Numbers 21 | In the Wilderness

Listen to this week’s sermon, In the Wilderness preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from Numbers 21 and John 3.

Episode Transcript

Rev. Benjamin Kandt (00:06):
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Benjamin.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City, Orlando.
At New City, we long to see ourFather answer the Lord's
Prayer.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at Newcity Orlando.com.

Evan Pederson (00:21):
Please bow your heads and pray with me.
Eternal God, in the reading ofScripture, may your word be
heard.
In the meditation of ourhearts, may your word be known.
And in the faithfulness of ourlives may your word be
displayed.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

(00:41):
Today's scripture comes fromNumbers twenty-one and John
three.
Please remain standing if youare able.
From Mount Hor they set out bythe way to the Red Sea to go
around the land of Edom.
And the people became impatienton the way.
And the people spoke againstthe Lord and against Moses.

(01:02):
Why have you brought us up outof Egypt to die in the
wilderness?
For there's no food and nowater, and we loathe this
worthless food.
Then the Lord sent fieryserpents among the people, and
they bit the people so that manyof the people of Israel died.
And the people came to Mosesand said, We have sinned, for we

(01:23):
have spoken against the Lordand against you.
Pray to the Lord that he takeaway the serpents from us.
So Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said to Moses,Make a fiery serpent, and set it
on a pole, and everyone who isbitten when he sees it shall
live.
So Moses made a bronze serpentand set it on a pole.

(01:44):
And if a serpent bit anyone, hewould look at the bronze
serpent and live.
And as Moses lifted up theserpent in the wilderness, so
must the Son of Man be liftedup, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life.

(02:04):
This is God's word.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt (02:09):
In an interview with NASA, Elon Musk
was asked, could Mars sustainhuman life?
Now, Elon Musk believes thatbecoming an interplanetary
species will eventually be ourmost attractive hope for
survival.
And so what he wants to do ishe wants to terraform Mars.
He wants to make it moreEarth-like so that it's

(02:31):
habitable to human life.
He's even been quoted assaying, I want to die on Mars,
just not on impact.
And when we look at our textthis morning, we see that
learning to walk in thewilderness is our most
attractive hope for survival.
That as we live the Christianlife, wilderness is the rule,

(02:54):
not the exception.
And so the question I want toask and answer is how do we walk
through the wilderness?
How do we walk through thewilderness?
And with that, I have onesingle point, which is that we
look and live.
We look and live.
If you have a Bible or a deviceor the worship guide, go ahead
and get Numbers 21 in front ofyou because we're going to walk

(03:15):
verse by verse through thispassage together.
Numbers 21, verse 4 says this.
The wilderness is actually amain character in the book of
Numbers.
It's not only the setting, it'sactually the condition in which

(03:38):
everything else is happening.
And so as Israel's wandering inthe wilderness, some things you
have to realize is that thewilderness, biblically, is the
opposite of the Garden of Eden.
The Garden of Eden was a placethat had well-tilled land and
was plentifully watered, andthere was abundance and growth
and fruitfulness, but thewilderness is barren and

(03:59):
desolate.
You see, humanity was born inthe garden and will one day
dwell in the city, and the inbetween is the wilderness.
And so many of our anxieties inmodern life come from our
tension of the times, of what itlooks like to live here and now

(04:19):
in this wilderness experience.
But the wilderness is God'sacademy.
Everybody he loves, he sendsinto the wilderness at some
point.
Whether it's Abraham or Mosesor Elijah or John the Baptist or
Jesus or Paul or you, you willall have stints in the
wilderness.
You see, the desert teaches bytaking away.

(04:42):
Now, many of us, we think welearn through addition, more
books, more classes, morepodcasts.
That's how we learn and grow.
But actually, God often teachesthrough subtraction.
Because when you're in thedesert, there's deprivation and
desolation.
He starves out all other voicesand all other sources of
identity and comfort and successand greatness.

