How a Serpent Points to The Savior | Numbers 21:4-9 | Good Friday Service | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Words can't really express how much I've been looking forward to this time together, especially the beginning of this week. It's really a fascinating thought if you think about it. Not just in this place right here right now, but all over the world, there are millions of people who profess Christ yes, and we trust that many have put their faith in Christ in a genuine way. But just imagine the sea of people this evening that are celebrating the fact that they are no longer condemned before God, that their eternal life is secure, that they have hope not just for tomorrow, but forever. And I am so glad that we can remove ourselves from the distractions of life, the responsibilities of life, all the noise, and come and focus as a family on what truly matters in this life.

First John five tells us that he who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. And as I've been praying about our time, my heart was drawn to a particular passage, more specifically a conversation that the Lord Jesus Christ has with a particular individual. He had many encounters with people, but this one stood out to me because Jesus in this conversation teaches a teacher. And he's no ordinary rabbi.

This man that he converses with is one of the most prominent elite instructors in Jesus' day. And in this conversation, the crux of it is that Christ is conveying to him how he and anyone really can attain eternal life. He references scripture in the Hebrew Bible that moves me, and I'm praying that it will move you. You see, Jesus does not go to a clear prophecy about the Messiah even though he fulfills hundreds of them. Nor does he point to a principle found in the sacrificial system that speaks of a component of the ministry of the Messiah to come.

Instead, he reaches back to a particular episode in the early history of the people of Israel to show what it takes to be saved. And I'm convinced that if Jesus did not make this analogy between the miracle and his mission to the cross, very few would see how this scene points to the savior, the savior who we are worshiping and adoring tonight. And so this passage is what we are going to focus on. Many, if not all of us, know John three sixteen by heart, but I wonder if anyone knows what Christ said to Nicodemus immediately before. Here's what he said in John three fourteen and fifteen.

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever may believe in him will have eternal life. What is it about their moment that shines a light on Christ and what he does and what he is able to do for us? Well, let's go there together in numbers chapter 21. Jesus clearly references to a tragic episode of the Israelites in their wilderness journey. And I want us to look at it more carefully to see what it reveals about our Lord.

Numbers 21 beginning in verse four. From Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient on 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 we loathe this worthless food.

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. And 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. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.

So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. I wanna divide this real story, this testimony into three main categories. Hopefully, it'll be very easy to remember. I want us to look at the people's sin, and then I want us to see the people's sentencing. And lastly, we're going to consider and spend most of our time looking at the people's savior.

What did this people do, this covenant people of God, to warrant the Lord, to unleash a band of fiery serpents to strike them? Well, we're clearly told here that their complaint was not merely toward Moses, their leader, it was toward God himself. So the first thing that we can see here, obviously, is that they were condemned for the evil of false accusation. Ever since the beginning, Satan has consistently and many times successfully persuaded individuals to question God, to question his character, to question his motives, to question his ways and his decrees. And we find that even in the garden with our first parents, how Satan, the evil one, was successful in convincing both Adam and Eve to question the goodness of God because he prohibited them from eating from that forbidden tree.

And now many, many years later, we look at this people called Israel and they are echoing. They are following and continuing the legacy of our first parents because here they are also questioning God's heart and his dealings with them as he promised to bring them safely into the promised land and yet they believe that he was going to kill them instead. This is what's before us. The sin that's being committed here is the mischaracterization of who God is and the rejection of the intent behind his word, suggesting that what he has to say is either untrue or it is something that he is doing with dishonorable motives. But that's not the only sin in view here.

We come and we realize that there is a shocking demonstration of ingratitude. Notice here that they complain, one, that there is no food or water even though God has sustained him with food and water consistently. But they also turn to what they call worthless food. Well, you just said that you didn't have food. So what is this food that you're talking about?

