Lifted Up John 3:14-18
Paul in speaking to the Corinthian church declares that his sole focus is upon Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. Jesus Christ stated as recorded in John 12:32, that if He were lifted up He would draw all peoples to Himself. In John 3, we see the Lord giving Nicodemus an Old Testament picture of this truth calling for the focus of our faith to be fixed on Calvary. It would do us good to look at this account. Please turn to Numbers 21…
I. The Sin of Israel –
• Numbers 21:4-5 “Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged 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? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”
A. Sin is rebellion against God. The people became impatient because things were not going the way THEY want. They began to complain and murmur. They spoke against God’s appointed leadership and against God.
B. Isaiah 30:1 "Woe to the rebellious children," says the LORD, "Who take counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, That they may add sin to sin.”
C. Sin is a willful rejection of God’s will and God’s direction.
D. James 4:17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
E. Sin is the greatest evil in all the world, 'tis the only thing that God abhors, and that brought Jesus Christ to the cross, that damns souls, that shuts heaven, and that has laid the foundation of hell.
F. One sin, even one! - is the "dead fly, that makes the apothecary's ointment to stink"
II. The Consequence of their Sin –
• Numbers 21:6 “And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.”
A. The Wrath of God
1. Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men...”
2. Romans 6:23a “For the wages of sin is death...”
3. Years ago, the Hollywood figure who perhaps was most closely identified with God was Charlton Heston, whose commanding portrayal of godly men in The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur evoked images of a powerful, sovereign God who reigns with a mighty hand and perfect justice. Today, it’s people like Touched By An Angel’s Roma Downey, whose angelic words, "God loves you," transform down-and-out TV characters’ lives each week. The change is telling, isn't it? We have moved far away from any understanding of God as just, powerful, and righteous.. We have focused on God's forgiveness—but we've forgotten the fact that God's righteousness demands that sin be condemned.
4. Ezekiel 18:4 “…The soul who sins shall die.”
5. Sin is the antithesis of everything that God is. Sin is repugnant to a holy God. As a holy God, He must punish sin.
B. Separation from God
1. Numbers 21:7 “…pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us…”
2. Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.”
3. Sin builds a barrier between us and God, and prevents us from having a relationship with Him, robbing us of joy and contentment and keeps us under the impending judgment of God.
4. Romans 3:9, 22b-23 “... Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin... For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
C. A number of years ago a woman named Anna was electrocuted at the Ohio, Penitentiary in Columbus. A last minute appeals had failed. The final moment came, and she slowly stood up and was led to the electric chair. As she passed through the death house corridor, twelve men who were soon to be electrocuted stood at the front of their cells, watching her. She said to them, "Good-bye, all of you." As she came to the door of the execution chamber she collapsed, and was picked up by the guards, and placed in the chair. As she revived, she pleaded with the warden, "Mr. Woodard, don't let them do this to me. Think of my boy. Can't you think of my baby?" Then she cried, "Isn't there anyone who will help me? Is nobody going to help me?" The warden said, "I'm sorry, but we have to do it." At that moment the current was turned on and she went into eternity. Sin will place us where our best friends can't help us. – adapted from W. M. Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."
III. The Remedy for the Judgment of their Sin –
• Numbers 21:8-9 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”
A. The serpent on the pole was not preventative. It was for bitten people. The poison had been injection into them, and without divine intervention they would die. The snakes in the camp were from the Lord. He sent them. It was His wrath that was on this people for their sin of ingratitude and murmuring and rebellion. God chose to rescue the people from the curse with a picture of the curse itself. All they have to do in order to be saved from God’s wrath is look at his provision hanging on a pole.
B. It was sufficient for all, everyone bitten who looks is healed; it is infallible, you do not have to look twice, you have to look once. You do not read of any one who said I looked, but I was not healed, he looked and he was healed. A father could not do it for a son. A mother could not do it for a child. Your friend could not do it for you. A priest could not do it for someone else. Aaron or anybody else could not do it for anyone else but that individual person only had to respond. – copied
C. John 3:14-15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
D. The death of Jesus Christ is the propitiation for all of our sins. The sacrifice of Himself turns away the wrath of God. It is God who is propitiated or appeased by His own provision made in the vicarious, substitutionary, expiatory sacrifice of Christ. The wrath of God was poured out on Christ as He hung on the cross as our sin bearer.
E. 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
F. On January 6, 1850, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who was not quite 16 years old, became a Christian. Here is his testimony: “I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people… The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach… He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth [Isaiah 45:22].” He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus: “My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. “But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me’. . . . Many of ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. Ye will never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the father. No, look to him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some of ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’” Then the good man followed up his text in this way: “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ and great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!” When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say, with so few present he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a primitive Methodists could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to him… And now I can say— E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And Shall be till I die. - C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, Volume 1, 87-88)
IV. The Intercession for those under the Curse of sin –
• Numbers 21:7 “Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.”
A. Moses prayed for them.
B. "God's greatest agency for winning men to himself is the prayers of other men. How few ever enter into the positive, practical power of prayer. It is the mightiest force in the universe, and the Christian world is blind to this fact."- Courtland Meyers
C. 1 Timothy 2:1 “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, [and] giving of thanks be made for all men”
D. Moses went to them with the only cure.
E. 2 Corinthians 5:18 “Now all things [are] of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation”
F. John 8:24 "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."
G. Without us lifting Him up how shall they look and live?
