The Israelites' complaining and despising of God's provision in the wilderness, symbolized by the manna, led to God sending fiery serpents that caused death. This incident, recounted in Numbers 21, serves as a powerful illustration of sin's pervasive and deadly nature, mirroring the spiritual poison that afflicts all humanity from birth. Just as Moses lifted a bronze serpent on a pole, which provided healing to those who looked upon it, Jesus was lifted up on the cross to offer salvation to all who believe in Him. The core lesson is that salvation is not achieved through human effort or outward changes, but solely through faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice, emphasizing that looking to Him is the only way to receive eternal life.
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I mentioned before that we are going to have a meeting tomorrow night for any man who are interested in having a monthly Bible study. Now, this will just be a meeting for discussion. of thinking on the part of those who attend and to put it all together and maybe come up with something that can be a prophet and blessing to it. So we are interested in the possibility of a monthly Bible study for men come around at 7.30 tomorrow night.
On Wednesday night, we'll continue our study of the chart. We're going to have a message this morning from it. And we have one more lesson that we want to consider before we leave this great book of numbers. Now, there are many other things that we could look at. We'll pass by some very interesting instructive chapters. But when we come toward the end of this book, we find that two and a half tribes made a very surprising and unwise choice. They chose to have their inheritance on the east side of the River Jordan.
And we're going to look at that a little on Wednesday night and see how they failed when they made that choice. I believe we'll have some messages for our hearts today. Now we're going to begin our reading this morning in Numbers chapter 21, at verse 4, and they journeyed from Mount Hore. Now you'll notice that I've extended the red line on the chart down from Kadesh Barnea, and strangely it seems to be going away from their destination.
But we'll be saying more about that later. They journeyed from Mount Hore by the way of the red sea. to compass the land of Edom. And the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spake against God and against Moses. Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread. Neither is there any water. And our soul loathed this white bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people. 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, And 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 the serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld a serpent of brass, he lived. And the children of Israel sat forward and pitched in Oboth.
And they journeyed from Oboth, and pitched at Ejiabaron, in the wilderness, which is before Moab, toward... the sunrise there are many things that are passed on from one generation to another including sin the Bible makes quite clear that as we have in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 therefore as by one man sin entered the world and death by sin so death has passed through unto all men for that all have sinned And there are many other family characteristics and things like that are passed on from one generation to another.
Frankly, I think that a lot today is being blamed on the genes that doesn't deserve to be. I think they really work on the wrong genes. If they'd work on the J-E-A-N-S, that might cure a lot of the things that are blamed on the gene, G-E-N-E-S. But to be that as it may, there is one thing that cannot be passed on from one generation to another, and that is salvation. Now we have that emphasized in our chart studies. We have learned that there were two generations in connection with the coming out of Egypt and the entering of the kingdom.
the generation that came out of Egypt they all died in the wilderness with exception of two men Caleb and Joshua we've been studying that so that the generation the ones who passed into the land of Canaan were actually either not born or else very young when they came out of Egypt it's quite striking then and very instructive that at the beginning with each generation you have a very simple picture of salvation. We've already looked at the first one, the Passover.
When the children of Israel was to be brought out the nation of Israel, when they were to be brought out of Egypt, God gave them, we were studying the Passover. Very, very simple and beautiful picture of God's salvation. And we have no question as to what that means because we read in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us, so that what took place there literally finds its spiritual fulfillment in the death and bloodshedding of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, you remember, that at that time the danger was without they were held in the bondage of Pharaoh the death sentence had been passed on the first boy and at midnight that stroke of judgment was going to fall what they were instructed to take a lamb shed its blood sprinkle the blood on the lintel and the two sides both and stay behind the sprinkled blood and they'd be safe Now that, of course, brought before us a lovely picture of the protection, the shelter, the deliverance that the precious blood of Christ brings to us when we shelter behind it from God's judgment against sin.
But now here's another generation. They are beginning to move toward the promised inheritance of Canaan. Now, right at the beginning here. just as at the beginning with the other generation. Right at the beginning here, God brings before us another very beautiful and very simple illustration of his salvation. Possibly the majority of you know that this is the incident to which our Lord referred in that midnight conversation with Nicodemus long ago. Nicodemus had been told by our Lord that he must be born again, or he could never see or enter the kingdom of God.