Complaining has a way of blinding us to our blessings. But what they are highlighting is nothing more than the manna. This heavenly substance that God granted to them on a daily basis for decades. Now I want you to understand something. What would it sound like to you if you think about this more carefully of a people who consider something worthless that they didn't work for, that they didn't pay for, that they didn't travel for.

Something that was brought to them right before their tents day in and day out. This is a complaint. Yes. But it's also a violation of God's goodness. It vandalizes his character.

Even though he showed incredible patience toward them and their parents, they still slapped him in the face, and they still charged him, and they still refused to acknowledge that he was good. I will never forget being struck by the words of Jude in the New Testament, and you don't have to turn there, where he tells his readers and he warns them really of the Lord's coming and final judgment on the earth. And he says this word over and over, the ungodly, the ungodly, the ungodly. And finally, he categorizes what the ungodly are and who will be judged. And the first one on the list in Jude's short epistle are grumblers.

Grumblers. Now why am I bringing this to your attention? Very simple. I want to show that what we have before us in this story is another sobering reminder of the sins that invite God's judgment. The sins that make us guilty before a holy God.

You and I may not view it as serious, but we have to remember God is infinitely more holy than we are. Impatience toward God, accusations against God, murmuring about his dealing with us and in the world. These are the very crimes that made this people guilty. And the standard of our righteous and holy creator only becomes more clear when the Lord Jesus Christ arrives on the scene, and he teaches there on the Sermon of the Mount that it's not only our deeds, it's not what we say out loud, but even the thoughts and the intents of our heart make us guilty as though we've actually committed them. I can't tell you the amount of times that I've talked to people who do not believe in Jesus Christ.

And as I take them to the word to show them what it means to truly be righteous with God's standard, they deflect and their knee jerk reaction was, I am a good person. And they're absolutely certain that if they're to stand before this God, that they would be granted eternal life enjoying his presence because they earned it. It's as silly as looking at a blank wall, and here you have bow and arrow in hand, and you shoot it at this empty wall, and then you run up to that wall wherever you hit the mark, and you take out a red marker, and you draw a little circle around it, and you say, I hit the bull's eye. That's how silly we look when we say that we actually attain righteousness before God. When in reality, God did set a bull's eye mark, and every man, whether they realize it or not, attempt to make that mark.

And we don't not just miss the mark, we don't even hit the wall. Paul says, all have fallen short of the glory of God. And so we see the sin of this people. Does it remind you of anybody? But now we come to their sentencing.

What do we find here in verse six? Let's read it again. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. This principle isn't difficult to grasp, is it? What the Lord may known in Genesis with a serpent in a garden, he reveals again in a wilderness with serpents.

Sin leads to death. Sin produces the cessation of life, primarily life towards God in our spiritual man and ultimately the cessation of this body and a second death, which is really eternal separation from God. Death did not exist in Genesis one and two, but it entered into a world because we made the choice to disobey God. It's the fruit of our distrust and a God who has nothing else but good in mind for us. And that's what we find here.

We find this repetition, this theme that's consistent in the Bible and redemptive history. And for centuries, man has attempted to reverse this accursed condition. Even today, there are popular podcasters, are there not, who want to try to live immortal. To pump all these pills and to do all these different tricks to try to live on. And when they realize they fail and every generation does learn that they can never come close to succeeding over the sentencing, man then tries to explain explain death apart from the truth.

And all these philosophies and all these ideas and all these notions that contradict what God says about it. But there's more here than just being faced with the wages of sin being death. Oh, the Bible is so specific. We're also reminded here that sin brings pain. Isn't it interesting in verse six that the serpents that were released were no ordinary reptiles.

We're told that they were fiery. Now there's debate among some if this description is meant to show what they look like or if it's what the venom produced when things were struck and sank into the flesh of these rebels? I believe the latter is more likely. Fiery serpents, the inflammation that would race through the veins, The pain that would cramp in the sinews and the muscles. This invisible heat that would consume the organs and shut them down.