(05:06):
Because the wilderness is aplace where we are invited to
face what we would rather notface.
So, because of that, itrequires what Jesus calls
patient endurance.
Look with me again at verse 4.
It says, And the people becameimpatient on the way.
There's a book called Endure byAlex Hutcheson.

(05:28):
I'd commend it to you.
It's about endurance sports andthe limits of human strength
and elasticity.
And he has this greatdefinition of endurance in
there.
He says, Endurance is thestruggle to continue against a
mounting desire to stop.
Endurance is the struggle tocontinue against a mounting
desire to stop.

(05:49):
And for the Israelites, thatmounting desire got to be too
much for them.
And they grew impatient on theway.
You see, in the Christian life,we're called to trust the slow
work of God, but we are oftenimpatient because we want to
reach the end without delay.
We want to get there already.
That's what the Israelites wereexperiencing.
And so my question for you thismorning is how are you becoming

(06:11):
impatient on the way?
What does that actually looklike for you?
And it's different for many ofus because your wilderness might
look like unemployment or evenjust a miserable job.
It might look like brokenrelationships or chronic pain,
it might be loneliness,exhaustion, it might be
unanswered prayer.
Many of us are in wildernesses.
What does it look like for you?

(06:32):
How is it that enduring in thiswilderness is actually becoming
unbearable over time?
What do you do with yourimpatience?
You see, Israel's impatienceactually reveals something
deeper.
It reveals something about whatthey believe about God.
Look with me at verse 5.
And the people spoke againstGod and against Moses, and

(06:56):
here's their charge.
Why have you brought us up outof Egypt to die in the
wilderness?
This is a charge of murder inthe first degree.
God, you intended to kill us inthe wilderness.
That's why you brought us here.
Why would you do that to us?
That's that's how they lash outin their impatience.

(07:18):
And the reason why is becauseyour view of God will shape the
story that you tell yourselfabout what you're going through.
What you believe about God willshape the way that you spin a
narrative inside your own mind.
And those scripts that we tellourselves are so important.
They shape our lives and ourperceptions.
Because in our pain, we oftenmisinterpret God's purposes.

(07:41):
That's what Israel's doinghere.
Now, the stories that we tellourselves have profound power in
our lives.
This is why.
There are no bare facts.
What I mean by that is you'reconstantly taking in data and
then whipping up a narrative tomake sense of it.
Your subjectivity always getsinvolved whenever you're

(08:02):
perceiving things.
Neuroscience has proven that wedon't see things as they are,
we see them as we are.
And so, in light of that, lookat the evidence that Israel
marshals to charge God with thecrime.
Look at verse 5 again.
It says this Why have youbrought us up out of Egypt to
die in the wilderness?

Here's the purpose (08:22):
for there is no food and no water, and we
loathe this worthless food.
So the evidence that they giveis there's no food and no water.
But notice what they notice.
In other words, you think someof us think if we could just see
God show up and blow up, if wecould just see a miraculous

(08:45):
intervention, then we wouldbelieve.
But they forgot that God fedthem every day with bread from
heaven and brought water to comeout of a rock in the desert.
And yet they claim no food, nowater.
You see, if you want to grow inself-awareness, you need to

(09:05):
begin to notice what you notice.
Pay attention to what you payattention to.
Because the reality is yourmind takes in so many stimuli
all at once that it couldn'tpossibly make sense of all of
it, so it has to filter most ofit out.
Most of what you see, hear, andfeel, you don't actually,
you're not even actually awareof that.

(09:27):
Now, the reason why I say thatis because your attention
follows what you're interestedin, and where your attention
goes, your awareness flows.
Let me let me make that plain.
I don't attend to the fact thatwhen I'm singing, it's not
great.
But every now and again Iwonder if my bat my pack is on,

(09:47):
and the poor people in theoverflow room are getting
another vocalist up here.
And in that moment, my interestin making their life less
painful and my attention to mybot my battery pack expands my
awareness in that moment.
That happens almost everySunday.
You see, why this matters isbecause every day you have a

(10:09):
hundred things to give thanksfor and a hundred things to
grumble over.
Every day.
You choose.
Because joyful people don'tjust happen.
The default is discouragement.
But you choose to attend towhat you attend to.
You begin to notice what younotice.

