If you would here look with me
in John chapter 3, we'll look at verse 1. There was a man of
the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same
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. Nicodemus was
a Pharisee, a very wealthy, intelligent, influential person, and he comes
at night to talk to the Lord. Pick up in verse 3 and let's
see what the Lord says to him. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth, so is every one that is born
of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto
him, How can these things be? 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 that we do know, and
testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If
I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall
ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? 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 this account, Nicodemus has
come to the Lord and has questions. He's inquiring about who he is.
And while we're not gonna focus on Nicodemus here, it's important
to see the interaction that they have. Some people say that Nicodemus
came at night and he was afraid or didn't want anybody to know
that he was coming to the Lord. And other people say he came
at night because it was the first chance he got to get away from
the Pharisees to ask the Lord questions. And there's a great
deal of opinion about Nicodemus. But what's important here is
that the Lord is explaining to him the truth. The Lord is telling
him how a man or woman can be saved. But Nicodemus is asking
the wrong questions. He's focused on the wrong things.
And in verse 14 here, the Lord changes and uses a story from
the Old Testament. Nicodemus is so focused on the
doctrine, he's so focused on the how and the specifics, that
he doesn't realize he's standing right in front of the man who
is salvation. So this story, look in verse
14, And 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. 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. For
God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on
him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. Okay, let's go over to Numbers
21. So mark this John 3 here, we'll
come back, but Numbers chapter 21. Henry Mahan wrote, there is no
better type nor picture of Christ, our Redeemer, and the way that
sinners are saved to be found in the entire Old Testament than
this story of the brazen serpent. For our Lord himself chose it,
this Old Testament picture, to illustrate the gospel to Nicodemus.
So what I want to do is we'll take a couple minutes and we'll
go through this story. I'll read some scriptures and we'll go
through it. And then at the end, after that, I want to take a
few minutes and I want to explain the process that these people,
these children of Israel, went through with the serpent, with
experience with the snakes and looking at the serpent and how
that is what the Lord is trying to teach Nicodemus. He's showing
him who the Lord is and that the Lord is where salvation is
to be found. So look with me here in Numbers
chapter 21 in verse 4. And they, the people of Israel,
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 they were grieved. 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." So we are a long way into the journey of the people
of Israel that have been delivered from Egypt from slavery there.
We've crossed the Red Sea, we've had so many miracles throughout
the way. And if we look back at verse 1 through 3 in this
same chapter, we see an example of Israel being saved. And when
King Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell
that Israel came by the way of the spies, then he fought against
Israel and took some of them prisoners. He took some of the
people of Israel. 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. 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 that name of that
place Hormath. These people have just recently,
and I don't know if this was the day before or the week before
or whatever it was, but just recently had been attacked and
been killed and different things had happened through these Canaanites
and this king. And they went to the Lord and said, just please
deliver us. And what happened? The Lord delivered
them immediately. So now they're complaining, they're
fretting. Why did you bring us out of Egypt
just here to die? They were discouraged because
of the way. It was away from Canaan instead
of towards Canaan, the promised land. But it was the way that
the people had chosen. The people could have gone into
Canaan, but they were scared. They didn't want to go in, so
the Lord brought them out. They chose this way. These people
could and should have entered this land of milk and honey,
but their unbelief turned them away from God. In Hebrews it
says, we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. That's the only reason these
people are in the situation they're in, because of unbelief. Our
wanderings in the wilderness are of our own choosing. We choose
to be there. In our father Adam, we choose
not to believe God. Wherefore is by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned." We want to be our own God. We are the ones who choose our
own way. We want to have control. And
the consequence of this is death for the whole race. The people
then spoke against God. Paul said in 1 Corinthians, neither
let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed
of serpents. These people murmured against
both Moses and God, who's God's prophet and leader that he put
in the place. Nothing that the Lord or Moses had done ever really
pleased them. They were only happy when they
got to choose what they wanted to do. And they spoke against
the way of God and the word of God. Our generation is no different
to this. Instead of recognizing that our
condition, our troubles in the spirit and the flesh are of our
own making, it's our own fault. In justifying God and His judgments,
we murmur against the Lord. His way, His word, we murmur
against His servants. The lust for our own way, as
it's described in Isaiah, all we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. When we go our own way, our own
sin falls upon us. We got us in this mess that we're
in, yet we still reject God's way and His desire. There's two
specific complaints that these people have in these two verses. The first is they don't like
the way, and they're the ones who chose it. And the second
is they don't like the provision. They say in verse five, for there
is no bread, neither is there any water. Tell me that this
doesn't sound like a complaint we would make. In the same sentence
they say, for there is no bread, our soul loatheth this light
bread. They say, this is awful. We have
no bread. And we don't like this bread.
