Numbers chapter 21. Title of the message this morning
is look and live. This is a very important Old
Testament type of our Lord Jesus Christ. We read this to open
the service for our Lord Jesus used this type. This is an illustration
to Nicodemus on how God saves sinners. This picture. The Spirit will
bless it to our understanding, will tell us how a sinner can
have eternal life. Are you interested in that? Are
you interested in eternal life? I have four points this morning
that I pray, trust, will cause us to look to Christ, look and
live. First, the problem of sin. Second, the solution to sin.
Third, the effect of God's solution. And fourth, the look that saves.
First, the problem. The problem is man's sin. Verse
four, Numbers 21. 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. The children of Israel are nearing the end of their 40 years.
and they spent wandering in the wilderness. This is the start
of that 40th year. Now they're on their way to the
promised land. And from where they were to Canaan,
it's a straight shot if they go through the land of Edom.
But the Edomites refused to let them go through. So now they've
got to go around Edom. This is gonna add several extra
weeks to their journey. Five, six extra weeks of walking
through the wilderness. and the people are discouraged.
Now this is God's way for them. They're discouraged by it. But
you know, this is also the way the people chose for themselves
39 years ago. And all this wandering through
the wilderness, all this walking that is discouraging the people,
it's the result of sin. Specifically, it's the result
of the sin of unbelief. Sin is the way that man has chosen. So we've got nobody to blame
for ourselves, for the way that we go that is so discouraging.
But the problem of this sin gets worse. Sin does more than grieve
us. Sin does more than discourage us. Sin kills us. Look at verse
five. And the people spake against
God and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us
up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no bread,
neither is any water. And our soul loatheth this light
bread, Now the root of sin is speaking against God. All sin
really is speaking against God, not believing what God said. I want you to listen to their
complaint. They spoke against God and scriptures they spake
against Moses, but when they spoke against Moses, what they're
doing is they're speaking against God. And this is their first
complaint. You brought us up out of Egypt
to die in the wilderness. Now really, after 39 years, this
is your complaint. You brought us up out of Egypt
to die in the wilderness. Everyone who's 20 years old and
up did in fact die in the wilderness. If they were 20 years old or
older when they came out of Egypt, they did die in the wilderness.
You remember the story, they died because of unbelief. They
would not, they refused. to enter the promised land when
God told him to. You remember the story, Moses sent out 12
spies into the promised land and the 12 spies came back. 10
of them had an evil report. They said, oh, this is a land
of giants. It's a good land, a land flowing
with milk and honey, but it's a land of giants and walled cities
and large armies. We can't take the land. Two of
the spies, Joshua and Caleb said, yeah, it's a land of giants.
It's a land of large armies and walled cities. But God said,
we can take the land, let's go take it. It's a good land, a
land flowing milk and honey. It's a land of rest, let's go.
But they wouldn't listen to Joshua and Caleb, would they? They would
not enter in. And everyone 20 years old and
older died in the wilderness because of unbelief. But everyone
who was under 20 lived. Now they lived in this desert
for 39 years. And they lived because God provided
for them. In all those years, never one
time did they plant a crop, never once, because they were never
in one place long enough for the fruit to ripen and get a
harvest. But you know, they always had something to eat. God gave
them manna and quail every day. They're in the desert where there's
no rivers, there's no oceans, there's no water, but they had
water to drink every day because of what we saw in our lesson,
that rock that followed them, which was Christ. They didn't
have any tailors or any way, you know, to make shoes and clothes
and things, but that's all right. Their shoes never wore out, their
clothes never wore out. God promised them, you're gonna
live in the wilderness till my appointed time and you're gonna
take possession of the promised land. And now they're getting
ready to do it. They lived all these years in
the wilderness and they're getting ready to enter in the promised
land because of the miracle of God's grace, how God provided
for them. And now they say, God's led us
all this way, not so that we enter into his rest, but so that
we die in a wilderness. My goodness, unbelief. So I told
you in the lesson, unbelief lies, doesn't it? That's a lie. God's
not gonna let them die in a wilderness. Well, here's their second complaint
against God. There's no bread to eat. Now, I don't know what
Moses said, but I know what I'd have said if they told me there's
no bread to eat. I said, boys, you just ate bread
this morning. You just went out and gathered up manna for free.
You didn't have to work, you didn't have to plant, you didn't
have to do it. You woke up this morning, opened up your tent
door, and you went out and gathered all the manna you wanted to eat.
