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. 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 in their cities. And he called the name of the
place Hormath. And they journeyed from Mount
Horeb by the way of the Red Sea, which was opposite of Canaan. And just to kind of get the scene
here, they just whipped the Canaanites. And in their mind, they're like,
Why can't we go on into Canaan? Let's just keep on going. Let's
just keep pursuing this, and then this battle's over, and
we are in the land of Canaan. So you'll understand why they're
murmuring here. Anyway, and they journeyed from
Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to encompass the land of
Eden. And the soul of the people was much discouraged because
of the way. And the people spake against
God and against Moses. How many times we've read this?
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 here's one of the worst statements
probably ever made in the Scriptures. And our soul loatheth this light
bread, this manna that God was giving them freely from heaven.
They said, we're tired of it. We're tired of it. 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. praying to the Lord that He take
away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
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, and put it upon a pole, and it
came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, any man,
not just a class of them, upper class, or any man, whosoever
will, let him take of the water life free. That goes throughout
the Scriptures. That if a serpent had bitten
any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. He's miraculous. These people
saw so many miracles, one after another. Let's pray. Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Our Father, we pray for a spirit
of worship. Give me the ability to rightly
divide the word of truth. Send Your Word out this morning
in power. Instruct the heart of Your people.
Encourage the heart of Your people. Thank You for Your many mercies.
Thank You for all You've given us in Jesus Christ. Lord, help
us be among us this morning, Father. In spite of ourselves,
Father, be among us. In Christ Jesus' name we pray,
and amen. The Brazen Serpent is the title
of the lesson. This is one of the clearest pictures
of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified in the Old Testament. It's just one of the clearest
pictures. Our Lord even quoted from this when He was speaking
to Nicodemus in chapter 3 of John, the Gospel of John. He
quoted from this scripture right here. As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. He made reference to this right here. And the very purpose
of this right here, being written here, and them going through
this, and this brazen serpent, is for us. Remember, I read to
you, I believe it was a week or two ago, that these things
were for our examples, for our learning. This is for us. This picture is for us. This
is the gospel. This is the gospel of substitution.
This is how God saves sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ, looking
to Him, looking to Him continually. Now, the first thing that stands
out here is in verse 4. It says, "...the people was much
discouraged because of the way." The way. They had just defeated
the Canaanites, and in their mind, they're thinking, well,
we just go on into Canaan, we'll just take it over, we're here.
But instead, once they defeated the Canaanites, God turned them
and took them completely the opposite direction. And they
were so upset over this. What they didn't realize was
because of their own unbelief, Their own rebellion, they could
not enter into Canaan. They never did get it. They never
did get it. They were victims of their own
rebellion. I know this. I can look back
in my life. I'm a victim of my own sins.
So much of my trouble and problem just comes from my sins. Myself. This is the way we all are by
nature. We are all by nature rebels,
aren't we? You know, that's the offense
of the gospel. You know why the gospel is so offensive? Because
first of all, it gives God the glory that's due unto Him. And
then secondly, it exposes us for what we really are. We live
in a day when we try to just, we think, we try to, even our
kids in school, they try to teach them to be, think so great of
yourself and so much of yourself. We're rebels. The scripture says
the poison of ass is under their tongues. We are rebellious by nature.
We are happy. We're happy when all is going
well. And we are upset and complaining when things don't go our way. You just let me plan a golf day
and then let it rain and see how much I complain. I can't
believe it's raining today. Adam chose this way of rebellion. When he rebelled against God,
when God said, the day you eat thereof, thou shalt surely die.
And Adam knew it. And he purposely rebelled against
God. And we haven't changed since,
have we? We have not changed since. And
it says in verse 5, the people spake against God and against
Moses. Look over in 1 Corinthians 10.
1 Corinthians chapter 10. Let me
see the verse here. And in verse 9, they speak against
God. What they're speaking against
is the Lord Jesus Christ. They're speaking against that
cloud. That cloud is leading them in the direction they're
going. And they're complaining about it. They're complaining
about, listen, in verse nine, neither let us tempt Christ as
some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. The one they're complaining about
is Christ. He's God, he's the God of heaven and earth. They're
complaining against him. And it says here, the people
spake against God and against Moses, the Lord's servant. Complaining is a sure mark of
rebellion. It's a rebellion against God's
providence. Everything going on today is
providential. What do I have to complain about?
