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 common focus as a family on what truly matters in

this life. First, John 5 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 in structures 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 the

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 worshipping and adoring

tonight. And so this passage is what we

are going to focus on. Many, if not all of us know John

316 by heart. But I wonder if anyone knows

what Christ said to Nicodemus immediately before.

Here's what He said in John 314 and 15.

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

Numbers 21 · chapter mention

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 4

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

that 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 want to divide this real

story, this testimony, into three main categories.

Hopefully it will be very easy to remember.

I want us to look at the people's sin, and then I want us

to see the people 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 1 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 is

sustained 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 them 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

judgement 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

judgement, 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 were 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 bullseye.

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 do 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 6? 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 made 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 1 and 2, 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.

All the Bible is so specific. We're also reminded here that

sin brings pain. Isn't that interesting in verse

6 that the serpents that were released we're 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 fangs 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, in 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 3 when we opened 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

judgement. Listen to what he says to Eve in

Genesis 3/16. 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 317 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.

Curse is the ground because of you in pain.

You shall eat of it all the days of your life.

I want to 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.

May look different, but it is true for us.

And I want to 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 want to 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 want to 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? 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 8. 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 stopped short is

inheriting A sinful nature. And when we come to the story,

we realize that this was previewed in Numbers chapter 21,

Numbers 21 · chapter mention

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 judgement. So this bronze serpent, this

material that speaks of judgement, is not corrupt.

It's not intrinsically contaminated like these other

serpents that are Slytherin 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.

It 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. 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.

All right, 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? All right.

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, it's 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 1 instance of why.

Look again at verse 7. And the people came to Moses and

said we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and

against you, prayed 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,

the 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 heaven 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 learned

according to Romans 5 and 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 is a bronze serpent being lifted up have to do with

healing? How is that logical?

How does that make sense? Interestingly, that same kind of

attitude is anticipated when it comes to the gospel message.

Do you remember what Paul said in First Corinthians 118?

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

more or less than 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. So that sounds silly.

They were already bitten, yes, But that's what we're doing

today in society, is it not? 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's 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 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.

Men 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 in the simplicity of it and how demands our humility in

order to benefit from it. Let me make a final point.

I want you tonight 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 800 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 1 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 we're now

worshiping. And here's what we read in

Second Kings 18 verse 4, as this is our final verse for tonight.

2 Kings 18:4

He, being Hezekiah, removed the high places and broke the

pillars and cut down the ashra, 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

Numbers 21 · chapter mention

chapter 21. So they memorialized something,

but 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 2000 years ago.

Here's the difference. You today, sitting in that Pew,

if you're a Sinner, if 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 them, you can be saved and you will be saved.

It will work. What Jesus Christ did on the

cross 2000 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 want to

sing and we want to 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 2000 years ago still

has power in 2025. And that's where I want to

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.

You've probably even heard a sermon out of Numbers 21, like

what you just heard in this past 30 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 want to 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

John 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3, 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.