numbers and I showed you there
in John 3 14 and 15 where our Lord Jesus Christ referred to
this happening as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up and I tell you this
is one of those places and you know it in the scriptures tells
us in the New Testament So many things about Christ in the Old
Testament. And the Lord's people who have
been regenerated, been born by the Spirit of God, see things
from God's Word that other men don't see. They really do. That's
why he told Nicodemus, he said, Nicodemus, except a man be born
again, he can't see the kingdom of God. Secondly, he can't enter
into the kingdom of God. How do you get in the kingdom
of God? God puts you in the kingdom of God. By a new birth. And God
was in Christ. Reckon us, silence us unto himself. And of God, Christ is made. God did this. God made Christ
to be unto us. Wisdom, righteousness and sanctification. And you know that's why the Lord
Jesus Christ is talking about his sheep. And some Pharisees
came around and asked him, said, well, if you're the Christ, if
you're the Christ, just come right out and tell us plainly,
just say it. He said, I've told you, I've
told you, and yet you believe me not. You know why you don't
believe me? Because you're not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. That's the difference. He told
them plain enough to know that you can't believe on me and don't
believe on me because you're not my sheep. No matter what
I say to you, you're not going to believe it. What I say to
you, you're not going to believe it. So what a joy, what a blessing,
what a rejoicing that God's enabled us to see our salvation in the
Lord Jesus Christ by the types, by the symbols, by the pictures,
and by the shadows of the Old Testament. And I want us to look
together here at Numbers 21. at this serpent of brass which
prefigured and was a type of our Lord's death on a cross for
sinners and we can see the gospel of grace preached here clearly
and plainly and you know it says there in verse 8 and 9 after
the people murmured against God and murmured against Christ and
murmured against Moses can you imagine people murmuring against
God after they went through the Red Sea Eating bread every day? Go out
and get fresh bread every day? Christ was that rock that followed
them in the wilderness? And I mean they were discouraged
and spoke against God? That's the first thing it says,
spoke against God. What an awful thing to speak
against God Himself and then against Moses. You brought us out here to die.
That's what you've done. We hate this light bread, this
light bread. We just absolutely love it. We've
had enough of this. We don't ever want any more of
this ever again. And the Lord said, fiery serpents
among them. And they bit the people. Much
people of Israel died. Much people died. And then look what God said here
now. And they asked him, please take
away the serpents from us. And Moses, the Lord said unto
Moses, it's God speaking to Moses now, make thee a fiery serpent,
one like unto that serpent that has killed these people, and
set it upon a pole. and it came to pass that everyone
that is bitten looketh upon it and shall live and Moses made
a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole and it came to pass
that if a man's serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent
of brass he should live now serpent was a Beautiful type perfect
type almost For it was a serpent in the garden that deceived our
mother Eve is a serpent that deceived her he was cursed after
that and our Lord Jesus Christ was cursed for us was cursed
for us and And why wasn't one of those actual serpents, instead
of making one out of brass and hanging it up on a pole out here,
why didn't he take one of those actual serpents and nail it up
there? You know why? Because if you
put a serpent up there, the same one that killed all them people,
it'd be like the sinner trying to save himself. Poison trying
to save somebody from poison. Death trying to save somebody
from death. And that's why it was made as
a serpent of bread. It was like one of them serpents.
But it had no venom in it, for the first thing was. When that
serpent up on that pole had no venom in him, like our Lord Jesus
Christ, had no sin in himself. And that's why it says that he
was made. That that serpent was made of
brass, made like them fiery serpents, but made of brass. Our Lord Jesus
was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He was in the flesh, He
was in a body, but He had no sin in that flesh. He had no
sin in that flesh. And that's what we're talking
about. You know, the Lord Jesus says He was tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin. And this serpent in the wilderness
prefigured our Lord Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross. Now why would it be a serpent
of brass? Why would it be a serpent of brass? Well, we've dealt with
this before. Brass speaks of two things. First,
it's an emblem of God's judgment, divine judgment. Like that brazen
altar when you went into the tabernacle. There's the labor
and they washed and they went to the brazen altar. And here,
consuming fire. Fire consumed the sacrifice on
that. And God, He said in another place
that He would make the heavens to be brass. Have you ever had
the heavens make brass for you? When they were so hard, and they,
you couldn't get a, you know, you feel like that there's hard
and there's less brass, and you couldn't pray? God said, I'll
make the heavens brass. You don't want to talk to me.
