Let's open our Bibles to Numbers
21. Numbers 21. Our pastor's in Cottageville this
morning preaching for Mike Walker. I think Mike and his wife may
be getting away for the weekend. So thankful for them, the opportunity
to hear Frank preach and thankful for the Walkers to get a chance
to kind of get away. But before we begin our lesson,
let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our God and Father in heaven,
Lord, we thank You for this day. Thank You for this opportunity
to gather together, to come here together to hear a portion of
Thy Word. We pray You bless Your Word this
morning. Bless it here and bless it in
all places where men whom You've called to this work stand to
proclaim your gospel. Lord, we thank you for your kindness
and your mercy towards us. Lord, we thank you for our families. We thank you for our homes. Thankful
for all that thy hand has provided. Lord, cause us to have thankful
hearts. Lord, for those of our number
who are sick, Lord, those who are hurting, those who are in
a time of trouble, Lord, we pray you'd comfort and strengthen
your people. And Lord, those who care for them, those who
care for those who are in trouble, bless and protect and keep. And
in all things, teach us to look to Thee, rest in Thee. And we
thank You for Your many blessings, but above all, we thank You for
the Lord Jesus Christ. In His name we pray and give
Thee thanks. Amen. Numbers 21. Before we look at our text, I
want to read a passage of Scripture from Deuteronomy. Hold your place
there and look over at Deuteronomy 6. Look here at these first 12 verses
of Deuteronomy 6. Now these are the commandments,
the statutes, the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded
to teach you, that you might do them in the land, whether
you go to possess it. That thou mightest fear the Lord
thy God, keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I
commanded thee, thou and thy son and thy sons' sons, all the
days of thy life. Thy days may be prolonged. Hear
therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well
with thee, that you may increase mightily, as the Lord God of
thy fathers has promised thee in the land that floweth with
milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,
and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all
thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command
thee this day shall be in thy heart, Thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Thou shalt bind them
for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be frontlets between
thine eyes. Thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house,
and on thy gates. And it shall be, when the Lord
thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which you swear
unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great
and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, houses full of
all good things, which thou fillest not, wells dug, which thou diggest
not, vineyards and isle of trees, which thou plantest not, when
thou shalt have eaten and be full. Then beware, beware lest
thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of
Egypt from the house of Pontius. I'm thankful that we have the
opportunity this morning to have, I guess most of the time when
I'm out here for Sunday school, I feel like I'm teaching to my
kids and you guys just kind of sit in. But I'm thankful that
we can sit here together this morning. I believe this passage
of scripture serves as a good reminder to us, our responsibility
to teach our children. teach our children the things
written in God's Word. You know, this is not just something
that they get in our Bible classes. It's not just something they
get when we have summer Bible school. We're certainly thankful
for those things. But God's Word is something that
they need to hear at all times. We read here in this passage
of Scripture, He said, teach him to fear. Teach him to fear
the Lord thy God. Teach him to hear. Teach him
to hear that the Lord God, He's one Lord. To fear Him, to hear
Him. And then in verse 5 he says,
teach him to love. Teach him to love the Lord thy
God. All thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul. Verse 7 he says,
teach him diligently. Now if you have a margin in your
Bible, You'll see that word diligently. It means to wet or sharpen. Me and Earl were talking about
this earlier this morning. When you sharpen a knife, when you sharpen a knife, you
drag that knife over that whetstone back over and over again. And
it doesn't get that knife sharp the first time you hit it on
the whetstone, does it, Earl? You can't just drag it across
one time and get it sharp. It's something that's constant. It's constant. And that knife
doesn't stay sharp forever. You have to go back and sharpen
it again. And that's what he's telling
us. He said, teach him, teach him
diligently. We all need to be taught diligently.
We need to be told these things over and over and over again
because we're so quick. Oh, how quick we are to forget,
to forgive. We continually come to the worship
service to hear his word. over and over again. Tell me
the old, old story over and over again. We'll continue our reading
here. Look at verse 7. He says, you teach him diligently.
He said, you teach him when you sit in the house, when you sit
down to eat, when you sit down in the living room. We give thanks, don't we? He
said, teach them when you're sitting in the house, when you're
sitting in the living room. He said, when you walk by the way,
whether that's a long journey or whether it's just a trip out
into the backyard, God's creation is majestic. It's always on display. There
should always be a time that we can recognize the work of
God's hand. even in just a blade of grass
or a flower, the sky, whatever it might be. But he says, he
said, when you walk by the way, he said, when you lie down, when
you lie down and when you rise up in the morning, when you lie
down, thankful, thankful that the Lord has brought us through
another day. When you rise up in the morning,
thankful that he's brought us through the night, pray that
you give us strength to make it through another day, that
he'd grant us, teach him You should teach them at all times.
