Numbers 21:4-9

Each person must take responsibility for our part.

Dear KY family,
Numbers 21:4-9
They travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go round Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!’ Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 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. 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.’ 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, they lived.

“For the one who turned toward the bronze snake was saved, not by the thing that was lifted up, but by the Lord, the Saviour of all.”

In the previous two editions of Pastor’s Heart, we reflected upon the role of faith in our individual spiritual journeys as well as the importance of trusting in God alone when we bring our prayers to Him on behalf of our church and our nation. In today’s edition, I want to share a final observation from my meditation of this Scripture which is about the relationship between repentance and forgiveness.
In reading the Scripture text, I wonder how you felt when the first response from God to the faithless complaining of the Israelites was to send snakes as punishment. As modern day readers of the Scriptures, we may find it uncomfortable to consider that sin should receive judgement, but it should. Thankfully for us, Jesus was lifted up for our transgressions so we do not suffer the condemnation of sin.
Yet, whenever we approach God to offer our prayers for the church, what is in view as it has always been in the work of intercession, is repentance. When the Israelites recognised their sin, they repented and sought forgiveness.
In today’s popular understanding of cheap grace, it is easy to just do a generalised, one-size-fits-all, humourous kind of prayer for forgiveness, usually offered during corporate worship. But, most of the time, a real admission of sin (ie. true repentance) requires the recognition of how one’s behavior or the community’s behaviour has harmed others or injured the name of God. Each person must take responsibility for our part. Forgiveness and healing are readily available, but faithful or faith-filled repentance is necessary.
In examining and studying the Scripture, I encourage us all individually and personally to seek forgiveness by truly repenting of our sins, trusting not in a bronze snake, but in Jesus as our ultimate mediator. A poet wrote this, “For the one who turned toward the bronze snake was saved, not by the thing that was lifted up, but by the Lord, the Saviour of all.” This is not magic or idolatry, but faith, and no one could do it for another.
Can we spend a few moments today in the privacy of our own homes to bring our personal confessions before God? Let’s spend some time in communion with the Spirit to allow Him to reveal any hidden thing in our hearts that needs to be brought before God’s amazing redemptive grace.