After the Israelites left Mount Hor they came into a desert country where the hot sands burned their feet. Everything looked dreary, and Canaan seemed very far away. The people felt tired and unhappy. They began to complain again about their troubles. They said the manna no longer tasted good, and that they could find no water at all. While they were complaining, God caused fiery serpents, or poisonous snakes which looked like fire and whose poison burned like fire, to crawl into their camp and bite many of the people. And those who were bitten died.
Now these Israelites were not so stubborn as their fathers had been, who forty years before this time had often sinned against God by complaining about their troubles. Nearly all of those old men had died. These younger men knew, when the fiery serpents came among them;, that God was punishing them because they had sinned. And they were sorry for their wrong-doing. They came quickly to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against you. We want you to pray for us, that God will take away these fiery serpents.” Moses prayed, and God told him to make a serpent of brass, like a fiery serpent, and bang it on a pole and set the pole up in the middle of the camp. Then God commanded the people who were bitten by the snakes to look toward the serpent of brass, which Moses had set up. “Whoever looks toward that serpent,” God said, “even though he is bitten by one of the poisonous snakes he shall not die.” And the people who believed God’s word and looked toward the serpent of brass were saved alive.
Many long years after this time the descendants of these Israelites and all other people in the world were troubled and dying in their sins. And God sent his dear Son, Jesus, into the world to be hung on a cross as the brass serpent was hung on a pole. And God said that whoever would look to Jesus would not die in his sins. But if any one would not look to Jesus, that one should die in his sins just as surely as the Israelite who would not look toward the brass serpent died of his snake-bite. Sin is like the fiery serpents; it stings the soul of every man, woman, boy, and girl. We can not see it as the Israelites could see the poisonous snakes in the desert, neither can we see Jesus as the Israelites saw the serpent of brass upon the pole. But we can feel the pain of guilt when sin stings our souls, and we can believe that Jesus died for our sins upon the cross. When we believe this we are looking by faith to Jesus, and thus we can be saved.