Lifted Up

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Aloha Dearest Family,

                A couple of years ago I was at work and I started talking to a guy who raised and handled venomous snakes. He made a living extracting and selling the snake venom so that anti-venom could be produced. This would be used to be help people who had been bitten by snakes. He was very passionate about his chosen occupation and he told me that even God mentions it in the Bible. He said God told Moses “to look to the snake”. Well, needless to say, having studied God’s Word for quite a while, this perked up my spiritual ears. I knew I needed to study this a bit more.

                My search first led me to John chapter 3 where Jesus is speaking to Nicodemas. In verse 14 Jesus says, 

                “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” (John 3:14)

 Now to many new Christians (and perhaps some older ones), this statement must seem very odd. What does he mean by “Moses lifting up the snake”? And what does “lifting up the son of man” mean? To find the answers, let us first look back in the pages of the Old Testament and read about what happened to the children of Israel on the way to the promised-land. In Numbers 21 we read that the people of Israel were tired and discouraged of wandering around in the wilderness so, as their habit was, whenever things became difficult, they started to grumble and complain about God and Moses.

                “They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" (Numbers 21:4 and 5 NIV)

This is not a good idea. Whenever we face a problem, we have learned to go to God for help, not complain about Him and His plan. This showed God that they no longer believed they He could supply their needs and guide them safely into the promised-land. This unbelief allowed chaos to enter into their little trip. Poisonous snakes came out and started to bite them and many died. The people soon discovered that this was their own fault; that this was happening because they had sinned.

                “The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.” (Verse 7) Moses prayed to the Lord to take away the snakes, but God instead instructs Moses to do something quite unusual.

                “The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live”. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. " (Verses 8 and 9)

Wow, what a strange thing to do. If you were bitten by a poisonous snake, all you had to do was to look upon this bronze snake that was lifted up, and you would be saved from death. The key is that you had to believe that this would work. What if you were bitten and you thought “this is a silly idea, to look on a snake to live. I refuse”. Well, my friend, you would die. God provided the way to survive; all you had to believe.

               

Now we will examine the second part of Jesus’ statement. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up…”  Here he is referring to his death by crucifixion in little less than a year. The victims of crucifixion would be lifted up on stakes so that all could see them. This would be a warning to others of the penalty of defying the Roman Empire. But how would this refer to Moses and the poisonous snakes?

                “…the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him."

               

Just as Israel was required to look upon the bronze serpent and believe God’s plan to escape physical death, we have to look to the cross and believe God’s plan for salvation to escape eternal death. The next verse pulls it all together, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life”.

God does not want anyone to perish but that all receive everlasting life. God has provided us the way. It is Jesus Christ, who is the way, and the truth, and the life. Without him, we would all perish.

               

But to some, the preaching about salvation through the cross of Christ is pure foolishness. These people will perish. But to us who are saved, the cross is the power of God.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.“ (I Corinthians 1:18)              

What God instructed Moses to do in making a bronze snake must have seemed like foolishness to some; but these died. But as we see, God had a much bigger plan in mind. This record would be set as an example for what we would experience as we look upon Jesus for eternal life.

                                                                                Love Always, Ray

Our Partner- God

                                                                                                                                     

Aloha Dearest Family,

                We live a great life! We have the incredible privilege of being partners with the Creator of the heavens and the earth and His son. God’s holy spirit dwells within us 24/7, so we can have continual fellowship with Him. We pour out our hearts to Him and He reminds us how much He loves us and shows us that He will always take care of us. When you enjoy this type of relationship with God, it’s easy to trust Him for our complete well-being. You will find this all through scripture.

“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9:10)

“I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18:1a and 2) David proclaims God is mine, God is mine, God is mine. We can proclaim the same every day of our lives.

“And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.” (Psalm 37:40)

In our lives we have learned to entrust all of our plans to the Lord. This leads me to a true story.

              I was retiring from the Navy after serving 20 years on submarines. We lived in Hawaii and we decided to retire in Jacksonville, Florida, so for many months we prayed to God and asked Him for a smooth transition. We continually asked God to be a part of every aspect of our move; from the movers, to transporting our truck off-island, to arranging for the perfect air-travel for myself and my family. In all of our decisions, we included God. We lived Proverbs 3:5 and 6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” And we fully expected God to direct our paths. God became our partner in our move, so we knew God would cover everything we would need. And He did. Everything ran smoothly–until Memphis.

                The last leg of our travel was a short flight from Memphis to Jacksonville. Upon take-off we all heard two loud BANGS! People on board were concerned and the flight crew tried to find out what had happened. After a quick assessment, it was determined that we had lost part of our landing gear upon take-off. The pilot came on the intercom and told us what had happened and said that there was a loud whining coming from one of the left engines and that we would be returning to Memphis. But they also had to circle for a couple of hours to burn off some jet fuel. Many people were very scared and some were crying. The main flight attendant assured the passengers that they had trained for situations like this. She also said that she was a Christian and that she was praying for God’s protection. My wife, son and I absolutely knew it was God’s Will for us to make it to Jacksonville and the devil was not going to ruin it. Our teen-age son looked over to us to see if it was something he should be concerned about and we gave him a confident head shake “no” and he went back to sleep. Knowing that God had it covered, I went back to sleep while my wife told people how big our God was. She said, “God just became the pilot and the mechanic of this plane”. The landing was perfect as we touched down amidst many fire trucks and ambulances. As we were getting off the plane, some people said to us, “You must have nerves of steel.” “No”, we said, “we have a BIG and powerful God who loves us and causes us to triumph in life, and He wants us in Jacksonville”.

            This is not the only story I could tell throughout our lives with the Creator. The key to this kind of life is trust. But you can’t put your trust in someone that you don’t know. It has been the greatest thrill in our lives to get to know Him and His son and this knowledge of God comes from knowing and studying His Word.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” (II Peter 1:3) 

Because we know Him, we can have absolute trust in His ability, not our own. Whatever cares or worries we may have, we cast all of our cares upon God because we know that He cares for us. We’re not perfect, but we know someone who is. His love for us is never ending. He is our Daddy. He is our partner-God.

                                                Love Always, Ray