Sermon by Bob Bradley - PDF Free Download

BELIEVE Sunday, April 9, 2017 Bob Bradley This morning we were studying in the gospel of John chapter 3, verses 1-16. We got through part of that. However, we talked about Nicodemus and what the Lord told him that he needed to be born again if he was going to be able to see the kingdom of God. We talked about the differences in a fleshly birth, a birth by the water and a birth by the spirit. He told Nicodemus that if he was going to see the kingdom of God then he would have to be born again. The thought we had this morning was this. In the world that we live in everybody we talk to thinks that because they are human, because they have been born in this world as a human being that they automatically think that they become a child of God. Well, that is not right. God is our Creator. God does create us. However, listen, if we are going to be part of the family of God then we must be born into that family. It is just like when you were born into whatever family, whatever your last name is; you were born into that family. Therefore, for us to be a part of the family of God then we must be born into that family. Amen! He wanted Nicodemus to know that. Nicodemus had some things to think about, study about, and ponder upon. We know that he did for a good while. However, He tells him something else here that we want to talk about just for a few minutes tonight. John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 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. Again, keep in mind, this is part of the story that He is telling Nicodemus here. When you go back to Numbers, chapter 21, if you read the story, you will find out that the children of Israel are traveling. They haven t been out of Egypt not a whole big time here. As they are traveling along they came the Bible says here if you look in chapter 21, it tells us where they came to. When they got here, they began to complain. They begin to complain. They were all upset. They were complaining about everything coming and going. I want us to understand this. In life, if we are not content with where God is leading us; then do you know what we are going to do? We are going to complain about everything and everybody. These people were being led by the hand of Almighty God. There was a cloud in the day and a pillar of fire in the night and God was leading them every step of the way. That is an awesome thought. Do you know that? That is an awesome

thought. The God of heaven was leading a million people, or two million people. He was leading them right to the place where He told them that He was going to take them to. Listen. Do you know God has promised you and me if we will just believe Him? God has promised us that one day we are going to be able to go to heaven. He did not tell us we were going to go today. He did not tell us that were not going to be some rough roads. He did not tell us that there was not going to be some problems along the way. He does tell us that if we will just simply follow him, one day we are going to be able to get to heaven. These people here, all they had to do was simply follow Him. In the day, they followed the cloud and in the night, they followed the fire. All they had to do was follow Him. God was going to send the rain. God was going to send something to drink. God was going to give them quail. God was going to take care of their every need. God was going to fight their battles. God was going to do all of that and all they had to do was just simply believe Him and to follow Him. The Bible says in verse 4, of chapter 21 Numbers 21:4 And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. Do you know what that means? The journey that they thought they were going to take; they did not think it was going to be quite this hard. They had a preconceived notion that since God brought them out of the land of Egypt and since they had seen all the miracles that were there; they had seen the Red Sea open up. They had seen all of that. They did not understand that the way they were going to be traveling was not necessarily going to be an easy way. It was going to be a way here that was a hard way. That is what happens. The way is not what they think it is. In life, things come my way that I don t always like. Amen! Things come my way sometimes in life, that may not be pleasant. Truth! Things come in our lives sometimes that we would just not soon to have come, but they do come anyway. The Bible says they got discouraged because of the way. Get this. The Bible says in verse 5, of Numbers 21 Numbers 21:5 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 loatheth this light bread.

