Moses had the experience of Christ
actually speaking audibly to him. Can you imagine that? Seeing Christ appear in that
burning bush that was not consumed and hearing the voice of the
Lord Jesus Christ from that bush. He had Christ speak audibly to
him, and the Lord told Moses, what to tell the children of
Israel and how they would respond. Look at Exodus chapter 3, verse
18. The Lord tells Moses, And they
shall hearken to thy voice. And thou shalt come, thou and
the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt. And ye shall say
unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us. And
now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the
wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. Now the
Lord tells him in no uncertain terms that the children of Israel
will hearken to his voice. Now look at Moses' response.
And Moses answered and said, and this is after God spoke to
him, and God said, they will hearken to your voice. Look at
Moses' response. Moses said, but behold, they'll
not believe me. nor hearken unto my voice, for
they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee." Now
Moses knew these people. He knew what they were like,
how cynical and unbelieving they would be. He knew how they would
respond, but Moses also demonstrates his own unbelief here. If God
said that they would hearken to his voice, Was there any room
for this response from Moses? Now, God said, they'll harken
to your voice. And Moses said, no, they won't. No, they won't. Now, this serves as a reminder
to us that Moses was just a man. As naturally unbelieving as you
and I are, and it also reminds us that faith's a gift. It's
a gift. And you know, faith really is
not easy, is it? It's not easy. What do I mean
by that? Well, John Newton said this in a poem. He said, If I
could but believe, then all would easy be. I would but cannot, Lord relieve,
my help must come from Thee. And I understand that. You know,
it's not an easy thing to believe. As a matter of fact, it is impossible
to the flesh. It is impossible to the flesh
to really believe that I'm perfect in Christ when all my senses
say the contrary. To really believe that I stand
before God without sin, holy, unblameable and unreprovable,
to really believe that when God looks at me, he sees somebody
he's pleased with. Did he see someone that's altogether lovely
to him? That's hard to get hold of, isn't it? That's hard to
believe. As a matter of fact, it's impossible
to believe unless God gives me the grace to believe. Simply believe that I'm complete
in the Lord Jesus Christ. To love one I've never seen more
than anybody that I have seen. That's astounding, isn't it? If I'm not deceived, there's
one whom I've never seen. I've never heard his voice audibly.
And I love him more than anybody that I have seen. And that's
true of every believer, whom having not seen, you love, whom
though now you seem not yet believing. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, but it's a difficult thing to believe. It's impossible
to the flesh. Moses says, they won't believe
me nor hearken unto my voice, for they'll say the Lord hath
not appeared to them. You see, he knew these people. He knew
what they were like. He knew the way they would respond.
And I'll be honest with you, when I read this passage of scripture,
in some respects, I find this kind of refreshing. There isn't anybody more cynical
than I am. And I see when Moses said this,
I got some good company. Moses was like that, too. And
I'm not comparing myself to Moses, obviously. But I do find this
interesting. He knew these people. And look
what the Lord said to him at that time. Verse 2. The Lord doesn't rebuke him at
this time. And the Lord said unto him, after
this response of unbelief to what God had said, the Lord said
unto him, what is in thy hand? And he said, a rod. A rod. And he said, cast it on
the ground and he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent.
And Moses fled before him. Now, can you imagine how terrifying
that would be? He cast that rod on the ground and it became a
snake crawling around. Did that literally happen? Absolutely.
Absolutely. That's the sign that he was going
to give to the children of Israel. Now, this is the signs that he's
giving. They were not going to convince the Egyptians of anything.
As a matter of fact, you're going to find that the Egyptian magicians
could duplicate some of these signs. And they're not meant
to give any assurance to the people of Egypt, but they are
meant to give assurance to the people of God. These signs will
actually give assurance to the people of God. And you know what the signs were,
we just read about it. One sign was he throws that rod
on the ground, it turns into a snake, he runs away from it,
he's scared to death. The Lord tells him to pick it
back up by the tail. I'm sure very cautiously he comes
and grabs the snake by the tail, turns back into a rod. Now that's
a miracle, isn't it? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? And the next miracle that took
place. He said, if they won't believe
that one, they'll believe this one. He said, stick your hand in your
bosom. He stuck his hand in his bosom. He pulled it back out.
