Why Doesn’t God Just Fix Our Problems?
DEVOTION • The story of the Brazen Serpent in Numbers 21:4–9 illustrates why God may, in fact, provide grace in the midst of a crisis rather than immediately removing painful crises.
Read time: 3 min
In Numbers 21:4–9, the Israelites were complaining against God and Moses in the wilderness. As a chastisement, God sent venomous serpents into the camp. When people began dying of snakebites, they confessed their sin, and pleaded with Moses for the removal of the serpents. But God did not remove the snakes. He did something better. He certainly could have made all the snakes die like he has the swarm of frogs in Egypt months before (Ex 8:11–15). He could have made the snakes vanish like he had the plague flies (Ex 8:30–32). But instead of removing the problem, God provided a healing remedy in the midst of the problem. At God’s command,
“Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Num 21:9).
Why not skip the inconvenient charade and just fix their problem? Maybe you’ve asked God the same thing about your troubles. Here’s an answer: the snakes weren’t their biggest problem. Their unbelieving, ungrateful, and complaining hearts were their biggest problem (Num 14:11). Horrific as they must have been, the snakes were only a secondary issue caused by the first. The snake-on-a-pole solution addressed both problems, for it required the Israelites to confront their sin and its consequences (by still getting bitten) and exercise obedient faith in God. God’s inconvenient remedy addressed the root of their problem—sinful unbelief—while also mercifully providing healing from the venomous bites.
So significant is this precedence of deliverance that Jesus later said that it prefigured God’s ultimate redemptive solution through the cross of Christ.
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15).
Like a brazen serpent elevated on a pole for all to behold, on the cross Jesus represented the curse and cost of our unbelieving rebellion and ingratitude. And true to form, through Jesus’ death on the cross God not only redeemed us from the consequences of our sin (eternal death and damnation) but he addressed our fallen heart condition that lead to such a consequences in the first place. He saved us from not only the consequences of sin but he is also saving us from the cause of it through the progressive process of sanctification.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” 2 Cor 5:17).
As with Israel of old, God is still after much more than removing from us the temporal and eternal consequences of our sins. He’s working in us to produce hearts that need no such consequences: hearts of desperate faith and humble surrender to God, his word, and his ways.
So, are you prone to complaining? Can’t figure out why life has to be so hard? Maybe God is mercifully designing the very things you complain about to drive you you face the ugliness within and look upon the sufficiency of Christ alone to heal and sanctify you from the inside out.
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Heavenly Father, I pray that my trials, troubles, difficulties, and crises help me confront my own sin and turn to gaze outward upon Jesus. Consecrate my eyes to see Jesus not only lifted up on the cross bearing my sins but exalted higher still in glory—resurrected, reigning, and set to return to make all things right. Hopeful because of Jesus, I pray. Amen. ❖
