It seems that no matter where we go in America.....I'm speaking figuratively here....contemplating anywhere in America....using allegory....we are bitten by something. If we think about education we can feel the sting. If think about the news media we feel the pain. Entertainments of all kinds....music and film and books....all of it.....seems to be one vicious attack on our faith. The family is dying....we all know that. Even churches have become a plague. The government is one big infection. Science is a threat. It's as if we cannot venture off a busy street in our cities....for we might get mugged....and if we're only out for a leisurely drive in the country we might get a rock thrown through our windshield.
It was as if snakes were everywhere....liberal snakes....celebrity snakes....scientist snakes.....teacher and professor snakes. We would stomp them and thought we might be OK but they only increased. We are stomping so much that the soles of our feet hurt....and those bitten are dying all around us....but we have not as yet gone to God and admitted that we sinned....and that is why these snakes are everywhere.
We wouldn't vocalize it but we felt it....this old-time religion....bible belt....Puritanical....sabbath keeping....born again nonsense....was boring us to death! That crazy old preacher who sucked us in years ago never told us the cost of this discipleship thing.
The most well-known verse in all the Bible is as you know....John 3:16...."For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"....but without looking it up....do you know what passage precedes it in the third chapter of John? Here it is...."And as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."
We are that people in the wilderness. They were sick and tired of the manna....and we are sick and tired of having to go to God's word for answers. That's why we went went over to politics....and crafted a golden-haired calf to worship. Everything that we see today....the literal horror that simply choosing leaders has become....and no where to get a straight answer....is because we in effect....spoke against God's directions to us.
You remember the passage in Numbers 21 by now....God told Moses to put a fiery serpent on a pole....and Moses did....a bronze fiery serpent....and those who were bitten by snakes....and today that would be most of us....were told to look upon that fiery serpent lifted up....and they would live. That is our answer folks....not stomping the snakes....but looking upon the fiery snake on the pole.....Christ on the cross.
That manna may not have tasted like caviar....but it would certainly have had every possible nutrient necessary in it! God's Word may not taste spicy enough for you at first....but let your palate become accustomed and it will become living bread and living water....and this feast second only to what is to come...."the marriage supper of the Lamb."
