If you would first turn with
me to the gospel of John chapter three. John chapter three. When the Lord Jesus spoke to
Nicodemus, Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews. He was the one who
came to the Lord Jesus by night. The Lord spoke in easy to understand
terms. He didn't preach to Nicodemus
the doctrine of regeneration. He just simply said, except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Verse
three. The Lord didn't discuss the ins
and outs of the doctrine of sanctification. He simply said, except a man
be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God. Verse five. The Lord didn't enter
into a debate with this educated Pharisee on the workings of the
Holy Spirit. He just simply said, the wind
blows where it listed, where it wheels, where it determines,
where it prefers. And then when the Lord begins
to speak to him on the subject of faith, he says in verse 14
this, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believe
it, that's faith, in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. Now, Nicodemus was a teacher
of the scriptures concerning the zeal of the law. He was a
Pharisee. He was an educated man in the
things of the law, but he was a child in the things of God. A perfect example of that is
when the Lord told him that a man must be born again to see the
kingdom of God. And Nicodemus said in verse four,
how can a man be born when he's old? How can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? You see, he had no idea
what the Lord was talking about when he spoke of being born again. And the Lord said unto him in
verse six, that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that
which is born of the spirit is spirit. In other words, you can't
understand spiritual things with a physical and carnal knowledge.
You just can't. To be born of the flesh is one
thing, but to be born of the spirit is altogether another. And that's what Paul meant when
he wrote, but the natural man, the natural, the physical, the
carnal man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God. They are foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. And that simply means they have
to be spiritually understood. They can't be understood with
carnal reasoning. What men call Common sense will
not apply in the things of God. Nicodemus asked in verse nine,
how can these things be? And the Lord answered, art thou
a master, a teacher of Israel and knowest not these things?
And here lies the problem with men and women naturally speaking. In verse 11, the Lord says, we
speak that which we do know and testify that we have seen and
you receive not our witness. You don't believe what we tell
you and you don't believe what we preach. And the Lord said,
if I've told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall
you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And this is
the heart of the gospel. This is the key to understanding
who Christ is and what Christ did. Look at verse 13. The Lord
said, and no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came
down from heaven, even the son of man, which is in heaven. In
other words, no man, no woman can save themselves. We can't
come to God. God must come to us. We didn't love God, but God loved
us. We love him because he first
loved us. We didn't choose God, God chose
us. Our Lord plainly said, you have
not chosen me, but I've chosen you. No child of God, no true
believer raised themselves up by their bootstraps. God reached
down his hand for you, if you're saved. No man had to send it
up to heaven, but he, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the God-man,
came down from heaven. He became flesh and blood to
save his people from their sin. And it was then that the Lord
Jesus pointed Nicodemus to a story that he knew very well. The story
of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. And Christ
told him and showed him how every sinner must be saved. Even so,
must the Son of Man be lifted up. Not lifted up to the throne
of David, but lifted up on the cross of shame. Now, most in
Israel, the Pharisees, along with even the disciples of the
Lord Jesus had all thought that the Messiah, when he would come,
that he would sit upon the throne of David, that he would establish
a new kingdom here on earth, and that he would deliver Israel
out of Roman bondage. But they didn't understand that
the Lord's kingdom was a spiritual kingdom. It was a heavenly kingdom. In our text, verse 14, the Lord
teaches Nicodemus and us that he must become what we are with
the exception of sin so that we might become or be conformed
to what he is in order to be saved. And it's the teaching
of substitution. That's the only way any sinner
can be saved. For He, God, hath made Him, Christ,
to be sin for us, who knew no sin. Christ knew no sin. He was
perfect. He was holy, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. God will accept nothing
short of perfect righteousness. And we can only be made perfectly
righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want you to turn with me
to Numbers chapter 21. Numbers chapter 21. The story before us this morning
is a true story. And the true story that we find
in this passage of scripture presents to us a very simple
outline of four things, which shows us the only way that chosen
sinners can be saved. So just for a few minutes this
morning, let us consider these four things together. I'm gonna
go ahead and give them to you up front, and then we'll discuss
each of them individually or separately. First, we have the
people in the wilderness that were bitten by fiery serpents.
