Let's read a passage and then we're gonna pray for these and we'll get to our lesson John chapter 3 very familiar passage of scripture And I'm gonna start at verse 10 John 3 and verse 10 Jesus answered and said unto him aren't thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things Verily verily I say unto thee that We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And we could probably quote this next verse all together. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and grace and the privilege to be here this morning. And I ask you might help us in this class. Thank you for those who are here and we pray for those who may even yet be on the roads or will be traveling in a short bit of time. Just give safety with the snow and help us with that. We thank you for the moisture you provide and just give us safety now as we travel about and thank you for those who are able to be here for Sunday school this morning. We pray for those who are not with us, they're struggling with illness and whether that's the flu or other ailments, we ask your grace upon them, help them. Be with Brother Hoover as he's home, just touch him please. We pray for Paul and Maggie, you know, the needs with Paul's surgery and just working through those All the red tape and the paperwork with the VA, pray you'd help them with that. We think of Laurie and Don's surgeries coming up, just put your hand upon them and guide and direct the surgeons and those who will be giving care and just give them strength and speed the recovery. Father, please we pray. We pray for the Lewis family as they're in California. with all that's going on there, what they're dealing with, we pray for favor with the judge and with others involved with the trial, just guiding and directing those things. Father, please. We do pray for the many folks in California who are dealing with the aftermath and all the effects of these fires and such a devastation. Many folks now are displaced. We ask for grace and mercy in those cases. We pray for the emergency workers who are trying to mitigate these fires, give safety there and watch over them. Father, please, would you work in the midst of all of that and use that for your glory. Father, please, we pray. Thank you that Adrie was able to get back to work and just help her to continue to recover and give her strength. We think of the teens going to Custer and Father, there are many other needs amongst our church family, and you know exactly what those are, and even those that have not been spoken, you know those, and so we ask for you to be gracious and to help us, please. Bless now in Jesus' name, amen. We began last Sunday with an introductory lesson about types, which are pictures. Perhaps we could call them prophetic pictures, as I didn't mention last Sunday that every type has what's called an anti-type. All that means is a type is not just an object lesson or an illustration that we may see, but it's specifically intended to be an illustration of a prophetic truth or event. And so there is a fulfillment. It's not up for grabs. There's a definite fulfillment of those. Each type has an anti-type. That's kind of what limits them, you might say, as opposed to parables or symbols or object lessons, illustrations, et cetera. They're a form of prophecy not just similarity. Well today, we start with what perhaps, in the Sunday School book, he said it's the simplest and most, what was the words he used? The simplest and clearest picture of Calvary. It's one of them. I don't know that it's the clearest one. I think the Passover lamb is maybe a bit more clear, but it is a very clear one. And it is, today, what we look at is the only one that Jesus personally mentions. And that's the brass serpent that Moses puts on the pole, verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. So here's an incident of physical deliverance. The children of Israel have a great struggle that they're working through and they're dealing with, but God intends for that to be a picture of spiritual deliverance in the future when Christ comes. So here's what I'd like you to do. I want you to take your Bible and turn to Numbers and chapter 21. so as you can see in your handout on the right hand side are all the fill-ins for the blanks in the quarterly whatever that's called so you can fill those in at your will but as I read through that and thought about it There's just a few different things I want us to see. Okay, in Numbers 21, we read about this incident that Jesus mentions. All right, it starts at verse four. and says that they journeyed from Mount Hoar by the way of the Red Sea to compass or compass, excuse me, the land of Edom and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. Now, they're in the midst of their wilderness wanderings. Okay, so this isn't immediately right after the exodus and crossing the Red Sea. They've been kind of going through things for a while. And if you look at a map, you can kind of see that. Now what's interesting is, keep your finger there, but go to Deuteronomy in chapter one. Because I want to start out by just highlighting the pressure of the way. That's in your handout there, the pressure of the way. The pressure of the way. So it says here that they're discouraged because of the way, meaning the road or the path. The direction they're going the journey that they're on It's discouraging to them. Okay in Deuteronomy and chapter 1 They're getting ready now to kind of finally cross over. I want you to notice verse 2 It says there are 11 days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Gedesh Barnea It's an 11 day journey But they've been on the journey for, when they finally cross over, 40 years. Talk about a traffic jam. Wow, that's a traffic jam. Takes you 40 years to go on an 11 day journey. If you were trying to get from here to Billings, If weather is not an issue and traffic is not an issue, how long would it take you, say, to go from here to St. V's? You have to go to a doctor's appointment. 