They're asking for bread. The Lord has provided them bread,
but it's not the bread they want. It's not what they like. The
people found fault with this bread from heaven and the water
from a rock. They said, we don't have any
water. These people were pulling a rock that had water flowing
out of it. I mean, not only did they have
water, they had water that was obviously a miracle, water from
above. This is such a horrible and condemning
statement on us, especially in the light of the fact that this
rock was Christ, and the manna, a picture of Christ, God's gift
of life. How many in the world today,
in religion today, are content with Christ, the bread of life
and the water of life that He is? Turn with me to John chapter
six. John also wrote, And ye will
not come to me, that ye might have life. Look at John 6 verse
51. I am the living bread, which
came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, ìHow can this man give
us his flesh to eat?î Then look at verse 55, ìFor my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him.î
We have a group of people that is enormous, at least hundreds
of thousands, if not millions of people going through the desert.
The Lord was giving them manna from above and water from a rock. And because of the two sources
where that came from, I promise you through the many, many years,
even decades that they were wandering through the desert, and this
is a real desert, not one person in the entire group ever died
of starvation or thirst. And yet they still complain.
If we think, if we were going into the desert, we would think
of two things we had to have. If we could just have water and
food, we'd be fine. But when the Lord provides it
to us, we complain. That's who we are. We are like
Israel of old, and the Jews of apostolic days, we will not have
this man reign over us, or we will not rejoice in his way of
life. We just won't. Alright, back
in Numbers 21, in verse 6, this is the, before
we read this, This is the chain of events that always happens.
This is always what happens. We complain, we fret, we don't
like the way the Lord is, we fight over, we want the credit,
we want the glory, and we have to have a punishment of some
kind. There has to be something that comes to us. So look in
verse six. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people,
and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. Based off their sin and murmuring
and rebellion, God judged the people. He sent deadly poisonous
serpents among them, and all the people that were bitten by
the serpents died. Our sin has separated us from
our God. The serpent of sin has left its
poison in every son of Adam, and death, which is the wages
of sin, is upon us. In Romans it says, for if by
one man's offense, death reign by one, much more they which
receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. So look in verse 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. There was no human cure for these
fiery serpents' bite, as there is no human cure for the guilt
and condemnation of sin. Spiritual death is in us, physical
death is upon us, and eternal death awaits us. Sin, when it
is finished, bringing forth only one thing, and that's death.
The people entreated to Moses, they went to him, to intercede
for them to God. Only the great mercy of God would
be able to deliver them. Grace is God giving us what we
do not deserve, and mercy is God not giving us what we do
deserve. So look at verse eight. Remember,
this is the normal chain of events. We sin, we complain, a trial
comes, something we can't handle, and what's going to happen? Look
at verse 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. And Moses made a serpent of brass,
put it on a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had
bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."
God provided a remedy. A serpent was made in the likeness
of these fiery serpents. So as Christ, our Lord, was made
in a likeness of flesh. He was made of a woman, bone
of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Listen to these scriptures.
For what the law could not do and that it was weak through
the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. He did it.
He made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of
a servant and was made in the likeness of man. Behold my hands,
my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones as you see that I have. And our Lord
was numbered with our transgressors. He became a man like us. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. And
he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for those transgressors. The serpent of
brass had no venom, in the same way Christ had no sin. He was
tempted as we are, yet without sin. He did what we could not.
The serpent of brass was lifted up on a pole, so as Christ, our
Savior, was lifted up on a cross. bearing our sins, he was nailed
to a cross. Look over here in Isaiah chapter
53. Isaiah 53. 1 John said, And 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. Isaiah 53 verse 4. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way, and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. There was
but one remedy, the serpent on the pole, that was the only remedy,
and there is but one Savior, our Redeemer, our Deliverer,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our substitute. Jesus saith
unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none of the name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved." All that the people were
required to do was look. God provided the remedy fully
and completely and commanded them to look. And our commandment
is the same, look and live. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. The remedy
was sufficient. It was effectual. For dying sinners,
it's the same with the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter how severe
the case, it was simply look and live. The common notion is
that salvation is for good people, churchgoers, those who are examples
that are morally upright. But how different is the Word
of God and how different is this exact example for us? God's grace
is for the guilty. Christ the Savior is for sinners.
