today to Numbers, the book of
Numbers chapter 21. For several weeks I have introduced
my message on Sunday morning with the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ as they are given in John chapter 5. And he spoke these
words to the religious leaders of the nation of Israel. And
I would just remind us that the Apostle Paul refers to these
men as the princes, the princes, the leaders of the nation of
Israel. Our Lord said concerning them,
they claim They professed to be the disciples of Moses. But
our Lord said unto them, had you believed Moses, you would
have believed me, for he wrote of me. In Luke chapter 24, on
the day of our Lord's resurrection, there were two of his disciples
who left Jerusalem and were walking to a place called Emmaus. The Lord Jesus Christ came alongside
them. and they did not recognize him,
and they were downcast, and he began to speak to them, and the
scripture there says that he, that is Christ, beginning at
Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself. Moses wrote of Christ. 1500 years BC, Moses wrote of
Christ. He wrote of Christ in promise,
prophecy, pattern, and in types. And we have looked at Christ
in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and today in numbers. But before we turn, or before
I read our text here in Numbers Chapter 21, I want to read these
few verses in John Chapter 3. In John Chapter 3, the Lord Jesus
Christ, speaking to Nicodemus, said, 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. For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God
sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through him might be saved. Now, in Numbers chapter
21, beginning in verse 4. And they, that is the nation
of Israel, they journeyed from Mount Orr by the way of the Red
Sea to encompass 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? For there is no bread. Neither
is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread. And
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit
the people, and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people
came to Moses and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against
the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he take
away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said unto Moses, 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. I'm going to divide the message
into four parts. First, the time and the place. The time and the place. You notice
in verse four, we read, and they journeyed from Mount Orr by the
way of the Red Sea to compass the land of Edom. The land of
Edom was the land of the descendants of Esau. You remember God called
Abraham and gave him a promise that in his seed all the nations
of the earth would be blessed. He renewed that same promise
to Abraham's promised son, Isaac. And Isaac and Rebekah, they had
two sons, Esau and Jacob. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter
nine tells us, and these were twin sons, twin boys, that Rebekah
had, and Paul tells us that the purpose of God according to election
might stand not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said
unto Rebekah, the mother of these two boys, Esau and Jacob, the
elder Esau, the elder shall serve the younger Jacob. As it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. God's sovereign
election is not based upon anything foreseen in those that he chose,
not anything. The children having done neither
evil or good, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. The descendants of Esau were
given a land. They were given a land and this
land came to be known as Edom or Edumea. It's called by both
names. And they were given this land
and the children of Israel had to go around it. In our text,
we are generations removed from both Jacob and Esau. And the
nation of Israel must journey around Edom. They had asked,
now listen, they had asked very politely the Edomites if they
could pass through their land. That would have been the shortest
route for them to take. to the land of Canaan. Now this
is after many years of being in the wilderness. And so they've
come to Barnea, once again, and they ask permission of the descendants
of Esau. Look back in chapter 20. Let's
read that. Chapter 20 of Numbers, beginning
in verse 14. And Moses sent messengers from
Kedash unto the king of Edom. Thus saith thy brother Israel.
See, he confesses to be the brother, the descendants of the two brothers. Thus saith thy brother Israel.
Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us. How our
fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a
long time. And the Egyptians vexed us and
our fathers. And when we cried unto the Lord,
he heard our voice and sent an angel and hath brought us forth
out of Egypt. And behold, we are in Kadesh,
a city in the uttermost of thy border. Let us pass, I pray thee,
please, please, I pray thee. Let us pass through thy country.
We will not pass through the fields or through the vineyards,
neither will we drink of the water of the wells. We will go
by the king's highway. We will not turn to the right
hand nor to the left until we have passed thy borders. And
Edom said unto him, thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out
against thee with the sword. And the children of Israel said
unto him, We will go by the highway, and if I and my cattle drink
of thy water, then I will pay for it. I will only, without
doing anything else, go through on my feet. And he said, Thou
shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him
with much people and with a strong hand. In other words, an army. Then Edom refused to give Israel
passage through his border. Wherefore, Israel turned away
from them. So they had politely asked permission
to pass through the land of Edom, but they were not given that
permission. They're going around, and it's
a long way around, and it's a rough way. the terrain that they had
to travel to go around this land. The Bible tells us that the king's
heart is in the hand of the Lord. And as the water brooks, he turneth
it whither so ever he will. And that begs the question, was
the heart of the king of Edom an exception? Was his heart not
in the hand of the Lord? Could not the Lord have turned
the king's heart of Edom so that he would have given them permission
to go through? Why did not God allow them just
to fight? They had just fought one battle
and won a great battle. Why was it that God would not
allow them just, well, you don't give us permission. We'll just
take permission. We'll just fight our way through.