You ate bread this morning. You can't tell them there's no
bread to eat. And their response would have been, well, technically
there's bread, but it's light bread. We hate it. We hate this
bread. That bread is good enough maybe
for children or something, but this is not enough bread for
full grown men like us. We've surpassed this light bread. Well, you know that man was a
picture of Christ, wasn't it? Christ, the true bread from heaven,
Christ, the living bread. And what they were saying is
we don't like God's provision. God's provision for us is not
enough. Christ is not enough. But don't people today say the
same thing? They hear the gospel, the simplicity of Christ, and
they say the gospel of Christ is not enough. This simple gospel,
ruined by the fall, redeemed by the blood, regenerated by
the spirit, that's too simple for somebody as intellectual
as me. Yeah, I'm gonna dig into these deep, hidden mysteries.
You know, I need more than the simplicity of Christ. What they're
saying is they need more than Christ. Christ is not enough
to satisfy. And when someone refuses the
gospel, the simplicity of Christ, they're saying, Christ is not
enough. My soul hates this. Just like
they hated that light bread. He's not enough for me. Unbelief
lying in it. Christ is enough. Christ is all
we need. Well, here's their third complaint against God. There's
no water to drink. Well, it may not have been that
morning, but yesterday morning they drank from that smitten
rock. Now they've had plenty of water. What are they talking
about? This was their complaint all
through the wilderness. They just kept saying this, there's
no water, there's no water, there's no water. Don't you see that
gigantic rock that's been following you through the wilderness? Where's
all this water been coming for 39 years? Don't you reckon God's
gonna keep supplying it? Unbelief lies. There's been water gushing from
that rock all this time. And this rebellion makes God
angry. It provokes God's anger. You
understand that. Somebody lies about you, it provokes
your anger. Why God any different? People
lie on him, it provokes his anger. And that's why the result of
sin is death. Verse six, because of this rebellion,
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people. And they bit
the people and much people of Israel died. Now the result of
this rebellion that provoked God's anger is God sent fiery
serpents to bite the people and to die because of this poisonous
venom that was in these serpents. Now in scripture, serpents are
associated with evil, aren't they? Satan took the form of
a serpent when he beguiled Eve. Look in Matthew chapter 12. This
is one of the times our Lord called the Pharisees a generation
of vipers. Here, a generation of fiery serpents. And the reason he called them
a generation of vipers is for speaking against God, doing just
what their forefathers did in the wilderness. Matthew 12, verse
31. Wherefore I say unto you, all
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. But the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
Whosoever speaketh the word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven
him. But whosoever speaketh against
the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this
world nor in the world to come. Either make the tree good and
its fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and its fruit
corrupt. For the tree is known by its fruit. O generation of
vipers, How can ye being evil speak good things? For out of
the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Their mouth is
speaking things against God. And our Lord called them a generation
of vipers. Vipers are given to us as a picture
of sin and evil. And these serpents give us a
picture of what sin's done to us. These serpents were everywhere. You couldn't go anywhere in the
camp of Israel without finding these serpents. They got, they
could get into every tent. You could not seal your tent
up tight enough. These serpents couldn't get in.
They got in every nook and cranny and you just, there'd be one,
you know, in a box or something, they'd bite you and you're going
to die. That's sin. Sin is everywhere
in our camp. You can't seal yourself up from
it because it's already in you. It gets in every nook and cranny. There's no way to escape it.
And the bite of these serpents hurt. When they bit you, it felt
like fire. And the venom coursing through
your body felt like fire was coursing through your body. So
painful. And this bite was 100% fatal. There was no antidote for this
venom. They couldn't make a cut where the snake bit them and
try to suck the venom out. It was 100% fatal. That sin. Sin is coursing through
our bodies right now. It's sin that's causing our pain,
our sorrow, our suffering. Sin's always fatal. Sin, when
it is finished, brings forth death. It's always fatal. There's
no cure for the venom of those fiery serpents, and there's no
human cure for sin. This is the result of sin for
every son of Adam. As in Adam, all die. But you
know, if we belong to Christ, God won't let his people stay
in that condition. That's the way we're born into
this world, isn't it? But God's not gonna let his elect
stay in that condition. Look at verse seven. Therefore,
the people came to Moses and said, we've sinned, for we have
spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that
he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the
people. You know, if we belong to Christ,
God's gonna make us see our condition. He's gonna make us see ourselves
for who and what we are, that we're sinners. He's gonna make
us confess our sin. The people here knew exactly
why they were dying, didn't they? They knew why the serpents came.
They knew why the serpents were biting them because they sinned. They said, we spoke against God,
Moses, we spoke against you, and that's why we're dying. We're
dying because of our sin. They confessed their sin. and
they begged for mercy. They said, Moses, would you pray
for us? And pray that the Lord take away the serpents from us. And when God's elect begin to
beg for mercy, we confess our sin, we beg God for mercy. This
is our cry. The cry of the beggar is, take
away our sin. Take it away. Don't ignore our
sin. Don't whitewash over our sin.
