and Doug lead us in prayer. Nation, we pray to the Lord that you would bless the good
and cure the evil. Believe me. Numbers 21, let me
read the first nine verses. And when King Arad, the Canaanite,
which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by way
of the spies, then he fought against Israel and took some
of them prisoners. And Israel vowed a vow unto the
Lord and said, if thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand,
and I will utterly destroy their cities. And the Lord hearkened
to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites. They utterly
destroyed them and their cities. And he called the name of the
place Hormah. That means utter destruction.
And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea
to compass the land of Edom. And the soul of the people was
much discouraged because of the way, that is because of the way
the Lord led them. They were much discouraged. And
the people speak against God and against Moses, wherefore
have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
You know, God just gave them a great victory. And what'd they
do? They murmur. He just gave them
a great victory. They said, Lord, if you will
deliver them into our hands, we'll destroy every city, and
God did it. And now here they are complaining, he says, against
the Lord and against Moses. For there is no bread, neither
is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread. We're tired of it. We're tired
of the manna. We want something else. That's
like being tired of Christ. and wanting something else. We
want more. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people
and they bit the people and much people of Israel died. Therefore
the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. 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. And the Lord said unto Moses,
You know, here's a scripture you could put with this, where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound. God provides the
remedy. And the Lord said unto Moses,
make thee a fiery serpent, set it upon a pole, and it shall
come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon
it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass.
and 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. When he looked as he was commanded
to, he lived." Now, this is one of those pictures that's so clear. It's just so clear. Now, the
title of it is The Brazen Serpent, A Picture of Christ Crucified. And our Lord has given us these
pictures. It's like drawing them out on
a board for us, and we can see it. When one hears the gospel,
and I remember this so vividly, when I heard the gospel, the
first thing that came to my mind was this, I see. I understand,
I understand the gospel, I see. And when we are able to look
at these pictures and see Christ in them, we can, for the first
time, say, I see. I understand. I understand what this picture
here is all about. This is the gospel of substitution
that we have here in these verses. This is how God saves sinners.
And we'll see this as I go along. Now, verse 4 of 5, the first
thing that stands out, especially in verse 4, is this. The soul
of the people, the heart of the people, was much discouraged
because of the way. Now, you and I know that Jesus
Christ is the way. He's the way to God. I am the
way, the truth, and the life. But they were discouraged because
of the way that God led them. But what they didn't realize
was this. Because of their unbelief, they could not enter the land
of Canaan. They couldn't understand that. They're right there at
the border. They're right at the border. They just whipped
the Canaanites. And they're right at the border. And then God turns
them, and they leave. And God turned them and led them
through the wilderness to prove them. And what did he prove? They didn't believe. They fussed,
they murmured, they complained. If there's anything that described
those Israelites as a nation, now there was some believers
in there. There was Moses, Aaron, and there were some who believed,
but the nation as a whole was nothing but a nation of murmuring,
complaining people. And they didn't realize, listen,
they didn't realize they were the victims of their own unbelief. They were the victims of their
own rebellion. And this is the way all of us
are by nature. And we have to be reminded of
this. I say this every week. But we have to be reminded of
this. Our way is a way, naturally, of rebellion. It starts early. Just look at a two-year-old.
You try to teach a two-year-old some manners, and what's it do? That two-year-old rebels. It
fusses and carries on. It's rebellion. Rebellion is
born in us by nature. We rebel against our parents.
That's the first thing we do. Then we begin to rebel against
all other authority. The Jews said, we will not have
this man reign over us, rule over us. We don't like anyone
ruling over us. We have a rebellious nature. And this began, as you well know,
this began in the garden. Here's one word that describes
what Adam did. Rebellion. He rebelled against
God's command. God gave him one command and
he rebelled. And we have been rebelling ever
since. The music, the music that you
hear, that the world makes, the music you hear is the music of
rebellion. Listen to it, it's just rebellious. The movies that
Hollywood makes, it's movies of rebellion. It's nothing but
rebellion. If you really pay attention, it's rebellion. The
world is in rebellion against God. And I thank God for his
superabounding grace that some of us he brought out of rebellion.
Some of us he broke our heart of rebellion. Some of us he has
reconciled to himself. And we have laid down, as Scott
Richardson said, we have laid down the shotgun. We laid it
down. Because I tell you what, if man
could, he would shoot God. If he could shoot him, he'd shoot
him. If he can get rid of him, he'd get rid of him. Because
by nature, we want to be our own God. We want to go our own
way. And human nature hates, they
hate being told what to do. We know that. I know that. I
know it. I left home one time because
I was told what to do and I didn't want to do it. And I left home
for a while. I finally came back. I finally
came back. But I left because of just rebellion. That's all it was, rebellion.