Secondly, we have the brazen serpent that Moses made. Thirdly, we see what was to be
done with that brazen serpent. And then lastly, we see what
was to be done by the people of Israel that were bitten by
the fiery serpents. And when you see those four things,
you see the gospel. Now look at verse six to begin
with. And the Lord sent fiery serpents. Let me read that again. "'And
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, "'and they
bit the people, and much people of Israel died.'" We're speaking
first of the people in the wilderness. Now we've discussed this many
times, how that Israel in the Old Testament very well, very
accurately pictures you and I by nature. They very accurately
picture us in our state of sin. Israel had stood against the
army of Amalek. They had endured all types of
weariness. They had endured thirst. They
had endured hunger. The sun had smitten them by day
and the frost brought them discomfort by night. But can you imagine
the horror and the confusion they experienced when they were
invaded by an army of serpents, fiery serpents at that. and they
begin dying all around the camp. People just falling off left
and right. Can you, in your mind, fathom
how terror must have spread through the camp like a wildfire? I don't know what type of serpents
they were, but the Hebrew word translated serpent in verse six
means a hissing snake. These serpents were fiery, and
the Hebrew word translated fiery means burning, poisonous snakes. Maybe they're like those small
coral snakes found in the Orient, whose venom is just so poisonous
that within just a matter of minutes, it kills the person
that it bites. But there are truths found here
in verse six that many in religion today deny. God is not the little
old man upstairs that wants to make everybody happy. It was
God that sent the fire servants. It's God's purpose for them to
bite the people. And it was God's purpose for
much people, many people in Israel to die. And many today would
take issue with you on that. They'd argue and say that God
loves sinners too much to do such a thing. God is too good,
God is too compassionate, too merciful and gracious to do such
a thing. Is he? The scriptures declare
that God is angry with the wicked every day. Psalm 711. So why did God send these fiery
serpents? Because he was angry with the
wicked. The people in Israel, they were a rebellious, murmuring,
complaining people who were absolutely ungrateful for all that God had
done for them. God had delivered them out of
Egypt with a mighty hand. God spared them at the Red Sea
against the army of Pharaoh. God led them with a cloud by
day and with a pillar of fire by night. And when they were
hungry, God gave them bread from heaven. When they were thirsty,
he calls cool, refreshing water to flow from a rock. And that
rock followed them around everywhere they went. And what did they
do? Well, verse five tells us exactly
why God sent these fiery serpents to bite and to kill these people.
Look at it. And the people spake against
God and against Moses. And they said, you brought us
up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, for there's no bread,
neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth or hateth this
light bread. Now that's the problem with men
and women by nature. They speak against God. They
speak against God's servants. They speak against God's law,
who Moses typified and pictured. They complained of God's providence. They charged God with wrongdoing. They made this false charge against
God saying, wherefore have you, God, and your servant Moses,
have you brought us, have you delivered us out of Egypt to
just let us die here in the wilderness? How ungrateful. And that's not
all. Then they said, there's no bread. Yes, there was. God had sent
bread from heaven. They said, there is neither any
water. Yes, there was. The Lord had
caused water to flow from that rock. And friends, that rock
is Christ. And then they contradict themselves. Murmurs and complainers against
God often do. They had said there's no bread,
and then they admit that there was bread, but they loathed it,
they despised it, and they hated that bread that God gave them.
And they called it light bread, insubstantial bread. Listen,
Christ is not insubstantial. Matter of fact, he's all and
in all. They complained of God's providence. They were never satisfied. They spoke against God. They
spoke against God's servant. As I said, they spoke against
God's grace and kindness to them. Why God was out to do them good.
And they claim that God was out to kill them and destroy them.
And what did God do? He sent fiery serpents among
the people. And these fiery serpents that
God sent bit the people and much people died. Do you ever speak
against God? Well, I certainly have. And so
have you. Every time we complain, we do.
Oh my. Every time we're dissatisfied,
we are. People were dying left and right.
