<b>Fire Snakes</b> devotion for 01-MAR-11

&lt;b&gt;Fire Snakes&lt;/b&gt; devotion for 01-MAR-11

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


Fire Snakes
They set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey.
The people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food."
The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people.
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live."
And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. - Numbers 21:4-9 NASB

People tend to give up on God at the first sign of trouble. On the other hand, they can praise him at the first hint of blessing. People can be fickle with their affections. The Israelites found it easy to complain about their condition. In fact, complaining is something that all humans everywhere are good at. The I students at any school complain about the food in the cafeteria. Workers stand around the watercooler and gripe about the boss and all the work piling up. The unemployed grumble about the lines at the unemployment office and about how hard it is to find work. How much easier it would be to just lie down and die.

The Israelites had that chance. They were unhappy with their diet. They asked Moses why he had brought them out to the wilderness only to die. Snakes appeared and started biting people. Suddenly death was not merely a feared possibility—it was a present reality. God immediately provided an easy way to stay alive. The bronze snake became a cure for the poison. Those among the Israelites who were determined to die only had to close their eyes and give up. But persevering wasn't hard. The Israelites who didn't want to give up just had to alter their perspectives a little and look at the snake to know that God didn't want to kill them in the wilderness. God was near to them then just as he is near to us today. God never abandons his people.