Numbers 21:4-9 | The End of Self | Alex Culpepper

With us. And so I want to, as I get started this morning, talk to you about the concept of doubling down. This concept that actually comes from, like, playing cards and stuff like that. But the idea of doubling down is this. It is the stubborn commitment to a wrong choice, even after its wrongness has been clearly exposed.

I'm going to give you an example. You ever set the GPS and the GPS tells you which way to go, but you kind of know the right way to go, right? Because you've done this before, you've driven this route before. I'm maybe just talking about myself, I don't know. And the GPS tells you, hey, you need to turn here, and it is not the way that you would normally take.

And you're like, gps, you don't know what you're talking about. I know the right way, I know the way to go. And so you double down on what you know and what ends up happening. Well, you either end up running into a detour or you find some traffic that you weren't expecting or something else terrible, and you're like, gosh, I should have just listened to the GPS right now. Maybe some of you don't think that, but I have that experience on the regular.

So another story about me, and maybe this is about you, too, assembling IKEA furniture. You know the experience of assembling IKEA furniture, perhaps, but you get the instructions and you get it out and you follow pieces, but then you're like, hey, I don't really need the instructions. And so then you start putting pieces together and you get about 30 minutes into the project and you realize, oh, I've gotten a piece wrong. Right? I flipped the piece around a way that it shouldn't be flipped around.

But, you know, I'm kinda like doing okay here. The piece is kind of still in the right place. I'm going to keep working on. On the project. I'm not going to go back and fix the thing.

Okay, that's doubling down, right? And so then you get two hours into the project and you realize you get to a point where, no, actually that one piece has to be exactly the way that it is in the instructions. And so you have to go back and undo all the things that you have done. That's doubling down. So why do we double down?

We double down because of pride. We believe it's better for us to pursue our wrongness than to kind of admit and acknowledge our wrongness and turn from it and deal with things the right way. So today we're continuing a series called wanderings and warnings. We're following God's people, Israel, in their journey through the wilderness in the Book of Numbers. And they are in.

They're kind of in the story that we look at today. They're forced into a position of letting go of their pride. They're forced into a position of humbling themselves before God. And it's particularly valuable story for us because this is a story that Christ, 1500 years after this event happens, Christ refers back to this event as one of the clearest explanations of what he has been sent by the Father to do. And it is a simultaneous warning against doubling down and at the same time, a call to humility.

So let's look at the story this morning. Numbers 21, verse 4 says, From Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. Now, just a quick reminder of the context. They were at the land of Edom and they asked the king of Edom if they could go through, through that land to get to the land that God had promised them. It's just on the other side of the land of Edom.

They said, hey, it would make our journey a lot easier if we could just walk on the road through your land. And the king of Edom said, no, you cannot go through our land. And so they are now forced into a much longer journey where they have to go around the land that God had promised them and basically come in from the north instead of walking right in from the the south. So they've now figured out that their journey that they thought was about to come to an end is actually going to take a significant bit longer than they were expecting, and it's just gotten way more complicated. And so in light of all that they've just discovered, verse four goes on and says, the people became impatient along the way.

I had a pastor once who was very committed to making sure that the congregation that we understood and valued God's sovereignty, right? That God is in control of everything. And so a phrase that he would say kind of again and again and again is he would say this. He would say, God allows, ordains, or permits everything that happens. It all happens within the span of God's control of God's oversight.

Now, I point that out because we kind of need to understand the danger of impatience. So how many people in this room would say, hey, I probably need to work on my patience? Raise your hand if you would agree with that. Okay, I see about half of you, and the rest of you are liars. So that's good.

That's good. So see, when things don't go my way, right? Or they aren't aligning on my timeline, or things are forcing me to either change course or direction, or they're interrupting the things that I need to be doing, right? That, that like, I get impatient, right? I get frustrated with, with how things are.

And patience, on the other hand, is a fruit of the Spirit, right? The Holy Spirit gives us patience. As the Holy Spirit comes and takes residence in us and we walk increasingly in the spirit, we become, in theory, a more patient people, right? And patience is kind of steady recognition that whatever is happening now, no matter how bad it is for me or how frustrating it is, right? I am not in control.

And I'm not supposed to be, right? I'm not supposed to go, like God is aware of what's happening. And if God is aware of it, he's allowed it, or he's ordained it, or he's permitted it. And so my role is simply to respond faithfully to whatever unexpected set of circumstances I find myself in right now that has occurred within the span of his sovereignty. So conversely, then, if that's what patience is, impatience, especially, like in the moment impatience, right?

