Numbers 21:4-9 – Don’t be a grumbler be a believer.

Numbers 21 began with an encouraging start for the new generation of Israel. They trusted God and were victorious in their first encounter with the Canaanites. We expect them to move from there and go on from victory to victory. But when they took their journey from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go round the land of Edom, they became impatient like their forefathers. Maybe going by the way of the Red Sea itself was much like returning to Egypt where the exodus took place. Despite their victory at Hormah, they were still going round in a circle. So the old bad habits of their forefathers surfaced. Like fathers like sons, their grumbling against God and Moses appeared. They grumbled with the same old line and with the same old excuses. So they murmured, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we are disgusted with this miserable food.”

Notice that God’s dealing with their grumbling was no different from the way He had dealt with the previous generation. The consequence of sin is death. It has been and will always be. As it was for the previous generation so it would be for the new. So in judgment, God sent fiery serpents among them, and many were bitten by the snakes and died.

This fiery serpent was not a random punishment that God had thought up for that moment. It was in fact a message of God for them. Having left Egypt, the land of bondage, they probably understood what the serpent represented. The serpent was a powerful representation of the crippling power of Egypt, a place where they once were in bondage. The serpent was a symbol of the power of Egypt. This could be seen on the headgear of the Pharoah that carried an image of a cobra. More than a representation of the power of the Pharoah, the serpent to us is a symbol of our archenemy, Satan himself. How then would they in their grumbling wished to return to Egypt? The issue to the Israelites was this: having been freed from the power of Egypt would they now want to be subjected to the serpent again?

We who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ had come out of the crutches of this wicked enemy. We should not be like the people of Israel who wish to be in his power again. In that incident, once again Moses was at hand to intercede for them. They wanted Moses to request that God remove the serpent. But God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a flagpole so that those bitten by the serpent would be healed when they would gaze upon it.  The flagpole was a symbol of the power of Egypt’s gods. There is nothing magical about gazing at the bronze serpent on the pole that brought their healing. But when they obey the instruction, they were putting faith in God’s Word. That faith in God brought healing. For us, the bronze serpent on the pole points to the cross of Jesus Christ. We received our healing - spirit, soul, and body - not by gazing at the cross. It is our belief in the finished work of Christ at Calvary that can bring us our total healing.  

We are grateful for the cross of Jesus Christ that made us God’s people. Let us not allow unbelief to cripple our faith in Him. We must continue to walk with Him and be established, deeply rooted in our faith in Him. Let us also abound in thanksgiving and not grumbling!