Do you know who they spake to and against? They spake against God. They spake against Moses. Numbers 21:5 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 loatheth this light bread. Do you know what the big deal was they had? Do you know what they were so upset about? One thing that they were absolutely despising was the manna that God sent from heaven. The very bread that God sent from heaven, that all they had to do was go out each morning and pick it up and they would have enough to eat all day long; but they said, We hate this stuff. Do you know what the Bible calls it? The Bible calls it angel s food. God was feeding these people right from heaven yet they were complaining. I hope we don t complain. I hope that we don t complain when life gets tough, when life gets hard and when things come that we don t always like and we don t know where the road is going to end. We don t know how long it is going to be before we get out of this mess. I hope that you don t complain. Listen. Listening to the voice of God and following God is the most important thing in our life. We cannot complain about where we are at and still yet thank God at the same time. We are either praise God, or we are not going to praise God. I promise you when you are complaining; you are not praising God. Amen! You are not thankful for what God has done for you. If these people would have been thankful that God brought them out of the Egypt then they wouldn t have been complaining. Amen! Have you ever in life, got in life to the place that you complained. You might as well say you have because I know you have. We complain about the weather. We complain about it being cold. We did not have any snow so we couldn t complain about that. Do you know what we did do? We complained that we didn t have any snow. The kids wanted off from school, so the teachers wanted off from school. Therefore, we complained that we didn t have any snow. The few days here, several weeks ago, when it got up to 80 or 85 degrees; the same people who were complaining about not have snow were now complaining that it was too hot. Amen! Listen. When we are sincerely complaining about where God is leading us to in life; I know sometimes we just say things to be making conversation. I understand that. However, these people here were actually complaining. They were complaining. Listen. They did not have any idea what was going to happen. They did not have any idea how serious it was. Listen. When you complain get this, I am going to say something here when you are following God and you say you are following God, when always complaining about that then look out. Okay! If you say you are following God

and everything in your life you are always complaining about then watch out. The snakes are going to start crawling. Amen! That is what happened here. They complained because of the way. They did not have anything to eat. They did not have anything to drink. They hated the manna that God sent them. The Bible says Numbers 21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. They just did not just appear. They just did not just happen to crawl out from under a rock. The God of heaven sent fiery serpents among the people that He had led out of the land of Egypt. Truth. The same crowd, the same people that He has led out of Egypt, the same people that He has brought through the Red Sea, the same people that He is leading in the daytime with the cloud and pillar of fire by night; the same people now, the God of heaven is sending snakes among them. Does that make you think? Does that make any sense to you? Does that add up to you? Does that add up? The way people look at God today and as the mainstream teaches about God today, God would never do something like that. That must not have been true. That must not be in the Bible. Listen. That is in the Bible. God is the One who did it. Do you know why? Complaining. Get this. THIS IS ALL THE MESSAGE TO NICODEMUS. Nicodemus, you must be born again. Nicodemus, you must be born again. These people stepped across the line with God. These people stepped over the line with God. You might say, can we do that? Yes, we can. We can step over the line. When we step over the line, and when we complain about the way we are on and where God is leading us to and the provision that God has made for us and we complain about that; then we are getting on very dangerous ground. God sent fiery serpents. The Bible says here, among the people. He just did not send them among the people, but do you know what happened? The snakes bit people. Much people of Israel died. Surely, that couldn t be right. Surely, God wouldn t allow that to happen. Surely, God did not institute that. Surely, God did not bring that. That is what we think sometimes. However, God did do that. God did bring that. God is the One that sent the snakes. The snakes bit the people. The people died. This is a tremendous story and a lesson for you and me as to how horrible sin really is. We have all the Bible says sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every man, every woman, every boy, and every girl; we have all sinned and we all have come short of the glory of God. When Adam sinned, and Eve sinned, there was a separation made there between man and God. The fellowship that Adam and Eve had with God, when Adam and Eve sinned; do you know what happened? That was broken. We know that God killed some animals and made some covering for their nakedness, but God told

