out. All I got to do is keep my eyes on Christ, and I live. The broken Christ, the. The sin of the world Christ, so that I can see the life of Christ in the. In the empty tomb. If I do that right, I live. If I don't, I don't. Great story, wouldn't you say? I think it's a great story. It's, uh. It's one of those stories, one of those hidden gems that, uh, nobody knew about in numbers. And you've seen it all the time, you said all the time. If you watch a doctor show, they're wearing it all the time. You see it all the time everywhere. And it's just a regular picture of Jesus being the sins of the world on the cross so that we can have real life.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.