“Resign Ourselves to His Direction ”

Let's take our Bibles this morning please and find that Old Testament Book of Numbers.  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.  It's the fourth book there in your Bible.  If you would like to find it in a pew Bible it is that blue book there in front of you, you can find it on Page 129, and we will look at some things from Numbers 21 here in just a bit.

I had an interesting privilege this week.  I have a friend that many of you know, his name is Jim Orrick, Dr. Jim Orrick, to be exact.  It takes awhile to get to know Jim from his personal presence to think him to be all that he is.  He is one of the most intelligent men that I know.  He is also one of the plainest men that I know and clearest thinkers.  And there was a space in my schedule and he called me, actually he called Joie, and said, "Joie, I'm going away to the cabin for 4 days to do some writing and I need somebody low maintenance to go with me, do you think Tony would want to go?"  [Laughter]  Whatever that meant, I don't know, but one thing he is not is low maintenance, that is when it comes to all the things he asked you to do on a study trip.  We studied alright, and I love having him around because he is just such a grand thinker, and what I did in my study time is work on, Lord willing, a book for the future, but also some sermon and church work.  One of the things I did for me personally for the church is to review again in a bit of detail 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus because it talks about my role and it talks about what I am to be for you, and I pray some things come out of that, and, one of those would be, as your shepherd, I need to provide a very plain path for you in how to know Christ and we'll talk about that in just a moment.  But in my time with Jim, not only did we study, but we reroofed a shed, we cut down the remnants of a huge tree that had fallen and cut it up into firewood and stacked it, after, of course, I restacked the firewood that was in the shed because it was stacked wrong and he wanted it this way instead of this way.

Jim is also a beekeeper and so he had me help him keep bees for a little while, and I've never kept bees before in my life, and do you know what it is to bend over in front of a beehive like this, to pick it up and move it when it is full of several thousands of bees and it sounds like there is a small airplane inside? And there are bees going around you like that and you've never been around them before? Especially since he didn't tell me to dress for the job and I had on short sleeves and short pants!  I don't know if I'll go with him ever again in my life! [Laughter] Actually, I only got stung once and it was the very last thing we did with the bees.

But I also discovered that I am more ADD (attention deficit disorder) than I ever realized.  We went fishing in the afternoons because there were 2 streams close by to the cabin.  We waded both streams; I love to wade streams. Now, it's summertime so you don't need waders, you just go in in an old pair of shoes and your shorts and this one comes out of the bottom of the Grayson Lake, I think, and, at this one point the banks were too steep to be in the water so I was on one back, it's not very wide, and there is a rocky bank on the other side, and I think, "If I plant my lure right by those rocks, surely I will get at least a hit if not a fish," and I threw it over and I planted it in the rocks alright, just the other side of the water! [Laughter] and I couldn't get it off, and it was a really nice lure, and if you fish, you don't like to lose nice lures.  So, it was too deep to wade across comfortably because that would have been maybe up to nose, I don't know, so I just took my shirt off and dove in.  When I came up, Jim said, "Did you dive in with your glasses on?"  [Laughter]  "Yes, I did."  But God is gracious to silly ADD people because I have my glasses.  I got them off the bottom of the river, can you believe it? Thankfully the water was very clear that day.  That has nothing to do with the sermon other than the fact that I really needed to get that off my chest and tell you what I did this week.  No, it was good in the morning times out in the woods with no noise around to open God's Word and look at it and have a good friend to talk to about it.  It was delightful and I pray it will be delightful for you.

But one of the things that came to mind for us, I mentioned just a few weeks ago, and that is "How can I, how can we, how can the leadership, the elders, other leaders in the church help you walk with Christ?"  How many of you want to know how to know God better in a real sense, so that when you pray you have the sense that he is listening to you? When you read his Bible you have the sense that he is speaking to you? How do we do that?  Well, we're going to deal with the thing over the next several weeks, even few months, that we're going to call "Life Basics" and we're going to help you understand things, many things you already know, but to understand them anew and afresh:

·                     How to read God's Word.

·                     How to taste and see that the Lord is good.

·                     How and why you can pray and the purpose of praying.

·                     To know what it means to come together as God's people and worship and sense a purpose here, a dynamic that draws you to God instead of enduring an hour so you can go home and say you have had your religious experience for the week.

