"Why me, O Lord?"

"I have sinned ; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Plead with the Lord."

"We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord.... Pray to the Lord."

Two admissions of guilt. Two requests for mercy. The first came from the lips of Pharaoh in Exodus 9:27, asking Moses to intercede for him. The second was uttered by the people of God in Numbers 21:7. Pharaoh would eventually face the judgment of God in the depths of the Red Sea. For His people, God would tell Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole that everyone bitten may look upon it and be spared the death he deserved.

What was the difference between Pharaoh and the Israelites that God should act as He did? The only answer we can find is that God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. The only reason God provided a way of escape from judgment for the Israelites was that He had set His love upon them for His own reasons.

In the provision of the fiery serpent, God shows us Jesus, whom He sent in love that whoever looks to Him in faith may not perish but live, eternally. Jesus is offered to the world, Jew and Gentile alike, but offered for His sheep.

That we believe casts us upon the electing purposes of our God. We deserve mercy no more than the next guy, and we deserve judgment every bit as much as any other sinner. Our response has to be shock and awe at such amazing love and condescending grace.

May this amazing love grip our hearts and compel our witness that we might be the ones to hold up Jesus that everyone who sees Him and believes on Him might gain eternal life.