Fiery Serpants (Part 2)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrop.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

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When other people do something really stupid, we go, that was really stupid. When other people sin, we go, that's so sinful.

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When other people complain against God and test Him, that was so bad. And so what Paul is trying to do is see what they did,

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Corinth, see what the Israelites do, and then you just turn the mirror and say, that's what we do.

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God, you could have prevented all these things. You could have stopped it. You could have worked my life differently.

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Spoke against God and Moses. This is serious rebellion. This is high -handed rebellion, which all our testing of God is.

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Spurning the grace of God, slamming God. And look what they say about God's food. Can you imagine

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God's food? For there is no food and no water, really? And here it gets worse.

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And we loathe this worthless food. God, you gave us worthless food.

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By the way, was it worthless food? It's only worthless if you saved up some of the food for the

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Sabbath and you didn't get twice as much as you needed the day before the Sabbath. But it was nutritious, vitamins and minerals and all the things that you were needing to sustain yourself, and now what do they call it?

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This is worthless food. It's miserable. It's like Wonder Bread. It's like some fake bread that they just put in the smell of bread.

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You know what? Honestly, when I took college, when I went to college with all the drugs and alcohol and all that stuff,

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I don't really remember anything in college in terms of from the lecturer, but I do remember at Current Economic Issues with Bert Evans that he said, there's a conspiracy behind Wonder Bread.

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That's the only thing I remember. And I knew I could use it right here. And mark it in your life.

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What does discouragement do? And what does complaining do? It begins to exaggerate, doesn't it?

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It begins to pick and to look for and to try to put a big magnifying glass in there.

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Yeah, this is so bad. And it's like you try to one -up other people. You think you got it bad. You think your husband's bad.

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Look at my husband. And I just wrote down a few of these things, and I thought, you know, compared to what we deserve, compared to how good

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God is, may we never be people who say, that worthless husband

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God you gave me, that miserable wife you gave me, that unbelieving spouse you gave me, those miserable children you gave me, this miserable house you gave me or didn't give me.

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Do you know what, God? Life was better before I got saved. At least

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I could complain and nobody would get after me. What does sin do?

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Or how bad is sin that can take a gift received from God and then say, how could you?

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Only one time in my life when I received socks from my grandmother in 1971 for Christmas and didn't look happy, oh,

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I only did that one time before again, that oaf of a six foot four father, this worthless food you've given me.

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Or maybe in your life it's this, if I only could have this, then I'd be happy. That's just the same, but it's the opposite.

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It's not this worthless woman you gave me, it's, you know what, but if I had this in my life, I'd be happy.

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If I had this amount of money or I had this kind of job or I had this particular thing, then I would be happy.

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And God is sovereign over everything and when we talk that way, we're indicting God. Israel sounds just like Corinth and if we're not careful, could sound just like us.

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So what does God do? You know what God does sometimes? He says, well, you know what Moses, I'm going to do something bad unless you intervene.

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Moses, you better do something about it. Grab Aaron, grab the other leaders, you better get something done.

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And often God does that when you read the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. But you know what, this time

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God doesn't do that at all. God said to the snakes, kill them. I often say to myself, why would

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God kill Uzzah for touching the ark? How could God kill

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Nadab and Abihu for worshiping with strange fire? How could God kill these people when the real question is not how could

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God kill those people is, how could God not start killing all of us? There's punctuated deaths in the

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Bible to show you how bad sin is, but it's the mercy of God that there's not more. Verse 6, then the

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Lord sent fiery serpents among the people. We don't know if he energized snakes that were already there or just made new ones.

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And they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. Supernaturally sent by God, divinely sent by God.

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And you know what? Really at the end of the day, think about how good God is. Think about how good God is, because what if he just let it go?

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Complaining and testing just keeps going and going and feeds on itself, and just like pouring kerosene on the fire of the heart that will not be satisfied with the sovereign grace of God.

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And so God interrupts him. You know if you have a dog and the dog is fixated on something, what do you have to do to the dog?

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What does Caesar do? The dog's staring at something or biting something and you hit the dog and the dog's like, oh yeah,

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I shouldn't be fixated on that thing anymore. Now I can pay attention. You know, it happens with kids too, playing video games.

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You say, are you comparing us to dogs? No. Laugh now, yuck it up now.

