THROUGH THE BIBLE - Numbers..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Numbers chapter 21 from verse 1, we'll read the whole chapter together by God's grace. When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by way of Athron, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed give these people into my hand, then I will devote their city to destruction. The Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Horemah. From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.

Pray to the Lord that he may take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. 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. So Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

The people of Israel set out in camp in Oboth. And they set out from Oboth in camp at Ai-Avarim, in the wilderness that is opposite Moab. towards the sunrise. From there they set out and camped in the valley of Zereb. From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that extends from the border of the Amorites to the Arnon.

The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. Therefore it is said in the book of the Wars of the Lord, Wahib in Safar, and the valleys of the Arnon, and the slope of the valleys that extend to the Sea of Arak, and leans to the borders of Moab. And from there they continued to Beer, that is the well of which the Lord said to Moses, gather the people together, so that I may give them water. Then Israel sang this song, spring up, O world, sing to it, the world that princes made, that the nobles of the people dug with the scepter and with their staffs. And from the wilderness they went on to Matana, and from Matana to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bemoth, and from Bemoth to the valley lying in the region of Moab by the top of the Pisgah that looks down on the desert.

Then Israel sent messages to Sion, king of the Amorites, saying, Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into a field, or fire. We will not drink the water of a well. We will go by the king's highway until we have passed through your territory. But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory.

He gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to the wilderness, and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. And Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and took possessions of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok as far as the Ammonites, for the border of the Ammonites was strong. Israel took all these cities and Israel settled in all the cities of the Amorites in Heshpon and in all its villages. For Heshpon was the city of Sihon, the king of the Amorites. who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand as far as the Arnon.

Therefore the Ballad Singers say, come to Heshon, let it be built. Let the city of Sihon be established A fire came out of Eshbon, flying from the city of Sihon. It devoured Ar and Moab, and swallowed the heights of the Arnon. Woe to you, O Moab! You are undone!

O people of Shemosh! He has made his sons Christians, and his daughters captives to the Amorite king Sihon. So we overthrew them. Heshbon, as far as Dibbon, perished, and we laid waste as far as Notba, fire spread as far as Medibba. Thus, Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.

Moses sent to spy out Jazar, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. Then they turned and went out by way to Bashan, and of the king of Bashan came out against it and all his people to battle at Eberai. But the Lord said to Moses, Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand and all his people and his land, and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites who lived at Heshvot. So they defeated him and his sons and all his people until he had no survivor left. And they possessed His land.

Amen. Flowers wither and the grass is fade, but the word of the Lord remains forever. What a passage we have before us, brothers and sisters, friends. A passage that so clearly foreshadows the upcoming redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ. a passage that so clearly typifies and speaks of the gospel of grace as we know it in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord said in Luke chapter 24 on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection in his glorified body, he spoke to the two disciples and he said to those disciples that everything in the Old Testament, all the Old Testament scripture speaks of him. He points to Him. That's the hermeneutical grid that we follow. As we read the Old Testament, as we've been working our way through the first four books of the Bible, we'll be trying to show you that Christ is there. We don't have to squeeze Him in.

We don't have to push Him in. Everything in the Old Testament is speaking about the ultimate Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The plan of God's redemption is fully satisfied in the Son. And so everything in the Old Testament, we see this plan unfolding. Christ is the center and the goal of the Word of God.

That's what we see. But there are some times that we come across passages that are so obvious. Now there are some of those passages that we call types of shadows and the themes and places and events that are pointing to Jesus Christ. And we know the priesthood, for example, is one. The sacrifices, the tabernacle and the actual furnishing in the tabernacle and the tabernacle itself, it all speaks about Jesus Christ.

He is the fulfillment of these things. Sometimes our Lord, our Lord Jesus in his earthly ministry, Looks back to an Old Testament passage and says, you know that passage back in the old? That was speaking to them. And this is what we have an example of before us in Numbers chapter 21. Glorious passage.

Now let's look at the context. The children of Israel are in the final stages of their wilderness wandering. It's been almost 40 years. Some 38 plus years ago, the spies, the initial 12 spies who went into the land of Canaan went about 38 years ago and came back with a report. Ten of those spies came back with a very bad report.