Lord, take away my sin. Put my sin behind your back.
Sin is the problem. We can't deal with it. Sin is
the problem God must deal with because we can't do anything
about it. It's 100% fatal. The problem is sin. Here's my
second point. The solution for sin, verse eight. And the Lord said unto Moses,
make thee a fiery serpent and 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. Now here's the solution for the
problem. It's not going through a bunch of religious ceremonies.
It's not coming and kneeling before the priest. It's not going
into a little closet and confessing your sin to somebody listening
through a hole in the wall. It's not coming forward and saying
a sinner's prayer, you know, repeating after, you know, a
man in a suit or a robe or something. The solution to the problem of
sin is not going through some ceremonial washing. It's not
passing through the church inspection. You know, I hear about places
they have, this is our candidate, candidate for membership. They
got to pass our inspection, you know, we got to vote our candidate,
you know. That's not the way sin's cleansed. The solution
for the problem of sin is looking to the brazen serpent lifted
up on a pole. Well, ain't that so simple? And
God could do that. It's so simple. Look and live. Now, God's remedy
for sin is not man's remedy for sin. It's not the way we would
devise. Matter of fact, God's remedy for sin is the opposite
of what man would devise. I read this this week, several
different writers say this, I'm gonna assume they know what they're
talking about. They say if a person was bit by this type of fiery
serpent, this venom had a specific effect on your eyes. It would
make it hurt if you looked at a bright object. The effect of
this venom was it would hurt if you looked to a piece of polished
brass held up on a pole in the middle of the desert, it would
hurt. The flesh doesn't want to look to that brass serpent,
does it? Any more than the flesh wants to look to Christ. To the
Jews, Christ is a stumbling block. To the religious, he's a stumbling
block. To the Greeks, the wise people of the world, he's foolishness.
But to them, what you're called, Christ is the power of God unto
salvation. He's God's wisdom in salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God's remedy for sin. He's God's only
remedy for sin. This is not a multiple choice
test. Christ is God's only remedy for sin. And this serpent made
of brass gives us a picture of that. First, the serpent was
made out of brass. Now, brass is an alloy. It's
a combination of two metals melted together, formed together somehow
to make one metal. Tin and copper put together to
make one metal, brass. That's the two natures of Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the God-man. Two natures, one person. Two natures, one Savior. He's
100% God and 100% man. You know the definition Brother
Scott Richardson gave us. He's as much God as if he were
not man. And as much man as if he were
not God. By man, sin came into the world. Well, by man, redemption
for sin has come into the world. The man, Christ Jesus. By serpents
came death. By a serpent is gonna come the
remedy for sin. Second, the serpent of brass.
It looked like the fire serpents that bit the people. Moses made
a replica of those serpents that bit the people. Looked just like
them. But there's one big difference, isn't there? That serpent of
brass didn't have any venom in it. That serpent of brass can't
kill you. There's no venom. That's the
sinlessness of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is a real
man. He came in the likeness of sinful
flesh. He didn't come in sinful flesh.
He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He didn't come in the
sinful flesh of Adam's seed. He came as a seed of woman without
Adam's sin. He came in the likeness of sinful
flesh. But during the time of his earthly
ministry, our Lord Jesus looked just like any other man. And
you know why that is? He was a real man. He looked
just like the other men because he was a real man. But I'm telling
you, there's one big difference between him and everybody else.
He didn't have any venom in him. There is no sin in our Lord Jesus
Christ. He knew no sin, he did no sin. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. God was made flesh and he dwelt
among us as a real man, but he's a holy man, a righteous man,
different from you and me, yet a real man. Third, the serpent
of brass must be lifted up on a pole. Christ our Savior was lifted
up on a pole. Many people say when Christ was
crucified, it wasn't on a cross, you know, in the form of a T,
but it was just a solitary pole, just like this serpent lifted
up on a pole. The Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect
man, the perfect Son of God was nailed to a pole. He was lifted
up to suffer and to die, humiliation and agony as a sacrifice for
sin. He was lifted up on that pole
to die the death that his people deserve. Now look back at John
chapter three, we read this to open our service. The death of
Christ lifted up on the cross is an absolute necessity for
the life of his people. John three verse 14. And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
son of man be lifted up. He must be lifted up. If Moses
had made that serpent of brass and he put it in a box, maybe
he made him a nice felt box. Maybe he put it by the arc of
the covenant. Everybody would have died. In
order for the people who are bitten to live, that serpent
of brass had to be lifted up on a pole. That's Christ our
Savior. He must be lifted up on a pole. Christ must be crucified on the
tree. He must be lifted up bearing
the curse of the sin of his people. If Christ is not lifted up, there's
no salvation for any sinner. The Lord Jesus Christ, he's God's
remedy for sin. And he's pictured by the serpent
of brass. God's remedy is the only remedy. He must be lifted up. And my
friend, you must look. You must look or you'll die on
your sins. Christ is the only remedy now. There is salvation in no other.