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It's like Jonathan Gershner that went to the master's seminary and he said, you know, men are worse than rats. Humans are worse than rats.

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Because God made rats to act raddishly and they obey.

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And God made humans to worship and adore the eternal son of God and they stiff arm him.

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So lest you think this is God's judgment alone, it is simultaneously judgment and the goodness of God to stop this, to give them a little poke in the ribs as it were.

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It gets the nation's attention and you say, well, I kind of like to know how they were fiery. Some say it's because they were red.

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But the real reason is because once they bit you, it hurt.

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It was hot and fiery. I regularly on my bicycle get stung by hornets and wasps.

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And the result of that is hot, fiery. I remember one time a hornet hit me on the forehead, dropped down to my quadriceps and then stung me right there.

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And I'm telling you the welt raised up and it was fiery.

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And so you get bit by the snake. It wasn't that they were orange and fiery. It was because of what happened.

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Snakes that produce burning. Now, sometimes they had snakes back in those days called dipsis, which means thirst.

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And because they bit you and made you thirsty, they were called thirsts. This isn't fiery because they look fire.

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It's because the effect of getting bit by one of these God sent snakes is hot.

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This is where we get the word seraphim, hot, hot angels, as it were glowing, sent from heaven.

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The heaven gave the manna and now the snakes are given by the wilderness.

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Habit forming, self -destructive, complaining will be stopped by God. Ever been bitten by a snake?

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What happened? Verse seven. And the people came to Moses and said, oh, they're getting it.

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Here's good news for a change. We have sinned. And now the confession becomes specific.

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When you confess, dear God, please forgive me for everything I've done. We have sinned. And this is the specific kind of forgiveness confession for we have spoken against the

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Lord and against you. That's exactly right. Pray to the Lord that he may take away the serpents from us.

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So Moses prayed for the people. This is our fault in particular.

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Please, we're not worthy to even pray. An intercessor should pray for us. Now, if you're not careful, you'll forget this.

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Just next verse, what's going to happen? Moses is going to start making the serpent.

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But in the meantime, people are still getting bit. This is not, well, everybody stop. Moses is now going to be told to do something while all this other stuff is going on.

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And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.

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Imagine the yelling. What if your kids were bit by a poisonous snake? Some are already dying.

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This isn't kind of just a garter snake. This is not a cobra. This is the kind of snake that if you get bit by it, you will certainly die.

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And it's burning and the people are yelling and the people are wailing. And now you've got to make and fashion this object.

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Just how fast, I wonder, must have Moses worked. Make a fiery serpent.

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Aren't snakes unclean? Doesn't Leviticus say something about unclean? Make another snake.

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Let's see. I got bit by a shark and then I make a shark and put it up on a pole.

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Yeah, that'll work. I got bit by a scorpion. So you make a scorpion, you put it up on a pole and everybody looks at it.

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Salvation by looking at snakes. Oh, that bread is so detestable.

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You want detestable? It's up on a pole. Unclean animal. So, verse 9,

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Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if the serpent bit anyone, a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

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Now, this happens a lot in the Old Testament. God sets up an object lesson. Naaman, you want to get cleaned?

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I want you to go to the river and dunk yourself in a bunch of times. What? Yeah, we're going to have a vision.

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We're going to have something that you must do, personal responsibility and duty to respond in faith.

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It kind of seems dumb, seems foolish, kind of seems as foolish as, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

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For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart. You got a sin problem, it's ingrained in you.

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You know how you get rid of it? Look to Jesus. Oh, yeah? Look to Jesus, the one who's burying the sin.

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How can he save others? He can't even save himself. Look to the bronze serpent and live.

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And by the way, the word there, look, it means to pay attention to. It means to gaze. It doesn't mean just to kind of glance and it means to look at it and you go,

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I'm going to look at that. I've been bit. My kids yesterday said to me, who would not do it? Who would not just go,

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I'm just going to look? I ask the same question. You want your sins forgiven? You don't want to have to pay in hell forever for your sins?

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Look with faith to Christ Jesus. No, I love my sins more. These snake bites are always fatal.

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I looked up on the internet, if you get bit by a snake, what do you do? Stay calm, get safely away from the snake.

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I thought that was pretty good advice. Call 911 or the emergency number in your area.

