Bronze Snake
Do you
remember the story of the bronze snake?
It happened all the way back during the time of Moses when he was
leading the people of Israel through the desert towards the Promised Land. Like usual, the people had been
complaining. They had been grumbling
against the Lord and his plans and so God sent venomous snakes to punish
them. And many of the people died from
this act of God before they started to cry out to Moses, asking him to pray to
the Lord that he might stop this horrible plague. Moses did pray for them and God told Moses to
make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole so that whoever would look at the
bronze snake and believe God’s promise would live. And that’s what happened. Whoever had been bit and looked at the bronze
snake recovered from the bite and survived.
It was certainly
a scary time for the Israelites; but it was also a wonderful moment of God’s
grace: he saved them in a miraculous way.
And on top of that, this event was yet another way that God was pointing
his people to their Savior Jesus. When
Jesus himself was on this earth he told those around him, “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). The bronze snake was
a foreshadowing of salvation through faith in Christ. And so for the Israelites the story of the
bronze snake was not just another thing that happened to their ancestors
sometime long ago; it was a story that was meant to remind them of their forgiveness.
That’s
the positive result from this story about the bronze snake. But there’s also a dark side: Over the years,
the Israelites had apparently taken the bronze snake with them; they didn’t
leave it in the desert. And once they
were established in the land of Israel and had a kingdom of their own, they set
up that bronze snake, not only as a memorial of what had happened in the past,
but as something to honor and revere in the years ahead. And so that bronze snake not only became a
relic of Israelite history, but an object of worship for future generations. That bronze snake sat in the land of Israel for
a long, long time: even throughout the reigns of godly kings and prophets like Joshua,
Samuel, David, Solomon, Asa, Joash, Uzziah, Elijah, and Elisha. For 800 years this bronze snake existed in
the midst of the people of Israel and it was worshiped as if it were something
more than a hunk of melted bronze.
Breaking Tradition
But
after 800 years, King Hezekiah took the throne.
“He did what was right in the
eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the
sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze
snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning
incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan).”
Hezekiah not only got rid of all of the foreign gods and places of
worship that the Israelites had been involved with, but he even took something
that Moses himself had made with his own hands eight centuries before and
destroyed it! Can you imagine how mad
the people must have been? That royal
act couldn’t have made Hezekiah many friends or admirers in the first few weeks
of his reign!
Let’s
try to put that in perspective a little bit.
Imagine if a new President of the United States took office and within
the first few weeks he decides, “I don’t like the way the people of this
country look up to the Statue of Liberty.
It’s not representative of our nation and I think the people hold it in
too high of a regard.” And so the
President has it destroyed. Not just
taken down. Not just moved to another
location. But he actually has the Statue
of Liberty destroyed. Don’t you think
there would be a few upset citizens that he would have to deal with? Or what if he decided that the original
constitution of the United States of America, the founding document of our
nation signed by the likes of Washington and Adams and Jefferson was holding
the people of this country back. And so
to lead people away from depending on the past and start looking towards the
future, he had the original constitution taken from the National Archives in
Washington D.C. and destroyed it. The
firestorm that would be brought down on his head would be unimaginable if he
did something like that! But the
original constitution of the United States and the Statue of Liberty, two
things so closely connected with the founding of our country, are less than 250
years old and 150 years old respectively!
The bronze snake that Hezekiah destroyed was almost 800 years old! Plus it had been made by one of the most
famous people ever to belong to the Jewish nation: Moses - the man who had
talked to God, who had seen God, who had been buried by God!
Don’t you
think the Israelites were attached to that artifact? Don’t you think there was some sort of
patriotic pride connected with something Moses had made? They were offering incense to it after all
and so I’m sure it was a pretty big deal to them. People probably came from long distances just
to see it. But Hezekiah had no qualms
about destroying this precious piece of Israelite history because he knew that it
was for the best of his people. They
couldn’t have liked it. They couldn’t
have like Hezekiah for it. But he was
willing to make the break from tradition because it was harming the faith of
those for whom he had been made responsible.
Are We Bold
Enough to Make the Break?
There
are many people in our lives for whom we are responsible, people that struggle
with ongoing sins. Many of them
Christians, both friends and family members.
People who should know better, but people who can’t seem to get out of
the bad habit that they have been in for years.
