We have in John chapter 3 the
most significant foundational meeting of the Lord Jesus Christ
with a sinner. And like all foundations, the
Lord lays a foundation sound and secure and straight and a
foundation that is to be, if anything is built on any other
foundation, it will fail. the Lord gathering a sinner to
himself. And in this is a picture of the
Lord gathering all of us to himself. And if we don't see a picture
of ourselves in Nicodemus and our meeting with the Lord Jesus
Christ, then I pray that the Lord remedies that terrible deficiency
as soon as he's able. Let's begin in verse 25 of chapter
2 and I'll just read it. We're going to spend our time
today looking at Numbers chapter 21 and the story of the brazen
serpent. But let's again lay this picture
before us of this man. There was a man. There was a
man. There was a man, says chapter
1 of verse 3. The Lord Jesus, verse 24, didn't
commit himself unto them because he knew all men. Right now he
sees absolutely everything and he knows more about you than
you can possibly know about yourself. And he knew not that any should
testify of man. He did not witness from man about
what was in man, for he knew what was in man. He knew what
was in Nicodemus. He knew more about Nicodemus
than Nicodemus did himself, and the same applies today. There
was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
The same came to Jesus by night. And so this is a picture of a
man, a religious man, a successful man, an esteemed man, coming
out of the darkness into the light. He came to Jesus by night,
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest,
except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus
saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he
enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? At
this stage I think Nicodemus is being naughty. There were
two ways of understanding being born again. One was to be physically
born again and the other one was to be born from above. And
Nicodemus chose the one that was most embarrassing to him.
But nothing fazes our Lord Jesus Christ with his dealing with
people. He knew what was in him. Jesus answered, verily, verily,
I say, verse 5, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. So
I trust this has got our attention. You cannot see what the kingdom
of God is, who the kingdom of God is, and you cannot enter
the kingdom of God unless you're born again. And this is a topic
that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to take Nicodemus to regarding
the brazen serpent. And verse 6, that which is born
of flesh is flesh. And that which is born of spirit
is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and where it wishes to. And thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.
So is everyone that is born of the spirit. Those who are born
of the spirit are born by a sovereign act of God, and not under the
control of man in any way, shape, or form, just as we can't control
the wind that's blowing today. Nicodemus answered and said unto
him, How can these things be? And that's the last word of Nicodemus
we have in this passage until we come to John chapter 7 and
then John 19 we hear from Nicodemus again. How can these things be? And now the Lord Jesus Christ
teaches him. Nicodemus is quiet. It's a very,
very good place to be, to be silent in the presence of the
Lord while he is talking. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak what we do know, and
testify that we have seen, and you receive not our witness.
If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall
you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? No man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even
the Son of man which is in heaven. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life." The Gospels in these two
verses, these are the verses of the Gospel. The four of the
Gospels, the reason for it, the reason behind it is in verse
16, "...for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life." So these verses and this story in numbers
that we're going to spend some time looking at today is a story
about the new birth. And if you think and think through
the Old Testament pictures of the new birth, you can go to
so many passages that would talk about new birth. But there's
a particular reason that the Lord Jesus chose this particular
one. Obviously, it was a story that
Nicodemus was very, very familiar with and he probably preached
a lot of sermons and taught people on it. But it doesn't at first
hand appear to be a passage that talks about the new birth. You
can think of so many pictures of new birth, can't you? You
can think of the remarkable, miraculous birth of Isaac to
very, very old, old parents, Abraham and Sarah. You can think
of Isaac's resurrection, as it were, on Mount Moriah when God
commanded Abraham to take him up there. You can think of the
birth, the birth again of that baby that was cast out in Ezekiel
16. There are so many pictures of
birth in the Old Testament. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
uses a picture, a story from Numbers about the brazen serpent
to picture being born again, to picture seeing the kingdom
of God, to picture entering the kingdom of God. And so I've found it fascinating,
and so I'd like us to be all fascinated together. But more
than fascinated, I want us to see the Lord Jesus Christ in
Numbers 21. So let's turn in our Bibles there, and we'll try
and have that picture of Nicodemus before us as we study these verses
here in Numbers 21. By the time we get to this stage
in numbers, the children of Israel are getting very, very close
to the end of their wilderness wanderings. They are getting
very close to entering in to the promised land. In verse 29
of the previous chapter, when all the congregation heard that
Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron 30 days in all the
house of Israel. Both Aaron and Miriam, Moses'
sister are both dead, verse 1 of chapter 21. And when the king
Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that
Israel came by the way of the spies, the spies had been there
a long time beforehand. The spies had been there years
and years and years beforehand, 20 or 30 years beforehand. He then fought against Israel
and took some of them prisoners. 2 And Israel vowed a vow unto the
LORD, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into
my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. 3 And the
LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the
Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. And he called the name of the
place Horma, which means devotion. That was the name of the place.