For there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby
we must be saved. Christ is the only remedy. and
you must look. The children of Israel, if they
wanted to live, they're bitten by these fiery serpents. If they
wanted to live, they couldn't go to Aaron and confess their
sin. They couldn't go through some religious ceremony. If they
don't look, they're going to die. They couldn't argue about,
well now, when was the serpent made? You know, when was I really
cured? Was it before the serpent was made? Was it when I looked?
No. They couldn't argue, well, wonder,
was it possible there could have been venom in the brazen serpent?
If they don't look, they're gonna live. I don't care how much they
understand about what went into the making of the serpent, what
went into looking to the serpent, if they don't look, they're gonna
die. The children of Israel couldn't say, well, I know Moses made
the serpent, but I just really think if everybody just does
a little better, you know, God will accept them. If you don't
look, you're gonna die. Right now, where you sit, look. Look to Christ. Christ is God's
only remedy for sin. Let me give you the third point,
a reason to look. The effect of God's solution
for sin. God's remedy for sin is 100%
effectual. Everyone who looked at that brazen
serpent lived. Every last one of them. That
serpent's a picture of Christ. Christ is sufficient. Christ
is enough to take away sin. Christ is 100% effectual to take
away the sin of his people. To everyone who looks. I like
what the way it's said here in Numbers chapter 21. versus that, verse nine. And
it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived. Any man, any man. I love that. That could be me. Any man, any
man, if he's bitten and he dying, if he looks, he'll live. Now, He may not be able to see
that far. I mean, I'm trying to envision
this camp of Israel, you know, roughly 3 million people. I mean,
I go to a baseball game, 30,000 people there, I can hardly see,
you know. They may be so far away, they can't see that physical
serpent made of brass, I don't know. But I know this, if you
look in faith, if you turn your heart to that brazen serpent,
believe in God, You'll live. You look in the direction of
that serpent. You may be blinded. This venom may have gone through
your eyes. You're blind. You can't see. How are you going
to look? In faith. Look toward that serpent. Believe
in God and you'll live. Someone may have been bitten.
They didn't have the power to lift their head. They're so sick.
They're so weak. They can't eat. They can't do
anything. They can't lift their head. But if that man looks in
faith and turns his heart toward God's remedy for sin, he lived. And I tell you this morning,
if any man, any man who's a sinner looks to Christ, he shall live. Immediately he shall live. Any
sinner, I don't care what he may have done, he looks to Christ,
he will live. Because that's the power of the
sacrifice of Christ. Any sinner, if he looks, he'll
live. I don't care how much sin he
thinks he's committed. You know how much sin we think we've
committed? I promise you it's more. You
know, we saw this last week, but the sins of ignorance, we've
committed a whole lot more sin than we realize. I don't care
how much sin we think we've committed. No matter how deep the stain
of sin has gone. If that sinner looks to Christ,
that stain of sin will be completely removed. He'll be completely
cleansed and made whiter than snow. The moment he looks to
Christ, because Christ lifted up in his sacrifice, takes away
the sin of his people. Isn't that what the people ask
Moses to pray? Moses pray God that he'll take away the serpents
from us. That's our need. The sinner's
need is that Christ take away the sin of his people. And that's
what he did. He bore the sin of his body,
his people and his body on the tree and his blood put that sin
away. Now look, look to him. He's 100 percent effectual to
save every sinner who looks to him, looks to him in faith. Look. In closing, let me give you this.
The look that saves, what is it to look to Christ? You're
looking to Christ is so simple. Men overcomplicate it. Look to
Christ. If I say, look, Everybody knows
I mean look at Adam. It's not complicated. Just look at him. When I say
look to Christ, I mean turn your attention on him. That's what
it is to look to Christ. Turn your attention on him in
faith. Looking to Christ is an act of
faith. It's not physically seeing Christ. There are many people
who physically saw the Lord Jesus and died in their sins. Judas
saw him. He's a reprobate. Looking to
Christ is seeing Him with the eye of faith. The people who
were bitten by the fiery serpent, they didn't need as much to see
that physical brazen serpent, but they needed to turn their
attention toward it. They need to look toward it in faith, believing
God. God said, if I look, I'm gonna
live. Now, looking to that serpent, now I'm gonna look and test this
out. No, that's not a look of faith. Looking to Christ in faith
means I believe Christ is all it takes to save my sinful soul. I'm such a wretch, I've got no
other hope. I look to Christ believing He's
all it takes to make me live. Looking to Christ in faith is
believing that the death of Christ on the cross is my death to the
law. The law doesn't after me anymore.
