A Bronze Snake… And Me

SAT., JAN. 29, 1994, 7:05 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is a strange juxtaposition of two Scriptural passages, one from the time of Moses and one from My time, as Jesus in the earth. If these two can be meshed into some coherent message, then surely they also can fit into this life of your time. You are somewhat dubious, but hear Me out on this dreary, cold morning.

The first story is of an incident that seems typical of the relationship between Me, as Almighty God, and My chosen people, the Jews. I had brought them out of Egypt, with Moses as leader, with several miracles (real ones) included. They were hungry, and I gave them manna, which was nutritious but bland (insipid?… worthless?…) But they grumbled against Me, so I gave them a “negative miracle” – poisonous snakes. I was thus causing the deaths of some of My chosen people. And so they repented, and Moses prayed to Me for them. I then prescribed a strange antidote: make a bronze serpent and hoist it upon a pole, and those who would look at it would recover from the poisoning and live on.

I certainly could be described here as a capricious God… or One with a sense of fun, oddly expressed. These were people, like those in your congregation (symbolically) who were dying in the desert because some in their midst complained about their state of being and about My care of them. So I gave them a frightening and, for some, a lethal punishment. This brought repentance from them and, from My direction, a bronze snake, a representation of the evil that was attacking them, which gave those who looked up to it life again.

Then many years later I came into the earth directly as the baby and as the man, Jesus. I told them of life as it should be lived and of My Kingdom. These spiritual descendants of those in the desert could not accept the message that I was their Messiah, He who would finally deliver them. They put Me up on a cross, a pole, and My body died there, for all to see. I came down from that cross, but it remains lifted up, and those who keep their eyes upon it shall live… eternally. That which caused the death becomes the means for everlasting life.

You Christian people are still a complaining and dissatisfied people. I have given you much, and you want more. There is enough for all, but you will not distribute it so that all have some. I need to get your attention, but you do not listen for My messages… or you interpret them in ways that reinforce the status quo.

I send, or allow, diseases like AIDS… like Alzheimers… to get your attention, but you see these as medical problems that must be solved or dealt with scientifically and sociologically. I send, or allow, violence to infiltrate your culture, with young people killing young people, and you seek to deal with it as a legal and police problem.

Families are broken… or never even established… and you are seeing the modern counterpart of the invasion of poisonous snakes. How many rational folk in Moses’ company would have agreed that the answer to this poisonous terror was to look up to a bronze representation of that which was killing them? But it was My prescription, and it worked.