The 15^th Sunday after Trinity

SERMON

INI

Text: Numbers 21:4-9

Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged along 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 our soul loathes this worth-less bread.” So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the 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. Then the LORD said to Moses. “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

In Christ Jesus, whose death on the cross brings us life and salvation, dear fellow redeemed:

One of my favorite movies is Anne of Green Gables. In that movie Anne, upon learning that she might have to return from the home of Matthew and Marilla Cutberth to an orphanage, comments that she is “in the depth of despair.” When Anne asks Marilla whether she has ever been “in the depth of despair,” Marilla responds in a rather stoic Christian manner, “No! To despair is to turn your back on God!” Indeed such is in reality the case, and yet I would imagine that many of you have at times in your life felt, if not “in the depth of despair,” certainly discouraged by the situations and circumstances surrounding you! How ought we deal with those dark feelings of despair when they enter our lives and seem about to overwhelm our hearts? In our text GOD TEACHES US HOW TO DEAL WITH DISCOURAGEMENT! Through our text He instructs us: “Do not give in to your natural impulse to rebel and complain, but rather draw near to God in prayer, repent of your sins, and trust in God’s gracious promises!”

I.

Yes, do not give in to your natural impulse to rebel and complain! The events of our text took place near the end of the forty years Israel wandered in the wilderness. It was now time to prepare to enter the Promised Land, but Edom refused Israel passage through their land to the eastern border of Palestine. To avoid unnecessary conflict the LORD instructed Moses to lead the children of Israel around Edom. To do this forced Israel to pass through some of the most desolate deserts in the entire region. One prominent Bible scholar describes this region as “intensely hot, bare of vegetation, desolate, rough, and visited by terrible sandstorms!” [Alfred Edersheim, Old Testament History, p. 194] Moses would later describe the place as “that great and terrible wilderness” (Deuteronomy 1:19). There was very little water and food became scarce. The longer the people walked, the more discouraged they became! The word translated “discouraged” in our text means “to be shortened so that you cannot reach what you need or want, to be cut off so that you are deprived of basic needs, to feel powerless to change your situation, to become frustrated and impatient because your prospects appear bleak!”

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, have you ever found yourself is such a situation? I am sure that some of you, if not most of you have experienced such situations in your lives! You find yourselves confronted by situations that are so big, so awful, and so long-lasting that there appears to be no available solutions. When we feel powerless and when we are physically, mentally, and emotionally stressed, we are in tremendous spiritual danger, for our natural impulse is to rebel against God and to complain. Our own inability to deal with a situation frequently leads us to conclude that God is either remiss in His care of us, or unavailable for help. Consequently, in such situation we may be tempted to ask, as did David in Psalm 22:1, when he prefigured Christ and asked, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me?” Or in the pattern of Job, we might be tempted to ask, “What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself?” (Job 7:20).

Even worse, it is a natural response for mankind to blame God for his burdens and accuse Him of malevolence. This is what the children of Israel did in our text. They accused God of purposely misleading them so that He might kill them. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” God, who describes Himself as a God of salvation throughout the Scriptures, had delivered His people out of Egypt in order to bless them, not to kill them! He delivered them in order to keep His promises to their fathers and bestow upon them the Promised Land of Canaan. But they themselves had rebelled, not just once or twice, but the Bible says ten times the children of Israel rebelled against God in the wilderness before God determined that their older generation would not enter the land (cf. Numbers 14:22). But when we are discouraged Satan is able easily to blind our eyes to God’s goodness and cause us to accuse God falsely of many terrible things.

In addition, notice another natural tendency of man when he is discouraged. The Israelites complained that there was “no food and no water,” and they then complained about the food they were being provided: “Our soul loathes this worthless bread,” referring to God’s gift of manna. Isn’t this typical of each of us when we are discouraged—we exaggerate our problems, while overlooking God’s blessings. The children of Israel had food—they had the manna each morning; they had their flocks and herds, but all they could see was their misery. David, who knew a good bit about misery, understood the danger of those who are discouraged. He himself experienced those feelings, and this is how he handled them. He addressed himself directly and stated, “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits!” (Psalm 103:1-2) When we are discouraged it is so very easy to forget all of the blessing and benefits God pours into our lives. We sit and look at ourselves and focus on our problems and fail to look to God and see the sunshine of His mercy and grace! Dear friends, GOD TEACHES US HOW TO DEAL WITH DISCOURAGEMENT! Do not give in to your natural impulse to rebel and complain!