20 minutes. 15 if you have a heavy foot. OK. But let's say it takes you four hours. Would that be discouraging? You've, like, missed your appointment. And everything you wanted to do, because now it's late in the day and the other places, the other errands you were going to run, you can't do them because it's after hours. That's frustrating. So imagine an 11-day journey takes you 40 years. Would you be a bit discouraged with that? Yeah. the pressure of the way. The pressure, because the Lord, we're gonna see that we're supposed to make some applications here, okay? In fact, it says in Corinthians, remember, these things are written for our learning through faith and comfort of the scriptures, we might have hope. So there's an application here for us. So I want you to think about all this way now You got your finger in numbers, but we're flipped over to Deuteronomy chapter 1 verse 40 This is after they Moses is recounting everything for them Okay, and they were supposed to go into the promised land, but you remember they didn't sent the 12 spies 10 were bad in Two were good, okay, and they, you know, they started complaining. They didn't want to go, and God said, fine, you can go wander in the wilderness for 40 years. They're like, no, we don't want to do that. We'll go now. No, too late. Well, we're going to go anyways. Oh, you better not. God's not going with you. Well, we'll be fine. Okay. They came back with their tails stuck between their legs, and they said, okay, I guess we got to wander for 40 years. So he's recounting all that. Verse 40, but as for you, turn you and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. Then he answered and said unto me, we have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight according to all that the Lord our God commanded us. And when ye had girded on every man his weapons of war, ye were ready to go up into the hill. And the Lord said unto me, say unto them, go not up. But they wouldn't listen. Verse 43, So I spake unto you, and ye would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, and went presumptuously up into the hill. Well, there's a whole lesson right there, isn't there? Being presumptuous against the Lord, just because we're saved, we think the Lord's gonna make everything we do come out okay. That's presumptuous. And that didn't work out very well. They were destroyed. He says, chased you as bees do. That does not sound good. Okay, not at all. And verse 45, and ye returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not hearken to your voice. That doesn't sound very good, does it? You cry out to God and God says, I'm not listening to you. Kind of like a spoiled child. Making a fuss and the parent says just go to your room. I'm not even talking to you right now But but go to your room before this gets worse Okay Wow, that's kind of what the Lord's saying to them. So ye abode in Kadesh many days according unto the days that ye abode there Okay, my point is the way is hard It's not an easy path The pressures of the way are real. They're not imagined, they are real. Now some of the circumstances are self-inflicted. If they would have trusted God and gone in the first time, they wouldn't have wandered for 40 years. Right? That's right. But, instead, they rejected what God wanted to do, so God took them another path. And so, in the big sense, that's self-inflicted, but even if it's self-inflicted, that doesn't negate the fact that there's difficulties, and the difficulties are real. Again, keeping your finger there in numbers, go to Exodus, Chapter 13 Okay now this is right after the Passover We could look at the 400 years and all of the struggles, but we're looking afterwards okay, and Look if you will please at verse 17 So they've left Egypt Pharaohs let him go, okay? Moses said, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go. Finally, Pharaoh said, get your people and get out of here, after the death of the firstborn. And so there they are, and they're free. 17, and it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. There's something else that's not mentioned here, but that is, that was what was called the King's Highway. That was like, you know, if you're going to go to Bozeman, typically you don't travel the frontage road the whole way. You take the highway, don't you? Because it's right there. Well, the King's Highway was like right over there. It was the easy way. It was the most traveled way. But God didn't take them that way, on purpose actually. Although that was near, for God said, lest peradventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. Meaning girded up and ready to go. They're taking the back roads, so to speak. They don't realize it, but actually God's taking them down a dead-end road, on purpose, because it's going to dead-end at the Red Sea. Mountains on both sides, the Red Sea in front of them. And next thing you know, 14 in verse 1, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pihairoth, between Migdal and the sea, over against Baal Zephan, before ye shall encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled the land the wilderness hath shut them in God took them down a dead-end road on purpose Now we're gonna think about that in the next point But I just I just want to highlight that the pressures of the way are real and Both for the children of Israel. I mean, here we are in numbers and they're discouraged by the way that they're taking. Some of it's because it's long. And they're tired. And they get manna in the morning and quail at night. For 40 years. You might get a little tired of that after a while. Want some flavor You might be tired of walking Packing up living out of a suitcase for 40 years You might become tired of that They're discouraged um They're never anywhere long enough to plant a crop No harvest for 40 years That's why they get manna and quail. If they were there long enough to plant and harvest, they wouldn't need manna and quail. So