In their trip from Egypt to the Promised Land, the Hebrew people had journeyed from the Red Sea to the borders of the land of Edom. They became very discouraged because of the hardships of the journey and began to complain against God and Moses, saying that there was no bread, no water and the food is miserable. Because of this the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
When the people finally acknowledged their sin of complaining and repented, they asked Moses to intercede with God for them. Moses asked the Lord to save the people and the Lord answered in what looks like one of the most absurd and weird answers in Scripture. He told Moses to make a snake of brass and put it on a pole, and raise it up in the middle of the camp so that every person who had been bitten by these snakes could see it. And any person that would look upon this snake on a pole would be healed from the poisonous snakebites (Numbers 21:5-9).
From a human point of view this doesn’t look like much of an answer to Moses’ prayer and the people’s problem. It would be hard for any person to see any life saving or medical value in looking at a snake on a pole and I am sure that many of the people died because of a lack of faith to do what God told them to do. God didn’t tell the people to make some kind of medicine to cure their problem. This would seem so “natural” for the people to do, because it is in the nature of mankind to believe the old lie, “God helps those who help themselves.”
In today’s society we would probably be looking to our government to supply anti-venom if we found ourselves being bitten by a den of poisonous snakes. In the United States whenever we see a disaster taking place we call upon the government social services or welfare to aid those in trouble. But a person who does not know the way out of the woods cannot help the others that are lost, and the person who thinks he or she can save themselves has never understood how poisonous sin really is and how great God’s cure is.
Social services have a place in society, but they have no cure for sinful humanity. Hospitals, schools and human services that have been started by Christians have played an important part in the world’s society. Most of these did not exist before strong Christians as the Wesley’s, Whitefield and George Muller. There have been thousands of Christian men and women who have done great works for the good of mankind, but these good works are only the byproducts of a person being born again by faith in Jesus Christ.
It is normal within the human heart to try to work out our own salvation. But nothing for the people to do was mentioned. The people were to stop trying to save themselves and look to God, by faith, for the remedy for the poisonous snakebites. The very fact that God didn’t tell the people to fight the snakes, get out of the snake pit or to find a cure for themselves is indicative of the fact that there is no human remedy for sin. “All of our righteous works are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Our sin-bitten nature is beyond human help.
A man asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus told him not to commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony and honor you father and mother. This man told Jesus that he had kept all of these commandments since he was a boy. Jesus then told him that he still lacked one thing and then told this man to sell everything he had and give it to the poor and he would have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow Him.
When the man heard this he went away very sad because he was a rich man. And then Jesus said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
When the disciples heard this they said, “Who can be saved?” Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Matthew 19:16-26). The point of this story is that salvation is outside mankind’s ability. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
Mankind has been bitten by the poisonous effects of Adam and Eve’s sin of eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Men and women chase after humanistic religions, performing all sorts of rites, rituals, fasting and pilgrimages trying to find a cure for the poisonous affects of this sinful nature, but to no avail. All that comes out of all this religious activity is a lot of self-righteousness and arrogance and being swept away to an eternal death in the lake of fire with Satan and his angels (Revelation 20:14-15).
Like the cure for the snakebites for the Hebrew people was beyond human ability, so is the cure for our sinful nature. God has given us a Man on a pole to look up to and be saved from our sin.
Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
Paul wrote, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).
John wrote, “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11).