WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:02.879 To the book of Numbers in chapter 21. 00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:07.360 And if you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the pew in front of you. 00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:14.080 And on page 134, 134, you'll be able to find Numbers chapter 21. 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:26.079 In verse 4, the word of God says this. 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:31.760 Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom. 00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:35.200 But the people became impatient because of the journey. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:38.240 The people spoke against God and Moses. 00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:47.200 There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:54.320 Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died. 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.799 Then the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. 00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:04.799 Intercede with the Lord so that he will take the snakes away from us. 00:01:05.439 --> 00:01:07.280 And Moses interceded for the people. 00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:12.879 Then the Lord said to Moses, Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:16.560 When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover. 00:01:17.359 --> 00:01:20.640 So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:26.560 And whenever someone was bitten, he looked at the bronze snake and he recovered. 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:37.280 In April of 1970, when Apollo 13 was about halfway to the moon, the crew that was in there heard a sudden thud. 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:40.640 They wondered what had happened. 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:51.840 They thought maybe there was a meteorite or maybe there was some space debris or something that happened on the outside that had caused that loud noise in the shutter. 00:01:52.879 --> 00:02:00.480 What they hadn't realized, and what was unnoticed beforehand, was that there was an oxygen tank that was faulty. 00:02:01.359 --> 00:02:11.199 And when they started to see the instruments begin to reflect that, they realized that the trouble wasn't out in the expanse of space where they first thought. 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.159 And they needed to look inward to try to find a way to fix that. 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:32.639 Numbers 21 speaks something to that about us, that what threatens our life isn't the things that we often think they are, those things that are outside of us. 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:37.039 It's actually the things that are inside of us that are the most dangerous. 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:47.919 But we often look to our circumstances, our pressures, the disappointments, the wilderness that's out there, and think, well, that's where our problem lies. 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:50.719 Numbers 21 tells us a different story. 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:57.120 Numbers 21 and Good Friday bring us to a different understanding of what's real. 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:03.680 It brings us face to face with the understanding that our deepest danger is not external at all. 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:07.199 Our deepest danger is inside of us. 00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:14.400 It's the rebellion within us, it's the mistrust that's within us, it's the state of our own heart. 00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:31.120 We're here this evening on Good Friday, and Good Friday shows us that clearly, as we'll discover, because it too brings us to the place where we stop blaming the landscape around us and begin to acknowledge the condition of our own heart. 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:39.759 But once we do that, then we can fully understand and appreciate and embrace God's remedy. 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:46.240 And so I'd like for us to look at Numbers 21 as the lens through which we will see Good Friday. 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:52.960 As we look at this passage, it's not going to flatter us, it's not going to soften the truth about us at all. 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:57.759 It's going to show us plainly that the problem is inside of us. 00:03:58.319 --> 00:04:05.919 But it'll also show us that there's a God in heaven who provided a remedy that we could never create for ourselves. 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:07.520 So let's step into the text. 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:08.479 And I have five points. 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:12.800 We'll move them through them very rapidly, and they'll alternate between the people and the Lord. 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:14.479 And we'll start with the people. 00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:17.519 In verses four and five, we see the people's rebellion. 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:23.040 They set out from Mount Horeb by the way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom. 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:25.920 But the people became impatient because of the journey. 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:30.800 And the people spoke against the Lord and Moses. 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.040 Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:40.160 There's no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:46.160 So here we see the people murmuring and complaining, impatient because of the journey. 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:53.199 And like a lot of us, frustrated that things aren't happening the way we would like them to happen. 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:58.959 And so here, twice mentioned, is they speak against God and they speak against Moses. 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:02.399 But it's not just frustration. 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:04.720 There's something deeper in their heart. 00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:09.360 There's a rejection of God's promises, the daily mercy to sustain them. 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:15.040 There's an accusation that God's brought them for bad reasons to bring them out there to die. 