But you turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10. Verse 9. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted
and were destroyed of serpents. I've entitled this message, Tempting
Christ. What does it mean to tempt Christ? How does one go about tempting
the Lord Jesus Christ? Obviously, it does not mean to
try to entice him to sin because he cannot be tempted in that
sense. He cannot sin. He's impeccable
in his nature. He doesn't even have the potential
to sin. So what is this thing of tempting
Christ? happens when somebody tempts
Christ and he warns us, let's don't tempt Christ the way some
of them did. And they were destroyed as serpents.
Well, turn with me for a moment to Matthew chapter four. Now, in verse 16 of chapter 3,
we read, And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up a straight
way out of the water, and, lo, the heavens were opened unto
him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
lighting upon him. And, lo, a voice from heaven
saying, This is my beloved Son. In whom I am well pleased. Now you can be sure that the
devil was there when this took place. And he heard this glorious
statement from heaven. He heard this. Then we read of
the temptation of our Lord. Then was Jesus led up the spirit
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The devil was tempting
him. And when he had fasted 40 days
and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter
came to him, he said, if thou be the son of God, command that
these stones be made bread. Now, he heard what God the Father
said. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He
said, well, if you are, prove it. Prove it. Command that these stones be
made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out
of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up
into the holy city, and setteth him on the pinnacle of the temple,
and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, prove it, cast
thyself down. Demonstrate your faith, for it's
written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and their
hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy
foot against a stone. Now, if you really are the Son
of God, if you fall off this table, if you jump off, he'll
catch you. Prove it. Give us a demonstration, something
that we can see that will prove you are the Son of God. Now,
if I say, if, to anything God says, I'm calling into question
his truthfulness, aren't I? God said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm well pleased. Well, if you are, that's calling
God a liar. That's exactly what that is. That is calling God a liar and
it's called tempting God. Our Lord said, thou shalt not
tempt. You shall not test the Lord God.
If God said it, I love this. If God said it, that settles
it. You all heard that saying, God said it, I believe it, and
that settles it. That's the wrong way to say that.
God said it, and that settles it, whether I or you believe
it or not. Now isn't that so? This is the
word of God. So that's what testing, it's
putting him to the test. He said this is the truth. He
said, well, if, if it's the word of unbelief. So we know that
tempting Christ has something to do with unbelief. He says,
let us not tempt Christ, let us not put Christ to the test.
And what happened to those people who did, they were destroyed
as serpents, and he's talking about what took place in Numbers
chapter 21. Now, would you turn with me there
to the book of Numbers chapter 21? Now, I've preached from this passage
of scripture on numerous occasions, but I've always dealt more with
the serpent lifted up on the pole. And I'm going to be talking
some about that, but I want us to consider more about what happened
preceding that that caused these serpents to come in the first
place and start biting the children of Israel. It has something to
do with tempting Christ. Now, our Lord tells us, let's
don't tempt Christ the way they did. And they were destroying
the serpents who did this. So we're going to understand
what it is to tempt the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's begin
reading verse one. And when King Arad, the Canaanite,
which dwelt in the south, heard it tell that Israel came by the
way of the spies, then he fought against Israel. And he took some
of them prisoners. Evidently, he was winning. 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 that
place Hormah, utter destruction. Now here we have an instance
of faith. They said, if you deliver this people into our hands, we'll
destroy them. God said, I'll do it. They went
at him according to God's word. And God did exactly what he said
he was going to do. He delivered them up into their
hands and they destroyed every single one of them. That's an
instance of faith. Verse four. And they journeyed
from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea. I imagine they were
feeling pretty good about themselves at this time. You know, anytime
the Lord enables me to do something, I generally think, hmm, God gave
me the grace to do that. Well, how come everybody else
is not like me? I had no doubt they were feeling good about
themselves. Self-righteousness and pride creeps in at every
avenue. They were feeling good. I understand. I would have been right there,
too. 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. Now to go through the land
of Edom, who are the descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother, If
they could have got through the land of Edom, they would have
went right into the promised land. Now, remember, they had
been journeying nearly 40 years, and they were very tired of this
journey, and they were looking forward to finally getting into
the promised land. There it was right before them.