And so here we have Israel, this nation that had been wandering
around in the desert for all of those years, having success,
exercising faith. They went to God. They asked
God to help them. What a picture this is of all
of our flesh in verse four. And they journeyed from Mount
Hor, which is where Aaron had died, by way of the Red Sea,
to compass the land of Edom. Edom's the descendants of Esau. And the soul of the people was
much discouraged because of the way. The soul of the people was
much discouraged because of the way. Anyone here can bear testament
to that. Discouragement is just what it
is to live in this world so much of the time, isn't it? So many
of our plans are dashed. But this is the people that have
gone from looking to God and trusting God and being driven
great success by God in the very next verse. There they are. Much
discouraged because of the way. Much discouraged. And this is what happens. when
people are much discouraged. Nicodemus needed to learn this
lesson. And the people spake against God and against Moses. So what began in the garden is
replicated throughout time, isn't it? Again and again and again.
Every sermon that is worth listening to has to have the four R's in
it, doesn't it? Ruined. Spirit, recreation by God. People spoke against God and
spoke against Moses. All of our complaints are first
always against God. That's what David said, didn't
he, in Psalm 51, against thee and thee only have I sinned and
done this evil in my sight. He'd done an awful lot of evil
to Bathsheba. He'd done an awful lot of evil to Uriah. He'd done
an awful lot of evil to his family and to his nation. he'd sinned
against God. Also, the people were drawn to
see that God and his word are linked together, and God and
his servants are linked together. If you speak against God, you're
speaking against Moses, you speak against Moses, you're speaking
against God. And then listen to what they say.
Listen to these people. You've got to remember that the
reason they were there and doing all of that wandering was because
when the spies, 30 years beforehand, were sent into the land of Canaan,
they went in and what did they find when the spies crossed into
the land of Canaan? They found it exactly as God
had promised it to be. Exactly as God had promised it
to be. And they came back and it was
only Caleb and Joshua. the Lord Jesus Christ and his
faithful ones that came back and gave a faithful report. The
other 10 came back and gave a discouraging report. It's too big and it's
too hard. They're much discouraged by the
way of what they saw in there. And God killed them. He killed those 10. And then
he said that the rest of Nation Israel, all of the males from
20 years and up, are going to die in this wilderness. So why
were they there? They were there talking about
being much discouraged by the way. They're still alive, these
ones, at this part of the journey. They were there under the judgment
of God. Listen to what they're saying.
Listen to them. Unbelief is always a lie. Mark it down. Unbelief is always
a lie. What's the sin that so easily
entangles us? It's unbelief, isn't it? Listen
to their unbelief. Listen to their lies. Wherefore
have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this world? They're
still alive. And the only ones that died,
died under the judgment and the justice of God, and righteously
so. And then they say, for there
is no bread. They're saying this while they're
having a meal. And there is, neither is there
any water. Listen to them. God had supplied manna every
day. God had supplied them water. They had lived for all of these
years in the wilderness, in the desert land, and they drank every
day, and their cattle drank every day, and God had provided so
much water for them. That rock, that water came from
the rock. The water was a picture. The
water nourishing them was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want
us to keep being reminded of what the Lord Jesus had said
to Nicodemus, unless you were born of water and a spirit, you're
not going to enter the kingdom of God. And listen to what they
say. There's no bread, neither is
there any water, and our soul loathes this light bread. Now, we don't have time to look
at it in detail today, but the manor is a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the true bread that came
down from heaven. Every time they went out and
gathered those little seeds and ate and were nourished and lived
all this time, it was all a picture of the provision of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the midst of the wilderness where there was
nothing else to sustain them. Our soul loathes this life bread. Our souls want to vomit. And they call it light bread.