You remember that he said, how can these things be? And amongst the explanation that Christ gave to Nicodemus that night, was this incident from the history of Israel. Our Lord reaches back into Old Testament history, and he takes what we have recorded in Numbers chapter 21, and in John chapter 3 and verse 14 he says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Then verse 15, That whosoever believable in him should not perish but have eternal life.
That explains, then, what we have here. Before looking at it in detail, I want you to notice that the contrast between this and the Passover, I'm not going to go into that in detail. But as I said, in connection with the Passover, the danger was without judgment was coming. They needed a place to shelter. So they sheltered behind the sprinkled blood. Now, the trouble here is, as we shall see, the danger was within them. There was poison coursing through their veins about to bring death from within, and that had to be attended to.
Now, there again we could devote the entire time on the two aspects of the death of Christ. Thank God it shelters us from judgment. from punishment for our sins that we had committed. But it also provides the cure for S-I-N that is within, which also brings death. But let's look at this. And the first thing that we're impressed with, I think, is that these people are complaining again, just as their parents have done. I think if you check back, You would find this is about the seventh time that you have these children of Israel murmuring.
Quite of all God had done for them, they're murmuring, they're complaining. Here they are complaining in almost the same words as their parents had done, a way back in what you have referred to in Numbers 11 and way back in Exodus chapter 16. And when you examine their complaint, you find there are three things connected with it, three ingredients, we might say. Now, if you were around on Wednesday night, you learned with us that at the command of God, the children of Israel had to go around the land of Edom, and also later around the land of Moab.
They were not permitted to go through it. That is why this red line extension from Cadish Barnea goes a little downward. You'd expect it would go upward toward Canaan. But because the Edomites were blood relatives of Israel and would not give them passage through their land, they were commanded by God to go around Edom. what we have in verse 4 it says that the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way you can just hear them can't you well what are we going way around here for why don't we go straight up there toward Canaan well the Edomites don't want us to go through the land though let's go ahead anyway we can overcome them why should they hinder us in going toward our inheritance the answer of course was God had forbidden them to do that he permitted it in connection with the
Amorites later but a connection with Edomites the descendants of Esau they were not permitted to attack them they had to go around the land now isn't that often what brings discontent into our mind don't we get discouraged because it seems as though we're going on kind of a roundabout way instead of going right straight toward the goal the Lord seems to be leading us in kind of a roundabout way and we get discouraged but we must remember God's way is the best way and our main desire and concern should be am I in the way the Lord is leading So there was discouragement.
And once again there was dissatisfaction. Again and again you have it cropping up in the words of the Israelites. They are quite dissatisfied with what God is doing for them and with them. But the most serious thing about their complaining was they're despising of the manna. Did you notice in the end of verse 5, this light bread. It reminds me of the first time I think I ever heard that expression, the light bread. Now, being a Canadian, I was not reared on hot biscuits for breakfast.
We sometimes have hot biscuits, but we didn't have them regular. That was one of the things that was missing in my early life. I can't blame it on the genes, but maybe it was my early life, you see, that has brought these deficiencies into me. But then we didn't have hot biscuits for breakfast. We had toast, along with some other things. When I came to preach in the mountains of West Virginia, I heard them talk about white bread. I don't know what they're talking about. But of course, I very soon learned that it wasn't hot biscuits. And I'll tell all those West Virginian men, they thought that was good grounds for divorce.
as their wife made them eat light bread instead of hot biscuits. And so I learned that light bread was, in the mountains at least, it was a term of reproach for bread. Well, they'd eat it rather than go too hungry, but they certainly didn't have a very high regard for light bread that you had to go down to the store and buy. And by the way, we, up in Canada, you know, we're queer folks up there, we used to call whole wheat bread brown bread. Now, if you look at it, you can see why we did.
I went down to a country store there in West Virginia and asked for a loaf of brown bread. And the old storekeeper looked down, well, he said, young man, it's brown on the top, but it's white inside. Well, I said, I guess that isn't what I was looking for. But anyway, here's the serious thing. They were despising God's manner. Now, we know that the manner was a picture of Christ. I don't very much if they knew that. But on the other hand, they did know that God was providing that man a faithful way day after day for that.
And it should have been appreciated. it. Now this can't be passed over lightly by God. And so as a result, we have the consequences of their complaining. God must punish them, and he does. And the punishment, as we were reading here, is in the form of poisoning. God sends fiery serpents amongst the people, and they bit the people and much people of Israel died. So you have the punishment, you have the poisoning, and you have the penalty, which is death.
