NEHUSHTAN

- Meditation -

I suspect that you are a lot like me. I don't have many temptations to worship evil things.  It's the good things that plague me. Good, but relatively unimportant or nonessential things that take up my time, my efforts, and energies.

  In my early years, music was a large part of my life – I even majored in music until my senior year of college.  I even had the opportunity to “go professional” at one point. My musical life consumed me.  When it came time to serve a mission for my church – I had a tough choice.  The only reason it was a tough choice was because my priorities were unclear. 

Some people have similar issues with sports, or career, or other things that crowd out everything in their life except that one thing – whatever it is. What we choose to occupy those hours of the day and night other than those consumed by our occupation or by 6-8 hours of restful sleep is the subject of this essay.  It is these “discretionary” hours – those hours in which we get to choose what we will do.  It is there where we have our struggles and challenges – there is where the battle rages.  We have in our faith an Article of Faith that reads, “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”    

Those four filters set a pretty high standard.  Do we choose our activities based on those 4 criteria: virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy?  I’m afraid that we often only have a generalized INTENT to do good and NOT a specific set of Godly filters.  Without these specific filters of high standards that set our agenda and our course each day, then we may be left to being a bit lazy and let the world, our friends, or our habits dictate what we do. Our focus in this message is on activities that are not necessarily bad, but are not aligned with our high priority, righteous, life-enhancing goals.

I am not speaking against wholesome entertainment or recreational activities which are good, but I am speaking against the uncontrolled pattern of behavior that drives out and leaves little or no room for moving our lives forward and serving God and others.

Here are some choices to which I refer:

Is Sunday a day of worship and fulfilling our church callings, visiting family and those in need, ministering to and others, spending quality time with family, personal study of the scriptures, OR choosing to spend time in endless, uncontrolled recreational or other entertaining past-times.

During the week, do we spend uncontrolled time in front of the TV versus time with family and those within our watchful care in our neighborhood or church?

Again, this part of our subject is not about bad things governing our life, but allowing good-but-non-essential things to take the place of great, productive, most-essential things.  Or, allow something that started out as good and balanced, to take over our life, or at least become a major focus in our life.

There is an instructive story in the Old Testament. Do you remember the experience of the Israelites in the Bible recorded in Numbers 21, 5-9? “And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. 5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. 6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 7 ¶Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 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. 9 And Moses made serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a lived.”  

 I am indebted to one of my favorite preachers, Chuck Swindoll for reminding me of this story - Come Before Winter and Share My Hope, Copyright © 1985, 1994 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc..   I quote liberally from him.  He suggests that this brass icon was a miraculous, glorious solution—and it worked. In fact, Jesus mentioned it in John 3:14–15 as an example of what He would accomplish when He died on a cross. The bronze serpent had been blessed of God and was, therefore, in that moment and under those circumstances, an effective means of deliverance.

But do you know what happened to that metallic snake? It is an interesting, but little-known story. In 2 Kings 18:4 we read:  He [King Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah [idol altars]. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan.

 This occurred about the sixth century BC. The original event with the snakes took place much earlier—around 1450 BC. For about eight centuries they had hung on to devoted worship to that bronze serpent. Can you believe that! They dragged it here and carried it there, preserved it, protected it, and polished it. Finally, they made an idol of it and even gave it a name: Nehushtan. That word simply means "a piece of bronze." And that's all it was by then. But they turned it into almost a thousand year object of worship. Something that had once been useful and effective had degenerated over the years into an idol.

 It happens today. We can make an idol out of anything or anyone in life. Often it's the good things that slither up unnoticed, and soon we discover that they have first place in our heart. Anything that occupies first place in our hearts or sits securely on our throne of worship and devotion, if not Our Father in Heaven, is in the wrong place.  Let us beware of the “Nehushtans” in our lives.

Larry Doyle Crenshaw