That means sufficient and inadequate. That's what their description
of the Lord Jesus Christ is. And they'd forgotten, hadn't
they? They'd forgotten what they'd come from. They'd forgotten the
whips in Egypt. They'd forgotten the death of
the male children. They'd forgotten all the bondages
they had there. They'd forgotten the remarkable,
miraculous redemption. They'd forgotten that they were
there where they were because of a blood sacrifice of a lamb,
that Passover lamb. All this speaks of the Lord Jesus
Christ and his redemption. And don't forget that in this
conversation, when the Lord is taking this back to Nicodemus,
Nicodemus has been part of the Sanhedrin, and they'd sent a
delegation down to the Jordan to investigate John the Baptist,
to see who he was. And they asked him good questions. And John the Baptist just had
a testimony, didn't he? He's seen God. He's heard God
speak. And this is God's Son. He's the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And they'd
come back, these people, with the same report that the spies
had. John the Baptist was saying this is exactly what he said
he was. John the Baptist was saying this is exactly who he
was promised to be. This is him. This is him. This
is God. This is Emmanuel with me. And
these religious people stood in judgment. They thought that
they could stand in judgment of God and his messenger. You
can see why the Lord took Nicodemus to this passage, because Nicodemus
at this stage is an unbeliever. He's in the process of being
saved by the Lord, but he's going to have to go through a process
of being born again. They loathe, they lie about God's
provision, and they loathe God's Son. They loathe this lied bread. Verse 6, Numbers 21. And the LORD sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of
Israel died. The Lord sent these fiery serpents.
I think the fieriness relates to the fact that when the venom
of these serpents entered into people, they died. They died
fiery deaths. It's a picture, of course, of
the judgment of God and the righteous judgment of God. And much people
of Israel died. There's always a connection between
sin and the punishment. The deadly venom of the serpent. A deadly venom that inhabits
the flesh of every child of Adam. What was the venom? He said unto the woman, Genesis
3, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the
garden. And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
Ye shall not eat it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
See, immediately she was caused to stand in judgment of God,
which is what Nicodemus was doing, and Nicodemus and all of his
other members of the Sanhedrin. And she lied, didn't he? God
said nothing about touching the tree. And the serpent said unto
the woman, you shall surely not die. You shall surely not die. For
God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good to food, and
it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and also
gave unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes
of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were
naked, and they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves naked. And then they hid from the Lord
God. We have to keep returning to the fall to understand salvation. We have to keep returning to
the fall to understand what we are, apart from the remarkable
intervening grace of God. And the attack of Satan is the
same always, isn't it? It's telling lies about the character
of God. It's telling lies about the nature
of God, it's denying his faithfulness to his word, it's denying his
right to be the judge and the just one. It's denying His goodness. God had been good to these people.
He had fulfilled every single promise He'd ever made to them,
perfectly and completely. He'd been good. And yet, Satan
is saying to them, And it's whispered in our ears
all the time, isn't it? That there is always an attack
upon the character of God. That's what unbelief is always,
isn't it? It's an attack upon the character
of God. God sent fiery serpents for a
sixth among the people, and they bit the people, and much people
of Israel died. Now please note that these people
died before there was any remedy for their... there was no salvation
to these people. Israel is a picture of the professing
Christian world in this world. And if we don't see that, we
need to ask the Lord to help us to see it. But the religious
world of Nicodemus' day is a picture of the religious world of this
day. And the Lord needs to intervene with us as he did with Nicodemus,
otherwise we'll remain as blind as bats as he is. 7 Therefore
the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we
have spoken against the Lord and against thee. One of the greatest gifts that
God can give you is a sinner. A story told of George Whitfield
when he was in America a couple of centuries ago now, a few centuries
ago, and there was a maid in one of the houses that he was
staying in and she'd heard him preach. And she asked some advice
of George Whitfield. And George Whitfield was about
to go on one of his circuits and come back in a few weeks.
And he said to the young maid, ask God to show you that you're
a sinner. And he came back a couple of
weeks later and the girl was gone. And she and George Whitfield
asked what had happened to her. And she said, they said that
she was so absolutely traumatized that she had to leave. And George
Whitfield sought her out. And the story is that the Lord
had shown her that she was a sinner and she couldn't cope with herself.
She couldn't cope with what she really was. And then George Whitfield
preached the gospel to her and asked her to plead with the Lord
to show her who he is and how he's sinners. He didn't come for the
righteous. The healthy don't need a doctor.
And so there's a mercy from the Lord in sending the snakes. There's
a mercy from the Lord in sending this death upon these people. And here are these people confessing
their sins. We've sinned. We've sinned. Not someone else. Sin is what
we are. See people get so caught up in
what confession of sin is. Confession is simply the word
confess means to confess your sins is not for
you to sit down and write out a history of all of your sins.
