Worship Call 0624 WE have all fallen Short

Numbers 21:8–9 (NASB95) — 8 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.”

What was it that a snake on a pole had anything do with anything?

Why?

Can we ask, that if God is so great, and if God simply spoke the world into existence, that rather than making Moses go through the trouble of making a bronze serpent and putting it on a pole for the people to look at, could God just tell these serpents to go away and heal the people?

“Lord, this does not make any sense!”

9 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.

What did they know?

Only apart from hearing the instruction given by Moses that if you look upon that image, you will be healed.

It will not be over another thousand years later that the Word himself bringing light into the world, schools the one who was the expert of the Law and brings meaning to the event.

John 3:14 (NASB95) — 14 “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;

The Son of man. who is and what is and why is the Lord called the Son of man?

That Son was promised

Genesis 3:15 (NASB95) — 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

The Lord told the serpent the devil that one who will come, created lower than the angels will be the one that will win the victory over Satan, sin and evil. What Satan did, in deceiving the woman and when the man sinned it plunged human kind into damnation, would be rectified by a man a human being that would take upon his innocent self the very nature of sin in order to pay that which His own justice demanded.

The point is that God could not arbitrarily forgive man’s sin without himself condoning sin.

where there is perfect Justice, sin incurs and debt that must be paid.

A man through his own disobedience brought sin and death into this world. It has to be a man, the second Adam, that would have to come to rectify the wrong doing.

When sin is rectified then the son of Adam will resume his role as dominion ruler.

Daniel 7:13–14 (NASB95) — 13 “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. 14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

God’s purpose was that a Man, who is perfectly submissive to God, will rule this earthly dominion. That Last Adam will be the Lord Jesus Christ. But before he can rule he must settle the debt.

the Cross must come before the Crown.

otherwise the Kingdom will be an awfully lonely place. there would be a human king. the son of David would have a throne but all his subjects would be spending eternity elsewhere in the eternal lake of fire.

We are all bitten by sin.

Romans 3:9–18 (NASB95) — 9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16 Destruction and misery are in their paths, 17 And the path of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 3:23 (NASB95) — 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 6:23 (NASB95) — 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yes, that includes you.

Yes, that includes me.

we are a part of Adam’s fallen race made in the image and likeness of our fallen Father, Adam.

Oh, You think that you are a pretty good person, Huh.

You have counted up all your goodness and it out weighs your sin.

Can you actually stand before a Judge in court and say,

“I present to you your honor, that throughout my life I have been a good person. I have 1 million 6 hundred and 7 good deeds. therefore murdering that guy in cold blood should be over looked.”

if the Judge let the murderer go on that basis would he be a good judge?

And you say,

But I am not murderer.

Let us look at the ten commandments.

The Ten rules were those that became the preamble of the Law of moses to govern the Nation of Israel. and while that is true, the 10 are also a indictment against every one of us who may think that they are good people and should be excused for our shortcomings.

the ten commandments serves the warrant for yours and my criminal arrest.

Exodus 20:3–4 (NASB95) — 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

Do you place anything in your heart that you love more than God? You are Guilty of Idolatry

Exodus 20:7 (NASB95) — 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

Have you every taken God’s name loosely? Not only GD but OMG any other lose talk that treats God’s name loosely and without thought. Guilty of taking the Lords name in vein!

Exodus 20:8 (NASB95) — 8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Many would like to leave this out. and the very religious moves it to Sunday and say that it is a sin to mow your lawn on that day.

It is not the day that is the issue. It is the faith behind it. The rest for Israel was the one day that all work, even the work of servants and of animals came to a halt. It was a day of rest. A day set apart for worshipping the creator. It was a coming together the Lord and his people in communion. it was when the people set aside the Sabbath, when they found themselves under judgment from God. that is speaking of the yearly sabbath when the people were to give the ground a rest. but they thought financially that they could do better if they set aside the ordinance of God and plant on the seventh year as well. it would cost them 70 years exiled from their land.

the issue of the Sabbath rest is faith. and it has become our Lord Jesus Christ who is our rest.

Hebrews 4:9–12 (NASB95) — 9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It is when we are faithless we remove ourselves from the Lord’s rest and so doing we have sinned. Guilty of breaking the sabbath.

Romans 14:23 (NASB95) — 23 But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

Exodus 20:12 (NASB95) — 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

the only commandment with a promise. where have you dishonored your Mother and Father? treated them with contempt? as an enemy? Guilty as charged!

Exodus 20:13 (NASB95) — 13 “You shall not murder.

Matthew 5:21–22 (NASB95) — 21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

1 John 3:15 (NASB95) — 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Guilty

Exodus 20:14 (NASB95) — 14 “You shall not commit adultery.

Matthew 5:27–28 (NASB95) — 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Guilty as charged.

Look lustfully at someone who is not your spouse you are an adulterer. Guilty

Exodus 20:15 (NASB95) — 15 “You shall not steal.

taken anything that did not belong to you. Guilty

Exodus 20:16 (NASB95) — 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Lying. Guilty

Exodus 20:17 (NASB95) — 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

treasuring those things that do not belong to you. Guilty

How’s your score?

Maybe you do not realize the implication that you enter into this life universally lost because of Adam’s sin, but breaking any one of these commandments you are subject to the death penalty. Just one.

and if you break one, you have broken them all.

James 2:10 (NASB95) — 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

Look in the mirror and repeat after me as I say it to my own reflection.

“I am a idolterous, lying, steeling, cheat, who has murdered my brother, unfaithful to my spouse, faithless in my pursuit of the things of this world over and above my love for the Lord.”

“And these are my good points!”

In short we all have been bitten.

You need a savior

I need a savior

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB95) — 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Jesus took our place. He became that which the serpent represented.

That image in the wilderness of the serpent on the pole, is the image of our Christ whom we look toward who became sin for us, that our dept of sin may be forgiven.

those people did not have it all worked out. they just heard the word of the Lord and obeyed.

I didn’t have it all worked out. I heard the gospel, and it was the message which spoke to my heart that said look toward the cross and you will be healed from the venom which has made your body sick and has brought death to your soul.

there are those who ask, “What does a two thousand year old story about a jew named Jesus who died on a cross have anything to do with my eternal security?”

there was only one way to recovery in the time of Moses, and there is only way now in our time and that is what happened on the Cross when our substitute hung in our place and took our sin in his own body.

Sin makes a debt to God that has to be paid. Christ paid it by becoming that one that hung on that pole.

Do you realize that God did what he did in the wilderness in order to bring Nicodemus, you and I and all who will believe to the place where we can look up at the cross and see our sins nailed once and for all there?