What do I have to murmur about? If I'm going to murmur, I should
murmur and complain about myself. It should be me. I should be upset with me. But
never with God. I never, ever, ever have a reason
throughout my whole life to ever be upset with God Almighty. He
can do no wrong. He can do no wrong. It's a complaining against providence. It's a complaining against God's
wisdom. God's wisdom is infinite wisdom. It's a complaining against
God's will. Our Lord told us in the disciples'
prayer, thy will be done on earth in my house. Now, thy will be
done in my house as it is in heaven. It's a complaining against the
very person of God. God Himself. Murmuring. I wrote this down last night
when I was looking at this again, going over these notes. And I
thought, I don't know of anything that's any more dangerous than
murmuring. Complaining. What that says about my knowledge
of God, my relationship to God, Praying and waiting is the way
of faith. Isn't it? That's the way of faith. They could not get Egypt off
their minds every time they came into a strait like this. They said, now don't you look
back here at verse 5, look. And this people spake against
God and against Moses. Why? Why? Questioning God. Why? Paul said,
who art thou, old man, to reply against God in Romans 9? Has
not the potter power over the clay? Who am I to question God
for what He's doing and the way He's leading? Why have you brought
us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness Well, there's
no bread, neither is there any water. Why'd you bring us out
of Egypt to this place? They never could get Egypt out
of their heart. They were ready to leave Egypt when the plagues
were there. They were ready to leave the servitude of Egypt,
but they could never get past the leaves and the onions and
the garlic. In one place they said, we had
the flesh pots. We sat by the flesh pots. Their
belly was their God. Their appetite was their God. They complained against God's
provision of manna. You know, when you think about
it, they didn't work for the bread. They didn't work for that
water. Their clothes didn't grow old for 40 years. And yet they
were the most complaining people ever. They called, listen, they said,
we loatheth this light bread. They just called
it light bread. No substance to it, that's what
they're saying. No substance to it. God gave
them bread from heaven, he gave it to them freely, and they got
tired of it. And I put this question to me,
and I put this question to you. Are you tired of Christ? Can
we really ever get tired of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He not
enough? Is the bread from heaven not
enough? If I ever get to the point where
Christ is not enough, that I want something else, give us something
else. The problem is with me. It's
not with the bread. It's not with the bread. It's
with me. And I pray God give us the wisdom
to recognize that. Well, judgment falls in verse
six. The Lord sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they were bitten, and it said they died. You know why? The wages of sin
is death. That's the end result. Every
time, that's the end result of sin, is death. Judgment is coming
on all who have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Well, I tell you, that ought
to wake people up. That ought to wake me up. All have sinned. You know what
that tells me? I need a Savior. I need a Redeemer. I need one that can put this
sin away. Because if not, I'm going to die. And I don't mean
just die physically. I mean, I'm going to die the
second death. Perish. Our Lord said, your fathers
did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. He's saying more
than they just died. We all do that. Because he said
in another place, God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living. He's talking about Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob being alive. He said, they're not dead. God's
not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. But
he said, your fathers ain't man in the world. They're dead. They
perished. They perished. They didn't believe God. And
here's something that's else important. There was never any
life in the tithe. They ate the manna that God gave,
which was the type of Christ, but they never got past the type.
They never got past the type. And there's no life in types.
Those types are just to point us to Jesus Christ. All have been bitten by the fiery
serpent of sin. And when sin is conceived, it
brings forth death. Sin's in every one of us. It's
bitten every one of us. When Adam fell, That fiery serpent
of sin got us. Sin did not come into this world
through Satan. This is important because I'm
going to make a point here in a minute. Sin did not come into this world
through Satan. It came into this world through Adam. That's how
it came, through a man. It came into this world through
a man. Now they were bitten by these
serpents which represent sin, these fiery serpents. And the
bite was poisonous. It was incurable. There was no
antivenom. Not for sin. We can find cures
for some cancer. We can find some cures for some
heart disease. But not sin. We just can't treat
it. It's incurable. It was painful. All the pain I have is caused
by sin. Deadly, no one can survive. And such is sin. And such are
we. That's us. Now the people here
first said, now we're going to see the grace of God. We're going
to see how God saves from sin. We're going to see this. He's going to give us a beautiful
picture here. The people, in verse 7, confess their sin of
complaining against the Lord and against Moses. Now, this is only a type of repentance.
Their repentance was not genuine, because only two of them, out
of that original group, went into the Promised Land. But it's
a type. It's a time. Because we are brought
to repentance, at the same time we're brought to look to Christ.