Look at verse 9. He says, write them on the post
of your house. The post of your house, it's
the first thing you see when you walk in and it's the first
thing you see when you walk out. Just continue talking of Him. And it shall
be, when the Lord God shall have brought thee into the land which
He sware unto the fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob,
to give thee great and goodly cities, Consider how the Lord
has blessed us. All that He has blessed His people
with. Look at verse 12. It says, Beware,
beware, lest you forget the Lord, which brought thee up out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Beware, lest
you forget. Well, turn back to Numbers 21. But beginning with verse 3 of
Numbers 21. It says here, And the Lord hearkened
to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites. And they utterly
destroyed them and their cities. And they called the name of the
place Hormuz. They named it after what had
happened there. It was just total, total destruction. The Lord had
delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and out of bondage. They were slaves. The children
of Israel were slaves to the Egyptians. And God delivered
them in a miraculous, in a mighty way. Consider the things that
they had seen. The children of Israel, they
had seen those plagues that had been brought upon the Egyptians.
Just imagine what that had to be like. And yet, they were safe. They were kept. The children
of Israel were kept from those things. That final plague, the
final plague where God came through and He slew the firstborn in
the house of the Egyptians. They heard those cries. They
heard the cries that went up from Egypt. The Scriptures declare
there was not a house. Not a house among the Egyptians
where there was not one dog. And yet, the children of Israel,
under the blood, they were safe and secure. They woke up that
morning safe and secure, but to the sound of the cry of the
Egyptians who had lost their firstborn. God said this. He said to Moses, against any
of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue. They had seen the parting of
the Red Sea. What a miraculous sight that
had to be. Not only that it was parted,
Moses lifted up that rock and the sea parted. They walked through,
not with their feet coming off or their shoes coming off because
it was stuck in the mud, they walked through on dry ground. Remember Moses said, fear you
not, fear you not, stand still and see the salvation, which
he'll show you this day. And again, he lifted up that
rod and they walked through on dry ground, right through the
midst of the sea. God said, I'm going to deliver you, not the
Egyptians, but I'm going to deliver my people. And he saved the children
of Israel and he destroyed those Egyptians that would try to walk
through that same path. Those walls of water just collapsed
on them. We read that when Israel saw
that great work, which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, they
feared the Lord, they believed the Lord, and they served Moses. Everything was great. They saw
that and they couldn't believe what they saw. It was good. And
the Lord fed the children of Israel. He fed them manna, quail,
gave them water from a rock. Think about that. Think about
all that they had seen. Think about all that. Are you
still in Numbers 21? Here in verse 3, we read that
the Lord had once again harkened to the voice of Israel and delivered
up the Canaanites, utterly, utterly destroyed them. Once again, they
had saw the mighty hand of God. Look here in verse four. Here
we see man's rebellion. Despite all that, all that they
had seen, all that God had done for them, man's rebellion. Look at verse four. They journeyed
from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to encompass the land
of Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged. Much discouraged because of the
way How can they possibly be discouraged? Can we relate to that? How often do we get discouraged
because of the way? They went around. Instead of just going across,
they compassed the land. And the way was a little longer
than they expected. Doesn't that happen to us often? Well, this isn't the way we thought
things would go. We think it would be better to
go this way or to do this or to do that. But the Lord directed
that path, didn't He? But the people grew weary. And despite what we've seen,
we ourselves, think of what we've seen in our time and what we've
experienced of the Lord's mercy. of His provision, of His kindness,
of His deliverance, His grace to His people, how often we become
discouraged because of the way. Look at verse 5, the people spake
against God and against Moses. And they said, Wherefore have
you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there
is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loathe
this light-bringer. Beware, Israel, beware, lest
thou forget the Lord which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,
from the house of bondage. We could probably hang that on
our sun visor somewhere, couldn't we? Or on the refrigerator. Beware,
beware lest you forget what the Lord has done. He delivered us. He brought us
out of the house. They were slaves, slaves. And how quickly, how quickly
they began to murmur and complain. They said there's no bread and
there's no water. I was reading on this and that
word bread, it actually means like cornmeal, that which you
would crush up into like a flour or a meal for the purpose of
making your own bread. That's what they wanted. God
had provided them bread. God had provided them that manna.
