I want you to open your Bibles
with me to the third chapter of the book of John. I'm going
to be reading two verses of scripture from John, the third chapter,
and we'll read verse 14 and 15. Some time ago, a listener wrote
in and expressed appreciation for the fact that I gave you
time to find the scriptures in your Bible and follow along while
I read and while I try to point out particular things about that
portion of God's word. So we'll try to give you the
time to find the text, because I do want you to read it, and
I want you to follow me as I bring the message today on the subject,
Preaching the Gospel. I've got a big subject, but we'll
ask the Spirit of God to give us some liberty and understanding
and wisdom as I bring this message on Preaching the Gospel. Now,
John 3, verses 14 and 15. 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. Now the preaching of the gospel
is the strength of any church, and it's the principal task of
every preacher and of every believer. I say unto you that no church
can survive without strong gospel preaching. The Apostle Paul said,
Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. And again he said,
If any man preach any other gospel, let him be accursed. The preaching
of the gospel is the strength of the church. It's the principal
task of every believer. Now, through the preaching of
the gospel, men are saved. The scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians
that God has chosen, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that
believe. It's through preaching that men
are saved. Of his own will, beget he us with the word of truth,
or through the word of truth. And Peter said, we are born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the
word of God, that liveth and abideth forever. So it's through
preaching the gospel that men are saved. Paul said in Romans
1.16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. So it's through preaching,
preaching the gospel, that men are brought to the knowledge
of Christ. And then faith cometh through the preaching of the
gospel. What does Romans 10.17 tell us? Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. When our Lord sent his disciples
out to preach, he told them to go and preach the gospel to every
creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. So faith cometh through the preaching
of the gospel. Spiritual growth comes through
the preaching of the gospel. Peter said, desire the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Grow how? Grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grow into maturity. And then
comfort comes through the preaching of the gospel. The Apostle Paul,
writing in 1 Thessalonians 4, talking about the resurrection
of the dead and those who slept in Christ, when he finished talking
about Christ coming again and people being raised and going
to meet the Lord in the air, he said, comfort one another
with these words. It's by the preaching of the
word of God that men are comforted. And then assurance comes through
the preaching of the gospel. The Apostle John says, These
things have I written to you that believe on the name of the
Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. So
this business of preaching is important. This business of preaching
is the principal task of every believer, and it's the strength
of the church. Because through the preaching
of the gospel, men are saved. Through the preaching of the
gospel, God is glorified. Through the preaching of the
gospel, faith is born. Through the preaching of the
gospel, men grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ. Through
the preaching of the gospel, those who are undergoing great
trial and bereavements and sorrow are comforted, and then assurance
comes through the preaching of the gospel. But my friend, true
preaching is more than mere words. Writing in 1 Thessalonians 1,
Paul said, Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God.
For our gospel came not to you in word only, but in power, in
the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. So true preaching is more than
words. A lot of people think that because
a man stands up and hollers real loud, he's preaching, or because
he stands up and can't get his breath and says things so fast
nobody can understand what he's saying. and just hollers hallelujah
or praise the Lord or blessed Jesus once in a while, he's doing
some good preaching. But preaching is not just words.
Preaching is communicating. It's communicating. It's not
just words, it's communicating with the mind and with the heart.
True preaching is born of experience. Listen to John, he said, that
which we've seen and heard, declare we unto you. Our fellowship is
with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we're
declaring unto you that which we've experienced, that which
we've seen, and that which we've heard. And that's what I'm trying
to do in this message today. I'm telling you what I've seen,
not with these eyes, but with eyes of faith. And what I've
heard, not with these ears, I've not heard any voices, I've not
seen any visions, but in the Word of God, I've seen Christ.
And in the Word of God, I've heard him speak. And so true
preaching is born of experience. And then secondly, true preaching
is a declaration of God's word. Paul, instructing young Timothy,
said three words. Preach the word. Preach the word. That's your responsibility, Timothy,
to preach the word. Not what you think it ought to
say, not what you've heard that it says, but you're to preach
the word. For all scripture is given by
inspiration of God. And it's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
So you get busy preaching the Word. That's your task, that's
your responsibility, to preach the Word. And then true preaching
presents a person. It presents not the preacher.
Paul said, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. We
preach Christ and him crucified. True preaching presents the Lord
Jesus Christ. in his person, in his work, in
his glory, in his righteousness. Preaching is a presentation of
Christ. Preaching is a declaration of
Christ. Preaching is the proclamation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if a man does not preach
Christ, he's not preaching. And then true preaching is sent
of God. Over in Romans 10, verse 13,
the Scripture says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call in him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?"
True preachers are sent of God. True preachers are God's messengers. Paul said we are ambassadors
of Jesus Christ. And just as America sends an
ambassador to England or to France or to Spain or some foreign country
to represent this nation, God Almighty has his ambassadors,
he has his messengers. What was said of John the Baptist?
It said when it introduced him, there was a man sent from God
whose name was John. And then true preaching will
produce results. Now, you may not understand what
I'm saying, but I want you to give a try. True preaching will
always produce results, not necessarily the results we want, not necessarily
the results we expect, But true preaching, if a man is preaching
Christ, if a man is preaching the gospel, and if the Holy Spirit
of God is attending that preaching with power, it's going to get
results, because God said, My word shall not, I repeat, shall
not return unto me void. It shall accomplish that whereunto
I have sent it. So God's word always gets results
if it's preached in its truthfulness, If it's preached in the power
of the Holy Spirit, if it's preached to men as they are, picturing
God's redemption as it is in Christ, it will get results.
But Paul said, we are a savor. Now, not a savior, but a savor,
a smell, unto those that believe, a sweet smell of life, unto those
who do not believe, death upon death. In other words, we have
a message that produces justification and it adds to condemnation. We have a message that brings
men to faith and a message that increases condemnation to rebels. For a man who hears the word
of his Lord, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many strikes. All right, in the sixth place,
true preaching is communicating with the mind and with the heart,
not with one apart from the other, not with the other apart from
the one, but the mind and the heart. If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in thine heart God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So this
thing of preaching, it's sent of God. It presents Christ. It's born of experience. It's
the word that we preach. It produces results, and it's
communicating. It's communicating. It's not
filling in time. It's not just acting religious.
It's not calling attention to ourselves. It's communicating. with the heart and the mind of
our heroes. Now, in our text that I read
to you a few moments ago, the Lord Jesus Christ preached the
gospel to a man. He said, I speak that which I
know. I speak the things which I've seen. This man was a very
religious man. His name was Nicodemus. And our
Lord Jesus Christ communicated with him. He talked to the man's
mind and he talked to the man's heart. And he talked to him concerning
the things of the kingdom of God. And as he talked to Nicodemus
about these things concerning the kingdom of God, he illustrated
them. He talked in language that the
man, at least in his head, could understand. Our Lord Jesus Christ
did not talk of the doctrine of regeneration, though he did.
He was speaking of regeneration, but he did not identify it As
the doctrine of regeneration, he talked to this man about a
new birth. And though Nicodemus didn't understand
how, he did understand what the Lord was saying. He didn't understand
how. He said, can a man enter his
mother's womb and be born again? He didn't understand how, but
he did know what Christ was talking about. A new birth, a new life,
a new beginning, a new person, a new creature. That's what Christ
was talking about. He said, that which is born of
the flesh. is flesh. That which is born
of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not, he said, that I say
unto you, you must be born again. And then our Lord did not talk
to Nicodemus about the doctrine of sanctification. He talked
to him, rather, about cleansing, water and cleansing. He said
we're born of the Spirit and born of the water. The water
here is the Word of God. I'm just sure of that. Over in
the Book of Psalms it says, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his
way? By taking heed to the Word of God. And in the New Birth,
the Holy Spirit is the agent, and the Word is the seed. We
see that all the way through the Word, how that through the
Word of God, that the Word is the seed, the seed, the seed
of spiritual life, and the Holy Spirit is the agent. So he says
we're born of the water, the Word, and the Spirit of God.
And this is regeneration, this is sanctification. And then when
our Lord talked about the Holy Spirit, he described him illustrating
him by the wind. He said, the wind, you can hear
it and you can feel its effects, but you can't tell where it comes
from, you can't tell where it's going. Even so are those who
are born of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God begets whom
he will, the Son quickeneth whom he will. The Spirit of God comes
among us and even upon us and even in us, and you can hear
the sound, you can see the results, you can feel the impression and
the influence and hear the voice and see by faith, but you don't
know where he's coming from and you don't know where he's going.
You don't know whom the Lord will awaken or quicken or bring
to faith in Christ. And then he illustrated the gospel. Our Lord talked of the new birth,
he talked of cleansing, he talked about the Holy Spirit and the
sovereignty of God in awakening sinners and the sovereignty of
God in saving men. And then he illustrated the gospel.
And he said to Nicodemus, And 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 everlasting
life. His background gave him sufficient
information that he knew about the people in the wilderness.
He knew about their murmurings and rebellion. He knew about
Moses' prayer for their deliverance. He knew about God giving the
brazen serpent, the serpent of brass. He knew about that serpent
being lifted up on a pole, and he knew that those people looked
to that serpent and lived. And so our Lord took him back.
You see, the master is the master. And when he talked to this man
Nicodemus about the new birth, and about the new spiritual life,
and about the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and he talked
to him about redemption, he illustrated. And that's what I'm going to
try to do right now. Let me, let me, and most of us
like Nicodemus have a religious background, and some tradition
and ceremonies to which we're holding. But let me preach, if
I can, to you the gospel which our Lord preached to Nicodemus.
You know about the people of Israel in the wilderness. You
know about the fiery serpents and the brazen serpent and the
people looking and living. You know that. But let me, if
I can, and may the Holy Spirit give you faith to believe and
understanding to lay hold upon, and me the wisdom to preach,
he that believeth on the Son hath life. Now, here's the first
part. First, the people in the wilderness.
Because of their sins against God, they were a murmuring people.
They were a rebelling people. And because of their murmuring
and because of their rebellion, God in judgment sent fiery serpents
among the people. I don't know what type of serpent
this was, except it was a serpent. It was a fiery serpent. The sting
of that serpent was a fiery sting. It might have been like the small
coral snake over in the Orient, just their poison is so rapid,
it just kills a person in a matter of minutes. But God sent fiery
serpents among the people, and they were bitten. And you couldn't
see any marks on them, they hadn't been slaughtered, they hadn't
been cut to pieces, their bones weren't broken. They appeared
to be healthy, normal people, but this poison, the poison of
the serpent, was inside and just making its rounds through their
veins, just going to their heart, being pumped out in every part
of their body. They were totally diseased from
the top of their head to the sole of their feet by the venom
that had been injected into their veins and consequently into their
hearts by the bite of this fiery, burning, killing serpent. Now then, what's that got to
do with me and you? Well, we go back to the Garden
of Eden and look at the rebellion of our parents, Adam and Eve.
And there, as a result of their fall, The whole human race was
stung with sin. The sting of death is sin. And
it's poison, just like those people in the wilderness that
were bitten by that little fiery serpent. And that poison went
into their veins and was pumped all over their bodies by their
heart. Just as that poison is throughout their inward being,
even so the poison of sin is in us from birth. David said,
In sin my mother conceived me. I was shapen in iniquity. I was
brought forth speaking lies in sin. Wherefore by one man sin
entered the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon
all men. And this sin with which we are
plagued is not just an outward force. It's not just an activity
or an environment or a surrounding, but it flows through our nature.
This sin is in us. It's in our veins. It's in our
hearts. It's in our minds, it's in our souls, it's in our imagination. As Isaiah said, the whole head
is sick, the whole heart is faint. And we have no cure. Just as
these people out there in the wilderness had no cure, they
were bitten and the poison was within them. If it had been a
sore on the skin, it could have been mollified with ointment.
If it had been a cut, it could have been sewed up. If it had
been a broken bone, it could have been set, but it was a poison
in the vein. It was a poison in the innermost
being, in the very bowels of that person, killed from within. And that's what's wrong with
the human race. We've got poison in our veins. We've got poison
in our souls. We've got poison in our mind.
We've got poison in our imagination. The easiest thing in the world
for a human being to do is to sin. And the hardest thing in
the world for a human being to do is walk in godliness. And
there is no cure. Moses couldn't help them, the
law couldn't help them, they couldn't help one another, they
couldn't help themselves. So Moses turned to the Lord and
he said, what are we going to do? The people are dying. They'll all die. This bite is
fatal. This bite of the fire serpent
is going to destroy all the people. So God told Moses to take a serpent,
a brazen, a brass serpent, made just like the ones that had bitten
the people. in the very image and likeness of those serpents,
and put it up on a pole. And God said, Whosoever will
look will live. Now, what was the serpent that
he lifted up? It was made in the likeness of
the fiery serpent. Moses saw one of them, and he
made a serpent of brass just like the one that had bitten
the people. When the Lord Jesus Christ came down here to this
earth to be our Savior, our sin offering, our Redeemer, he was
made in the likeness of sinful flesh. It was flesh that damned
us, and it was the flesh of Christ that saved us. You see, it was
a serpent that poisoned the people. It was a serpent. By a serpent
came death, by a serpent came life. And 1 Corinthians 15, verse
21 says, For by sense by man came death, by man came also
the resurrection of the dead. In Adam we died, in the second
Adam, Jesus Christ, we lived. Our Lord Jesus Christ was made
of a woman, just like you and me, made under the law just like
you and me, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, in the likeness
of sinful flesh. He hungered, he thirsted, he
wearied, he wept. Our Lord was a man. He was the
God-man. But you can see Moses out there
as he looks at those serpents and he makes one just like them,
just like them. And that's a picture of Christ,
you see. Our Lord Jesus Christ came down here to this earth.
And by the sting of the serpent, those people were made sick.
By the serpent were they made whole. And Christ, you see, by
man came death. By Adam's disobedience, many
were made sinners. By the obedience of one man,
many were made righteous. Now note this. That serpent was
of brass. It wasn't gold. It wasn't silver. It was brass. It was common.
It was humble. And our Lord Jesus Christ was
made as a common, humble man. There was no beauty about him
that we should desire. There was no luxury and no fanciness. He was just a carpenter. He was born in a manger. He was
the lowest of all, so that the lowest of all could be identified
with him. All right? Let's look at the
third thing now. What was to be done with the
serpent? God said, Moses, make a serpent like the one that's
bitten the people, and lift it up on a pole. It must be lifted
up. Moses took the serpent, put it
on a pole, and lifted it up. And our Lord Jesus Christ said
in John 12, 32, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me. This Christ said, signifying
what death he should die. The Lord Jesus Christ, all the
way through the scripture, you see, is pictured. His coming,
his sacrifice, his sin offering, his substitutionary work is pictured
all through the Bible. When Abel brought that lamb and
shed its blood and put it on the altar, That's a picture of
Christ. And Cain brought the works of
his hands and labor in the field, but Abel brought a lamb. When
Abraham took Isaac on Mount Moriah to sacrifice him to God as God
had instructed him, and the Lord told him, Touch not the lad,
and there was a ram caught in the thicket, and he put the ram
on the altar and took Isaac off, that's Christ, the Lamb of God
that takes our place and dies in our stead. The Passover lamb,
when Israel was in Egypt, And God told them at midnight he'd
pass over and the firstborn in every home would die, and for
them to kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorpost, that's
Christ. And here, when Moses lifted up
this serpent on a pole between heaven and earth, that's Christ.
That's a picture of Christ. See, the whole Old Testament
is Christ in promise. God promised he'd come. In prophecy,
his prophets prophesied that he'd come, and in picture, God
showed how he would come. And how he would die, and how
he would redeem us, and how he would satisfy the justice and
righteousness of God, and how he would put away sin as a substitute. And Christ is lifted up. Now,
how is Christ lifted up? Well, first of all, he was lifted
up when wicked men nailed him to a cross. He was lifted up.
Here is the man in the likeness of sinful flesh, dying for sin
in the flesh. He was lifted up as he was nailed
to that tree. He was lifted up when the Father
raised him from the dead and exalted him on high. And he is
lifted up when we preach him in his true character, in his
true redemptive glory, as truly the Lord and Savior. I'm lifting
up Christ right now. I'm lifting up Christ, just like
Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness. As the ambassador
of Christ, I'm lifting up to you, my friend who has been bitten
by the fiery serpents of sin. I'm telling you to look to Christ
and lift. And we lift him up. We don't
wrap him up in mysterious words that people can't understand.
We don't hide Christ among our cold, dried, dead-letter doctrines. We don't put him in a cradle
and bring him out at Christmas time every year. We don't put
him off in some musty temple or cathedral and invite people
to come burn candles to him. We don't advance him and put
him out in a future kingdom somewhere. We lift him up right now. Right
now, here is the cure, sin is the cause, Christ is the cure.
Here is the remedy, sin is the disease, Christ is the remedy.
Here is the death, sin is the death, Christ is the life. And
he said, you look and live. Look and live. All right, last
of all, what were the people to do? They were to look. I have
a message from the Lord, hallelujah, this message to you I give. It's
recorded in his word, hallelujah, it's only that you look and live.
It's not Moses who didn't say, look to me. He said, look to
the serpent. And every preacher and every person who declares
the message of salvation, tells the people to whom he declares
it, don't look to me. Don't look to the law. Don't
look to your church. Don't look to your denomination.
Don't look to your mom and daddy. Look to Christ. Look to Christ.
It's not prepare yourself, but look. Let not conscience make
you linger, nor fitness fondly dream. All the fitness Christ
requires is to feel your need of him. It's not work, it's look.
Look, in my hands no price I bring. Simply to the cross of Christ
I cling. Could my tears forever flow?
Could my zeal no longer know? These for sin could never atone.
Christ must save and Christ alone. And I say unto you, it is not
even understanding. It's look. It's not even understand. I don't say to you, you have
to understand the gospel. I say you to believe it. Believe
the record written. Believe the Redeemer given. Believe
the ransom paid. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And thou shalt be saved. What
is the command? If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto me. You look and live.