Look, and live!
By Pastor (Dr.) Elisha Olusheye
 Dear Reader,
This week, we shall examine one of the greatest
miracles of the Old Testament, and then notice
what lesson it has for us people of the present generation. This miracle is titled, “Look, and live!”
In the book of Numbers chapter 21 verses 4-9, the Bible says, “They (i.e. the Israelites) travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; (5) they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food’ (6) Then the Lord sent venomous (i.e. poisonous) snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. (7) The people 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.’ So Moses prayed for the people. (8) 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.’ (9) So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” (NIV).
The Israelites murmured against God as stated above, just after God had given them a victory over the Canaanites. Rather than be thankful to God, the Israelites reacted with hostility and complaints! Hence God disciplined them immediately, this time by sending many poisonous snakes to bite and kill the Israelites.
In Psalm 78, we learn the sources of Israel’s complaints: (1) their spirits were not faithful to God (78:8); (2) they refused to obey God’s law (78:10); (3) they forgot the miracles God had done for them (78:11). Our complaints often have their roots in one of these thoughtless actions and attitudes. If we can deal with the cause of our complaining, it will not take hold and grow in our lives. God used poisonous snakes to punish the people for their unbelief and complaints. A bite by a poisonous snake often meant a slow death with an intense suffering. This time the Israelites quickly acknowledged their sin and begged Moses to ask God for relief. This was in stark contrast to their reaction the last time God disciplined them during Korah’s rebellion. This time, the people accepted responsibility for their actions and confessed their sin – a sign of spiritual growth.
In Numbers 21:8-9, God provided an unusual remedy. God instructed Moses to mould a bronze model of a deadly serpent and to place it on a pole in the middle of the camp. God promised that any person who had been bitten by the deadly snakes could survive the ordeal by looking at the bronze snake.
There is no medicinal value in looking at a bronze image. God’s promised healing is clearly miraculous in nature. The bronze serpent saved lives in Moses’ time.
The true symbolic significance of the bronze serpent:
Nearly 1,500 years later, Christ referred to this incident reported in Numbers 21, when speaking with Nicodemus. Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:14, 15).
There are several points of comparison between the bronze serpent and the cross. These establish the serpent’s true symbolic significance.
1. Each symbolized both the curse and its cure: The cross in Roman times was reserved to punish the most heinous of crimes. It served as a symbol of deadly sin as well as punishment. The fiery serpent was also linked with sin and its punishment. It was through Jesus’ death on the cross that eternal life was provided for humankind, and it was through the image of a death–dealing serpent that people who were bitten could be healed.
2. Each addressed man’s helplessness: The Israelites who had been bitten by serpents were doomed. The spiritual condition of every human being is equally desperate. Sinners have no hope of avoiding what Scripture calls the “second death,” or hell. In Revelation 20:14, 15, the Bible says, “Then death and hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. (15)If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake fire.” Moreover, Revelation 21:8 says, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.”(NIV)
3. Each promised life: The Israelites who looked on the bronze serpent were promised life rather than death. Each human being who looks to the cross of Christ is promised eternal life.
When the bronze snake was hung on the pole, the Israelites didn’t know the fuller meaning Jesus would bring to this event (see John 3:14, 15). Jesus explained that just as the Israelites were healed of their sicknesses by looking at the snake on the pole, all believers today can be saved from the sickness of sin by looking to Jesus’ death on the cross. It was not the snake that healed the people, but their belief that God could heal them. This belief was demonstrated by their obedience to God’s instructions. In the same way, we should continue to look to Christ.
4. Each offered deliverance only to those who believe: The Israelites who believed the promise of healing hurried to look at the bronze serpent when bitten. The Israelites who did not believe failed to make that journey and died. In the same way, only the person who believes God’s promise of forgiveness wrought at Calvary will respond by trusting Christ and receiving eternal life.
Therefore, if you will just look up to Him today and call upon Him in fervent prayers of faith, you will surely experience total victory over sin, Satan, sickness, disease, death, poverty, and all forms of lack, in Jesus’ name – Amen.
For further information, counselling, prayer and other help, please contact me at once, on telephone numbers 02-8100301, 8100248 or 08037878711; write to E-mail: ehlolusheye@yahoo.co.uk or write to G.P.O. Box 530, Ibadan.
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Giving with willing and perfect heart (3)
By Pastor S.S.Jemigbon 
Deuteronomy
18:13 also states
it: ‘Thou shall be perfect with the Lord thy God.”
So, you need to be perfect in order to offer to the service of God. You need not look at others when you want to give to the work of God but look at how God has blessed you and give in order to attract blessings from God and not to get man’s attention, neither to endear to the authority of the church nor to get man’s favour.
Christians must recognise that all they have come from God and that they are sojourners. After all things on earth, they are going to give account of how they traded with the things God bestowed on them.
David established this fact in I Chronicles 29: 16-15, ‘But who am I, and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee and sojourners as were all fathers, our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding’.
Therefore, there is need to give with a willing and perfect heart to the kingdom business and the mission works to reach the dying souls and get them saved. Please note that, giving that comes from an unwilling heart is not acceptable to the Lord neither does it attract blessing from God. The reward of those who give is the assurance of the heavenly bliss of glory as the heaven opens onto them. Jesus says they receive reward in many folds for it is a sowing which shall surely yield its fruits in multiples.
Giving with a willing and perfect heart is thus one of the secrets of blessing and prosperity. We are not talking of prosperity of this world; we are talking of the one assured by Christ that shall follow our embrace of the Kingdom of God. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you that ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).
In essence, your giving should not be with a selfish motive; as a show-off, but rather a solemnization and consecration to the supreme power that gave you what you give. When you so give to His service you will receive for your self treasures not only here on earth but also in heaven. For my God will supply you needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Phil. 4: 19).
Let us consecrate our lives to the Lord and give with a willingly and perfect heart to command the irreversible joy and blessings of God.
(Concluded)
Pastor S.S. Jemigbon,
Tel: 01-7741673,
01-4966033,
01-4965264.
E-Mail:
taclawna@hyperia.com
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