The Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent

but still a man, religious but still lost, moral
outwardly and immoral inwardly. And what's his subject? Well, his subject is how that
man can know God. That's his subject, how that
man can know God, how God can deal in grace and mercy with
that man. And listen to it, verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. One syllable word. two-syllable
words, plain, clear, simple words. I get so weary, and I just know
you do, but you're afraid to say anything about it. I get so weary today of intellectual,
complicated Theologians who claim to be preachers. You heard some preaching this
morning. Clear, plain, simple, to the point. God glorify. Why
can't they all preach like that? Like you fellas preach. You hear
me and hear preaching. So that you can understand. You
know, when we teach children, little children, to speak. Here's a baby, can't speak. born not knowing anything. And
we teach that baby from the time it's able to hear us or pay attention
to us. And we don't say now, son, this
is a horse, a thoroughbred steed of the Arabian stock. Got that? You say to that little one, it's
a horsey. How does the horsey go? Nay,
that's where the horsey go. How does the horsey go? You don't identify all the different
breeds and stocks of dogs when you're teaching Michael Jesse
about a dog. You don't even call it probably
by the name that identifies it. Poodle, pit bull, collie. You say, it's a doggie, son. What does the doggie say? Bow
wow. Isn't that right? That's the way we teach children.
That's the way we have to teach children, when you teach them
to add. You don't go through some spiel about the history
of mathematics and how that things have to be in precision and how
they have to, certain things, certain laws of mathematics,
formed the foundation of higher mathematics and how things, this
universe goes together. You put two apples over here
and two apples over here and you say now, if you have this
two apples and these two apples and put them together, how many
apples do you have? One, two, three, four. Four apples. Isn't this like, this is, this
is true. A car. You don't tell them all the way
Henry Ford invented it, how Henry Ford put it together, and how
Henry Ford invented the combustion that causes the suspensions to
go up and down to make the transmission turn, thereby making the wheels
turn. You say, how does a car go, son? That's a car. Isn't this true? What does the clock say? Tick-tock,
tick-tock. And then you get your little
book and you'll turn the pages and he'll say, car, boom, dog,
bow wow. He's learning. But what do preachers do? If we could just realize, we
who preach the glorious gospel of the Son of God, that we're
preaching not to intellectuals, not to theologians, We're preaching
to babies, children. I feel so sorry for the people
who had to come up under some of those old Puritans years ago.
They literally weary my mind. A fella gave me a whole set of
John Owen one time, I guess 15 volumes, 16, I don't remember
how many. And I started in, he published
16 volumes and the Lord put it all right here. And I started reading it. And it did nothing in the world.
I find something here, and something there, and something yonder,
but I had to walk 10,000 miles to get one bite. And I don't
think that, I know that's not God's way. You just take the
scripture that Charles read a moment ago. When our Lord would talk
to Nicodemus about sanctification. Sanctification. Now here's a
man who's full grown among men, fleshly, man of some natural gifts and intellect,
but our Lord, when he would talk to him about sanctification,
our Lord didn't say, now sanctification is the separating work of God
whereby a person is consecrated to God through the regenerating
work of the Spirit and the washing of regeneration. That's what
he learned in seminary and he still didn't know anything about
it. But our Lord said to Nicodemus,
he looked at him and he said, Nicodemus, except a man be born
again, he cannot see, understand, enter the kingdom of God. He took this figure, you see
in most all languages based on figures, he took this figure
of a baby being born, a new creature, a new person, one who's never
existed before being born. And he said to Nicodemus, the
only way you can be sanctified, the only way you can be in the
kingdom of God, the only way you can know God, is for this,
what you were the first time you was born flesh to just be
set aside and a brand new person be born. Isn't that what he's
saying? A brand new life, one that's
never existed before, one that's never lived before, a brand new
nature. God can't fix up, you're just
in a mess, Nicodemus, where you are now, and God's not going
to fix that up. He's going to give a new nature. That's what
he's teaching us now, a brand new nature. to be sanctified,
to be regenerated, is for God, by the Word, by the water, that's
the Word, and by the power of the Spirit of God, to create
a brand new person, born from the womb of God. Brand new. Brand new. That's what he says
to him. And then a new person, a new
nature, a new life. And God does that. It's not reforming
the old flesh. He said to Nicodemus, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. That's all it is. That's all
it will ever be is flesh. And flesh and blood is not going
to inherit the kingdom of God. It's that spirit, it's that new
life, that new nature that God creates. And that's when Nicodemus
said, well, you mean I go back in my mother's womb and be born?
