The Son of Man Shall Be Lifted Up

Will you take your Bible and
open it to the book of John chapter 3? Now my subject today will
be the Son of Man lifted up. My text will be verse 14 of John
3. 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 Nicodemus, to whom our Lord
spoke these words, Nicodemus was a grown man. He was a mature
man. He was a religious leader. Nicodemus was a teacher of the
scriptures. He considered himself a scholar. But Nicodemus, though a grown
man, though a teacher of the scriptures, was but a child in
the things of God. He was but a child in understanding. And when our Lord would teach
this man the truth of redemption and the truth of grace, he used
metaphors, he used pictures, he used figures of familiar things,
simple illustrations to illustrate or to preach profound truth. You know, when I think about
that, I think of this, oh, that we today would climb down out
of our intellectual ivy towers out of our theological lofty
attics and come down where the people are and begin to preach
to them in the language of the common man using pictures and
illustrations and scripture and metaphors that at least in their
heads people will know what we're talking about. Let me show you
some examples. Look there in the book of John
chapter 3. Now Our Lord is teaching Nicodemus
about the new birth. Now, do you want to listen to
this? Ever since our president, Jimmy Carter, has talked about
being born again, experiencing the new birth, people have made
light of this phrase, they've made light of this statement,
born again. Christians, born again. What
does it mean? would illustrate this to Nicodemus. This is what he said in verse
3 through 5. When a man is born the first time of his mother
and father, he's born of the flesh. He's born a natural person,
a natural man. And he's born with natural understanding. He can understand material, physical
things because he is a natural, fleshly, physical individual. In order to have spiritual life,
In order to have spiritual understanding of God, of his world, of his
kingdom, of his word, of his grace, a person needs a new birth. That's what our Lord is saying.
Except a man is born again, he cannot see. And that word, see,
is understand. If you're teaching a child something,
he says, now how do you do this? You say, well, you do it this
way. Do you see? Do you see? You're saying, do you understand?
Do you discern? what I'm saying. And this is
what the Lord is saying. A natural man, Paul said, receiveth
not the things of God. They're foolishness to him. Neither
can he know them. They're spiritually understood,
and he's not spiritually alive. He's spiritually dead. You happy
quicken who were dead in trespasses and sin. So I'm not surprised
at all when I pick up an editorial page and see a cartoonist, a
natural man who had drawn a cartoon to make fun of a born-again I
can see how he would make fun of that, because he's a natural
man. And the natural man receive it,
not the things of God, of his kingdom, of his grace, of his
son. They are what? They're foolishness
to him. They're foolishness to him. And
then our Lord went on, and he says, now this new birth, now
listen to this, this new by which a man receives spiritual life. Now you have physical life, you
can hear these words, you may not understand them, but you
can hear them. Now if I was talking about mathematics, you'd understand
it because you're a natural man and two and two is four in the
natural realm. If I were talking about how to build an airplane,
if I were talking about how to build an automobile, how to wire
a house, you'd understand that because that's fleshly, that's
real, touch the wires and you'll find out it's real. But when
we talk about the kingdom of God, and the purpose of God,
and the grace of God. In order to understand that,
you've got to have what you don't have, and that's spiritual life. That's what we lost in Adam.
God said, Adam, when you eat the forbidden fruit, you'll die,
and that's what he did. He died. He died spiritually,
and death, spiritual death, passed upon all men. And then our Lord
said, this new birth, this born again, of which people make fun
and ridicule, This new birth is by the Spirit of God. Read
John 1, 12, and 13. It is not of the will of the
flesh. A man cannot born himself spiritually any more than he
can born himself physically. It's not of the will of the flesh.
You cannot, by willing, receive the new birth. It's not of him
that runneth nor of him that willeth. It is of God that showeth
mercy. That's what Christ said. This
new birth, born of water and of the Spirit, born from above. Just like it takes a natural
father to plant a natural seed to bring forth a natural son,
it takes the power of God, the spiritual father, to plant the
spiritual seed, which is the word of God, to bring forth a
spiritual son or daughter. It's not of the will of the flesh,
it's not of the will of man. In other words, you can't regenerate
another person. No sir, no way that you can regenerate
another person. You can't save anybody else's
soul. You cannot put spiritual life in anyone else. It's not
of blood. That is, it's not handed down
from father to son. The only thing the father can
pass on to his son is his sinful nature. That's right. But we
are born of God. Now listen to this. This is God's
Word. John 3. Look at verse 8. And our Lord,
talking to this religious leader, this scholar, this teacher of
the scriptures, he said, I'll illustrate the new birth. The
wind bloweth where it listeth. In other words, the wind blows
where it pleases. And you can hear the sound of
the wind, can't you, Nicodemus? Read it, verse 8. But you don't
know where it's coming from and you don't know where it's going.
