Untitled Sermon (4)

MOSES: THE FRIEND OF GOD

See You at the Pole

INTRODUCTION

We've been studying Moses for a long time, and I want to start now by asking why we spent so much time in the OT

(ILL) Reader's Digest - man named doctor Arumagam. And he tells that when he was in med school, he and his fellow pre med students were required to take a difficult class in physics…one day the professor was losing most everybody as he lectured on a very complicated concept and in frustration one of the students rudely interrupted his lecture and said, Why do we have to learn this stuff? And the professor's immediate response was to save lives. And then he resumed his lecture. Well several minutes later the same student spoke up again and said, So how does physics save lives? And the professor coolly replied, It keeps the ignoramuses out of medical school.

why do we have to spend so much time in the Old Testament? I thought we were a New Testament church..

Let me give you two reasons why it's important to study the Old Testament.

#1 WE ARE ENCOURAGED BY THE FAITH OF PEOPLE LIKE MOSES

ROM. 15:4

our hope is strengthened when we read about the trials and the victories of the people of God

their stories inspire us to hold on in hard times and be faithful too.

HEB 12:1

he's talking about all these OT heroes..it’s almost like he says -can't you see Abraham…Moses…David

Follow in our steps. Learn from our lives. And so we're encouraged by the faith of people like Moses.

#2 WE ARE ENLIGHTENED ABOUT JESUS

The “word become flesh” is all over the word become print.

(ILL) I think I've told the story before, Rubel Shelley tells about being at a, artifact stop somewhere in Virginia that had a lot of patriotic items and he was looking at a beautiful copper plate which the artist had engraved the words of the constitution. And it was very expensive and very impressive work and he looked at it and was turning it and something caught his eye…from a different angle he saw the face of George Washington. The artist had skillfully etched into the words of the constitution the face of the first president. And if you didn't look closely you would have seen the words, but you would have missed the real picture.

Jesus = These are the scriptures that testify about me and yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Jesus himself gave divine commentary on how one incident in Moses' life pointed to his person and his purpose, maybe more than any other…this story Jesus himself used to teach about himself.

NUM. 21:4-9

once again we see the Israelites with this grumbling spirit, this ingratitude toward the blessings of God.

For forty years they've been out in the desert and Moses says your sandals didn't wear out and every day you had a miracle for breakfast as manna was on the ground.

God has taken care of you and you've done nothing but grumble about his provision every step of the way.

But notice something different this time. This time they added to their ingratitude the sin of impatience. It says they grew impatient with God. Now I think a little bit of knowledge of the context will help understand this story better.

Remember when we saw the rebellion with Korah and the earth opened up and swallowed the rebels.

Well a few things have happened between that story and this story that help us know what's going on.

NUM. 20:14-21

there's a little story about how Moses wrote the king of Edom. There was a road called the King's Highway that went right through Edom and it would have been a quicker route to Canaan. Can we go through? We'll pay anything to use it…And the king of Edom said no and brought out an army and said you can't come through.

We found out in the book of Deuteronomy that God said to Moses, leave those Edomites alone because they're your brothers. The Edomites were descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob.

So God says, don't go through Edom, go around Edom. That's a lot longer and a lot harder.

NUM. 20:22-29

Then the second thing that happened is Aaron died,

He goes up the hill with the son and with Moses and only the boy and Moses come back and the son, Eliezer is wearing the Ephah, the robe of the high priest and everyone knows what's happened. Aaron has died and it says they had to be out there in that desert at Mount Hor for thirty days as they mourned.

And then something interesting happens in

NUM. 21:1-3

King of Arad comes out, a Canaanite king and he, captures some of the Israelites and all of Israel raises up and they pray to God and God says march against them and they go out for the first time in their lives and they battle Canaanites. Now remember this is the first battle for this whole nation. Sure their parents had battles, but these are the kids. And they haven't been in a battle ever. And they're against Canaanites, and they go out and they take all the cities and destroy everybody under that king.

