The song which our organist was
playing for the orphatory is entitled Only Believe. It seems so simple. It is so
clear. And yet it is the most difficult
thing in the world for a natural man to understand. Only believe. All things are possible, only
believe. In Numbers chapter 21, verse
8, 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 the serpent,
shall live. When he looketh upon the serpent,
he shall live. Now there can be no better gospel
message or gospel lesson for our religious days than the one
before us. And this is a religious day.
But there can be no clearer gospel message for you this morning
than the one that I have chosen. For when our Lord was talking
to Nicodemus, a religious leader, in his day, when our Lord sought
to illustrate salvation to Nicodemus, this is the message which he
chose himself. This is the illustration, this
is the type which our Lord chose to illustrate salvation to Nicodemus,
the ruler of the Jews. Now you can listen to this message
this morning as if you were listening to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. For when this man Nicodemus came
to him by night, this religious man, this man steeped in the
law, deep in religion, seeking a way to eternal life. Our Lord selected the message
or the scripture which I have selected for my text today and
preached to Nicodemus the way of salvation. Now let's turn
to Numbers 21 and look first of all at verse 4 and 5. When our Lord defined the gospel
of salvation, this is the type which he chose. This is the illustration
which he selected from the entire Old Testament to illustrate salvation
to Nicodemus. First of all, the people had
rebelled against God. In verse 4 it says, in the latter
part, they were discouraged because of the way. The people were discouraged
because of the way. It was God's way God chose it
for them. God chose it for them in wisdom
and in mercy, but they murmured against it. They quarreled with
God's way. Why? Because they wanted their
own way. That's the reason. They grumbled
and complained about God's way because they wanted their way.
And not only did they complain and grumble about the way, but
the next verse says they spake against God. Our souls hate this
bread that you've given us. God had given them manna from
heaven. We hate this bread." They complained about the bread
God had given them. They complained about the water
that God had given them. God had instructed Moses to speak
to the rock, and the rock would yield forth water, and they complained
about the water. And then they not only spake
against God and against his supplies of food and water, but they began
to speak against God's servant. It says they spake against God
and they spake against Moses. His leadership was despised. His leadership was rejected. The people spake against the
way of God. They spake against the supplies
of God. They spake against the servants
of God. And this is the history of our
race from the Garden of Eden to this day. Our Lord said, they
cried, we will not have this man reign over us. We will not
bow to his scepter, we will not surrender to his rule, we will
not bow to his sovereignty, we will not have him reign over
us. That was the cry from the Garden
of Eden to the Tower of Babel to the Cross of Calvary to this
day. Rebellion. God says, your thoughts
are not my thoughts, and your ways are not my ways. Oh, we
like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one not
to God's way, but to his own way. And there is a way that seemeth
right unto men, but the end thereof are the ways of death. So the
first thing we see in this illustration of salvation is the people rebel,
the people the people murmured. They complained about God's way,
they complained about God's blessings, and they complained about God's
servants, and they were discouraged. Now look at verse 6. And the
Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and
much people of Israel died. Because of their rebellion, because
of their sin, God sent a curse among the people, a curse of
fiery serpents. They bit the people and the people
died. The bite of the serpent was fatal,
there was no doubt about that, because they buried their friends
and they buried their loved ones and they watched people die and
they knew why they died. The people had murmured, they
had complained, God sent fiery serpents among them and they
began to die, and everybody knew why they died. They died because
they had rebelled against God, there was no doubt about it.
Because they said in verse 7, we have sinned. That's the reason
that the plague is here. That's the reason the curse is
upon us. That's the reason the people
are dying, because we have sinned. We're not left to doubt concerning
the consequence or the cause of the sin, of the bite of the
fiery serpent. It's because we have sinned.