I didn't want to do what I was told to do. That's just by nature. Victims of our own sin. Victims
of our own rebellion. In verse five, listen, the people
speak against God and against Moses. You can't speak against
one and not the other. Christ said, now we're gonna
see this in the next message. Christ said, if the world hates
me, it hates you. If they keep my sayings, they'll keep yours.
But they speak against God and against Moses, the Lord's servant.
Complaining is a sure mark. It's a sure mark of rebellion
against God. To complain against his providence,
to complain that it's hot today. It comes out so subtly, doesn't
it? And sometimes it comes out of us, we don't even realize
it until the Lord puts us in check. If it's raining, we complain,
we have plans. Well, God purposed long before
the creation that it's gonna rain or it's gonna be hot. He
determined all that long before creation. And so my plans have
to change around his purpose. Our plans have to change around
God's purpose. And you know what? That's all
right. It's taken me a while to learn this. It's taken me,
you know, Paul said, I've learned to be content. That's a learned
behavior. And the believer learns through
trials and discipline. The believer learns to be content.
Whatever it is today, it is. It's the Lord's will. It's the
Lord's will. And we're happy with that. We
are happy with the Lord's will. And it takes a while for us to
learn that. That's not something you just
automatically have. It's a learned behavior, is to be content with
whatever the Lord's will is. And we learn to quit complaining.
I'm not saying we just don't complain no more, because we
will. But thank God that he puts a check on it and makes you realize,
hold up here. Hold up. This is the Lord, let
him do as he will. Just hold up. Put your attitude
in check. This complaining, this rebellion
comes out against God's providence. You know, everything's providential,
isn't it? What's going on in our country right now? It's the
providence of God. I don't understand it. God does. I don't have to understand it.
You know that? I don't have to understand what's going on. I
just have to understand the one who's doing it, the Lord God. And he cannot make a mistake.
He can do no wrong. God can do no wrong. And that gives me comfort. But
rebellion is complaining against his providence, complaining against
his wisdom. When we murmur a complaint, it's
to complain against the wisdom of God. Infinite wisdom, it can't
be any other way. You know, you and I get caught
in a straight, we say, which way do I go? Do I go to the left,
or do I go to the right? I don't know my left from my
right. I go to my right, I go to my left, which way do I go? God's not like that. He's of
one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desires, even
that is what he does. God's not in a straight betwixt
two. He has purposely said the end from the beginning. He's not like we are. You thought
I was altogether like yourself. You think I'm confused like you
are. I'm not. God's not confused. God is infinite wise. He knows
all things. Now to murmur and complain is
to complain against the will of God instead of submitting
to the will of God. It's a dangerous matter. You
read numbers where the children of Israel complained. You read
through this book of numbers. Korah, we just looked at that
not long ago. Korah and that group was with
him. And 250 men who offered strange incense. God killed them.
They murmured, they came to Moses and said, you're not the only
one. You're not the only holy people around here. The rest
of us are holy. We can do what you do. It dawned
on me, after we looked at that, it dawned on me what they wanted
to do was control the worship service. They didn't want Moses
and Aaron doing it. They said, we know how to conduct
this. We know how to do this. And God
killed them. Murmuring, complaining, and listen,
God put a stop to it sooner or later. That's a dangerous position
to be in, to murmur and complain against the purpose of God. Here's
the position of a believer praying and waiting on the Lord. That's the way of faith. That's
the way of faith, pray and wait, pray and wait. One of their problems, listen,
one of the problems was this with Israel of that day. They could not get Egypt out
of their heart. They said, why did you bring,
listen here, in verse five, let me get here, verse five, listen
to this. How many times did they say this? Let me get those pages
here separated. And the people spake against
God and against Moses, wherefore have you brought us up out of
Egypt to die in the wilderness? They couldn't get The world,
Egypt is a type, a picture of the world. They couldn't get
the world out of their heart. All they talked about is the
leaves and the onions. Their God, their belly was their
God. Their appetite was their God.
They didn't even realize it. They didn't realize it at all.
They couldn't get the world out of their heart. They complained
against God's provision of manna Free? How would you like to have
free meal every day? You don't have to go to the grocery
store. We went to the grocery store yesterday and it was $300, I think it was.
I mean, it's stupid how expensive, here I am complaining. Bam, just
shot myself. Great day. But, I was telling
Vicky on the way out, we walked to the car. I said, it costs
so much to live in this world because of sin. I said, sin is
expensive. It's expensive. It just costs
so much to provide for these bodies of sin and corruption.