What we're being reminded here is that sin also brings torture. Not just to our bodies, in our world, in our relationships, and how we perceive and how we deal with one another. And as I was looking at this the other night, I was thinking about Genesis three, when we open the door to sin to come in originally. And you don't have to turn there again, but let me read these words to you as the Lord walked in the cool of the day, and he found Adam. And then after pointing out that they have sinned, he turns to the serpent and he says something to the serpent.

He turns to Eve and he turns to Adam and he pronounces judgment. Listen to what he says to Eve in Genesis three sixteen. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.

Notice what he says in the next verse, Genesis three seventeen. And to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you in pain. You shall eat of it all the days of your life. I wanna remind you that every ache in your bones, every sting from someone's unkind words, every sense of betrayal, every natural disaster, every terrorist attack, every school shooting is a loud and clear reminder that sin brings pain.

It wasn't part of God's original plan. Pleasure was God's original plan. Life, everlasting life was what he desired for us. And so we see the sentencing. It's true for us as well.

It may look different, but it is true for us. And I wanna say something to you. Sometimes the effects of man's evil are sudden, and other times they leak in slowly. Sometimes sin makes things explode, and other times sin erodes. But one thing is certain, sooner or later, the consequences of sin will be felt in this life one way or another.

Now we come to the people savior. This is where I wanna spend most of the time. It's at this particular point Christ captures and then provides the true interpretation to Nicodemus. And it's so plain to us, isn't it? In the same way that this bronze serpent was lifted up so that those who would behold it would be redeemed and rescued from their poison as Christ was lifted up, whoever would look on him with the eyes of faith will also be healed and rescued from the poison and the penalty of sin.

But there's so much more, so much more in this if you just look at it carefully. And I wanna bring up some thoughts that I hope will stir your heart to worship the wisdom of God in this awesome book before us. First, I want you to see how precise the Bible is. Moses was not commanded to take one of the serpents that shot out of the sand and then to place it on the pole. Was he told to do that?

Mm-mm. God told him to make a bronze serpent. Why is that significant? Well, it makes more sense if you believe that this points to Christ. It reminds me of what Paul says to the Romans in Romans eight three, that God sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

In the likeness of sinful flesh. The Holy Spirit guided Paul very carefully in his wording here. What Paul is saying is that although Christ in his incarnation is fully and truly man, he was not sinful as every man is. That's why he says in the likeness of sinful flesh. That once again, Christ did become every part man where he stops short is inheriting a sinful nature.

And when we come to this story, we realize that this was previewed in numbers chapter 21. That the serpent on the pole was made in the likeness of these fiery serpents, but it did not possess any poison. In other words, the bronze serpent identified with the other serpents in a substitutionary sense as though it represented them. And it was bronze, saying why is that important? Because bronze as a material in the old testament especially even in the new is a consistent pointer to judgment.

So this bronze serpent, this material that speaks of judgment is not corrupt. It's not intrinsically contaminated like these other serpents that are slithering around. All this, even this points to Jesus Christ. But then we come secondly, what do we notice? Consider how the raised serpent became the sole source of this people's salvation.

And consider how simple it was to receive its healing power. The people were not told to look to anything in the tabernacle. The people were not told to even look at Moses for that matter. God singled out this icon, set it apart, raised it up. He says, this and this alone shall you look upon.

And this thing which moves me was detached from anything with the law. All the Lord was asking for from this people was their faith. Just believe. I've prescribed this and I'm asking you now to trust me in it. But there's more, he lifts it up.

Why is that important? He lifts it up so that it can be visible to everyone. Now you know what? The Lord could have said, alright, you guys all rebelled against me, crawl. Go touch it.

Drag your poisoned body and hopefully you'll make it. Or he could have let the serpent just be on ground level. Right? Alright. This will benefit those who are closest to this thing.

No. He raises it up as a banner. Why? Because he wants to make it as available as possible. How do we make sense of this?