forty years of no plant, no harvest. Forty years of always on the move. here for a short while and we move on, we stay, we move, we stay, we move, we stay, we move, we pick it up. And in fact, in Deuteronomy 1, the Lord says, ye have encircled this mountain long enough, which tells me they were just going around in circles. Well, that'd be a little irritating. If you're a NASCAR driver, people who are into drag racing, they're not really into NASCAR driving because all those guys do is go around in circles. Left turn, left turn, left turn, left turn, left turn. Where's the skill in that? Well, I mean, there is, but... The point is, they're just going around in circles for 40 years. No harvest. It's called a wilderness on purpose. It's not like taking a stroll through Paradise Valley or something. It's not like they're in the Garden of Eden and it's all lush and green and it's wonderful and we can pick apples along the way. It's scrub grass. It's like driving through North Dakota. You know, for comparison. It's a hard way. In your journey of your life, are there hard things? Yes, there are. And those things are real. So before we kind of bash the children of Israel for being a bunch of whiners, and they kind of were whiners, but then I have to admit, I'm kind of a whiner. We're all kind of whiners. But before we start doing that, let's recognize and at least be honest enough to say, the way was hard. There is the pressure of the way. That is a real thing. Whether it's financial or it's physical, relational, whatever, there's hardships along the journey. Those are real things. Point number two. And that is the intention of the Lord. The intention of the Lord. As I said, God took him down a dead-end road on purpose. He took them that way on purpose. In Deuteronomy, in chapter eight, again, Moses is recounting all this stuff as he's about to pass off the scene and Joshua's gonna pick up the mantle, okay? And so he's kind of giving them, I mean, because this is a whole new crop of Israelites, okay? Everybody that was 40 years old and above, they're all gone now. And their children that they were worried were gonna be taken captive by the giants. They said, oh, they're gonna slay our kids. God says, no, your carcasses are gonna lie in the wilderness and your kids are the ones who are gonna go in and take over the giants. So it's a whole new crop. So Moses is recounting all this for them. Look at verse two, chapter eight in verse two. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years." It wasn't just the dead-end road to start, but it was all the rest of it as well. God's taken them a certain way on purpose. It's long, it's a circuit. There's lack of provisions and protection and so forth. All of these, the real pressures are there. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness. Note what it says. To humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart. Was it thou wouldst keep his commandments or no? God took him that way on purpose. Now sometimes in life there are difficulties and we go in prayer and we should go to prayer. We should. But we go to prayer seeking escape. when the whole reason we may be in whatever that is that we're in is God put me there on purpose. Because he wants me to be humble. He doesn't want me to have an attitude like, I got this covered. presumptuously no problem God got this covered as if he's gonna swoop in like a knight on shining armor on a charging steed and rescue us and It's like there was no trouble whatsoever We may have to go through the trouble He may not deliver us from the trouble in the sense of removing the trouble It's wonderful when, for instance, we've all heard, maybe read, or heard personal testimony, somebody's got a tumor. And so we start to pray for them, for their health. And the next time they go to the doctor, isn't it amazing, the tumor is gone. And that's a wonderful answer to prayer. But God doesn't always take away the tumors. Sometimes we have to go through the surgery. Sometimes we have to go through the treatments. Sometimes folks have to go through the process and they die. I'm not trying to be unkind, but if we're not honest about the reality of that, then our faith is quite shallow and our God appears to be fickle. as if we can just jerk a chain and make it all be better. Because that's not how it always works. I mean, we've been singing this song, some through the fire, some through the water, etc. Right? And that's how it is. Life is filled with real pressures. Some of them are not our fault, some of them are our fault, but the pressures are still real either way. But that thing that we're in is not something that God is shocked about. God intends to use that difficulty to accomplish something He wants to do in our lives. It may be to humble us. To where we look to the Lord and we say, I need God to help me. Because I don't have answers, I don't have the resources. I need the Lord. And especially if we're someone who tends to have answers and have resources, we really need to be humbled. I recognize that really it's up to the Lord. Those folks, it's not funny, it's tragic what's happening in California with the fires, and all the many, many, many people are displaced, and homes are burnt, and some of those are quite wealthy, kind of very high-end kind of places, and they're gone. how quickly we can feel so secure in our possessions and our resources, and they're gone. And we don't have them anymore. They're gone. And there was one report in the news about, you know, the rich and the poor alike are, it's a level playing field now. And they're trying to help each other. And it's interesting, you'll hear statements of some of those who were quite wealthy and to do, they're all upset now and they're all mad that all their stuff is gone. And it is tragic and it's terrible and I'm not making light of the difficulty, but they're learning a lesson that their fame and fortune does not insulate them from wildfires. Well, a lot of times. