Yesterday (april 19) we told the story of God punishing Israel with deadly snakes. That was kind of a bummer story to hear. But as he tends to do, God also made a way out. He told Moses to make a bronze snake. If people wanted to, they could look at the snake and be healed. So sometimes God punishes his people in order to correct them. The interesting thing is that the story of the bronze snake doesn't end there. A thousand years later that bronze snake is still around. The Israelites carried it all through the desert, and put it in the temple Solomon built in Jerusalem. But when that snake is mentioned again it is being shattered. King Hezekiah destroys it because the Israelites had started worshiping it. Can you believe it? They were worshiping the thing God worked through to save them instead of God himself. They had turned it into an idol. What a mess we are.We talked a little bit about money yesterday too. I think it can become our bronze snake. I spoke with a member after the saturday service who said that money is so dangerous because we have to be constantly reevaluating our relationship to it. We are never done. When it's up there on the pole it looks like it would make such a good little idol. Worse it seems to give us results. God often gives us money to help our experience of life, but the minute we start worshiping the things God works through rather than God himself, it's time to take it out and smash it.
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