When at one time everything was free. In the Garden of Eden,
it was free. God provided for 40 years. Their shoes didn't
wax old, their clothes didn't wax old. For 40 years, they were
taking care of water out of the rock. The bread came down and
they started calling it light bread. And that bread is a type
of Christ. That's calling him light. No substance. You know, we're
tired of it. We're tired of Christ. Give us
something else. And the false religious world
will give you something else. They'll give you whatever you
want. Whatever your appetite is, they got it. Except Christ. They don't have him. And people
don't have an appetite for him until God gives them an appetite.
Until God gives you an interest for Christ, you'll never want
him. You'll never desire him. Someone, there was a young man,
he's 20 I guess now, he stays with Jeremy
and him all the time, but he asked this question, how do you
know when you're saved? That's an interesting question,
how do you know when you're saved? Here's how you know, when you
begin to have a real interest in hunger for Jesus Christ. Hunger and thirst are signs of
life. If you have a real interest,
if you have a real hunger and a real thirst for Christ, God's
done something for you. God has done something in you,
because that thirst is not natural. That's a spiritual thirst, that's
not a natural thirst. And God's done something for
you. When Christ becomes your interest, God saved you. God has saved you. But they hated
that. They loathed this head of light
bread. He gave them bread from heaven, free bread, and they
got tired of it. And judgment fell. In verse six,
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they were
bitten and died. You know, the scripture says
the wages of sin is what? Death. It's death, and right
here it proved it. By one man, sin entered the world,
and death by sin. Judgment is coming on all who
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Judgment's
coming. It's coming. All have been bitten by the fiery
serpent of sin, and when sin is conceived, it brings forth
death. It brings forth judgment. And note here that the bite of
these fiery serpents was poison, and it was incurable. And there's
no anti-venom. There's no anti-sin for sin.
There's only one remedy, and God provided it through the Lord
Jesus Christ, his blood and righteousness. It was poison, it was painful.
You know, all our problems come from sin. You hurting anywhere
in your body this morning? You hurting anywhere? It's sin. It's sin. You say, it's arthritis. It's sin. It's sin, arthritis,
or just whatever it is, you can put sin in front of it. You got
heart problems, it's sin. The mental problems, it's sin.
It's sin. Sin is the cause of all of our
pain. It's the cause of it. And then
it was deadly. No one survived it until the
serpent, until he brought the serpent and put it in the midst
of the congregation and commanded them to look and live. It was
deadly, deadly. Sin is deadly. No one's gonna
survive sin. No one's gonna survive it. Unless
God Almighty enables you to look to his son, you're not gonna
survive it. And then verse seven is a picture
here of repentance. The people confessed their sin
of complaining against the Lord and against Moses. And as soon,
now listen, this is good. This is good here. As soon as
they made this confession of sin, the remedy was revealed. The remedy was revealed. The
remedy was already taking place. In God's mind, in God's heart,
God already set this up. You see, this is the picture
of Christ. If we confess our sins, what's
it say? He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not
just that sin, but all unrighteousness. As I said in verse eight and
nine, we see where sin abounded, grace does much more abound.
And God commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass, put it up
on a pole, and take it to the middle of the camp, in the midst
of the camp, and command the people to look. And those who
looked lived. There's no working look. Just
look. A blind man can look. You know,
I could tell a blind man, look at me, and he could, I can tell
you, he can turn his face toward me and look at me. In his mind,
in his heart, he can look at me, even though his eyes are
blind. And that's all he said, look,
that's it. He just said, look. The remedy, listen, the remedy
for sin is this, Christ, became bone of our bone, flesh of our
flesh. Just like that serpent that was
put on that pole, it was like the serpent that bit him. Christ
was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet he knew no sin. He knew no sin. The same nature
that sin must be the same nature that gives satisfaction. The
same nature that bit the people, the fiery serpents, there must
be a fiery serpent for them to look to and live. Now the one
thing that just jumped out at me when I was looking at this
again this morning, there was poison in that fiery serpent
that bit him. That fiery serpent on that pole
had no poison in it. It was made in the likeness of
that fiery serpent. But there's no poison in that fiery serpent
on the pole. There's no poison in it. There's no sin in Christ.
Though he's made in the likeness of sinful flesh, there's no sin
in him. And he came and took our nature,
took upon him flesh. He became like unto his brethren,
except for sin. And in our nature, he gave satisfaction. He made satisfaction to God's
law, to God's justice. And those who are enabled to
look, they live. A lot of them died. A lot of
them died. And the ones that died and the
ones that lived, what's the difference? God sent them the remedy. God
sent the remedy to them and told them to look. And that look was
an act of faith. They did what God said to do.