All they had to do was get through Edom, and there they'd be. But
evidently, the Edomites wouldn't grant them passage, and they
had to encircle the entire country and go way out of their way to
get to the promised land, and they were discouraged. They were
much discouraged because of the way. Now the journey was even
more long and more difficult and they became discouraged. Discouragement is one of the
worst feelings that I know of. It's the opposite of encouragement. Discouraged. Down. Depressed. Even in despair. It's somewhat of a feeling of
hopelessness. And which of us has not experienced
this awful feeling of discouragement? I hate being discouraged. I love
having a positive outlook. I love it when God gives me grace
to be filled with faith and everything's easy. But oh, how I hate it when
I'm discouraged, where everything looks negative, where everything
just looks bleak and dark. And that's where they were at
at this time. They were discouraged because of the way. Now, many
things could have brought this on. Disappointment. They were
getting ready to enter into the promised land. So they thought. One step forward and two steps
back. They had to go all the way around the country of Edom
and they were disappointed over that. Things did not go as they
had hoped. And sometimes when it seems like
progress is so small. Maybe backwards instead of forwards.
You become disappointed. Disappointed in yourself. Have
you ever been disappointed in yourself? You know, I've been disappointed
in people a lot. But I tell you, the person who
disappoints me the most is me. They were disappointed. Perhaps
they were discouraged over the Edomites. They should have let
them go through. They were brothers, but they
didn't. You know, you can be discouraged by how other people
treat you, can't you? You think, well, they ought to treat me
better than this. And they should. I won't deny that. But let me
remind you, the Bible never tells other people how to treat you.
Not even once. It only tells you how to treat
them. But they were discouraged over the way they were being
treated. And I understand that. Perhaps it was the length of
the journey. They had been at this journey a long time, nearly
40 years in the wilderness, and they were tired. They were fatigued. They were worn out. So they thought,
and they were discouraged. I understand that. I understand
that feeling. It's a miserable feeling. I've
got a question. They were discouraged. There's
no doubt about it. But did they have a valid reason to be discouraged? Now did they? Now remember, they
had manna coming down from heaven every day. They had water coming
from the smitten rocks supplying everything they needed. They
had the power, the protection, and the presence of Almighty
God. They had the cloudy pillar by
day and the pillar of fire by night. They had the presence
of God Almighty. Now, did they really have anything
to be discouraged about? Scripture says their clothes
didn't wax old. Even during this march through
the wilderness, their feet swelled not. God gave them supernatural
deliverance. And really, in very many respects,
they had it made. I mean, you think of what a good
situation they were in. I know they were in the wilderness,
but it wasn't hard on them. Everything was provided for them,
yet they were discouraged because of the way. Now, did they have
any reason to be discouraged? Not really. And I ask myself, do I really
have any reason to be discouraged? Not really. Not really. Well, you don't know
what I'm going through. I know I don't, but still not
really. As long as this is in the Bible,
and we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. As long as that's in the Bible,
we have absolutely no reason to be discouraged. But they were. And they made
up a reason for their discouragement. Let's go on reading in Numbers
21. The soul of the people was much
discouraged because of the way 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 there any water. And our soul loatheth this light
bread. Was there any bread? Yes. Was there any water? Yes. This was all lie. They had food and water. Manna
came down from heaven and water flowed from the smitten rock.