·                     The idea of fellowship in the Body; how much we need each other.

·                     How to share your faith; how to be a witness.

Now, I can tell by the looks on your faces that that still talks to you in the way talking about evangelizing and witnessing did talking to people 20 years ago.  I heard one pastor say when he was a kid they would go through his neighborhood and they would run up to doors and then ring the doorbell and then run as fast as they could. Did you ever do that?  Ah…. there are some heads goin' …. Yep, I'm taking notes.

Well, the pastor said, "We do that now except we call it church visitation!" [Laughter] Have you done it? Ding-dong, well, there not home.  Let's go to the next house, hoping they won't come.  That's NOT what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about how you, every single believer, who has fallen in love with Christ, can learn how to be a witness because there is far more to it than sitting down and spitting out a gospel presentation and making a religious sales pitch trying to get somebody to say a prayer.  I'm talking about helping people know God.

So, we're going to begin with the beginning.  Sounds profound, doesn't it?  Numbers Chapter 21:4. It's one of those strange Old Testament stories that seems to be almost meaningless.  If you study it hard you see great meaning in it, but it sheds the greatest light on this Old Testament passage.

Numbers 21:1-35

    [4] From mount Hor they [that is the children of Israel] set out by way to the Red sea, to go around the land of Edom: and the people became impatient on the way.

Now, let met just explain a couple of things.  This is 40 years after Israel has left Egypt.  God has redeemed them by his great and mighty hand out of Egypt.  They came to the edge of the promised land once.  God said "Go in and take it." They said, "The people in the cities are too great." They disobeyed God and he said for every day you spied out the land you will wander a year in the wilderness, and those who were of fighting age all died in the wilderness; 21 years of age and up, they all died in the wilderness.  It took 40 years for that to happen and now they are right at the edge of going back into the promised land.  God has been faithful to them for 40 years.  He has been with them through the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.  When it moved, they moved.  He fed them daily with manna; he provided water for them out of a rock and where there was no water to be had, God miraculously provided both food and water for them.  When we get to this point, Edom, came from Esau, Jacobs brother, said, "You cannot come through our land." They said, "we want to come through your land.  We'll go on the King's Highway, we won't take anything, if anything at all is taken we'll reimburse you at the end.  We're taking nothing from you, it's just a quick route to where we want to get to and Edom said, "No." They brought their whole army out and said, "If you come in here we're going to wipe you out." So they had to go around over some difficult rough country, over some mountainous terrain, but the promised land… they could almost smell it.  And then that's what we're talking about.  From Mount Hor they set out by way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom and the people became impatient on the way.

[5] 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 our soul loathe this worthless food.

Now, we're going to come back to that in a minute , but these are the same questions that they asked as soon as they had been brought out of Egypt through the Exodus.  They said, "God, why did you bring us out here in the wilderness for, to die? At least we had the leeks and garlic and the onions and the food in the pots of Egypt to eat, there was food there, there was water there, and here we're going to get wiped out."  And they had distrusted God, they were discontent with his past provision and they were distrustful about his future provision; they knew better.

 [6] And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; so that many people of Israel died.

[7] And the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against you; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. [8] And the Lord said to Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: a standard; and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. [9] So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it upon a pole,  and that if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

So here you have all the twelve tribes of Israel. It is said by some commentators that the wilderness they went through had these types of snakes and poisonous creatures in it all along and God made them stay away.  One commentator, however, said he believes this is a special creation of God to show that God could do what he wanted, when he wanted, to his people and this was not a mean act of God, as you'll see in just a minute, but it's so strange.  He tells Moses to make this pole, this huge pole, to put it in the middle of the camp.  Now you've got this million to 3 million people, so this had to be a huge thing so that from any point within the camp that could be looked at because the snakes had infiltrated the entire camp, and if you got bit, if you were willing to humble yourself before God in the strangest of ways and look to that snake, you wouldn't die, you would be healed. 

Strange story, isn't it?  It says that many of the people were bitten at first and they died.  Moses made the bronze serpent and if anyone would look at the bronze serpent, he would live.

So the first thing we want to do is learn some lessons from the past.  We want to learn some lessons from the past, the past of these people.  And we won't have to look hard to learn from our past because the first thing we know about us is that we are slow to learn. 