They scared the people of Israel. And the people heard and listened to them. They didn't listen to Joshua and Caleb. They listened to the other ten. And so they rebelled against God.

God said, no, doesn't matter how big and strong they are, I am bigger, I am stronger, I will give you the victory. But they didn't listen. They rebelled against God. They didn't listen. There was distrust.

They weren't faithful to God. So God, in His judgment, said that this generation, this unfaithful generation, will not see the land flowing with milk and honey. Instead, they're going to wander the wilderness for 40 years. One day, or one year per day, the despised were in the land of Canaan. And so we have come to the point now where the people of Israel are almost at the cusp of receiving the land that God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that land flowing with milk and honey.

It's not far from now. It's not far from now. It's been about 38 years. Most of the adult generation that the Lord had cursed and said, you're going to wander for 40 years. And the reason for that is because everyone who's over the age of 20 who came out of Egypt would die in the wilderness.

Their bodies will be scattered all around. And the ones who would receive the promised land are the ones who are over or under the age of 20 when they came out of Egypt. It'd be that new generation that comes into the promised land. And now, chapter 21, you see that the children of Israel, this new generation, begin to have a bit of a taste, a bit of a flavor of what that conquest is going to actually look like. You see, in the passage that we have before us, in Numbers 21, we have three major battles, and all are victorious by the Israelites.

So the Israelites are victorious in every one of those three battles. They devote the inhabitants to destruction, and they possess the land, we're told. Now two battles are worked out in the back of this chapter, the battles against the Amorites and the Bashanites. I'm not going to address those this evening, save the time. But they were major victories.

In fact, major enough for Joshua in his book to mention them, and Nehemiah. many hundreds of years from now mentions these battles. And I'm not going to mention them this evening, but they will come in context next week by Guy's grade from chapter 22, because what happened there is actually a result of those battles. But we will mention the first of the battles. The first one that was engaged against the king of Arad, the Canaanite, we're told.

He started the fight. It wasn't Israel. He actually started the engagement with Israel. This king, he fought Israel and he took prisoners of war unto himself, and this was a devastating blow to the people of Israel. And the king was made into a city called Hormat, we're told in verse 3, and that's important.

You may not remember that Horma is mentioned earlier in the book of Numbers. I submit to you, the last time this city was mentioned, or the last time that at least Israel was there, this city brought about not pleasant reminders, but they weren't pleasant at all. They were fearful memories. You see, some 38 years ago earlier, when the Lord had pronounced that judgment I spoke to you about, when the younger generation were the ones who were going to inhabit the land, and the older generation would die in the wilderness, these people in the older generation, they became remorseful. Because when God declared that you're not going into the land along with milk and honey, they didn't want to hear that, did they?

And when they heard it from the mouth of Moses saying that God has decreed upon you judgment, your bodies will be scattered in the wilderness." They wept. They mourned greatly, we're told. And the next morning they woke up fresh, engaged, full of beaming with confidence. And you remember what happened?

They presumed upon the grace of God. What did they do? They went on their own and began to engage in battle with the Canaanites. They began to engage with the Amalekites as well. Now they were warned, don't go because God, Yahweh's not with you.

He's made His judgment against you and it's final. They said, we'll go anyway. We can do this. They went without Yahweh. They went without the Ark of the Covenant.

They went without Moses. And you remember what happened? They fell by the sword in a humiliating defeat. The enemy pursued them as far as Hormat, we're told in Genesis. So the last time Israel was thinking about this place called Hormat, you would remember they were there in humiliation because many of them had fallen by the sword, they'd been defeated by the Amalekites and the Canaanites, and they're there mourning their death.

That's the memory they have in their mind. But have they now changed? That was that generation. How about the new generation? Has the new generation changed?

Have they become more godly? Have they learned of the mistakes of their parents? Because remember, when we look back, 1 Corinthians 10 tells us, the apostle tells us that we look back and they're an example for us, for our own in what? Instruction. We ought to look back and go, This generation looked back and learned.