You couldn't see any marks on them. There were no cuts from
a sword. There was no broken bones. They
appeared to be normal. They appeared to be healthy,
but they were dying. Oh, that's a picture of you.
There was an enemy in the camp. Well, what nation was it that
was killing them? Oh, it wasn't a nation. What
army was causing them to perish? It was an army of serpents. And
the poison permeated the inside of the people. They looked normal
on the outside, but the real problem was within. It's the
same with us. flows through our nature, through
our veins. The problem couldn't be outwardly
seen. This poison is a figure, it's
a pattern, it's a picture and a type of our sin. The sin is
in us, it's in our veins. This sin is in our hearts and
in our minds and in our souls, it's in our imagination. Isaiah
said the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. We
had no cure. Like the people in the wilderness,
we've been bitten and the poison is within us. Now, if it had
been an outward sore on the skin, it could have been mollified
with an ointment. If it had been a cut, it could
have been sewed up. If it had been a broken bone,
it could have been set, but it was poison in the veins and it
killed from within. Oh, if that's not a picture of
sin, I don't know what is. And that's what's wrong with
every son and daughter of Adam. We've got the poison of sin within
us. Moses couldn't help them. The
law couldn't help them. They couldn't help one another.
They definitely couldn't help themselves and neither can we. We can't do it. Our sin goes
back to the Garden of Eden. Our sin goes back to the rebellion
of Adam and Eve. Our sin is a result of their
fall, and the whole human race was stung with sin. The sting
of death is sin, and its poison is in our veins, and it pumps
throughout our corrupt bodies by our desperately wicked and
deceitful hearts. and the bite of sin is fatal. So what are we gonna do? Well,
the first thing a child of God does is to cry out for help,
to repent of their sin, to cry out for forgiveness. Look at
verse seven. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we've
sinned, but we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray
unto the Lord. Now look at this, that he take
away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
The first step towards any mercy or grace from God is to acknowledge
our sin. The people came to Moses. They
said, we've sinned. We spoke against God and only
God can take away sin. Have him take away these serpents
from us. They came to Moses. Moses went
to the Lord. That's the only thing to do.
That's the only place to go. We have to go to the Lord. We
have to come to Christ, not to the front of the church, not
to the mourner's bench, not to religion, not to the preacher,
not to the priest, not to the church membership row, not to
the waters of baptism. We have to come to Christ. What do we say to the Lord? Please
take away these serpents from us. Take away this sin from us. Take away our sin, put our sin
away. And friends, the Lord heard Moses'
prayer. God always hears the intercession
of Christ for his people. Look at verse eight. 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."
Well, I like that word shall, don't you? They shall live. And that brings me to the second
thing. Christ is our remedy for sin. And it's here that we see
the brazen serpent as a type of Christ crucified. The serpent
was made of fiery or fired brass. Brass signifies judgment, picturing
the Lord Jesus as our substitute withstanding the intense heat
of God's wrath and judgment. The serpent Moses made, it wasn't
gold and it wasn't silver, it was brass. It was a common metal. Christ became a common, humble
man. He made himself, the scripture
says, of no reputation. And he took upon him the form
of a servant and was made in the likeness of man. Philippians
2.7. And there was no beauty about
him that we should desire him. This serpent raised up and was
not truly a serpent, but rather made in the likeness of a serpent. Though a man, Christ was not
sinful flesh. He came in the likeness of sinful
flesh, yet without sin. He had no venom. He had no poison. Our Lord Jesus was made of a
woman, just like you and me. He was made under the law, just
like you and I. Bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin. The Lord hungered, the Lord thirsted,
wearied and he wept. He was tempted in all points
as we are. Our Lord was a man, but he was
the God man. And Moses looked at those serpents
and he made and he fashioned a brass serpent that looked just
like them. But the serpent Moses makes,
as I said, has no venom, has no poison, had no sin. We need
a substitute that is in our likeness yet without sin. And the Lord
Jesus Christ is just that. For what the law could not do,
and that it was weak through the flesh, our flesh, God sending
his own Son, now listen, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law. How? By being made a curse for
us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. Galatians 3.13. Adam disobeyed
God and became a sinner, and Christ was made in Adam's likeness,
yet without sin. Oh, do you see the picture? In
Adam all die. All Adam could give us was the
bite of death. Even so, in Christ shall all
God's chosen be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15, 22. Now, I
don't know about you, but I hate snakes. Snakes are ugly to me. I've never seen a snake that
I was attracted to. To me, they're the ugliest creatures
ever created. One time, Brother Mahan was in
Mexico, and while they were traveling to one of those little villages
where they preached, they saw a boa constrictor, that's a big
snake, on the road. And Walter stopped and got out
of the truck and he walked over there and he picked that snake
up and he headed towards the truck with the snake. And Brother
Mahan said, what are you going to do with that snake? And Walter
said, well, I'm gonna take it home to Cody. And Henry said,
not in this truck, you're not. Walter said, well, it won't hurt
you. Henry said, I ain't worried about that. He said, I'm worried
about hurting myself trying to get out of this truck. Snakes are ugly. But hear me
when I say, but for his elect people, Christ became ugly. He possessed no beauty that we
should desire him. We just read that a moment ago.
