Numbers chapter 21, and I want
to begin reading in verse 4. This is the incident that you
and I have looked at. It's one of the passages in the
Bible that I've preached from different times, and I've never
quit thinking about this ever since I guess that I first read
it as a young Christian. In verse 4 of Numbers 21, And
they journeyed, the children of Israel, the Lord's adopted
people, they journeyed from Mount Horeb by the way of the Red Sea
to compass the land of Edom, a very difficult place to travel,
the route they were on. And the soul of the people was
much discouraged. They were impatient because of
the way. And the people spake against
God and against Moses. 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 souls loathe this light bread. 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, Take 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 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. And there in verse 8, we have
the mercy of God and the grace of God in providing a redemption,
a remedy for sin. And then in the last portion
of verse 8 and verse 9, there is the remedy applied. Now, I
want us to notice these three things, and I particularly like
this passage because The Lord Jesus himself refers to it in
John chapter 3. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. But in 1 Corinthians 10, the
Apostle Paul refers to this passage. And he says that the children
of Israel was a beacon for us today. They are a warning for
us. He said, let us not tempt Christ as some of them tempted
him and were destroyed of the surface. Now, they tempted Christ. And it shows us again the deity
of Christ that he was here. This was Christ here that they
were sinning against, that they were despising. They tempted
him. And we are told here in Verse 5 of how they did it. Look
at this. Two things they said here in
verse 5. First of all, down here in the
middle, they said, For there is no bread. There is no bread. But there was bread. In the 11th
chapter of this book, we are told that God sent them manna
from heaven. And for 40 years they lived off
of that heavenly bread. It sustained them. It was wonderful
food, just what they needed in the wilderness. What they wanted
was a big steak, you see. That wouldn't have been good
for them, would it? God gave them bread, but they said here,
we loathe this light bread. We hate it. And I believe that
they had to have some understanding of who this bread represented. Moses knew it, and the other
prophets knew it. The Lord Jesus said, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven,
for I am He. I am the true bread that comes
down from heaven and gives life unto the world. This bread represented
the Lord Jesus Christ. And they loathed it. They hated
it. Were tired of eating this like
bread. That's the way they spoke against
Christ. But that's not all that they said. Also here in verse
5, they said this. Neither is there any water. But look back here in chapter
20. Just a few days before this, look here in chapter 20 and verse
7. Here's what happened. And the
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou
the assembly together, thou and her and your brethren, speak
unto the rock before your eyes, and it shall give forth his water. And thou shalt bring forth to
them water out of the rock, So thou shalt give the congregation,
and their beasts drank. And Moses took the rod from before
the Lord, as he had commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered
the congregation together before the rock. And he said unto them,
Here now, ye rebels, lest we fetch you water out of this rock.
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the
rock twice. And the waters came out abundantly,
and the congregation drank, and their beast also." There was
water. There was water. And you remember
what Paul said about this rock? He said that rock was Christ.
The rock literally wasn't Christ, but it represented Christ. And
the waters, the Psalms tells us that these waters became a
mighty river. No matter where they traveled
in this whole area, they could come back here and drink of this
water. But they said there's no water. There's no water. They
murmured against the Son of God. They tempted the Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, I would
imagine that every sin that any man or woman could commit is
ultimately against the person of Christ. If you could trace
it, you could trace it and you could find out why this is against
the person of Christ. You take evolution, the teaching
of evolution that all things evolved, you know who that very
teaching is against? Christ. You say, Bruce, why do
you say that? Because the Scripture says God
created all things by Jesus Christ. He was in the world and the world
was made by Him. The world didn't evolve. We didn't
evolve. Christ made it. He made it all. And what a reproach against Him
to say it otherwise. And when we hear men proclaim
morality as the way for salvation, is that not a sin against Christ?
