Resurrecting America

On their trek through the wilderness, the Israelites got pretty impatient with some of the hardships they faced. They grumbled about the food, the lack of water and spoke against God. God had brought them out of so much and now they were giving up on him.  

The King James Version says 'that the Lord sent fiery serpents' that bit and killed many Israelites. The area that they were traveling through was known for snakes, it wasn't God sending them. God was not trying to punish them, they brought it on themselves when they didn't look for deliverance and complained. Once they realized this, they went to Moses and asked him to pray. God told Moses to fashion a brazen serpent and elevate it on a pole and when they were bitten by a snake to look at the fashioned serpent and they would live. God didn't take the serpents away, he brought the solution. Deciding to do what they were asked brought God back into the forefront of the Israelites minds for those who did what Moses said.

Human nature hasn't changed much. There is lots of fear flying at us through the digital airwaves about the coronavirus. Politicians are bickering and showing their true colors: fear, greed, manipulation and we have mass media exploding it in front of our eyes. Our culture today has been so primed by an adversary that can move in, terrorize and deceive at a moment's notice. Many people fall right into the trap. The world is not an easy place to live, but God has provided us with the ultimate example in Jesus Christ, his son and man to show us the way.

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:14-16

Keeping our sights on Christ and his purpose and what he means for our lives, preserves our clear-eyed vision of who we are and our relationship with the God who loves us. So many events in the Old Testament foreshadow the coming of Jesus Christ. As we look at his life and along with the added lens of the holy spirit in the New Testament, we are never in the dark about what is going on.