It was completely covered with leprosy, totally covered with
leprosy. And then he said, put it back
in your bosom. He puts it back in his bosom, pulls it back out,
and it's healthy just like the other flesh. That's another miracle. And he said, if they won't believe
those two miracles, then go into the river. and get a jar of river
water and pour it onto the ground. And when it's poured onto the
ground, it will become blood. And then they will believe. Now, what I call this message
is help for faith. Help for faith. I need some help,
don't you? Help for faith. And these signs
will help. Every believer. Now, it won't
help an unbeliever, but it will help a believer. Now, remember,
this is not just believing. Yes, the miraculous is involved
here. These are miracles. But they're
given to teach us something, as all miracles are in the Scriptures. Now, let's consider these miracles
one at a time. First, the rod that was thrown
onto the ground and it turned into a snake. Perhaps it was
Moses' shepherd staff. But it was the rod that belonged
to Moses, and when he cast it on the ground, it actually became
a serpent, and when he picked it up, it returned to being a
rod. Now, I want you to think about
seeing something like that. It'd be impressive, wouldn't
it? It'd be impressive. Now, all
of the Lord's miracles are impressive, but they're given to teach us
something. Now, the rod. What does the rod represent? Well, in Isaiah chapter 11, verse
1, the Lord Jesus Christ is called the rod. The rod out of the stem
of Jesse. Now, this same rod is the rod
that budded in Numbers chapter 17. You remember that story?
Now, there was a rod that actually was just a piece of wood, didn't
have any roots in the ground, and buds came out of it. And
it demonstrated life, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. living
God. He is the living one. He is called
in the Psalms, Psalm 2, the rod of iron that will destroy all
of the Lord's enemies. He's called in Psalm 110, the
rod of strength that will make God's people willing in the day
of his power. What about this, Psalm 23? You're
all familiar with this. Thy rod and thy staff. They comfort me. Now, he's not
talking about getting comfort out of just a wooden pole. He's
talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me. Now, without doubt, this rod
represents the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Moses was to cast that rod
down to the earth. And when it was cast upon the
earth, it became a serpent. Now, when I think of If I would
have been doing this miracle, I would have picked out an animal
that would have been more impressive. What if it would have turned
into an elephant? I mean, that would have blown everybody away,
wouldn't it? I mean, a big, that would have, wow! Or even a tiger,
or a lion, that would have scared everybody to death. I mean, if
everybody saw all of a sudden a big tiger prancer. Why a snake? Why a serpent? Well, what does
serpent represent? Sin? and Satan. Remember how Satan first appeared
in the garden as a serpent, subtle, deceitful. Do you remember how
our Lord said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Christ is likened
to a serpent in this great picture of the gospel, Christ crucified.
Anybody that looked at that serpent that looked just like the serpents
that bit the children of Israel, they would live. So when this
rod is cast to the ground, it has something to do with Christ
being made sin. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, I want you to look at this with me, it's a very
familiar scripture, but I think sometimes it's more powerful
to just look at it. Verse 21. For he, speaking of God the Father,
hath made him the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look at that, to
be. You'll notice it is in italics. That means it's not there in
the original. This reads literally, for he
hath made him sin. For us, who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now, before anybody thinks, well,
I've heard all this before. Wait. Wait. Remember, this is
what the Lord used to enable them to believe. And if God gives
you the grace to believe what's being said right now, this is
going to enable you to believe. And you're going to walk out
of this room a believer. Is that what you want? I want
to walk out of this room a real believer, and this is what the
Lord used to enable these people to believe. This rod being made
a serpent, Christ being made sin. Now, I want you to turn
to Isaiah 53 for a moment. Verse 10. Isaiah 53, verse 10, Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. It pleased the Lord. The Lord
got pleasure, got satisfaction out of bruising, crushing Christ.
Now, how could that be? How could that be? Because he
was made sin. That's the only way that can
be understood. It's not that he got some kind of sadistic
pleasure out of inflicting pain on his only begotten Son. He
saw his son as sin, and that's why it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He was the sinner's substitute.
Let's go on reading. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Word,
an offering for sin. I want you to turn with me for
a moment to Genesis 26. Genesis 26, verse 10. And to Bimelech said, What is
this that thou hast done unto us? One of the people might lightly
have lied with thy wife, and thou shouldest brought guiltiness. Now see that word guiltiness?
That is the exact same word that is translated an offering for
sin. Thou hast made his soul guilty. Now understand this. On the cross,
Christ did more than suffer the punishment that was due to sin. If he were punished, now listen
real carefully, this is so important. If he were punished for crimes
that he did not personally commit, would justice be done? Would it be right? If God punished
him for something that he didn't do, Would God be just? Would God be right? That's somebody
saying, well, He didn't do anything, did He? He didn't sin. I just read that passage of Scripture
where it says, For He hath made him to be sin who knew no sin.
He knew no sin. He did no sin. So how can you
say He's guilty of sin? My sin became His. Literally? Literally. And he became guilty before God. And he deserved to be punished
by the wrath of God. That's how truly my sin became
his. It's a real substitution. God
did not look at his son and say, well, I realize he's in it.