Throughout the many lessons that God taught the Israelites during their desert travels, the poisonous snakes is the most dramatic, (I hate snakes)  This story happens when yet again the Israelites got discouraged and impatient and complained against God and Moses for even bringing them into the wilderness.  They at least had homes and food as slaves!  When they complained that they detested the miserable food that God had been supplying, that must have been the tipping point, the very next verse states, Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 

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The people went to Moses and repented and ask him to Pray to God for His Mercy.  So, The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”  This was an exercise in faith, as well as a chastisement for their unbelief.  It took an act of faith in God's plan for anyone to be healed, just look and live.

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Now we also find in the New Testament, in the Gospel of John, Jesus mentions that bronze serpent.  When He was talking to Nicodemus that night that he came to see Him, 3:14, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."   All who look on Christ in faith receive this redemption from death; as we are all dead in sin without Christ. 

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The bronze snake on the pole was a foretelling of Christ on the cross.  We are all dead in sins and all healing is from Christ.  Hundreds of years before the crucifixion Isaiah writes this well-known verse, 53:5, But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  If we look to Jesus, put our trust in Jesus, it says that we are healed. 

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Now the message goes a few more words in the Gospel of John, we have to do more than look, it states, whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. How many of the Israelites that were bitten by those venomous snakes in the desert that day thought it was to foolish to think that just looking could save them?  How many died that day from snakebites because they didn’t believe it would work?   Exactly the same question can be asked today, how many sinners will spend eternity in hell because they thought it foolish that, all we have to do is believe?  It says in 1 Cor. 1, that the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.  It is the marvelous plan of God’s justice vindicated, and man pardoned, through the atoning blood of Jesus on the cross. 

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Two known facts as we close, 1. Many Israelites died in the desert from snake bite, because they did not look, which was the only cure.  2. We are all born into sin and regrettably add to it as we live each day.  But, if we this day repent of our sins and look to Jesus, put our trust in Jesus, He assures us that when we repent and turn from our evil ways, He will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  1 John 1:9.