We can work on our big picture impatience. How do I get used to this, like, kind of big picture thing that you've got me in the midst of? That's one thing. But I'm talking about, like, in the moment something happens and it, like, makes you get angry or frustrated or impatient, right? At the root of that, in the moment impatient, is a false belief that you don't even know that you're thinking, right?

But it's been so wired into your mind and your body and your responses to things, it's a false belief that things ought to go according to my plan. Things ought to go according to my plan. Now, it is really rare that any of us will ever speak those words out, right? That will give voice to that perspective that things ought to go according to my plan. But frustration with kind of the one who is in control of everything is what is at the root of our impatience.

And so while we may not blame him, we might be more likely to, like, blame other people or to find other places to put our blame before we blame God. But frustration with what he has allowed to take place in our life is what is at the root. Now, if you'll remember with me the reason I'm talking to you about this, if you'll remember with me, Moses had already taught the Israelites this lesson. He had already taught them that their frustration with him as God's leader was actually frustration with God. He had talked to them about the root of their impatience.

So back when this guy Korah had raised some people up to rebel against Moses, in Numbers 16:11, it says, Therefore it is against not me. It is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered. So Moses said, hey, when you blame me for your problems, we need to be really clear about what's at the root of that blame. Your complaint is actually against the Lord. And so this is a really valuable lesson for them, right?

It removes the veil of ignorance so that they can actually understand what's going on. And so you'd think that by kind of taking away their ignorance, it would lead them to a place of, yeah, they have the experience of impatience, and then they realize that, oh, actually, my impatience is against God, right? And so then I'm just going to stop my impatience, right? And that's what they do. That's.

You would think that's what they would do, but that's not what they do. They double down. In this case, they double down. And so in verse five, it says, the people spoke against God. They knew what they were doing.

As they raised their complaints about all of the problems that they had. Moses had shown them what they were doing. And so they said, we are so bothered by this that we don't care if we blaspheme God. We don't care if we blame God for our problems. And so the people spoke against God and against Moses.

This is the first time that it's ever kind of been very honest to us about what the people are doing, and the people themselves are being very honest about what they're doing. And so what's interesting here is that it's not just the complaint about the longer walk that they have to take, but it's everything. And like all the floodgates open on their complaints, the things that they have to throw out against God. And so they say, it's the food. They.

They hate the food, by the way. This miserable. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is no food and no water. That is a lie.

They have food every day. They have exactly what they need to get where God is going, but they are exaggerating the case in order to build their case against God. And then they say, we loathe this worthless food, this stuff that we have had to eat day in and day out. And you might be inclined to judge them for hating the food But I just want to tell you, if you eat the same thing Every day for 40 years, you are going to hate whatever you eat every day for 40 years. I promise.

And so they say, hey, it's God's fault. God hates us. He's a terrible leader. He's a terrible cook. Right?

Egypt treated us better than God is treating. We don't have the things that we need. God doesn't know how to take care of us. We're better off without Him. That's.

Everything that's happening is kind of the floodgates open of their complaint against God. And so the warning here from this is that your desire for things to go your way has the power to drive the fear of God out of you. That's what it does to these people. It drives the fear of God out of them. So what happens when people operate with no fear of God before their eyes?

Verse 6. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents. Just a real quick note here. Normally what happens is that the people come to Moses and then Moses goes to God and explains the thing. And then if there is a judgment for the Lord to hand out, he'll hand out that judgment.

There is like zero time between the people bringing their complaint to God and God sending a judgment. And Moses is not doing any like, interceding to go to God and explain the issue to the people. When they complained against God and they were honest about their complaint, God sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many of the people of Israel died. So just a bit of a warning. There is a striking temptation here to try to pull up imagery from other places in Scripture.

Right? So if you. If you know anything about the Bible, you might be tempted to look to, like Genesis chapter three, where there was a serpent in the garden who enticed Adam and Eve to sin. And while. While that imagery might be, like, stimulating to reflect on and think back on, I want us to strive right now to just consider this text in its own right.

These people doubled down on. On their opposition to God and the God sent fiery serpents. What does the word fiery mean? Fiery is a word, and it has simultaneously two meanings. Number one, it's telling us that the snakes were venomous, right?

That they. That when they bit the people, they caused something to happen. But it's also telling us something else at the same time. This is why the writer chooses the word fiery, because what happens whenever God executes his judgment on people? What is it?