A person who had not been bitten by a snake had no need to look. A person who has their own righteousness
has no need to look for righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's
mercy is for the miserable who cannot help themselves. We have
no gospel for fake sinners or pretend people that feel like
they, or act like they need it. The gospel, our gospel is for
the lost. As Moses serpent was for the
hopelessly bitten Israelites. Now go with me back to John three. What the Lord is telling Nicodemus
here is what we've just seen in this story, this illustration
of how these people were saved from these snakes. And what I'm
going to do to finish this message is I want to go through these
simple steps of what the Lord is trying to teach Nicodemus
through this story. And it's important to know that
Nicodemus, as he's described as a Pharisee, and if you look
more about him, he seems to be one of the head Pharisees, one
of the more intelligent who knew everything. That simply the concept
of this story, just the fiery serpent, he would have known
everything there was to know about it. And in using this,
and as he says in verse 14, and as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
With this story, here's what we're saying, or here's what
the Lord's telling him. And I'll use the people of Israel,
the Israelites who encountered these snakes. The first thing
that happened to them was they realized that the snakes were
there. They realized that there was sin all around them. They
realized that they had this problem. These snakes were everywhere.
And when I first wrote that down, I thought to myself, man, there
are snakes everywhere. There are so many people who
are spitting just the worst venom, the false doctrine, and so many
things, and people who do things. And it took me a few seconds
to all of a sudden turn around and think of these people. If
you put yourself in their situation, they were in tents, they were
journeying during the day and they were camping at times to
rest. So you and your family would
be sitting in a tent, all right? Sun's hot, you're hiding in your
tent, and there's poisonous snakes going around. Do you think you
would give one inkling of a thought of, man, I wonder if those people
over there have any snakes in their tent? I feel bad for them. No, all they were thinking about
were the snakes that were in their tent. They were thinking
about the snakes that were gonna be in their bed. They were aware
of the problem that was within them. And this is our sin. Our sin is inside us. There's not a sin that anyone
else in this world is ever gonna commit that is gonna damn you
or me. There's nothing you all will
ever do that will do anything to me. But my sin in here is
what damns me. It's my sin that the reason that
I need a savior, I need a remedy because of what's inside me.
And the next thing that happens is all of those people realized
I'm gonna be bitten. The snakes are gonna bite me.
There are too many of them. There's no way I can avoid these snakes.
As we realize that we are sinners, that we have a sin problem, and
these snakes that have showed up, we also realize that they're
not the problem. The snakes coming and biting
us isn't our worry. We were the ones who disobeyed. We were the ones who misbehaved,
who acted out, who cursed God, and that's why the snakes came.
The snakes are the punishment. They represent the punishment.
We have all the sin. And then these people realize,
not only am I going to be bitten, but every person who's been bitten
so far has either died or they're still sick. Nobody, nobody that
I've seen yet has been able to overcome one of these snake bites.
Now, I'm sure there were plenty of people, and I would have been
one of them. I can't imagine what it would
have been like in a tent with my wife and four children with
snakes going everywhere around me knowing that if they bit anyone
in that tent we were going to die. I can't imagine what that
was like. I can't. I can't imagine. I don't
know if the snakes were this big. I don't know anything about
them. It's all I know that there's no way I would have been able
to protect my family from those snakes. I couldn't have done
it. And it's the same thing that we realize. Not only can I not
protect myself, not only is there nothing I can do, but I can't
help my family. I can't save them. I can't do
anything for them. Which leads to the next place that people
then realize we need a remedy. We need something. We can't do
this. And in this process that I'm
going through here, We have to go through this whole thing.
The Lord has to take us step by step through each one of these
before we can be saved. We will not be well until the
Lord guides us through all of these. And each one of these
I say, they make me realize that there was not only a time in
my life that the Lord hadn't shown me this step or I wasn't
there, but that there's so many people that get hung up on each
of these steps. we will not know that we need
a remedy, let alone that we have sin unless the Lord shows us.