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And now, right, right. Well, in California, especially, a lot of those folks don't have insurance because a lot of insurance companies quit insuring, providing insurance because of the risk, which that's real for us as well, because camp, our camp, Camp Castle Rock has no property insurance. Because the insurance company won't insurance anymore. We haven't had insurance for the last two, three years. For, you know, if there was a fire or some kind of terrible thing like that. It's not there. They won't give it to us. So, I mean, if a forest fire came through this spring and burnt Castle Rock to the ground, we could still go camp there in tents. But everything else will be gone. Well, anyway, we're kind of straying now, but God had an intention to humble them, but not just to humble them, and to prove thee. He was testing them on purpose. That's a great testimony, Joe. I mean, a problem comes up and you're like, I'll just go to the doctor, there's no problem, I got insurance. And God's, oh yeah, really, you think so? What happens if it's a pre-existing condition? Or it's outside the bounds of your insurance policy? That's not uncommon, is it? No, that's not uncommon. Yeah, Maggie and Paul are struggling with what he needs. So, God wants to do something. He's allowing things at times to be hard and discouraging on purpose. He has an intention of what he wants to do in your life. And sometimes the only way that's gonna come out is if a little pressure is applied. Or maybe a lot of pressure is applied. Where do you get diamonds from? Coal. I don't think too many ladies have like coal necklaces or coal earrings or coal rings. They have diamonds, right? Well, how do you get from coal to a diamond? Pressure and heat. The two things we're always asking God to, you know, relieve me of my pressure and relieve me of the heat. And God says, I'm trying to do a work here. If you wanna be a lump of coal all your life, okay, fine. But if you'd rather be a diamond, then you're gonna have to go through some fire, and you gotta go through some pressure. So God's trying to do something in their life on purpose. Notice it says, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. Now this knowledge is not so that God finds out, as if God's like, I'm not sure if they can make it, I better test them. He already knows, amen? He knows everything. But you don't know how you'll do until you've been through it. Later on in Chronicles, when Hezekiah gets tested with the ambassadors from Babylon, it says, so that he, meaning Hezekiah, will know, you know, I know I can trust the Lord. And I'm not bragging because there could be bigger tests coming along the way. But he's proven himself in the past. And every time I trust him, he proves himself. When I run and look for fix-it-myself kind of answers, it makes it worse. So I had to learn a lesson. And maybe you've learned that same lesson. He's allows those things he has an intention of what he wants to do in your life And so he may be leading you down a dead-end road He may leading be leading you through a discouraging path He may be taking you down a long journey Or maybe one with limited resources and Things are pretty skimpy. And he's trying to prove you. Can you trust? Will you trust me? Will you trust me? Interesting, in the Sermon on the Mount, okay, in the Lord's Prayer, give us this day the next year's provisions. No. Daily. Just as sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, You can't eat tomorrow's food today, or you won't have any tomorrow. You just need enough for today. And so we have to learn to trust the Lord. Number three, so we have the pressure of the way, we have the intention of the Lord, but then, The weakness of the people. Oh, this is convicting. Okay, very convicting. Back here in Numbers, okay. And 21, it says, in verse five, and the people spake against God. So the way's discouraging, okay? But God takes them there on purpose. He's put them through a test. And the people spake against God and against Moses. Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul, notice, loatheth this light bread." We're sick of this stuff. Wow. Again. The people spake against God and against Moses again. This isn't the first time. Now, the last time, you know, there were back in Numbers, it's 11 verse four, I think it is, no, 14, 22, after the whole thing with, you know, the spies, when God tells Moses, get out of the way, I'm gonna whack them, I'm gonna send them to the wilderness, for they've tempted me these 10 times. Now, it's kind of like, okay, it's not three strikes you're out, it's 10 tests and you're done. Okay, boop, you're off to the wilderness. And they kept doing it in the wilderness. It's like they never learned their lesson, just quit complaining and trusting God. They did it about the water. They did it about the food. They didn't like the quail. They didn't like this. They lusted for the leeks and the melons. Let's go back to Egypt. And who do you think you are, Moses? And on and on and on and on. The golden calf and etc. All these things. And here it is again. The weakness of the people. Again. They're straying. Notice it says, We loathe this light bread. The old rabbis said that, they said this was none other than the very Word of God. That's what they were despising. Jesus in John chapter 6 tells them that the manna was, that He's the manna, He's the Word of God, He's the bread of life. In a sense they were despising the Lord Himself. God's own people despising what God provides along the way I know a lot of times we look at the brass serpent on the pole Especially because of the context that Jesus mentions it there in John 3 16 as he talks in Nicodemus and we think about that in reference to salvation But I want to remind you the children of Israel are God's people at this moment. They're not slaves. They've already been delivered. They've already come through that typical deliverance