them; you sinned. You did exactly what I told you not to do. Therefore, you are going to die. The fellowship that Adam and Eve had with God was broken. Do you know what? Animals had to die. They shed the blood and they were made aprons for their nakedness. Things changed from then on. When you and I were born into this world, we were born a sinner. Amen! We weren t born saved when you were born. When you came into this world, you were not born saved. Amen! All you have to do, if we had a picture of you when you were six months old or three months old; do you know what we could show? You weren t an angel by any means. Amen! You weren t an angel. We can watch children and know that everybody wants to talk about children being angels well, we might want to think about just a little bit. They are a great blessing from Almighty God. Absolutely! They are precious and we must take care of them. But I think we are stretching things a long way when we call them angels. Okay! They died. The snakes bit people and they died by the thousands. Could you imagine being in that camp. Knowing that you have been delivered from Egypt, know that you have been following the God of heaven, knowing that you have been eating from His hand; now you complain not only against God but also the leadership God has sent. That is serious folks. Amen! It is serious when we talk about, run down and complain about the leadership that God sends us in our life. Do you know what that is called, when you read the Bible? It is called mocking God. Telling God, God, you don t know what you are doing. God, you don t know what you are doing. That is really what these people were thinking. God, you couldn t know what you are doing. Snakes bit them and they died. They died, they died, and they died. If you and I would have been there and we got bit; do you know what would have happened to us? We would have died. These people died. The Bible says, when you go on here and read; verse 7 Numbers 21:7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. Get this. we have sinned. They didn t say, We made a mistake. They didn t say, We messed up here. Amen! They didn t say, We did something that maybe we shouldn t have done. But they said, We have sinned. We know that God wants us to live on this level and not go across and not step beyond this line. We know what God expects out of us. We know that God is leading us, feeding us, and God is taking us to a promised land that He has promised us. We have stepped across the line. We have

missed the mark is actually what the word sin means. We have missed the mark, a mark that God has put for us to live by. They Bible says Numbers 21:7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. Get this. We have spoken against the LORD Amen! And against thee. They were doing some serious repenting. Don t you think? Getting to the place they said, We have sinned against God. We have spoken against God, but also Moses, we have talked about you too. Do you know why they did that? Because they were getting serious with Almighty God. They saw that God was serious. They saw that they were going to die if they did not repent. Listen. Tonight, if we don t repent of our sins we are going to die. People are going to die spiritually and be ever separated from the God of heaven simply because we won t repent. If these people would not repent, every last one of them that got bit by snakes would have died. Every one of them would have. There was no hope. Listen. If you are not saved tonight, there is no hope for you. You have been bitten by sin. Get this. I m not done. Hold on. You have been bitten by sin and the way you are living now there is no hope for you. If you continue living in your sin, there is no hope for you. Nicodemus, if you continue living the life that you are living; you are going to die. You are going to die. Nicodemus knew this story well. He would have been a man that was very familiar with this story. The Bible says they repented. They said, We have sinned. We spoke against Moses. We spoke against you Lord. He says here, Pray unto the Lord, that He might take away the serpents from us. Moses, prayed for the people. The Bible says that Moses was a meek man. He had to be meek. That does not mean that he let people run over him. He had to be a fellow actually, the word meek means power under control he had to be a fellow that had tremendous power and we know that he did. Yet that power was all in control. People that he has led and gone before and fought for; now they are talking about Him and not only him but also about God. They repent. Do you know what Moses does? He prays for them. That tells me a little about Moses. Doesn t it you? It tells you how much of a God-man he really was. The Bible says that God says something here. Numbers 21:8 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.

Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. God tells Moses here, Moses, get you a serpent. Make a serpent of brass. Take it and put it on a pole. Set it in the camp. Tell the people all that have to do if they want to live is simply look to the serpent. That is all they had to do. They did not need to go to Walmart. They did not need to get any antivenom. They did not need to rub any lotions on them. They did not need to jump up and down and hoot and holler. They did not need to call a prayer meeting. They did not need somebody to come along and lay their hand on them and say you re healed. They did not do that. It didn t cost them a dime. They did not have to get in a prayer line somewhere. All they had to do if they wanted to live was to look. However, to look meant something. When the people were told that if they wanted to live and all that they needed to do was just look at the serpent. Them looking meant something. When they came, and looked at the serpent on the pole, that meant they believed the Words of God. They believed what God said. They believed the very message that God had given Moses. Hey, God says if I want to live all I have to do is look at this snake, or the pole, or this serpent, or this brass. I can live. That means they simply took God at His Word. You will never get saved folks if you don t take God at His Word. If you have trouble if you never believe God; the only sin that God will never forgive is the sin of unbelief. You must believe Him before you will ever be saved. These people here when they looked at the pole, they were believing the message of God. They probably were crawling over dead people and jumping over dead people. They may have been looking around trees and poles. They may be looking around tents. I would say there was a bunch of people trying to do everything they could just to be able to get a glimpse of the pole. Something miraculous happened; they looked and the very thing that was killing them stopped killing them, stopped killing them. Nicodemus, the Son of man is going to be lifted up on a pole. You have been bitten by sin, Nicodemus. However, if you will just look to Him that thing that is killing you, Nicodemus, won t kill you anymore. Do you know what that is? That is the same thing for you and me. Sin was destroying you and me. Sin was dooming us and damning us to a lake of fire. Yet we looked at the cross one time. It may have been when we were kids. It may have been when middle aged, or maybe as old people, but we heard a message somewhere about Jesus dying and hanging on a cross. If we would just look to Him and believe Him, we can be forgiven of the thing that was killing us and destroying us. Do you know what we did? We just simply looked get that we just simply looked.

