Do you remember the story from last week about the brass serpent on a pole? The children of Israel had been bitten by poisonous snakes, and God instructed Moses to make a serpent (snake) out of brass and mount it on a pole. God’s instructions were that the people only needed to look at the brass serpent to be healed from their poisonous snake bites. It was a simple matter of look and live!
Wasn’t that an amazing brass serpent? No, not really. The secret was in the God who made the promise. Maybe the serpent had to be polished to keep it shiny, but it was only a brass statue on a pole and had no real power in itself. God tells you this story because He wants you to see that the power is all His own. Religion will not save you, but God can!
This amazing metal serpent seemed to be a treasure which the people felt must not be destroyed. Keep it, they decided. It saved our lives!
Do you think that the church can save you? No, that isn’t God’s way. Do you think that some man or woman, whoever they are, could say good prayers for you and make sure that God would listen? No, that isn’t God’s way either. These people made the same mistake about the shiny brass serpent, thinking that it had saved their lives! And it seemed to grow more important to them as the years went by.
They gave the serpent statue lots of honor. They even burned incense to it! That means they took some sweet-smelling dried plants, the best they could find, and burned them to make a cloud of scented smoke around the serpent. This seemed very nice, but they did not search to find out what God had commanded, so all their sweet smells were worthless!
God is not hard to please. He has already provided all you need to be saved: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)). He does not ask you to fold your hands and pray to the cross. No, He asks you to pray to Jesus Himself—the Lord Jesus Christ. He will save you from your sins and give you power to choose His ways and to live for Him.
The king at that time was Hezekiah. The brass serpent had been kept and treasured all through the life of David and Solomon and many others, but King Hezekiah knew that making an idol out of the serpent was wrong. He didn’t worry himself about what other great kings had done. He saw that cloud of sweet incense being offered to that ancient snake statue and he said, No! That is just a piece of brass! And he broke it to pieces!
We hear no more about it, but I hope the people listened to King Hezekiah. God doesn’t want worthless worship—don’t worship “things,” no matter how valuable they may be now or have been to you in the past.
And I hope you listen to God’s message too. We read in the Bible that our God wants worshippers! . . . He wants you! He will not make you an unhappy slave; instead, He wants to save you from the pain and suffering of eternal punishment for your sins. He wants to give you everlasting joy with Himself in heaven forever!
Yes, life is a rough road, and God does not promise to take away your troubles now. But He does promise to stay with you through your troubles and always, until He comes to take you home to heaven.
ML-04/15/2018