Did they learn from the mistakes of their fathers? Did they not presume upon the grace of God as their fathers had presumed? Well, at first it looks like they had. Because if you look at the text, in verse 2, we're told they appealed to Yahweh. They came and they said, if you will indeed give these people in my hand, then I will devote the cities to destruction.

If you, Lord, That's these people saying that we know that if these people, or these cities and these enemies are going to be defeated, God, you have to be the one behind them. You have to be the power behind us. You have to be our strength. If we're going to win this battle, Lord, you're the one who needs to give it to us. That's a great start.

So the Lord does agree to that, and they win the battle over the Canaanites. What a glorious time for the people. They did taste the victory mold. Does that pie last? It doesn't last long, does it?

But shortly after this victory, old habits begin to sink in. Because they take a long route to their journey. Because if you remember, in the last chapter, the King of Eden wouldn't let them come through. They had to circle the long way around. And during that circling and that long journey, the people began Again, it rumbles, flames, marlin.

They speak against God and they speak against God's servant, Moses. Verse 5, this is what they say. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? How many times have we heard those words? Uttered by their fathers and now this generation is uttering the same thing.

They did it in the last chapter as well. But there is no food, they go on to say, and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. These are incredible words. Why have you brought us to die out here in the wilderness, Moses? Why has God brought this upon us, Moses?

Have they forgotten who their God is? Have they forgotten the victory that the Lord God has just given them over the Canaanites? Have they forgotten the prayer, the appeal that they came before Yahweh and said, unless you give us the victory, we cannot have victory over our enemies? What happened to that type of nobility? On the sign of hardship and tribulation and difficulty, do you capitulate so quickly?

Human nature isn't ugly. So now they complain. They grumble and they complain against God and his servant. And what they say is that, you brought us out here where there's no food and no water. Boys.

They're resorting to lies now, right? They're resorting to lies to strengthen their argument, at least exaggerating and stretching the truth. No food, no water. Hasn't God always provided for these people? We've been working our way through the Old Testament.

Has He not always provided the food for them? Has He not always provided the water through miraculous means? Is there a day that these people woke up and there wasn't an abundance of manna across, as far as their eyes can see, that spread over like dew on the ground? It might have been the day, and that would be the Sabbath. And that's only because the day earlier, God would provide double the amount so they can collect so they wouldn't have to work on the Sabbath.

God's people start to lie. God's people start to exaggerate. I would suggest if they're exaggerating or lying about the food, they're also lying about the water. No, the water is solid. Solid.

But this is what they're saying. We deserve better. There's a deadly spirit of entitlement in those words. In their mind, the manna from the hand of God is not good. We deserve better.

In fact, the manna from the hand of God before these people is not even considered good. in their own. But did you catch what they said after? They say there's no water and there's no food. What they say, they say, we loathe this worthless.

Beloved, you know, you know someone has the absolute rock bottom. Absolute rock bottom when that person or people consider the things from the hand of God worthless. Even worse. We loathe it, they say. That's the word they use.

You know that word in the originals only used nine times in the Old Testament. Only nine times. Only once in the Old Testament. And it's used by God in Leviticus chapter 20 verse 23, and it's used to express God's hard disposition of hate towards the evil, wicked, pagan practices of the surrounding nations. God says, I loathe the hate here.

You have Israel looking at what God has provided through miraculous means, from His glorious hand. They, with the same hateful disposition of the heart, look at that, what God has provided as what God looks upon. God alone. They look upon the man of God as God himself. He alone.

sin and ugliness. We loathe this manner. We deserve better. We deserve better, young way, than what you've been giving us, do they? What do these people deserve, beloved?

Did this idol-worshipping people who are no better or were no better than their counterpart Egyptians, because they were both worshipping idols in Egypt, we know that for a fact. Did they deserve God to rescue them from the hand of the pharaoh, the evil pharaoh, and their bondage to slave labor? Did they deserve that? Did they deserve what no other nation has ever experienced? The loving hand of God, the God of the universe, to covenant with them, to make himself known to them, and to present himself in their midst.