No, you stay out here and God brings forth a new life in here.
We're not going to remodel you. We're not going to reconstruct
you. We're going to bury you. We're going to put you in the
ground. Dust thou art, to dust you'll return. And God's going
to create and give birth, regenerate, bring forth a brand new person. That's clear, isn't it? And that's
the way to preach. And when he spoke to Nicodemus
about the sovereign work of God in the salvation of a sinner,
the fact that salvation is of the Lord, that this new birth,
this new life, this new creature is not something that's performed
by the will of the flesh or the will of man, or by natural generation,
it's by the will of God. We're born of God on purpose.
He'll save whom he will, the Son will quicken whom he will.
This is what he's teaching Nicodemus, that salvation's of the Lord.
That this is a sovereign, supernatural act of God. That he doesn't owe
anybody anything, that he'll call whom he will, that he'll
save whom he will, that he'll quicken whom he will, that he
doesn't necessarily owe it to you or anybody else, but he'll
call his own. And you know how he described
that to Nicodemus? Well, he didn't do like we do. He didn't go back
and argue from the old confessions of faith. Well, that's what's
taught in the Westminster, and that's what's taught in the Heidelberg,
and that's what's taught in the London, and that's what our old
fathers believed, and that's what our old teachers believed.
He didn't go back there and argue from it. He said the wind blows
where it pleases. I tried. He used a common figure. He said, they might have been
standing there in the door of the house and the wind was blowing
through the trees. And he said, Nicodemus, the Spirit
of God is the wind, and the Spirit of God quickens, and the Spirit
of God regenerates, and the Spirit of God gives life. The Spirit
of God gives life to anybody here that receives spiritual
life. The Spirit of God gives it to
them. We're born of the Spirit of God. And he said, Nicodemus,
you don't know where that wind comes from, and you don't know
where that wind's going, and that wind will go where it pleases.
And that wind will rustle a leaf where it pleases, the wind. Even
so are those that are born of the Spirit of God. He'll quicken
whom He will. Is that clear? Well, it's as
clear as two apples and two apples make four apples. We may not
like it, but that's what he's saying. We may not approve of
it, and we may have the idea that's too harsh. No, it's just
so. They said of Brother Bill Clark
over in England, when he started shooting forth some of the truth
of the gospel of God's grace, he was going too fast. I said,
that's not the problem, Bill. What they mean is you're talking
too plain. They're understanding what you're
saying. And our Lord, and this is what
preachers do, they speak like doctors. Did
you ever get the truth out of a doctor? Did you ever sit down
and you've got a problem and tell, will you tell me in plain
everyday language what my problem is? He can't do it. He doesn't
know first. And if he told you, then you'd
know as much as he does. And then he wouldn't have anything
to do. And preachers have a lot of this syndrome, this problem. First, they don't know. And secondly,
if they told you, then you'd know as much as they know. Our Lord told Nicodemus in plain
language, the wind will blow where it places. And even so
are those born of the Spirit. Now watch this. And when he spoke
to Nicodemus about faith, You know, people are always,
preachers talk about faith, and when they get through, you don't
know any more about faith than you knew before. They define it, they describe
it, and they dissect it from a theological textbook. I just
believe we'd all be better off if we took all these theological,
systematic textbooks and so forth, and just dumped them in the garbage
can. and took the Word of God and a good dictionary and a good
concordance and the Word of God and the comments of a few good
commentators, men who've studied the Word and just tell you what
this verse says, and read them, and stick with the Word of God.
I believe we'd be better off. And when our Lord talked to Nicodemus
about faith, you know what he did? Go with me to Numbers chapter
21. Now, this is what he did. He
went back here to Numbers 21, something Nicodemus had read
about, something Nicodemus knew. He went back to Numbers 21, he's
talking about Satan, and he says, Numbers chapter 21, he said,
Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness,
I'm going to read it in a minute. Even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. All right, let's see what he's talking about
here. Numbers 21, verse 4. And they journeyed from Mount
Orr 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, Wherefore
have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There
is no bread, neither is there any water. And our soul wearies
loathe this manna, this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery
serpents among the people, and they bit the people. And much
people of Israel died. Now let's see the first point.