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:20.160 And all of their words reveal a heart that isn't trusting God at all. 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:24.480 They deny his goodness and they question his intentions. 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:32.800 And this uncomfortable statement here reminds us that sin is not simply behavior, it's a posture of the heart. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.680 It's leveled at the place of mistrust in God. 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:53.279 And here they are, like sin does in all of us, causes us to suspect God is withholding the best from us, or to resent God that what He gives us doesn't match with what we would expect to receive. 00:05:55.040 --> 00:06:05.199 And it gives us that opportunity to reinterpret God's goodness and call it God's evil against us. 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:13.279 It's the impulse to look narrowly and negatively on God's character. 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:15.600 All of us know that. 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:29.759 To question God's wisdom, to resist his ways, to complain about his provisions, to imagine what life would be like, oh, so much better if only we were in charge. 00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:37.600 And this text gives us this, not to shame us, because it moves us a direction. 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:49.920 But before it gets there, it asks us to be honest, to recognize the condition of our own heart, and to admit that the problem isn't out there. 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:52.319 The problem's in here. 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:21.040 And the bite is deadly. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:26.480 Now, the use of this snake or serpent motif is not an accident. 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:30.560 It's not just some random accidental happenstance. 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:37.600 The snake stands as an emblem from the very first pages of scripture all the way into the last ones. 00:07:37.839 --> 00:07:43.759 That the serpent is an emblem of sin and judgment that comes. 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:50.000 The earliest pages of scripture talk about the curse that has entered the world through sin. 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:59.040 And so this bite of these serpents is to remind them that death always comes with fangs. 00:07:59.920 --> 00:08:03.040 And the people are immediately facing the consequences. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.079 The venom is burning through their body, their bodies are weakening, and many of them die. 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:16.720 What's happening to them physically is a mirror to what happens to all of us spiritually when we sin. 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:29.199 Because sin corrodes trust, it distorts our desires, it damages our relationships, it dulls our consciences, and it drains our life. 00:08:30.319 --> 00:08:38.799 In the wilderness, the serpents stand as a witness about the deadly nature of sin itself and the danger of presuming upon God. 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:50.320 The Apostle Paul used this very verse in 1 Corinthians 9 when he said, Let us not test Christ, as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes. 00:08:51.679 --> 00:08:57.919 Paul is reminding the Corinthians and all of us that this story is not just history. 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:00.320 It's a warning. 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:13.759 It's a warning for us not to test our Savior and not to presume upon God's character, and not to treat his grace as something casual. 00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:27.360 Paul wants us to look back on this verse and to be reminded that sin is never harmless, that sin is never manageable, and that sin is never something we can tease and toy with. 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:31.679 We're here this evening, and Good Friday tells us the same thing. 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.080 Sin is never to be taken lightly. 00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:43.600 We're here this evening, and it isn't just a calendar event that we come to, and it's not some sentimental celebration that we have. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:50.159 We come to remember the very place where God's judgment fell against sin. 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:55.519 It's a sobering clarity Good Friday brings to us. 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:59.120 But let's continue because this passage moves. 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.639 And in verse 7, we see the people's confession. 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:11.200 We saw the people's rebellion in verses 4 and 5, the Lord's judgment in verse 6, and now the people's confession in verse 7. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:20.080 And the people then came to Moses and said, We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. 00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:25.360 Intercede with the Lord so that he will take the snakes away from us. 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:28.639 And Moses interceded for the people. 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:49.440 Wonderfully, we come to this moment of clarity where all the illusions of their discontent are gone, all the excuses are fallen away, and they're not blaming their circumstances, they're not blaming their hunger, they're not blaming their fear, they're not blaming God or Moses. 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:51.679 They're naming the truth. 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:53.360 We have sinned. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:56.799 We have sinned by speaking against the Lord. 00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:03.120 And wonderfully, we're told here that this is where healing begins. 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:08.480 It doesn't begin with despair, but it begins with recognition. 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:17.840 It begins with this understanding that we have sinned, we have seriously grieved God Himself. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:30.000 And by also acknowledging our need for mercy, they plead for an intercessor, Moses, to be able to bring an end to this plague of snakes. 