What a glorious privilege. Did they deserve that? Did they deserve His protection? Did they deserve His provision? Did they deserve the manner that now they are complaining about?

Did they? I can tell you, no, they did not. They deserve none of it. These sinners, as well as all sinners, deserve one thing from the hand of God. If we're talking about what is fair and what is deserving, I can tell you what sinners deserve.

Upon the authority of Spirit I can say sinners only deserve judgment. Judgment. That's it. So anything more than judgment from the hand of God, His righteous fury, His righteous wrath, which is the disposition of His heart towards sin and unrighteousness, anything beyond that is what? Mercy.

Anything beyond that. Is the mercy of God, the grace of God, the undeserving, unmerited favor of God towards ungrateful, undeserving sinners. Listen to me. It's not the manner that is wrong. They are.

We are. So with the spirit of entitlement, they cry out to be given what they think they deserve. But be careful that you and I don't fall into that trap. Because if God obliges us to give us what we deserve, what's going to come from His hands? Judgment.

Just recompense and exactly what we deserve as sinners, and that is judgment. So he does. He gives them what they deserve. And he sends a fleet, a multitude of fiery, lethal, venomous snakes to have a field day with the multitude that is Israel, and they have nowhere to go, they have nowhere to hide. We're told here that the bite is lethal and there is no remedy.

No remedy. Get bits. And you die. And we're told in verse 6, many did get bit and many fell dead as well. Imagine that.

Imagine snakes everywhere. Nowhere to hide. Wherever you go there's snakes and they have one thing in mind. They're not timid. They're aggressive and they're going for you because God set them in order to bite you, in order that you will die.

Imagine the judgment of God. people panicking, people screaming, people wallowing in their intense pain and bodies dropping around everywhere in the wilderness. Why do you think that is? Because they think they deserve it. Do you think you're entitled to more?

Do you think that you should be getting more than what you've been given? More than what the gracious hand of God has given you? Do you think that what God has given you is worthless? Is loathsome? And it's almost like saying, taste what you really eat.

Don't say that to your brother. Because he knows what we deserve. He knows what his people deserve, because he is the one who sits on the throne. Well, the foundation of this throne is that of righteousness and justice. And when he gives out judgment, there it is always.

that dawns upon these people may come before Moses and Sabaoth. Have a seat. Would you go and pray to God as our mediator asks you to take away this curse from us? There's nothing we can do. We're going to all die.

There is no remedy for this plague. Moses appealed to God to get rid of this judgment. Justice would have been that everyone would be bitten and die. Justice would be that there would be a mass grave, a grave site there with bodies scattered all over the place and the vultures coming to take their pick. If these people had rebelled against God and spoken ill against his name, if they weren't fair, that would be fair, because they have no remedy even of themselves.

But what we find in this passage, what we find is we find mercy. find grace and we find a loving God in all of us. So in his mercy, he makes a way where there seems to be no way. What did these people do to receive that mercy? Was there a particular ritual that they needed to follow?

Was there sacrifices that they needed to sacrifice? Was there a need for them to put their hands in their pocket and just give a little bit more, maybe more of their possessions up in private for a little bit? Is that what was required? No. No, that's not what they required at all.

Nothing from their pocket was asked. Beloved, you know why nothing from their pocket was asked? Because they had no currency that God gave them. None. They have no bargaining power.

Sinners have no bargaining power with God. There's nothing in and of us that is worthy. God says to Moses, in His grace, in His mercy, He says, Moses, make a bronze snake. A bronze serpent. Set it on a pole.

Put it on a place for the people to behold. and then asked them to look at what? Not themselves, not to Moses, the one who symbolizes the giver of the law. No, ask these people to simply look. They looked to God's provision for their salvation and to live.

And God has provided for them that provision in the way of a bronze serpent on a pole. Now did the snake or the serpent have magical power? I'm sure you can answer the question. No. Was it the bronze?