We hid our face from him just as if I would hide my face from
a snake. I don't even want to see it.
Don't get it near me. It reminds me of another time not long ago.
There was a little, we saw the cat batting at something and
there was a little snake that had got in our house. And Teresa
looked at me and I looked at her. So being the manly man that
I am, I got some of those tongs like you do a salad. And I got
that little snake and got him outside. Snakes are ugly. But Christ took our sin and our
ugliness. He was made in our likeness.
He was made ugly for our sake. He had no venom. He had no poison.
He had no sin. He was made to be sin, the scripture
says, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Third thing, what was to be done
with this brazen serpent? It was to be set upon a pole
and lifted up high. Moses, make a serpent like the
ones that have bitten the people and lift it up on a pole. It
must be lifted up. Moses took that serpent and he
put it on a pole and he lifted it up. And our Lord Jesus said
in John chapter 12, verse 32, and I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, I'll draw all men unto me. All God's elect, I'll
draw. This our Lord said signifying
what death he should die. all the way through the Old Testament
scriptures, the Lord Jesus is pictured, whether it's in his
coming and his sacrifice and his sin offering. God took the
skins of a sacrifice and slain lamb to cover the nakedness of
Adam and Eve. That's a picture of Christ. Abel
brought a lamb and shed its blood upon the altar. That's a picture
of Christ. When Abraham took Isaac up on
Mount Moriah to sacrifice him to God, as God had instructed
him, the Lord told him, touch not the lad. He drew back that
knife. He was ready to kill his son
because he knew that if he did, the Lord would raise him back
up. Because the Lord had promised him that through Isaac, his seed
should be caught. And they looked and there was
a ram caught in the thicket. I just love thinking about that.
I know that Isaac loved it. And he put the ram on the altar
and he took Isaac off. Boy, that's substitution, isn't
it? Beloved, that is Christ in type and in picture. He's the
Lamb of God that takes our place and dies in our room instead.
That's why this serpent must be high and lifted up. When Israel was in Egypt, God
told them that at midnight, he was gonna pass through the land
and the firstborn of every home would die. But those who had
the blood, the blood of the Passover lamb upon their doorposts, God
passed over them in mercy and in grace. And that's a picture
of Christ. And here, when Moses lifts up
this serpent on a pole between heaven and earth, and those who
looked upon that serpent, they lived. And that too is a picture. You see, the whole Old Testament
is about the promise of Christ, the Lamb of God that was coming
to take away the sin of God's people in the world. How many
times is he referred to as a lamb in the scriptures? The Lord said
to Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And it's not just
Christ that is lifted up on that pole, friends. It's the believer's
sin. God's wrath and God's judgment
and God's condemnation not only fell upon Christ, but it fell
upon my sin. It fell upon me being made one
with Him. My ugliness became the Lord's.