For a start, you don't know how many there are. You don't have
time to write them all down. And as you put your pen to your
paper, according to Romans 7 and a bunch of other scriptures,
you're sinning as well, as you go on your knees. to confess
your sins, your sinning. Sin is there with everything
we do because sin is what we are. Sin is a being activity
and therefore sin comes out in all of its horror. But sin comes
out of what's in a man. So you can read that catalogue
in Matthew 15 and in Mark chapter 7. And where does it begin? The Lord says, don't worry about
washing the outside of the cup. The sin comes from within, outside
of your heart, come all of these evils. And it starts with evil
thoughts, before he lists the other 12 things that we would
think are sins. Evil thoughts, God sees what's in us. To confess sin is to say the
same as God about sin. I'm just a sinner. Sin is what
I am. Sin is what I do. Sin is mixed with everything
I do, and I can't fix it. I'm in need of a saviour. I'm
in need of someone doing something from outside of me. I'm in need
of someone coming from heaven to do a work. I'm in need of
someone to take away my sins, because I can't take them away.
And I can wash myself and I can polish my life and I can be esteemed
by myself and esteemed by other people, like Nicodemus was in
religion. And Nicodemus is in the midst
of sin here, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ is showing
him what he is through this story, and he's showing us what we are.
We need a saviour. If you're a sinner, you need
a saviour. If you're sick, you need a doctor. If you're dying,
you need life. If you're blind, you need sight.
And that's the glorious picture that the Lord Jesus Christ is
showing him here. He's teaching him about the new
birth. That's the story here, isn't it? This is what it is
to be born again. I've been bitten. I've been bitten
by that old serpent and it's coursing through my body and
I'm dying because of that sin. That's the wages of sin is death.
The wages of sin is death. So to confess is to say what
God says about your sin. Read Romans chapter 7. Look again
at Genesis chapter 6. And that's what you are. Whether
you see it or not, Lord, a sinner is a sacred thing. Only the Lord makes sinners.
We have sinned, verse 7. 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. Moses here, of course, is a glorious
picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. They couldn't go to God directly
themselves. They needed an intercessor. They
needed a mediator. They needed someone to speak
to God on their behalf. And the Lord said unto Moses,
make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole. And it shall
come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon
it, shall live. I want us to note that so often,
and rightly and justly so, the Lord doesn't answer our prayers.
Their prayer was, take the stakes away. God's answer is, I'm going
to leave them there with you. Just like they would have much
preferred to have no enemies in the land of Canaan, but the
enemies were there all the way through, isn't it? So that they'd
be continually reminded that they are saved by grace. See the Lord, He didn't take
the serpents away, but leaving them there, He provided a way. He provided a way, a cure for
their spiritual problem. And what a lovely cure it is,
what a glorious picture that this is of the Lord Jesus Christ. You must remember what he said
to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 as we come to this part, isn't
it? He says in John 3.14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so, in exactly the same manner, the Son of Man
must be lifted up. He must be lifted up. Make thee a fiery serpent, 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. Brass is made from two metals,
copper and zinc. It pictures, of course, the two
natures of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was fully man and he was fully
God. And the two mixed together make
something which is remarkably different in so many ways from
either of them. And you put it on a pole. We often think, don't
we, it's wrong for us to take these images from Greek mythology
of the snake, you know, the one that the ambulances have and
the doctors have and the snake that's alive. It wasn't a living
snake that was put on the pole. The Lord Jesus Christ makes it
abundantly clear it's a dead snake that's on the pole. And
it was nothing like those ones of Greek mythology. You 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. This is what it is to be born
again, Nicodemus, is to see the serpent of brass, to know that
you are bitten, to know that you are dying, and to look. Salvation's in a look. He says,
look unto me all you ends of the earth and be ye saved. Salvation's
in a look. It wasn't on the basis, their
salvation wasn't on the basis of the strength of their faith,
it wasn't on the basis of how distant they were from the serpent.
It was just looking at this particular serpent. Even so, even as Moses,
even so must the Son of God be lifted up. I want us to note
too that, once again, the Lord Jesus Christ, as John the Baptist
did, when John the Baptist is proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ,
he says, behold, you look, fix your eyes upon the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. When the Lord Jesus Christ
makes his public entrance into Jerusalem, the very first thing
that he's asked is about what authority he's using to cast
out the merchandise of the temple. And what does he say to them?
He said, destroy this temple. He's talking about the cross.