You don't want to speak to me. You don't want to converse with
me. I'll make the heavens break so I can't hear you and you can't
hear me. I'll make the heavens brass. And when our Lord Jesus
Christ, you see Him in Revelations 1, there He stands in all of
His glory with a rod of brass in one hand and feet like gold
and burnished brass on His feet to talk about judgment. He's
going to bring judgment when men say, hide us from the wrath
of the Lamb that's going to come upon us. And second thing is
about brass, is that it's harder. It's harder than iron, silver,
gold. And what this tells us is this
mighty, mighty strength of our Lord Jesus Christ as he was able
to endure the awful judgment of God on him for a multitude
that no man can number. How could one man In such a short
space of time, suffer for so many. I'll tell you how I've
done it, because it's who it was that suffered. He's the God-man. That's who it was that suffered. It's not even how much He suffered,
but who suffered. And when you talk about Him suffered,
for every one for whom was given to Him in a covenant of grace,
for whom He represented on this earth, He represented all of
them on that cross. And bore all their sins on that
cross. Bore the judgment of God on that
cross. And I tell you, that's Now the
multitude that no man can number. Oh my. So that shows you the
strength that our Savior had. In fact, He had so much strength
even in His dying hour that our Lord Jesus Christ lifted up His
head. Lifted up His head and looked
out on that crowd and said, It is finished. And then He bowed
His head and gave it up. They didn't take it from him.
That's why he said, no man takes my life from me. Nobody took
his life. You know when he died? When he
willed to die. That's how much power this man
had. We sung that song, What a Savior? What a Savior is Jesus
our Lord. Let me tell you just a few things.
I got to hurry through this thing tonight. But talking about an
Old Testament picture of Christ, this is a beautiful one. But
let me tell you some things the people were not told to do. They
were not told to do. First thing, they were not told
to manufacture some kind of an ointment or salve. You know,
put some salve on them things. You know, you've been bit by
a serpent. Here's some ointment. Here's some salve. We'll fix
it. We'll fix that thing. But no, no. No, he said, look
at that serpent lifted up. I tell you, that woman who had
the issue of blood, she kept going to doctors and going to
doctors and she grew rather worse. Rather worse. People bring out
the holy, they say they got holy. Go to Jordan over in Israel and
bring back a bottle of water and call it holy water. Go bring
back a handful of dirt and put it in a bottle and call it holy
dirt. And they'll tell you that that
stuff can do miracles for you. No, we don't want no oil, we
don't want no sand. And they were not told to minister
to others. Oh, I tell you, go over there
and help those poor folks that's been bit. Well, I've been myself. Oh listen, go help them. You'll
get some relief for yourselves. And that's what soul winners
do. They run around. You know why they're out winning
souls? Because they're scared to death that they've lost themselves.
And the more that they win, the more they can convince, the more
they're convinced that they're alright. But I'm going to tell
you something. The only person that can convince
you that you're alright before God is God Himself. And if he
gives you assurance, ain't nobody can talk you out of it either.
I tell you, as you know, a drowning man can't be saved by somebody
who can't swim. Ain't that right? And one dead
man can't give life to another dead man. And that's what his
soul winning business is about. Oh, ministering to others. And
they were not told to fight the fiery serpents. They didn't say
get you a stick and go out here and start killing these serpents.
