Warfare & The Bronze Serpent (Numbers 21)

Warfare and the Conquest of Canaan

All right, go ahead and open up to the book of Numbers chapter 21. Numbers chapter 21. On the video, we're just gonna listen to the first nine verses, but let's pray, and then we will get into our study.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your goodness. You are so good, creator and sustainer of all things. You know all of our needs, all of our requests, even before we ask them. As your word tells us, the very hairs of our head are numbered.

Lord, you know what each one needs tonight, whether it's encouragement, strengthening, whatever it is, you know, and I pray that from your word and from your spirit, you would give to each one. So Lord, we pray that in all things, Christ would be glorified.

We pray it in his name, amen. Numbers chapter 21, verses one through nine.

The king of Arad, the Canaanite, who dwelt in the south, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Athoran. Then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners. So Israel made a vow to the Lord and said,.

If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.

And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of that place was called Hormath. Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Eden.

And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses.

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.

So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people. And many of the people of Israel died. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said,.

We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.

So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses,.

Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live.

So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. And so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

In this chapter, the most significant thing is definitely the story about the bronze serpent. And we'll see towards the end, we'll come back to it, but the bronze serpent is a clear Old Testament foreshadowing of the gospel.

The serpent represents Christ. And I think we will see that. So the message is look and live. You got, you sinned, you got bit, you're going to die, but look to the serpent and live. So as we've been going through the books of Moses, we keep emphasizing the point how all of these stories speak of who?

Yeah, they all speak of Christ. It's just a matter of figuring it out how. So we've seen that Moses is a type of Christ. Aaron is a type of Christ. Joshua, when we read about him, Joshua is a type of Christ.

We saw last week that the rock that gave water, even the rock pictured Christ. And guess what? The serpent, as hard as that might be to figure out if you don't know the New Testament text on the matter, yes, even the serpent represents Christ and the gospel.

But again, we're going to come back to that. We're going to spend the majority of our time talking about the subject of warfare in the Old Testament. Okay, warfare. How should Christians view warfare in light of these Old Testament verses and stories?

Look at verses one through three. It says, the King of Arad, the Canaanite, who dwell in the south, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Atharon. And he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners.

So Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites and they utterly destroyed them and their cities.

So the place or the name of that place was called Horma. So we see that Israel is now well aware of their own weakness and their own dependence upon God, which is a good thing. So what do they do? They make this vow that if the Lord would give them a victory, they would just utterly destroy these cities.

The implication being they would not take the spoils of war. Therefore, there's no ulterior motive. They want to, it seems, fulfill the Lord's command to take the promised land that was promised to Abraham.

But what did they have to do first? They had to totally annihilate all of the people living in these cities. And then when they take the land of Canaan, they had to totally annihilate all the people living in that territory.

So maybe this describes some of you, or maybe at some point. But New Testament Christians, some New Testament Christians anyways, kind of struggle with this whole idea of Old Testament warfare, and how the Canaanites were to be wiped off the face of the map.

So in the 21st century, this kind of talk, doing this in the name of God, this is politically incorrect. Would we agree with that? Yeah, it is. But this is really where we need to make a decision and draw the line.

Either you are looking at the Bible as just a book written by men, and that's all it is, just the words of men, or it is the word of God. You have to make that decision up front. Because if it's a book written by men, maybe what they did was right.

Maybe what they did was wrong. Maybe God didn't tell them this at all. That's what people conclude who don't believe the Bible, or they only believe parts of the Bible. If you believe it's the word of God, God told them to do all these things.

And again, that's where a lot of people struggle. Can you understand at least the struggle? Okay, so either God told them to do this, and it was right, or he didn't, and it was wrong. The third possibility that God told them to do it, and God was wrong.

I mean, obviously that's not a possibility. Okay, so what's the conflict? People look at the New Testament teachings of Jesus with the New Testament church, and they see a discrepancy. Have any of you ever thought about some of these things?

What are some of the thoughts that have come to mind.

If you want to share?

We're to love our enemies.

Sure.

We are to love our enemies. That's what Jesus said, right?

Okay, Mark.

Kill them all and God's going to help us.

Yeah, I don't know who came up with that. That's technically not in the Bible, but we've all heard that. So just talking about this whole thing of the conquest of the land of Canaan. Yeah, a lot of New Testament churches, and I would argue that these are not even really churches, that they just want to ignore this.

Some of them, some churches will just deny. No, God, we don't accept this. God couldn't have told them that. Or they want to ignore it, and they just want to focus. This is what's common today. Just focus on Jesus and his great love.