Why was it? God said no. I want you to look
with me in Deuteronomy chapter 8. Keep your places here, of
course, but let's turn over just a book to Deuteronomy chapter
8. There are many perplexing things that
happen to God's children as we go through this wilderness, this
world, on our land of Canaan. And the nation of Israel serves
as a type in many ways, in many different ways. But notice here
in Deuteronomy chapter 8, this is just before they did finally
go into the land of Canaan. Moses speaking, all the commandments
which I command thee this day shall you observe to do. that
you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which
the Lord swear unto your fathers. And thou shall remember all the
way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness. Now who was leading the nation
of Israel? There was a fiery pillar and
a cloud that led them. Moses tells them now, you shall
remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40
years in the wilderness. It was God who would not allow
them to go through the land of Edom. God did not turn the heart
or give them favor to the Edomites so that they could pass through
that land. God was leading them. And God
had a purpose in leading them in the way, even though it was
a hard way, a difficult way, God had a purpose. As everything
God does, He does on purpose. And it is an eternal purpose. God's purpose is. And He works
all things after the counsel of His own will. When you get
up in the morning, You remind yourself whatever happens today
happens because God purposed it to happen from before the
foundation of the world. What comfort, what assurance
do God's children have as we go through this world knowing
that God has ordered all things, that nothing happens by chance,
nothing happens by luck, that God is in control and he's working
all things after the counsel of his own will. Now Moses tells
them, they're just on the point of going in, that God had led
them through the wilderness those 40 years and he did it for this
reason, notice, to humble thee, to humble thee. Most of us are
blessed with a great deal of pride, of self-sufficiency. We don't need anybody. We can
take care of ourselves. God led them through the wilderness
to humble them, to show them how very much dependent they
were upon their God. When God took everything, let
Satan take everything that Job had, everything, all of his wealth,
all of his family, all of his health, Job acknowledged that
everything that God had taken, God had given him. God had only
taken what he had given. We come into this world naked. Bring nothing with us, everything
that we have God gives unto us. God led thee this way to humble
thee, first of all, and to prove thee, to prove thee, to know
what was in thine heart. whether thou wouldest keep his
commandments or no. Now you might read that and you
might think, well God wanted to find out what was in their
heart. That's not what he is saying. God knows what is in
your heart. He knows what is in my heart.
He knows what is in the heart of his enemies as well as those
he calls his friends. He's omniscient. There's never
a thought that crosses the mind of anyone that God has not already
known. There's not a word upon your
tongue. If God lets you live until tomorrow,
you're going to be talking. Let me tell you, you don't know
what you're going to say. You don't know the words that
you're going to use. God does. Moses is not telling them that
God led them this way so that he would know what was in their
heart, but that they might know. They might know what was in their
heart. I know this about our heart,
it's deceitfully wicked. Desperately wicked, rather, and
deceitful above all things. I know that from the word of
God. It was through the way that the
Lord led them that they might know what was in their heart. So that's the first thing. The
time and the place. Their journey. Their journey
around the land of Edom. The second point is their words
revealed what was in their heart. Verse 5. What was in their heart? Remember the Lord Jesus Christ,
he said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. What was in their heart? Rebellion? Resentment? They began to speak
against God, and when they spoke against God, of course they were
speaking against Moses, or vice versa. They spoke against Moses,
he was just leading them. Once they were out of Egypt,
they forgot. How many times in the Word of
God, listen to me, brother, sister, friend, how many times in the
Word of God are we told in one way or the other to remember? To remember. That rich man in
hell, he was told, remember thou. Remember, it seems like that
once they got out of Egypt and was on their way to the land
of Canaan, they forgot what their circumstances had been in Egypt. They began to talk about the
melons and the onions and the garlic and the flesh pots as
though they had had a life of ease, a life of rally there in
Egypt. They were slaves. They were oppressed
by They're hard taskmasters. God saw their condition when
he called Moses. He said, I've seen the affliction
of my people. They were in affliction. But
it seems once they got out into the wilderness, they remembered
that life as a life of ease, the best of times. They forgot
what it was like to have been in Egypt. This shows us that while the
whole nation as a whole were out of Egypt, they had left that
land, but only a minority of that nation had left Egypt in
their heart. Just a very few. Just a very