But how wonderful it is that we realize we need a remedy. Many people will search for a
remedy in a lot of places. But most people realize that
they need a remedy. I can't imagine there was too
many people who thought when they were getting ready to be
bit by a snake or bit by a snake thought to themselves, I'm the
one who can overcome this. Like all these other people that
are dying from the snake, I'm healthy, I'm strong, and I don't
ever get sick, I'm gonna be fine. No, everybody realized they needed
a remedy. And when we need a remedy, Lord willing, He will take us
to the next step, which is we will ask for a remedy. It seems
obvious, but there are a lot of people in this world who realize
that they need a remedy. They realize that they need someone
to save them from their sin. The problem is they don't ask
because they think they can do it themselves. They think that
they have a way to do it. They think that, you know, I'm
either not that bad, or I can do these things, or I'm gonna
stop doing those things. When you've been bitten, when
you're a sinner, there's no other actions that you can take to
stop it. If someone got bit by a snake,
it didn't help them if they didn't get bit again. Once you were
bit once, that's all it took. I mean, it's one sin and we have
to have a savior. We've got to have a remedy. So
we need to ask for a remedy. Now, another part of that is
we have to ask someone who is able to give us a remedy. If
I needed help from a snake bite, if I came to one of my kids and
says, help me guys, help me, what are they gonna do? They
can't do anything. I could have gone to a doctor.
The best doctor that we had in that, there's hundreds of thousands
of people. I'm sure there was somebody there that was really
good at helping people get better. I'm sure plenty of them have
been bitten by other snakes before, and they'd healed and recovered
from it. But they had to ask someone who was able to deliver
the remedy. So once we learn that we must
ask for a remedy, once we learn that we need a Savior, and the
Lord shows us who the Savior is, we have to go to the next
step, which would seem, okay, you look back at these people,
they went to Moses. They went to Moses as their intercessor.
because they had sinned against God, and I have a feeling many
of them were really, really scared, and they knew what had happened.
This was not one of those things that they were hiding in a tent,
whispering to each other, man, I don't like this bread. No,
this was, they were outwardly yelling, shouting, confronting
Moses, saying, we don't like this bread. We find fault with
God. And they knew what they'd done,
and they went to Moses to intercede for them. Something I thought
when this happened, and as we go further down this, we'll see
that these people fit this. I'm sure there were a lot of
people who didn't go to Moses and asked for him to intercede
for them. I have a feeling there were a
lot of people who were sitting in their tents, praying to God.
The people who believed, everyone didn't bicker. The child of God,
they were praying to God. And when we ask for a remedy,
there are a lot of things that we can see There's no other steps
that happen other than just go to the Lord and ask, just pray. When you have someone that you
realize, when you learn who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what
He's able to do and what He's done, just go to Him, ask Him,
that's all that matters. But the next step would seem
for these people that saved them was they went and asked for a
remedy and the serpent was provided and they looked to the serpent,
but that's not the next step. There was a message I heard many
years ago, and I think you were the one who preached this, and
someone was preaching on the brazen serpent, and they made
the comment, not everybody looked at the serpent who had been bitten.
And I remember thinking, what? Not everybody looked? Are you
kidding me? So hold on a second. There were
snakes that were biting people, and everyone died who'd been
bitten. And yet everyone who looked at that snake was made
well immediately. And you're telling me people
wouldn't look? Well, that's exactly the scenario we're in right now
in this world that every sinner goes through. There is a savior
who, if you look, will save you. Yet there are so many people
who don't look. The step in between asking for
a remedy and looking to the remedy is what the Lord is telling Nicodemus
right here. So let's look here in verse 15. Well, let's start in verse 14.
And 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. 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. For God
sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him
is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already,
because he hath not believed in him, the name of the only
begotten Son. The Lord is very specifically
telling Nicodemus here what the reason is and the story behind
the brazen serpent. And He doesn't use the word look
one time. He uses the word believe five
times. The people in the desert, the
action of them looking at the brazen serpent wasn't what saved
them. What saved them was that the
Holy Spirit and God's will had made them to believe the serpent
would heal them, that by looking, they would be healed. The reason
people didn't look at the serpent is because they didn't believe
it would heal them. We look because God has made
us to believe. If you think again at how big
this camp was with all these people, in our city, There's
differing numbers, but they probably had here at least 10 times as
many people, maybe 20 or 30 times as many people as we have in
this city. So you think about how big this camp was, and I
don't know how high that brazen serpent was, but some people
were a long way off from the brazen serpent. They were a long
way off. Other people would have had problems
seeing it. There are a lot of older people
who can't see. This many people, I'm sure there
were blind people. This says, look and live. Look at the serpent. It did not
say you had to see the serpent. The belief on the Lord Jesus
Christ that He will save your soul That comes from the Lord. And if you believe, you will
look. The people who looked, believed. Those who believed, I promise,
they looked. And then finally, the last thing
that happens is if we ask, if we believe, and if we look, we
will be saved. 100% of the people who looked
at that brazen serpent were saved, all of them. There wasn't any
discussion. Nobody even, nobody had a second
thought. And I promise you, it was quick.
