We'll start in verse 1 and go
to verse 9, but our section is found in verses 4-9. Numbers 21. It reads thus, and when King
Arad, the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that
Israel came by the way of the spies, that 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 and their cities.
And he called the name of the place Hormah. And they journeyed,
this is Israel again, 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. And 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 loathes
this light bread. Now that light bread pictured
Christ. It was manna. And they said they loathed 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, 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.
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 looks upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass,
and put it on a pole, and it came to pass that if a certain
serpent had bitten any man, any boy, woman, or child, When he,
when they beheld the serpent of brass, they lived. Now turn with me briefly to John
chapter 3. Now we know who this serpent
is because the Lord himself tells us who this serpent pictures
or who this serpent represents. We're not left to our imagination,
we're not left to our own devices, we're not left to guess. This
is, thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Scriptures, in John
chapter 3, verses 14 and 15. Christ is speaking, and in verse
10, Jesus answered and said unto him, And he says in verse 14,
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. That's me. Christ is the Son
of Man. That whosoever believes in Him, whosoever believes in
Christ, shall not perish, but have eternal life. Back to our text in Numbers. In chapter 20, previously in chapter 20, Aaron
just died. Aaron has gone to be with the
fathers and Israel mourned. And then we saw in the beginning
of chapter 21 that Israel fights and they destroy the Canaanites. They just wipe them out. Now,
we've got this on the heels of this. that we have another trial. It's just like the believer's
life. It's always something, it seems like. We should be familiar
with this history before us today. But I want to look a little closer
at this passage, this one in Numbers 21. And may God pour
His grace upon us here this day. I just have a few points. The
first point is sin it always finds us out. Sin is just, it's
right under the surface. A lot of times it's not under
the surface. People, you know, I'm going to be my own man, you
know, then it's usually not very much to behold. It's usually
full of sin and cantankerousness. But in verses 4 and 5 it says,
the journey from this way it was long and the people, the
soul of the people was discouraged, that means grieved, because of
the way And we looked at this a couple weeks ago, when they
got out of Egypt by the Red Sea, they could have went straight,
I think it's like a three-week journey, three weeks straight. But the Lord, He knew, first
of all, it was for their good. It ended up being like 40 years. They were gone. Well, one of
the things the Scripture says that I've never seen is that
the Lord did that on purpose because they would have gone
right through the land of the Philistines and the Philistines
were a warring tribe. They just came out of captivity
for I don't know how many years. They had no instruments of warfare.
They were not ready for any of this. So that's one reason the
goodness of the Lord took them that way. So anyway,
they come, but they're grieved. Even though they just got victory,
they just got a tremendous victory. They wiped out the Canaanites.
But the way discouraged them. and they spake against God, which
is what we do when we complain, which is what we do when we murmur,
which is what we do when we don't get our way. And that could be
as easy as weed-eating a lawn, it could be as easy as mowing,
it could be as easy as getting gas, get a little gas on you,
it could just, anything, just ticks us off. This is what this
is, this is a speaking against God and against Moses, And they
said, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die? I know that.
And we, of course, we know more than God. We're just brought
us out here to kill us. For there's no bread. There's
no water. And oh, incidentally, this bread
that you freely gave us completely unassisted by our hands. We don't
like it anymore. Well, here's what we'll do. We'll
blame Adam, if we know a little bit about the Bible. We'll blame
Adam. We'll blame our circumstances.
We'll blame bad luck. We'll blame everything and everyone,
but where the fault truly lies, that's us, or I've got me, myself,
and I. that we're good at. The reason
why I didn't do so good on that test is because this girl sitting
next to me, she was chewing, smacking her gum, and I couldn't
concentrate. We'll blame everything, everybody,
except for where the truth is. The people spake against God.
That's what we do by nature. David said again in Psalms 51,
we won't turn there, but it would be a good passage to look at
sometime when you get home. He says, against thee and thee
only have I sinned. And this is David, this is a
man after God's own heart. He knew that all of our sin,
it may be against our brother or sister, our mother or father
or neighbor, it's against them as well. But first and foremost,
it's sin is against God. Such is the language of one in
whom the Holy Spirit is working, and that working correctly. David,
that is, against thee only have I sinned. In verse 7, he says, therefore the people
came to Moses, and they said, we have sinned, and we have spoken
against the Lord, against thee, Pray the Lord, take away the
serpents from us. So this is, again, this is a good thing.
