Just Look

Good morning,

I read a story about the Israelites in the wilderness and they were getting bit by a fiery serpent and dying. The people asked Moses saying, “we have sinned and spoken against God, pray to God that He will take the serpents away from us.” God told Moses, “Make a fiery serpent of bronze and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten will live when he looks at it.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it on the pole and it happened that if a serpent had bitten any man when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. Numbers 21:8-9

I have to tell you I have heard this story for years and didn’t really get why a bronze evil serpent lifted up on a pole and looking at it made much sense. And why it is mentioned as similarity to Jesus being lifted up on a cross? Why is a serpent on a pole a symbol for the medical profession?

Serpents are often used as a picture of evil in the Bible but bronze is a metal associate with judgement in the Bible because bronze must be made by passing through the fires of judgment.

The comparison is the bronze serpent is representing evil judged just as Jesus knowing no sin became sin for us on the cross and our sin was judged in Jesus.

In the wilderness all the people had to do was look at the bronze serpent and they would not die. Many of them refused to look at it and they died! Hard to believe if all you had to do was look! What could be easier!! They added nothing to that, just look!

Can you believe today, this very minute all people have to do is believe in Jesus! It is a free gift available to everyone and people refuse to believe! It is so easy and we add nothing to it, just believe! Everyone has sinned. All need a Savior and so many people do not understand about Jesus. We get to be the people who through our life, our words, our example show those in our life what believing in Jesus gives us. I pray that what I am showing the world is joy, hope, love, peace, healing, forgiveness, patience, self-control, goodness, but mostly that I am loved by Jesus and it is good because I believe!!

Love you, Teri