the people in the wilderness and the problem. They had been
invaded by hordes of fiery serpents. I don't know much about these
fiery serpents. Somebody told me that they were
small serpents. Their bite was fiery and fatal. These little serpents, they were
just everywhere. They were everywhere. They were
in the cupboard. They were under the bed. Turn down the covers,
they were there. Go to sit in a chair, they were
there. Step out in the yard, they're there. They're crawling
across the floor. They're out in the woods. They're
under the steps. These little fiery serpents just
everywhere, they were everywhere. They were biting the people and
much people died. Now Israel had fought against
Amalek and won the victory. Israel had been taught by Moses
to use the bow and arrow and to use the sword. But they were
powerless against these serpents. Absolutely powerless against
these serpents. They were everywhere. They could
do nothing about it. They were all exposed to these
fiery serpents and all the people were being bitten by these serpents,
the children and the grown folks and those that were not dead
would soon die. There was no help, there was
no cure, there was no remedy, there was no hope. Now this is our problem. The
serpents of sin, the serpents of sin have invaded the camp. They're everywhere. Sin is everywhere.
No matter where you turn, if you think there's sin involved,
if you speak there's sin involved, if you walk there's sin involved,
if you act there's sin involved, there's sin in the cupboard,
there's sin in the seat, there's sin under the bed, there's sin
in the kitchen, there's sin in the sanctuary, there's sin everywhere
about us. Look around, sin. It's in the
heart. He describes us in Romans 3,
He says there's no fear of God before their eyes, their throat
is an open sepulchre, with their tongues they've spoken deceit,
their hands are swift to shed blood, from the sole of our feet
to the top of our heads there's no soundness in us, wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores. Now watch it, and those that
aren't already dead are dying. Isn't that true? They're dying creatures, those
that aren't already dead. Much of our race is dead already,
and the rest of us are dying. If you want proof, you want proof
of sin, proof of sin is death. That's proof of sin. If you listen
just a moment, I'll read you something over here in Romans,
chapter 5, about proof of sin. In Romans 5, verse Verse 12,
it says this, now listen, Romans 5, 12. Wherefore, as by one man
sin entered the world, like these fiery serpents, they entered
the camp. It was a plague. They were everywhere.
There was no way you could go to get away from them. And everybody's
affected by them. They've been bitten by them.
The people are dying, and those that weren't dead are dying and
will die. And that's us, all dying. Sin
entered the world and death by sin, and death has to fall on
all men for all sin. For unto the law, sin was in
the world. Where is unto the law? From Adam
to Moses. Moses, the law came by Moses.
But from Adam to Moses, sin was in the world. The plague was
already there. But somebody says, but sin's
not imputed, whether there's no law. Whether there's no law,
man's not responsible. Old Paul said, yes he is. Oh
yes he is, and here's proof. Nevertheless, death reigned from
Adam to Moses. There was no Ten Commandments
given, but people still died. As a matter of fact, they still
died. Why did they die? They were sinners.
Why did they die? They were guilty. That's the
reason they died. When Moses received the law in Sinai, we
didn't become sinners then, we were sinners already. The law
reveals sin. And he says the proof of sin
is dying. And watch this next line. Even
death reigned even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression. They had not consciously, willingly
met God and rebelled against him. Who's that? Babies. They're the only ones who had
not consciously, willingly sinned against God, because they don't
sin consciously. willingly. But they still die. But they still die. You see,
this is proof when a baby is born into the world and lives
a few hours and dies. What does that prove? That baby
had sin in it. Because there's no death where
there's no sin. Sin bringing forth death. Is that clear? That's A, B, C. Sin bringeth forth death. And
you know, everybody talks about, well, I'm worried of death. I
stole watermelons when I was a kid. That ain't your problem.
Did you like them? We used to steal them and bust
them open and just eat the heart. But that's not the problem. I'm
not encouraging you kids to steal watermelons. What I'm saying
is, the fact that I did, that's my problem. My nature, my heart
that led me to take what didn't belong to me, that was my problem.
See what I'm saying? Everybody gets worried because
they went to a movie on Sunday afternoon. You ought not go to
show on Sunday when you've got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, Saturday. You ought not curse on Sunday
either when you've got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
But if I could get the eyes of this religious generation off
of the results of sin and see the root of sin, that's what's
killing us? It's the root of sin. The root's
bad, therefore the tree's bad. The fruit's bad because the root's
bad. Make the root right and the fruit's
right. You see what I'm saying? And there's no weapon that will
prevail against this evil nature, this bite of the serpent of sin.