If they had killed a thousand serpents, they had still been
bitten and they still gonna die. Huh? And oh my, let's get a committee
together. What are we going to do to deal
with these fiery serpents? Let's get a committee together.
That's what we'll do. And you'll be the head of the
committee. But oh, that's what they want
to do. They want a committee. And I tell you, you know, there's
people, this is the thing, you know as well as I do, people
fight every kind of ism that there is. Communism, materialism, They fight drinking, picture
shows, abortion, rock music and not any of those things you fight
against has ever brought one soul to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I can preach on abortion and everybody knows that is wrong.
I could preach about Communism and Socialism and all those things
and them other isms and denominationalism and materialism but not one soul
would be brought to Christ preaching on an ism. Never has been and
never will be. Huh? Oh my, that's why our Lord
said Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness. Even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth on him. Here
it's looking. And here's something else they
were not told to do. They were not told to make an offering
to the serpent. Listen, y'all bring your money
up here and God will really bless you. I've seen folks years ago put
gold watches and rings and everything else in offerings because the
preachers told them God will bless you. They just piled everything
they could get in them big old boxes. But I tell you what, he
said make an offering to the serpent. There's no payment price. No payment price for healing
of life. You see, grace can't be bought
by works, by will, or by merit. If it could, it would cease to
be grace. If you could earn it, buy it,
or work for it, or will to have it, then it wouldn't be grace
anymore, would it? And here's another thing. They
were not told to pray to the serpent. Oh, get down and pray
to that serpent. You know, this is, I'm going
to tell you two things about prayer. That people say, they
say, I want you to pray real hard. Now will you tell me what it
is to pray real hard? And then others say, well I'll
tell you what, pray till you pray through. Pray through what? You know, and those are things
that people say. But you know what he says? Don't
pray to that serpent. Don't pray. He said, look and
live. Look and live. They weren't told
to look to Moses even. They weren't told to look to
Moses. Moses was the lawgiver. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. To Him all the prophets
gave witness. Moses, our Lord said, Moses wrote
about me. And they weren't told to look
at Moses. And here's the last thing that they were not told
to do. Well, look at your wounds. Look at your wounds. If I'm a big enough sinner, bad
enough sinner, sinful enough sinner, then God will save me. You know people want to qualify
how bad a man has to be to be a sinner. All Christ said was
He came to save sinners. That's all He said. He didn't
qualify it. Big sinners, bad sinners, worse sinners, meaner
sinners. That sinner is a big enough sinner. We can't measure
our sin. I just know it's bad enough that
I need Christ. I do know that. I do know that. I know that. Oh, I know it. I need Him. I need Him. And I'll tell you what, but all
it says here is that they knew they were bitten. And all it
was necessary for them to do was look and when they looked
they lived and you know some of them might have been bit more
than once I don't know but it says there you know in verse
6 it says and the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and
they bit the people and much people of Israel died but now
let's talk about the serpent lifted up Christ lifted up First
of all, it was God's provision with what is said in verse 8.
God did this. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Make thee a fiery serpent, set it upon a pole, and it shall
come to pass that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon
it shall live. And God told Moses to make a
serpent. God did this. The Lord provided
this. Just as He provided the salvation
that we have in Christ. God sent His Son. No one sent
after Him. God gave His Son. Nobody asked
for Him to be given. He did it because he would and
it was his good pleasure and for his glory and our salvation. And the people were stunned by
these fiery serpents, mortally wounded, and their blood was
filled with poison. Poison! You know, I've known
people who got bitten by rattlesnakes and copperheads since I've been
down here. I don't know how many. I was a little two-year-old who
got bit. And the first thing they want you to do is bring
the snake with you if you can, so they'll know what kind of
snake it is, so they give you the right kind of anti-venom. But I tell you, there ain't no
anti-venom for this. You know the only anti-venom
that would save a man in this situation when he was mortally
wounded and stung by these fiery serpents and that blood was poisoned.
