THE SERPENT OF BRASS

 THE SERPENT OF BRASS

 And Moses made a serpent of brass (As the Lord commanded), and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.(Num 21:9 KJV)

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life. (John 3:14-15 NASB)

The important thing here is that before looking up to the Serpent of Brass there must first be a "bite" from a serpent. Before any healing can happen, there must first be sickness, before any binding of wounds, there must be brokenness, before salvation and restoration there must be a falling short of glory of God.

Negative first before the Positive,the natural before that which is spiritual, the carnal Law before the spiritual Law.

"Let there be Light" God says "and there was light" but, there was darkness first. The emphasis from that verse was not the biting of the serpent, neither was it on the people that were bitten rather on the Serpent of Brass that was hung on the tree. That's the focus, the objects of all worship and adoration.

Serpent that was biting the people here means...sins, craftiness, lies, evil works, the devil himself...the antidotes to these things is nothing but looking up to Serpent of Brass for healing.

This is not by confessing or by sharing or by any means but rather by Looking Up!! This Looking up is the cry to the Lord for his healing, for salvation, for deliverance. As we keep looking unto Him. We are changed from glory to glory.

Does this mean we are not being bitten by a serpent daily? Does it mean there are no distractions around? Does it mean that nothing will want to occupy our time and attentions? No! There will always be. Our weakness, failures, sins or characters can also be a distraction. Our focus is not sins, weaknesses, is not even the devil, that old crooked serpent rather is Christ, Who is able to save us.

Merely focusing on our sins, weaknesses don’t help an inch. When we sin or find ourselves walking in a path that isn't Gods, we should repent and return to him but, we should not keep dwelling on it. Our focus must not be on those sins neither must they(sins) be the objects of our worship and meditations. Our focus is Christ!

Moreover, this biting of the serpent also shouldn't be what we keep judging our brothers or sisters on.  When a brother is bitten by this serpent, we must point them back to Christ where the healing lies not on how reckless or careless they were to had allowed themselves to be bitten. I know some may begin to say are you saying we shouldn't correct one another? No! Far from it. We should correct but in love.

Sometimes, I've found this to be true among God's people. We forgive but we don't forget. If God should relate to us on this basis or standards we've built to measure one another then, I'm afraid that we are not forgiven!!

Once we forgive, we should move on even when the same thing is repeated, we should correct them without necessary referring back to what have been done before (That’s how he/she did last time is really a wrong attitude). By this attitude, of repeating the past mistakes of our brother to them and laying emphasis on them, we may think we are helping one another rather it is just another way of pulling ourselves down. This may make a brother or sister focus on the sins or flaws in their lives rather than Christ!

We must always remember this that we cannot by our complaints, gossiping, talking about the weaknesses of one another change them. We cannot change ourselves no matter our efforts and spirituality. Nobody can change anyone. It takes God alone to do this for us and it is not an immediate things. We are all work in progress.

We must be weary of how negatively we relate with God's people, the sheep of His pasture, the Possession He purchased by His own blood. This is really a delicate path to toll when dealing with the sheep of the Lord. 

We should remember the story of the servant that was beating his master sheep in Luke 12:

But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken.

Maybe those servants weren't right the way they were behaving; maybe they were doing what needed to be corrected. The issue here is "beating" the men-servants and maidens. This man failed in one thing. He turned the sheep of the Lord from focusing on their Master to himself. 

You know how many standards of living we often give to Christians, how we teach them to live right, and in many occasions we are just leading and measuring them according to our own standard of living. And should they failed, you know what follows. Our responses, our attitudes, our corrections could be much as beating them.

You don't beat another Master's servants; servants that are not yours are not under your jurisdiction of disciplines, punishments and beatings. This was the beginning of this man problem.

I wonder at how we deal with God's children sometimes. The way some people (let me say shepherds or leaders)relate to the sheep of the Lord, as if they (the sheep) are their slaves and their means of acquiring their set-goals, wealth or riches. They shift the focus of the sheep from their Master to themselves.

"As Moses lifted up the Serpent"...The major job of Moses wasn't to provide the serpent, his job was to lift up the serpent God has asked him to lift up. He didn't have to glory in the healing of the people that were bitten by the serpent because he was not the Serpent of brass. The Lord received the glory for that.

Our job is not to provide ways of salvation for God's people; God has already done that long time ago. He has provided himself a Lamb for men’s salvation and deliverance, our job is to lift Jesus up, to magnify Him before the people, to point people to His direction. The healing, salvation, deliverance and provision will come by looking unto Him.

"Looking unto Jesus" says Paul "The author and finisher our Faith". He is the object of our worship, not doctrines, teachings (though, they are good provided they point people to Christ) not even a "thing" but Jesus Christ.

 "Even so” says Jesus “must the Son of Man be lifted up”. How many times have we magnified the instruments that God is using than God Himself? Don't we fear men than we fear God?

"My Fear is taught by their traditions, precept of men" saith the Lord.

For that next thing in your life, are you not looking unto men? This thing is very tricky. God needs to open our eyes to see how we've magnified men than Him. How we are looking at our policies, creeds, denominationalism,  doctrines and standards we've set than Christ.

The Son of Man must be lifted up. Whether we like it or not, He will be lifted up. It would be a great privilege and honour for us to lift Him and allow Him to draw men unto Himself.

We may had drew men to our ways of life, our “Church” or our beliefs by lifting up our doctrines, our fellowships, our rules and regulations but such men were/are never drawn to Christ, they never belong to Him though they may belong to our ministries and empires but not Christ's Kingdom.

The King determines who comes to His Kingdom and who stays. As we journey through,let's keep lifting Jesus Christ, and leave the drawing to Him. That is He’s own job to do. Ours is to lift Him up.

We should not forget that we are never the "Serpent of Brass" that was hung on the tree. We are never "the Christ" that was crucified on the Cross of Calvary. All the people that we have privileges to meet, preached to,led to the Lord or shepherding in one way other are never our people, they belong to Him, they are His sheep and He alone purchased them by His Blood. And whatever we give to them must be from Him and must point back to Him.

Should we fail in this,we have failed in all things!!!

Shalom!