But they still had a desire to make their own bread. To do it their own way. Does
that sound familiar? We'll have it our own way, won't
we? Isn't that what men still do today? We want to make our
own bread. We want to have our own meal,
have our own water. make our own bread. Men say they
want Christ, but they insist on the works of their hands,
to make it their own way. This is a picture, again, of
self-righteousness and rebellion and unbelief, which can be found
in every last one of us. Israel blamed God and they blamed
Moses. They said, This is your fault, but truly
the trouble, the trouble was of their own making. Just desires,
just desires. Wherefore, as by one man, by
Adam, sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed
upon all. By nature, we all desire our
own way. Isaiah 53.6, turn over there,
Isaiah 53.6. Here we read, all we like sheep
have gone astray. We've turned everyone to whose
way? To his own way. Everyone to his
own way. And the Lord had laid on him
the iniquity of the soul. They were discouraged. discouraged
by the way they spoke against God and Moses, they found fault
with the bread from heaven, that which God had provided. Our Lord
said this in John 6. He said, I'm the living bread.
I'm the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man
shall eat of this bread, he shall live forever. The bread that
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life. The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh? We say the same thing as those
Jews did back in their day. We'll not have this man to reign
over us. Let's read on in our text, back
in Numbers. Look at chapter 21. Look at verse
6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of
Israel died." Here we see God's judgment. God's judgment. Because
of Israel's sin and murmuring and rebellion, God judged the
people. God sent these poisonous serpents,
and they that were bitten died. God's going to judge sin. Our sins have separated us from
God. We all have this same poison,
as the children of Israel did, this same poison flowing through
our veins. It's sin. It's the sin of our father Adam,
because when Adam fell, we all fell. He said, in the day that
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. The wages of sin,
dead. The children of Israel here,
there was no cure for them. We just read this in the text.
The serpents bit the people and they died. Turn to James 1. James 1. Verse 15. Here we read that when lust conceived,
it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. That writing that was written
on the wall for Belshazzar back there in the Old Testament, back
in Daniel, it could just have easily been written on our wall.
He said that thou hast been weighed in the balance. and found wanting. So they asked Moses, once this
judgment was declared, once the people were dying, they went
to Moses and they said, pray for us. Intercede. Intercede
on our behalf. Man's sin and rebellion. We see
God's judgment. And then last, God's remedy.
God's remedy. Back to our text, back in Numbers.
Here we see a picture of Christ our Redeemer. Look at verse eight
and nine. 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. Moses made a serpent of brass,
and he 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, the serpent was made in the likeness
of the serpent that had bitten the people. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, he was made in the likeness of the flesh. He was just like us, but without
sin. He was sinless. The serpent of
brass had no venom. The Lord Jesus Christ had no
sin. He did no sin. He was in all
points tempted as are we, yet without sin. The serpent of brass
was lifted up on a pole. Our Lord Jesus Christ, he said
this himself. He says, as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. And bearing our sins, bearing
our sins, he was nailed, nailed to the cross. I ain't closing. I'd have you consider three things
about this remedy. Real quick, three things about
this remedy. First, the singleness of it. The singleness of it. There was
only one remedy. Just one. It was the serpent
on the pole. We have but one Savior. One Savior, one Redeemer, one
Deliverer, one Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, consider
the simplicity of it. The simplicity of the gospel.
Look and live. Look and live. God provided the
remedy and he said, look, look. He didn't say walk up an aisle.
He didn't say give your heart to Jesus. He didn't say get your
heart right with God. He didn't say don't do this or
do that. He said, Look and live. The scriptures
declare this. Look unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth are
God. There is none else. This is the
record. This is the record that God hath
given us eternal life. This life is in His Son. It's in the Son of God. He that
hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son. And last, consider the certainty
of it. The certainty of it. Verse 8
said this, When he looketh upon it, he shall live. Verse 9 said, It came to pass
that if a certain serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, Certainly. Our Lord spoke these
words, he said this, I tell you what, turn and turn and read
it with me. Look over John chapter six. John chapter six. Look at verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which
he hath given me I shall lose. I should raise it up again the
last day. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on
Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up the last
day." The singleness of it. Just one remedy. Christ alone,
the simplicity of it, look unto me and be ye saved. The certainty
of it came to pass. Everyone that was bitten, what
do you think? Held a serpent of grass. That's our hope, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ. Not in
anything that we've done or could do. The best we could do is filthy
rags in His sight. We look to Christ and we rest
in Him. That's all. May God bless His
Word.