Morality is not the way of salvation. Christ is the way of salvation. When they proclaim the inherited
goodness of man and all the many ways back to God, there's not
many ways back to God. And it's a sin against Christ
who is the only way for us to say that. Sins against Christ. He's the only Redeemer, and He's
the only Mediator between God and man. So here's the first
thing we see here in verse 6. We see sin, and we see the judgment
of God upon it. And what is it? They spake against
the Lord, and in verse 6, the Lord sent fiery serpents among
the people, and they bit the people, and much people died. They murmured, they complained
against Christ, and here's the judgment for doing so. And what
was it? Death. Death. Sin and death as the consequence. A person may die when he's young.
A person may die when he's old. He may die through the means
of a disease or an accident, but I tell you why he dies. Judgment. Death is the result of sin and
God's judgment upon it. Not just sin, but God's judgment
upon it. Through the offense of one, many
be dead. Look back through history. Between
Adam's day and Moses' day, they all died. Why? Because the offense
of one, judgment came, and many died. And there's nobody around
today very old, is there? We're all dying. And what is
that? It's the judgment of God upon
sin. Death reigned from Adam to Moses. It's appointed unto men once
to die. Because in the day that you eat
their udder, you're going to die. That's God's judgment. And
everybody's going to die. In Adam, all die. That's God's judgment. One of
the missing elements, and you see this is not true, one of
the missing elements in modern day theological thinking is this,
the justice of God, the holiness of God, the judgment of God. God is too good, God is too loving,
God is too merciful to send anybody to hell except extremely bad
people. But brothers and sisters, who
determines what's good and who determines what's bad? Who sets
the criteria for these things? Is it not God? The only kind
of people who go to hell is Saddam Hussein and Charles Manson and
some of the other mass murderers. But what about a foolish thought?
What about covetousness of the heart? Who determines what sin
is, who determines who it's against, and who determines the punishment
for it? Does not God do that? Sure He's loving, sure He's merciful,
but He's just, isn't He? He's holy. Much people died. That's a fact. We can debate
opinions, but you can't deny facts. People are dying. People are dying. And this hasn't
changed since man's sin. It's the judgment of God upon
it. Judgment upon sin is a strange
and sometimes cruel event. But God has determined what sin
deserves. Here, look how strange this was. Look how peculiar this was. These
people were going along and suddenly these snakes come out of nowhere
and started biting them and much people died. If you're just looking
on from up in the mountain and watching this, when you thought
how strange. Here's a bunch of serpents that
just invade in the camps of maybe two million people. That's strange. and is cruel. But that is the
way the judgment of God is. That is why it is so repulsive
to the natural mind. You look at Adam. Consider what
a strange and seemingly cruel judgment it was upon him. You
see him. His countenance is fallen. The
Lord pronounces the judgment upon him, sends him and his wife
out of the garden, closes the door against them forever into
that place, tells him that in the sweat of his face he's going
to have to earn his living, and he begins to stoop, he begins
to feel pain and anxiety, and finally he dies. And what is
that? That's the judgment of God. You
mean God would turn man out of paradise? He did, didn't He? And you look at another example,
look at the old world, and look how unique a judgment that was. It was a strange thing. The judgment
of God is always strange. Everybody was going along enjoying
life. They eat, they drink, they bought,
sold, they married, and was given in marriage. Then all of a sudden,
Out of the blue, something happened that had never happened before.
It began to drizzle rain. And people started looking up
and said, what in the world is happening? We've never seen this
before. Then it got harder. Then it got harder. And then
the big springs from the center of the earth broke loose and
gushing up. And for 40 days and 40 nights
until everybody was destroyed but Moses and his family in that
ark. Wasn't that strange? Isn't that
cruel? You hear the cries of the people,
and you say, what is this? Or what is it? Judgment day. How could that be? God is holy.
God is just. And you take another example.
What about Sodom and what about Gomorrah? It was almost the same
with them as it was with the old world. The sun had risen
up, the Holy Spirit said. It was a beautiful day. Some
people were sleeping in. Some had got up and ready to
go to work. Mothers was up doing their worship. Children was going
out to play. A beautiful day. And all of a
sudden, in a most cruel fashion, these big streaks and balls of
fire began to fall from heaven. And it was a sulfurous like smell. And it continued to do that until
all of these cities were consumed and destroyed with fire. How
could God do that? He's holy, and He hates sin. And you take another example.