(10:30):
And as you do that, you beginto expand your awareness of
God's goodness in your life.
But if you choose to look atthe lack in your life, you will
loathe your life.
Look at verse 5 again.
It says, For there's no foodand no water water, and we
loathe this worthless food.
So let me ask you, what is thestory that you're telling

(10:52):
yourself about your situationright now?
Notice what you notice.
Now, nothing distorts ourperception like deception.
Look with me at verse 6.
Then the Lord sent fieryserpents among the people, and
they bit the people, so thatmany people of Israel died.

(11:14):
Now you gotta ask yourself whenyou read this, why send
serpents as the form ofjudgment?
This is how I meditate, this ishow I read the scriptures, is I
ask questions and then Imeditate on those questions
until I get some sense of ananswer.
And so in Numbers, God judgedthe people by having the earth
swallow them up with fire fromheaven, with quail that came out

(11:36):
of their noses.
Why serpents now?
Well, remember the story ofscripture.
It was a serpent in the gardenthat first insinuated God is not
good.
God is withholding from you.
And so in the Bible, because ofthat, venom becomes a metaphor
for lies.
Let me give you some examples.

(11:58):
Psalm 58 says this they goastray from birth speaking lies.
They have venom like the venomof a serpent.
Romans 3.13, they use theirtongues to deceive.
The venom of vipers is undertheir lips.
James 3.8, no human being cantame the tongue.
It is a restless evil full ofdeadly poison.

(12:18):
You see, like Eve and likeIsrael, we buy into the same
serpentine subtext of deceptionthat ends up distorting our
perception.
That's what's happening in ourtext this morning.
And so, listen, many of us areliving in lies right now.

(12:38):
You've made agreements in yourlife with that forked tongue
whisper that chatters on and onand on inside your head.
And as you've made agreementwith those lies, you've begun to
go wayward in those areas ofyour life.
And just remember, it's bothGod's kindness and his severity
that are meant to lead you torepentance.

(13:00):
To turn back.
And so if we identify with theserpent, you will feel the fiery
effects.
That's what this text is tryingto teach us.
And so what do we do?
Well, actually, in this case,we do what Israel does.
We confess.
Look at verse 7.
And the people came to Mosesand said, We have sinned, for we

(13:22):
have spoken against the Lordand against you.
You see, confession is notsimply saying, I'm sorry.
Confession is telling thetruth.
I've watched enough detectivedocuseries and shows to know
that when they get in that darkroom, right, and they got the
light on them, and they're like,Where were you, July 13th,
right?
There's a whole intense moment.
What they're not looking for isfor the suspect to say, I'm

(13:46):
sorry.
They want them to tell thetruth.
That's confession.
And so right now, if you findyourself aware, heightened in
your sensitivity that you'vebeen living lies, simply
acknowledge them to the Lord.
Tell him the truth.
God, right now, I believe liesabout who you say I am.
I believe lies about my theworld that we live in.

(14:09):
I believe lies about the peoplein my life.
I believe lies, God.
You're simply telling thetruth.
But don't just tell the Lord.
Tell someone who can pray foryou.
Maybe that's your circle, maybethat's your spouse, maybe
that's your friend.
But just go to them and say,Hey, I have sinned.
Will you pray for me?
That's exactly what Israeldoes.

(14:30):
Look at verse 7.
Pray to the Lord that he takeaway these serpents from us.
So Moses prayed for the people.
Something beautiful happenshere.
When Moses prays, the Lordmakes a way immediately.
Why?
Well, Martin Luther said thatprayer is not overcoming God's

(14:51):
reluctance, but laying hold ofhis willingness.
God wants to deliver Israelfrom the serpents.
He wants to deliver us.
He desires that.
In fact, 2 Peter 3 says it likethis the Lord is patient toward
you, even in your ownimpatience.
The Lord is patient toward you,not wishing that any should
perish, but that all shouldreach repentance.