No, the bronze was a common material that was used in those days for particular uses, and I'll get to that in a sec. But it wasn't the bronze. Was it the snake that gave them the healing? No, the snake was a symbol of something. It was a symbol of the curse, not the cure to the curse.

Beloved, salvation for these people and wellness simply came by trusting Yahweh. By trusting God and His provision and He said to Moses, make this bronze serpent, put her on a pole, tell the people if they've been bitten, simply look. Simply look and live. They may ask the question, how can looking bring forth a cure to my body when this poisonous venom is coursing through my veins? Don't ask that question.

Simply believe. And in your belief, simply look and live. Trust God with the remedy. Trust God's provision. Trust that He's the one who brought the antidote.

You are to look. and believe. But what about what sin deserves? There are many who did look and believe and they were forgiven and that judgement, that poison that was going to put them to death did not kill them. They were made well, but they are still sinners, are they not?

Did God simply look the other way? At one point He pours out His judgment and says, this is what you deserve. And then His mercy, in His mercy and His grace and His loving, He gives them a remedy. But is He just turning His back and saying, I'm going to act as if this is it, and I'm going to forget about that sin and that unrighteousness? Would that make God a judgmental man?

Yes, it would. How could God do that? Well, the answer comes some 1,500 years later. It comes from the mouth of our Lord, and He's speaking to that teacher of Israel in the beginning. John chapter 3, the Bible.

Don't have to turn there, but this is what He said. In John chapter 3, verse 14, our Lord says, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. Beloved, as difficult as it is for me to say this, but that bronze serpent that was erected in the wilderness is the type of Jesus Christ. If the Word didn't say it, there's no way I would utter those words with my mouth. And he's the type of a curse.

He's God's only remedy to the deadly venom that is so potent and so widespread, far more than the serpents in the wilderness. Because this venom has infected every man, woman, and child. This is the poison that runs through the veins of every human being that's ever, ever lived. And the only remedy is Jesus Christ. And that venom is sin.

and unrighteousness that flows in the life of every single person born in Adam. Jesus, upon that cross, saying that that bronze serpent that Moses held up was pointed. That was pointed. I'm the only merciful, privileged God. Salvation.

salvation of sin. There is no other name. It's Christ and Christ alone. He hung and was crucified for all who would simply look upon Him, and He interprets what that is. He says, believe.

To look is to believe. You should be looking one way, and God says, look, and you look because you believe that God has made a way where there seems to be no way, and that way is in Jesus Christ. Look, believe in Christ, and be healed from the deadly sin. that poison that courses through you, that one day will require the righteous fury of God to be poured upon you because he is just and you have to take care of sin. Snake.

The snake symbolized the curse of sin. We know that it was the snake in the garden that brought about the temptation that caused the death of those cows. That snake is the symbol of the curse. What are we told in Galatians 3.13?

That Christ became the curse for us. Bronze in the Bible. If you look through the Bible, he speaks of judgment. And most of all, these people, I'm thinking, would have thought about the bronze altar in the desert. You know that bronze altar that can handle heat?

It needs to, because there's a constant fire that's perpetually burning that is symbolic of the wrath of God upon all righteousness. The few, the fiery bronze serpent symbolize the curse of sin and the wrath of God. So when Jesus hung upon that cross, 1,500 years later, all the curse was gone. the fiery fury, the fiery indignation of a thrice-holy God who cannot look upon sin. Jesus drank it up all for those whom He would call His own.

Love is a cross. The cross is where we find the time of Jesus, where we find justice, the divine mercy of God in an unfathomable display of divine love of God. Cross. God's revelation throughout the whole Old Testament about the cross and the object of that cross. Jesus Christ, the one without sin, the one without spot, the one without lynch, the only one worthy to bear the sin of the world, the only one worthy to become a curse, because he never was a curse like you and I in our sins.

The only one able to bear the infinite wrath of God upon unrighteousness. Jesus, why would you do it? I say because it is the only way that I can call upon my people. There is no other way forward, no other name, even under heaven, by which we might be saying, my question to you is, have you looked upon Christ with faith, have you believed that he is able to do when he is called to do certain things? Because if you haven't, there is no other way.