Nehushtan

Scripture: 2 Kings 18 v 4:  "He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan."

Numbers 21 v 8: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live."


Nehushtan, Moses' brass fiery serpent, had gone from being a miracle against snake bites on the Exodus from Egypt, to being worshipped as an idol during the reign of King Hezekiah. So the obedient king destroyed it along with all the other forms of idolatry being practiced.  

Moses never realised that his Nehushtan would be symbolic of the Son of God being lifted up on a pole when He was crucified. Jesus took upon Himself all the sin that the serpent in Eden had brought upon humanity. He became SIN on that Cross and broke its power in order to free us all. 

The work of the Cross in your life is to crucify your flesh, break through your stubborn soul to release your eternal spirit to receive from the Holy Spirit everything you need to stay in God's perfect will.  It brings death to every wrong thing in your life and brings healing and renewal to your whole body.

The Lord does not want a religious idol made out of the Cross. Witches and satanists hang crosses everywhere to try to ward off their own evil spirits from attacking them. It doesn't work.

Ezekiel 8 v 14 - 16: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
 15  Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
 16  And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east."

We have learned that the Roman Catholic Church is a revival of the old Babylonian religion.  Tammuz was another name for Nimrod who was elevated to the god Baal.  His mother, the witch Semiramis, then married him to become a goddess.  When people were crucified by the Romans it was as a sacrifice to Tammuz in the T shaped cross.  Over 2 million people died this horrible death.  

The abominations and false worship Ezekiel was shown in the Temple in Jerusalem revealed the occult idolatry of Baal, the Sun God, and now this has invaded churches today.  It is bringing about the apostasy, the falling away from Biblical truth to make abominations acceptable in the church.

The Lord wants us to be free of dead works. If by wearing a cross on a chain is meant to convey your commitment to Jesus Christ, why didn't His disciples do it? Why is it not stated clearly in the Bible?  Even the persecuted Christians in Rome used a symbol of a fish to know each other. One would draw an innocent arc in the sand and the other would complete it so it resembled a fish. Then they knew they were fishers of men, Christians, and in no danger of arrest.

I read this morning that the United Methodist Church had a conference in America recently to thrash out the acceptance of homosexuality in the church contrary to scripture.  This referred to gay bishops and priests, and gay marriages, but not the rejection of gay people who were part of the congregation.  The vote went against the gay clergy and now it is expected that the gay priests will split from the traditional Methodists and form a separate church.

If your lifestyle, behaviour, love, hospitality, truth, generosity, peace, and witness do not proclaim Who you follow, then no ornament will make it clear either.  We need to be real with ourselves, with God and man, ready to help one another in every way possible. We need to go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, be a martyr or put others first to really make the world take notice.

The world is weary of fake Christians and plastic Christianity. We are in a war zone 24/7 but many churches are like entertainment centres full of amusement and fun. Christians in the Middle East lands were dying on crosses every day at the hands of the psychopathic ISIS militants. Hundreds of thousands of migrants fled to Europe to escape the slaughter.

If your family were martyred in Iraq with little children hung upside down on crosses, would you worship those crosses? What of the 70,000 Christians in North Korean prison camps, kept in cages where they can only crouch? They cannot sit, stand or lie down.  We would not make an idol of those cages either.  Let us not confuse a symbol with our worship of our Father and Jesus Christ.  The Cross has a Divine work to do in our lives because of what Jesus did upon it, so He is the one who is worthy.

Hezekiah broke Nehushtan into little pieces, even though it was given by God to Moses to do miracles. As soon as it became an idol it lost its power for good.  It became a curse to them. Put your faith in Jesus alone and not in statues, symbols, or objects. Get rid of religion and religiosity to become a person of power in Christ. 

Let us build our true faith around the person of Jesus Christ, and find out from Him what is a dead work.  Is driving in a car with a medal of St Christopher going to protect you? That is a superstition and the worship of an unknown Roman saint.  The Bible does not encourage or permit us to put our Faith in dead saints.  It is the living God who protects us and answers our prayers, not a dead object or plaster saint.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we need to know the true value of the Cross in our lives as Jesus did not make the Cross holy, He made us holy by dying on it.  Help us to put aside religion for reality, and not be deceived by anything.  For we are dead and our lives are hid in Christ.  We are only truly alive when He is alive in us.  In Jesus' name. Amen.