God’s expectations for mankind have never changed.  Above and before any actions we might take, God expects our hearts to be centered on Him.  That translates into humility.  When the Israelites began to grumble against God and Moses in Numbers 21, God sent fiery serpents to bite them, leading to certain death for those bitten.

There are numerous parallels to draw from this story.  After the people recognize their sin, they ask Moses to intercede on their behalf.  God directs Moses to lift a fiery serpent on a standard so that when someone is bitten, they can look to it and live.  Jesus draws a parallel to Himself in John 3:14 that just as Moses lifted up the serpent, so too “must the Son of Man be lifted up.”  But for what benefit?  Jesus later explains that it was so “…whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.”  (John 3:15)  Roughly 1,400 years before Christ, God demonstrates the same process by which man would have eternal life:

• God’s free grace would be offered.

• Man would have to have faith and believe.

• Man would, based on his faith, exercise obedience and do the things required by God.

For the Israelites, God demonstrated His grace by providing a means of escaping the “fire” among them.  Before anyone was saved, they had to believe in God’s plan and take action – specifically, they had to look to the bronze serpent.  

Observe two other interesting facts and parallels about this story:

1. What the people asked for versus what they received.  They asked to have the fiery serpents removed from their midst.  That did not happen; the serpents remained in their midst.  The path to salvation that they expected or seemed logical to them was not what God had planned.  How many were disheartened, disillusioned or just plain stubborn that were bitten…and still did not look to the standard?  There is an implication that there were, quite incredibly, some that refused to look at the standard for healing...and so they died.

2. The affliction happened before salvation.  A man did not look to the bronze serpent to live until after he was bitten.  The serpents were among them; the threat was constant.  How much are those fiery serpents like the sin that “so easily besets us” (Hebrews 12:1)?

This pattern of grace, faith and obedience (works) can also be seen in the saving of Noah (Genesis 6), in the taking of Jericho (Joshua 6), and again in the healing of Namaan (2 Kings 5).   When you read each chapter, can you identify God's grace freely given, the faith (belief) on the part of the recipient of God's grace and the resulting obedience (faith demonstrated) by the recipient?  Do you notice the exacting detail by which each carried out God's commands?  It's a powerful testimony to God's plan that existed from the beginning of time and His never-changing nature.  Even 3,400 years later the pattern remains the same and the parallel between these Old Testament stories and God’s greater plan for salvation is unavoidable and undeniable. 

 “All have sinned and fall short” (Romans 3:23)...we have all been bitten by those fiery serpents!!  And so, we must receive the free grace of God by looking to Christ for salvation (John 3:14-15).  But receiving His grace and having faith (believing) is only two-thirds of God's formula.  We must demonstrate our faith through obedience - exacting obedience.  Just as Noah was saved through water (1 Peter 3:20-22), we begin our new life of obedience to God by being baptized.  We don't do that because the act of dunking oneself in water possesses some magical power, or even because it makes logical sense to us (remember, Namaan thought it foolishness to dip himself in the Jordan in order to be healed - 2 Kings 5:11-12).  We do it simply because it is what God expects from His followers (Acts 2:38, 8:26-28, Romans 6:1-6, Colossians 2:12, 1 Peter 3:21).  May we all humbly search to know His will for us - revealed in His written word, the Bible.