There's no weapon. The law won't prevail against
it any more than Moses said it would defeat If he'd kill one
another and come up over here, he'd kill one here, another two
over here, kill one here, four over here. The fire is surfacing
everywhere. And reformation is not going
to do anything for us, and prayer is not going to do anything for
us, and self-denial is not going to do anything for us, and religion
is not going to do anything for us. I wonder what we're going
to try next. You see, there's either life or death.
and life's in Christ and death's in the flesh. Now that's just
it. We've been bitten by sin and
that's what was over here the serpents were there and it contaminated
the people and they were done. God gave a remedy. Now watch
this. take away the plague." And Moses
prayed. 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, 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. He lived. The plague was defeated. The poison was gone and he lived. Now I can just hear the people
now when Moses informed them of the remedy. I can hear them
now. Moses said, God said, take a
serpent of brass in the likeness of the serpents that have bitten
the people and lift it up on a pole and everyone who looks
will live. Now I can just hear them. What?
What? That's foolishness. Well, that's
the silliest thing I've ever heard. A serpent lifted up on
a pole? Well, our best physicians have
failed to find an antidote or remedy. Our best planners have
failed to find a remedy. You would have us believe that
just by looking upon a serpent on a pole we'll be healed? Well,
that's foolishness. And we go out into this world
of sinners, bitten by sin, dead and dying, contaminated, and
we say that Jesus Christ, God's Son, was crucified on the cross,
the God-man, bearing our sins in His body on the tree. Look
to Him and live. The preaching of the cross is
what? Foolishness. That's foolish. And then I hear
someone else, what? A serpent lifted up on a pole?
Why, it's the serpent that caused the problem. You mean we're to
look to a serpent to find the problem and the cure for a serpent
bite? I know they ask that. The thing
to do is put an angel on a pole, not a serpent. A serpent caused
our problem. Let's go the opposite route to
salvation. No, sir. By man came death, by
man came the resurrection. God did that on purpose. He told
us, you see, every Old Testament illustration and every Old Testament
type is a picture of Christ. And these little wiggling fiery
serpents that had bitten the people, Moses took a brass and
he made an exact replica of that serpent. an exact replica, larger
probably, and then he took that and lifted it up on a pole. And
our Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, came down here to
this earth and made himself of no reputation, took upon himself
the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of sinful
flesh. Now then, he had no sin. any
more than that brass fire serpent had seen. That brass serpent
didn't have any sin, but it was in the likeness of the one that
did. And Jesus Christ came down here and He didn't have any sin,
but He was made in the likeness of our flesh and lifted up. And I hear somebody else say
this, what? A brazen serpent? Now, that's not the way to do
it, Moses. There's no value in a brass serpent. Let's lift up
a gold serpent. Put some diamonds in it and make
it valuable. We don't want to look to an old
brass serpent. We want to look to a golden serpent. We don't want to look to a man
despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, his visions marred
as no man, naked on a cross. Not even recognizable. Everybody
against him. If we hear this is where our
face is from him. That's despicable. That's what
we are. Oh, don't lift up a golden serpent,
lift up a brass serpent. Whatever men may say, those who
looked, lived. That's what it says here. And
if any man was bitten, in verse 9, if a serpent had bitten him,
when he beheld a serpent of brass, he lived. He lived. He lived by the power of God.
That's clear as I can make it. Well, what's to be done with
a serpent now, Moses? Moses, God said, lift it up. Lift it up. Lift it up, turn
back to my text. Let me show you something here.
You see, when the average person wants to talk about the gospel,
the average preacher today will preach the gospel, he'll go John
3.16. Well, the gospel is not in John 3.16. There's no cross
in John 3.16. There's no blood in John 3.16.
There's no death in John 3.16. There's no substitution in John
3.16. Then how do you have any gospel then? The gospel is in
John 3.14. That's exactly right. You have
in John 3.14 the remedy. As Moses lifted up that serpent, that brash serpent,
as he lifted him up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. How are you going to lift him up without crucifying him?
Jesus Christ in the flesh, lifted up on a pole, lifted up on a
cross, nailed to a tree. That's the gospel. That's the
remedy. John 3.14 is the remedy. And
this is a subtle trick of Satan to deceive every generation. We're so quick to quote John
3.16. Everybody in the world knows
John 3.16 and nobody knows John 3.14. And that's where the gospel
is. That's the reason Paul said,
if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost in whom
the God, and that's a spiritual beheading, of this world hath
blinded their minds and turned them away from the true gospel.
