"4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 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 we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And 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. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live."
Numbers 21:4-9
First of all, we are taught something about the nature of sin. Salvation is from sin, and men do not look to a Saviour until they feel their need of one. Paul once said, 'by the law is the knowledge of sin', and this part of the law is surely designed to give a knowledge of sin that will lead to a desire for salvation. In the fact that the Israelites were bitten by fiery serpents, Jesus means to tell us that sin is like the mortal bite of a poisonous serpent. One thinks readily of Genesis 3 and the story of the Fall this was a fatal bite indeed! Behind all sin is the poisonous influence of the evil one (remember, Satan's temptations are called his 'fiery darts' by Paul in Ephesians 6). Sin bites like a serpent and stings like an adder, inflicting a terrible wound on men's souls. To be a sinner means therefore to stand in need urgent need of heal- ing. With snake-bite, time is of the essence, if life is to be saved. A sinner is a man with a sickness unto death and there is no time to lose if life is to be saved. This is one of the aspects of sin that calls forth the compassion and pity of God, and the tender care of the Great Physician Himself. One thinks of how Jesus moved among the poor and needy of His day, filled with compassion for them in their plight. Remember Nicodemus devout, respectable ruler of the Jews that he was yet in the eyes of Christ he was a sick man, more sick than he knew. What must this illustration have meant to him, when he began to realise its significance on the lips of the Saviour, as He used it in His ministry to him? Is that how He sees me, he would think? Is that really the truth about me?