The wind bloweth where it pleases. Even so are those that are born
of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is sovereign
in the new birth. He will quicken whom he will.
That's what the Scripture says. As the Father quickeneth, even
so the Son quickeneth whom he will." We have no human power
over regeneration, over the new birth, and over the life of God. And then when our Lord will illustrate
faith to this man Nicodemus, look at verse 14. He uses metaphors,
he uses pictures. He says, Nicodemus, you know
about the wilderness journey, don't you? Yes, he knew about
the wilderness journey, how Israel left Egypt journeyed all these
years across the wilderness to the promised land. You know about
how they murmured against God, and how they said, we don't like
this light bread, and we don't have any water to drink, and
you ought to left us in Egypt. And because of their murmuring,
God sent fiery serpents among the people. They bit the people,
many of them died. And Nicodemus, you know how that
Moses went to God, and he prayed. And God said, Moses, make a serpent
of brass like the one that has bitten the people. lifted up
on a pole, and whosoever looketh, behold, he shall live." Now you
know that message. Now Nicodemus, as Moses lifted
up that serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. Even so must Jesus Christ be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. Now, my friends, I'm not preaching
Baptist doctrine or Methodist doctrine or Catholic doctrine.
I'm preaching the Word of God. I can have no better illustration
of faith than this one because this is the one our Lord gave
to this man, Nicodemus. Here standing before our Lord
is a scholarly man, a grown man, a religious man, but a lost man,
an unregenerate man. And our Lord said, Nicodemus,
if I told you earthly things and you don't understand, how
are you going to understand if I tell you heavenly things? But,
Nicodemus, in order to understand, in order to see, discern the
kingdom of God, you've got to have a miracle. You've got to
be born again. And that new birth is a sovereign
work of God, the Holy Spirit quickeneth whom he will. And,
Nicodemus, that new birth will bring you faith, and that faith
will be in Christ alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want
to take this illustration that our Lord gave, and I want to
preach this faith to you today, and I want to divide it into
four parts. Now this is so you can remember it. First of all,
what was the problem? Secondly, what was the remedy? Thirdly, what was to be done
with this serpent? And fourthly, what were the people
to do? Are you interested? Well, let's
look at it together. First of all, what was the problem?
Now, to find the problem, we go back to Numbers, chapter 21,
verse 5 and 6. Here was the problem. And the
people spake against Moses and against God. And the Lord sent
fiery serpents, poisonous serpents, among the people, and they bit
the people, and much people died. Now, I've never been bitten by
a poisonous serpent. I've been bitten by by a fiery
serpent or rattlesnake. I had a friend who was. Down
in Mexico, about two or three years ago, I was down there visiting
the missionaries in Mexico, and I have a friend there, a native
pastor by the name of Franklin. And he was out in one of the
Hinnikin fields one afternoon, walking between the Hinnikin
plants, and a huge rattlesnake crawled, struck, and bit him
twice. And the bite was so powerful
when that snake hit him that he said he just hit the ground.
His leg was almost paralyzed immediately. But Franklin had
a motorcycle just a few yards away on the side of the road.
He crawled over to that motorcycle and got on the motorcycle and
rode as fast as he could to a little Pueblo called Consacaba. And
there quickly the doctor attended him and after six or eight weeks
of suffering and recuperation he did live. But suppose he had
not had the motorcycle. Suppose he'd been out there like
Israel was. These people were out there in
the middle of the wilderness. No transportation, no hospital,
no medicine, no health, no hope. God sent fiery serpents among
the people because of their rebellion and murmuring. They bit the people
and they were dying. Can you imagine a man who had
been bitten by one of these fire serpents? There he is lying on
the ground. The venom, the poison is in his
veins. He knows it's there. And every
time his heart beats, there's nothing he can do about it. But
every time that heart beats, it takes a little more of that
venom and pulls it in and pushes it out and pulls it in and pushes
it out until his whole body is permeated with all of that terrible
poisonous venom. And he knows that death is as
sure as the sunset. His whole body is contaminated
with this killing poisonous venom. Now that was the problem. And
my friends, that's our problem. We are contaminated with a poisonous
venom that took place back yonder in the Garden of Eden called
sin. Now if you take your Bible and turn to Psalm 51, I may shock
you a little bit here, but I want you to listen to the word of
God. This is the condition. The poison is in every son of
Adam, not only from birth, but before birth. That's right. Before
we were ever born. Go back to the time when the
seed was planted in the womb by the Father. And that seed
was a sinful seed. Now listen to Psalm 51, verse
5. David's talking about sin. He
said, My sins are ever before me. Against thee and thee only
have I sinned, O Lord. and done this evil in thy sight."
