How to make an idol: Exhibit A- Nehushtan

By Elizabeth Prata

In around 1400 BC, Moses led the Israelites into the wilderness. They had been released from slavery by powerful acts of God, including ten plagues and parting the Red Sea to aid their escape. (Exodus 1-15)

However, it wasn’t long before the Israelites grumbled. They were sick of manna, they wanted an easier life, they wanted to get there. (Numbers 20:4). So they grumbled some more, against Moses and against God.

God heard their grumbles.

“Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” (Numbers 21:6-9)

As with everything, God had a purpose. Jesus explained it to Nicodemus.

“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).

And as with everything, satan is busy, too.

By 700BC or so, satan had encouraged the Israelites to worship the brazen idol, rather than worship the God to whom it pointed. Worse, the Israelites had actually named the idol! They called it ‘Nehushtan’

It’s no wonder that the Israelites wound up worshiping the rod. It reminded them of God’s power and His miracle of the snakes in the wilderness. But they shifted their gaze from God himself to the rod itself. The rod itself had no power. It was just “a piece of brass” (which is what the word nehushtan means). Yet they had set it up on one of the high places, and bowed down to it.

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

Even a “good” thing can become an idol.

“He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).” (2 Kings 18:4)

Hezekiah removed them, which pleased God, but it was too late. The idol worship had taken root.

Satan sure can twist things, and make them seem complicated and spiritual at the same time. The Gospel is so simple. Moses’ directions from God as to what to do to be saved was so simple. (Look at the lifted up serpent and be saved).

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22 KJV)

Charles Spurgeon preached about the rod of Moses in a sermon called “The Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent“. He said,

But the picture blackens; we must have deeper shades to paint it. Behold the people after they were bitten! Can you picture their writhings and contortions when the poison of the serpent had infected their veins? We are told by the old writers that these serpents when they bit caused vehement heat, so that there was a pain throughout the body, as if a hot iron had been sent along the veins. Those who had been bitten had a great thirst; they drank incessantly, and still cried for water to quench the burnings within. It was a hot fire which was lit in the fountain, and which ran through every nerve and every sinew of the man; they were racked in pain, and died in most fearful convulsions.

Now my brethren, we cannot say that sin instantly produces such an effect as this upon the men who are the subjects of it; but we do affirm, that, let sin alone, and it will develop itself in miseries far more extreme than ever the bite of the serpent could have caused. …

And now comes THE REMEDY. The remedy of the bitten Israelites was a brazen serpent; and the remedy for sinners is Christ crucified. 

But remember, that much as those who heard of the brazen serpent might have despised it, yet there was no other means of cure. And, now hear me for one moment, while I tell the whole story of salvation. Men, brethren, and fathers, we are born of a sinful generation, and we have ourselves increased our guilt, for us there is no hope; do what we may, we cannot save ourselves.
“Could our zeal no respite know,
Could our tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone.”
But brethren, Christ Jesus, God’s eternal Son, came into this world, and was born of the virgin Mary, he lived a doleful life of misery, and at last he died a death accompanied by unutterable pangs—that was the punishment of the sins of those who, as penitents, come to Christ. If you this day so repent, and put your trust in Jesus, you have in your trust and repentance a sure proof that Christ was punished for you.

Further resources

The End Time: What IS Idolatry?

The End Time: Some Protestant Truths about Mary (Mariolatry)