The Word of God declares the wages of sin is death. The Word
of God declares the soul that sinneth shall surely die. The
word of God declares sin, when it is finished bringeth forth
death. That is why we die. We see sin's results all about
us. Old age, hospitals, asylums,
jails, courts, war, hate, cemeteries. All of these things are the results
of man's rebellion against God, man's sin against God. And not
only do we see the results of sin about us, but God's word
tells of the eternal consequences that await us. If you die in
your sins, you cannot come where I am. Israel rebelled, and God
sent the fiery serpent and they bit the people, and they began
to die. Man rebelled against God in the
Garden of Eden. Man sinned against God. Man murmured
against God. And death came upon the whole
human race, and the people died. And we see the results of that
fall and the results of that sin, not only in our bodies,
but in our environment and all about us. And God warns us of
the eternal consequences of our sin. You die and you sin. You cannot come where I am. Charles Spurgeon said in 1852,
there was a man who was keeper of the zoo, whose name was Gerling. He'd been with the zoo for a
number of years. He fed the animals. He took care
of them. He fed all the birds, the monkeys. He was in charge of the whole
zoo. He was always fascinated by the cage where the snakes
were kept. They had rattlesnakes and cobras,
and they had coral snakes from Africa. And this man was always
fascinated. He'd stand around this cage where
they kept the snakes, but he was always afraid of them. And
one day he and a friend were having a drink together. And
Gerling drank too much and became drunk. And the first thing that
he did was tell his friend he was going down to the snake cave.
And the friend warned him not to, but he went down anyway,
and the friend followed him. And instead of standing outside
as he always did, he got the key and opened the gate and went
inside. And the first thing he did was,
it was cold weather, Spurgeon said. The first thing he did
was pick up one of the coral snakes and begin to twirl it
around his head. And the snake evidently was,
because of the cold, not alert and not as alive as it usually
was, and it didn't bite him. He laid down the coral snake
and reached over and picked up another one. and he curled a
snake around his arm and around his neck and then he laid it
on the ground and it didn't bother him but then he went over and
picked up the cobra and he wrapped the cobra around his neck and
then held the cobra out in front of him and the cobra began to
revive from the coal a little bit and began to sort of wake
up and the cobra, as the man, Gerling, held it in his hand
poised a minute right in front of his face, and then suddenly
it struck him right between the eyes, right on the bridge of
his nose. And it knocked him down. He took the snake off his
neck and ran out and locked the door. And then he ran down to
the little shed where they had been drinking, suddenly sobered,
and he sat down in a chair. and his friend ran and got help
and when help got there he said there was only a small mark on
the bridge of his nose and first his speech went and he wasn't
able to talk he could only point to his throat and moan and then
his vision began to fail he couldn't see and then in a moment his
hearing was gone and in less than an hour he was dead, because
the poison had spread through his whole body. When man took
the cobra of sin in the garden of Eden, and it struck him, the
poison of sin and evil spread through his whole body. And his
speech, when he spoke with God and honored
and glorified was taken from him. And in his vision, when
he saw the things of the Lord in the Garden of Eden, enjoyed
the fellowship of the Lord and looked beyond the material things
about him, that left him. And in his hearing, when he was
able to hear the voice of God and understand and communicate
with God, that left him. And then he died. The poison
of sin and rebellion had spread through his whole being from
the sole of his feet to the top of his head, Isaiah said, no
soundness in him anywhere, bitten by the serpent of sin. And that's
what happened to Israel here. They rebelled, they sinned, and
they were bitten by the serpent of sin, and they died, and they
died. But verse 8 says, God provided
a remedy. God provided a remedy, and our
Lord Jesus Christ told Nicodemus about this remedy. Israel couldn't
produce a remedy, and even so man can produce no cure for the
sin and evil that is in our veins, pumped from our hearts, received
from our fathers. God said, first of all, Moses,
make a fiery serpent. In other words, make a serpent
in the likeness of the one that has bitten the people. Now listen
carefully to me, this is important. Make a serpent in the likeness
of the one that has bitten the people. The fiery serpents have
bitten the people. Now you make a serpent out of
brass exactly like those that have bitten the people. You say, why is that important?
Now watch this. Jesus Christ, our perfect Lord,
was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Why did he become a man? The same reason that Moses made
a serpent like the one that had bitten the people. Christ took
on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. He took not on himself
the nature of angels, but the nature of the seed of Abraham.
