Well, good morning and happy Easter, even though we’re not celebrating it together physically, we are celebrating it. And I believe we have reason even in the midst of a pandemic to celebrate it all the more because nothing can make Easter come untrue. And I think the church can, in the worst of times, be the most joyful people because Easter happened. And Easter happening, that Easter happened, it is a sure sign, it is our sure hope that we have been saved. We’ve been saved from present circumstances. We’ve been saved from present ailments, present ills. And we know that. Our future is secure, not just our future in this life, but eternity to come. So this morning, sitting in your living room, wherever you are, I hope you’re full of joy because nothing changes the empty grave. Nothing changes Easter. It is our salvation. So I want to spend this morning with you remembering our great salvation that the Lord has provided us. Or perhaps you’re listening and you need to hear. Or perhaps you’re listening and you need to hear about it for the first time. This is the salvation of the Lord. And we’re going to be in Numbers, this morning, Numbers chapter 21, verses 4 through 9. Numbers chapter 21, verses 4 through 9.

And here’s what it says. It says, From Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people of the land said, 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, no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 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 may 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.

So this passage, it comes at the end of the 40-year wilderness wandering. The Israelites have been in exile for 40 years. They’re living as nomads because of their disobedience and their disbelief. God told them, when he saved them out of Egypt, to take the land of Canaan, defeat its inhabitants, and have freely, by God’s gracious purposes, plenty. That’s what God wanted them to have. But they refused God’s purposes. And so God refused them his blessing. Never mind his powerful salvation from Egypt. Never mind his supernatural provision of food and water. Never mind his protection from other enemies. They were sure God could not deliver the promised land. So it did not happen for them. The Lord decreed that all the people of that generation who did not believe, 20 years and older, would die in the wilderness and not see the promised land. So Miriam, Moses’ sister, has since passed.

Aaron, Moses’ brother, has since passed. Moses will soon die, he himself being barred from entering the promised land for sins committed. And so what we have here now in Numbers, we have a new generation of God’s people. Ready, you could only imagine, to experience what their fathers and their father’s fathers could not. But a new generation does not necessarily mean a new spirituality. And fortunately, unfortunately, we see the habits, the manners of the hearts of the previous generation have infected the new. Lessons unlearned. Hearts unchanged. So they’re traveling to where God’s telling them to travel, to position themselves to conquer Canaan. And they could have taken this shortcut through Edom, but it doesn’t happen. The Edomites won’t let them do it. And as you could imagine, this aggravated the expedition. The Israelites passing through Edom made the Edomites afraid that they would attempt to take it. And God told them they were not allowed to hurt the Edomites or take their land because the Edomites come from Esau, who is Jacob’s brother. And so God is honoring Jacob’s brother Esau. So for them to go around Edom to get to where they’re going is incredibly out of the way. It’s so much traveling backwards.

And that did not sit well with the Israelites at all. Upon hearing that they’ve got to go around Edom, they become, the scriptures say, impatient. They become highly irritated with God and with Moses. And their shortness with God and Moses, it leads them to do what really ought to never be done. And here’s what they do. They speak against God and against God’s man, Moses. And understand, this is not simply a voicing of frustration. There’s so much more than that. This is a judging. This is a condemning of God and His ways altogether. They voice their disapproval of God really with two mistruths. The first is given in the form of a question. They say, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? Now that’s a devilish question. That accuses God of what they know isn’t true. They know it’s not true because the only life that this generation has had is wandering in the desert. And they know from childhood up until now, God has been nothing but good and faithful to take care of them. The prophet Nehemiah recounts it. He says, You and your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth, and you gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell. So theirs was a supernatural provision. Fruit from heaven, clothes and shoes that perpetually remained new and in good condition. Their biting question really wasn’t a question. It was an expression of distaste. For God, for his ways. And then secondly, they make a bipolar statement. They say, One, there is no food and water. And then they say the opposite. We loathe this worthless food. Or it means despicable, contemptible food. Well, which is it? Do they not have food or just food that they don’t like? What’s the second one for sure? God always met their needs for food and water despite their relentless complaining, their doubting of God’s motives, God’s purposes, God’s goodness. And consider even, God provided for them after they made the golden calf they worshipped. After they refused to go into the promised land. After so many provocations and instances of disobedience in the wilderness, still God kept them those forty years. God has been nothing but for the people. And the people show themselves so often to be against him. Even to the point they’re daydreaming about going back into slavery in Egypt.

