Back to North Pointe Baptist Church
Look and Live
A Sermon Delivered by Pastor Jim Scott Orrick
October 15, 2000
John 3:14,15
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have eternal life.
I hope to preach to you this morning about
salvation from sin. In my text we will
see first, Salvation pictured by the serpent, And as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness. That serpent pictures salvation.
Next we will see salvation provided by
the Son of Man. Verse 14 reads, Even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
And then in verse 15, we see redemption procured
or obtained by the sinner, That whosoever believes in Him should not perish
but have eternal life.
When I was a little boy, one day I was swimming
in the creek with my sisters, Cindy, who is three years older than I am, and
Ann, who is about five years younger.
My parents were there watching us. We were swimming in the old swimming
hole that had a steep bank on one side of the creek, and a small sand bar on
the other. My older sister, Cindy, and
I were diving off the bank. I had just
dived into the water, and when I came up, Cindy was screaming,
"Jimmy! There's a snake after
you!" Now that is a phrase that
is sure to get someone’s attention. I
turned around, and you can imagine my state of mind when I saw an unusually
large snake, just at my eye-level, swimming straight for my head. With virtually no deliberation as to the
course of action I ought to take, I swam as fast as I could to get out on the
other side. Once I was out of the
water, the snake turned around, as if she had accomplished her mission, and got
out of the creek on the other side. It was very unusual behavior for a snake;
they usually make every attempt to avoid humans. In all my years of playing in the woods before then, and since
then, I have never seen an unprovoked snake behave as aggressively as did that
snake.
There was another time when a friend of mine and
I were walking in the woods, and as we were walking along, I looked down, and
there was a copperhead coiled up and poised to strike. It's the only time in my life that I have
ever seen a snake in that posture. But
this copperhead was coiled up and poised to strike. I said to my friend, "Don't move." But when he looked down, and he saw the
snake, of course he moved. He jumped
out of the way. And the snake, as I
recall the story--it may have been embellished in my imagination--the snake
struck at him, but missed. I almost
never kill a snake, leaving even poisonous snakes alone in the wild, but I had
my BB gun with me that day, and I shot that Copperhead until it was dead. It was a really large copperhead -- the
biggest copperhead I have ever seen.
This occurred between my fourth and fifth grade years in school, so I
was about nine years old. And I
thought, "Wow, this is great. This
is a really big copperhead. I think the
newspaper would be interested in this."
So we called the local newspaper and said, "We have killed a very
large copperhead." They said,
"Well, bring it in. We'll take
your picture." So we brought the copperhead
in, and they took our picture and printed it in the paper.
We generally don't have any love for
snakes. We try to avoid them. We don't
want to be around snakes, even if they're not poisonous snakes. But just think how terrible it would be if
suddenly we were beset with a plague of snakes that were poisonous snakes, and
they were so prevalent as to make it very likely that you were going to be
bitten by a snake. Well, that is just
exactly what happened to the children of Israel, and Jesus makes reference to
that story of the snakes coming in among the Israelites, when he says, "As
Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, even so the Son of Man must be lifted
up." There's something about this snake
story that pictures what Jesus Christ was going to do for sinners. So let's turn back now to Numbers, chapter
21, and we'll read this snake story and see how it pictures salvation. We'll begin reading with verse 4. Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the
Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people
became very discouraged 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 our soul loathes this worthless bread." So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the
people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
Therefore 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. Then the LORD said to
Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole, and it shall be that
everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it
on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the
bronze serpent, he lived.
I believe that we are justified to draw two
conclusions from this story and what Jesus says about it. The first conclusion is that the snakes
represent something, and the second conclusion is that the bronze snake on the
pole represents something. Now I
believe that the snakes represent sin and the effects of sin. And I believe that the bronze snake on the
pole represents Jesus Christ on the cross.
