Numbers 21:4-6

The next one was tempting God. The direct reference is to Numbers 21:4-6. It says in verse 4 that the reason that people did what they did was because they were discouraged about the difficulty of the way. And so again, they raised the issue of food.

Now, this was far from being a singular occasion, I mean this tempting God thing. If you look in Psalm 78:40-42 and Exodus 17:2 and 7, in both of those places it says that the reason Israel provoked God was because they remembered not His hand, and they doubted whether God was really with them. That seems almost nonsensical to us. They knew He was in the cloud, they knew He was in the pillar of fire. And yet human nature is so tricky, it convinced these people that God was not really there.

In addition to that, they began to disbelieve that He really split the Red Sea. They began to disbelieve that the manna was not coming from Him. They no longer believed that water was coming out of the rock whenever Moses spoke to it. That seems almost too far out to believe. And yet it is what happened. It is no wonder God got provoked.

So they disbelieved the mercy and goodness of God by forgetting the miracles by which He freed them, then questioned whether He was with them. And so they took it upon themselves to presume to tell Him how He should serve them. That is certainly not a "Thy will be done" attitude. It was not yielded. It was not humble but a smart-alecky type, like a kid telling the sage what and how to do.

Every parent has had to deal with a child who gets smart-alecky and snaps back at them and calls them into account. And perhaps there is hardly anything in life that is more exasperating than that. To give a child birth, to supply them with the best you can, and then have them call you into account because they want more and better. How quickly they forget that they owe their very existence to you. It was one of these occasions that God said to Moses, "Stand aside! I'm going to wipe them out."

Numbers 21:5-9

As usual, the Israelites were rebelling for one reason or another, and then following Israel's sin, God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and stick it on top of a pole. He sent all kinds of serpents throughout the camp of Israel, and when anybody was bit by one of those serpents he died. The serpents were venomous. However, because of that pole and the bronze serpent on top of it, and the belief system in those who were bitten, if they rushed and went and looked at the bronze serpent at the top of the pole, they were immediately healed, and the bite they received did not kill them.

Jesus is mentioning this in these two verses in John 3.

I think we can then reach a conclusion. When Jesus was crucified on that tree, that tree became the symbol of the Tree of Life, even as that pole with the bronze serpent on top of it gave life, as it were, to those who, in faith, looked upon it. Why was the bronze serpent placed on the top of the pole in the wilderness? Because, when Jesus took the sins of mankind upon Himself, He became the very embodiment of sin, just as Satan the serpent is continuously. When anyone looks upon Jesus' sacrificial act as being crucified "in faith," and with repentance, they are justified and have taken the first great and most important step toward eternal life.

Numbers 21:4-9

In contrast to God's longsuffering with them, God's own people (the children of Israel) are noticeably impatient with the very One who shows such longsuffering toward them. When they journeyed in the wilderness, after their deliverance by God's hand from Egypt, grumbling and impatience mark their character.

Here we see an example of the opposite of longsuffering: rather than thanking God for their food, their freedom, and His visible presence with them in the wilderness, they grumble because they are taking a long route—taking what they feel is forever—and here impatience is shown for what it is: selfish whining and demanding.

The Israelites placed "the self" above God's purposes and demands. They wanted their selfish desires to be met immediately rather than according to God's perfect plan. Impatience and intolerance are fruits of selfishness, whereas patience and longsuffering are fruits of self-sacrifice.

Numbers 21:1-9

Before I leave this, there is one other thing I wanted to mention about the serpent in the wilderness episode (that is Numbers 21:1-9). Of course, God told Moses to make this bronze serpent and if the people would look at it, then they would be healed from the bite of the serpents. And, of course, he would have to hold it up high for all of the people to see. Well, Jesus uses this imagery when He talks to Nicodemus there in John 3:14 about that He would have to be lifted up like that serpent in the wilderness.

Numbers 21:4-6

David is drawing here on Numbers 21:4-6 and what they did is they disbelieved in God's mercy and goodness by presuming to tell Him what He should do and what He should give them. It was not, "Thy will be done." It was not humble and yielded, but they became impatient (like a child nagging his parents) by requiring unreasonable proofs from Him.