The Gaze of Faith
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today we are going to be looking at a passage in the book of Numbers. Numbers is not a book we typically look to turn to all that often and often times we overlook the importance of it. When we think about this book though in the scope of the Bible though it is a very gospel centered book.
The book of Numbers is the fourth book of Moses. The books of Moses are the first five books in the Bible. It sits in a bit of an awkward spot, it’s not the first and its not the last, it’s not the middle either. It also doesn’t convey stories like in Genesis and Exodus. Though there are stories in it.
Numbers is filled with a mix of technical information like census’s, then there are the law pieces, there are also the historical facts, and stories of their history. Through this mix we can see God working throughout, he is present and working on the people of Israel. In our main passage today we will see him acting in their lives.
One thing that we do see in Numbers that is often missed is the large role that faith plays. This goes for all of the books of Moses, they are called to live lives of faith.
Through all of the Bible faith is an important thing. We see in the New Testament that we are saved by faith. We even see in the book of Romans that in the Old Testament they were saved by faith as well. This is where we get the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, it shows us the great men of the Old Testament and how they were men of faith.
Faith is not a New Testament idea, it is from the beginning, it is even in places like Numbers.
With the knowledge that all scripture is profitable and some background on Numbers and thoughts about faith we are set up to see the beauty of what God is doing in this part of his word.
Lets pray then begin to look at Numbers.
Numbers 21.4-9
Numbers 21.4-9
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? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.”
If this is not a typical two verses to capture the people of Israel I don’t know what is. God has brought them out of slavery, he has protected them, he has even given them food straight from Heaven! Yet they are impatient and ungrateful. This is a repeated pattern that we see in all of their history.
Now I am sure most if not all of you can think of someone that you would describe in that way. Truly though we all get impatient and ungrateful so often. We pray and wonder why God is not answering and then he does answer and we do not give him the credit and thanks. So before you give Israel a hard time you might want to do a bit of self reflection. We should also be grateful for the new covenant after we see how God responds.
Lets see how God responds to this action coming from them.
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
That will set them straight! fiery serpents to kill the people that are acting like they are the seed of the serpent! This is truly something that they deserve after all that God has done for them and they react in this way. We know that this is not the end though, look now in verse 7.
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 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 and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
The people realize their sin and they come to Moses and repent and ask him to intercede on their behalf so that God would remove this from them. What a picture this is of our salvation, we realize our sin and we repent and put our faith in Christ.
God is a merciful God and he hears them and instructs Moses to make a bronze fiery serpent and set it on a pole. When the people are bit they are to look to it and be saved from death. This is the gaze of faith.
They have to have faith to quit looking around to avoid being bit! They have to take their eyes off of the danger and turn to what God has raised before them. If they do not have this faith they will die. This is a big ask, but if they have genuine faith they will do it. God continually ask his people to act in faith this time it is life or death.
Throughout the Old Testament there is the call to leave your own concerns behind and put full faith in God. God has proven to them over and over that when they do this he will provide and care for their concerns, but when they do not do this there is judgment.
Sadly they have a pattern of rebellion. But we are not so different, we to have a pattern of rebellion even after all the great things that God has done for us.
The same goes for us today for salvation and judgment too. When we put our faith in Jesus we are saved. For those who do not put their faith in him there will be judgment. For us it is not as immediate as for them, stories like this show us just how ready that we should be.
Numbers 24.15-19
Numbers 24.15-19
Now if you will turn a few pages with me to chapter 24, we are going to look at verses 15-19.
Before we read those verses though lets get some context. Balaam is called to prophecy against Israel for the king of Moab. This begins to happen right after what we just read. So Moab is the enemy here. As you travel through the Bible you can see that from Genesis 3 there are two groups, there is the seed of the woman that the savior will come through, then there is the seed of the serpent. Cain is described as being of his father the devil, seed of the serpent. Anybody who curses Abraham is cursed, they are seed of the serpent. Moab here is opposing Israel and trying to curse them, they are seed of the serpent.
A problem arises as he tries to curse Israel though, he cannot. He cannot curse what God has blessed. He goes on to describe them in the beginning of 24 like a new Eden! Then in Numbers 24:9 it says “He crouched, he lay down like a lion and like a lioness; who will rouse him up? Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you.”” This is describing Judah! In Genesis 49:9 it says in the blessing of Judah “Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?” Then it ascribes the to him the blessing of Abraham from Genesis 27:29 “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!””
So to make sure you are following so far, Balaam is describing Israel as a new Eden and has attached the blessing of Judah together with the blessing of Abraham. Now lets read Numbers 24.15-19
And he took up his discourse and said,
“The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor,
the oracle of the man whose eye is opened,
the oracle of him who hears the words of God,
and knows the knowledge of the Most High,
who sees the vision of the Almighty,
falling down with his eyes uncovered:
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near:
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab
and break down all the sons of Sheth.
