2 Kings 18:4, “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.”
Hezekiah king of Judah was tearing down idols, and one of the things he broke in pieces was the brass serpent Moses himself had made. That serpent went all the way back to the wilderness.
Israel had murmured against God, and fiery serpents had been sent among them, and many had been bitten and died.
Numbers 21:8-9, “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. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”
The serpent was a gift and God told Moses to make it. God used it to heal the people. The Lord Jesus himself pointed back to it in John 3:14 as a picture of his own cross. It was a good thing.
For about seven hundred years Israel kept that piece of brass, and somewhere along the way they started burning incense to it. The thing God had used to save them became the thing they worshipped. The blessing became the idol. By Hezekiah’s day a good gift had turned into a god, and the only thing left to do was smash it and call it Nehushtan, which simply means a piece of brass.
Misplaced Affection
The serpent never changed. What changed was the affection of the people. They moved their love from the God who gave the gift to the gift itself, and the moment that happened, a good thing became a bad thing.
That is how every idol gets built. Not by inventing something evil out of nothing. By taking something good and giving it the love that belongs only to God.
We Do the Same Thing Today
God gives us blessings, and we take those blessings and turn them into curses because we put our affection in the blessing more than in the One who blessed us.
Money is a blessing. Deuteronomy 8:18 says God gives us the power to get wealth. But we love it more than him.
Family is a blessing. God put us in homes and gave us people to love. But Jesus said in Matthew 10:37, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” The gift turns into a god the moment it takes the seat that belongs to Christ.
Health is a blessing. Strong arms and a sound mind are mercies. But we can worship the body, fear losing the strength more than we fear God, and the blessing turns into bondage.
A church is a blessing. The right pastor in the right pulpit preaching the right book is a gift from heaven. But we can love the preacher more than the Christ he preaches, love the building more than the Builder, and the gift becomes a Nehushtan.
Even ministry is a blessing. The chance to serve God is a kindness from him. But men have made the recognition the thing they love instead of the God they serve.
The serpent did not become bad because of what it was. It became bad because of where the affection went.
Break the Brass
Hezekiah did not preserve the serpent because of its history. He broke it in pieces and called it what it actually was: a piece of brass. He was willing to destroy something with a real testimony attached to it the moment it started taking the worship that belonged to God alone.
The God who gave the blessing is always worth more than the blessing he gave. The moment we forget that, we start kissing brass.