How does God respond? Well, God responds the way God should respond. God does what is his prerogative to do as God. God judges them for an outbreak of sinful pride. He sends a great many poisonous snakes to kill many of the Israelites and leave many of them at the point of death. This is the appropriate response to the heart that is set against God and set against his way. So if we’re going to know this Easter Sunday the salvation of the Lord, what we can never do is refuse the way of the Lord. We can never refuse the way of the Lord.

The plain truth about God is this. God only provides his best to us and for us. We forfeit that human pride. But God only provides his best to us and for us. It’s all he can do. It’s all he can do because God is immensely and infinitely good. Never would he be found offering a snake in the place of a fish or a rock in the place of bread. Jesus tells us so. It’s outside of the nature of God to be unkind and cruel. Certainly to his own people. The Psalmist says in Psalm 1, the Lord is gracious and merciful. He’s slow to anger. He’s abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. So not one person can say to another God is good to me but cruel to you or God was good yesterday but chances are tomorrow he’ll be entirely heartless and cold. No, God is a God that does not change in all his perfections in all his attributes. As he is good to us he’s unchanging in that good nature. He says in Malachi to his people for I the Lord do not change therefore, oh children of Jacob you are not consumed. God is committed to being good to his people. Often God would have been right to sweep up the nation of Israel wipe them out for their sins even the whole world for that matter. But Jesus reminds us this that God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good. He sends his rain on the just and the unjust. So God is good to all especially certainly to us in the church. But here’s what we have to remember in and of ourselves God is good but we are not. The world the unregenerate the unspiritual man cannot see anything God does or God gives as good. He simply does not have the spiritual vitality to taste and to see what God does as good. Simply because it runs counter to his own taste his own desires his own perspectives his own hopes his own dreams. Any soul whose citizenry is not in heaven but still on earth does not love who God is and what God’s doing his rules his plans his methods God’s delights to the worldly man are sour they’re bitter things to a fallen man to a fallen world they’re a real drag on what comforts and pleasures could be attained otherwise if God wasn’t in the way. So many times before the Canaan conquest this was the case with Israel they loved the pagan gods they loved the pagan cultures they threw off God and his commandments they were against him. So the authenticity of the phrase God’s people in the Old Testament or the phrase Christian in the New Testament really is only discovered by our response in day to day life to God’s revealed character. Do we love who God is? Are we trusting what God is doing? Are we glad of God’s expectations on our lives? Are we hungry to meet God’s expectations according to his rule? Are we thankful for God’s leadership in our life?

Sinful hands will not hold God’s good gifts. They can’t. They’re a burden not a treasure if we do not love God actually. And loving God actually understands that God loves us better and God loves us first. So that any ill that comes to pass in my life much less things that cause me to pout in life those are from God. Those are gifts from God because God’s doing something in me God’s doing something through me because he loves me. So sour seasons and apparently sour gifts that God tends to give and things that come to pass in our life it requires friends a supernatural faith to see them as good despite what your physical eyes see. And hear me say it to you this the new and old generation of Israelites they could not do that. Despite God’s relentless goodness he was a relentless problem to so many of them. As God was unchangeably good in his nature man is not naturally on his own.