Now they've lived their whole lives, this new generation out of the desert, and they're sick of it, and they're tired of it, And, they're tired of God's timing. They're having to go all the way around Edom instead of going through it. They've already proven they can whip whoever gets in their way. Here's the real issue,

THEY WERE IMPRESSED WITH THEMSELVES

why do we have to take so long to get there? Why can't we go any way we please? Why can't we take a shortcut? Look what we did to that king of those Canaanites. Why is God making us wait so long to get there?

See, just as their fathers were faithless and thinking they couldn't enter the land with God, so their sons are faithless thinking they can enter the land without God.

it's just as much a distrust of God to run ahead of him as it is to lag behind him.

So once again, God disciplines. It says the Lord then sent venomous snakes among them. Now, if you know anything about that area of the world, you know, it's full of venomous snakes, but there was something different about this.

They immediately perceived that the presence of all these snakes coming into the camp with a judgment from God. And once again, they plead for Moses to do something. And once again, he intercedes for God to do something. And then God does something that is that seems so out of character for him.

The God who says, I don't want any graven images…The God who bans idolatry in any form. God says to Moses, Here's what you do. You make a bronze snake and stick it on a pole and hold it up in camp and whoever looks at it will be healed if they're bitten by a snake. Now is that much of a solution? I'm thinking wouldn't killing the snakes be a better solution?

But God chose this solution for a reason. Because the Hebrews needed to express faith in the wisdom of God. You see they were impressed with themselves.

THEY WERE IMPATIENT WITH GOD

They were doubting that God knew best how to lead the people.

So God intentionally designed a deliverance that demanded that they show faith in his wisdom.

God's plans require us to choose between faith in his word and our own good sense.

Our own good sense says looking at a brass pole is not the answer when you got snakes in the camp. But then again, our own good sense says if you're 99 and she's 89 you can give up trying to get pregnant.

And our own good sense says, you can march around that wall seven times or 100 times but it's not gonna fall down just because you march in a circle. And our own good sense says, you can dip in that river seven times or 70,000 times, but it's not gonna make your leprosy go away. And our own good sense says, how in the world can a crucified peasant make anybody right with God?

See this is where Jesus commentary comes into play.

One night a man came to Jesus who probably was also pretty impressed with himself. He was rich, he was a ruler of the Jews, he was, the Bible says, the teacher of Israel, a respected and powerful rabbi. And Jesus blew him out of the water. He said, none of that matters. What matters is have you been born again? If you haven't been born again of water and spirit, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven.Nicodemus, he couldn't understand that. And so Jesus went back into the Old Testament again and he pulled out this story.

JOHN 3:13-15

Jesus interpreted this story as a foreshadowing of his own necessary death on the cross.

He says, you know, all men are bitten by the serpent. All men have been injected with the venom of hell called sin, and all men are gonna die because of that poison. But here's the thing, instead of trusting themselves and their own strength, men are gonna have to trust in the wisdom of God.

That's how God delivered in the desert. That's how God delivered in Jericho. That's how God delivered at Calvary.

That's how God always delivers. He makes you choose between his wisdom or your strength.

I COR. 1:18-25

Men see the wisdom of trusting in themselves for salvation. But God's plan of salvation will always be different

In God's plan, the righteous will live by faith.

Like Jesus said, everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. And that and that's the last question we want to explore. Why does God do it by faith? Why that way? Let me give you two reasons.

#1 FAITH EXALTS THE GRACE OF GOD

ROM. 4:16

In other words, by grace through faith teaches human responsibility…That’s hard to explain, but but let me just say we don't believe in universalism.

We don't believe that God is just going to say, you know I'm so gracious, I'm just going to save everybody.

God's a holy God and God cannot dismiss the fact that sin has separated us from him. God's not going to just save everybody. So God has to have a way for men to respond to him….but it cannot in any way look like they earned his favor.

And so God chooses the way of faith. Not works, don't misunderstand me. We have to do something to be saved, but what we do isn't the work, because the work deserves payment.

Was it a work for Abraham and Sarah to try to get pregnant? No. But would they have had Isaac if they hadn't tried?

Was it a work for the Israelites to march around Jericho? No. But would the walls have fallen if they hadn't?

Was it a work for the Hebrew to look at that snake on a pole?No.