Nevermind the book of Numbers. And yet here we are going through the book of Numbers.

Why?

Because it's in the Bible. So we do want to focus on Jesus, amen? And that's what we've been doing. All these Old Testament stories do picture Jesus. And Jesus does have great love and mercy and compassion.

That's true. But we have to figure this out. So here's the thing. You can't get around that the Jesus of the New Testament, Jesus affirmed Moses, right? Jesus not only affirmed Moses, Jesus affirmed and believed the entirety of the Old Testament scriptures.

So everything we're reading about, Jesus affirmed it, right? And Jesus said about the God of the Old Testament that he was his father. In John chapter 10, verse 30, Jesus said, I and my father are one.

So it's impossible for God the father in the Old Testament to have one will and then Jesus to have a contrary will. They're one. They're one in purpose. So that's the position of this church. That's the position of any evangelical Bible-believing church.

This is what the Bible teaches. It's all true. And yeah, there are some rough things in the Old Testament, aren't there? Anyone, and by the way, if you've never read through the entire Bible, let me encourage you to do that.

It's a life-changing thing. It's challenging, yes, but there's some things in the Bible you thought, I never knew this was in there.

Yeah, Jim.

Well, if you haven't read the Old Testament, God, from the very beginning, wanted to eradicate sin. And when he promised Abraham this new land, it was in Canaan, and those Canaanites were idol worshipers.

Baal, Molech, what's the other one?

Asherah.

So that's sin, and they sacrificed children and some human sacrifices and everything, and God had in his plan, he wanted to eradicate that, although his plan didn't just cover the Old Testament. His plan covers all into the millennial, I mean, up until the millennial kingdom, and sin is gonna be dealt with in enormity at the end.

Yeah, and of course, they're going in and eradicating. Of course, they didn't actually do it. They spared many of these tribes, but they went in to wipe out the tribes and their practices. What did Israel do?

They ended up adopting their practices, and this is exactly what you see in the modern church today. Churches are adopting the ways of the world. So yeah, there are some rough things in the Old Testament, and you say, well, that's back then when God was more harsh.

No, because this does not compare to what you read about in the book of Revelation. When Jesus comes and fights the battle of Armageddon, this makes this look like a child's play. So all of that to say this, the point is we don't apologize for the word of God.

Whatever you do, maybe you don't understand some things, but don't ever apologize for what's written in the Bible. So here on the one hand, Israel makes this vow to God. If God, you deliver these people into our hands, we will destroy, utterly destroy their cities.

Now it's true, sometimes people, or even nations in the Bible, say and do things that are wrong. Just because you read about someone in the Bible saying or doing something doesn't automatically make it right.

Just a few examples of this. King Solomon, what does it say about King Solomon? He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That doesn't mean it was the right thing to do, but it's just recording that. So there's a lot of examples in the scripture of children of Israel doing the wrong thing.

If you take notes, write this down. We have to be able to make a distinction between what is descriptive and what is prescriptive. So these are the two words, descriptive and prescriptive. If something is descriptive, I mean, you can hear it in the term.

It's just describing what happened. It's just telling you the facts. But when a passage is prescriptive, it's telling you what's right or what's wrong or what you should do. Like the 10 commandments, Solomon and his wives and concubines, that's descriptive.

The 10 commandments, that's prescriptive, that you're supposed to do it. And in the Bible, when the narrator of the scripture or a prophet or an apostle or God himself is clearly giving instructions, then we know, okay, this is right.

So number one, yes, Israel makes this vow. Does that automatically make it right? No, but in verse three or in verse two, verse three, God listens to this vow and he grants their request. So God is putting a stamp of approval on it.

And then God will direct them to conquer the land of Canaan. All right, let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 20. Deuteronomy 20, and of course, reading through the book of Joshua, you see all of these battles and much bloodshed.

The fact that they are following God's will in fighting many of these battles is very clear and it's unavoidable. I've run across a few people over the years, people who identify as evangelical or born-again Christians, and at the same time, they will say that the conquest of Canaan or these battles were wrong, that the children of Israel were doing evil.

Maybe that's just part of ministering in Massachusetts. I don't know. Maybe other places don't have this problem, but I've run across a few people who have thought that. Nobody in this church currently, just letting you know that.

And I understand maybe they were never properly taught. I don't know where people get their ideas from, but I always try to explain this. If God is telling them to do this and they do it, and you say, that's evil, you're not just saying what they're doing is evil, you're saying God is evil because God told them to do it, right?