And so it’s exactly because God is good that he must deal appropriately with what is not good in his universe. What is not good is not different from God it’s wrong. We’re very allergic to labeling things as right and wrong today. Let me say God doesn’t have a problem labeling things right and wrong. He doesn’t play that game. There’s no such thing as your truth and someone else’s truth. There’s God’s standard and God is a jealous God. And what God is jealous for the scriptures tell us is his own glory. And what’s glorious about God is his holiness. So God is jealous God has zeal to defend his glory and the holiness of his glory where he sees someone making an attack on it. The Israelites were not attacked with a plague of snakes because God lacks self-control. What he was doing with the snakes was dealing appropriately with sin. They were a sinful people hell-bent on their own way over God’s. To refuse God is to make an affront on God to attack his holiness to attack his goodness. Friends, God demands his people be holy as he is holy. He says it to them up front in Leviticus when he gives them the law. He says, be holy. I am holy. It is God’s impartial standard and it’s not wise and it’s not safe to refuse it. Why do we refuse it? We refuse it because we’re tainted with sin. Our eyes and our hands are tainted. We do not love the Lord our God with all our hearts our souls and our minds. In man we trust. In self we trust. In temporary happiness we trust. So the burden of consequence rests on every person’s shoulders. We have all refused his goodness. And friend, what you need what I need what we desperately need are new hands. I need a new heart. I need a new mind that loves God right that receives God. Friend, you and I need some kind of mercy for all of our wrongs. You know, one of the things that made the COVID-19 outbreak especially bad in New York in past weeks is a heavy amount of pollen this year. So many people with allergies weren’t sure if they just had allergies or if these symptoms were COVID-19.

And I think so often we downplay the symptoms

of the sin nature as if it’s oh, it’s just me. It’s just my temper. Oh, it’s just a vice I have. And what we need to do is with great sobriety recognize friends, all the signs all the symptoms are there. In each of our lives we’ve all broken God’s laws. We’ve all broken his commandments. We’ve all hated someone wrongly in our hearts. We’ve all told a white lie. We’ve all envied others. We’ve all had lustful thoughts. We’ve all had ungratefulness. We’ve all worshiped idols small and big. We’re guilty many times over. Have we refused the way of God and refused his glory? And labels don’t help. It doesn’t help you on Easter Sunday to say I’m listening to a sermon on Easter Sunday. See, I’m a Christian. It doesn’t help you to label yourself evangelical. It doesn’t help you to label yourself a follower of Jesus. You can call yourself whatever you want to call yourself. The question is have you seen your sinful life against the backdrop of a holy, perfect, and good God? Easter, it’s meaningless for you if you have not gripped that inescapable fact that God is holy and each of us we have offended a holy God. If you have not read and be reckoned with that fact, you are helpless. Easter is not good news if you do not believe that you and I and all of us have fallen short of God’s glory. Confess your sin. Confess your sin. Acknowledge your sin. That is the first place. That is the only starting place for Jesus to be good, for the gospel to be good, for the scriptures to be good. It is to recognize and see yourself as God sees you so that God can help you as you need help and you receive it. Can you believe God that you are a sinner under the weight of his righteous and just judgment? You must come to that conclusion.

Look on with me in verse 7 in chapter 21 of Numbers.

It says, 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 my question is, will that work in terms of their question? Is it that simple that after doing such an atrocious thing of speaking against God, they could just go to God and say, Hey, we’re sorry?

The great atrocity of that crime can be lifted with just, I’m sorry? What court in all the world would pardon a high crime with sorry, despite how sincere it is? Yet we find that very interaction happening between God and his people here. We find here in God a treasure of his character, and it is this. It’s not just that God’s willing to forgive gross sin, but with it comes a swiftness. With it comes a speediness. There’s a speediness attached to it. He does not say to Moses, No, a while longer and then a cure. A while longer and then I’ll be willing to talk. He immediately forgives. He does not immediately live the consequence, but he does immediately forgive and provide the remedy. He tells Moses what must be done to save the lives of these bitten Israelites. Who could say how long it takes to make a bronze serpent? I have no idea. A couple hours? A couple days? Longer than the suffering people would like? But the agony of that venom in them would have hopefully served to reinforce how wrong they’ve been, how low they’ve fallen, how low their wickedness had brought them. And just as we constantly, on a day-to-day basis, we see the brokenness in our own lives, we see brokenness in the world, let it serve as an indicator to you that friends, we are under the consequences now of the fall of man. So we can say with confidence even that God is good in disaster because God uses those said disasters to stir us up to repent and to change. If, and it’s a really big if, if we learn, if we acknowledge sin for what sin is, if we acknowledge that sin is ugly, if we see how sin ruins and destroys God’s perfect world, how sin ruins and destroys people, can we acknowledge it? But here is this, can we repent of it and forsake it?