II.

Rather draw near to God, repent of your sin, pray, and trust in God’s gracious promises! The LORD came to His people in Isaiah’s day and addressed them with these words: “Thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other…. Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!” (45:18, 22a) Our God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the LORD who knows and loves us urges us to draw near to Him in times of trouble, for He has the power and has demonstrated His interest and commitment to us through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ! Surely, if the LORD has given us His Son, He will also with Him also freely give us all things!” (Romans 8:32)

How ought we draw near to our Savior God? In our text the children of Israel demonstrated the means, but only after God chastened them with the bites of fiery serpents—bites which led to the death of many people. We are then told that “the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you.’” The children of Israel were led by the chastening of the LORD to repent of their sins of rebellion and complaint. They were sorry for having yet again offended their God, and they knew that in Him alone lay salvation. They, therefore, asked Moses to pray for them so that the LORD would take away the serpents causing them so much distress. This Moses did, and God indeed responded!

My dear friends, these thoughts are not new. They are very basic, but they are also very vital. The Psalmist David informs us, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise” (51:17). When we come before our God with humble and repentant hearts, we can be confident that we will not be turned away. God will forgive, because Jesus has redeemed us and taken away our sins. Having been forgiven, we can rest securely upon God’s promises. The Lord assures us, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” (Psalm 50:15). Let us never weary of those words for they are a direct appeal to us when we are discouraged to draw near to God, to pray and to rest assured that He respond with the goal of leading us ever closer to Himself!

How did the LORD respond in this case? He did so in a way which reminded the children of Israel of God’s earliest gospel promise, while pointing their eyes to the importance of faith and the future Savior to come. The LORD told Moses to make a serpent of brass and place it on a pole. He was to set the pole up in the middle of the congregation and to announce this divine promise: “It shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live!” God’s plan for the Israelites survival and salvation from the poisonous snakes was absolutely incredible! How could looking at a metal snake on a pole save a person from the poisonous bites of real snakes? Such a thought is absolute foolishness! Yet, let us learn well the lesson taught the Corinthians by the apostle Paul, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25). Were a man to have come up with this solution, it would have been foolishness—the very height of foolishness, but man did not come up with this solution. God did! I would imagine there were many in Israel who stoked their fires, brandished their knives, and attempted to suck the venom out of their bodies, but it was those individuals who believed God’s word and promise and looked at the brass serpent who were saved! The salvation of the Lord lay not in any special properties of the metal used in forming that snake. Rather, the salvation of the Lord lay in His promise, and those who believed that promise received God’s special blessing!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ—how are we to deal with discouragement? Ultimately, our salvation will be found by trusting in the gracious promises of God! God has informed us in the Scriptures that He has given us our individual lives and that He has a detailed plan in place for those lives! He has assured us that He will be with us each and every day during good times and bad times. He promises that He will never allow anything to separate us from His good and gracious love. We do not have to be afraid. As the apostle Paul says so confidently, “If God is for us (and He definitely is), who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) Consequently, we can say with boldness with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” (Philippians 4:13).

Beyond all of the considerations of this life, however, our God has delivered us from the terrible consequences of our sin—eternal death in hell. His wilderness illustration found its fulfillment on Calvary’s cross, for “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so…the Son of Man (was)…lifted up!” (John 3:14) Jesus was placed on the cross and bore the sins of the world, so that all who would believe God’s gracious promise and look to Him in faith might have the gift of eternal life (cf. John 3:16). Oh, there are those today who no doubt like many in Israel on Moses’ day view the cross of Christ as just so much foolishness. They are determined to believe that their salvation is up to themselves—that through their own efforts they will indeed please God, but such thinking subjects men to lives filled with fear and ultimately doomed to disappointment! The Bible cannot be clearer, “By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight!” (Romans 3:20). Rather we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption of Jesus Christ!” (Romans 3:24) Look to Jesus, humbly confess your sins before Him, trust in the promises of God…and pray for God’s help, guidance, and mercy, for you see this is how God teaches us to deal with discouragement and God’s instruction will always prove to be right! Amen.

Soli Dei Gloria!

—Pastor Paul D. Nolting