Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Friday, July 18, 2014
The Christian life is not something we do but something which is done to us, JOH 3:7-8.
Because you see religion is Satanic.
Religion has false doctrine, called doctrine of demons, 1TI 4:1.
Religion has a devil’s communion table, 1CO 10:19-20.
Religion has another gospel, GAL 1:6.
Religion has another Jesus, 2CO 11:4.
Religion has another Spirit, 2CO 11:4.
Religion is called “whitewashed tombstones”, beautiful on the outside but inside full of dead-men’s bones.
And so our Lord’s words in JOH 3:7 “Do not marvel” suggest the reaction of Nicodemus. The Holy Spirit came to indwell inside of you, you didn’t feel it or see it either.
The wind cannot be seen, only the effects are visible.
However, you do not know how the wind got there or where it’s going. So, it is with the spiritual birth.
No man has ascended up to heaven, simply means that all Old Testament saints were in Abraham’s bosom and none had ascended into heaven as of yet.
Abraham’s bosom is a reference to paradise which was located in the middle of the earth before Christ ascended into heaven.
He meant that true life could only come out of death.
He meant that in order for a new creation to begin the old creation must be destroyed.
Now, notice that in verse 5, Israel was murmuring against the Lord and against Moses. So that in verse 6 the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people.
Because in verse 6, the word for serpent is the same word used for the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Gen 3, nachash (naw-khawsh’); meaning a snake which hisses, or literally an image of a serpent, or a fleeing serpent (mythologically speaking).
The word for serpent here is the Hebrew word nachash (naw-khawsh’) referring not to a snake but a mythological type of a serpent…..not the actual type.
And they quote verses and passages like ISA 45:7 to justify their opinion, which says “I am the One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well‑being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.
So, these fiery serpents bit the people so that some of the people died and many others were wounded from the poisonous bites of the literal serpents.
Now, in verse 7, notice that they confessed they had sinned and they cried unto Moses for relief.
And Moses cried unto God and the Lord told him to make a serpent out of brass and place it on a pole.
It spoke of Christ being lifted up on the cross in order that He might save, through the look of faith, those who were dying from sin.
The serpent was an appropriate figure of that deadly and destructive power, sin.
In GEN 3:15, the serpents’ seed is said to be unregenerate sinners.
Now, the poison of the fiery serpents’ bite effected the entire system of its’ victims.
There was no deliverance therefore for the Jews unless God provided one.
GAL 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us‑‑ for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”
Now, the question arises, Why didn’t Moses use one of the actual serpents and spike a fiery serpent on the pole?
It would have pictured God’s judgment on the sinner himself and worse still, it would have misrepresented our sinless substitute, TLJC.
HEB 7:26, For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.
The type chosen was in the likeness of a serpent, it wasn’t an actual serpent, but a piece of brass made like one.
The correlates with ROM 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God {did:} sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and {as an offering} for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
HEB 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as {we are, yet} without sin.
However, the brazen serpent foreshadows Christ only as He was lifted up on the cross.
In the scriptures brass symbolizes divine judgment! Upon the brazen altar descended the consuming fire from heaven.
REV 1:15 and His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been caused to glow in a furnace,
Again JOH 3:14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
Brass is harder than iron, or silver, or gold, it told, then, of Christ’s mighty strength. He was able to endure the awful judgments which fell upon Him, a mere creature, though sinless would have been utterly consumed.
1. They were not told to manufacture some ointment as the means of healing their wounds.
Like the poor woman mentioned in Mark 5:26, many spend all that they have but are nothing better, rather worse.
2. They were also not told to minister to others who were wounded and help each other out.
3. They were also not told to fight the serpents.
4. They were not told to make an offering to the serpent on the pole.
Grace ceases to be grace if any price is paid for what it brings.
5. They were told not to look at Moses, the man of God.
6. They were not told to look at their wounds.
To be occupied with self is to be occupied with that which God has condemned.
1. First, Moses was commanded by God to make a serpent of brass, it was something the Lord provided.
2. Secondly, Moses was commanded to fix this brazen serpent upon a pole. Therefore, the divine remedy was publicly exhibited so that all Israel might look and be healed.
3. Thirdly, the Lord’s promise in Numbers 21:8 was that “It shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looks upon it
shall live.”
It is interesting that man became a lost sinner by a look as in GEN 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Now the sinner is saved by a look, ISA 45:22 “Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other.
HEB 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
PHI 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
Faith is simply the eye of the soul looking toward the Lord Jesus Christ, even if it’s only a little faith.
LUK 17:6 “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.”
“God” refers here to the first person of the Trinity, God the Father.
The mental attitude preceded the action. The mental attitude was love, the action was the cross. God the Father loved you before you ever loved Him.
1JO 4:19 We love, because He first loved us.
God’s love for both the believer and unbeliever is centered around the cross.
It is true that God is love and because God is love the cross exists, When a member of the human race by passes the cross or rejects Christ as his or her personal Savior, he then becomes the object of divine wrath.
First of all, Matthew 25:41 tells us hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. The reason is because God has more than one characteristic.
God is love and He is also righteous and just and holy, Habakkuk 1:13, Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, And Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor.
The Bible is very dogmatic about a literal hell, over one hundred-sixty-two texts in the New Testament alone are given, Over seventy were uttered by the Lord.
Hell is said to be banishment from the presence of God, 2TH 1:4.
Hell is a place of torment and punishment, LUK 16:23.
Hell had to be enlarged by God to make room for man, ISA 5:14.
Hell is a place of eternal fire, MAT 13:42,50; REV 20:15 and outer darkness, MAT 8:12.
Hell is a place of worms which discomfort their victims, where the conscience does not die, MAR 9:44;46;48.
Hell is a place where others can be recognized, LUK 16:23.
Hell is a place where people will pray but will not be heard, LUK 16:27.
Hell is a place where desire remains unfulfilled, LUK 16:24-27; REV 22:11.
Hell is said to be a bottomless pit, REV 9:1.
Hell is said to last forever and ever, REV 14:11.
A place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, MAT 13:22.
Hell is a place where the victims are eternally dying yet they are not in a state of death but a process of constantly dying,REV 2:11;20:14.
For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.” world kosmos = the organized world of human beings, those with OSN and spiritually dead.
Spiritual death means more than being separated from God, it means we do not even have the ability to love God.
For God so love the world that (introduces a result clause) When a person has a M.A. the M.A. always produces a result, an action.
His only begotten son, monogenes = only born son, uniquely born son…TLJC was the only member of the human race born without an OSN.
Only one was ever born already a Son of God, everyone else must become a son, they are not born a son.
ROM 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
2CO 5:14…one died for all, 2CO 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, 1TI 2:6 He gave Himself as a ransom for all,
1TI 4:10…He is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. TIT 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
HEB 2:9 by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. 2PE 2:1 the Master bought them,
1JO 2:2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 1TI 2:4 who desires all men to be saved
2PE 3:9 He is not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. ACT 17:30 God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent,