Sometimes we hesitate to do something good because we remember what happened the last time.
We offered help, and someone took advantage of it. We accepted a responsibility, and the experience left us wounded. Or we made a decision we sincerely believed was right, only to discover how badly we had misunderstood the situation. We have lived with the consequences, and we would rather not experience that pain again.
Then someone needs us. An opportunity to serve asks for our time, our resources, or our willingness to be seen trying again. We begin considering what we could do, but an old memory makes us pause. Before we have fully considered today’s responsibility, we are already remembering yesterday’s cost.
The bronze serpent in Numbers 21 invites us to sit with that tension.
Israel was traveling around Edom when the people became impatient. They spoke against God and against Moses, complaining about their circumstances and the food God had provided. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among them. People were bitten, and many died.
We can imagine how fear would spread through a camp where a serpent’s bite could take someone’s life. These were families traveling together. People who had shared meals and walked beside one another now faced the possibility of losing someone they loved. A person could see another suffering and know that the same danger remained nearby.
Eventually, the people came to Moses.
Consider the weight of that encounter. They had accused him of bringing them into the wilderness to die. Now they approached him because people were dying, and they needed him to pray. Their complaints gave way to confession. They acknowledged that they had sinned against the Lord and against Moses, then asked him to intercede.
Moses could have remembered their accusations. He had heard their words and carried the burden of leading them. Yet the account moves directly from their request to his prayer. He brought their need before God.
The people had asked that the serpents be taken away. God’s answer gave Moses something to do while the danger was still present. The Lord told him:
“Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” (Numbers 21:8 ESV).
Before we hurry to his response, consider the man receiving that instruction.
Scripture does not tell us whether Moses hesitated or what passed through his mind. We know his obedience. What follows is an imaginative consideration of the memories that such an instruction might have awakened, drawing upon experiences Scripture does record.
Let us picture Moses hearing that he was to make a metal figure and raise it before the people. Then let us look back with him toward Sinai.
He had descended that mountain carrying the tablets of the covenant. Before reaching the camp, he heard the people. Joshua thought the noise sounded like war. Moses recognized singing. Then he came close enough to see the calf and the dancing.
His anger burned. The tablets fell from his hands and broke at the foot of the mountain. He destroyed the calf, burning it and grinding it to powder. Then he turned to Aaron with a question:
“What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” (Exodus 32:21 ESV).
Aaron was his brother.
Moses knew the man standing before him. They had stood together before Pharaoh. They had shared the responsibility of speaking to the people. Now Aaron was explaining how he had received their gold and how the calf had appeared. Moses was facing a failure that involved both the people he led and someone he loved.
God’s anger against Aaron was severe. Deuteronomy tells us that Moses prayed for his brother when the Lord was ready to destroy him (Deuteronomy 9:20).
Yet Aaron’s service continued. Later, before the assembled congregation, Moses carried out God’s instructions for consecrating him to priestly service (Leviticus 8). The brother he had confronted became the priest he helped prepare for sacred responsibility.
We can imagine the humility that public service after public failure might require. Aaron could not simply begin again among people who knew nothing of what had happened. His history belonged to the community’s history. Moses had to serve alongside him, knowing both his failure and the responsibility God had entrusted to him.
Now return to the instruction about the serpent.
In the scene we are imagining, the memory of Sinai gives that command weight. Moses himself is to make this figure. He is to place it where the people can see it, and those who are bitten are to look at it for life.
Could the people misunderstand? Could the resemblance to the calf trouble someone who remembered what had happened? What would it be like to participate publicly in an act that brought such a painful event to mind?
We understand how a present responsibility can awaken questions like those. Something about the situation feels familiar, and our memory supplies the danger before we have fully considered the difference.
But there was a difference. The calf had been made and worshiped in disobedience. The serpent was to be made at God’s explicit command, with His promise attached to looking at it. The resemblance between the objects did not make the actions equivalent.
And whatever Moses may have felt, Scripture tells us that he made the bronze serpent and set it on a pole (Numbers 21:9).
He obeyed.
Those who had been bitten looked at the serpent and lived. In a camp where people were facing death, Moses carried out the instruction God had given him.
That obedience brings us back to the good we hesitate to do.
Our circumstances differ from his. Moses received an explicit command from God. We must consider Scripture, examine our motives, seek wise counsel, and apply what experience has taught us. A previous failure may call for repentance, repaired harm, or changed conduct. A previous hurt may teach us to offer help with clearer boundaries.
But we can learn those lessons and still remain willing to serve.
Sometimes we have already thought carefully about the opportunity before us. We recognize a faithful response, yet we hesitate because it will cost us something. It may require time we would prefer to keep, money we cannot replace easily, or the vulnerability of letting someone see us accept responsibility again.
We remember being misunderstood. We remember how exposed we felt when our judgment failed. We remember giving sincerely and discovering that someone had used us. The possibility of experiencing that again can make withdrawal feel like the wiser choice.
There are times when wisdom does require us to decline. There are also times when fear persuades us to turn away from a good we know we should do.
We cannot make certainty about the outcome a condition of following Jesus. Someone may misunderstand our motives. Our service may be costly. A faithful decision may bring pain, even when we have chosen rightly. We belong to our King in those circumstances too, and our past does not release us from the love and service He calls us to practice today.
The story of the serpent also reaches beyond the need Moses could see before him.
Jesus later drew upon that wilderness event to explain His own being lifted up. He made the connection directly:
“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 ESV).
Consider how far the story reaches. In the wilderness, people facing death looked toward the serpent Moses had raised and lived. Jesus pointed back to that event as He spoke about His own being lifted up. Through His death and resurrection, He brings salvation and eternal life to those who believe in Him.
The account in Numbers does not tell us that Moses understood this future significance. He carried out the instruction before him. Generations later, Jesus revealed how that event pointed toward His saving work.
Our hope rests in the One who gave Himself for us and rose from the dead. We can entrust ourselves to Him while acknowledging how much we do not know. His love gives us reason to follow, even when obedience asks us to surrender the assurance that we will never be wounded again.
We cannot see the full reach of our own faithfulness either. We may see someone’s immediate need without knowing what our response will mean to them later. We may never learn how an act of kindness helped them endure or how our willingness to serve encouraged them to take a faithful step themselves.
Today, we can consider the responsibility within our reach.
Perhaps we need to make a call we have postponed, offer help in a wiser way, or accept a responsibility with greater humility than before. We can bring our fear before the Lord and ask a mature Christian to help us distinguish a real concern from the memory of an old wound. Then, having considered what faithfulness requires, we can act.
As you sit with this teaching today, consider: What past experience is shaping your response to an opportunity before you? What lesson from that experience could help you act more wisely? What good might you do today, even while acknowledging the possibility of pain?
If you are willing, share your reflections or questions in the comments so we can learn and walk this journey together.