He's talking about sin. Now, he tells us where it all
came from. He said in Psalm 51, 5, I was shapen in iniquity,
in sin my mother conceived me. Now, there's no sin to the act
of conceiving children. Sex is not sin. And anyone who
says it is, is just made a fool out of himself. Back before man
ever failed, when God created Adam and Eve, he created them
male and female, before the fall. And before the fall ever took
place, when Adam and Eve were holy, perfect, pure as God, they
were male and female. And God gave them the commandment
that they were to be united together, multiply, and replenish the earth.
Sin came after that. And what David is saying here,
he's not saying that his mother sinned in conceiving him. He's
not saying that his father sinned in begetting him. He's saying
that he was conceived in sin. In other words, when the father
of the child presented the seed, it was a sinful seed because
it came from a sinful father. You see that? It's just the poison
of the snake. It's like they tell me that an
apple The worm is in the bloom. That's the reason the farmer
sprays the bloom, because the worm's already in the bloom.
It's in the apple when it's first formed. And the sin is in the
child when it's first conceived. That's what Scripture says. Buy
your Bible, as the old preacher used to say, and get acquainted
with it. And then in Psalm 58, verse 3, he goes on and says,
this poison of sin is put within us at conception. And we come
forth, listen, Psalm 58, the wicked are estranged from the
womb. They go astray as soon as they're born, speaking lies. Now you look at that little new
baby, fair and tender and beautiful. But the seed of sin is in there.
The poison of sin is in there. This terrible corruption of evil
is already in that child. You don't have to wait until
it reaches a certain age. You don't have to teach that
baby to hate. I guarantee you, he'll know how to hate. You don't
have teaching to be selfish. You don't have teaching to lie.
You don't have teaching to love evil. That's already in there. It's planted in there at birth.
It's planted in there at conception. Now, if you go back and look
at Israel, some of these people have just been bitten by the
fiery surface. They don't show much effect.
In other words, if a snake came in here and bit me right now,
I could go on probably and finish this message, and you wouldn't
see any difference. But after a while, an hour or
two, take a look at me, you begin to see some of the effects. My
eyes begin to swell. I begin to turn red. Sweat begins
to pop out. I begin to tremble. You see some
effects. And wait about 12 hours, and
you'll see me lying on the floor, disfigured and swollen, and in
the last moments of life, dying. And wait about 24 hours, and
you can come pick my body up and take it to the cemetery.
And even so, when children are born, you don't see the effects
of sin. They look fair and lovely and
cool and laugh and all. You don't see the effects of
sin. But when they get up a little older and get to be teenagers,
and then you see the hatred, and then you see the rebellion,
and then you see all of the selfishness, and then you see these things
begin to show themselves, and then they get to be older. And
as they grow older, middle-aged, swollen with sin and disfigured
with sin, and all of this corruption is in their hatred and in their
sharp words and in their cruel deeds, and then after a while,
you see them in the grave. Now that's sin. That's sin. It's planted at birth, and that's
the problem. That's the problem. All right,
what is the remedy? Well, let's look at Numbers 21,
verse 8. And the Lord said to Moses, Make
a serpent of brass, and set it on a pole, and whosoever shall
look upon it shall live. Now, when Moses came down to
the blacksmith, and he told them to make, he said, God has given
us a remedy. And this remedy is make a serpent,
just like the one that bit the people. Make it out of brass,
and put it on a pole. And whosoever shall live shall
live. Now I'm sure someone must have said, now hold on, Moses.
It was the serpent that caused the problem. It was the serpent
that brought the sickness. How can a serpent also bring
the cure? A serpent caused the problem,
how can a serpent be the remedy? Here's your answer. And you might
say the same thing, by man came death. All right, the scripture
says in 1 Corinthians 15, 21, by man came the resurrection
of the dead. They're just two atoms. The word
atom is man, the Hebrew word for man. In the first atom is
of the earth, earthy. The second atom is the Lord from
heaven. As we have borne the image of
the first atom, the earthy one, thank God by his grace we'll
bear the image of the second atom, the heavenly one. In Adam
we died, in Christ we're made alive. You see, my friends, a
man sinned and a man had to obey. A man broke the law of God, a
man had to keep the law of God. A man rebelled against God, therefore
a man must submit to God. A man offended and was sentenced
by the law and judged by the law, therefore a man must die.
And what the law could not do because of the weakness of the
flesh, the law wasn't weak, but the flesh was weak. God sending
his own Son, now watch this, in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Moses, you want the people cured? Make a serpent of brass. Don't
make it out of gold and silver and jewels and diamonds and precious
stones to be wondered at. Make it out of worthless brass.