that is a picture of salvation, deliverance from the slavery of Egypt. That's already taken place. They've already crossed over the Red Sea. They've already been wandering for years in the wilderness. It's God's own people who are despising what God's providing. And sometimes that's true with us, too. In Malachi, chapter 1, the Lord has to rebuke the priests because they say concerning all the sacrifices, et cetera, oh, what a weariness it is. They're saying, we're tired of all this. We're tired of it. Hmm, you know, sometimes God makes us go down a long journey that seems redundant And he does it on purpose How precious is he How easy it is for us to get our eyes off the Lord and on the world and what looks like its pleasures and its dainties and so forth. And we get weary with what God provides. But it's a short term look actually. All the goodness of the world will only last till the end of your life. And then it's done. But the glories of heaven are forever. That's important for us to recognize. So lastly then, number four. So we see the pressure of the way, that's real. The intention of the Lord, he's trying to do something. The weakness of the people, at times we're a bit fickle and we're not appreciative of what God's doing. Lastly, victory. Victories in the cross. Now for them it was the brass serpent. Because they're murmuring, they're complaining, Verse 6, and the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. So this is a bunch of people dying because they're murmuring. That's why they're dying. They're really not dying because of the snakes. The snakes are there because they murmured. If they hadn't murmured, there wouldn't be snakes. They brought it on themselves. Now that's a real pressure. That's a real thing. So now there's real snakes biting people, and people are dying. It's real. That's not phony. It's not in their head. So Christian science, which is not Christian or science, is not going to help them. No, it's only in your head. No, that's not true. Those are real snakes, and those are real snake bites, and those are real dead people, and we've buried them. This is real. And so now they turn to Moses. And they confess, we've sinned, we've spoken against the Lord. So God tells them, you know, the brass serpent on a pole, we get that, okay? That's a picture of the cross. Jesus tells us that's a picture of the cross. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The victory was looking to the Lord. That applies for them, and that applies for us. That applies to salvation. Obviously, you have to look to the Lord for salvation, what Jesus did upon the cross. But what he did upon the cross is not just for salvation from sin, so that you're transferred from being a slave to sin to being a servant of the Lord. It's not just for that. It's for the servants of the Lord to stay faithful and not wander back. You have to keep looking to the cross. You have to keep looking to Christ, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. For the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of the Father. So whatever real pressure is in your way, Whether you have to look to the Lord and what he's provided for you to sustain you to carry you through the problem Maybe to deliver you because sometimes he does do that Okay, but that's up to him. It's according to his wisdom What's best for his glory and what's best for your good if the good thing may be for me to go through that problem and endure it, suffer the consequences of it, and the difficulties of it. God helped me, God took me through that. And I'm on the other side of it now. Now not only have I learned to trust the Lord, but I've learned a great lesson I can share with someone else. So whether he's gonna rescue me or he's going to, you know, enable me, whatever he's gonna do with this thing that's in my way, whatever this thing is in your way, that God's trying to do something in your life, okay? The victory so that you don't get bitter and that you don't get tired and start murmuring against God and what he's provided is you have to look to Christ. That's the answer. looking to the Lord. We have to keep looking to Christ. Help me. Look what Jesus did. He died on the cross to save me from my sin. He'll help me. He's given me his word. He's given me his spirit. He'll enable me. Maybe he's gonna have to change me. Maybe what I want in my life or for my life is not actually what he wants for my life. Paul's a great illustration, isn't he? How many times did Paul pray that the thorn in the flesh might be removed? Three times. And I don't think the Lord said no, the Lord just didn't answer. The Lord instead answered his prayer with a question. If God would have said to Paul, That would be kind of arbitrary, wouldn't it? Like, well that ain't right. That ain't fair. But God gave him that thorn in the flesh. God gave it to him. So he answers it with a question. Isn't my grace sufficient for you? I'm not enough? You have to have something more? Oh. Oh. Then what does Paul say? Now I'm going to glory in my infirmities. It's like instead of rejecting them, wanting to be rescued, he embraces it and God strengthens him because of it. And that may be in my life. What I'm facing and what I'm, questions I have and whatever difficulty I may be going through or that you may be going through, God may have to change my opinion about what it is that I'm going through. Because he's trying to do something. Which means I have to look to the Lord. And that's what we need. Looking to the Lord Isaiah 45 22 look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and There is none else Well, let's look to the Lord father. We thank you for this day for your love for us. Would you help us? We might learn a great lesson from this picture from a real event that took place, and you're trying to teach us spiritual principles to apply. Would you help us with that, please? Bless the service to follow, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.