Lest the glorious gospel of the light of the Son of God should
shine in they should be saved. Why don't we teach our children
John 3.14? No, it's John 3.16. And John 3.16 has no lifting
up, no cross, no crucifixion, no substitution. That's right. If we teach them John 3.14, they'll
say, who was Moses? And then they'll say, who was
the serpent? And then they'll say, what is
lifting up? If you lift up a man on a pole,
you're going to have to kill him, aren't you? You have to
crucify him. And thereby, we'll get to teach
them the gospel. We're in a subtle day. You see,
John 3.14 is the remedy. John 3.15 is the result. What's
the result of lifting up that serpent? What's the result of
lifting up that Son of God? That whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's the result of the
remedy. The sin's gone. The plague's
stayed. The death has turned into life.
And John 3.16 is the reason. For God so loved. When you see
F.O.R., find out what it's there for. It's there describing what
He just said. The remedy Christ lifted up. The results that we might have
life. The reason because God loved
us. We didn't love Him. He loved
us. And He sent and gave His only begotten Son. That's A.B.C. Now why can't we
teach it that way? Why do we have to get so complicated
with wisdom of words, to no avail, proving? You see, you don't have
to prove doctrine, preach it. You don't have to prove God is
sovereign, you're not going to prove God exists, let alone that
He's sovereign. Just preach Him. Just preach
Him. Most wicked men lifted Him up
on the cross, The Father lifted him up on the cross, and the
preacher must lift him up in the gospel. Don't wrap him up,
lift him up. But everywhere you go, we got
him wrapped up in our professions, and in our ordinances, and in
our theology, and in our constitutions, and in all these different things,
in our catechisms. We wrapped him up. We've wrapped
Him up in our traditions and wrapped Him up in our vestments
and wrapped Him up in our processionals and wrapped Him up in our form.
This is the way we do it in our circles. You know what I'm talking
about, don't you? Don't wrap Him up, lift Him up.
Lift Him up. And don't color Him up. I'll tell you the best way to
say anything is say it. It's not how you say it, it's
what you say. Most preachers are so concerned
with how they come off, or how they sound, or how people take
them. What difference does it make?
You're going to be forgotten in five years anyway. But they're
going to have to know Him. Don't color Him up. Don't wrap
Him up. And don't help Him up. Lift Him
up. The work is his to be done, ours
to look. What were the people to do? What were the people to do? You
see old white-haired Moses? He made that serpent of brass
and he went out there and he stood before the smitten people
and he held up that pole. I don't know how big a pole it
was or where it was, but he held it up out there in front of those
smitten, dying people with a brazen serpent on it. And he says, look! Look! And left. Don't look to
me. I'm sure he told, don't look
to me. Don't look to the pole. Anybody here got a cross around
your neck here tonight? That's the pole. Got one flopping off the end
of your Bible? Or maybe a bookmark in your Bible? Look into the
pole. The cross has never saved anybody. It's the Christ of the cross.
And that's another subtle act. You say, Preacher, you ought
not get on crosses. That's a subtle act of Satan to take your heart
and mind and eyes off him who hung on that cross. I know what
I'm talking about. Don't look to the pole. Don't
look to one another. Don't look to one another. You say, I'm not bad off as he
is. I'm not close to the grave as he is. Boy, he's bitten all
over. Well, it doesn't matter where
you're bitten. You're still dying. Don't look to one another. Don't
look to your sowers. I know a lot of folks, you know,
that I get a little weary of hearing about these fellas from
cocaine to the pulpit, from prison cell to the pulpit. It don't
matter where you came from. We all came out of the dung hill.
It smells just as bad in one place as it does in another. Don't look to your sores. Don't
look to where the pit from which you were digged. Look to Christ.
And watch this. Don't even look to heaven because
the Father is not going to deal with you apart from the Son. That's what you said in that
corn in Egypt. Go to Joseph. Go to Joseph. Even God's looking
at him, you better look at him too. I'm telling the truth there,
aren't I? I wrote that down, I thought
about it. Is he? Yeah, God's looking to Christ. If he finds
you in Christ, you're a thief. If he don't, you're damned. God
looks to him. He's the mercy seat. Look to
Christ. Turn your eyes on Jesus and look
full in his wonderful face and the things of this world will
go strangely dim. in the light of His glory and
grace. What happened to the brazen serpent? Do you know what happened
to it? Well, let me show you. Turn to
2 Kings 18. Now, here's another picture.
I'll tell you, unless some preacher sent by God is faithful, taking
the Word of God and keeping our eyes turned to Christ, It's so
easy for them to drift away, isn't it? It's so easy. In 2 Kings 18 verse 1, now this
is years after Moses was dead and years after the children
of Israel were already in the land of Canaan. Verse 1, Now
it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, son of Elah, king
of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, King of Judah began
to reign. Twenty and five years old was
he when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years.