(15:13):
You see, the Lord wants us tolook and live.
That's what we see in verse 8.
And the Lord said to Moses,here's his provision, here's his
way.
Make a fiery serpent and set iton a pole, and everyone who is
bitten, when he sees it, shalllive.
Why is this the way the Lordwants to cure snake bites?

(15:34):
What is happening here?
And so what God's wanting to dois He's wanting to help them to
face their fears.
God is trying to suck the venomout of the lies that you

(15:55):
believe.
And this text is not onlytheologically rich, it's also
psychologically insightful.
You see, because decades ofpsychological research show that
the most effective treatmentfor fear-based disorders is
called exposure therapy.
I would go as far as to sayit's the only thing that works.
Nothing else will cure you fromanxiety disorders, fear

(16:19):
disorders, nothing else butexposure.
Well, this is what this is.
Exposure therapy is thesustained yet safe confrontation
with whatever you fear.
Sustained yet safeconfrontation with whatever you
fear.
Because exposure therapiesbelieve that at the heart of
your suffering is avoidance.

(16:40):
It's your unwillingness to lookat what you're afraid of.
So you see why God lifts up aserpent in front of them and
says, Look and live.
It's exposure therapy.
So when I'm working withclients in my counseling
practice, one of the things Iwill do is I'll come up with
little experiments to do withthem.
Somebody comes with socialanxiety, I'll say, Hey, you have

(17:02):
an event coming up wherethere's going to be people.
I'm encouraging you to find oneperson that you trust.
And sometimes it's me, if ifthey're willing and if that
makes sense, find one personthat you trust that will go with
you to that party.
I want you to walk to the frontdoor.
I want you to check in, feelwhat it's like to be you in that
moment.
Your heart's racing, yourmind's spinning.

(17:22):
What's the story you're tellingyourself in that moment?
Attend to what you attend to.
But you've got a person therewho's with you, who's gonna
encourage you, comfort you, be asource of safety for you as you
step into that party.
Yeah, you might say somethingstupid.
Yeah, you might get salsa onyour shirt.
It's okay.
You're gonna be okay.
And you can leave whenever youwant to, but I encourage you to

(17:43):
stay as long as you can.
That's exposure therapy.
That's how it works.
Now, extrapolate that towherever your fears are.
Sustained yet safeconfrontation with whatever
you're afraid of.
That's the only cure.
It's the only cure.
And so, because of that, uh, mypoor children have to be the

(18:06):
children of a therapist.
And so this is what happens.
Uh, I read Jonathan Haidt'swork on uh anxiety and this
anxious generation, and he saysone of the cultural factors
that's actually threatening theresilience of the next
generation is what he callssnowplow parenting.
Now, I don't know if thatpreaches in Orlando like it
would in Detroit, where I'mfrom, but just imagine for a

(18:28):
moment, there's this whitestuff, not manna, it's um it's
it's snow and it comes from theground or from the sky and it
lands on the ground, right?
I'm not gonna go there.
But snow plow parenting is thisthese parents that get out in
front of their kids and theyplow everything that might be a
source of frustration, fear, orfailure out of the way in order
to make their kids' lives aseasy as possible.

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And it destroys their children.
Like a baby bird, it needs tostruggle to hatch from the egg
or it will never fly.
That's true for your kids aswell.
And so, knowing this, that mykids are gonna be culturally
malformed if I'm not careful,I've tried to catechize them to
counterform them.
So it looks like this when Isense that my children are

(19:09):
scared, I get down at theirlevel and I talk really quietly
and softly, and I say, What dowe do with our fears?
And they say, Daddy, weovercome our fears with faith.
And I say, Do you trust me thatyou're gonna be okay?
And then I push them into thedeep end.
No, I'm just kidding.
That last part, that last partisn't true.
Some of you are like, I'm gonnacall somebody to report you on

(19:33):
this.
But I do, I do this.
Uh, if my kids say I can't, Isay can't is only your last
name.
Let's do this.
Let's go.
The reason why I say this isbecause avoidance is at the
heart of your suffering and yourchildren's suffering.
Do not avoid the wilderness.