Well, is not Christ equally gracious? That no matter how far the poison of sin has spread in your life, no matter what kind of destruction it brought about, no matter how weak it has made you, Christ has ordained that man can be saved simply by looking to the cross and believing with your heart that he loves you and he's willing to remove the penalty and even the power of sin from your life. No matter where you are, you can see him and you can receive from him. Certainly, this is a statement of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I argue it's more because what Jesus offers in the new covenant is far greater than what's happening here. Let me give you one instance of why.

Look again at verse seven, and 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. And then the Lord gave the solution to Moses. Is that how it happened with you and I on this side of the cross? That God the father send the son only when you and I as the human race were sick and tired of what sin was doing in our world, so we collected our faith and cried out to the heavens and says, please save us.

Is that what we did? Is that when the Lord said, now it's time. They've humbled themselves. Go and fetch them. No.

This is what we learn according to Romans five in verse 10. For while we were enemies. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. When your back was towards him, when you were loving your sinful life, when you were consciously disobeying the will of God, it is that posture of yours and mine that we offer to him as Adam's race, and yet still the father sends the son, and the son willingly goes to rescue us while we were enemies. That being said, I think it's very important to establish that we are not universalist.

That just because Jesus Christ tasted death for everyone does not mean that every person, no matter what they do or what they believe, will automatically be saved. That is untrue. And we see instances of personal responsibility even here in this story. Notice that no one could look for another. Everyone was responsible to plant their eyes on the bronze serpent for themselves.

And in like manner, please listen carefully, you can't depend on your mom's faith or your father's faith. Salvation is not a family package. It doesn't matter if your older sibling who might have invited you tonight looked upon Christ. It doesn't matter if your spouse looked upon Christ. Have you did you make a conscious decision of placing your full trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ for your salvation?

He already made it so simple for us, but you also have to respond as you're moved by the simplicity and the richness of that invitation. Besides that, you might consider this, that there are some who would look to this story and think it's absurd. What does a bronze serpent being lifted up have to do with healing? How is that logical? How does that make sense?

Interestingly, that same kinda attitude is anticipated when it comes to the gospel message. Do you remember what Paul said in first Corinthians one eighteen? That the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Where's my effort in this? What is a Jewish man who claimed to be God being crucified by the Romans and the Pharisees have to offer me?

If God is real and heaven is real and hell is real, how does this line up? You know, if you actually had moralists and self righteous religionists write this story for themselves, they might change it up a little bit. Instead of the idea of looking upon something and believing that it is enough to redeem you, there might be the instruction for every Israelite for himself. Exterminate those serpents. Team up and get rid of them.

That sounds silly. They were already bitten. Yes, but that's what we're doing today in society, is it not? What what are we doing here as a culture? What have we been doing since the beginning of time?

Dealing with the consequences of sin with human philosophy, man made ideology. Being told by others, suppress, reform, resist in your own strength. Here's another school of thought that can bring enough self esteem. Here here's another idea that could bring inner healing. Here's a way for you to attain Christ consciousness, all these different concepts.

And all we're really doing is trying to swat away these serpents that have already successfully poisoned us. So if you struggle as a skeptic with this story, not just with the account itself, but with the idea that looking at something is actually going to help me, more importantly, looking at Jesus with the eyes of faith and receiving him is actually going to save me, can I remind you that this is God's idea? It did not originate with man. Was it Moses that went to the Lord and says, Lord, you know, I have an idea. Why don't we take a bronze serpent and why don't we lift it up on a pole?

That wasn't from Moses. It was the Lord's. Equally true, the plan of salvation was determined from eternity past. Man did not conjure it up. Bunch of disciples in Jerusalem thousands of years ago didn't think about this idea so that they can gain popularity in their unique movement.