Well, how are the snakes like sin and the
effects of sin? For one reason, the
snakes were deadly. These were
poisonous snakes, and they would kill you if they bit you. Many of the people of Israel had died from
having been bitten by these terrible, fiery serpents. And those snakes are a picture of sin. Sin will kill you. In
fact, in one sense, sin has already made you dead. The Bible says that we are all by nature dead in trespasses and
in sins. Sin may appear to be pleasurable. I don't know that any of these Israelites
wanted to play with any snakes, but sometimes people want to play with
sin. And it is as foolish to play with
sin as it would be for you to play with a rattlesnake.
My sister, Ann, is married to a Baptist preacher who preaches in Louisiana. He grew up in Texas. There are four boys in his family, and there used to be one girl. But when she was two years old, this little girl went out on the porch, and her mother heard the little girl screaming. She went out on the porch, and there was a huge rattlesnake that was biting the little girl. So they rushed her to the hospital, but she died.
I have heard that the fear of serpents is a
natural unlearned fear. But I have
tested that theory out on my little girls, and they are not naturally afraid of
snakes, at least when they are very young.
And so it may be that this little two year old girl went out on the
porch, and she saw the rattlesnake, and she thought that maybe it was
pretty. Maybe she heard the rattle and
thought that it was something to play with, and when she reached down to get
it, the snake bit her.
Now the world will try to make sin look very
attractive to you. And Satan will try
to make sin look very attractive. To
prove that, all you have to do is watch advertisements. The advertisements and commercials will make
many sinful pleasures look like they're very beautiful, but I want to tell you
that if you play with sin, you're like that little girl who tried to play with
a rattlesnake. In the end, sin will
kill you. Sin will bite you. Sin ought to be as loathsome to you, sin
ought to be as detestable to you and to me as an old rattlesnake would be once
we know how deadly poisonous it is. Sin
is not something to play with. There is
no question that sin can give you pleasure, but the pleasures of sin are only
for a season. And all of us are by
nature persons who love sin and who want to play with sin. But may God help us to understand that sin
is more dangerous than a copperhead or a rattlesnake. Sin, though it may appear to be beautiful and pleasurable, will
kill you. Now the people of Israel
learned this quickly. These fiery
serpents had bitten them, and they were dying.
And so they went to Moses, confessing their sin and asking for
help. They said, "We've sinned
against God. We've sinned against
you. Please pray for us." And God told Moses to take some metal called
bronze, and fashion it into a statue of a snake, and put the bronze snake up on
a pole. Then God would work miracles
through this snake that was on the pole.
He said that anyone who has been bitten by the poisonous snakes could
look at the snake on the pole, and when they looked at that snake, he would
heal them. And so Moses obeyed
God. He made the snake, and he put it
on the pole. And Jesus says, "Just
like Moses lifted up that snake in the desert, even so the Son of Man must be
lifted up."
So there are some points of similarity between
this snake on the pole and what Jesus did on the cross. When Jesus talks about being lifted up, He
is talking about dying on the cross, and I'm sure that's the way Nicodemus
understood it.
Later on
in the gospel of John, Jesus says to a group of people, "When the Son of
Man is lifted up, then you will understand who He is, and you will believe what
I have said to you."
And the
crowd responded, "We have heard that the Messiah is going to live forever,
so how can you say that He is going to be lifted up?"
See, by their response, we can know that they
understood what Jesus was talking about when He said lifted up. He was talking about dying. There was a rumor among the Jews that the
Messiah would never die, that He would just live forever. And so when Jesus, whom they knew was
claiming to be the Messiah, said that He was going to be lifted up, it took
them by surprise. They said, "What
do you mean, you're going to die? Why? This is unusual." Messiah is not going to die, they
thought. Unusual to them, and it may
seem unusual as well that God can take away your sin because of what a man did
2,000 years ago. It may seem
unusual.
In fact, most people in the world think that if
you are going to be made right with God, you've got to do enough good works to
earn your way to God. That is what
every religion in the world teaches, with the one exception of
Christianity. And even within the pales
of Christianity, even under the name of Christianity, many Christians think
that you are saved by your good works.