Has God ever provided something in your life, he has consistently been faithful to you, and you go down the road several years, and several miles and you get in a similar situation and you wonder where the hand of God is, you say, "God, where are you? Why are you letting this happen to us?  Why now?  This just isn't right, God." And somehow we've been so slow to learn that he gave us our life to begin with, he's seen us faithfully through how many trials, and how many places, how many times you've gone out in your car and you've been kept safe? How many times you've gotten sick, but you've gotten over being sick?  Life isn't all on its own.  That's our chief mistake, we need to keep learning, Life is sustained by the very power of the word of the Son of God.  In him all things consist and are held together. So, every beat of the heart, every drawn breath of the lungs is a mark of God's continued and steady faithfulness.  But these people had something quite unique.  Every day they saw the presence of God represented in that pillar.  For 40 years their clothes didn't wear out.  He fed them with bread from heaven, called manna.  They had just come off of a great victory where God had allowed them to totally destroy an enemy, and, just because somebody says, "No you can't come through my back yard, you gotta go around," they forgot almost everything they learned.

Do you struggle with impatience and discontent?  Whenever our minds are on us, what we want, you can write down that you will struggle with impatience and discontent. Faith is what casts an eye off of us and onto God, specifically onto Christ, and that is when we grow patient and content.  We are slow to learn!  Is there a lesson you need to relearn?  Is your heart at this point in the turmoil of discontent or impatience because things aren't working out rightly?  What about right this minute? Is there a thing you can do about that source of discontent? Why not take this minute, why not take this time and think upon the God who has been so faithful to you. 

But God did something in this discontent. He sent a direct punishment.  Why did he do that?  Well, because these people had a direct reference to his presence.  They looked at the shoes on their feet that had not worn out.  Every morning when they got up they had manna to get that God had provided for them. They had acted as if when God drew them out of Egypt and their bondage, he had done them a great disfavor.  They were actually mad at God for the good he had done.  "You brought us out here, God." They drew a conclusion, "We're going to die here, God."  Do you ever do that? God puts you in a position and you go and draw conclusions of how it's going to turn out?  You're absolutely certain it's going to turn out that way.  Well, God said, "If you're so certain, I'll let it turn out that way."

They asked him, "Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?"  I love this statement, "For there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food."  [Laughter]  You caught it, didn't you? There's no food, God, and this food's worthless!  And God said, "Now, which one would it be?" No food or worthless food?  Because if you have no food then you have no food.  If you've got worthless food, then you've got some food.  Now, worthless it is, you still have some. Now, which one is it going to be?  You see, the selfishness in our minds makes us senseless.  Worthless food?  It was the Bread of Heaven.  They wanted food like other people have.  They always wanted to be like others.  And God said, "You'll get that food when you get to the promised land."  They were tired of God's provision; they had grown discontent.

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.  Strange.  And the people came to Moses.  Don't you find it interesting that just a few moments before Moses was their greatest enemy and now he's their greatest friend.  They didn't dare go to God himself, they had just spoken about God.  They didn't like God; they didn't like God's spokesman.  But, God, in this particular instance allowed them to feel the sting of their sin.  He doesn’t always do that.  You know, the Book of Ecclesiastes, the wise man, Solomon, wrote this:  "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."  What that says is, if you don't get the consequences for your wrong immediately, you'll do wrong again."  Which, in this context now, makes me ask this question of myself and therefore of you.  If I do wrong, if I do wrong, is my walk with God close enough to God that he would just look at me with his eye, I would sense the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I would immediately repent and change, OR, am I so far from God that I would have to feel the sting, the biting sting of sin's death before I would change?  Israel needed to feel the sting of their sin for if they had not felt the smart of that sting, it is unlikely that they would have repented, Matthew Henry said.

So, the Lord sends these fiery serpents, they bite the people, some of Israel died, and the people came to Moses and said 'We've sinned; we've spoken against the Lord and against you.  Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.  They did the right thing.  They were very specific in their confession.  They confessed sinning against Moses, they confessed sinning against God, and they said would you pray, please pray for us, Moses, and then in Moses here we have a wonderful picture of Christ.  They knew Moses' great interest in heaven.  If Moses had that kind of influence in heaven, what kind of influence do you think Jesus has in heaven?  Who is seated at the right hand of the father, ever interceding for those who come to God by him? Have you asked him much in prayer lately, have you sought his face? 