Faith and repentance, I can't say which, which, which, but
faith and repentance go together. They go together. And when they repented, when
they confessed their sins, as soon as confession was made,
the remedy was revealed. The remedy was revealed. I thought
of that Scripture, where sin abounded, grace does much more
abound. Much more abound. You say, I've got a lot of sin.
No, you've got a lot more than you think you've got. We all
do. But however, His grace abounds
even more. It abounds even more. God could have commanded Moses
to kill him. You know you could be somewhere
else this morning. In all seriousness, me and you
could be in hell this morning. We could be lifting up our eyes
in torment. That's very real. Or we could
be out there somewhere else, interested, totally interested
in something else other than God. I remember a day. I remember
a time when God was not in any of my thoughts. I wanted nothing
to do with the gospel, Christ, religion, I wanted nothing to
do with it. And now here I stand. Here I stand preaching the gospel.
That's grace. That's the work of God. Your
interest in Jesus Christ is the work of God. Completely. I was raised up in church. My dad pastored church for several
years. That's not why I'm here. I'm
here by the grace of God. I believe by the grace of God
and the work of the Holy Spirit. That's why. And God could have killed these
people. But he didn't. He didn't. He's showing us something here.
He commands Moses to make a serpent of brass, put it upon a pole. He didn't say, Moses, whip up
this potion. He didn't give him some kind
of potion to whip up and have him to drink it or any kind of
medication or anything like that. Moses, I want you to take a serpent
of brass and I want you to put it on a pole, stick it in the
ground right in the middle of the camp. I want you to lift
it up high. I imagine this thing was lifted
up high so the people could see it. They could look. They could
look. They settled up in the camp and
they commanded the people who were bitten to look. And those who looked
lived. What a miracle. What a miracle
of grace. It was incurable. It was painful. It was deadly. They were going
to die. And all they had to do was look
at this serpent hanging on a pole. Only God would come up with that.
Only God would. If we were asked, if God left
it up to us, if we were asked how to remedy this thing, we
would come up with works. we would come up with words.
But God comes up with grace. He comes up with grace. The remedy
is this, Christ. Christ. Now, why this serpent
on a pole? Why make it like, why make this
remedy like the very thing that caused the problem? I want you to remember this. If you don't get anything else,
I want you to get this this morning. The same nature that sin must
be the same nature that renders satisfaction. A goat or a sheep or any animal
that was sacrificed, the death of an animal cannot put away
the sin of my soul. It can't do it. It's got to be
the same nature that caused the offense, the same nature that
caused sin, has to be the same nature that renders satisfaction
to God's law, to God. And that's why Christ has become
bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. That He might be able to take
our sins into himself, be nailed to a cross, and give satisfaction
to God's law on my behalf. And what am I to do? Look. Just look. Now, that probably, you know,
there's a million some people there. Probably not all of them
were bitten. Not all of them. I imagine the vast, a good majority
of them was, but not all of them. And the ones that weren't bitten,
they didn't even look. But boy, those who said, we're
dying. We're dying here. They felt the sting of sin. They felt the sting of death
coming on. And all they were commanded to do was look to that
serpent hanging on that pole. And that's all that you and I
are to do. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And brethren, that look is continual. We never take our eyes off of
Him. When we do, we're in trouble. You remember when Peter said,
Lord? The Lord was walking on the water. He said, Lord, if
it's You, bid me to come to You. He said, come on. Peter stepped
out of that boat. And for a few steps, Peter walked
on water. And then when he quit looking
at Christ, he started looking at the wind and the waves, he
started to sink. Our looking to Christ is a continual
looking to Christ. We never take our eyes off of
Him. He's the mark. He's the goal. He's the finish
line. He's it. And then the remedy that God
gave was sufficient for all who looked. The poison was the same
in all. It was going to lead to the same
end, death. But the remedy was sufficient.