Most of you already know this, but if you doubt it, all you have to do
is ask people, "Are you going to heaven?" And if they say yes, just
ask them why. And almost all of them
will begin with the two words Because I. Because I have done this, because I have believed that." But the true answer to the question,
"Why are you going to heaven?" must begin with the two words, Because
Jesus.... because He. Do you hope
to go to heaven when you die? Yes. Why?
Because Jesus died for me. Now
that may seem unusual to you. It
certainly seemed unusual to the Jews in Jesus' day, and no doubt, the snake on
the pole seemed like an unusual cure to the Israelites who had been bitten by
the snake. What do you mean? In order for me to be cured of this
snakebite, all I must do is look at this metal snake? Why, that's ridiculous!
It's preposterous to think of such a thing. But any skeptics who would not look at the
snake, died. And so it is throughout
history: any skeptics who will not believe the simple message of salvation
through Christ crucified, will die in their sins.
So the cure of the snake on the pole, first of
all, was unusual. But secondly, the cure of the snake on
the pole was accessible. God said, "You set this snake up on
a pole." Where? Set it up in the
middle of the camp, where everyone can see it, where everyone can get to it if
they want to. You put it in the middle
of the camp. This unusual cure, you
make sure that it is accessible to everyone who has been bitten by a
snake. And Jesus Christ, like that
snake lifted up on the pole in the middle of the camp, has come not to be the
Savior merely for one group of people, but to be the Savior of the world--to be
the Savior of Gentiles as well as Jews, to be the Savior of white people as
well as brown people, to be the Savior of poor people as well as rich people,
to be the Savior of influential people as well as the Savior of common
people. There is only one God and
one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a
ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Sometimes people will have a disease or sickness for which there is a cure, but the cure is available only on the other side of the world. And the person dies of this curable disease because the cure is not accessible. They can't get to it. But Jesus Christ has come down from heaven to give Himself a ransom for all, that you might be saved. And it is accessible. The Bible says in Acts, chapter 17, "He is not far from every one of us."
Turn in your bibles to Romans, chapter 10, and
let's begin reading with verse 5. Let
the Scriptures guide us in thinking about the accessibility of the cure that
has been provided through Jesus Christ.
Romans 10:5 and following. For
Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the law. The man who does those things shall live by
them." But the righteousness of
faith speaks in this way: " Do not say in your heart, 'who will ascend
into heaven?' " (that is, to bring
Christ down from above) or," 'Who will descend into the abyss?' "
(that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
But what does it say? "The
word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of
faith which we preach): that if you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has
raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. For
the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to
shame." For there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all
who call upon Him. For "whoever
calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.
You see, Jesus is not somewhere up in heaven
that we have to go up there and get Him and bring him down and say, "Lord,
please come and save us." Or He is
not way down there in the abyss, that someone has to go down there and get Him
and bring Him up and say, "Lord, come up and save us." But He has already come, and He has come to
Jews, and He has come to Gentiles, and the word is near you. It's in your mouth, in your heart. That if you will confess with your mouth,
"Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved. So this cure,
Jesus Christ for sinners, is like the snake on the pole: unusual, but
accessible.
Now there's a third similarity between Jesus and
this snake on the pole. The healing
power that came from God through this serpent on the pole was ample.
That is, there was enough for everyone who looked. As long as there were people who were dying
from snakebites, they could look to the snake on the pole, and there was
healing power there. And so from the
cross of Jesus Christ, there flows ample power to save. Imagine if you lived in some third world
country, and your child was dying of a disease, and news came to your village
that in the next village over, there was a doctor who had a vaccine that would
cure your child. So other people had
also heard this, and they gathered their dying children, and they went to the
health clinic, where the medicine, the vaccine, was being dispensed. And so you got in line, and your child was
so weak. You knew that she would die
soon unless she had help. And you
waited and you waited. And you waited
until you were next in line, and then the doctor came to the door, and he said,
"I'm sorry. There is no more
vaccine." You were so close, but
there was not an ample supply. So your
child dies from the disease.
Well, when you come to Jesus Christ, He will
never meet you and say, "I'm sorry.