00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:33.919 Good Friday calls us to that same degree of honesty. 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:41.600 We don't come to the Lord with polished stories or managed appearances. 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:54.000 We come as people just like them who have been bitten, who have the poison of sin coursing through our veins, who know that we can't heal ourselves. 00:11:54.720 --> 00:12:06.879 Good Friday strips away any illusion that any of that might be true, that we could save ourselves, that we're fine, that we're in control, that we can fix it. 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.840 Good Friday takes all of that away. 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:13.519 Good Friday tells us what we are, honestly. 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:20.080 We are weak, we're needy, and we need to be humble and confess the truth. 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:22.639 We have sinned. 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:48.480 So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:54.960 And whenever someone was bitten and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered. 00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:58.639 Now notice what this passage doesn't say. 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:16.879 It doesn't say that the Lord caused the serpents to simply go away, that he erases the consequences, that he just undoes their rebellion and accepts them as they are, or that he softens the reality of their situation. 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:26.399 Instead, he provides a remedy, a remedy that's as unexpected as it is undeserved. 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:39.200 Moses is instructed to make a bronze snake, the very image of the thing that was killing them, and to set it up in a pole where everyone could see it. 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:46.080 The serpent, the symbol of the curse, becomes the very means of healing for these people. 00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:54.000 And the Lord takes what was to represent their judgment and turns it into the instrument of their life. 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:05.440 In the latter part of the 1800s, uh medical people began to realize how they might be able to help people who were dying by snake bite. 00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:17.039 And they realized that they had to take some of the very venom that was killing people and very carefully and in very measured ways introduce it into the bodies of animals. 00:14:17.600 --> 00:14:31.120 And those animals would produce antibodies, and then they would withdraw that antibody, and it would be the very thing that would bring life and health back to the people who had been bitten by the snakes. 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:55.200 And it is lifted up on a pole as the only hope for their life. 00:14:56.960 --> 00:15:02.240 And this is where this wilderness story opens up into Good Friday. 00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:12.799 Because Jesus Himself uses this very verse, and he tells us that it we are not just to see the snake, but we are to see him. 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:22.320 And he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:28.799 The crucifixion of Christ is God's provision for cursed sinners. 00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:37.759 His remedy was to raise Christ, his only son, up as a curse on behalf of us who are cursed. 00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:40.639 Listen to what Paul says in Galatians 3. 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:52.399 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.159 Jesus was raised high for sinners. 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:07.600 The curse was taken up by him, borne by him, and displayed by him in his body on the cross. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:12.320 And Good Friday is the fulfillment of this wilderness moment. 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:24.320 The remedy that God provides is not a symbol, but the substance of how sinners are saved by God raising up his own son on the cross. 00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:38.399 But one thing we need to recognize here is that simply lifting up Christ on the cross and lifting up this snake on the pole is not how people are healed. 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:44.399 Let's look at the last point, the people's reception in verse 9. 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:52.240 Whenever someone was bitten and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered. 00:16:55.440 --> 00:17:04.000 Once that bronze snake was lifted up, the people had to look to it in order to be healed from the deadly bite. 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:14.880 The curse is not released by avoiding the serpents or by outrunning the venom. 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:24.160 Their only hope was to look to the provision God had provided in this raised bronze snake. 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:30.720 Now notice that people aren't told to perform some religious ritual. 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:33.759 They're not told to bring an offering. 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:41.440 They're not asked to climb the pole or touch the bronze figure. 00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:55.920 And they're certainly not asked to do as they did turn the bronze snake into a religious relic that was kept by the people of Israel until Hezekiah the king actually destroyed it. 00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:04.640 They're simply told to acknowledge their need to look at the bronze serpent. 00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:08.160 But it's more than just a glance. 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:16.319 It is a recognition that in that raised snake is their cure. 00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:20.000 The only place they could be cured. 00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:24.480 It's a look of recognition and it's a look of trust. 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:31.279 It's a look that admits I can't save myself and nothing else can save me. 00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:35.279 Only that can save me. 