few, according to God's election remnant, his elect remnant of
grace. Most of the people of Israel,
they thought that their life had been fine there because the
way was rough. The way that God leads his people
through this wilderness many times is rough. God's never promised
you a An easy road. He's never promised me an easy
road. I read this past week of a reformer
in Switzerland back in the 1500s. They called them Anabaptists,
re-baptizers, because they recognized the word of God teaches that
sprinkling is not baptism, first of all. and that you don't baptize
a baby, you baptize a believer. And when they came to see that
and believe that and they were baptized, I read about this one
man, you know what his punishment was for being baptized and meeting
together with God's people to read the word of God? Cut out
his tongue. And then with fiery pinchers,
pull five pieces of his flesh off, take him outside the gate
of the city, and do that again with those fiery pinchers, and
then burn his body to ashes. God's way is not always the way
you and I maybe would have chosen, but it's the best way. It's God's
way. What was in their heart? They
began to complain and murmur. Murmur against God. Murmur against
God's providence. Here's the third thing. God sent
poisonous snakes that killed many of the people. Say, well,
murmuring's not bad, complaining's not bad. Well, maybe, maybe it
is. Maybe it is. God seemed to take
offense. Notice what it says here in verses
six and seven. The Lord, the Lord, he did this. You mean God would do that? You
mean the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that He would do this? Well, that's not the God I've
been hearing about. That's not the God that I've
been told to look to and to believe in. But that is the God of the Bible.
And that is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
yes, the Lord, He Himself sent fiery serpents among the people.
And they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. God
killed them. Yes, He used the means of the
serpents, but the Lord did it. God is a God of judgment. God
is a God of patience. And yet men and women presume
upon God's patience. We think about in the days of
Noah, the scripture says for 120 years, that's longer than
most of us will live, probably all of us. for 120 years. He's building that ark. And at
the same time, the scripture says he's preaching of righteousness. That the God of creation, the
God who has created all of us, he requires righteousness. And Noah is preaching of righteousness. that God is holy, absolutely
holy, and for 120 years he preached, and evidently no one believed. They may have mocked him, they
may have laughed at him, that man's a fool, that old man, can
you imagine that? Building an ark out here on dry
land, it's never rained before, we've never heard of such a thing. But the day came when God called
Noah, his wife, and their three sons, and their wives into the
ark, and God shut the door. And the rain began to fall. And
every living soul outside the ark was destroyed. God is a God
of judgment. Yes, He's patient. He's patient
with men and women. Thank God he is. But there comes a time when God's
patience is up. In Psalm 36 and verse 1, David
wrote this. He said, the transgression of
the wicked saith within my heart that there's no fear of God before
their eyes. I look at that verse, I've looked
at it many times over the years. Let me read it again. This is
David speaking. The transgression of the wicked
saith within my heart that there's no fear of God before his eyes. In other words, he sees men disobeying
God, shaking their fists in God's face, as it were, I know what
you say, I know what your word says, but I'm not going to hear
that, believe that, serve you. I'm going my way. David said, when I say that, it speaks to my heart and it
tells me he has no fear of God. That man who lives like that,
that woman who lives like that, no time for God, no interest
in God, no concern for his soul, her soul, no thought about eternity. That tells me he doesn't fear
God. There's no fear of God in his
eyes. You and I, we live in a day,
my friends, when for the most part there's no fear of God.
We live in a nation, we live in a land where there's pretty
much no fear of God left in our land. The God that most people
have heard about, he wouldn't hurt a flea. He wouldn't judge
a flea. He overlooks, he forgets. No matter how men transgress
his word, disobey his law, God's not going to do anything. He's
too good. He's too good. You know, God's word since Adam's
sin has always been the same. It's never changed and it never
will change. It is turn or burn, repent or
perish. There's no alternative. The people acknowledged their
transgression. Notice that in verse 7. Therefore
the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. That's
the problem. Here's the problem. This is always
the problem. And there's, if there is going
to be a remedy, God must give it. They came to Moses and they
said, pray. We have sinned, for we have spoken
against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord. Now
Moses prayed for the people. Let me say this, prayer is good.
We wouldn't say a word against prayer. And Moses, no doubt,
was a mighty man of prayer. But something else was needed.
Something other than prayer was needed. God gave the remedy. We see that in verses 8 and 9. The Lord said unto Moses, Make
thee a fiery serpent, 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.