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Or for the Israelite, 911 was Moses, pray for us. Have the victim lie down with the affected limb lower than the heart.

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Treat for shock and preserve body heat. Remove rings, bracelets, boots. The extremity will swell.

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Apply a light constricting band two inches above and below the bite. Get anti -venom.

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Do not cut the bite. Do not apply tourniquet. Do not suck out the venom by mouth. Do not apply cold or ice packs.

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But then if you're holistic around here, kind of funky, kind of green person, I don't think any of this would work.

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Aloe, milk thistle, echinacea, or the one that I thought was the hilarious one, prunes.

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Yeah, that'll do. No matter what happened to these people who were bit, they were going to die.

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God sent this judgment for their sins and they deserved it. Anti -venom wouldn't have worked.

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Look and believe what God has said. Look to this unclean animal.

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And you get to start comparing what happened with Jesus. Not that he was unclean, but he was bearing our uncleanness.

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Let me give you, if you're taking notes today, let me give you some words that describe this look.

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That describe this look of faith. Words that should help you because the issue is faith.

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It's not rationalization. It's not titration analysis. It's how do I figure this out. It's not prayer.

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It's the look of faith. So let me give you some words that help describe this look of faith.

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And then you say, not just for Israel, but for me too. Do I really believe? It's one thing to know the knowledge.

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So far, everybody here in this room has the knowledge of the gospel because it's preached in the baptismal font. It was almost preached for Ephesians chapter 2.

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I've already talked about it. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus for sinners. You intellectually know, but what kind of faith do

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I have? Is it just knowledge? Is it just a scent? Or am I really trusting my life into the hands of Christ?

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Let me give you some words about what this look was back in Numbers 21. And what the look is required for you today to believe on Christ Jesus.

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Number one, it was an exclusive look. Exclusive. You couldn't look at anything else and live.

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It was the only thing that would cure you. The exclusivity of the bronze snake and the exclusivity of Christ Jesus.

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Self -reformation won't work. Being good won't work. Being reformed won't work.

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Somehow being religious won't work. It's the only thing. And that's what people get mad about with Christianity.

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This is the only way that saves. And they say, well, you mean to tell me all the Jews in Auschwitz? And you mean to tell me all those

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Muslims? You mean to tell me all the people in Sri Lanka? You mean to tell me? I mean to tell you this. The exclusivity of Christ Jesus is the only way of salvation.

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Because God has said it. And he has one son, Christ Jesus. And the eternal counsels of God, that son was the only one who could go be our sin bearer and rescue us.

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It's an exclusive look. Number two. If you look, it would be sufficient.

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It should encourage you. A sufficient look. Well, you know what?

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The first 2 ,000 Israelites who look, they get saved. It's like Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door and only 144 ,000 make it to the best heaven.

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And I think, you know what? I tell them, there's a lot of other people who come into my door who say they're Jehovah's Witnesses who work a lot harder than you do.

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And you think how far Jehovah's Witnesses have been around and how long they've been around? You are like 9 ,000 ,001 ,044.

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You better get a work. There's work to be done. Sufficient.

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Every person. 13, 22, hundreds, thousands, millions.

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All those who have looked at Christ Jesus. Is his death valuable? Infinite? For everyone.

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Jew, Gentile, slave, Greek, man, woman, Sri Lankan or Norwegian. Today, 2 ,000 years ago or in 2 ,000 years.

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It's sufficient. All who would look. This kind of looking, number 3, is efficient. For everyone that looked, it worked.

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For every single one. There wasn't one person who said, Moses, I look but my leg is still killing me.

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It's fiery. Number 4, it's infallible.

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It's infallible. You don't have to look twice. You don't have to look a bunch of times.

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Just like looking to the Lord Jesus Christ with saving faith. I look but I wasn't healed.

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No. Number 5, personal. Dad, you're the priest.

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Would you please look for me? Mom, would you look for me? Pastor, would you look for me?

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Would you believe for me? Kind of salvation by family? Nope.

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Everyone here, to go to heaven, you must personally look by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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I can't do it for my kids. Priests can't do it for someone else. S. Lewis Johnson said, can you not imagine some

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Hebrew youngster, maybe from the tribe of Dan. And can you imagine him moving out around the barn or whatever and suddenly one of these little snakes strikes him and he realizes that he's been bitten.