(19:54):
Do not turn away from what youfear, turn towards it, look at
it.
Because when you look, it's theonly way that you can live.
That's the at leastpsychological message of Numbers
21.
And so the people were dying ofsnake bites, but if they looked
fear in the face, they wouldlive.
This is a form of divineexposure therapy because God

(20:16):
makes us fear, God makes us facewhat we fear in order to free
us from it, and there's no otherway.
The only way out is through.
Look with me at verse 9.
So Moses made a bronze serpentand set it on a pole.
And if a serpent bit anyone, hewould look at the bronze
serpent and live.
In my research, I was baffledby this stat.

(20:40):
More people die from venomoussnake bites each year than ever
died from Ebola.
That's wild to me.
And there's only one effectivetreatment for venomous snake
bites, it's anti-venom.
Um, and I know how to makeanti-venom because uh I read a
Scientific American article thisweek.
And in there, there's likethree steps.

(21:00):
This is what it looks like.
You start with doing somethingcalled milking the venom from
the snake, which I assume is alab intern's job.
So you milk the venom from thesnake.
Second, you inject that venominto a horse or a sheep, and
then third, you actually bleedthat animal to extract the
antibodies that they produce.

(21:20):
Thus, you have anti-venom.
There's so much symbolicamazingness to this, like the
fact that the Bible is regularlytrying to remind us that the
life is in the blood.
It's just a really incrediblething.
But but here's one thing Idon't want you to miss.
Snake venom is used to createanti-venom.
The source of judgment is thesource of salvation.

(21:41):
That's how Jesus, the greatestpreacher to ever live, taught
this text.
Look with me now at John 3.14.
This is Jesus talking.
He says, and as Moses lifted upthe serpent in the wilderness,
mind you, he's talking aboutnumbers 21.
Jesus didn't skip numbers inhis Bible reading plan.
And as Moses lifted up theserpent in the wilderness, so

(22:02):
must the Son of Man be liftedup, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life.
Notice, you maybe didn't trackwith this, but the next verse is
16.
For God so loved the world.
The most famous verse in allscriptures, right after this,
this is the context.
You see, Jesus was a Bible guy.
He read the Bible, he taughtthe Bible, he interpreted his

(22:23):
life in light of the Bible, andhe saw that the deepest point of
contact between the bronzesnake and himself was this act
of being lifted up.
That's the thing that he wantsto draw the comparison to.
The Greek word for lifted uponly occurs four times in the
Gospel of John, and every singletime it refers to Jesus

(22:47):
physically being hoisted up on across to be crucified.
The Son of Man is lifted up ona cross.
You see, Moses looked lifted upthe snake on a pole so that all
who were bitten might look andlive.
In the same way, Jesus, the Sonof Man, must be lifted up on
the cross so that we might lookand live.
You see, we all have snakebites.

(23:09):
We have the venom of liesinjected into our lives, and we
live in light of it.
We've lived into those lies invarious ways.
And so not only are we wounded,we have battered bodies and
shattered souls, but we are alsowayward because we've made
agreement with those lies.
And we've lived apart from Godbecause of our deception,

(23:30):
distorted perception.
And we accuse God of things,and we get impatient on the way,
and all of those things aretrue of us, just like it was
true of them.
But God's anti-venom for us isto look and live.
He wants us to, just as thebronze serpent kind of looked
like the fiery serpents, butthey but it couldn't wound, in

(23:51):
the same way, Jesus took on ourflesh in every way, yet without
sin.
You see, in both the wildernessand Golgotha, God confronts us
with what terrifies us the mostmost and then turns that into
our instrument of healing.
What do we see when we look atthe cross of Christ?
We see everything that we mostfear.