Not that they sin, but there's a desire to repent. Sin's acknowledged,
that's what we'll do. Sin is confessed, that's what
we'll do. And yet sin must be forgiven,
pardoned, and cleansed. We can confess it, but we can't
cleanse ourselves. We can't cover our sins. We can't
propitiate for our sins. We can't atone for our sins. We can't, you know, sometimes
when the kids do something wrong, Daddy grabs for the pocketbook
and he's like, you know what, I can't cover this, this is bigger
than me. So we need these sins of Zion,
we need them forgiven. And look at verse 8, here's the
key, here's the key. And Moses said to the Lord, I'm
going to make a, no, And the people said, do something for
it. Oh, I got an idea. This is what you're going to
do. No. Salvation is completely, originally, initially, thought
of, completely in the mind of God. We have no clue how bad
we are. So God has to come up with a
remedy. The Lord spake to Moses. He initiates the whole thing.
You didn't have anything to do with your salvation. I didn't
have anything to do with your salvation. We don't have anything
to do with our salvation. The Lord, this scheme, this plan
to recover these sinners did not originate from them or from
Moses, but God sent it to them. He's telling them exactly what
they must do. Exactly. salvation, as Jonah
found out, is of the Lord. Sin is holy, an appointment from
God the Father, from God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
We can see this, let's just turn to a few passages, Ephesians
chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. And this is where the grace of
God, this is where the gospel This is where, this is where
the rubber meets the road. This is where it gets serious.
It's like, well, you know, my, my relations or my friends or
whatever, they say, you got to come forward. You've got to,
you've got to do something for God. We can't do, that's the
whole point. We can't do anything. They're getting bit and they're
dying. That's what's going on. That's
the result of their sin. And in Adam, We all died. So you can't do anything. It's
all completely up to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mercy
of grace of God. Paul in Ephesians 1, of Jesus
Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus,
and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be unto you, and
if you have grace, then peace from God our Father and from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, according as He has chosen us
in Christ from before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."
So being saved by God's grace is according to the good pleasure
of God's will, and it gives all praise and glory to His grace.
That's the truth of the Gospel. And in that passage, I've got
to read this, 2 Timothy, This was one of John Sebald's favorite
verses. 2 Timothy 1. I'm sorry, 2 Timothy 1. And verse
8, the last part, he's speaking about God, according to the power
of God. And then he goes in verse 9,
keeping it together. Who? Who? God, hath saved us
and called us with a holy calling not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began." That's why John loved
this so much. He wasn't articulate, he wasn't
many things, but he understood this one verse, the whole summation
of the Gospel. He saved us, not according to
us, and that salvation is unto holiness. It's like what Bruce
was trying to say in 1 John this morning. If you say you believe
God and you're doing all these other things, and it doesn't
bother you, it doesn't bother your conscience, you're a liar.
Why? Because He saved us and called
us with a holy calling. We would be conformed to the
image of His Son. Have you ever heard of His Son
doing some of the things that Christians say they're doing?
No. And that's why I told Belinda, Paul deals with that. Somebody
tells him something, he goes, I haven't so learned Christ.
I don't know what you're talking about. And then Nathan shared
back there, you do err. You do err greatly. Christ was
talking to those people about they married more, married, married,
married seven times. Whose wife is it going to be
in the resurrection? He says you do err not knowing
the scripture. You're wrong. And you don't have to be, we're
not proud of it or cocky of it, we're just like, no, it's not
according to the Word. And He says again, it's not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose. There's this
purpose of grace, and grace, which was, how is this found?
It's found down in the Isle. It's found in the Methodist Church.
It's found in the Catholic Church. It's found in the Baptist Church.