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:39.359 And unless God heals me, I will die. 00:18:41.039 --> 00:18:47.200 It is the look that embraces God's remedy as the only remedy for them. 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:59.359 And Jesus draws that parallel out in John 3, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:11.279 And just as the people of Israel looked up and lived by looking with recognition and trust at that raised bronze serpent. 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:27.920 So anyone acknowledging that their only hope that unless God saves them, they will die, and looks at Christ who is lifted up on the cross and says, That and He alone can save me. 00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:33.119 That is the only hope for my deliverance from my guilt and my punishment. 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:36.960 To look to Christ is to believe. 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:44.240 And to believe is to entrust yourself entirely to what Christ has done on the cross. 00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:51.279 The saving power is not in the strength of your look or in the worthiness of your person. 00:19:51.920 --> 00:20:01.359 It is not in any of those things, but it is in the saving work of God in Christ crucified alone. 00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:06.799 And Jesus presses this point home for our encouragement. 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:17.200 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:23.599 Now let me read this text to you the way the Greek says it. 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:35.039 The discussion isn't about how many are packed into the whoever word. 00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:46.960 The explanation is this if you recognize your need of salvation and if you believe on Jesus Christ, the one who believes shall never perish. 00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:49.200 How wonderful that is. 00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:51.119 Numbers 21 is telling us you can't draw the venom out on your own. 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:54.960 You can't reverse the consequences on your own. 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:58.960 Your only hope is to look to the remedy that God has given. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.119 To look to him. 00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:09.680 And so Good Friday is telling us this something simple and yet so wonderful and so profound. 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:12.960 Look to Christ who is lifted up. 00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:15.440 Look to Christ who took the curse. 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:18.000 Look to Christ who bore the judgment. 00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:22.400 Look to Christ who brings the dead to life. 00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:32.240 Because there is in him your only remedy, and there is in him your only cure, and there is in him your only hope. 00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:34.160 Look to Christ. 00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:39.119 And that promise today is as clear as it was in that day. 00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:43.200 The one who looks will live. 00:22:50.559 --> 00:22:54.160 And it's not just a strange Old Testament episode. 00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:57.759 Bunch of people traveling through a wilderness and snakes biting at them. 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:05.680 And all of a sudden they they they make this emblem on a pole, and somehow it delivers them if they look at it. 00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:09.680 It's not just a strange Old Testament episode at all. 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:13.279 It's the gospel in seed form. 00:23:14.079 --> 00:23:20.480 It is a living demonstration of the things that are realities in our world today. 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:28.319 That sin is a poison, that there is a reality to the justice and the condemnation of God for our sin. 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:45.920 That there is a need for us to be honest about who we are in confession of who we have sinned against, but also this wonderful truth that there is a wonderful mercy in God who has provided a remedy that we could never produce ourselves. 00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:54.160 The bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness is never meant to be the final answer. 00:23:54.960 --> 00:24:10.079 It was a sign, an advanced picture, if you will, of a day when God would lift up his one and only Son, and that the one who believes on him would live. 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.759 Good Friday brings all of this into view. 00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:19.440 The judgment that should have fallen on us, it fell on Christ. 00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:24.559 The curse that clung so closely to us, he took. 00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:20.000 We look to him who is lifted up. 00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:22.000 We look to him who is cursed. 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:24.319 We look to him who bore the judgment. 00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:29.200 And we look to him who takes away our death and gives us eternal life. 00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:31.119 Let's pray together. 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:39.200 Father, we're grateful for a Savior who's come that we might live. 00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:45.839 We're grateful that He has brought us the very means of our life. 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:58.079 We thank you for this day to remember especially that Christ crucified is the removal of our curse if we believe on him. 00:25:59.200 --> 00:26:07.440 Father, we want to pray for any who might have come among us or who will hear these words in some day on YouTube. 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:22.400 That Father, they might look to Christ and find that in him is their only hope, their only means of being in a reconciled place with you, the way that they might be turned from death to life. 00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:26.240 And Father, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior. 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:27.200 Amen.