Are we bold enough to “make the break” for them, pointing out their sin and
helping them to get rid of it for the good of their faith? Or are we too weak, too scared, too concerned
about what people think of us to make the break? And by “making the break” I mean that
sometimes we have to “break” the silence and talk about a sin that someone has
done. Or “breaking” the sinful pattern
that someone is in. Or “breaking”
through a stubborn attitude that refuses to admit something is wrong. Or even taking the chance that it might
“break” up a friendship to say what you need to say or do what you know the
Lord wants you to do. To “make the
break” is not easy. It’s not fun. It’s difficult and stressful and sometimes
even heartbreaking. Which is why we
don’t often do it.
The Lord
calls on us to be like Hezekiah and help people break away from their sins, but
we’d rather let them work it out themselves because it’s less confrontational
that way. The Lord calls us on to break
through the sinful blindness of those we love and bring them closer to the
truth, but we’d rather not say a thing so that no one gets angry. The Lord calls on us to break off our
relationships with those who refuse to listen to God’s Word and continue to act
like unbelievers, but sometimes we act as if we’d rather have them as friends
in this life than see them in heaven in the life to come. We hesitate to “make the break.” We continually put souls in eternal
jeopardy. We end up caring more about
what people will think about us than what their Lord will think about
them. Which is about the least Christian
thing we could do.
Jesus Was
Willing to Break Everything
It was a
Sabbath Day in Nazareth, and Jesus was back in his hometown for the first time
after he started preaching publically.
And as the entire town gathered around to hear this hometown boy made
famous, Jesus called them out. He
confronted them with their unbelief and did not sugarcoat the truth. The people that he had known for the past 30
years were so furious by his audacity that they dragged him to the edge of a
cliff to throw him down. Jesus, of
course, did not allow them to murder him, but any connection he had with them
was now gone. Jesus was willing to break
his associations with an entire town in order to help them see their Savior.
And of
course there are many instances in Jesus’ life that we could point out. He was hated by his own brothers because of
who he was and what he did. He did not
hesitate to call Peter the devil himself when Peter was acting contrary to
God’s will. Jesus called the spiritual
leaders of the day “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” and “white-washed tombs, which are beautiful on the outside but on the
inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matt. 23:27). Jesus was always trying to break through
stubborn hearts, break off sinful attitudes, and break up damaging habits and
traditions at the expense of his popularity and safety. And he does the same for you.
He calls
your sins to attention, doesn’t he? He
does not hesitate to break up the rosy picture you have of yourself at
times. He has done that to me on more
than one occasion! He has shattered the
view I have had of myself at times so that I could see who I really was
underneath. But he has done that for me
so that I would rely on the Lord’s forgiveness once again. Because that is his ultimate goal: he doesn’t
just want to make us mad or uncomfortable or depressed; he wants us to realize
how sinful we are and how saved we are.
He wants us to separate from sin and see the amazing love of our
Savior. He wants us to find comfort in
the cross and joy in that tomb. He wants
us to understand how blessed we are to have a Lord like him who chastises but
forgives, who calls us out but who also calls us close. Jesus has never been one to mince words about
who you are, but that also includes who you now are through faith in Jesus: you
are his chosen child; you are a saint; you are pure, holy, and at peace; you
are clean, you are comforted, you are forgiven; you are his. And all of that is true because Jesus was
willing to break everything for you: not just your own self-evaluation, but he
broke the grip of sin on your soul, the chains of Satan on your life, and even
the power of death in your grave. Jesus
broke everything for you so that you could now be bound to him.
To Break is to
Care
This is
the very message we want all people to know and believe, isn’t it? This is the only truth that will save them
after all! But there are so many people
that are throwing it away! People who
are stuck in sin, struggling with sin, dabbling in sin, living in sin. Help them, break them of that habit or that
routine or that dangerous path they are wandering down; and do it with God’s
Word. I’m not saying it will always be a
pleasant experience: breaking something usually isn’t. In fact, it might cause a lot of hurt and a
lot pain. But if a break from sin and a
bond with their Savior does not happen now, what will happen to them then?
To break
is to care. It is not being selfish, but
loving. It is an act of concern for
those whose souls are in danger instead of being so concerned about how much
they like you. Sometimes that break
means a little tap of an egg shell on the edge of a counter; sometimes that break
means a hammer on a pane of glass.
Either way, the sinful attitude that blocks and blinds the hearts of
those you love must be removed so that they can clearly see their Savior. And if you do not help them do that, who
will? Pray that the Lord would give you
the courage to make the break. And pray
that he then gives you the opportunity to offer them the only Message that
mends.
Amen.
“Where, O death,
is your victory? Where, O death, is your
sting? The sting of death is sin, and
the power of sin is the law. But thanks
be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Cor.
15:55-57
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