No, none of those things. It's only found in Christ. And
that church is the true church of God that proclaims this Gospel. There's only one Gospel. Oh,
incidentally, which is given in Christ Jesus before the world
began. So I just love these passages. And we could go to another passage,
but I won't. Let's move on. But such is the absolute truth. Such is the absolute truth of
our redemption. God sought us, God the Son died
for us, and God the Holy Spirit fetched us. He fetched us. Thus,
all glory goes to God, none to us. This is right and true. This is how God reconciles poor,
feeble, wayward sinners unto himself. The third point, third
point in here, is that this serpent is a picture of Christ. Christ
pictures the serpent. Christ is the whole reason or
the whole cause of our acceptance with God. It's kind of redundant
from the second point. But the Lord initiates, but God
in the second person of the sacred trinities, Christ pictures the
serpent. God was offended, and verse 5,
the people spake against God and against Moses. God was offended,
His justice demands payment, and Christ is and was the payment. God says, make a fiery serpent
and set it on a pole. And every time, and you're bit,
and I'm assuming these were venomous snakes because a lot of people
died. I have a fascination, and somewhat of a fear, but not like
sharks, but I have a fascination with a particular serpent called
a gaboon viper. They're big, they're ugly, and
they're mean. And I've been looking, you know,
people get bit and what happens to them, and it's not a pretty
sight. And I'll tell you, there's one
thing I can say about all these videos I watch. When that person
was bit, they knew they were bit. You know, sometimes a tick,
you know, you're like, well, is that something, you know,
kind of a tick or, you know, flea or whatever, and you look
and there's nothing there or et cetera, et cetera. A bee sting
sometimes, oh, I think I got stung by a bee and there's nothing
that swells up. You don't know. But when this thing bites you,
you know, And you're not arguing about the bite. You're looking
for a remedy. You're looking for a solution
as quick as possible. So the person who was not bit, they don't need to look at the
pole. Are you a sinner here today? Do you know you're a sinner here
today? Look and live. That's what the old guy told
Spurgeon at that old church that he went in. He just said, look
and live. That's all it takes. That's all
it takes. Look and live. Isaiah 53 in verse
6. Isaiah 53 All we like sheep have gone astray,
we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid
on him, the serpent, Christ, the iniquity of us all. Now he's specifically speaking
about sheep. He's not speaking about goats. You keep it context.
But I had never seen this. I read,
I don't know, somebody, one of my morning readings, um, verse
11, God shall see the travail of his sower, Christ's soul and
shall be satisfied. By His knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities."
Turn to Jeremiah chapter 30. I've never seen this before.
It truly blessed me to no end. So how can a man travail like
he's with a child? I asked that question and here
it is. It's like somebody put this verse
in here. Verse 6 and verse 7. and see whether a man does travail
with child. Wherefore do I see every man
with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all
faces are turned into paleness." Christ turned pale because of
our sins, and He literally travailed. Alas, for that day is great,
certainly the Christ's day of travail was great, So that none
is like it, it is even the time of Jacob's trouble, you better
believe it, but he shall be saved out of
it." There's the whole gospel right there, two verses, I've
never seen that before. Christ, even though He was a
man, prevailed in Saul, Isaiah 53, like a woman bearing children. It's like I said last week, who
can accurately tell that glorious story of the spotless, sinless
Son of God made sin for us that we may be made the righteousness
of God in Him? The English language can't define
it. It can't articulate it. I can't.
But such agony, such sorrow, such mistreatment at the hands
of men, yet Christ saw the cross and went forward Meek, lowly
as the great martyr lamb, he obeyed his father in every step
of that hard way. God's justice was honored. God's
wrath swallowed up. We, the elect, our prisoners,
are set free. And his soul was satisfied. And if his soul was satisfied,
So should we. We should be completely satisfied
with the work of Christ. We shouldn't be seeking to add.
That's why these works, these people who work all the time,
it so dishonors the Lord. It so dishonors the freeness
of His gospel. It so dishonors the freeness
of His grace. Trying to add. It's like Christ didn't suffer
enough. Christ wasn't meek enough. He wasn't humble enough. He wasn't
sovereign enough. Yes, He is in all these things.