The text often tells us that fire came out from the presence of the Lord that there's a burning that comes from the Lord in judgment. And so this is at the same time pointing out the venomous nature of the snakes and also connecting that to God's judgment against the people. So God, he's, you know, the people are in the desert. What else is in the desert? Well, it just so happens that there are snakes in this desert.

And so God uses kind of the closest tool to hand to respond to their blatant pride and rejection of him after all that he has shown them. And something about this, when these people experience this, the weight of this unique, this particular judgment, it flips a switch for them because something happens for these people that has not happened yet in the story. Something takes place. In verse seven, the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. Never before in all of the interaction between God and his people have the people together taken ownership of their sin.

But they take full ownership. They name all of the ways that they have wronged God and wrong Moses. They said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. A full, honest confession of what they have done. And so then they go to Moses, they say, hey, pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.

And so Moses prayed for the people. You see, some circumstances, when you encounter them will bring you to the end of yourself. In fact, I would tell you that in order to live a full life with God, it's actually learning to just constantly live at the end of yourself. A theologian, Dallas Willard, says this. He says, God's address is at the end of your rope.

That's kind of just where he lives, right? And something finally sparked in these people that when they doubled down and then they came face to face with the reality of the gravity of their own sin. And they came face to face with the reality of God's justice and judgment against their rebellion, they kind of realized that they had dug themselves in a deep hole, right? They didn't realize that the hole was very deep, but now they okay, yeah, we have a problem. A really, really big problem.

So together they had the experience of something that they had not experienced before. They come to this place of humility and corporate confession of sin. And then they. Goodness, once they realize that, I mean, the way the text moves, it's like everything goes so fast, right? They experience the judgment, and they're like, okay, we have a problem.

We need to resolve it to God. And so they quickly and earnestly confessed their sinful state to God. And the beautiful thing is that God was responsive to them in that place of humility.

Verse 8, the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. So he's supposed to place this thing up on a wooden pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent. So the idea is that he's crafting something out of bronze and he's putting. He's taking this wooden pole.

And the appearance would be as if the pole had impaled the serpent. Right? Like you put it on a pole, it's sitting up for everybody to see. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. So there are a lot of things going on here, and I'm going to try to draw our attention to them.

These people, the people of Israel, because they lived in Egypt and they did not have, like, the law of the Lord and understand everything about the Lord. These people were likely familiar with something called sympathetic magic, right? Which is basically when you encounter a health problem, what you do is you fashion some image of the cause of the problem. And then by placing that, like, talisman on yourself, you're somehow able to achieve healing. This is something that people practice in the ancient Near East.

And you might say, wait, God used magic to heal them? No, God gave them a word of command that would make sense to them based on where they came from. God gave them a word of command, and their obedience to God is what would heal them. And this is with. The same is true with every practice that God has established thus far.

What he does is he provides something that looks like what they're used to. But then in providing the thing that looks like what they're used to, he ensures his own distinctiveness in providing that thing, how he is set apart from every other God. And that's what he does here. There are two distinctives here. The first distinctive is that the sovereign Lord who sends the serpents in judgment is the same sovereign Lord with the capacity to remove the problem of the serpents.

So that's the first distinctive. And the second distinctive is that the way to survive the judgment snakes is to gaze upon a snake that has been judged, right, that is impaled, that is lifted up, that is up high. That when they. The lifting of something up on a pole is regarding it in a way as a curse or as something that has been judged or something that has been conquered by someone else. And so the lifting up of a snake on the pole is this symbol that the snake that has come against you in Judgment.

This snake has been judged. And so gaze upon this serpent. So the provision of healing does not come through some practice of magic. The provision of healing comes through obeying the, the command of God in faith. And so just a quick rhetorical question, don't answer it out loud.

What did they have to do to be healed? What did they have to do? Well, on the one hand they had to do nothing, right? It required no effort. They couldn't like find any ability in themselves.

Most of them were probably dying from the venom of the snake actively. They couldn't find in themselves the ability to do anything. And so when you say what did they have to do? Well really they had to do nothing. But that's not entirely true because they did have to do one thing right.

He gave them the opportunity to display that they trusted his command by simply all they had to do is turn their head to gaze at the serpent. And as you look upon the serpent, God will remove the poison from your veins.