I have just run out of power to save sinners." If you come to Jesus Christ while you have
life, and you come to Him, and you say, "Lord, I am a diseased
sinner. Sin is killing me, just like
the venom of those snakes was burning in the veins of those Israelites. Sin is burning in my heart. Jesus, heal me, please, heal me." Jesus will never say, "I'm sorry.
I have no more healing power for you." Because, just like the healing power that came through that snake
was ample for all who looked, the healing power that comes through Jesus Christ
is ample for all who look to Him by faith.
So the cure was unusual, but
it was accessible, and it was ample.
And here's a fourth thing. It was affordable. You didn't have to pay money to look at
the snake on the pole. All you had to
do was look. Now looking doesn't cost
anything, does it? And so it is with
Jesus Christ. All you must do to be
saved by Jesus Christ is look. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Doesn't it seem almost too good to be true? But Jesus says it is true, that if you
believe in Him and if you look to Him as the Savior to take away your sins, and
you stop trying to save yourself, and you look to Him, then you will be
saved. It's affordable. Sometimes there are treatments for diseases that a
common person can't afford. But the
treatment for the disease of sin is affordable by all. All you must do is look to Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now there's another similarity between Jesus on
the cross and this serpent on the pole.
The cure of the snake on the pole was exclusive. I mean by that
that there was no other cure provided.
Someone in that camp of Israel may have said, "Well, I've got a
doctor in my family, or I've got a doctor next door. I think that I will ask them to give me some anti-snakebite
medicine. They've been working on this
lately, and they've made a lot of improvements, and so I'm just going to get
some medicine and take some medicine."
You know what happened to that person if they never looked at the snake
on the pole? They died, because the
snake on the pole was the exclusive cure for the snakebite. There was none other that was provided. And there is no other salvation that has
been provided or that will be provided other than the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Jesus dying for sinners is the
only -- it is the exclusive cure for sinners.
And so if you have been thinking, "Well, I'll try some other kind
of medicine. I'll try being a better
person. I'll try being more
religious," you will die in your sin, unless you look to Jesus
Christ. His cure is the exclusive
cure.
And then there's one more similarity that I want
to point out to you between Jesus and the snake on the pole. That snake on the pole was effective.
It didn't matter how far gone you were because of the
snakebite. A snake may have bitten you
more than once. The swelling may have
quickly spread to your body. Your fever
may have been high, your mouth dry, your heart palpitating, and paralyzation already
setting in. But if you looked to the
snake on the pole, you were immediately healed. Similarly, suppose that one of you children were out doing your
chores in the camp of Israel, and as you gathered up a bundle of sticks, there
beneath those sticks was one of the fiery serpents, and before you could get
away, it had bitten you.
"Oh!" you cried out.
But as soon as you had been bitten you remembered, "Moses said if I
just look at the snake on the pole, I will be well." And so you ran around the side of the tent,
and there you could see the snake on the pole, and you just looked to it, and
when you did, you were cured! And you
went about your work. It was effective,
no matter how far the venom had progressed in the body of the person who had
been bitten by the snake. And so it is
with sinners. You may be a very
black-hearted sinner. You may have
engaged in acts of sin that you don't want anyone to know about. It just makes you shudder to think that
you're capable of such sin. And maybe
you've tried to cast it off before and get it out of your mind, and you've
thought, "Oh, I'm too bad for Jesus to save. I'm not worthy to come to Jesus Christ. I could never be a Christian." Let me tell you that the cure of Jesus Christ on the cross is
effective. And if you will look to
Jesus Christ, He will heal you of your sin, no matter how bad it has been. Or it may be that just today, for the first
time, some of you children have thought, "You know, I have been bitten by
sin. Sin is going to kill me. Oh, what will become of me if I die? I'm not ready to meet God. I'm a sinner." And it may be just today that sin has bitten
your conscience. Be like that little
child in the camp of Israel. Today,
look to Jesus. You don't need to wallow
in self-condemnation for months and for years.
Sometimes people will say, "Oh, I don't feel sufficiently bad about
my sin to come to Jesus Christ."
No, you don't, but don't be stupid!