You see, 99 year old men don't get women pregnant and and watching around the wall doesn't make it come down and looking at a pole doesn't make venom go away.

None of those responses earned anything. They were all acts of faith in the wisdom of God. See obedient faith will involve the human will, but it will never glorify human strength.

Let me explain for example one reason why I like to invite people to be baptized. Baptism is not a work. Nowhere in the Bible is baptism ever called to work. It's a work of God, it's not a work of man. Baptism is a response to faith.

Baptism is a way for us to say to God, I trust your wisdom, I trust your promise, and by faith I am willing to receive what you offer. You don't earn anything. In fact, you really don't even do anything. It's done to you. Faith is just a hand that says, I want to receive what God wants to offer.

#2 FAITH HUMBLES THE PRIDE OF MAN

why did Jesus think of this story when he was talking to Nicodemus? I want to suggest it's probably because he saw in Nicodemus the same pride, the same confidence in his assets that the children of Israel had in themselves. And he said remember Nicodemus…no one has gone into heaven by their own strength and goodness

In other words, Nicodemus, just like the strength of the Israelites could not get them into that land, your assets, your moral attainments, your doctrinal correctness, none of that's gonna get you into heaven.

You do not rise into heaven. The only way we get to heaven is to trust in the one that's been sent from heaven.

And so then to further elaborate, as Jesus reflected on this story the words that followed became perhaps the most important words in the Christian faith.

JOHN 3:16

(ILL) I’m sure I've told you before the story of Mahatma Gandhi when he was prime minister of India receiving three Christian missionaries. And he asked them to sing a song to him that they felt best encapsulated the Christian faith. And they conversed for a moment and chose to sing the Isaac Watts hymn, When I Survey the Wanderers Cross. On which the Prince of Glory died. My riches gain I count but lost, and I pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it Lord, I should boast, saving the death of Christ my Lord. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice to his blood.

I think they made a good choice. It's the cross that sets Christianity apart, poles apart from every other religion of the world. Now I want to close with a warning, very important warning. The object of faith must always be God, and not the object that points to God. You say, what do you mean?

You just heard me say how powerfully I believe in baptism as a faith response, but it's a mistake to say, you know what I'm right with God because I've been baptized. No you're not.

You're right with God because you believe in Jesus.

Or I'm right with God because I've got the Bible stuff figured out. I have studied and studied that Bible.

The Bible points us to Jesus.

You're not right with God because of baptism, or because of Bible knowledge, or because of you're at the right church. There's only one because of in the whole Bible, and that's the cross of Jesus Christ. You're right with God because you have trusted in his wisdom displayed at the cross and not in your own strength. So always keep your faith in God, not in the object that points to him.

Because if you put your faith in the object that points to him, you know what'll happen? You'll start to boast about your strength.

(ILL) I want to close with a story about Larry Nelson, and those of us that play golf have heard that name. It's 1981, it was the PGA Championship, one of the four majors they play on the tour. It was Sunday and Larry Nelson was in the lead.Now he had never won a major before, and if you follow golf you know that winning a major pretty much cement your place in golf history. Now, Larry Nelson is a devout Christian, and because he was in the lead he got to tee off late that day at 01:30 and he had time that morning to go to church service, but he admits he couldn't hardly pay attention. His thoughts were so consumed about teeing off at 01:30 and having a chance to win that tournament. And they got all the way through the service and they got to the very last song, And it was the old rugged cross, and they got down to the chorus. So I'll cherish that old rugged cross till my trophies at last I lay down.And Larry Nelson says when they hit that verse, he suddenly realized that when he stands before the Lord all the awards he's ever accumulated in golf will mean nothing. What will matter is whether or not he clung to the cross of Jesus. Now as it so happens, he went out and won that tournament. In fact he won two more majors including the US Open, he had a great career on the senior tour at his house, he's got a whole trophy case full of all the prestigious golf awards he's accumulated, but if you would go to that trophy case you would also see in there by all this big trophies there's a plaque given to him by his wife. And on that plaque are the words of the old rugged cross to remind him to not put his faith in his strength, but only in the blood of Jesus..