Journeying with John - It’s a Blast (JWJ-14)
Camping with the Snakes
John 3:9-21
The people of Israel are on the brink of victory. They are about to start defeating the nation of Canaan after spending 40 years wandering around the wilderness. They are about to enter the Promised Land that God had promised them. And God is so keen to teach them about faith and victory and impart this into their lives that He is about to break one of His own commandments. They are one step from victory when the Bible has these tragic words to say. “The people become impatient because of the journey.” (Numbers 21:4) The word ‘impatient’ literally means that they wanted to see the harvest. Here is what impatience is:- it is taking your eyes off God and putting them back on your circumstances. It is taking your trust in God, His ways and His timing, and instead believing that you have a better way. Now watch this - when you start to become impatient, you start to become distrustful of God, His people and His plan, and you start to become dissatisfied with the provision of God. I have seen this time and time again in the ministry. Somebody is running well, going on with God, growing and enjoying the richness of grace - and they start to become impatient, weary, resentful. They start to second guess, get a little bit of defiant, start to wave a fist at God - become critical. And that is exactly what Israel did. They got tired of the manna. Now sure, they had been eating manna for fourty years. Some who were now adults who had been born in the wilderness - all they ever had known was manna. Only manna - and manna all the time - morning. Noon and night.
They have manna coming out their ears. Chopped manna, sautéed manna, manna boiled and broiled, crumbled, creamed, sliced, diced, fried, flicked, baked, flaked, manna helper, manna supreme - you name it - forty years of manna!
Numbers 21:5 “The people spoke against God and Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.’” Or as the Hebrew literally says, “Our souls loathe this miserable manna.” Oh dear, what a shame, what a state to be in.
Proverbs 13:3 “The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.”
Job 40:4 “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.”
Boy - it sure is good thing to know when to lay your hand over your mouth isn’t it.
My friend, when we forget the richness of grace, when we forget the privilege of sonship, when we forget the blindness of mercy, when we forget the power of forgiveness - we soon despise the gift of love and trample underfoot the sacrifice of Jesus. What a terrible place to be. God must do something - and what does He do? He sends snakes into the Israelite camp - red, fiery snakes, poisonous snakes - and God started destroying the people with these snakes because of their rebellion and hardness of heart. Instead of disciplining their impatience, they let their mouths run, they took God for granted and spoke again God and against their leaders - and they trampled on grace.
So here they are - camping with the snakes - and it is killing them - I mean literally. They can’t sleep well at night because the snakes are slithering into the tents. They cannot go out to the see their friends in the morning because the snakes are slithering in the grass. They cannot go to church on Sunday because the snakes are slithering under the pews. Somebody gets bitten by a snake and dies, and while they were carrying him off to be buried, one of those carrying him gets bitten. So they need six more - and then they are down to five. You think I am exaggerating don’t you? This is not a small problem they are having with a couple of snakes and with one or two of them being bitten. Understand that Paul says in Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:9) that God was destroying them through the snakes. Snakes are dangerous in their natural state. Now put thousands of snakes with a divine mandate in the midst of the nation of Israel and watch them have at it. You do not want divinely mandated snakes looking for you.
So what happened. The people cried out to God. They grabbed Moses and said this, “We have sinned because we spoke against the Lord. We submit your lead. Please, pray for us and ask God to take away the snakes.” So Moses intercedes for them. And God responds - watch this:-
Numbers 21:8-9 “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.’ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”
On Mount Nebo in Israel, stands a huge sculpture(by Italian artist, Giovanni Fantoni) of the brazen serpent from the account in Numbers and of the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified. Even there in Israel it stands as a reminder that it is all of God.
Profound - and all they needed to do was look - “Look and Live.” They did not need to pray to the pole. Sacrifice to the pole, climb the pole to be healed - all they needed to do was look. But that does not make sense! Are you saying ‘all the needed to do was look’? That is exactly right. That makes no sense - why would God do that? All they needed to do was look?
That is exactly right - and that is the very point God makes. It makes no sense - all you need to do was look - and you will live.
Please turn in your Bibles with me this morning to the book of John and the 3rd chapter - John chapter 3 and we will read from verse 9 through 21.
John 3:9-21 - Read - Pray.
There are four things I want us to quickly talk about from this passage this morning.
1. A Powerful Picture
John 3:14-15
You see my friend, Jesus too went camping with the snakes. As a matter of fact, He became so smitten by your and my snake bites that against all expectation, against all righteousness and appropriateness the satanic symbol of a serpent became the Christ symbol on a cross. Could anything be more vile or inappropriate. The symbol representing your Savior and my Savior was the Satan incarnate symbol.
He did not simply take our sin away - He become sin. In 2 Cor. 5:21 Paul tells us that ‘He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.’
Now watch this precious believer - all we need to do to be saved is look to Him, believe, that is all it takes. It does not make sense and it seems too simple - because my friend - the truth is that there is nothing you can do to save yourself or even help yourself be saved. It is all of Him. Just look - just believe - and even though it does not make sense - He will forgive you and turn your life around.
What a powerful picture. Camping with the Snakes - He did it for you and He did it for me - because He loves you. Like the children of Israel we had squandered grace, trivialized the supernatural, and were murmuring against God. Like the children of Israel the consequences of our sins were justly destroying us. But God so loved the world that Her gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life.
Jesus gave Nicodemus a very Powerful Picture.
Notice secondly with me if you will . . .
2. A Passionate Purpose
John 3:17
Precious believer - it seems we need to come to this time and time again. God does not judge the world! Why? Because He came to save the world. Do you think we can save the world by judging it?