Moses gives us a great model after the Lord Jesus to love our enemies and we should do that, but I find their request interesting.  Hidden within their request, maybe due to their pain, but I think also due to their need to be in control, they wanted to tell God what to do.  Did you see the prayer?  Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.

Now, that looks like the best remedy doesn’t it?  Doesn’t it just make sense that God would just take the serpents away.  God, I've got this problem here, why don't you take it away?  God sincerely and wonderfully answers their prayer, but he answers it in the most effectual means possible; the most effectual way, because he is after something for these people.  He is not after getting snakes out of the camp, he is after getting sin out of their heart, and there is only one way to do it. And so he gives Moses this strange thing to do.  Moses, I want you to make this bronze serpent, I want you to stick it on a big high pole, a standard for all people to see, so that when they're bitten, they look there.  

[I would…. No, I can't say that.  I started to say I would be willing to wager… but that is not a good statement for the pastor to make. 

You know, if you were here last Sunday, we had an ordination service in the evening for Kevin Burrus and I have no idea where it came from, but when I went in, I had forgotten to get his ordination certificate because we laid it here for all the men when they laid their hands on the ordination candidate they sign his ordination certificate.  I went in to grab his ordination certificate and a pen.  I grabbed the certificate and the folder, I grabbed then pen, and I went like this and I thought, "better not use that one."  It said on it, "Belterra Casino and Resort."  [Laughter]  Now, some of you, I think you planted it.  Robert Clark had the gall to ask me how often I've been there!  Robert!!  I don't know where that pen came from.  Maybe somebody in the office has been going!  [Laughter]  Scott's out of town!  [Laughter] ]

I hate it when I do that….. Oh… I was going to say… If I were a wagering man, I would think this happened.  Moses prays; he gets a word from God, he sits down to fashion, or has one of his craftsman fashion a serpent out of bronze.  These snakes are slithering all through the camp.  "Moses, what in the world are you doing?"  "I'm doing what God told me to do."  "What good is that serpent going to do? We've got a camp full of snakes and all you're doing is making another one out of bronze!  Moses, come on, get with the program here.  Can't you get a doctor? Can't you get some medicine?  Can't we do something to run these out, can't we build a fire to run them out?  Why don't you ask God to get rid of the snakes?"  "I'm doing what God told me to do."  He stands it up on the standard and Moses says, "Now, all of you, if you get bitten, if you get bitten, then you can look to this bronze serpent and God will save you."  "Oh, come on, Moses, that is absolutely ridiculous!"

Have you ever told anybody the gospel and they said, "That is absolutely ridiculous?"  Because the gospel, you see, that the apostles preached was a stumbling block to the Jews, they couldn't see the Messiah crucified, and foolishness to Gentiles.  A crucified God?  Whom before we had to bow and say I can do nothing for my salvation.  There is no medicine  that will work, there are no works that will work, there is no merit I can gain?  I just have to look at this one and believe just like these people had to look and believe. Moses said, "Yes, look and believe."  And some trembling poor soul out the edge of the camp was bitten; their heart was humbled, they knew God was their only hope, and with a very weak and teary eye, they just raised their head and they looked. Because, you see, it wasn't the strength of their faith that saved them, it was the strength of their God behind the means that saved them.  And when we look to Christ, it's not the strength of our faith but the strength of our Savior, it's where we cast our faith. 

So what are these lessons from the past? When God does a work of grace, he does it in a way where he is conspicuous.  He's the one the people could turn to and say, "This is how we got out of our sin and this is how sin got out of us!" Another lesson from the past, very close to that one, is if we help, if we help God save us, God's power and God's goodness are thrown in the shade.  We've got God and we've got us.  Another lesson is this; that human reason is discordant with the ways of God.  And, finally, finally for point 1, [I'm not supposed to use that word until I get to the end]  faith, genuine faith is marked by foolishness.  An ancient commentator said this, something like this, he said, "The distinct  mark of real faith is foolishness so that we would learn to gain wisdom from the mouth of God alone.  I don't know who originally said this, but they said, "Man is incurably addicted to doing something for his own salvation." I would have been shooting snakes, stomping snakes, throwing snakes, burning snakes.  I would have been looking for doctors, just like we do for our own lives today.  God, what can I do to get rid of my sin? I'll do some good deeds.  I'll give some money to the church.  That'll make my conscience feel better.  Faith is marked by foolishness; we'll come back to that in a minute.