The salvation of the Lord comes, friends,

when we repent fully unto the Lord. The Lord judges in real time. The Scripture makes it clear. God sees everything. There’s nothing that God doesn’t see. His eyes on the righteous, His eyes on the wicked, to repay the righteous man according to his righteousness, to repay the wicked man according to his wickedness. He’s blind to nothing. We’re His creatures in His image. And we can always expect them to be dealt with for our wrongs. What sort of ruler would God be if He was anything less than vigilant and contending with crimes in His universe? As people riot when justice has been aborted or purposely ignored, so we could not think God a right ruler if He was capable of that. The sting in knowing that God is good is this. We are so often the objects of God’s justice. It isn’t someone else over there. It’s you and me. So celebrating a righteous God requires necessarily acknowledging we are so often ourselves on the wrong side of the law. As quick and as much as we are on the wrong side of the law, there is this great truth though. God forgives instantaneously. He’s never slow to administer justice, but neither is He slow to administer forgiveness. The Lord doesn’t sulk. He doesn’t hold grudges, praise Him. He’s not petty like we often are. He’s not harsh as we often are. He always, always, always responds to genuine contrition, real and full repentance.

John says if we confess our sin, He’s faithful, He’s just to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How many times will God forgive us? Jesus was really asked about this. How many times should we forgive other people? Jesus says an infinite amount of times. And the reason why Jesus says we should forgive an unlimited amount of times is simply because God Himself will do that when someone comes in true contrition with true repentance for sins having been committed. Consider wicked King Ahab in the Old Testament who in league with Jezebel turned Israel against God. Executed God’s prophets. Worshiped the Baals. But at the end of so much great evil in Ahab’s life, Ahab humbles himself. And lo and behold, God responds. In 1 Kings 21,

it says, And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days. What a great sinner Ahab was. But what a merciful God was to him. What a merciful God God was and is to us and for us. So what we’ve got to grab about the cross, what you’ve got to grab about the hope and the salvation in Jesus is this. Only a full confession is a real confession.

A whole one. A complete one. A confession accompanied by true repentance. It’s not partial. Because in its partiality, it’s false. A partial confession only shows we’re not all that sorry for what sins we’ve committed. We still love our sin, even if it’s just a little bit. But God will have nothing to do with partial repentance.

Partial repentance shows a heart devoted to two masters. But God, He doesn’t ever and will not ever play second fiddle in anyone’s heart. He will not share you or me with another Lord. He will be Lord alone, either as a great joy to us because we’ve surrendered, or God will be our Lord as a great terror to us because we will not.

Confession, repentance with your head, just saying what you think you ought to say, it will not fool God. It must be true contrition of the heart, a true turning away from sin, because you’ve come by grace to hate sin as much as God hates sin. You hate this sin. You’ve committed so much. It is as if you can say that was another person and I today am someone altogether different. Until we hate evil and love holiness the way God does, oh friends, we have a great deal of repenting to do in life. Anything less than a heart set on a full confession, a full repentance, is nothing but mockery of God’s kindness. It is a spitting upon His grace. It is as King Saul was, only sorry for his sins so life could go back to the way it was. God was a problem for Saul’s life the way Saul wanted to run his kingdom. But you know God sees right through you. God sees right through me our every motive, our every intention, and God sees us, God knows us far better than we do.

So I say to you this morning, treasure the Lord’s instantaneous forgiveness, that forgiveness He gives now that will cover a multitude of sin. Oh how precious it is. Treasure it by living a life of repentance. Be ever turning from your sin. Be ever turning towards God. Turn from more of your sins. Turn from all of your sins. When forgiveness becomes a loophole for more sin, hear me say, it stops being forgiveness. And what you will find in its place will be unbearable judgment. God will not be mocked. You take advantage of His forgiveness, He will not be mocked. Your sins will always find you out, the scriptures say.

Confess them. Find them out before they find you out. Forsake them before judgment comes. Forsake them before judgment comes. Like a wife who’s expected to believe by her husband who’s cheated on her not once, but twice, and again, and again, and it becomes obvious he’s not sorry. He’s just sorry she can’t be satisfied with some of his devotion.

Friend, your great fear in life, your great fear in the midst of a pandemic should not be getting sick. It should be not financial loss. It shouldn’t even be death. It should be a callous heart that’s indifferent to sin, that’s indifferent to holiness,

cannot, will not repent to God. Fear and absence of conviction over sins that break God’s heart.