Now this experience, this is so pivotal for these people to their development, to their understanding of who God is, because they grasped something fundamental that you remember their parents, their parents were incredibly rebellious and stiff necked and all of this stuff, and they're kind of following in their parents footsteps, but they grasped something that their parents did not get. And at the risk of being really incredibly cheesy, I just want to give us this simple principle that it seems like the Israelites are having to deal with right now. And it is this. No God, no hope and no God and no hope. That's, I mean, yeah, it's.

Yeah, you've seen the bumper sticker before, right? But I mean, it's, I mean, that's it, right? If you will reject God, then you have no way of dealing with the problems that are going to come against you out here in the wilderness. But goodness, if you would trust him, you would have a way to deal with it, right? That's the lesson that they learn.

So there's lots in this story about what genuine confession looks like and what humility looks like, what it means to come to the end of yourself. The problems that we talked about with impatience. And I want you to be able to grasp all of that. Right? That would be valuable.

But this story has an even more foundational meaning for Christians because the story is actually one of the key illustrations that Jesus uses to explain who he is and what he came to accomplish. And so the rest of the morning, I just want to spend our time in John chapter three. So if you do have a Bible. We don't have this one printed. But if you do have a Bible, you could turn with us to John chapter three.

In John, chapter three, there was this guy, his name was Nicodemus. He was a very renowned teacher within Israel at the time of Jesus. Again, this is 1500 years after the event of the bronze serpent. And Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he doesn't want any of his colleagues who are also religious leaders to know that he's coming to talk to this rogue teacher who's doing many miracles and accomplishing many mighty deeds. And so Nicodemus comes, talks to Jesus, and he has questions for Jesus.

He asks Jesus, how can one inherit the kingdom of God? How does one come in to the kingdom of God or be a part of the kingdom of God? And Jesus has many things to say to Nicodemus, but one of the things that he says to Nicodemus is, well, Nicodemus, you need to be born again, right? You must be born again. Now, for a Jew, that would have been a very offensive thing to hear because the natural Jewish person thinks, well, because of my birth, I am already in the kingdom of God.

And so when Jesus says, actually, your birth line is not good enough to get you into God's kingdom, you need an entire new birth line. You need to be born again. And of course, Nicodemus is trying to figure all of this out. And it's kind of the illustrations are veiled to him, and he can't totally understand it. And so Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?

And Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel? Right, the renowned teacher that everybody comes to, and you don't understand these things. And so then he gives a few different explanations to Nicodemus. But I want to draw attention to this one. Verse 14.

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. So what is he doing? He's drawing on a story that Nicodemus is very familiar with in order to connect to Nicodemus and help him understand what he came to do. So there's an incredible irony here because the phrase lifted up means to honor something in exaltation. But when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, it was about the judgment of the serpent, right?

So you have a. Simultaneously, like you witness the judgment of something that you lift up high, but somehow it's also related to the glory of that thing. So there's a paradox going on there. But, but Jesus is saying, when he says the Son of Man must be lifted up. He says, nicodemus, I will be like that serpent.

I will hang as one who has been judged by God.

And your Jewish birth will not be good enough to get you into the kingdom. And your religious effort, Nicodemus, will not be good enough to get you into the kingdom. And the good things, things that you do will not be enough to get you into the kingdom. Your biblical knowledge won't get you in. Your righteous deeds won't get you in.

Your title won't get you in. Do you know why, Nicodemus? Because you need to be born again. You need to be born again. There's a saying, you need to be born again.

He said, because you need to be born again, right? You must be born again. So he says, nicodemus, none of this is going to be good enough to get you in. And you know what? You cannot birth yourself, right?

It just doesn't, it doesn't work. There is only one way to be born again. And Jesus is trying to help Nicodemus see what that way is.

Verse 15. The son of man must be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have an eternal life, right? The idea here now the indefinite article that, and it's implied in the text, right? But the idea is when you're born, you're born into a life. And the life that you're born in when you're born of God is an eternal life.

And so whoever believes and the Son of man who is lifted up may have an eternal life, has a way into the kingdom. So Jesus says, hey, Nicodemus, you have to do what the rebels in the wilderness did. You need to come to the end of yourself. You have to have nothing in you that can save you from God's judgment. You need goodness.

You need a simple command that the only thing that you can do is obey it in faith, right? You need something that is not consist of your own effort. You need something of God's power to rely on to get yourself out of the situation you're in and get yourself into the life that he has to offer. So Nicodemus, you need to look to me, surrender to me, bend the knee to me, gaze upon the sacrifice that I will accomplish, and then you will have and eternal life. And so then he expands on that illustration in verse 16, and perhaps you've heard this verse before.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. See, God is so just that he will never allow sin to go unpunished. God will deal with sin. He will always deal with sin. And God is so loving at the same time that he will not allow sin to have the final word for everyone.