And then we need to look quickly at a warning about our nature.  In the Book of 2 Kings, Chapter 18, you don't need to turn there, we find out that this snake, this bronze snake had traveled with Israel through the rest of the wilderness.  Evidently, God chose not to take the snakes away.  He left them there as a reminder.  Even those who didn't die but were bitten suffered and then saw God heal the suffering.  It's also a reminder that as long as we are in this world we are going to battle with and deal with sin and we continually need the cross of Christ to look at to remind us who our savior is.  But there's a warning about these things.  I'm not saying you shouldn't wear the cross as a piece of jewelry, but some of you probably have one on today.  What about other issues?  In 2 Kings we find that Hezekiah was getting rid of Israel's idol worship and one thing he had to do was take this very bronze serpent, years later, that Moses had made and had to grind it up because the people were burning incense to it.  They still had it, and they begin to worship that which symbolized God's salvation.  We have to be careful of our own superstitious nature.  It's a warning about us.  You see, we have the tendency to take that which God uses and turn that into a God.  So, we have to ask ourselves, "Are we worshipping God or are we worshipping his gifts?"  Sometimes we make Bible studies our God.  We would think our spiritual maturity is measured by how many Beth Moore Bible Studies we go to.  Sometimes we make an item of worship, whatever Bible translation it is that we look at, or the songs that we sing.  They become things that constitute to us this idea of God and we, without recognizing it, begin to worship certain things in the church and make that true worship.

A friend told me recently that his mother was sitting in the church with a friend, another lady, while the choir was practicing.  They were singing a tune this other lady didn't recognize, and her comment was, "Man, I don't like those new songs; I like the old ones."  My friend's mother looked down and had a copy of the song they were singing and said, "Well, I think this one's pretty old, it was written in the 11^th Century."  [Laughter]  You see, what is old is new to you if you've never heard it, and things like music in the church, music in particular, age has nothing, age alone has nothing to do with the value of a song.  There are horrible old ones, and there are horrible new ones.  And for those of you who would like to go back a little and get some of the better songs, what are we going to do with those of us who grew up on "Do Lord?"  Do, Lord, oh Do Lord, oh do remember me…. Oh Lordy… (that was the added part). [Laughter]  What did that song mean?  How about, "We are climbing Jacobs Ladder?"  Where did it go to and who climbed Jacob's ladder?  We sure didn't.  Sorry, I'm getting off the subject, let's go back.

They had this snake thing.  They were worshipping it, burning incense to it and all it was, was a representation of what God had done in their lives and he said, "Grind it to powder."  Do you know God or do you know the things, the gifts that God has given you and you worship them?  Samuel Rutherford even had to tell parents in his day, "Let us not make idols out of our children!"  God's great gifts.  But there is greater news to this story than what we have yet uncovered.  Much of the gospel is here.

Take your Bible and turn to John Chapter 3, please.  John Chapter 3:  Jesus is in conversation with a man who knew the Old Testament, I would think, better than anybody in this room.  His name was Nicodemus.  This holds the New Testament's most famous verse, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

However, in our culture, I think the Bibles most famous verse in the New Testament now is, "Judge not that you be not judged."  But in this conversation, he is telling Nicodemus how to be born again. In verse 9,  John 3:9:

John 3:1-36

[9] Nicodemus said unto him, How can these things be? [10] Jesus answered him, Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? [11] Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you did not receive our testimony. [12] If I have told you earthly things, and you do not believe, how cane you believe, if I tell you  heavenly things? [13] No one has ascended up to heaven, except him who descended from heaven, the Son of man [he's speaking of himself].