No. In fact, they all died for this movement. So we see something clearly here about Jesus and what he offers us and the simplicity of it and how it demands our humility in order to benefit from it. Let me make a final point. I want you and I to consider the efficacy of God's provision in Christ that outshines what we see in this account.

This is not the last time that you and I read of the bronze serpent. And for those who come on Friday night bible studies, you remember this from our recent study, that you see it appear much later on. We're talking eight hundred years after this moment, long after the people of Israel were established in the promised land and a kingdom arose and different kings that most of them failed to uphold God's standard of righteousness. We do come to one king by the name of Hezekiah, and he's a righteous man. And he longs to bring spiritual renewal and revival to his people.

So what does he do? He starts a campaign to consecrate everything. And part of that campaign was to destroy idols. Idols that the same people who experienced the true and living God were now worshiping. And here's what we read in second Kings 18 verse four, as this is our final verse for tonight.

He being Hezekiah removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah, and he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days, the people of Israel had made offerings to it. It was called Nehushtan. So, obviously, this symbolic serpent meant a lot to the people of Israel. They preserved it for centuries.

But like many good things, they made it into an object of worship. And at this point, it became a regular event for these citizens of Israel to offer things to this bronze pole and to worship it. But here's what's so astounding to me. There is no evidence whatsoever that it could do anything for the people. That the only healing virtue that flowed from it was available on this particular awful day in Numbers chapter 21.

So they memorialize something, but it it was just that. It was a memory. No matter how many sacrifices they made before, it could not heal anyone. No matter how long they stared at it, it could not heal them. But then remember, this points to Christ.

And we know that Christ was lifted up in our calendar today around two thousand years ago. Here's the difference. You today sitting in that pew, if you're a sinner, you know that you are not saved. You can, with the eyes of faith, look upon the gospel message, believe that he died for you. Believe that if you repent and trust him, you can be saved, and you will be saved.

It will work. What Jesus Christ did on the cross two thousand years ago still has power. It can transform you right here, right now. Isn't that why we've gathered here? We're not here out of ritual.

We're here because we wanna sing and we wanna honor Christ for what he's done in us. And I'm sure if we take the next hour or two and open this pulpit up for people to come up and share what Christ has done for them, you would realize that what he did two thousand years ago still has power in 2025. And that's where I wanna conclude before we break bread. Are you in sin? Do you know down deep in your heart, you don't believe in Christ?

He's not your lord. He's not your savior. It's very possible that you're here and you've heard all these truths before. You've you've probably even heard a sermon out of numbers 21 like what you just heard in this past thirty minutes, but it hasn't moved you, hasn't convicted you. But perhaps even now in the sound of my voice, there is there is a feeling you've never known before and that is conviction.

And your eyes are beginning to open up and realize there's something here. There's something here. If you are experiencing that conviction for sin, if you realize in this moment something about the love of God, don't silence your conscience. Scripture says, today if you hear his voice, today if you hear his voice. And so if you hear his voice today, I wanna invite you to make the most important decision that you can make in this life.

And that is to renounce your sin and to recognize that God loves you. And that every vile thing that you have done, the poison you've allowed in your life, the poison that you have brought to other people's lives, anything and everything can be forgiven if you in this moment want to be forgiven. Do you see him? Is this truth real to you in this moment? Do not take that for granted.

That's a supernatural act of grace. And it's your moment to acknowledge that Christ is calling you home, and that you can be born again. Do you realize that when Jesus shared that analogy from John chapter three, it's in the context of him teaching about what it means to be born again. What does it take to be born again? To be new?

To be spiritually revived? What does it take? Look. Look upon him. What do you mean?

Like, what am I looking at? Like a screen? No. No. No.

In your heart of hearts, you behold his love. You understand the implications of his sacrifice on the cross, and you respond to that message. Thank God we don't have to go anywhere. Thank God we don't have to jump through hoops. Thank thank God there isn't this elaborate process before we get God's attention.

He has already lifted up his son. All you have to do is look upon him by faith.