I WONDER how many of you have read about the serpent of brass which Moses made in the wilderness. You will find an account of it in Numbers 21. The children of Israel had spoken against God, and against Moses, and the Lord sent fiery serpents among them; and these serpents bit the people, and many died. This was the Lord’s judgment upon them because of their sin. Then the people confessed their sin, and asked Moses to pray for them. And when Moses prayed for them, the Lord said to him: “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.”
This was the Lord’s remedy for these poor bitten people, who were dying all over the camp. There was just one thing they had to do, in order to be healed and live, and that was to LOOK AT THE BRAZEN SERPENT. There was the serpent of brass raised high on a pole, so that all could see it, and they just looked at that serpent, and then they were healed. Nothing else could save them. No doctors could cure the bite of those fiery serpents. The Lord only could heal them. And He did so, when they looked at the serpent on the pole.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Dear young reader, just as those people were bitten by the fiery serpents, so have we all been bitten by sin. The poison of sin has ruined us, and exposed us to a far worse death than that in the wilderness. We cannot cure ourselves.
God only can do this. And this He does through Christ; but it is Christ lifted up on the cross. This is God’s remedy for sin, and there is no other. Christ dying on the cross has made atonement for sin, and because of this God saves every poor sinner who believes.
Do you realize that sin has ruined you, and that you cannot save yourself? Ah! then here is God’s unfailing remedy for you. Christ has been lifted up on the cross for you; He has died for you; His precious blood has been shed to cleanse you.
Now what have you to do to be saved from the bite of sin? Just what the bitten Israelites did. They looked at the brazen serpent on the pole; and you have to look to Christ lifted up on the cross. The Israelites looked, and lived. Believe on the lifted up and crucified Saviour, and you shall live. He has been “lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Oh! could you ask more? God has not spared His own Son. He has given Him up to die on the cross. Can you refuse to look to Him, and trust in Him?
We can hardly doubt that all those bitten Israelites looked at the serpent of brass, in order to be healed, unless some were so far stupefied by the poison that they heeded not the call to look. Oh! can it be that any of you have been so far stupefied by sin, that you do not hear the call of God to look to Jesus? Do you not care? Are you about to pass into eternity, ruined by sin, to wake up in the lake of fire, “the fire that never shall be quenched”? If you are indifferent to Christ, this is your terrible condition. Oh! wake up, and look to Jesus now.
“There is life in a look at the crucified One,
“There is life at this moment for thee,
“Then look, sinner, look unto Him, and be saved,
“Unto Him who was nailed to the tree.
“Look, look, look, and live.”
H. R.
ML 03/04/1900