That blood was streaming through their system and it had that
poison in it and it was going to their heart, going to their
brain and then killed already killed a bunch. Oh my! I tell you that and I tell you
many already died. But I tell you, beloved, this
is what we need. I tell you, the serpent, that
serpent, we needed Christ. Our blood was poisoned. Sin was
in our blood. We got inherited from our father
Adam, and I inherited from my grandpa, and my great grandpa,
and my great grandpa, and my daddy, and I passed it on to
my children. And who in the world is going
to deal with this blood disease? There's only one person that
can. And it takes blood to kill the blood disease. And it's the
blood of Christ that will kill that disease. By His stripes
we're healed, the scriptures tell us. Huh? And that serpent
was lifted up. Lifted up. I mean he got up high enough
where people could look. Christ was lifted up! And He said He would be. Said He would be. He said when
the Son of Man is lifted up, He'll draw all unto Him. It says all men, but the men
is in italicized. That means He's going to bring
all. Just all for whom He died. and signifying what death he
should die. And I'll tell you something else
about this serpent. It was God provided it. Moses make you a
fiery serpent. See them how they look? I want
one just like it. But I want them made out of brass.
And that serpent was hung out publicly that all may see it. Everybody may see it. Hung up
way high. were folks that could look, be
a long way off and could look. They may be on their dying, almost
on their dying breath, but if they looked, they looked, and
I mean their eyes were dim and foggy, but if they looked, looked,
looked, and they were just, shadows were coming over their eyes,
if they looked, them shadows just disappeared like that. Life
came. life came and that serpent was
hung out publicly that all may see and thy Lord Jesus Christ
has been set forth publicly whom God set forth is what it says
in Romans 3 whom God set forth as God made this provision he
set forth his blessed son He set him forth through the womb
of a virgin. Set him forth as a poor boy. Set him forth as a poor man. Set him forth as a man with,
cradled with grief and sorrow. And then set him forth as a representative. Set him forth as his first elect. Set him forth to die for sinners. Set him forth and set him forth
publicly right up there for everybody to see. Instead of anybody walking by
with any compassion and pity for our blessed Savior, they
walked by and wagged their head and said, ah, he saved others
and he can't even save himself. He said, Eloi, Eloi, Eloi, what
can I? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? One said he's calling for Elijah.
Let's see if Elijah will come and save him. But oh, God hung him out there
for everybody to see. And it was such a spectacle. Everything
that happened, Bless God for this. Oh, bless
God for this. Everything that happened from
the day that God created Adam in the Garden of Eden and made
this world and put light in it and darkness in it and the stars
in the heaven and laid the foundation of the earth until this thing
ends up. The greatest thing that ever
happened between them eternities is when God set forth His Son. And some people looked And some
people live. And some people cursed and they
died. And like these people, they spake
against God and against Moses. And yet God saved some of them
and their miserable, wretched condition with poison in their
blood. He gave them a remedy. He gave
them a serpent lifted up. And us with that poison in our
blood. Poison under the asthma of our
tongue. And our tongue is so deadly,
got poison in it. And I tell you, He hung Him out. for men and women whose blood
was so poisoned and they didn't know they was
dying, didn't know they was poisoned until God came along and sent
him out there and he said oh my you reckon he did that for
me? God opened your eyes and said
yeah he did, he did, he did And then God made a promise God
made a promise look at the promise that he made in verse 8 and 9
He said last part of the verse everyone that is bitten You see
that it's bitten When he looketh upon it shall live Moses made
a serpent of brass put it upon a pole it came to pass that if
a serpent had bitten any man and when he beheld the serpent
of brass. He lived. If God says you're
going to live if you look, you're going to live. God said if you look, I promise
you this. That's what he said. If you look,
I promise you this. You're going to live. Is that not what he told us about
his son? Ain't that what Christ said about
himself? He that believeth on me, the
same thing as looking, believing, coming, And I tell you, he looked
upon it. Shirley and I were singing that
song on the way to church. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is written in his word, hallelujah. It is only that you look and
live. And you know, you say, that's
too simple. That's what God said. But here's the kicker. You have
to be bitten. If you're not bitten, you won't
look. But if you've been bitten, you're going to look and you're
going to keep on looking and keep on looking. Ain't that right?