[14] And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: [15] That whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

In the story of the snake is the gospel truth; it is foundational.  Much of the gospel is here because our Lord said so.  God knew that all along.  That's why this story is actually not so strange.  Think it through with me.  Sin is among us like a stinging serpent.  Don't you wish there are some things you could stop  but you can't?  The devil is the serpent in the Garden in Genesis 3.  He's the great read dragon in the Book of the Revelation in Chapter 12, Verse 3.  According to Ephesians 6:16, presently he is aiming his darts at our shield of faith, at God's children tempting us, throwing things in our paths.  In 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 Verse 56, the Bible says, "The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law."  In the Book of Galatians, we find out that the law, what Moses wrote, is the schoolmaster, the teacher that leads us to Christ.  The law is what points out to us the sting of sin.  How do you know you are not supposed to murder, you're not supposed to lie, you're not supposed to commit adultery? Well, you don’t have to look far in our culture any more to find out that people really don't know that anymore because we're in a post Christian world.  They think it's fine to do many of those things.  And they would call us bigots and narrow-minded for saying, "No you can't; God says you can't."  But, God did say you couldn't.  And when you begin to come under the law of God and it points those things out at you, that you shouldn't covet, and you shouldn't lie, and you shouldn't steal, and that you should love God above all things, and you realize, "I can't do that." And all at once it's like the law shows those snakes all around you, and you run from them, and you say you can't get away from that.  "God, I want to go to heaven, but there's too much dirt in my life.  I want to get away, I want to get away."  He says, "Look at what I've lifted up! Not a serpent but a cross, and my son hangs there."  The law is what brings us to Christ, and when Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness, and now when our sins strikes us and we recognize it by the spirit and the law of God, we look to Christ who can set us free from the law of sin and death and give us the law of Spirit and Life because he gives us his life.  Sin is among us like a stinging serpent, and all of us, if we are honest, will admit we've felt its sting.  And all of us, if we are honest, will really think or really admit that we have thought that this unlikely method of cure may not work.  It is an unlikely method of cure!  Just as the Israelites thought Moses was off his rocker for making a brazen serpent, many people including most of ourselves, if we've thought about it seriously, have really wondered how a man crucified 2000 years ago can cleanse us from our sins.  What about you?  It is terribly unlikely.  Christ has been lifted up, and just as the serpent was in the likeness of those real serpents, Jesus was made, according to Romans 8, in the likeness of sinful flesh.  He was like us except he did not sin.  And so when he hung there on the cross, he took our place.  And 2 Corinthians Chapter 5 Verse 21 says, "He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."  So, how is it I get this sting of sin out of my life?  Please understand what I say.  You become foolish in the eyes of man.  Can you follow me for just a minute?

Good people go to heaven, right?  I couldn't tell you how many times I've asked people if they know for certain they would go to heaven, they start telling me all the good things they've done.  And they start reasoning saying, I don't beat my wife, I don't drink, I don't steal from my employer, my good outweighs my bad.  I know I'm going to heaven when I die.  See, we think our goodness is going to take us there.  This is a silly illustration, but, if Michael Jordan in his prime, would have challenged you to a game of one-on-one basketball, could you have won? So, this God of all Glory who spoke the stars into space, in whom there is no spot of sin, whose son said, "Be you therefore perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect," who demands that perfection to enter into his house of perfection, you think your performance is going to merit there? 

Can you just walk up to the White House and see President Bush anytime you want to?  So, where did we ever get the crazy idea that we could walk up and see God any old time we wanted to?  It wasn't some serpent he hung on the cross, it was his only son, and it wasn't just a symbol.  That's why our redemption was wrought and bought.  When he died, he died with our sins on his shoulder.  And when he was buried, he was put in the ground dead.  And three days later he rose from the dead to prove that he could take those sins away for which he died.  And so, everyone, everyone who looks to him and says, "I have no hope but you, I kneel before you, God, and I say, 'Jesus, the Lord, your Son, is my only hope' and the world looks at you and says, "You idiot!  Do you really think that a man crucified 2000 years ago can do anything?  And come time for death, because we've all been bitten by sin, and the Bible says 'the wages of sin is death,' and we cross from time into eternity, we're going to shout a valiant, "Yes!"

Colossians Chapter 3 tells us to "set our minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."  It goes on to say, "Then when Christ shall appear, you also shall appear with him in glory."  One day we're going to stare at Christ again, except he's not going to be on a cross.  He's going to come back on a white horse, conquering and to conquer. And those of us who know him, who have bent our knee and been a fool before the world are going to look to him, and we're going to join him and we're going to be revealed with him in all his glory and the way that's written in that book, it's as if the world goes, "OH, MY SOUL, they were right!"  And the serpent for the last time bites, and they're sunk, eternally.  An odd story?  I think not!