Now, we can't linger on that, but get the picture. Here are these fiery serpents darting around through the camp. Now it doesn't matter whether you're a prince or a priest or one of the ordinary people. It didn't matter whether you were wealthy or whether you were poor. It didn't matter whether you were young or whether you were old. It didn't matter whether you were a man or whether you were a woman. If one of those fiery serpents bit you, you had poison in you, and you were going to die. No, I don't think in the scriptures there's a more graphic picture of sin. You see, it isn't what a person is socially or financially or religiously.
It's whether he has been cured of the poison of sin. Now from that verse I quote in Romans 5 and verse 12, We are clearly taught as well as the whole teaching of the Word of God that every person in this world, with exception of our virgin-born Savior, came into this world with a poison of sin in their being. We're reading our Bible of sin in the flesh. That's not the flesh of the body. But the old fallen Adamic nature has sin in it.
Not only have we sinned, but we have sin in us. Now that has to be taken care of, or we are going to die eternally. we are dead spiritually now. And you see, just as with every bite of a snake or a serpent, attention rendered to it speedily is practically the only cure for it, or the only remedy. And time is a very important element for that poison surging through the human system is going to reach a vital spot and a personally dead.
Some are dead minutes after they are bitten by the deadliest of snakes. And so time is a very necessary element. Now if you look down over the camp of Israel, on every hand there are men and women and boys and girls that are dying or dead all because of the bite of the fiery serpent doesn't that remind us that sin entered into the human race because of the one who's called that old serpent the devil back in the garden of Eden now you and I whether we like it or not we have that poison coursing through our vein our spiritual vein you might say through our very being from the time we are born, and there must be a cure provided for it.
Our Lord Jesus Christ not only bore our sins in his own body on the tree, as we're told in 1 Peter 2.24, and thus provide a shelter for us from the consequences of our sin, but we read in God has made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So he not only bore what we had done, but he became what we were. Now I'll deal with that in just a moment. But I want you to notice now their confession.
They approached Moses, the one whom they'd spoken against. against God and against Moses, but they have to come to Moses. He's the only mediator between God and them. Now every man, woman, boy, and girl in the world must come to Jesus Christ and through him to God. Let's get that very, very clear. We read in Paul's letter one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
None of the great world, the founders of worldly religions can possibly be a mediator between God and man. The Pope of Rome is not a mediator between God and man. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not a mediator between God and man. No priest is a mediator between God and man. The angels are not mediators between God and man. The so-called saints, those who've gone to heaven, are not mediators between God and man. Let's get back to the clear teaching of the Word of God.
There's one God and one mediator. And our Lord Jesus Christ himself said in John chapter 14 and verse 6, No man cometh unto the Father but by me. You cannot come to God except through the Lord Jesus Christ. They have to come to God through Moses, the man against whom they sin. And you'll notice that they not only approach Moses, their sin. We have in verse 7. We have sin. Yes, there is absolutely no salvation apart from a sincere acknowledgement of sin before God.
You must take your place, my friend, as a lost guilty sinner if you're ever going to be saved. And they appeal the most. A phrase to God for them. Now, they have a suggestion. Let's look at the cure for this poisoning. They have a proposal to make. They say in verse 7, pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. That was man's proposal. Now let's stop and think. Suppose God had done that. What about the man who had been bitten?
hope for him you see man's way of salvation always falls short of meeting the need there are some people even preachers and they spend all their trying trying to fix up the environment of people they say if we could just get rid of liquor and everything else things that in themselves are certainly objectionable now wait a minute if he got rid of all the liquor in America and would God we could if he got rid of all the drugs in America would God we could if he got rid of all the places of prostitution and ill fame and everything else that leaves man in the sinful way and got rid of them all what about sin in man's heart you see you haven't got rid of that that's it where you've got the fiery serpents away you haven't gotten the poison.
Man has been poisoned with sin. These outward things are just ministering to that sin. And so the Lord does not hear their prayer in this respect. But you have in contrast to man's proposal, which though it may have been fulfilled, it was not sufficient. Here you have God's provision. And so Moses is told in that great eighth verse, rather in verse nine, to make a serpent a bride. Well, that seemed a very strange thing at first, but let's look at it a little bit.
The first thing we notice about this serpent, and there's so much could be said about, the first thing is it's in the very likeness of what had caused all the trouble. of grass why did God say a serpent now God could use anything else that he's been pleased to but you see he's giving us a picture of salvation as we have it in Christ and at the right foot he is sin Corinthians 5 21 he was made sin for us so that Moses takes that piece of copper it would be and he it in the likeness of what had caused all of the trouble.