Come to Jesus Christ right now, before this sermon is over. Look to Jesus Christ. And He will heal you because Jesus Christ
upon the cross is an effective cure, just like the snake on the pole was an
effective cure for everyone who looked.
Well, we've seen the picture. Now let's move on quickly to see the
reality. We've seen that the snake on
the pole pictured salvation, but now back in John, chapter 3, let's see
how salvation was provided by the Son of Man.
It says back in John, chapter 3, "As Moses
lifted up the snake in the desert, even so the Son of Man must be lifted
up." Now I've already explained to
you how that lifted up means 'killed.'
And Nicodemus understood it that way, I've no doubt, because the people
of Israel understood it that way. But
what about this word must?
"Even so must the Son of
Man be lifted up." Why did Jesus
have to die? I want you to think about
this for just a moment before I get into a particular answer. If you could save yourself by your own good
works, or if anybody could, then it was senseless for God to send Jesus Christ
to die. But Jesus said it was necessary
for Him to die. And so if God thought
it was necessary for His Son to die so that sins could be forgiven, you should
agree with God. You should believe God,
and you should believe what Jesus Christ says, and receive the sacrifice that
has been provided. So why was it
necessary that Jesus die? Well, it was
necessary because the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. That means that what you deserve because of
being a sinner is death. Well, what is
death? Physical death is the separation
of the soul from the body. In recent
days, I've read that story of the woman who had a little boy who died, and
Elijah was staying with her. So she
came to Elijah and said, "My little boy has died." And so Elijah went up and he prayed,
"Oh, Lord, let the soul of this boy return to him." And his soul came back. What happens when you die? Your soul leaves. There is a separation.
When the little boy came back to life, his soul returned. When the Bible says that the wages of sin is
death, it means, first of all, that you are going to die. Because of sin, you will die
physically. But when the Bible talks
about death as the wages of sin, it's talking about more than physical
death. It's talking about a spiritual
death or a spiritual separation. It
means that you, because of your sin, are separated from God. And your sin is a barrier between you and
God. And in order for you to get
together with God and be right with God, what has got to go? Your sin.
Your sin must be taken away, so that you can be made alive with God,
because to be separated from God is to be spiritually dead. Well, if the wages of sin is death, then if
Jesus was going to be a substitute for us, then Jesus Christ had to die. Now He had to die physically because eventually
Jesus is going to save even our physical bodies from physical death. Right now even saved people die
physically. But because Jesus died
physically, and He arose from the dead physically, then our bodies will also be
raised again from the dead. So Jesus
died physically, but the Bible never emphasizes the physical suffering that
Jesus went through when He died physically.
Instead, the Bible emphasizes that other separation that Jesus endured
in our place. Remember I said that
spiritual death is a separation of our souls from God? Well, if Jesus is going to be our substitute
and take our penalty of sin and bear it for us, then Jesus too had to be
separated from God. Now you think of
what a tremendous burden that was to Jesus Christ, to anticipate being
separated from His Father, from whom He had never been separated throughout all
eternity. Always Jesus had done what
pleased His Father. Always the Father
was delighted in the Son, and the Son was delighted in Jesus. But when God made Him who knew no sin to be
made sin for us, then God poured out His wrath and His anger on Jesus
Christ. And it was so heart wrenching
to Jesus that even before the cross he said, "My soul is sorrowful unto
death. I'm so sad about this I'm about
to die." Later on, Jesus was in
the Garden of Gethsemane, and He said, "Father, if there's anyway around
this, please let this cup pass from me, but I've come to do Your will, and not
My will, but Thine be done." And
God said to Him, "This is my will."
And so Jesus said, "Lo, I come.
In the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will,
Oh God." And so Jesus Christ was
led to Golgotha's Hill, and they crucified Him, and He bled until He died. But before He died, He experienced
death. He experienced separation from
God, so that Jesus, who had always enjoyed and delighted in the presence of the
Father cried out, in the anguish of that hour, "My God! My God!
Why have You forsaken Me?"