And when Christ our Lord came, he came a root out of dry ground,
despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, no beauty about him that we should desire him. In
fact, they didn't even believe he was the Messiah. He was born
so lowly and lived so poorly. But make it out of brass, worthless
brass. Make that serpent just like the
one that bit the people. And when our Lord came to this
earth, he came down here in the likeness of sinful flesh. It
behooved him to be made just like his brethren, and be tempted
in all points as they are, yet without sin. He was our representative. You see that? What a picture
of redemption. Thirdly, what was to be done
with the serpent? Moses, take the serpent. Not
leave it in the mold. The serpent in the mold won't
help. Don't put it in the temple. The
serpent in the temple won't help. Don't hold it in your hand and
go around blessing the people with it and doing all these different
things. Moses, that's not what you do. That's not going to help
the people at all. Lift it up on a pole. Raise it
up between heaven and earth. Let it be a picture, let it be
a type, let it be a figure of God's crucified Savior, God's
crucified Son, God's crucified Atonement, God's suffering Son. Lift it up on a pole. And my
friends, it's not Christ in the manger that saves. I've got no
objections to manger scenes and songs about sweet little Jesus
boy, but it's not the Christ of the manger that saves. It's
the Christ of the cross. It's not Christ in the preacher's
hand. I can't sprinkle water on you
and make you holy. I can't give you a sign of a
cross and make you holy. I can't touch your forehead and
impart unto you power and holiness and life. It's not Christ in
the hand, Christ on the cross. It's not Christ in the ordinances.
It's not Christ in the temple. It's Christ on the cross. I must
needs go home by the way of the cross. There's no other way but
this. I'll never get sight of the gates
of life if the way of the cross I miss. There's a fountain filled
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's vein, and sinners plunged beneath
that flood lose all their guilty stand. Lift him up. The Father
lifted him up, and the preachers are to lift him up. Not wrap
him up in all of our intellectual oratory, but lift him up. Not wrap him up in our ceremonies
and rituals and stained-glass windows and robe choirs and burning
candles and processions. Lift him up. The simplicity of
the cross. It's the Christ of the cross
that saves. It's lift up the blood-stained cross of Jesus
Christ and tell those sinners that are bitten by the poison
of sin, look and live. Look and live. Look and live.
All right, last of all, what were the people to do? What was
the problem? What was the remedy? A savior
made in the likeness of sinful flesh. What was to be done with
that savior? Lift him up, crucify him, nail
him to a cross. What were the people to do? And
the people said, now watch this, Numbers 21 verse 7, and the people
said, we have sinned. We have sinned. You know, that's
hard to say. It's easy to say, boy, John sinned,
or George has sinned, or Mary, oh, how wicked she is. Oh, those
people, aren't they terrible? But how difficult it is for us,
individually, personally, to say, I've sinned. Oh, God, I've
sinned. But you know, Job wrote this
in Job 33, verse 27. He looked upon men, and if any
say, I have sinned and perverted, that's which was right. and it
profiteth me not, he will deliver his soul from going down to the
pit." Can you say that? I have sinned. The publicans
said it, and Christ said he was justified. He stood in that temple
and smote on his breast and cried without even lifting his eyes
in presumption to heaven. He said, Oh God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. The thief on the cross said it.
He looked at the other thief and he said, Don't you fear seeing
we're in the same condemnation, we're getting just exactly what
we deserve. O Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. David said it, my sins are ever before me. Against thee,
thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.
Paul said it, O wretched man that I am. O wretched man. You know, John says if we confess
our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Can you say that? Now, if any
man say he hath no sin, he deceives himself, the truth's not in him.
If a man says he has no sin, he makes God a liar, and God's
word's not in him. But if we confess our sins, I
wish the Holy Spirit would bring me and you and every person listening
to my voice down to our knees and not asking you to touch the
television or get in touch with me. I want you to get in touch
with heaven, with the throne of grace, with God himself. I
don't want to get between you and the Lord. I want you to do
business with him. I want you to cry, Lord, be merciful
to me, a sinner. You do business with God. I have
seen. Or whatever. And they said, we
have seen. And Moses lifted up that serpent
and he said, look. That's all. Look. And whosoever
shall look shall live. That's what Isaiah 45, 22 says,
I am the Lord, look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of
the earth, for I am God, look unto me, look unto me. I have
a message from the Lord, hallelujah, this message unto you I give.
It's recorded in his word, hallelujah. It's only that you look and live. If you're bitten, if you're sinned,
if you're helpless, if you need help, if you're without hope,
look to Calvary. Keep looking. that God speaks
peace to your heart. These messages are available
on cassette tape. If you'd like to have the message
I preach today, there'll be a small charge. You write to me. We'll
be happy to send it to you. Till next week at the same time,
this is Henry Mahan, bidding you a very pleasant good day.

The Son of Man Shall Be Lifted Up

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The Son of Man Shall Be Lifted Up

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