You remember Corey, the Jew that had so many hundreds of followers,
and they reproached Moses and said, all of us have just as
much right as you do to tell us what's right and wrong. Who
are you to tell us? We're all God's children. And
suddenly, the Lord spoke to Moses and said, Get away from him and
his crew. And the ground just opened up.
And down they went into the pit alive, screaming. What was that? That was God's judgment. Now,
you and I may argue over other things, but we can't argue over
what's happened, can we? It's fact. And these things happened. They were peculiar things, and
they seemed Very, very cruel. But I tell you, the judgment
of God is a fearful thing. It's a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. Hold that there just a minute
and look with me over in Isaiah chapter 26, where we were this
morning. I was reading this passage this
week, and these two verses here in verses 20 and 21 of Isaiah
chapter 26. The whole Bible is full of sin
and God's judgment upon it. And what I'm saying is, this
is one of the many missing elements today in people's thinking. That God is just too good and
too merciful to send people to hell or his judgment fall upon
them. But look what he says here in
verse 20. Come, my people, enter thou into your chambers, and
shut your doors about you. Hide yourself, as it were, for
just a little moment until the indignation, God's indignation,
God is angry, until it be over fast. Hide from what? For behold, the Lord cometh out
of His place, out of heaven, to punish the inhabitants of
the earth, why would He do that? Iniquity. Iniquity. For their iniquity. The earth also shall disclose
her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. This is the
doctrine of the Old Testament, and it's the doctrine of the
New Testament. Paul said the Lord Jesus Christ is coming.
He's coming again to execute judgment upon the ungodly. He's coming to consume them with
flame and fire and punish them with everlasting destruction.
Doesn't that sound cruel? I'm not surprised when the world
doesn't want to hear this, when they deny this. But you know
something? We have no gospel without it. You take away the judgment of
God upon sin, we have no gospel. We don't need a gospel, do we?
We don't need a gospel. I tell you, this is something
that every child of God has felt in his own conscience. He's been
convinced of it. When the Spirit has come, he
will convince the world of judgment, of judgment, of judgment. And sometimes you and I feel
it, don't we? We have such an apprehension of God's judgment.
We look around us, and we see all the sin around us, and we
know that God is holy and He's just, and sometimes it makes
us afraid. I'm afraid of God's judgments,
brothers and sisters. As a child of God, I'm afraid
of His judgments. Paul said if we judged ourselves,
we would not be judged. But when we're judged of the
Lord, we're chastened of Him. And I tell you what, when He
chastens us sometimes, when His judgment comes upon us in a way
of chastening, you know something? It's unavoidable. It's unavoidable. It's just like these serpents
coming among these people. It was unavoidable. God sent
it. God sent it. When David had sinned
and had the little child, and Nathan said, that child is going
to die, That's God's judgment, David, upon you. He wept and
he prayed for seven days and fasted. But I tell you what,
he didn't stop that judgment from coming. I fear the judgment
of God, brothers and sisters. I do. I heard a particular pastor
one time tell me about an experience he had. And I believe it. I believe
it. God has brought judgment upon
His people sometimes. And he said that he knew in his
heart of hearts that he should be a pastor in this particular
church. And they were basically waiting
for him to come and pastor them. And he just kept putting it off,
and kept putting it off. He said he had other things that
he wanted to do. And he said one night he was
driving, and he talked this hill on a country road, and a van
had broke down there on the side of the road. And he said the
road was full of people, and he had nowhere to go. And right
in the midst of those people, he said, I plowed. And he said,
bodies were flying everywhere. And he said, I finally got stopped.
And he said, no more than I'd got stopped, it seemed like a
voice spoke to my heart from heaven and said, are you ready
to go now? You believe God would do something
like that? Absolutely. Absolutely. He's known by the
judgments that He executed. And when you and I sin against
Him, are negligent in serving Him and doing His will, brothers
and sisters, we ought to be afraid. I fear God, and I fear His judgment. But that's the missing element
in today's thinking and today's preaching. Here, secondly, in
the light of that, in verse 8 of Numbers 21, we have the remedy. We have the remedy. The same
God that we sinned against must now supply the remedy. He says here, ìAnd the Lord said
unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole.î
Now, isnít this a mysterious thing? This was never thought
of. This was never heard of, such
a remedy. This is not manís way, is it?