But they say, we have no food or water, and our soul loathes
this light bread. Now, this is what Paul calls
tempting Christ. Now, this light bread, what they
call light bread, is the manna that came down from heaven. Can
you imagine how there was a time when they first saw it come down,
how amazed they were by this? This food that comes down from
heaven, the Scripture calls it angel's bread. And it tasted
good. It tasted like wafers and honey. Another place it says it tasted
like fresh oil. There was nothing wrong with
the taste of this. I mean, it was good. And they were so grateful
for it. They were amazed the way it came
down. And now all of a sudden it is light bread. It's not substantial. It's not
enough to satisfy. We want something that we enjoy
more. They lost their appreciation
of this manna. Do you realize that you and I
are in very serious danger of that? It scares me. Our souls loathe this light bread. And this is what Paul calls tempting
Christ, manna bred from heaven is now called light bread, insubstantial
bread, not enough to satisfy. And we know that this manna is
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He himself said, I am the bread
that came down from heaven. Now, would you turn with me to
Exodus chapter 16? Let's read some about this manna. This manna was a testimony of
the mercy of God to a murmuring people. Look in verse 2 of Exodus
chapter 16, and the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children
of Israel said unto them, Would to God we died by the hand of
the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,
and when we did eat bread to the full? For you brought us
forth into the wilderness to kill the whole assembly with
hunger. After all they'd seen, look at their response. Then
said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven
for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate
every day, that I may prove them, whether they'll walk in my law
or not. And it shall come to pass that on the sixth day they
shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice
as much as they gather daily. And Moses and Aaron said unto
the children of Israel, Even then you shall know that the
Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt. And in the
morning then you shall see the glory of the Lord. Notice he
calls this manna the glory of the Lord. For he heareth your
murmurings against the Lord. And what are we that you murmur
against us? You shouldn't be murmuring against
me. You're murmuring against God is what he is saying to them.
Now this manna was mysterious. You know what manna means? It
means what is it? What is it? Look in verse 15
and chapter 16. And when the children of Israel
saw it, they said one to another, it's manna. And look in your
margin. What is it? What is it? For they wished not
what it was. And Moses said unto them, this
is that bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. It was
mysterious. What is it? It came during the
night when nobody could see. And you'd wake up in the morning
and there it was as dew on the ground. It was mysterious. Christ,
Jesus Himself is mysterious. The Gospel is a great mystery. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Now, there are four properties
or descriptions of manna in Exodus chapter 16. Look in verse 14. First, this manna was small.
And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face
of the wilderness there lay a small, round thing, as small as the
hoarfrost on the ground. It was very small. Now, our Lord's
appearance on this earth by human standards was very small, wasn't
it? He was born in a barn. He didn't have any influential
friends. He didn't have any wealth. He didn't have any armies. He
didn't have any education. There was no beauty that we should
desire in Him. You know, I couldn't help but
thinking about this when I was thinking about the smallness of our Lord
by human standards. I was thinking about when our
Lord was hanging on the cross and that thief looked at Him
and said, Lord... Now, you imagine this. When He
was hanging on that cross, It seemed like he didn't have one
follower. He seemed so helpless. He seemed so weak. He seemed
so defeated, hanging on a cross, even his disciples had forsaken
him. And yet, that thief looked at him and he said, Lord, remember me when you come into
your kingdom. You reckon anybody chuckled when
he said that? Can you believe he said that to him? Lord? He
doesn't look like the Lord to me. He's hanging on a cross. All this manna was small. Insignificant by our standards. And notice what else it says
in verse 14. It was called a small round thing. It was a complete sphere. No
first or last point, its surface had no beginning and no end. Is not Christ the Alpha and the
Omega? The beginning and the end. The
first and the last. He has no starting point. He
has no ending point. He's the eternal Son of God. And what else does it say about
this manna? It was white. Look in verse 31
of the same chapter. And the house of Israel called
the name there of manna. What is it? And it was like a
coriander seed, white. And the taste of it was like
wafers made with honey. Now, whiteness is purity. This manna was pure. Now, I want
to look at this in a couple of angles, the purity of this manna.
It was pure. When something's pure, it means
it's 100 percent whatever it is. This manna that came down
from heaven, Purely God. Purely man. Purely holy. Pure sovereignty. No mixture
of anything else. Pure power. Pure grace. Everything that He is, He purely
is. He's not half this and half that.