You can't avoid that. It's just like we've read about with the children of Israel when they grumble and complain against Moses and the decisions and the things that Moses says, who are they really grumbling against?

God. So I don't think that's people's intention, but really that's what it comes down to. Look at Deuteronomy 20, verses 16 through 18. We'll just tackle this head on. Moses here is speaking God's words, all right?

Moses says, but of the cities of these people, which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you.

Lest they teach you, why is he to do that? Because otherwise they're gonna teach you to do according to all of their abominations, which they have done for their gods, who are actually demons, and you sin against the Lord your God.

Now, again, if somebody thinks the Bible is just a book written by men, then you can just dismiss this and say, Moses never said, God never said this. But if you believe it's the word of God, God said it.

You have to deal with it. Any, yes, Larry.

Matthew 6, 29.

God says, or Jesus says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, cast it from you. So this is very similar speech. We are commanded, and that's how we're supposed to deal with sin.

Get rid of it.

In our life, whatever it takes. Get it out of our lives. Kill it, destroy it utterly. Just what he's saying here in Deuteronomy.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and even that passage, pluck out your eye. Like, okay, he doesn't literally mean pluck. So you have to understand this correctly, right? This doesn't give people today warrant to go over to the land of Israel and start wiping out cities, right?

So I don't think anyone's advocating for that, but you have to take the Bible in context and rightly handle the word of God. So because we believe this is God's word and that God is speaking through Moses, if somebody denies that, we have a word for it.

What is it? If you don't believe this is actually God speaking through Moses, it's not a trick question. If you don't believe it, it's called unbelief, right? Pretty simple. So here's the thing. As Christians, because we follow Christ, I would wanna know, what does Christ say about this?

And again, Jesus affirms Moses. Jesus affirms the Old Testament scriptures. In Matthew chapter four, verse four, Jesus said about the Old Testament scriptures that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

The apostle Paul said about the Old Testament scriptures that every word is what? Inspired or God-breathed. And then Jesus in John 10, 35, said the scriptures cannot be broken. So we need to have the same view of scripture that Jesus had.

If we don't have the same beliefs or listen to the teachings of Jesus and follow Jesus, we can't claim to be his disciples if we have a completely different view of the scriptures.

Than he did, right?

So I think all of this so far is very, very logical. It gets a little more complicated when we get into the application to say, okay, now what? What does this mean for us today? But just from a human perspective, when we talk about warfare, I think most people would acknowledge that it was necessary for nations to fight against Nazi Germany.

I'm sure there's people out there who would say contrary, but I think most people recognize that was necessary, right? Because if that ideology and that nation was permitted to spread across Europe and to take over Europe, I don't wanna know how the world would be today.

Here's the thing, when evil is being done and someone has the ability to stop it and they choose not to, and they just allow it to happen, that in and of itself can be evil. So war is a terrible thing.

Sometimes it's necessary. At least God thought it was necessary. You can argue with me all you want, but we're reading it. God thought it was necessary. So the fact is the Israelites were far from perfect, but the Canaanite tribes were utterly depraved.

And what are some of the things the Canaanite tribes did?

Well, human sacrifice for one.

Right, and that was probably the most detestable things. They would take their babies and throw them into

Molech's arms.

Right, there would be a burning fire and they would put living children.

Toss it in there.

Right, and they'd burn. And of course, Molech was a demonic god. So they're worshiping demons, practicing child sacrifice. And then later on, I think at least the Assyrians, if not the Canaanites, would torture people and skin them alive.

Okay, so point is, it's just. To go in and to eliminate these people, like it or not, politically incorrect or not, it's just. I'd stand on the fact that God said so. All right, let's go back to Numbers chapter 21.

Spiritual Warfare and the Limits of New Testament Application

Right, now with all of that said, we need to be careful reading these Old Testament stories because you can't take it out of context and make them into commands for today. I know we have a hymn in our hymnal titled Onward, Christian Soldiers.

How many of you know that song? Here are the lyrics, the first line. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. He's talking about spiritual warfare, right?

He's not talking about literal flesh and blood warfare. So the fact is, God told thee, who did God say do this? Did he say this to you? No, did he say this to the New Testament church? Who did he say it to?