And here with Nicodemus, what's he talking about? Where does
he take him to in terms of Nicodemus seeing the kingdom of God, entering
the kingdom of God, being saved? He takes him again to the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that Paul's determination
would be ours all the time. He says to the Corinthians, isn't
he, I determine to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. If we are ever given the opportunity
to bear witness and talk to people about the things of eternity,
let's follow our Lord's example here. Let's follow John the Baptist. Let's follow, let's be persuaded.
Let's let our conversation be about the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. So there are, there are in this
story some glorious pictures painted. And the weather might
sort of hold us up a little bit unless this wind dies down a
bit. But we are of course bitten, bitten by the serpent. And the
biting of the serpent has come from God, hasn't it? God sent
the fiery serpents. And when we are exposed as sinners,
and only when we're exposed as sinners, will we value a savior. It's the only time, and they're
the only people in this world, that truly value the Lord Jesus
Christ are those who know they are sinners, and that's all they
can do. The devil is called that old
serpent, and the biting of the serpent. is painful and fiery
to a startled conscience, and it's poisonous to a seared conscience. And this is only exposed by God. It's only ever exposed by God. See, they had no knowledge of
their evil until they were bitten. Did they? They had no knowledge
of how evil their behaviour was, they had no knowledge of how
evil their thoughts were, and they had no knowledge of how
evil their words were against God until they were bitten. And
that's exactly what happened in Acts chapter 2, isn't it?
When Peter comes to preach on that great day of Pentecost,
he raises up the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And those
people who had blood on their hands, only knew on the day of
Pentecost that they were sinners. They read home from the cross
and preached sermons. They continued their church services
unfazed for the next six weeks. Nicodemus and all the others,
maybe not Nicodemus seeing what had happened to him at the cross,
but the others, they continued their religious activities completely
unfazed and when Peter preached the Lord Jesus Christ being crucified.
It says in Acts chapter 2, they were cut to the heart, into their
hearts. They had a heart wound, which
signifies a dying. And that is the glorious work
of the Holy Spirit. He can fix the world of sin.
It's not my job. I can talk about your sin all
day long and I can talk about mine all day long. It means absolutely
nothing to us until the Holy Spirit comes and shows us the
Lord Jesus Christ and shows us what we are. That's the place
where we see sin as sin when we go to the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's God's job to expose it.
It's a glorious picture of salvation, isn't it? Salvation is not for
all. There were many that died. Many died. 21 verse 6. Much people of Israel
died. Many died without a cure available. Many died who would not look. So here is this glorious scheme
of salvation that was designed by God in infinite wisdom. It
was a wisdom that was from above. He came down and he had to be
lifted up. He of heaven's glory came down
and was so low in the estimation of men. He humbled himself as
a servant. He humbled himself to obedience to death, even the
death of the cross. And on that cross, he was so
disfigured by man that he no longer looked like a man. The Lord Jesus Christ must be
lifted up. If you're going to be born again,
the Lord Jesus Christ must be lifted up. If you're going to
be born again, you must see that sin is a deadly, fiery poison
inside of you. So that was the problem, wasn't
it? The problem was inside them. They could polish themselves
all day long, couldn't they? They could do all these things.
But the poison was inside. And the cure, Nicodemus, has
to be inside. You need to be a new creation.
You need to be born again. Salvation is in a look. Salvation is in a look. Don't you love the fact that
looking involves no effort, no work on your part? It's just
a look, isn't it? Look unto me and then you say,
fix your eyes. If you wait and begin to look,
then the work of living through this world remains for the look,
isn't it? Look unto me. Fix your eyes on
Jesus, the author and the finisher, the author and the perfecter
of faith. Anyone who looked anywhere else
died. Anyone who looked to any other
form of cure died. This world is full of Jesus as
he promised, and it's full of Gospels as he promised, and it's
full of so-called spirits as he promised. There's only one.
There's only one. This day and age, if you look
around this religious world, you'd have to say that a whole
bunch of the religious world is madly, busily manufacturing
brazen serpents, aren't they? And they'll make them in their
own design, and they'll make them in their own style. There
was only one, there's only one, one according to God's plan,
the one that is lifted up. There must be a knowledge of
the desperate situation and there must be a looking to the only
cure. And death is taken away, imminent
death is taken away without any human works at all. Without any
other human assistance than just a look, a look. 100% of salvation
is in a look. 100% of salvation is in beholding
the Lord Jesus Christ. the bite of the serpent. Pictures
of course, the law applied to the heart. So Paul said he was
alive once without the law. I was doing mighty well as a
Pharisee, I was esteemed by myself and I was esteemed by other people.