If you'd have asked me, I could have found a way better than
this to take care of these serpents. We could have formed committees.
We could have piled up rocks. We could have got us some huge
clubs. We could have beat those serpents to death. We could have
made war on them, at least tried, but have you ever heard anything
like this? They're bitten by a serpent,
so what's the remedy? Moses, you get a piece of brass
and beat it out into a form, an image of a serpent, and hang
it on a pole. And when they look upon that
serpent, they'll live. You've been bitten by a serpent,
and look into a serpent. It's your remedy. Ain't that
amazing? That's mysterious, and that's so dark. And that's the
cross. That's the cross. And I'm telling
you, the cross to this world is just as dark and mysterious
as this passage is. What a wonder! What a wonder! The cross is God's remedy for
sin, and it's God's remedy for judgment upon sin, but it's not
a pretty thing, is it? And it's not natural. It's not
natural. to be bitten by a serpent and
to die, but now a serpent on a pole is their only source to
live. That's just amazing to me. I've always thought that was
amazing. Nicodemus never understood this when the Lord preached it
to him. Our sins had brought God's judgment
upon us and death was certain. So what did God do? He provided
the remedy. He has taken our sins and put
them upon another, and in that person, He punished our sins
and put them away. But you know something? That's
not a pretty sight. That's not a pretty sight. It's
not pretty to the natural eyes. I want to show you a couple of
scriptures, and they're familiar with you, but I want to show
them to you. While you are turning over to Galatians, while we are
still here close to Deuteronomy, I want you to turn to Deuteronomy
21 and hold this year. Then I want you to turn to Galatians
3. Look at this. Here is God's remedy
for sin. Look in Galatians chapter 3 and
look in verse 13. Sin had come upon us, and it
had brought death and misery. And much people have already
died. But here is the way that we are redeemed from sin and
from judgment upon it. Look in verse 13. Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law. How did He do it? Being made a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree." Now, he says cursed. Who is it that curses a man that
hangs on a tree? Look in Deuteronomy chapter 21
and look at verse 22 and verse 23. Look at this. Look in verse
22 and verse 23. If a man hath committed a sin
worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and you hang
him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the
tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. Why? For he that is hanged is a cursed
of God." Who cursed Jesus Christ? God
cursed him. God cursed him just like He would
curse us if our sins were found in us. The only way God can be
just and save us is to punish somebody else for our sin. But
I tell you, brothers and sisters, this is what I call the ugly
aspect of the cross. This is the ugly aspect of it.
I think that's why around the cross we have the darkness. There
was an ugly aspect of that cross. If I told you to behold the Lamb
of God, you'd know what I was talking about, wouldn't you? But a lamb, we read about a lamb,
we read about one that's without spot, without any blemish. We can understand that. We can
grasp that. But here we have a serpent upon
a pole. Not a lamb. Not a gentle, precious
lamb. But we have a serpent. A cruel,
venomous, poisonous serpent. What is that all about? Boy,
that represents a different aspect of the cross. And you know what
it is? Sin. The curse. The lamb represents burying our
sins and being a sacrifice for our sins. This serpent represents
to us sin and its poison and God's wrath and God's indignation. This is difficult to enter into,
ain't it? When the scripture says that God made him to be
sin, God made Christ to be not just a sin offering, but made
Him to be sin. Took our sins and put them in
His body and looked upon Him and says, I hate you. I hate
you. Could that be? To you that pass
by, see if there's any wrath. like the wrath of my God that
has come upon me, wherewith he hath afflicted me," listen, "...in
the day of his fierce anger." Jesus Christ became such a representative
for His people that God looked upon Him and treated Him just
like He would have treated them. He had to. He had to. If in every sense He did not
stand in our stead and in our place, then what sense is it
He didn't stand there? That scares me. Everything that
I've done, everything that I am, Christ became in some mysterious
way. I don't understand it, but I
believe it. I believe it. A serpent representing the Son
of God? As Moses lifted up the serpent,
as he beat it out and shaped it with that maul and cut on
it and mutilated that piece of brass, even so must the Son of
Man. Oh, he was made a curse. God
cursed him. God took all his vengeance out
upon him. God poured upon him his indignation
and God smote him and God killed him. God was angry at the cross. And I guess that's why we see
the darkness. We couldn't have entered into
this aspect of it anyway, could we? Why not sin the darkness? Who can enter into this? God
angry with God! You don't have to receive this,
brothers and sisters, because I know it's tough to enter into.