(24:13):
In the cross of Christ, we fearrejection and we see Jesus was
abandoned on the cross, dyingcompletely alone.
We fear unjust suffering.
Jesus was crucified by a falsetrial and trumped-up charges.
Look and live.
You see, we fear humiliationand shame.

(24:34):
Jesus was spat on and mockedand nailed naked to a tree.
Look and live.
We fear death, but Jesusdefanged death by putting it to
death on the cross.
Look and live.
You see, the means of yourjudgment will be the source of
your salvation.
Fasten your eyes if you want tobe set free from lies.

(24:55):
That's the invitation.
But the look is a look offaith.
You see, it means seeing Jesuswith the eyes of faith.
Look again at John 3 15.
Jesus said, and as Moses liftedup the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son ofMan be lifted up.
That here's the line whoeverbelieves in him may have eternal

(25:17):
life.
You see, when I say look andlive, you might go, what does
that even mean?
That feels abstract, that's notconcrete.
Give me a to-do list or acoaching plan.
Might be able to get afterthat.
I'll do some of that exposuretherapy stuff you're talking
about.
What does this mean to look andlive?
Well, it means to direct yourattention.
It means that some of you,Jesus has been trying to catch

(25:39):
your eye for a little while, butyou've allowed him to maintain
space in your peripheral vision.
And he's saying, if you want tobelieve, don't look at your
faith, look at me and live.
Reorient your entire life in mydirection.
Turn towards me so that you cansee.
There's some researchers whopaid 13 volunteers to pedal on a

(26:03):
stationary bike at the samepace for as long as they could
to measure the psychologicalcomponent of physical
limitations.
Okay, this is what it lookedlike.
The cyclists were split intotwo groups, and the second
group, on average, actually rode13% longer than the first and
reported that it was easier.
What was the difference betweenthe two groups?
That's what a good scientistwould ask, right?

(26:25):
The difference was they hadimages that were flashed so
quickly in front of them, it wasimperceptible.
But one group had images thatwere sorrowful and confusing and
threatening, and the other hadimages that were happy and
exciting and positive.
13% more effective, longerlasting, more endurance.
What does that matter?

(26:47):
Well, listen, to look and live,we have to bring the truths of
the gospel in front of our eyesso that we can see them, so that
we can have patient endurance.
This is what this looks like insuffering.
Jesus died, so that means thatI know this suffering, this
wilderness I'm I'm walkingthrough right now, couldn't
possibly be punishment.
Because Jesus already took itfor me.

(27:08):
It looks like thinking Jesus isalive and well, bringing that
in front of your eyes.
Resurrection is true, thereforeJesus must be with me even in
this wilderness.
Maybe I can patiently endure alittle longer.
13% longer?
It means recognizing that Jesusdid not suffer so that you
would not suffer.
Jesus suffered so that when yousuffer, you might become like

(27:31):
him through it.
You see, when we look and live,we recognize that if Jesus is
victorious, it means that if Idon't quit, I win.
Patient endurance.
And so we want to stare untilwe can say, see him there
hanging on the tree.
He bled and then he died andthen he rose again for me.

(27:52):
And when you can say that fromthe heart, what happens is Jesus
said, I must be lifted up onthe cross.
Why?
To give you eternal life,offering it freely to everybody
right here, right now, who willsimply look and live.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we come before younow.

(28:16):
We see you with the eyes of ourheart.
Would you enlighten the eyes ofour heart, Holy Spirit?
We wish to see Jesus not onlyhanging on the cross for us, but
risen in victory for us, seatedat the right hand of God the
Father.
God, we praise you that youknow our frame, and you know

(28:41):
that we need sensible signs inthe sacraments.
Thank you that as we come tothis table, we get to see Jesus
in the bread and the wine.
We get to behold and look uponhim by faith.
We pray this in his name.
Amen.