Numbers 21:4-9
The Cure for the Snakes' Venom

Here is a story to which Jesus referred in the book of John, chapter 3:14-17

God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt. They were on their way to the Promised Land. But they had some bad habits that got in the way. In the story before us they complain of the conditions on the journey. The hotels didn't serve good food and there wasn't always running water. Of course, it was much worse than that, and they bitterly complained about it. And they had a rather bad habit about it. God, not being the namby pamby God many make him out to be, reached the end of his patience and sent these venemous snakes to bite the people and the bites were proving to be quite fatal. Many of the Israelites died. The people confessed their sins and asked Moses to pray to God to forgive them, and God consequently told Moses to make a snake and put it on a pole so that "anyone bitten can look at it and live."

The law being a shadow of good things to come, the stories in the old testament often picture and foreshadow something about Jesus to come. Today, we have all committed our own sins. We have all grown impatient with the ways of God and spoken against him. We have all acted against his will. And we have all provoked God to anger. "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." And we are all dying and being destroyed because of our sins. Death is everywhere. Everyone around us is dying. And we cry to be delivered.

God in his mercy has heard our cry. He has sent his Son Jesus to die in our place, to take our place, and he has raised him up on the cross and he has then raised him up from the dead. If we will look to Jesus in faith, if we believe in him and if we will trust that he died for us and that God raised him from the dead, we can be delivered from death. We can live - forever. "If you will confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

This is what each of us has done. This is why we call ourselves Christians. And this is what we need to remember when we partake of the Lord's Supper. The plagues is real. The plague is awful. The plague is universal. But God gives us the cure for our sin. John 3:15-16.