Look Up to the Cross!

Do Not Despair

Rev. S. D. Spencer

Text: Numbers 21:4-9

Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged along the way. 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 worth-less bread.” 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.

Grace, peace and mercy from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen

Dear fellow redeemed:

One of my favorite movies is Anne of Green Gables. Matthew and Marilla Cutberth arrange for a boy from an orphanage to help with the field chores. But instead the orphanage sends them Anne Shirley, an imaginative red haired girl with knack for getting herself in trouble. When Anne learns that she might be returned to an orphanage, comments that she is “in the depths of despair.” When Anne asks Marilla whether she has ever been “in the depths of despair,” Marilla responds in a rather stoic Christian manner, “No! To despair is to turn your back on God!”

I would imagine that many of you at one time or another have felt like your life was “in the depths of despair,”. We can certainly be discouraged by situations and circumstances surrounding us! How should we deal with those dark feelings of despair when they enter our lives and seem about to overwhelm our hearts?

In our text today GOD TEACHES US HOW TO DEAL WITH DISCOURAGEMENT! Through our text He instructs us: “Do not give in to your natural impulse to rebel and complain, but rather draw near to God, confess your sins, and trust in God’s gracious mercy!”

I.

Do not give in to your natural impulse to rebel and complain! The events of our text took place near the end of the forty years journey of Israel in the wilderness. It was time of preparation for the Promised Land, but Edom refused Israel passage through their land to the eastern border of Palestine. To avoid unnecessary conflict Moses led Israel around Edom. This forced Israel to pass through some of the most desolate deserts in the entire region,  “intensely hot, bare of vegetation, desolate, rough, and terrible sandstorms!” Moses would later describe the place as “that great and terrible wilderness” (Deuteronomy 1:19). There was very little water and food became scarce. The longer the people walked, the more discouraged they became! That Hebrew word “discouraged” in our text means: To be shortened so that you cannot reach what you want or need.  To be cut off so that you are deprived of basic needs -- to feel powerless to change your situation. This, in turn, can lead to frustration and impatience because your future appears so bleak!

Dear Children of God, have you ever found yourself is such a situation? I have! And I'm sure that some of you, most of you, have experienced similar situations in your lives too! We find ourselves confronted by situations that are so big, so awful, and so long-lasting that there appears to be no solution. When we feel powerless and we are physically, mentally, and emotionally stressed, we are in tremendous spiritual danger, for our natural impulse is to rebel against God, to murmur and complain. Our own inability to deal with the situation can lead us to believe that God is either lax in His care for us, or unwilling to help. Consequently, these situations we might be tempted to say, as did Jesus on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”(Mark 15:34) Or like Job said, “What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself?” (Job 7:20).

But even worse, it is our sinful response to blame God for our burdens and accuse Him of malice. This is what the children of Israel did in our text. They accused God of purposely misleading them so that He might kill them. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” God, who describes Himself as a God of salvation throughout the Scriptures, had delivered His people out of Egypt in order to bless them, not to kill them! He delivered them in order to keep His promises to their fathers and bestow upon them the Promised Land. But they had rebelled, not just once or twice, but the Bible says ten times the children of Israel rebelled against God in the wilderness before God determined that their older generation would never enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14:22).

When become discouraged Satan is able to easily blind our eyes to God’s goodness and cause us to indict God on false charges. The Israelites complained that there was “no food and no water,” but then they complained about the food they were being provided: “Our soul loathes this worthless bread,” referring, of course, to God’s gift of manna. Isn’t this typical of us too, when we are discouraged—we exaggerate our problems, by overlooking God’s blessings. The children of Israel had food—they had the manna each morning; they had their flocks and herds, but all they could see was their misery.

David, who knew a great deal about misery, he understood the danger of becoming discouraged. For he had experienced those feelings, and this is how he handled them. He addressed himself directly and stated, “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits!” (Psalm 103:1-2) When we are discouraged it is so easy to forget all the blessing and gifts God pours into our lives. We sit and look inward at our problems and fail to see God, fail to see His mercy and grace! Fellow redeemed, GOD TEACHES US HOW TO DEAL WITH DISCOURAGEMENT! Do not give in to your natural impulse to rebel and complain!

II.

Rather draw near to God, draw near to God, confess your sins, and trust in God’s gracious mercy!”

 The LORD came to His people in Isaiah’s day and addressed them with these words: “Thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other…. Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!” (45:18, 22a) The LORD knows and loves us and urges us to draw near to Him in times of trouble, for He has the power and has demonstrated His commitment to us through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ! "Surely, if the LORD has given us His Son, He will also with Him also freely give us all things!” (Romans 8:32)

How ought we draw near to our Savior? In our text the children of Israel demonstrated the means, but only after God chastened them with the bites of fiery serpents—bites which led to the death of many people. We are then told, “the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you.’” The children of Israel were led by the chastening of the LORD to repent of their sins of rebelling and complaining. They had offended God, and they knew that in Him alone was salvation. Therefore, they asked Moses to pray for them so that the LORD would take away the serpents. This Moses did, and God responded!

These thoughts are not new. They are basic, yet so very vital. The Psalmist David informs us, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise” (51:17). When we come before God humble ourselves and repent, we can be confident that He will not turn us away. God will forgive, because Jesus has redeemed us and has taken away our sins. We are forgiven, that is God’s promise. The Lord assures us, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” (Psalm 50:15). May we never grow weary or discouraged of those words to draw near to God, and to call upon Him!

How did the LORD respond in this case? He did so in a way which reminded the children of Israel of God’s earliest gospel promise, while pointing their eyes to the importance of faith and the future Savior to come. The LORD told Moses to make a serpent of brass and place it upon a pole. He was to set the pole up in the middle of the congregation and to announce this divine promise: “It shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live!” God’s plan for the Israelites survival and salvation from the poisonous snakes was absolutely incredible! How could looking at a metal snake on a pole save a person from the poisonous bites of real snakes? Such a thought is absolute foolishness! Yet, how soon we forget the lesson taught the Corinthians by the apostle Paul, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25). Were a man to have come up with this solution, it would have been foolishness—the very height of foolishness, but man didn't come up with this solution. God did! I imagine there were many Israelites who stoked up their fires, sterilized their knives, and attempted to suck the venom out of their bodies, but they perished.  It was those who believed God’s Word and promise and looked at the brass serpent that survived! The salvation of the Lord doesn't lay in any special properties of the metal used in forming that snake. But, rather, it lay in His promise, and those who looked received God’s promise! To look upon the pole is to acknowledge our own sin, which brought death, and to see the promise of God, which brings life. 

God has delivered us too from the terrible consequences of our sin—eternal death in hell. For years Jewish scholar wondered what this wilderness illustration meant. That illustration found its fulfillment on Calvary’s Cross, for St. John says: “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so…the Son of Man (was)…lifted up!” (John 3:14) Jesus was placed on the cross and bore the sins of the world, so that all who would believe God’s gracious promise and look up to Him might have the gift of eternal life (John 3:16).