He became a man. Man rebelled. Christ became a
man. Man sinned. Christ became a man. By man came death. By man came
sin. By man came eternal separation
from God. By man came all of these consequences
of rebellion. So Christ became a man. Now this
serpent of blast that was made in the likeness of the fiery
serpents, this serpent of blast which Moses made, had no venom. It had no bite of death. It had
no strength of evil, and it could not kill this serpent that Moses
made. Even so, the Lord Jesus Christ
had no sin. He had no evil. He came not to
condemn the world. The brass serpent was made not
to condemn but to save, in the likeness of the fiery serpent.
Now watch this. And God said, Moses, make a fiery
serpent like unto the one that hath bitten the people, and impale
it upon a pole, and lift it up. The brass serpent was a serpent
impaled upon a pole as if it had been driven through the head
and lifted up to die. When we were boys, occasionally
we'd find a snake, and we took great pleasure in killing snakes
and then sharpening a stick and drive the stick through the snake
and stick it up in the air, you know, and watch it wiggle to
death. and after a while he'd be dead.
And Moses made this brass serpent, and then he impaled it on a pole,
and he lifted it up in the air in the midst of the camp. Here
was a serpent just like the one that had bitten the people, just
like the one that brought death, impaled on a pole and lifted
up high, as if a serpent had been driven
through the head and lifted up to die. Now Christ Jesus, our
Lord, was impaled on a pole. He was nailed to a cross. The
nails were driven through his hands and through his feet, and
he was lifted up to die. God was sailing in the wilderness
here as that serpent was impaled on that pole. The bite of the
serpent is destroyed. The strength of the serpent is
slain. The power of the serpent is completely
destroyed. Here it is. It's all over. The curse is over. Christ was
nailed to a cross, and in him lifted up we see sin and death
and hell slain in Christ. As the Israelites saw the dead
snake lifted up, we see our dead flesh in Christ lifted up. Here is the flesh, the cause
of sin. Here is the flesh, the cause
of separation. Here is the flesh, the cause
of all agony and damnation, condemnation. Here it is. Here it is destroyed. Here it is lifted up. I'm crucified
with Christ, lifted up in the air." And Moses said, all right,
now listen to this. Our Lord selected this himself.
Here was a religious man that came to him and wanted to talk
to him about eternity and eternal matters. And Christ said, now,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and Nicodemus
knew the story, he was familiar with it, he was in the word of
God, he was a student of the scriptures. As Moses lifted up
that serpent, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that
whosoever believeth on him. should not perish, but have eternal
life." Now what happened back there?
The people rebelled. God sent the fire serpents. They
bit the people. They died. They died. They buried
them. And the people said, We've seen
it. And God said, And Moses, take a serpent just like the
one that's bitten the people, and drive it through with a pole,
and lift it up in the air. Now then, shall look on that serpent, shall be healed." These people were
bitten and dying, and Moses stood there and said, You want to live?
Look to the brazen serpent. Now the common notion is that
salvation is for good people, that salvation is for those who
fight against temptation and win the battle. Salvation, eternal
life, a home in heaven, is for people who are examples and moral
specimens. Good folks. That's who salvation's
for. But how different is the Word
of God? God's remedy is always for the
sick. God's remedy is always for the
sinner. God's remedy is always for the
dying. God's remedy is always for the
diseased. The grace of God in Christ is
for the guilty, for the man who can't help himself. That's who mercy is for. I never
did have much use for sham sinners, people who never did and never
do anything wrong. You go on to your and seek salvation
therein. You turn to your own fig leaves
and see if they'll cover. We leave you, but we're sent
of God as Moses was sent of God in that day to preach the gospel
of salvation for those who are sick and those who are diseased
and those who are dying and those who are lost and those who are
full of sin. And it shall come to pass that
everyone that is bitten everyone that is bitten, everyone
that is afflicted, everyone that is dying. Every invitation our
Lord gave had a condition, O everyone that thirsteth, come to the water.
