101 / 298
The Types of Redemption
95
Well, what was coming out of their mouths? “We’re all going to die out here. There isn’t
anything to eat; we’re fed up with this manna.”
Have you ever talked like that? Well, the past is past, but don’t yield to it in the future. Snakes
began to move throughout the camp and bite the people. Numbers 21:7 continues, “Therefore the
people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the L
ORD
, and
against thee; pray unto the L
ORD
, that he take away the serpents from us.” Moses didn’t respond,
“Tough. Griping about me and rebelling against me… Pray for yourself. Oh, yeah, you want
Moses
now
. This morning it was, ‘We hate Moses. Moses is the cause of all our problems.’ But
after lunch, it’s, ‘Oh Moses, pray, pray!’” He didn’t say that. You see, one reason why he was
the man in charge was because “Moses prayed for the people.” God knew who to put there.
In verses 8 and 9, it says, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it
upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall
live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a
serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” Glory to God! Is this
a type of Jesus? How do we know? John 3 says so.
Let’s read John 3:14. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of man be lifted up.” Is that serpent on the pole a type of Jesus? There’s no question about it;
the Bible says so. Was Jesus lifted up between heaven and earth, between the dead and the
living? Verse 15 says He was lifted up: “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life.” They got to keep their mortal life a while longer by looking on and believing
on that type of Jesus. We not only get that, but we also get eternal life. “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. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the
world through him might be saved.”
He goes into the next verse talking about condemnation. You cannot have faith until your
condemnation is removed. Condemnation is the faith destroyer. It is the confidence killer. Think
about it. If you’re condemned, you’re not confident—confident in God, confident that He hears
your prayer, confident that your prayer and request is granted. You have to get rid of your
condemnation. There’s only one thing that could do that. The one thing that could cleanse and
purge a guilty conscience is the blood of the Lamb. It is faith in the sacrifice of Jesus, and by
faith in Him, you can have confidence to be saved and confidence that you’re missing hell, but
that’s not the whole thing. You can also have confidence to be healed. You can have confidence
to get free, to live out the rest of your life. But you cannot have condemnation.
There’s something that needs to happen in us in this area, because Christians live in different
degrees of guilt, shame, and embarrassment, and it destroys our faith. It undermines your
confidence in God. You’ve got to have that removed and have the guilt rolled off of you. You
must have confidence that you are clean before God, to know, “I’m made right, I’m made holy.
I’m washed by the Blood.” And when you have that, your faith just comes right up to the
surface, and you can have confidence to receive your healing.