Old Moses or the law couldn't save the people. Only by looking
to the brazen serpent only only only the Lord Jesus can save
from sin There's no other name given under heaven among men
whereby we must be saved. Oh Our Lord Jesus said I'm the
way I'm the truth and I'm the life if you want the way you
want the truth you won't life You got to come to me. Look to
me, huh? And that serpent was lifted up
So for those who were too far gone to crawl and get closer
and closer to that brass serpent. You know that thing was lifted
up so high, there's no telling how far off you could be and
still see that brass serpent. Some people was probably a football
field farther from it. No telling how, all over the
place, all over on all sides of it. Boy, if they was able to look,
they might have been laying on the ground, just almost gone. Almost gone. Oh, help me, I got
to look, I got to look. Oh, life come right back into
them. Like they found in dry bones. When they looked, life
and body. It's like, you know when Lazarus
come forth from the tomb, here's the thing about, he was bound
hand and foot. What the scripture says. Now how in the world did
he get out of there? He come because Christ told him.
Christ can move inanimate objects. And I tell you, let me tell you,
a serpent killed and wounded these people. And a serpent lifted
up saved these people. Huh? And as far as God's concerned,
there's only two men in this world, Adam and Christ. By Adam came sin. Sin came death. Huh? And I tell you, an evil nature
come through that. Separation from God came through
that. But Christ our Lord, like that
serpent lifted up, Christ brought life, Christ brought righteousness,
Christ brought a holy nature, Christ reconciled us to God,
and Christ put away the cause of death which was sin. That's
why we cannot die. We cannot die. The body can,
but we can't. You know, God made us live in
souls and have it in dying bodies. And oh my, in that brazen suit,
brazen serpent, healed only the wounds of the body. That's all
it did. And saved them from a temporal
death. But Christ, our Lord, heals the
soul and saves to eternal life Like I just said, because he
put away the cause of death, which is sin. Huh? Oh my, not
only, you know, when you preach against sins, you're just trimming the tree. That's all
you're doing, trimming the branches. You know, we all know to trim
trees, but Joe's been trimming branches for the last week, I
reckon, but just trimming stuff all the time. But when you want
to get rid of something, you've got to go down to the root and
kill all the root. That's what Christ deals with.
He don't deal with the branches, He deals with the root. He deals with the root. He deals
with what the nature is. The sinful nature. And I tell
you what, all who had need of healing came to Him. And I tell
you that's what He does. He heals all that are bitten.