And the answer to that anguished question is written on the pages of the
New Testament. He was forsaken so that
you could be received. He died so that
you wouldn't have to. The wages of sin
is death. Now why would God send His
only begotten Son to do such a thing?
John 3:16 gives us the answer:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son."
It may be that some of you have been struggling
with salvation because you think that God won't receive you. You've got the impression that He is an
unhappy God, that He's grumpy, and that He's so mad at you that if you come to
Him, He is going to slap you down. But
listen. Jesus said, "God so loved
the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." He gave His Son because He loved the world. Now doesn't that encourage you to come to
Him? The Bible says that God delights
to show mercy. When I was a child,
sometimes our school would have some kind of a fund-raiser, where the students
would sell light bulbs or sell candy bars or something like that. And after doing that a few times, you kind
of knew whom the grumpy people were in the neighborhood. And you knew who the happy people were, who
were always going to buy something from you.
And it was hard to go up to that yard where Mr. Grumpbucket lived, who
had rottweilers and bulldogs. But it was not so hard to go to that door where
Mrs. Friendly lived who would open the door and not only buy something from
you, but buy two and give you cookies on your way. What kind of God do we have?
I love it when, in 1st Timothy 1:11, Paul calls God, the blessed God. It really could be translated, the happy
God. If you come to Him, be assured of
this: He will receive you.
The Son of Man must be lifted up because of the
sinfulness of those for whom he came to save. The demands of justice said that
a substitute must die for sinners.
Jesus must be lifted up also because of the love of God for the
world. So that's the reality that the
serpent in the wilderness only pictured.
This is the real salvation provided by the Savior.
But now let's go on to the third point. Salvation procured by the sinner. How do you get it? It's wonderful that Jesus has done all of this for sinners, but
what about you? How do you get in on
it? Well, I've already been over it
several times, but let me try to make it even clearer. Look again in chapter 3, verse 15. Jesus says that whoever believes in Him will
not perish but have eternal life. Believes
in Him -- now that's been the sticking point for some of you, hasn't
it? You've wondered, "What does it
mean to believe in Jesus Christ?" Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. If you believe a statement, you think it is
true. Right? If you believe a person, then you think that he is true. If you believe in a person, then you think he's the kind of person who will tell
you the truth – he is the kind of person that you can trust. That's just what it means to believe in
Jesus Christ. You think that He is the
kind of person that you can trust, that He is telling the truth, and you do
trust in Him.
But the Bible uses a number of other words, very
simple words, to make it clear to us what it means to have faith in Jesus
Christ, to believe in Him, to trust in Him.
The Bible says that believing is Jesus is the same thing as coming
to Him. So Jesus says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest." Jesus
says, "Whoever comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." Does that help you? Does coming help you to understand?
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and
wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready
stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power.
Come, ye weary, heavy-laden, lost and ruined by
the Fall;
If you tarry 'til you're better, you will never
come at all.
Come to Jesus Christ!
Come! Oh, everyone that is thirsty, come ye to the waters and drink, and ye who
have no money, come, buy, come buy wine and milk without money and without
price. Come to Jesus Christ and
live.
And then another word the Bible uses to talk
about believing in Jesus Christ is receive. Does that help you? Receive the Lord Jesus Christ. As many as received Him, the Bible says, to
them gave He power to become the Sons of God.
What do you mean, receive Him?
Well, Jesus Christ is a King.
Receive Him as your King. Jesus
Christ is a Priest, who offers Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice
and reconcile us to God. He makes
continual intercession for us. Receive
Him as your Priest. He is a Prophet who
teaches us the will of God by His Word and Spirit. Receive Him as your Prophet.
How else can you receive Jesus?
Receive Him as your Prophet, as your Priest, as your King. Receive Him as your Savior.
And then sometimes the Bible uses the words, lay hold of, to talk about faith. It is as if you’re a drowning person, going down for the last time, and then someone holds out a hand, and says, "Here! I'll help you." You reach. You take that hand. We have laid hold of the hope that is in Christ Jesus. Lay hold on eternal life, the Bible says. Jesus Christ extends His hand to you today and says, "Take hold." Take hold of Jesus, and you will be saved.