All ye who are weary and heavy laden, come to me. Every invitation, and that's
what Moses, what God said to Moses here, make a fiery serpent
in the likeness of the one that has bitten the people. Lift it
up on a pole and go out there and tell everyone that is bitten,
helpless, sick, diseased, dying, you tell them to look and live. There was but one Savior. There
was but one remedy. Jesus Christ said, I am the way,
I am the truth, I am the life, no man cometh to the Father but
by me. There's just one remedy. Oh Lord, faint my head and sick
my heart. I'm wounded, I'm bruised in every
part. Satan's fiery sting I feel. I'm poisoned with the pride of
hell. But if at this point to die,
upward I direct my eye, Jesus lifted up I see, then I'll live
by him who died for me." The remedy was sufficient. Look at
verse 9. Moses made that serpent of brass,
and he put it on the pole, and it came to pass that if the serpent
had bitten any man, when that man beheld the serpent, what
happened? He lived. He lived. Now, the serpent of
brass wasn't carried into the house. The spot where the man had been
bitten wasn't rubbed with holy water. There was no mumbo-jumbo
ceremony. There was no form or prayer to
be repeated. It says, and it came to pass
that if a man looked, he lived. It's so difficult, as I said
at the beginning of this message, only believe. Only believe. Surely, preacher, there's something
else to do. I just imagine some of those
Israelites said that to Moses. You mean to tell me, Moses, here
I am bitten by the serpent, here I am in a state of decay and
death, here I am about to perish, my friends have perished about
me, and you mean to tell me all I've got to do is look at a brazen serpent on a pole? God will heal me. You mean to
tell me that's all." Well, that's what God says. Now, man says
differently. I realize that, but this is what
God says. God says, by grace are you saved. Man said, no,
something else needed, something else besides grace. You've got
to do this and you've got to do that. God says, by grace are
you saved through faith. not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy hath he saved us."
The man said, no, there's got to be something else. You've
got to be baptized. You've got to join our church. You've got
to give up this, give up that, and give up the other. God says
there's one mediator between God and me, and the man said,
no, you've got to have an earthly priest. Got to have a church. Got to have Mary. Got to have
the beads. Got to have the crucifix. Got
to have something else. One mediator is not enough. God
says the death of Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Man says no. It takes deeds. It takes works. It takes sacrifices. It takes
sacraments. It takes law. It takes this,
that, and the other. God says, there's no condemnation
to them who are in Christ. Man says, no. No, maybe after
he suffers in purgatory a little while, there'll be no condemnation,
but first he's got to go to purgatory. It came to pass that everyone
that looked lived. That was it. Everyone that looked
lived. But my friends, it was a personal
look. A man could not be cured by anything
anyone else did for him. Look carefully at this commandment
of God now. God said, Moses, make a fiery
serpent. Now that's already happened.
Christ has already come down here in the flesh. He said that
he came down here, the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
That's the fiery serpent that's been made. The people were bitten,
they were dying. Moses, make a fiery serpent.
Moses made the serpent of brass. Now Moses impaled that serpent
on a pole, and Moses drove that stick into that brazen serpent,
and he lifted it up in the air. That's been done. The Lord Jesus
Christ has come down here in the flesh, and he's been nailed
to a cross. Everybody knows that. Christ
was nailed to that cross on Golgotha's mountain and raised between two
thieves to die. Right? All right. Now then, everyone that is bitten, if he'll make a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem then he'll be saved. No. But if he'll come down and
join the church and promise that he'll never do anything else
wrong, he'll be saved. Uh-uh. If he'll read the law
and study the law and make up his mind he's going to keep the
law, he'll be saved. Uh-uh. But if he'll find out
which is the right church, you know, that came down from John
the Baptist, and has the right baptism and the right close communion
and all this other mumbo-jumbo, he gets in the right church,
and they look around, they pass their approval upon him, then
you'll be sure he's not. He said, Moses, everyone that
is bitten, when he looks, he lives. As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. Christ said Himself, words out
of His own mouth, that whosoever believes has eternal life. That's the Bible. You can take
your Catholic way and your Baptist way and your Camelite way and
your Presbyterian way and your Jehovah Witness way and you can
take it to hell as far as I'm concerned. This is what the Lord
said. This is what the Lord said. Now I know Moses had some, I
bet he had some rebellion. I'm sure he had a lot of people
that questioned his simple message, his direct message. is message
of justification by faith, not by words. Because there's a way
that seems right unto man, but it leads to death. God says,
Your ways aren't my ways. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray,
we've turned everybody to his own way, we've deserted God's
way. You go and look for your way
to healing, your way to life, your way to restoration, your
way to salvation. This is God's way. The Master
said it himself as Moses lifted up that serpent. For a bitten
people, for a dying people, as he lifted it up, and he said,
Look! And they looked! And Jesus Christ
said they lived. And they lived by looking. They
didn't live by working, they lived by looking. They didn't
live by giving, they lived by looking. But I'll tell you this,
they had to look for themselves. You've got to look for yourself.