He said it to the children of Israel, what, 3 ,500 years ago? So this is not applicable today. Remember what Jesus told Peter? He told him to put away a sword because those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

So this is not the calling for us as New Testament Christians. Historically, though, the Roman Catholic Church and certain Reformed groups who say that the church is Israel, throughout history, they have appealed to Old Testament passages to justify literal physical warfare in Jesus' name.

The Catholic Church, you've heard of the Inquisition, they would torture people in the name of God, in the name of Jesus, and there's no New Testament text to support that.

What do they do?

They went back to some of these passages in the Old Testament. Everyone has heard of the Crusades, fighting. Now, there was blame on the side of Islam, too. That's a complicated matter. But the Crusades and the Inquisition, many people were killed in the name of Jesus.

We would reject their whole philosophy. I would consider myself a dispensationalist. We need to rightly divide the word of God. This is for them, it is not for us, and you can't just go back to the Old Testament and quote things to justify whatever you want.

You know this is true. If somebody wants to take the word of God out of context, you can justify anything, right? Of course, you really can't, but people try. In Romans chapter 13, by the way, Paul said what?

We wrestle not against flesh and blood. So the war that we fight is a spiritual war. In Romans 13, Paul said that it is the governing authorities who bear the sword to execute wrath. That is not the job of the church.

In any time in history where the church and the state have gotten blended together, it's never gone well. But there's new movements getting popular right now where they want to go back to that and blend church and state together.

I think that's very dangerous. Here's the thing, in the end, it does more harm to the cause of Christ than good. All right, you're at numbers 21? Any questions on that, okay? Numbers 21, verses 10 through 20, Israel is on the move.

And as I said last time, they are now preparing. The wilderness wanderings are more or less come to an end. And now they're preparing to enter into the land that God promised them. In verse 14, it mentions what?

The book of the wars of the Lord.

What is that?

Pastor John MacArthur writes this. He says, this was apparently a book of victory songs that was current at the time of Moses, possibly written by Moses or a contemporary. I find it interesting, though, that this book is mentioned, but it's not, has not been preserved.

So whatever this book was, it's not part of the scripture. But do we have, in scripture, military songs of victory? Okay, can you name a few? On what?

It made some sense about Saul's killing tens of thousands.

Okay, yeah. Yeah, Saul has killed his thousands and David his 10 ,000s. Okay, I hadn't thought of that. Do you remember back when we were in Exodus 15, after Egypt was defeated at the Red Sea, there was the song of Moses, remember that?

So there's a victory song, song of Moses, and then there is the song of Miriam. And the Lord is called, in Exodus 15, remember what he was called? The Lord is a man, a man of war. When God fought for the Israelites, they couldn't lose.

When they got in the flesh and started trying to do things on their own, that's when they did lose. That's when things went wrong.

I understand that we can go to the book of Joshua. They destroyed Jericho. God destroyed Jericho. They had a church. But they didn't consider God when they went to Ai.

Yeah.

And it fell apart.

Right.

And several thousand were killed.

Yeah, and then in the New Testament book of Revelation, Revelation talks about the song of Moses again. And Revelation talks about, chapter 15 of Revelation talks about the song of the Lamb. Who's the Lamb?

Jesus Christ.

Okay, so there's a song of battle, of warfare and victory. That's the song of Jesus, basically, the song of the Lamb. So God is once again, not in this age, but in the end times going, he is going to fight for Israel against the armies of Antichrist.

That will be a physical battle. But until then, if people or nations fight physical war today in the name of Jesus, personally, I'm not comfortable with that. And I don't think that is in line with New Testament doctrine at all.

But one day when Jesus comes at the second advent, there will be a battle and Jesus will put all his enemies under his feet. I'm not saying that all war is bad or all war is good. I'm just saying the church of Jesus Christ should not be in that area.

That is not our job.

I think we should pray for peace. And if anyone has a contrary view of that, I mean, feel free to raise your hand. But I think any time, again, any time the church gets involved with governments and there's a blending of church and state and battles are fought in the name of God, this is not where we want to go.

Okay.

So moving on from this subject, we're talking about two subjects tonight. So we're moving on from this. Look at verse four. This is the most important part of the chapter. I think what we just talked about, we kind of have to deal with it because if you talk to unbelievers, they're gonna have a lot of problems with that.

And I think we should have a response. But look at verse four, said then, children of Israel, they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.

This would have been theologian, but you compare scripture with scripture, you get the idea that this was probably the hottest time of the year. They have to walk through this wilderness. And I don't know about you, but when I'm making a long journey and I have to, let's say I take a wrong turn and I have to drive an extra hour because of that, nothing gets me more than that.