God said, look, and they looked. And when they looked, they lived.
They lived. They expected to because they
believed what he said. That's salvation. That's faith. It's to look to Christ. It's
to look to him for salvation. It's to look to him for forgiveness.
It's to look to him for cleansing. I look to him for everything
I need to stand before God. I look to Jesus Christ for it.
And there's no work in a look. Spurgeon said, it's a short word,
and two of the letters are just alike. Look. Adam caused the problem, and
the second Adam put it away. The first Adam brought in sin,
the second Adam put it away. To all those who look. The remedy, listen, the remedy
for all who looked was the same. It don't matter what class, you
know, you may have been somebody in high ranking or some in low
ranking, it didn't matter. The remedy's the same. You know,
someone said that the grave is a great leveler. You know, it
puts everybody on the same level, six feet under. You're the same. But I tell you this, among God's
children, grace is the leveler. There's no one more important
than another. The least or the greatest, there's
none. We are all one in Christ. We're all one. It's not one's
greater here. Nobody's gonna get a bigger reward
than another one. God said to Abraham, I am thy
exceeding great reward. Is there anything, anyone greater
than God? Well, the least of God's saints,
if I can say it that way, were the greatest of them. All have
the same reward, God. God, all things are yours in
Christ, all things. That's why it says over in Isaiah
45, 22, look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,
for I am God and there is none else. Look to me, look. That just sounds too simple,
doesn't it? Look over in John chapter three. To show you what
a type this is and how such a beautiful picture it is, our Lord used
this. Our Lord quoted this. In John chapter three, 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," I can say it this way, whosoever
looks to him, whosoever really looks to him. You know if you're
looking to him, you know that, you know it. That whosoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life. Those who looked, At that
time, they lived, they didn't die physically. They didn't die
physically. It doesn't mean they were saved
spiritually, but they didn't die physically. Because God said,
look and live. God says right now, look. Whosoever look on the Lord Jesus
Christ shall be saved. You look to him. Now, let me
close with a word of warning here. This serpent here of brass is
put upon a pole. Israel kept it, and they worshipped
it. You can find that over 2 Kings
chapter, well, let me turn over here. I think I marked it. Yeah,
2 Kings 18, listen to this. Now it came to pass in 2 Kings
18, now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah
king of Israel that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah
began to reign. 25 years old was he when he began
to reign and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name
was Abbai. the daughter of Zechariah and
he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according
to all that David his father did he removed the high places
and break the images and cut down the groves and break in
pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made for unto those
days the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called
it nihushtin. That means piece of brass. It's just a piece of brass. It
was a type. There's no life in a type. There's
no life in a type. Are people any different today?
Religious? They wear crosses. They either
have them stuck on the house, stuck on the, outside on the
building. There's no, it's just, it's just
a piece of wood he was hung on. You know, the cross of Christ
is his sufferings. It's his sufferings. It's not
that wood. You know, if they could find
that cross, you know what they'd do? They'd worship it. The Vatican would get a hold
of it, first of all, and then everybody would be making a pilgrimage
to see it. I heard a man here the other
day, two men talking, They were talking, and they were very religious. I mean, just gag religious. Listened to them. And that one
said, I was baptized. He said, I went over and I was
baptized in Jordan. The River Jordan is no better
than Cape Fear. It's just as dirty as Cape Fear. They call it the holy land. Is
it really? Holiness is a nature. It's not
found in dirt. It's not found in a piece of
ground. Holiness is the nature of God, and it's the nature of
his people. You were created in righteousness and true holiness. It's just amazing, though, people,
what they claim to worship God, but you get them to throw away
a cross. I told a person one time that had the picture of
the one they call Jesus, I told him, they said to me, they said,
well, I don't worship that. I said, burn it. Burn it. Oh boy. That was a different
reaction I got. Just burn it. God's people don't
wear religious relics for any reason. We worship God in spirit,
listen, in spirit and in truth. I don't carry anything that somebody,
to try to, somebody see that I'm religious or for any other
reason. Christ in you is the hope of
glory. I tell you this, if you don't have him in you, then the
more you have to have on the outside. If you don't have him
on the inside, you gotta have stuff on the outside. So Hezekiah destroyed it and
he called it a piece of brass, piece of brass. But here's a
summary of it. All are bitten by sin. We come
into this world in sin, don't we? We come into this world in
sin. All who look to Christ shall
be saved. They're being saved if they're
looking. They've been saved, they're being saved, and they
shall be saved. And we are told here in this very simple story
just to look. Look to Christ and Him crucified.
Oh, that God enable us to do that now and forevermore. To
look to Him. All right.