Now if Christ died for me, because he died for my sin and put my
sin away. Looking to Christ is believing
the blood of his sacrifice is all it takes to make me whiter
than snow. But now listen, you look. Christ must be lifted up and
you must look. Nobody can look for you. Your
parents can't look for you. Your friends and your family,
your neighbors, they can't look for you. Your pastor can't look
for you. You look to Christ. You must believe. You must repent. Do it right now. Look. You don't
have to worry, I'm not becoming an Armenian. But you gotta look
now. And if you look, you'll know
this. You look because God gave you
faith. If one day, You awake in Christ-likeness and glory
and you're satisfied. You say, that's God's doing. Every bit of that's God's doing.
If you find yourself in hell, you'll say, that's my fault.
100% of this is my doing. God's gotta give you faith. But
you must look, still you must look. You must believe or you'll
die in your sin. That's what our Lord said, John
8, 24. If you believe not that I am he, you should die in your
sins. Now look, look to him in faith. I love what verse nine says.
He talks here all through this passage about looking, but look
at the end of verse nine. There's a different word here.
When he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Now this word
beheld, it means to look intently. It means to look and to keep
on looking. It means to look with respect
and it means to look with pleasure. When I look to Christ, I look
intently. Can't take my eyes off of him.
He's so wonderful. Oh, I look intently. Cannot take my eyes away from
him. When I look to Christ. Oh, how
I respect him. Respect, I respect him. God had
respect to the sacrifice. I have respect to him. And when
I look to Christ. I find all my pleasure in Him. When I look to Christ in faith,
I see Him bearing my sin away. What more pleasure can you have
than that? When I look to Christ, I see the forgiveness of my sin. What could be more pleasurable
than that? He is all my pleasure. When any man beheld the serpent
of brass, he lived. If you will behold the Lord Jesus
Christ, you'll live. Now, as best I can, I've showed you
the problem. It's your sin. Death is coursing
through your body at this very moment because of sin. Now, it
probably won't happen for some time, but it's coursing through
your body because of sin. And you can't stop it. Any more
and you can stop sinning. You can't stop the result of
sin. The effect of sin is death. And best I know how. I've showed
you the remedy, God's remedy for sin. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the man made of a woman, the man who had no sin. And as best
I can, I've showed you the promise of God. Look and live. Look to Christ crucified and
live. Look! The moment you look to
Him, you'll have eternal life. Believe and you will live. Now,
my friend, look, look. Why won't you look? Why won't you look? It's the wicked heart of unbelief.
It's right back where we started. The wicked heart of unbelief.
This is what our Lord was talking to Nicodemus about. There's got
to be a new main form. There's got to be a new heart
and how I pray. It is my constant prayer that
the Lord will give us a new heart, a new heart of faith. This thing
not complicated. Looking is so simple. I find this very comforting.
I spend all day every day studying. And there's much of what I study
I don't understand. How can you understand these
things? But we're not called on to understand. You don't have
to understand to be saved. All you have to do is look. You don't have to understand,
just believe. That Philippian jailer asked
the Apostle Paul, what must I do to be saved? The apostle didn't
give him a book on what you gotta know to be saved. He didn't give
him a book on how to be saved. What did he tell him? Believe. It's so simple. Look. Oh, you don't have to understand
it. It's a good thing. How can you understand God? How
can you understand God manifest in the flesh? How can you understand
God, the Holy Spirit? You don't have to. Just believe. Look, and you'll live. Oh, I pray God will enable us
to do that. Let's bow in prayer. Our father, we thank you. For
the simplicity of the gospel. How we thank you that. You don't
make this complicated, it's not something that we've got to be
educated to understand, but to look to believe on the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And father, I beg of thee that
you bless your word as it's been preached. Bless it to your glory.
And all of you'll show us Christ in his glory. We'll look. Father,
I beg of thee that you give each of us, as we leave here this
morning, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you'll give us God-given
faith, the gift of faith, we'll look, we'll behold him intently,
never take our eyes off of him with respect. and find all of
our pleasure, all of our confidence, all of our hope in Him. Father,
bless us, we pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and
for His sake.