Yeah, there's something about that, that just, yeah, it's frustrating. But this is what they're doing. They could have made a straight shot through the land of Edom, but the Edomites wouldn't allow them to go through.

So then they had to go all the way around. And again, that has to be really, really hard. Look at verse five, here's their reaction.

What do they do?

Same old thing they always seem to do. They grumble and they complain against who?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't blame them for being a little upset, but you don't grumble again. Why don't you learn? Why don't you learn? You don't grumble against God and his man, Moses, but that's what they do. Look at what they say in verse five.

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? How many times have we read this? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread. You know what the bread represents?

Yeah, the manna. In the New Testament, Jesus is the bread from heaven. This is symbolic for their contempt for Christ. And of course, when Jesus came 1 ,500 years later,.

What did they do?

They crucified him. So this is a very serious matter. They are showing contempt for God. And because of this, verse six, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died.

Okay, fiery serpents. Does anyone have anything different in a different translation? Are they all fiery?

Poisonous.

Poisonous, okay. Yeah, okay, so I was looking at commentators and what they say. What does it mean a fiery serpent? Two views on this. One is either the bites caused great heat and inflammation. Most commentators seem to think that the bites, that's what it's talking about.

It felt like fire after getting bit. That may be true. I tend to think it's actually a reference to their color because God says, make a fiery serpent. And what does Moses do? He takes bronze and he makes a serpent out of bronze.

So I personally think it's a reference to their color, but that's neither here nor there, I suppose. Unfortunately though, the people, they don't recognize their sin until they're punished. This is the same pattern over and over again.

They should have known better, but they don't admit or confess their sin until God sends this judgment. But because God is merciful, what does he do? He always leaves a way out. God always provides a way.

Larry.

But how often do I, or we,.

Repent because we got caught.

As opposed to truly feeling sorry?

Yeah, you say, well, if you're really sorry, you won't do it again. But if you only respond after something's happened or you get caught, then you're gonna end up like the Israelites in that same cycle, and you're just gonna get beat up and beat up and beat up again.

There's always consequences to sin or of the sin, and sometimes we have to live with the consequences, even after we did repent.

But you can be forgiven, you can be saved, and this is what this is a picture of. So this is one of, if not the, but it's certainly one of the most powerful pictures of the gospel and the cross of Christ anywhere in the Old Testament.

So here you have the sinful people and undeserving people crying out to God for mercy, and God provides for them in the most unexpected of ways with this serpent on a pole. In the New Testament, what is the gospel called?

To the, we talk about this a lot. To the Jews, it's a stumbling block. To the Greeks, it's foolishness. Looking up at a bronze serpent, a metal serpent on a pole for healing, this doesn't make any sense, does it?

And by the way, the medical symbol, the symbol for medicine and healing is what? I was on my way here following an ambulance. In the back window, the medical symbol is a pole with a snake wrapped around it.

Now, they say it's not based on this story, but I disagree.

You know, the story, as we read it, it really shows God's compassion and love for these people. He has to endure a lot. He has to endure a lot for these people.

Absolutely.

And as the centuries go on, they get worse and worse and worse, and yet he never, ever forsakes them.

Right.

Sets them aside.

Yeah, and this story, without the New Testament explanation, it's bizarre, you know, and for Jews who don't accept Jesus as the Messiah, and they don't accept the New Testament, stories like this are just weird.

It doesn't make sense. It's like when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son. Like the Old Testament, honestly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense without the New Testament, and we're gonna see that in a moment, but how can, okay, said this is a picture of the gospel.

The serpent represents Jesus. Well, that's contrary to what you would think because you would think the serpent, I mean, who's called the serpent? That serpent of old is who?

Satan.

Satan or the devil. So this is a picture of Satan. How can it be a picture of Jesus? So this would have been a stumbling block, I think, to the Jews, but for the, here's the thing, for the Israelites who had faith, they heard God's word.

Just look at the serpent and you'll live. They had faith, and because they had faith, they were saved. Look at verses eight and nine. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.

So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and so it was. If a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. So how can the serpent be a picture of Jesus? Because when Jesus was on the cross, he became a curse.

He became sin on the cross. Second Corinthians 5 .21 says that he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So that's the message, look and live.

And all who looked at the bronze serpent were saved, not based on their works, but based on their faith in what God had said. And so it is today that all who believe in Christ and look to Christ, placing their faith in him, they shall live.

As Jesus said in John 3, 14 and 15, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.