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He begins to feel the poison coming through and finally he's carried into a tent. And there he awaits his death because he knows what has happened to others.

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And someone hears about the brazen serpent that Moses has put on a pole and he rushes in and says to the young Hebrew fellow.

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Look, Moses has put a serpent on a pole and if you look to the serpent, you will live. Others have tried it, they've lived.

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And I can imagine him say it because he's a member of the Unitarian Church. And he says it's so irrational.

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What possible connection can there be between a serpent of brass and a pole? And the fact that I'm dying in this tent. You can look at my ankle here and see the swelling.

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What connection has a brass serpent have to do with this? But I have seen it happen. That I can hear him say, now if it were some kind of ointment, some kind of priest that would bring in some new medicine.

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Some like some of those other churches have, some of those Mormons, they talk about salamanders and things like that.

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If they would just bring in and if they would strike their hand over the place, I can see how there might be some connection with that.

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But looking at a pole and just looking at it, I just imagine that those people that you saw healed are just some of those credulous fundamentalists.

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But we Unitarians and Mormons and others who are enlightened, we obviously see that there is no connection between that serpent on the pole and the fact that I'm dying of the fever here and now.

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As Lewis said, it may seem strange, but it was the divine remedy. Word six, supernatural.

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It's a supernatural remedy. Both for them and for us. It's a supernatural remedy.

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Nothing touched, nothing was given, no IVs, no medicine. Supernatural remedy.

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It's the same thing. Looking at the Lord Jesus Christ with faith. It is a divine remedy. Seven, it's just.

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It's just. If you don't look and live Israelite, you got what was coming to you.

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Well, how is it fair if Jesus died for the elect and then we don't believe in him and I'm not elect and God didn't choose me?

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Friends, justice will be there if you don't look to the Lord Jesus Christ, repent from your sins, justice will be given.

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It's a just death. And lastly, ordained.

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It's ordained by God. Planned by God. It's the divine plan of God to look and live.

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Now, when I read these next few verses, don't they seem to make a lot more sense? Don't they seem to be tied in more?

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From where am I reading? And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. It's the exact same thing.

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Everyone here has been bitten by the snake of sin. And everyone here will die.

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And everyone here has one way for forgiveness. It's to look to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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So why do we preach the Lord Jesus Christ here? Because he's the only Savior. Look and live. Why wouldn't you look and live?

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Why wouldn't you believe? Just as this was lifted up and you have to say, by nothing rational, by nothing logical, by nothing medical, by nothing pharmaceutical,

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I can't figure this remedy out. I've been bit by a snake, look to the snake. And in the exact same fashion, we have been bit by the snake of sin and we have to look by faith to the one who becomes the sin bearer.

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And people go, I don't like all that blood language. Show me a Christian and he loves the blood language because that blood was what assuaged the wrath of God so that we don't have to be punished for our sins.

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The great news is we have forgiveness, look. Why wouldn't you look? Let's go back to my kid's question and we need to wrap it up.

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Dad, you've been bit by a snake and you're going to die. Why wouldn't you look?

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You can just almost give kind of a fake look or something. Just kind of look over. Wouldn't they just be wheeling people in on stretchers, bringing them over?

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Just look for God's sake, look. Then you know why Paul says to the

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Corinthians later, you know what, I beg you to be reconciled to God. Why won't you look?

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You love your sin so much you won't look. God Almighty, I won't look because you told me to look.

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Why would you perish? For sin? Look to the Lord Jesus Christ and you will live.

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Let's pray. Father in heaven, we will readily confess that often by our attitudes and our actions and our speech that we're not satisfied with where you've placed us.

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Father, we struggle with longing for things we could do before we were saved that we can't do now. We ask that you grant us repentance, forgiveness.

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You'd help us to look to Christ Jesus again to see what he has done to sin and see what sin did to him that we might run from it.

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Father, for all those who are here today, maybe it's a member, maybe it's a visitor, maybe it's one of our kids.

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Anyone who has not looked to the Lord Jesus Christ with saving faith today, I pray that you would cause them to look.

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Father, they're dead in sins, they can't look on their own. Grant them saving faith. In Jesus' name, amen.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

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We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.