And then another concept that the Bible uses to
help us understand what believing means, is to put on Jesus Christ. It's as though you have an old, filthy
garment, and God says, "Here, put this on. Take it, and put it on."
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sometimes in old dramas, like Shakespeare's King Lear, a person can change his identity by simply putting on
different clothes. So in King Lear you have Kent, who changes his
identity to Caius, by just putting on different clothes. In the sight of God, we are sinners. But then Jesus Christ holds out His perfect
righteousness, and He says, "Here, take this. You give Me those old, dirty
clothes." And we make the
trade. Jesus puts on our dirty clothes
and pays the penalty of a sinner. We
put on His clean righteousness, and God sees us and says, "My Son's
righteousness! Come here, My
Son."
"But wait a minute, God. I'm really not Jesus."
"Now, none of that. You're dressed in the righteousness of My
Son, and I'm going to treat you like My Son." That is what God does, when you put on Jesus Christ.
Or another word that the Bible uses to talk
about faith, believing in Jesus Christ is eating. Jesus says, "Everyone who eats of My
flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life." Are you hungry, then, for God?
Then eat Jesus Christ. Don’t
think about how hungry you are, and wonder if you are hungry enough to become
someone who feeds on Jesus. Eat
Jesus. What I'm trying to say is, don't
look to your faith, don’t look to your repentance. Look to the food! Look to
Jesus Christ, and eat Jesus. Does that
help you?
Another word that God uses to picture faith is drink. Are you thirsty? Then drink Jesus Christ.
Does that help you?
Yet another word that the Bible uses in helping
us to understand what it means to believe in Christ is, look. It was this word, "Look unto Me, and be
ye saved, all ye ends of the earth,” that opened young Charles Spurgeon's eyes
to the truth of the gospel. Spurgeon
was a young man about 15 years old. He
was living away from home, doing some schoolwork. He had been burdened about his sin for four or five years. And he made up his mind, that he was going
to go to every chapel in that town to try and find out how he could be right
with God. He got up one Sunday morning,
and it was a terrible, snowy day. But
he determined that he would go to church anyway. But as he went toward the church that he intended to attend, the
snowstorm grew so bad that he had to turn down a little side street, and there
he found a small chapel. There were
only a few people gathered there that morning.
In fact, the snowstorm had been so bad that even the preacher was not
able to make it. And so some man, who
was not a preacher, but who felt that the Word of God should be spoken out that
morning, got up and tried to preach.
And he took as his text, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all ye
ends of the earth." Well, he made
a few headings and tried to preach a little bit, but after a few minutes, he
was at the end of his tether, Spurgeon says.
And then, he looked at Spurgeon, sitting beneath the gallery (we would
say beneath the balcony), he looked at me, and he said, "Young man, you
look very miserable."
Spurgeon says, "Well, it's true. I was miserable, but I wasn't accustomed to
being addressed from the pulpit. But it
was a good blow, and it struck right home."
And then the man continued, "Young man, you
will always be miserable, miserable in life and miserable in death, unless you
obey the words of my text and look to Jesus Christ. Look to Him as He lives a perfect life. Look to Him as He dies on the cross. Look to Him as He is buried.
Look to Him as He rises again.
Young man, Look! Look! Look to
Jesus Christ!"
And Spurgeon says, "I saw the way of
salvation at once, and I looked until I could have looked my heart
away."
Maybe God will bless that little word to
you. I read a sermon of Spurgeon's
years later in which he said that some men will take all night telling you how
to be saved, but the Holy Spirit can do it in four letters, l-o-o-k. LOOK.
Look to Jesus Christ. Believe on
the Son of Man who was lifted up on the cross like Moses lifted up the snake in
the desert, and you will be saved.
Copyright 2000 Jim Scott Orrick
Permission granted for not-for-sale reproduction in exact form including
copyright.
Other uses require written permission. Contact jimorrick@hotmail.com
Scripture from The
Holy Bible, New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by
Thomas Nelson, Inc.