God is not in parts. He's not part this and part that
and all the parts come together to make the whole. He's wholly
what He is. He's absolutely purely what He
is. But this purity also represents
what he does for us. His salvation makes me white. His salvation makes me pure. His salvation makes me clean
on the outside and on the inside. And that's a hard one to get
hold of, because you look within your heart and you see such sin
and you see such unbelief, you see all manner of uncleanness
on the inside of your heart. You say, I'm supposed to look
at my heart and say that's pure? What do you mean by that? That's
a reference to the new nature, the holy nature that God gives.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Yes,
every believer has a pure heart. Now, in my experience, do I look
at it something and say, yeah, that part's pure? No, I never
see it that way. But I believe it because the
Bible says, blessed are the pure in heart. I just believe what
God says. Clean on the outside, as Christ's
righteousness counted to me, so you can't see any sin. Clean
on the inside, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, by the Word of God that liveth and abideth
forever. Clean on the outside, clean on
the inside. His salvation makes us white. Come with me for a moment to
Revelation 19. I've been thinking about this
verse of Scripture. I love this first scripture. Verse eight. And to her. The church. Every believer is talking about
me is talking about you to her was granted graciously bestowed
that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,
just like that manna. For the fine linen is the righteousnesses
of the saints. Now, in the original, the word
righteousnesses is in the plural. The fine linen, clean and white,
is the righteousnesses, plural, of the saints. And I've heard
many people say, well, what this is talking about is the good
deeds of the saints. the works of the saints as they've
been enabled by the Holy Spirit to perform. These are the good
works of the saints. Oh? You got any works that you'd
present as clean and white? Is that what that's a reference
to? Clean, I mean totally clean and totally white. Now I hope
you know better than that. That's not talking about the
good works of the saints. Now, am I speaking against good
works? Of course not. May God give us grace to be rich
in good works for the glory of Christ. But those good works
of mine and yours, would you want them to stand before the
thrice holy God? Is there anything about you that you would want
to present before him? Now, this fine linen, clean and
white, which is the righteousness of the saints, it talks about
this in the plural. It's talking about every saint
having a negative righteousness and a positive righteousness.
I've got a negative righteousness. You know what that means? I've
never done anything wrong. I've never done anything wrong.
Before God, I've never done anything wrong. That's what the blood
of Christ accomplished. My sin was wiped out. His blood
put away my sin, so I stand before God without guilt. I've never done anything wrong. But not only do I have this negative
righteousness where I've never done anything wrong, I also have
a positive righteousness. I've always done that which is
right. Not only have I just not done
wrong stuff, I've done what God requires. Everything God requires,
I've done in the person of the blessed Son of God. I've got
righteousness. Now, this fine linen, clean and
white, this negative righteousness, this positive righteousness,
it's the righteousness of the saints. Is it Christ's righteousness? Yes, it is, but it is the righteousness
of the saints. That's my righteousness before
God. And that gives me such confidence and boldness to come into His
presence. I can come into the very presence of God with boldness,
with confidence. How? This is my righteousness
before God. His perfect obedience, His law
keeping. Fine linen, clean and white. And it was sweet to the
taste. We just read it tasted like wafers
and honey. And then we also read in Numbers
11, eight that the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil,
olive oil, good Christ takes good. What joy and simply beholding
his beauty and feeding on his gospel and go back to Revelation,
I mean, Exodus 16. And this man was to be gathered
daily. Beginning in verse 19. And Moses said, let no man leave
of it to the morning. Don't eat all of it. And I'm
to eat all of Christ. I'm to trust Him completely.
I'm to leave nothing out. I'm to eat the whole thing. Let
no man leave of it to the morning, notwithstanding. They hearken
not unto Moses, but some of them left of it to the morning, and
it bred worms and stank, and Moses was wroth with them. Look up at verse 17. how they
were together. And the children of Israel did
so and gathered some more and some less, talking about gathering
up this manna. And when they did meet it out
with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over. And he
that gathered little had no lack. And they gathered every man according
to his eating. Now, in this eating this manna
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is faith in Christ, I don't
care how much you get, it's not going to be too much. You can't
go over and you're never going to have not enough. You're to
eat on Christ and feed on Christ every day. You know, today's
faith is the only faith that does me any good. If I try to
save some of it for tomorrow, it's going to breed worms and
stink. As thy days so shall thy strength be. We feed on Christ
daily. We don't look to yesterday's
meal to satisfy today's hunger. I don't look to yesterday's faith
to satisfy today. We look to Him daily. Now, this manner represents faith
in Christ, really believing that Christ is all. That passage of
Scripture that I just read at the beginning of this sermon,
Christ is all. Now, I hope that's not just a
slogan. I hope it's not something people
just say, yeah, I believe that, I agree with that, it doesn't
go any further than that. Christ, if you think about what all that
means, Christ is all. If Christ is all, what's that
make everything else? Nothing. That's the way that
equation works. If Christ is all, everything
else is nothing. Now listen to me. He is all to
God. And He's all to me. He's all
in the Scriptures. This entire book points to Him
and Him alone. That's all this book has to say.
He's all in our doctrine. If I don't see Him in it, I haven't
understood the doctrine of right. He's the sum and substance of
all things. He said, I'm the Alpha and the
Omega. That means everything. That's
the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet. Everything
spells Christ. Everything does. Christ is all. And bless God, I believe that.
Christ Jesus is all. And what did the children of
Israel say concerning Him who is all? Our souls were sick of
this. We're sick of this. It doesn't
taste good to us anymore. It can't motivate us anymore.
It doesn't inspire us anymore. We want something else. Our souls
loathe this light bread. We want something else. This
is not enough. This is not enough. It's insubstantial. So what happened? Turn back to Numbers 21. 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 there any water, and our soul loatheth this light
bread." And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and
they bit the people. And much people of Israel died. Now, what a horrible place that
would have been to be. I mean, you had snakes coming
in, fiery serpents, and from what I can understand, that means
that when they bit you, you felt like you were on fire. There
was fire going through your veins. And much people of the children
of Israel died at this time. It was an horrible place to be.
So what happens? Verse 7, Therefore the people
came to Moses and said, We have sinned. Now, in our experience, this
is where mercy begins. We have sinned. Not making excuses for it. Not
trying to make it not so bad. Oh, it's such a blessed thing
to confess your sin before God. 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. Now here
we see Moses is a type of Christ. He's praying for the people.
And the Lord, verse 8, said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent. and set it upon a pole. Now serpents
were the problem. He said, you make a likeness
of that serpent and you set it upon a pole. And we know what
our Lord said in John chapter 3, verses 14 and 15. He said,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have eternal life. Our Lord tells us that
this will get him simply to picture and to typify Him. He is that
serpent lifted up in the wilderness. Now let's go and read in verse
8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and
set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one that
is bitten, when he looketh upon it, he shall
live. And Moses made a serpent of brass,
He put it upon a pole, and came to pass that if a serpent had
bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Now, the first thing I want to
point out about these people who beheld the serpent of brass,
I don't believe there's anything more sinful that you could do
than to say our souls loathe this light bread. These were
wicked people indeed. Do you realize that you and I
have done the same thing? You're not being guilty of that.
So that serpent is lifted up, put on a pole, a serpent of brass,
and everyone that's bitten, he simply looked at the serpent,
looked to Christ crucified, and he was made whole. Now, what
were they to do? Look at the serpent. They weren't
to look at their sins. They weren't to look at the bites.
They weren't to look at other people. They weren't to look
to their experience. They were to look to that serpent.
And everybody who simply looked at that serpent was made whole. That's faith in Christ. Look
unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth for I am God
and beside me is none else. Look away from all else. to Christ
Himself. Now, wouldn't that be something?
If right now, by the grace of God, you and I looked away from
ourselves, and we quit looking at each other, and we beheld
the serpent on the pole, Christ crucified the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be a blessing?
To be able to look to Him. I'm to look. I look to His person. Can He fail in what He's doing?
Is there any potential whatsoever of Him failing? Not at all. Because of who He is, He must
be successful. I look to His life, His obedience,
as my righteousness before God. Look! I look to His death, even
right now, His shed blood as my sin payment. I look to His
resurrection as my justification before God. I look to His intercession
as the reason I'm going to persevere. I look to Him being at the right
hand of the Father as my assurance. I look to His return as my future. He's not like bread. Looking to Him is everything. And if you can't see that, you've
never looked. I can't see what you're saying.
Look, if you look, you'll see. If you look to the Lord Jesus
Christ, you'll see precisely what I'm saying. And the only
reason you don't see it, if you don't, is because you're not
looking. You're not looking. If you look, you will see. Can you say with me? Christ is all. Let's say that loud together.
Christ is all. He is. May God give us grace to behold
Him. Let's pray together.