He wants to give us a way out of the judgment. And so verse 17. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned. Already Jesus is providing commentary on the bronze serpent.

He's helping them understand, like God did not command Moses to lift the serpent up as Israel's condemnation, but he commanded Moses to lift it up as Israel's salvation, right? They, they, the Israelites were already condemned in their actions. They were like looking death right in the face. It was crawling around their feet. They trusted their own hearts and their own desires, and that led them right into the pit of vipers.

And the bronze serpent was there for every Israelite who was at the end of themselves. It was there for everyone who had come to the place of humility. It was there for every Israelite who had a firm grasp on the gravity of their own sin and their own brokenness.

And he's saying it provided the way of salvation. And so too, when the Son of Man is lifted up, he will provide the way of salvation. So the cross of Jesus is there for whoever, right? Whoever realizes that the other gods and idols of this world destroy. The cross of Jesus is there.

Whoever realizes that prestige and money and power mean nothing for eternity. The cross of Jesus is there. Whoever realizes that their own desires will lead them astray, that they are prone to wander, the cross of Jesus is there. Whoever realizes that they can't impress God. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

The cross of Jesus is there. Whoever is living at the end of themselves, the cross of Jesus is there. So God says, look to Jesus, surrender to Jesus, bend the knee to Jesus, gaze upon the sacrifice of Jesus and have eternal life. Okay, so what?

Number one, we do see something in this passage about genuine repentance and what it looks like. And so the encouragement here would be to yield the fruit of genuine repentance. And so there are five patterns that I see displayed here. Number one, confess your own sin. Clearly.

They came to God and they said, we have sinned. They came to Moses and they said, we have sinned against God and against you. So they shine. They're willing to shine the light their own sin, right? When you find a genuinely repentant person, they're actually willing to give their sin a Biblical name, Right?

So you can immediately tell if somebody is repentant by finding. They make an effort to find the word for the thing that they've done and call it what it is. Right? Like, I am engaged in the sin of lust. I am engaged in the sin of malice.

I have a heart full of vengeance. Right. I am lying. Right? Whatever it might be.

You call the thing what it is. You don't take the edge off of the gravity of the thing that you've done.

And oftentimes, unrepentant people. Goodness, oftentimes unrepentant people. What they will do is they'll feel bad about their sin, but they'll want to take the edge off of the thing that they've actually done and use soft words for ugly sin. But true repentance is willing to call sin exactly what it is. Number two, I would say confess to those that you sinned against.

Right? That's the second pattern we see. They not only confessed their sin, but they confessed it to Moses and to God about the issue that they've caused. So repentant people are quick to apologize. They humbly go to all those that they've offended.

Number three, don't let the consequences keep you from God. Right? So repentant people do not get mad at God for his just judgment or his just discipline. They accept it and they go to God trusting that he's the only one with the solution. And that's what number four is.

Look only to God to forgive and save. Yes, God is the one who sends the judgment, but God is also the one who has the power to do anything about the judgment the first place. And number five, make the immediate changes required. See, after their confession, the people who were rebelling against Moses came back under his leadership because the issue was that they were rejecting Moses and rejecting God. And so they came back under Moses leadership.

All right, so that's the first. So what? The second so what that I would give to you is this.

There we go. I think we're okay now. I hope so. The second, so what is this you have. You have to have.

You need to have the correct medicine for your sickness. See, the theme of looking to Jesus in the Gospel of John, it doesn't stop at John 3:16. That idea of looking to Jesus as the Israelites look to the serpent, it gets carried out throughout the rest of the gospel. So in John 6:40, says Jesus is talking to people. He says, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks to the sun gazes upon the sun and believes in him, should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Then John 12:32 and I, when I am lifted up like the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, will draw all people to myself. The beautiful message of this is that God will save anyone who takes his prescription. Right? And the prescription is not being good enough. The prescription is not going to church or having a certain kind of attendance, or showing up at the right places.

The prescription is not being the right kind of a spiritual person. The prescription is only look to Christ, believe in Jesus, death and resurrection, accept the blood of his sacrifice as the supply that you need. When you're at the end of your rope, believe in Jesus and be born again.