And therefore we have rest and we have peace. Well, the third
thought, verses 8 and 9, everyone that was bitten, when
he looked, shall live. So Moses made a serpent of brass
and put it on a pole. It came to pass that if a serpent
had bitten any man, any person, when they beheld the serpent
of brass, they lived. Look and live. The look of God,
given faith, will always produce life. So I don't know if I trust
Him enough. Do you love Christ? Do you have
life in Christ? If you do, then yes, you've looked.
He, God, planted the seed. It must germinate. It will germinate.
It has life. And I got to thinking about my
old days in college in botany. And we would put the seeds in
there. And you knew they had life just because you saw the
little cotyleons and monocots and you saw them sticking up
in the cup. But actually, it had life before
we saw it. There's life in the seed. And
so if God puts the seed of grace in your heart, it's life already. It's not germinating into life
properly, it germinates because it has life already. It has life
already. How? The Holy Spirit takes the
things of Christ and shows them unto us. Shows us Christ, His
way, His holiness, His righteousness, His mercy, grace, His peace,
His life from death. And we therefore live in Him. Turn to Galatians chapter 2.
We have life in Him. Galatians chapter 2. Verse 20, I am crucified with
Christ, says Paul, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh that
you see, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave Himself for me. This whole story sounds so remarkable,
so odd, so unnatural. You get bit and you look to a
serpent The picture is the serpent that bit you. It makes no human
logical sense. Ah, now you're beginning to see
the truth as it is in Christ. Can't quite figure it out. That's
good. We're not meant to figure it out. We're meant to believe. Don't reason it. Don't try to
figure grace out. If you're bit, if you're a sinner,
you must assuredly know it and look. Look. Are you thirsty? Drink. These are things that we don't
have to tell our children. You thirsty? Drink. Are you injured? Are you lame? Seek a physician. Are you hungry? You go, you eat. Are you sinful? Look to the perfect
One, Jesus Christ, our righteousness. Let me close by reading you an
excellent story. Spurgeon tells of this during
one of his Bible meetings. There was a poor man living on
Dartmoor who had been employed during the summer in looking
after horses and cows and so on. He turned them out on the
moor and he was a perfect heathen, perfect sinner, and never went
to a place of worship, perhaps since he was a child, apparently
couldn't read or write. For him there was no Sabbath,
but after a time, which we all do, he grew very ill and old.
He was over 60 years of age, He had nothing to live upon and
so back in those days they went to the workhouse or the poorhouse
and look that up sometime. You talk about horrible places. So this is where this man's at.
While he was there, it pleased the mysterious spirit to make
him uneasy as regarding his soul. He felt that he was going to
die and the old man had just enough light to let him see that,
that most creatures have enough light to know that we're going
to die at the end of the tunnel. And if he died, all was wrong
with regard to his future state. But near him in another little
town was a little grandchild, a little granddaughter, who lived
in a neighboring town, Plymouth, he thought it was. And he asked
the people at the poorhouse and the parents leave for this grandchild
to come and see him every day. And because he was very ill and
near death, she was allowed to come. And she came in and he
immediately said to her, apparently she could read and write, he
said, read the Bible to me, dear. And she complied. And the more
she read, the more wretched the old man grew. He said, read it
again. The more she read, the more dark
his mind seemed to be with a sense of guilt, struggles, travail. He's got no answers. And then
one day she came and he said, read the Bible. And she read
the first epistle of John. You know it. The blood of Jesus
Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. He said, is that there? She said, yes, grandfather, replied
the girl. He said, once more, is that there? Oh, yes, grandfather, it is there.
He said, read it again. Read it again, and again. And
she read it. The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanses us from all sin. Oh, my dear, are you sure it
is in there just like that? She said, yes, grandfather. Read
it again, dear granddaughter. The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanses us from all sin. Then he said, take my finger.
And put it on that verse. Is that the text, dear child?
Is my finger on that text? She said, yes, grandfather. He
said, then tell everybody that I die in the faith of that. And
he closed his eyes and doubtless entered into eternal rest. And
if I die in the faith of the truth that by the grace of God,
that Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin, If you trust
that, you will die in peace. End of story. Nathan, would you
close? Awesome, I'm chill.