The deliverance, the remedy from the poison of these fiery serpents
had to come from God. Moses himself, he had no answer. If Moses had lived another hundred
years, he would never have come up with an answer for the poison
of these snakes. The high priest had no answer.
The witch doctors, the herb doctors, and all the other medicine men
had no answer. Man has no answer for his sin
problem except God's answer. And when men turn away from God's
answer, the only thing that they may expect is death, just like
these men who were bitten by these serpents. Salvation is
of the Lord. It's of the Lord in its planning,
in its purchase, and in its execution. Salvation is God's work. He's
the only one who is able to save a sinner. The remedy here came
from God. Now consider hurriedly these
few things about this type. First of all, Moses was instructed
to make one serpent, make eight. a fiery serpent. Well, Moses,
why not make four and put one in the east side of the camp,
one on the west side, one on the north, one on the south?
That'd make it so much easier, you know. No, you make one, a
fiery serpent. There's one savior. I don't care
if a person's born in China, United States of America, North
America, South America, Africa, Australia, no matter where, no
matter what society a person is brought up in, there's still
only one Savior. Just as there was one fiery serpent
that Moses was to make. There's one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. We might say the problem came
from man. Adam disobeyed God, introduced
sin into this world, and so the remedy would be like the one
who caused the problem, make a fiery serpent. This was to
picture Christ. Paul in 1 Corinthians said, for
since by man came death, by man also the resurrection of the
dead. It was the first man, Adam, that
introduced sin into God's creation, and it is the last man, the last
Adam, Christ, by whom the remedy for sin comes. The only remedy
the serpent Moses made, it had the form of a fiery serpent. I suppose it looked just like
those serpents. just like those serpents that
were biting the people and poisoning the people that caused their
death. The serpent Moses made, it had
the same form, but it didn't have the same nature. The Lord
Jesus Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He looked like
every other man, but I tell you, what a difference. What a difference. Every other man has this poison
within. Not him. He was without sin. He was without sin. The fact that the serpent was
made of fiery, that pictures to us his great love. His great
love, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ when he laid down his
life, love so strong that even fire could not quench his love
for his people. And the fact that it was made
of brass shows the strength. It wasn't made of gold. Gold's
a very soft metal, isn't it? A very weak metal. But brass
is strong and the Lord Jesus Christ is strong and mighty to
save those that come unto him. And then Moses was instructed
to lift it up or set it on a pole. He wasn't to make a serpent and
set it there on the ground. No, no, but it'll pull. Let me say this, my friends,
it's not Christ in the manger. Around December the 25th, the
whole world becomes religious and talk about the baby, the
baby. It's not the baby in the manger. And it's not Christ in the temple
as a teacher. No, no. It's Christ hanging upon
a tree, drenched in His own blood, that saves sinners. It's a sacrifice
that God has provided and, yes, that God has accepted that puts
away the sin of His people. Put it on a pole. And Moses was
instructed with the message. Now Moses, you sit down and you
figure out what kind of message you would like to send to these
people. Pretty please, pretty please, won't you look to this
serpent? Oh, wouldn't you do God a favor?
Wouldn't you let him into your heart No, no. Preacher doesn't manufacture
the message. No, he's to proclaim the message. The message was simple. Look. Look and live. And when a person looked, this
is what he received. He received a free deliverance. He didn't pay anything for it.
He received a full deliverance. He was completely healed. And number three, He received
a present deliverance. It's not take two aspirins tonight
and call me in the morning. No, look and live. Look and be healed. And when
a sinner looks to Christ, my friends, he receives that free,
full, present salvation or deliverance, plus one more thing. It's a forever. It's a forever salvation, a forever
deliverance. So much so that the Apostle Paul
said, who is he that condemneth? Anyone in heaven can condemn. Anyone in hell that can condemn. Anyone on earth that may condemn. No, no, no, no, no. Who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died, rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
maketh intercession for us. He was lifted up, as he said
himself, 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 everlasting life. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever, whosoever looks
to that Lamb, whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting
life. God sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world. The world was already condemned.
These people were already dying. No, the remedy was to heal them. The same is true of the gospel.
I pray that the Lord would enable us all to look today. If you've
never looked before, look now. Look now. Say, well, I don't
see a cross in this building. No, no. In your heart, look to
Christ. And it's not the cross anyway.
It's Christ who hung upon the cross. He's the one that saves. Look to him. We're going to sing
that hymn, I believe, Look and Live, number 195.