You've got to believe on Christ for yourself. I can't do it for
you. A pious mother might pray and plead for that old boy lying
in his tent with a serpent bite, and kind friends might entreat
him and beg him. intercede for him, and faithful
ministers might come in there and instruct him, but he's got
to love. He has to love. People come to me and they say,
Brother Man, pray for me. Okay, I will. But you've still
got to believe. You've still got to believe.
That old boy lying in the tent there, the serpent has bitten
him, he's dying. I'll go in there and pray for
him and plead with him and instruct him. There's a serpent on a pole. Well, pray for me. You better
get up there and look what you better do. Quit talking about
somebody praying for you. You better look. You've got to
look. There is not in heaven, there is not beneath heaven,
there is not in this earth any cure for your sin except Christ. And if you don't believe on Christ,
you perish. That's the way it is. Turn to
Mark 15. Mark 15. Listen to it. Verse
16. Mark 15, 16. Listen to it. And our Lord said to his disciples,
you go into all the world and you preach the gospel. to every
creature, what is the gospel? Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15,
this is the gospel, Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures, that he was buried and rose again according to the
scriptures. That's the gospel. It's the gospel
of the brazen serpent on a pole, lifted up to die. Now read the
next verse, you go preach this gospel. And he that's in the
right church, and he that is baptized, and he that joins a
church, and he that works his way out, and he that prays through,
and he that goes down to the mourner's bed, he that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. And he that believeth not shall
be damned. There it is. That's about the
size of it. That's about the size of it. You must look if
you live. Now let me come down and ask
you this. Have you been made aware, like
Israel, of the fatal bite of the fiery serpent? Have you been
made aware of your sins? Do you feel its venom within
your thoughts and within your heart and within your mind and
within your soul? Do you feel sin's guilt? Do you
feel sin's fatal bite? Do you feel separation from God? Do you feel guilt? Do you feel
helpless to do anything about it? Can you put away your transgressions? Can you wipe your record and
glory clean on the books of heaven? Can you make yourself hate sin
and love holiness? Can you do that? No, sir. Can you get into the Holy of
Holies, into the very presence of God, and make an atonement
for your sin? No, sir. Well, Christ can. And our Lord said, Christ has
been lifted up. Christ has been crucified on
the cross. Now then, what am I to do? Moses,
what are we going to do? We're bent and we're dying. What
are we going to do? Moses said, Look and live. And I say unto
you, my friend, Christ has been lifted up on the cross. Christ
has suffered. the just for the unjust, the
guiltless for the guilty, the sinless for the sinful. Now you
look and you live, you believe and you live, for God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth
on him should not perish but have everlasting life. Our Father in heaven, to guilty,
bitten, dying, sinful men, reveal the way of
life, the way of salvation. It's not in the deeds of the
law, it's not in the works of the flesh, it's in Christ. Christ crucified, Christ lifted
up, Christ suffering, the sinless for the sinful. that he might
bring us to thee. Grant, O Lord, unto us by the
power of thy Spirit faith to believe, faith to receive, faith
to trust, faith to look to Christ alone, and live by him. Lay it upon the heart of someone
in this congregation to look and live. I have a message from
the Lord. This message unto you I give. It's recorded in his word. Hallelujah. It's only that you look and live. In the name of thy Lord and thy
Son we pray. Amen.