Jesus Christ is sufficient. His blood is sufficient to put
away my sins. His righteousness is sufficient
to cover me, to cover my nakedness. He's sufficient. He's all I need. And when any man beheld the serpent,
it says, He lived. Can you imagine being in that
pain? Others had already died. Others
had already died. And there were some at the point
of death. And the pain of it. And when
they looked, it was immediate. The pain was
gone. The poison was gone. The dying
was gone. That was gone. Spiritually, spiritually,
when God enables us to look to Christ, my sins are gone. Now, as far
as God's concerned, it's gone long time ago. But as far as
I'm concerned, they're gone when I look to Him. I don't have to fear death. I'm
going to die. I don't know when. There's two
men that I worked with. One of them just died the other
day. I had to have my throat scoped. I was having a very difficult
time swallowing a year ago. Couldn't hardly swallow. Couldn't
get through my lunch or supper, whatever. And I went to the doctor. So they scoped it, and they said
everything looked fine. It was just a day to stretch
it, but everything looked fine. And I was telling one gentleman
there about it, and he said, yeah, I've been having that problem
too. And he went, and he had stage four cancer. And he passed
away this past weekend, or last weekend. And then another one
before I left had stage four cancer. Same thing, same problems. He had stage four cancer. And
now they tell me he's close to the end. But both of those guys, both of them, all of a sudden
became serious. All of a sudden, it's kind of
like, oh, no. And you can see a fear. Come on, I can see it. But the believer don't have anything
to fear. Doctor can say, you're gonna die in three months. Now, I don't know how I'll react
because God gives dying grace when it's needed. But I hope
that I'm like Paul and I can say, I have a desire to depart.
I have a desire to depart. Vicki and I used to, years ago,
we took care of an elderly, well, he wasn't so much an elderly,
he had MS. multiple sclerosis and he couldn't walk, he was
in a wheelchair. And the government paid him X amount of dollars
to have people take care of him. Well, he talked to us and I wanted
to move to Ashland and it worked. We did it for four years. But
when it came time for, he had a heart attack and it came time
to die, he would not let them revive him. He said, just let
me go. If this man believed the gospel,
he gave a good witness. But he said, just let me go. Don't revive me. Don't you do
anything. Just let me go. The believer has no reason to
fear. We have no reason to. I'm not
saying that a believer can't have some fears, but we have
no reason to fear it. In fact, we ought to welcome
it. We ought to welcome it. It ought to be like a friend.
Henry said one time, he said, the only thing that makes dying
difficult is this, our relationships. Our relationships. Christ took the sting out of
death. He took it out. He took it out. Now, they were told to look. And in doing that, when they
look, there was faith. Believing God would do as he
said he would. God, you said look. You said look and I'd live. Look
and I'll be healed, look and I'll be saved. So it says in
Isaiah, in Isaiah 45, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends
of the earth for I am God and there is none else. I am just
God, I am a just God and a savior. In that order, in that order. Like the manna and the water,
the salvation, that's in Christ is free. Free. I don't know why it is
we want everything free but salvation. We want to win the lottery. I
mean, we want to win the lottery. Somebody give you a car, you
thank you. But when it comes to salvation,
it's like, no, it's all right, I'll work for it. I got to do
something. You can't do anything. Can a
dead man do anything? Can a dead man raise himself?
If a dead man can raise himself, he can save himself. But now let me give you a word
of warning in closing. In 2 Kings 18 verses 1-4, you can look at this
later, You know what the people did with that serpent of brass? They saved it. They kept it. And they began to burn incense
to it. They began to burn incense to
that brass. And Hezekiah was a good king. Hezekiah took that piece of brass
and destroyed it. He destroyed it. I'd have to
go back and look at how he pronounced that word. But it means this,
a piece of brass. That's all it is. The cross that
people like to wear around their necks, these religious relics,
This picture that they hang in their homes and in churches,
so-called, they call Him Jesus. I told a person one time, that's not who He is, that's
not Him. You worship, don't worship things
like that. And they said, I don't, I don't
worship that. I said, well, burn it. No, no, no. Well, that got
a different reaction. They got a different reaction. Spurgeon said, wearing a cross
around your neck is like wearing the butcher knife someone you
used to kill your mother with. That piece of wood that our Lord
hung on, you know, you know if they found that, it would be
enshrined And people would make a trip
every year, just like they do, to go over to Jerusalem and they
call it what? Why do they call that place over there? Holy Land. Ain't nothing holy about that
land. Not at all. Oh Hezekiah took
that piece of brass and he destroyed it. Because they were burning
incest in there. Let's be careful. Here it is.
Let's be careful that we worship Christ in his person and not in relics
or ceremonies or anything else. We worship God, the scripture
says, in spirit and in truth and no other way. We don't use
gimmicks and relics and whatever to represent Him. We take His
Word, we preach the Gospel, we believe God, and we wait for Him to come and
get us. We wait for Him to come and get us. All are bitten by sin. In Adam, we were all bitten by sin. And the only remedy is Jesus Christ Himself. And
all we are commanded to do is look. Look and live. That's the message. Look and
live.