He was made to be sin. He was made to be ugly for His
elect people's sake. Verse eight here in Numbers 21
is so instructive. Look at it with me. God said,
and it shall come to pass. You know, it's God who makes
all things come to pass. Every time we read that in the
scriptures and it came to pass, I hope we're reminded that it's
God who made them come to pass, as He does all things. God said
it shall come to pass. What is certain and sure? That
everyone that is bitten, everyone that sees that they're bitten,
everyone that sees that they're guilty, everyone that sees that
they're dying, everyone that is thirsty, everyone that looks,
when he or she looks upon this serpent high and lifted up, they
shall live. They shall live. And that brings
us to the fourth thing. to us who see that we're dying,
what are we to do? We're to look. We're to look. Now that word look means much
more than just to see. It means to consider. It means
to discern. It means to perceive. It means
to regard and to respect. It's to see that Christ is our
only means of survival. that Christ is our only means
of eternal life. The thief on the cross, he looked
to Christ, didn't he? That was all he could do. He
couldn't work, his hands were nailed to the cross. He couldn't
walk, his feet were fastened there. He couldn't witness why
his body burned with fever and infection and his throat swelled
as he coughed up blood. What could he do? He could look. He could look. As those men and
women lay there in the sand, they'd been bitten by the serpent.
That poison was flowing through their bodies. Pretty soon, they
begin to swell up. Pretty soon, they couldn't move.
They were paralyzed. What could they do? They could
look. Verse nine tells us and assures
us that what God purposed to come to pass came to pass. And
it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived. Those in the wilderness lived
only to die another day. Those who looked to Christ live
forever. The serpent of brass was just
a temporary type, but when Christ came, he provided an eternal
priesthood. Will you look to Christ? Will
you look to him today? Do you see that you've been bitten
with the poison of sin and that you're dying? That's what every
child of God is made to realize by God's mercy and grace and
divine revelation. I'm dying. Sin flows through
my body and it's going to kill me. But do you see Christ high
and lifted up on Calvary's cross? Do you see that He is the only
remedy for your sin? He must be lifted up and you
must look to Him to live. Will you look? Will you look? And it's not the cross that saves
us. It's the one who hung on that cross that does. When you
look to Christ, if you look to Him, you'll live. Not to the
cross. Don't look to the cross. Look
to the Christ of the cross. Now in closing, let me tell you
what happened later on in the history of Israel. Israel, after
they looked to that serpent and lived, you know what they did?
They took that serpent of brass, and I can just see them putting
it in some kind of little decorative box. It wasn't too much later
that they began to worship that brazen serpent. The Scripture
says in 2 Kings 18, verse 4, that they burned incense to it.
And Hezekiah, King Hezekiah, he took that piece of brass and
he broke it to pieces. And I can imagine some were just
infuriated. No, no, don't. He said, no, no,
no. There's no effectual saving power
in this piece of brass. Salvation is in the one that
it pictures, the one that it represents. You know, men and
women today, they'll save for years to go overseas, to visit
a place called the Holy Land, and they'll worship the very
ground that Christ walked on. But there's nothing at all holy
about where the Lord lived, where the Lord walked, or even where
the Lord died. He himself is the Holy One. Men and women, they get a little
self-righteous when they read about the Israelites who made
a golden calf and begin to worship it. Well, I mean, I just can't
believe after all God did for them, that they did that. And
yet those same folks will wear crosses around their necks and
hang crosses on their walls and put big crosses on their church
building. It's not the cross that we worship.
It's the Christ of the cross that we worship. It's the Christ
who hung upon that cross that we look to for salvation. And
we look to Him and live. We have children that we love.
We have friends. We have family that are dying
of this poison within. and they're not looking to Christ.
Oh, may God be pleased to grant them to do so for God's glory,
for Christ's sake, and for their good. And may God continue to
make us look to Him and Him alone. That's what we do when we meet
together and we preach. We point men to that serpent
upon the pole, the Lord Jesus Christ who's high and lifted
up. And we say, look to Him and live. There were some in that
camp that didn't look, and they died. But all those that looked,
they lived. So won't you look? May God grant
us the ability to do so. Amen.