Do you think we can reach the prostitute after we have stoned her with our words?
Do you think we can reach the homosexual after we have stoned him with our attitudes?
Do you think we can reach the drunk after we have stoned him with our rules?
Do you think we can reach the worldly youth after we have stoned her with our self righteousness?
Why does the church keep judging when by its judging it prevents itself from doing the very thing it was left to do - save sinners.
Jesus never judged sinners - He judged the religious and the righteous - but He never judged sinners. When will we see the debilitating effect of our self righteous insinuations and out prideful orthodoxy? When will we understand that when we are saved by grace we are saved by just that - grace. The only difference between us and the most vile sinner is that grace that we did not deserve reached down and did for us what we could not do. Other than that - there is no difference.
Precious believer - He has done it all. If you are a Christian here this morning - you can leave it to Him. Paul says, “I am confident of this very thing - that He who began the good work in you will bring it to completion.” [Phil. 1:6]
3. A Particular Problem
John 3:19-20
Here is the principle statement - Light has come into the world.
Here is the principle problem - men loved darkness rather than light.
This is the condition of everybody before they were saved.
Friend - here is the problem - the world in its natural state hates the light. Why? Well it is simple really. All sin, no matter what its appearance is from the outside, is the result of one single fact: the heart of man is absolutely rebellious and is ever seeking to be equal with God by whatever means necessary to defy the laws of God so that man can have his own way and not feel like he has to answer to anyone for his actions. Rebellion against God can take on any form.
“They do not come to the Light.”
Anytime you do not come to Jesus, where you are going will run you into trouble!
You are either coming to Jesus or you are running into trouble.
What you repeatedly think, say or do shapes the affections and directions of your heart.
Here is what I have discovered about people who are waiting - for the right time, for the right provision, for the right anointing - they never do anything. We have the command to ‘Go’ - that means we no longer have the luxury of waiting. Now as we go we need to pray for wisdom and revelation - but you will not get it while you continue to wait - because you know as well as I do that we have been waiting too long.
You see my friend, sin is man trying to get equal with God. The truth is that God became equal with man.
4. A Principle Perspective
John 3:21
‘He who practices the truth’ - how many of you know that doing evil is easy - you can just do it - but when it comes to the truth we need to practice it.
Not he who agrees with, knows or defends truth, but he who ‘practices’ truth.
Purpose - that his deeds (not his theology or intentions) might be manifest as being wrought in God.
God is looking for people who will do mighty things for God, and then let the world know that it was Him doing mighty things in them.
God wants to create a personal history with you!
He comes toward the light
No one ever comes toward God but that they discover God was coming towards them.
First - Pursue the God who is pursuing you.
How do your pursue God?
A. Intimacy of Prayer
B. Sacrifice of Worship
C. Faithfulness in Ministry
D. Effectiveness in Evangelism
E. Supremacy of Love
Plus - Pursue the Church that loved God
Plus - Pursue the World God loves.
From a teaching by Bill Johnson
1 Sam. 14:
1 Sam. 14:6 - Jonathan and armor bearer - lets take on the Philistine army.
14:7 - Armor bearer - lets do it. Armor bearer is like a golf caddy - just carries stuff. He is the real hero in the story.
J - let’s cross over to them.
Two of then against an army - and they have only two advantages.
The first is the element of surprise?
14:8-9
Second advantage - the highest elevation
Jonathan asks God for a sign - a terrible sense of appropriateness. If they say ‘you come to us’ it is a sign, and if the say ‘we will come to you’ it is a sign.
How many of you know that when you see bad circumstances, it is a sign that God is going to be doing something great? It is time we had faith to re-interpret our bad circumstances!
14:12 - Have you ever heard that “Come up here we want to show you something?” snigger, snigger.
Jonathan - ‘the Lord has given the Philistines into the hands of Israel’ he had faith the size of a nation.
14:13 - climbed up on his hands and knees. The Philistines fall down in the presence of an anointed man with ‘supernatural courage’
His armor bearer starts acting like a warrior because of Jonathan’s faith.
14:15 - there is a trembling, in the camp, in the field, amongst all the people, in the garrison, amongst the raiders, and even the earth trembled.
Nature will rise to honor the faith of supernatural courage.
Water is longing to be walked on again.
The graves are longing to release their dead again.
Storms are longing to be quieted again.
The sun is longing to be commanded to stand still again.
“Supernatural courage”
14:21 - Hebrews who were with the Philistines joined Jonathan (loved ones gone into the world)
14;22 - Hebrews who had hidden in the fields and caves joined Jonathan. (Loved ones not walking in supernatural courage)
God is getting ready to release a deluge of the miraculous on His church.
Your supernatural courage will call people to their true identity.
Did you know that David was not the only giant slayer in the Bible? There were four others - they were David’s mighty men. (2 Sam. 23:8-31)
Principle - if you want to kill giants, hang around with giant killers.
The Bible says this of Eleazar (the sone of Dodo - not a good start) struck the Philistines until his hand melted onto or got stuck onto the sword.
God is raising a generation of Church who will not lay the sword of ministry down - but 24/7 will serve God with faithfulness.
If you study your Bible history you will discover that where Eleazar slew his giant was in the very same place that David slew Goliath.
Church, it is time to rise up in supernatural courage.
Yesterday I prayed for a cancerous growth and felt it diminish under my hands as I prayed - and satan wrestled with me, as the man cried out in demonic warfare. But he got healed in the end.
This morning in our midst - you may have been an armor bearer - but you are the armor bearer that became a warrior who became a king.
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