Edom shall be dispossessed;
Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed.
Israel is doing valiantly.
And one from Jacob shall exercise dominion
and destroy the survivors of cities!”
One will come from the line of Jacob and crush Moab. Connecting it all a king will come as we see with the scepter. This king is like a lion, he will come through the line of Judah. This king from Judah will crush the head of Moab, he will crush the head of the serpent. This is describing the promise in Genesis 3:15 being fulfilled! “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””
This king will rise up just like the bronze serpent was raised up before the people. We will have to look to this man with the gaze of faith to be saved! Are you excited about Numbers yet! God just used a prophet who is trying to help an enemy nation prophecy about the coming of Jesus.
So there is a day when one will come from the kingly line of Judah and he will crush the head of the serpent. This is the one that we look to for salvation.
God has just used the wicked prophet Balaam to point to the Messiah and to point to where the elect line is continuing through. There are hints but without this we may be wondering if it is the sons of Joseph or if it is through Moses. Here we see it is through the one who underwent the most change of all the sons of Jacob in Genesis, Judah. More than just that it points to his line being the kingly line. In Genesis, Judah is a picture of redemption. Here he points forward to our redemption.
Later we see it emphasized that Balaam is killed by Israel because he is working for the enemy. Even still God used him to show us this great truth.
This theme continues and we can now turn to the book of Isaiah and pick up with this kingly line.
Isaiah 11.10
Isaiah 11.10
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
In that day one from the line of Jesse will stand as a signal. Jesse is the father of David the king. We are now to the kingly line. This one will stand as a signal. This word signal is interesting when we look and see all the things that the Hebrew word gets translated to. The first one is Exodus 17:15 “And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner,” The word for banner here is the same Hebrew word as signal. There is one other important reference using this word, Numbers 21:8 “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.”” The word pole in our core passage.
So the one from the kingly line of Judah, one from the house and line of David. Will be raised up as a signal, a pole, a banner. This is the one that we are to look to for salvation.
Now for one last passage to bring it all full circle.
John 3.14
John 3.14
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.
This all points to Christ. The one who is born from the line of David the king, the line of Judah, the offspring of the woman. The one who is to crush the head of the serpent. He must be lifted up just as the serpent in the wilderness. Jesus is lifted as our banner. We look to him in faith for salvation. This is our gaze of faith.
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
This is our salvation. Faith in Christ.
Through the whole Old Testament we are looking for something, we are searching for something. We see that it is filled with patterns that are building and they accumulate at Jesus. What we are looking for is the one from Genesis 3.15 that we read earlier. We are looking for the one who will crush the head of the serpent. We are looking for the one that will save us from our sins.
Remember what else happened in Genesis 3. Sin entered the world, Adam went directly against the command of God and because of that we are all sinners by nature. We are deserving of God’s judgment, we are deserving of his wrath. Wrath like that of the flood where all were killed but there was salvation there through Noah. Wrath like that of Sodom, where there was salvation for Lot. Judgment like slavery in Egypt, but there was Moses. All of these are pointing to something bigger. They are all salvation stories in their own right but they are not the final salvation story. They are pointing towards it. There are terrible effects because of sin. We need the final salvation that the Old Testament is pointing to. We need Jesus. This is what it has all been pointing us towards!
Our sin points to our need. The Old Testament points towards our need and what it will look like. And here it is. It says in Romans 10.9
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
and then in Romans 10.13
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Oh what a blessing it is that we have Christ! We look to him to be saved! He has been raised up on the cross to bear the curse for our sins! Our sins were places upon him there on the cross so that his righteousness can be placed upon us. This is the beauty of the cross, it is our pole, it is our signal, it is our banner. All we must do is call on his name in faith for salvation!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, the offspring of Judah, the offspring of king David, has come. He has been raised up and bore our sins so that we can be saved. In this he crushed the head of the serpent with his mighty scepter.
This is the gospel in Numbers.
We are to look to Christ with the gaze of faith. This is the salvation the we need.
Some of you here today have never put your faith in Jesus. You are deserving of the judgment just like the people of Israel were. You need salvation from your sins. If this is you today look no further than to Jesus. Turn to him in faith and be saved today.
Those of you who have put your faith in Jesus and you know that you are saved, look at the beauty of what God has done. See it and bask in all of the goodness of it. See the great power of our God to put all of this in place and know that this is the God who has the power to save and the power to do anything. Walk looking only to him. Do not let your gaze ever drop from him. Let him be your banner.