There was nobody who looked at that serpent and stared at that
wound and like, it's not getting better. It's not getting better.
No, it was, they were better. In the same way that a child
of God, we were healed the moment the Lord Jesus Christ finished
the work. We were chosen before time began. It was a surety. We were going
to be saved. And the Lord makes us to believe
and he makes us to see that. Now, in closing, we ask and we pray that we understand
that we have a need. We want a true understanding
that we need a remedy. We need a savior. We ask the
Lord to please make us ask Him, come to the Lord. It is not the
action, again it is not the action of asking Him that leads us to
be saved. It is the belief that He gives
us, the belief that He puts in us. There is no action, there
is nothing that we do that has any consequence, but we do these
things. We ask Him, we look to Him, we
believe Him because He has made us to do those things. He gets
the glory for everything. And putting myself back in the
situation, and you can do the same thing, in this horrific
situation where these people were in, with poisonous snakes
all over the place. We need to have the same urgency,
the same, I don't want to use the word panic, we need to have
the same mindset that these people would have had. In that tent,
with my family, there would have been nothing. There would have
been nothing that would have been on my mind other than how
in the world can I save them and myself. That's the only thing
I would have been possibly thinking about. And I would have realized
it was a hopeless task. I just wouldn't have been able
to do it, me personally or anybody. I don't know anything about snakes.
I don't like snakes. I can't, you know, there's nothing
I could have done about it. But we need to have that same
mindset when it comes to our sin and our salvation of ourselves
and of our families. I think of, you know, what I
would have done was I would have, once that serpent went up, I
would have taken my family, if we were bitten or not, we'd have
ran. Unfortunately, we need these events to make us realize and
remind us how dependent we are upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We
would be like these people and we are like these people. We
complain, we fret about the wonderful things we have. The best things
that the Lord has given us. He's given us a belief in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's given us a place to worship.
He's given us a place to live where we're free to hear it anytime
we want. He's given us the means by something
we carry in our pocket to listen to the gospel preach every single
moment we possibly want to. And yet we find so many things
to fret about and worry about. And until something happens,
until these serpents come in and remind us of what the one
thing needful is, we will not look for it. So I pray that the
Lord would make us to understand the importance of these things
without us having to have these serpents over and over again.
Though, I know all of you agree with this, we don't want them,
but we want them if that's what we need. If we're one of those
people who's screaming and yelling and saying, I don't want this
light bread, I don't want this bread of life, I don't want the
water from the Lord Jesus Christ. If we're saying it, may the Lord
bring us something that will make us understand who we are
and where we are. And I pray that even at this
very moment, in that room, in downstairs, that the Lord is
going through this with these children. I pray it for myself. I pray it for my family. It's
a testament to what the Lord has done that so many people
want to bring their spouses, their parents, their friends,
their loved ones to come hear the gospel. And it's a wonderful
thing to do it, though we know that we can't do any of this.
I'm up here talking, and I'm up here reading scripture, and
it doesn't mean anything unless the Spirit blesses us, unless
He opens our eyes, unless He makes us see we have the need,
we ask, we believe, all those things. But the Lord, through
the foolishness of preaching, shows His children the truth.
And we need to understand that if the Lord will make us, that
every single chance we get, we bring them here, we talk about
it, we need to act in a manner becoming of what we believe.
I do so many things and I think after the fact, if I go up to
that person right now and tell them they need to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, they're gonna look at me and say, well,
I wanna be like you. All of that stuff that we pray that the Lord
would do this for all of them and Lord willing, He will continue
to call out His children among us, and we pray that He would,
as long as He tarries, that He would continue to call all of
them out. All right, you're dismissed.