He's twenty-five years old when he took the throne. He reigned
nearly thirty years. His mother's name was Abbey,
the daughter of Zechariah. And Hezekiah did that which was
right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his
father did. He removed the high places. Now
that was these groves and these shrines they'd built. We've got
them today. We've got our shrines and cathedrals
and places. Yes, we do. They're everywhere.
He removed those high places, and he broke the images, the
statues. Boy, we've got enough of those.
Pictures, statues, they're everywhere. And he cut down the groves, and
he broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. Yeah, he did. Well, why did he
do that? Because the children of Israel
did worship it. They burned incense to it. And he called it nehushtan. You know what nehushtan means?
A worthless piece of brass. This old flesh, I tell you, if
I could urge everybody, these boys and girls, mothers and dads,
Older grandmothers and granddaddies, the flesh profiteth nothing.
Our traditions, our form, our ceremony, our religion, our professions,
our experiences, our feelings, our dreams, our voices, these
things are nothing. Look to Christ. It's all in Him. Just look to Christ. But every
time God gives us something by means, now He sent His Son into
the world by Mary. They made a God out of Mary.
They couldn't just say that the virgin girl gave birth to a son
and called his name Jesus and then set her aside. God used
her, finished with her, set her aside. Now you set her aside.
No, he couldn't do it. They got to put her on a pedestal
and pray to her. And the cross, God took his son
and lifted him up on a cross, nailed him to the cross, and
we're cross crazy. We got crosses everywhere. Look
at the Ironton skyline sometimes. Yeah, crosses, steeples everywhere. Crosses. No Christ preached in
those places, but they got the crosses. Anybody here been over
to what they call the Holy Land? And silly people go over there
and look at a hole in the ground, and they feel a tingle. That's
where Jesus lay. Oh, it's not. Even if it were,
I'd be surprised if he felt a tingle. Because it's not a hole in the
ground that saves me, it's the risen Christ. I'm telling you. You say, you're, you're just,
you're a profane. Well, maybe we ought to get profane.
So people will know two and two's four. Because they don't know. They go over there and there's
a hill. There's some people been over
there to get baptized in the River Jordan. Now you tell me
why a person would do that. You just tell me why. You know
why? Superstition. Nothing under heaven but rank
pagan idolatry. That's exactly what it is. I'd
rather be baptized in Strait Creek out here. That way I'd
be able to say like Paul, thank God I didn't baptize any of you.
Because he didn't want them looking back, Paul baptized me. It's scary. It scares me. It's
plum scary because there's so many competitors. They're getting
that shroud out of that cave over there and saying that's
what Jesus was buried in. Even if it were, I'd burn it. Just like this man here, Moses
made that serpent of brass with his own hands. Moses, their leader. Moses, their prophet. And he
lifted up on a pole in a day of great plague. And thousands
of people looked to it and lived, and the plague was stayed, and
the fire surface was destroyed. And they took it down from that
pole, and some guy, genius, made a box for it lined with black
velvet, and they laid that thing in it and closed it down and
worshipped it. And finally, Nezachiah came along
and burned it. Burned it. And I wish a hurricane
had rocked Wipe away all those shrines over there in Jerusalem.
Flatten them out so nobody else could go to them and be an idolater. That's right. That's exactly right. I'm telling
the truth. I'm telling the truth. You see,
you go to fooling with our traditions and folks don't like it. They
just don't like it. fool with their traditions. I
want a relationship with God that does not depend on where
I am, that does not depend on how I feel, that does not depend
on the condition, my condition outwardly, that does not depend
on whether I'm in my home or in prison. I want a relationship
with God, unchangeable relationship that depends wholly and completely
on who Christ is, what Christ did, where Christ is, and rest
on Him and Him alone. And therefore, being built on
the unchangeable Christ, then it cannot be altered. You see
what I'm saying? And whether we've got in the
atmosphere, we may have to leave here next week and meet somewhere
in a cave, I don't know, but bless God, Christ is there too. He might be more there than anywhere.
And we lay down our idols and look only to Him. Can you do
that? Can you just look? Can you just look? Don't bring
anything, just look. About look, live. All right. Mike, you have a song for us?

The Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent

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The Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent

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