But I believe it. I believe it. In the day of His
fierce anger, Don't that show us the holiness
of God, the judgment of God upon sin? If the Son of God didn't
escape it, how can anybody else? You can't, can you? That's why
we say there is no gospel apart from the judgment of God, apart
from the justice and holiness of God. Make thee a fiery serpent. Here in verse 8, we see the remedy
applied. And look at this. And the Lord
said to Moses, Make this fire a 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. There is the remedy applied. Can you imagine this? How amazing
this would have been if you had been an onlooker. If you could
have been sitting somewhere with a pair of binoculars, looking
down on this scene, and you've got all of these serpents just
everywhere, biting the people, these fiery serpents. And that
means when they bit you, boy, it shot this pain and fire through
your body. And you didn't have long in this
world. The swelling began almost immediately. And can you imagine,
here you see this man, and he's screaming, and a serpent has
bit him, and he's swelling, and he's staggering around. And suddenly,
he gets a glance of that serpent on the pole. And like that, that quick, that
immediate, the pain is gone. The fire is gone, the swelling
is gone, and he lives. Can you imagine seeing that?
That's the way it is with the gospel. As Moses lifted up the serpent,
even so must the Son of God be lifted up, that whosoever believes
in him, whoever looks to him, whoever sees him, shall not perish,
but have life. All Christ and Him crucified
will deliver us from sin and God's judgment upon it. And it's
so quick when you look. When you look, you deliver. You and I are living in this
sin-cursed world. And sometimes we get this awful
sense of God's judgment. And it bothers us. It bothers
us. But I tell you what, brothers
and sisters, in faith, in faith, look to Christ and Him crucified,
and you won't have to be concerned about God's judgment. That's where you're delivered
from it. First and foremost and always. But I tell you this much,
it takes grace It takes help to look. Do you know that? Isaiah talked about, I don't
know exactly where it is in the scripture, it may be the 28th
chapter, I'm not for sure, but you can look it up. He talked
about flying fiery serpents from the south. Israel, in their history,
was wanting to migrate back to Egypt. And he said, those fiery
flying serpents are going to get you. These were probably
serpents that could fly. They had some. You can read about
them in history. They'd jump from one tree to
another. They'd hide in bushes and jump out and latch onto your
face when you went by. Can you imagine if a flying serpent
come and out of the blue bit you in the face? And your eyes
just swollen almost shut? Can you imagine how difficult
it was to look? And I tell you today, sometimes
we feel our sins so great, we feel the judgment of God upon
it, we have such an apprehension of it, sometimes it's difficult
to look. But one thing Brother Mahan said
about this passage years ago, and then we'll forget it. He
said, the Lord didn't tell you to see, He told you to look. And Spurgeon said, a baby can
look. Look, everyone who look up. You may have difficulty looking. I won't say that you won't. But
He'll help you to see. So look. Look. Somebody said, we got into this
mess by looking. We saw the tree was good for
food. We got in that mess. And we'll get out of the mess
by looking. Looking unto Jesus. And brothers and sisters, I want
to encourage you to keep looking. Keep looking. He's not just the first remedy.
He's the whole remedy. He's not just the beginning of
the way. He's every step of the way. Looking unto Jesus. And Paul said, those who look
for Him shall He appear the second time. Look. Look. That's the remedy. That's the
remedy. May God bless His Word.