And the serpent, this serpent had his virtue to heal and saved,
but was never ever to be worshipped. Now I want you to keep Numbers
21. Now I want you to look with me over to 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter
18. And verse 4. Oh listen to this now. Oh boy. The serpent had lost its virtue
to heal and saved. It was taken down and was not
to be worshipped. Look what he said here in verse
4, 2 Kings 18. This is talking about Hezekiah,
good king, God used him. He removed the high places, break
the images and cut down the groves, and listen to this, and broke
in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. Now listen
to this now, for unto those days the children of Israel did burn
incense to it, and he called it nehushtan, a piece of brass,
and he destroyed it, because men will make an idol out of
anything they can. And there's making an idol out
of that serpent of brass. It had to be destroyed. But our
Lord's blood, that serpent lost his virtue, but our Lord's blood, and his power to save will never
ever lose his power Jesus Christ the same today yesterday and
forever we sing that old song dear dying lamb thy precious
blood shall never lose his power till all the ransomed church
of God be saved to sin no more and I tell you no matter how
many times How many times and how much poison was in a man
he was told to look and to live? Huh? Oh, it's like that woman
said, if I can just touch the hem of his garment. Those lepers, when he come down off
the mountain said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
And I don't care how weak a person's eyes is. You know, people say,
well I don't hardly have, I don't even, my faith is so small. He
didn't say how much faith you had to have. As long as it's
in the right person. A little faith will save you
as much as big faith will. I love that, don't you? I love
that. If you had the faith of a greater
mustard seed. And that serpent was an unlikely
thing to human reason to heal them wounds. If I was a betting
man, and I'm not, but if I was, I would say there was a lot of
those people that was so heady and so high minded. and so angry
at God for what he had done that they refused to look and refused
to be healed and they died because this don't make sense to look
to a brass serpent up yonder that don't even make sense here
I've been bitten by a serpent by a snake and I'm dying and
he's telling me that I gotta look to a A brass serpent to
be saved? And they thought that was up
to no telling how many of them died when they were too hard-hearted,
too proud, and too self-righteous to look. There's no doubt there
were some in that crowd that way. They really were. They really
were. And that's what Christ crucified
is to most people. It's absolutely and absolutely
foolishness. It's foolishness to them. Oh
my, you mean to tell me that it takes the death of Christ
to save a sinner? Yes. And it takes more than just
the death. It takes the blood shedding.
It takes the burial. It takes the resurrection. It
takes all of Christ, all of His life, and all of His death, and
all of His resurrection, and all of His ascension. It takes
Christ and all He is and all He did to save a sinner. But I'm telling you what, to
me, this is the power and wisdom of God, as Christ is. And I'm
going to close with this right here. We became lost sinners
by a look. Eve saw that that tree was good
for food, and to make one wise, when she saw that tree. And you
know, You know how we are saved? We are saved by a look. You know God said look unto me
all ye ends of the earth and be saved for I am a just God
and a Savior. And our spiritual life continues
with a look, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. And you know our life will end with a look, looking
for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. Starts with a look, continues
with a look, going to end with a look. So start to finish. One thing they had to do, they
had to look. And if a man don't look to Christ,
and there's only one reason a person won't look to Christ, is they're
not a sinner. The only reason that anybody
wouldn't look to that is because they're too proud. But oh, you're
looking at a man that desperately, desperately, desperately needs
the Lord Jesus Christ. Got to have Him. It's what you
say, James. God, we've got to have Him. Got
to. Got to. Our Father, oh precious
Father, blessed Savior, oh our God, thank you for allowing us
to meet here tonight. Thank you for allowing us to
speak of your blessed Son again. Thank you for allowing us to
talk of Him, speak about Him, show thanks from the Old Testament,
But oh Lord, we look, we look, we look, we look. We gather here
tonight to look. We gather here tonight to lift
up our hearts and our souls to the Lord Jesus Christ. To look
to Him again for our whole salvation. For our comfort, for our assurance.
For our joy, our peace. For our assurance. We look only
to Him. God bless these dear saints.
Preserve them and keep them. And Lord bless the ones that
are not coming yet to come back. Lord to come and be in the services.
God is here. Christ is here. It's time to
come and fellowship with the Lord's people. God bring them.
Touch them in their hearts. Touch them in their souls. Bring
them to meet with us. Worship with us. To be with the
brethren. We thank you and praise you in
Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Let's sing just two verses
of that look and live. 195 I believe is what it is.
Let's stand together. 195. I think that's right. Let's sing that. First and second verses Message from the Lord Message unto you Just record it in his word It
is only that you look and live Look to Jesus now and live. Disrecorded in His word, hallelujah. It is only that you look and
live. I've a message full of love,
hallelujah. A message, O my friend, from
you. It's a message from above Hallelujah
Jesus said it and I know it's true Look and live, my brother,
live, look and live Look to Jesus now and live It's recorded in
his word, hallelujah It is only that you look and live