Daily repent. Oh, daily renew your mind in Christ. This is the lifestyle that God has brought us into. This is the life in Jesus, a life that’s being sanctified in Christ, that’s being made new, that’s restoring. It’s not shrinking back, but it’s going on to glory. So a normal prayer for your prayer life is this. Lord, I want a mind, I want a heart that’s tender towards the Spirit’s conviction. I want a heart, I want a mind that’s sensitive to things that are sinful, that don’t look like you. I don’t want to see things. I don’t want to hear things. I don’t want to have thoughts in me, desires in me that are displeasing. I don’t want to respond in wickedness when you tell me to do something I don’t want to do. When you take something away from me I didn’t want you to take away. Lord, give me a tenderness to love you and love your way despite how it feels. Pray for a zeal, pray for a fire, for righteousness.

And know the Word. Paul says you should seek out what pleases God. So how can you know what you should be confessing and what you should be seeking to obey if you don’t even know what is of God and what is of not God? So again, your labels are useless. You must cling to the truth of the Gospel. Cling to the doctrines of God. Give your life to them fully. Repent of the life you had before. God calls us to repent fully.

Look at verse 10.

Verse 9.

So Moses made a bronze serpent and he set it on a pole.

And if a serpent bit anyone,

he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

And it seems kind of silly, doesn’t it? That someone who is sick physically could look at a bronze serpent and anything useful would happen. Does bronze have some magical property? Of course not. But it’s the thing that God told the people to do if they would be saved. It’s clear, isn’t it? These people are crippled by excruciating pain. They cannot help themselves.

And when they look to their neighbor, to the right or to the left, it’s just as plain. Their neighbor cannot help themselves, nor can their neighbor be a help to them. They’re all struck with the same plight, powerless against the poison of the serpent.

What are they to do? But the one thing that God tells them to do, and what does God tell them to do?

He tells them to look up. He tells them to look up. If they refuse God, it will be their certain death.

If they fail to fully forsake their own wisdom and way, it will be their certain death. They’ve got one hope of salvation. One hope.

Jesus says it so clearly. John chapter 3.

He says, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man lift it up. That whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not come or send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. This Easter morning,

God is calling you to look up.

Look up at the cross of Christ and be saved.

Look up to Jesus.

Know that bronze serpent didn’t have any power. God alone had the power to heal. God called for them not to see the bronze as their salvation, but God as their salvation. God called the people to trust in Him. To have faith in Him. In His way. And this strange, incredible event in the book of Numbers. Oh how it serves only to point us forward to Jesus. The God-man who is lifted up for our sins. Jesus on the cross. Who did only what Jesus could do to carry the weight of our sin and shame. He drank the poison. He drew it out from our blood. He became a curse on the tree in exchange for our freedom. This Easter, look up and see Christ crucified, buried, and raised to new life. Look up and refuse not His sacrifice, His lordship, His kingdom. Look up. Forsaking all your sin, repenting of every crime against the Holy God. Look up. In faith alone, trust the Father’s gift. The gift of salvation. His perfect Son’s life, death, and resurrection. His salvation freely offered to sinners as you and me. If we would by faith receive it. You know, faith understands it has no goodness of its own. Faith understands it has no power. Faith understands it’s entirely dependent on someone else.

So God calls us to be so upon His Son, Jesus. The Apostle Paul says, the righteous shall live by faith. Faith alone can apprehend this gift in Jesus. Faith is the act of denying yourself completely, dying to yourself completely, and being identified in the eyes of the Father as someone who is one with Christ. Jesus,

who was raised to eternal life over sin, and over death, and over God’s ancient foe, that ancient serpent. Jesus on the cross broke His teeth. Jesus took away His power of death. Having died to death, Jesus can die no longer. Having died to sin, those of us who are identified with Jesus by faith are considered sinless forever.

Having been raised up victorious, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent that incited the fall of man in the garden so long ago.

See this morning, Jesus is your salvation. Jesus, who is lifted up now in glory forever. I say to you this morning, behold Him and live. Behold Him and be free. Behold Him and be clean, now and forevermore. I say to you this Easter morning, church, look up and be saved.