And then the law came. When he met the Lord Jesus Christ,
the law all of a sudden was exposed before him as spiritualness,
as I'm carnal, I'm sold unto sin. I need a saviour. The saviour
caused his need by his revealing himself to it. Just like he's
in the process of doing this with Nicodemus. The poison of death is in man,
and the cure must be in man. The other thing that is really
interesting about this story is that these people have been
given the law 40 years beforehand, and people these days think they
can go back and obey the law, and they can put people back
under the law as the rule of life. The brazen serpent wasn't
mentioned in the law. The salvation from this deadly
poison was something that was extraneous to the law. It was
something that came from above. The remedy is not in the law.
Paul said he kept the law perfectly. Nicodemus would have been the
same. Because, to go back to sin, because
sin is what we are and sin comes out of our hearts, we need a
heart transplant, we need a cure that comes only from God. Look and live. Look and live,
any man, any man, it says, any man. If the serpent had bitten
any man when he looked, one of the loveliest words in all the
scriptures, whosoever, whosoever, whosoever. So call upon the name
of the Lord, shall we say. I can fit into a whosoever. I
can't fit into many other demographics very well, but I fit into that
one just fine. I'm a whosoever. So you can't
look at him. You can't look at the serpent
up on the pole and look at yourself. You can't look at the serpent
on the pole and look at your past experience and your past
achievements and your family history. Nicodemus thought he
was in a blessed place because he was a descendant of Abraham.
And there was many advantages, but when it comes to being cured
of this serpent's bite, being a descendant of Abraham, did
you know more good than all of those who died before the serpent
was lifted up? And you won't look to the serpent
if you can look somewhere else. You have to relive, as it were,
the act of being bitten to find life. A look doesn't require your prior
abilities. All it requires. See, Nicodemus
was being told that he couldn't see the And here is this glorious story
of salvation in a look. See, a look doesn't require your
prior abilities. It just says, see, look at him.
And there must be an object to see, and that's why in the Lord Jesus Christ again and again
and again we just hold him up high he says when I am lifted
up I'll draw all men to myself the lifting up of the Lord Jesus
is always a reference to his he's being lifted up on Calvary's
cross so the Lord doesn't command look and do he just says look
and live look and live the Lord Jesus
Christ was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, Hebrews chapter
2. He was like that serpent of brass. The serpent of brass had no sin
in it. The Lord Jesus Christ had no sin in him. But the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he was lifted up, he was made sin, 2 Corinthians
5.21. When he was lifted up, according
to Galatians 3, he was made a curse when he was lifted up. Therefore
he can be the just and the justifier, and he makes people righteous. He makes his people righteous
with the very righteousness of God. We are clothed, brothers
and sisters, with the very righteousness of God and our sins. Our sins
are gone and blotted out and God doesn't remember them anymore.
God has hidden them from himself and he hid them in the death
of his son. And a just and righteous God
punished his son in justice and in holiness. It was a transaction
between God the Father and God the Son that saves our souls. It was a transaction between
God the Father and God the Son that caused the Lord Jesus Christ
to be lifted up. look and live look and live and they weren't told to produce
their own cure you just look they weren't told to operate
a healing ministry or anything else, they weren't even told
to fight the serpents. All they were doing was saying
to their brothers and sisters, will you just look, there he
is, this glorious redeemer. They weren't called upon to say
a prayer to Moses, salvation's not in the preacher, they weren't
told to go to the law. They weren't even told to look
at their wounds, they were to look at their saviour, look away,
look away. See the look, when God gives God-given faith,
the look is a saving look. Let's finish by what the Lord
goes on to tell Nicodemus in John 3.15, that whosoever, whosoever
believeth in him, should not perish, but have eternal life. May the Lord give us, yet again,
eyes to see, and may He fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank you for the glory and the wonder and the perfection
of the finished work of your dear and precious Son. And we
do thank you, Heavenly Father, that the Holy Spirit has promised
to apply these things to the hearts of your people to reveal
the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, our Father, we pray that
you take your words and cause them to be spirit and life to
us. that we might just look away,
look away from everything, look away from this world, look away
from ourselves, and fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. We
thank you, Heavenly Father, that His work is glorious and finished.
And now you see Him in Heaven's glory, bearing those wounds by
which He saved His people. And He ever lives to intercede
for us. Grant us Heaven's views of your dear and precious Son
as you've recorded them for us in your precious word. And grant
us the simplicity of simple trust relies upon Him in all things. Bless your word, Heavenly Father,
to the hearts of your people, for we pray in Jesus' name and
to His glory.