And so our Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary and he was made sin for us. But let's stop right here. While Moses made that piece of copper into the likeness of a serpent, that's one thing there wasn't in serpent, and that was poison. There was no poison in the brazen serpent, and there was no poison in Christ. In Romans 8 and 3 we read, he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. When our Lord came into this world, he looked like any other baby.
When he was growing up, he looked like any other boy. When he was a man, he looked like any other man. He was in the likeness of sinful flesh, but only in the likeness. There was no sin in him whatsoever, just as there was no poison in this. But then this serpent of grass now, having been made in the likeness of that which had caused all the trouble, the second thing we know is but it's lifted up. Lift it up where they could all see it. man lying over here and he's been bitten back.
That poison is just about paralyzing him. Somebody holds his head up and they're gleaming in the sunlight as that brazen circle. What does he have to do? Now my friend, if you will just summon all of your strength and if you'll just walk over and touch that pole you live i can't do i can't do it i'm paralyzed well now do your very best see if you can't make it crawl over it worth it get on your hands and i can't do that god didn't do that and my friends know where in your Bible as man told he has to do anything to get eternal life.
Oh, how we need to emphasize that. Thousands of people have accepted Christ coming down the aisle to the front. But coming down the aisle has never saved one soul yet. It's accepting Christ. Thousands have been saved, kneeling at what's called a mourner's bench, thousands of people. But it wasn't kneeling there that saved them. Whether coming down the aisle or the mourner's bench or anywhere else, it was looking to Christ to save them.
Now we've got to get that clear. Whatever means may be used to get a person to look to Christ, that's up to the servant of Christ does none of my business but it's looking to Christ it says so clearly here every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it shall live we used to sing the old hymn look and thou shalt live the answer is to look up faith the cow and you see the son of God made sin for you and dying for your sins there lifted up on the cross let's see what christ said let me remind you again as moses lifted up the serpent and the lord even so must the son of man be lifted up and he was on calvary's death whosoever believeth in him that's the look of faith those people took a literal look at a literal serpent of Christ.
We now, 20 centuries after Christ was lifted up on the cross, we look by faith. And how can you look by it that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal peace? Isn't it beautiful? yes, made in the likeness of sin, lifted up on the cross, looked to my face, and lightened his God into the dead soul. And everyone that was still alive physically in that camp could look.
They couldn't do anything else, but they could look. And everyone who was still on the earth can look by faith to Calvary. No matter where they are, they can look by faith to Calvary, they can trust the Lord Jesus Christ and that we say. I hope this morning you will take that look up there. You know, if we're going to go on and turn over to the second book of Kings, we find that when a good king came to the throne of Israel, you know what he found amongst other disorders? He found there were worship this piece of branch. They're worshiping it.
Now I believe that's one reason why we have nothing of relics of the Roman Catholic Church, but all kinds of relics. I don't believe there's a thing to any one of them that's enough wood around a different Roman Catholic Church around the world to make a thousand crosses and they'll all swear that that's a genuine piece of the cross for Christ God. We don't have one of the ancient manuscripts of this Bible, either Old and New Testament. Why? Because men worship these things. And when the king came to the throne and he found that they were worshiping this brazen serpent, noted it, he grounded the powder and he called it the Hushpan.
which doesn't mean a thing to you, but it's the Hebrew word for a piece of brass. And he just put an end to that idol worship right then. I said, that's just a piece of brass, and that's all it was. It wasn't in that grazing serpent that was any power. It was God's way of giving life to those who looked in faith. And while we use the cross as a term to signify the death of Christ, we must always be very clear. It is not the literal cross that saves us.
It's the death that Christ died on that cross. And the term cross is used in the Bible for the death of Christ on the cross. If it were possible for you and to have the literal cross on which Christ died that could no more save us than any other piece of wood in the world but thank God the Savior who died on that cross will save eternity everyone that looks at him more have you looked my way if you haven't I trust you this morning he's dying there from me He's my Savior.
I accept him as my hope. Shall we pray? Father in heaven, we ask that thou take this simple story from long ago and use it as we believe was done and our Lord used it that night in Jerusalem so long ago. Use it this morning, we pray, to turn the sin-blinded eye of some men and women and young people to the Lord Jesus Christ that they may be saved. The answer is give, precious men. you