These guys, these people; they were saying, when they looked, I believe. When you and I honestly and sincerely look to the cross for forgiveness do you know what we are saying? Lord, I believe you. Lord, you told me if I would just ask that you would forgive me. You told me if I would believe you, you would forgive me. When people looked at the brass, brazen serpent back here; when you and I look at Jesus on a cross today then the very thing that is killing us won t kill us any longer. Do you know what the blood of Jesus does? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Sin is destroying people today, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from sin. He takes it away. We are no longer under the bondage of sin. We are no longer dying. These people, the instant they looked, they lived. That is a miracle, my friend. That is an absolute miracle. They did not have to rub the pole. They did not have to do anything. All they had to do was simply look. Folks listen. That is what we need to do today. We can baptize you a hundred times, a thousand times but that will not save you. We can do all kinds of stuff. We can put your name on a church book. We can talk about how good a person you are, or maybe how good a father, how good a dad, how good a mother, how good a coworker or whatever the situation may be; all those things are probably or could be very true. But the thing and only one thing that is going to save you from dying spiritually is looking to Jesus Christ on the cross. The only thing that was going to save these guys from dying it wasn t going and getting out the Law of Moses and having the priest read it. It wasn t getting the show bread. It wasn t getting the oil that the priest had and rubbing it all over. That had nothing to do with them being able to live. They simply needed to look and to live. Do you know what that means? Believing means faith. Faith believing. They had enough faith that if they just looked and they believed that then they would live. That is exactly what they did. The Bible says he made the serpent and put it on a pole Numbers 21:8 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. Numbers 21:9 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.

That is the end of the story. Isn t that awesome? When you and I look to the cross, do you know what happens? That is the end of the story, as far as our sin goes. Amen! We are forgiven. Jesus said this to Nicodemus, telling him that he needs to be born again... John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. It goes on and says this John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Jesus Christ was the Son of Man. Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. The Son of Man is going to be lifted up. John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. He is saying the same thing that God told the people in Numbers 21; if you will just have faith in what I m telling you, if you will just look to the brass on the pole, you can live. Jesus is telling Nicodemus here; They are going to hang me on a pole just like Moses hung the serpent on the pole. If you will just look to me and everybody that will look to me can have and will have everlasting life. Isn t that a great thing? Isn t that an absolute awesome thing? He says John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 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. Believing in God means having faith in God. If I say I believe in God then I am going to follow God. If I am following God, then that means I m going and I am believing what God is doing and what God is saying. If you are here and you would like to come and pray, we invite you to do that. If you are listening to me wherever you may be at tonight, if you are in your own home, hospital room or wherever you may be at; it would be a great time for you to come and make things right with God. The Lord loves you friend. Jesus died for you. Won t you come tonight. He made a way that you could be forgiven. He made a way that you could go

to heaven, He made a way and that way was Calvary. When He hung on Calvary s cross; all you must do is look to Him. Look by faith. Looking at any other thing will not save you. Look to Jesus Christ. Come and pray