Lifted up To Die

Many denominations, including the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), have called for today, Good Friday, April 10, 2020 to be a Day of Prayer and Fasting over the COVID-29 virus.

In this Good Friday message, we consider God's solution to the poisonous snake bites he inflicted on his people in response to their grumbling and griping (Numbers 21:4-6).

Many years ago as I began to read through Numbers, when I reached chapter 11, I had to grapple with the harshness of God's judgments.

As I pondered these things, I reflected on the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). None of the things recorded in Numbers can compare to hell.

This led me to preach a sermon in July 1982 entitled, "God Is as Mean as Hell."

Of course, I was using the word "mean" in the modern, American colloquial sense of "unkind" and "aggressive".

It is not unlike what the Apostle Paul states: "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness (ἀποτομία) of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness" (Romans 11:22; cf. also 2 Corinthians 3:7-11).

Upon their repentance, Moses intercedes for them (Numbers 21:7), and God instructed him to hang a brass snake on a pole: Whoever looked at that uplifted object in faith was healed (Numbers 21:8-9).

The Hebrew word found in Numbers 21:6, 8 is the same word used of the seraphim in Isaiah 6:2, 6: שָׂרָף śārāp.

This event is a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus' being lifted up on the cross, so that everyone who looks to him in faith will live (John 3:13-18).