Please to recollect that in all the camp of Israel there was but one remedy for ser pent-bite, and that was the brazen serpent; and there was but one brawn serpent, not two. Israel might not make another.
If they had made a second it would have had no effect: there was one, and only one, and that was lifted high in the center of the camp, that if any man was bitten by a serpent he might look to it and live. There is one Sav ior, and only one. There is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. All grace is concentrated in Jesus, of whom we read, “It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.” Christ’s bearing the curse and ending the curse, Christ’s being slain by sin and destroying sin, Christ bruised as to His heel by the old serpent, but breaking the serpent’s head–it is Christ alone that we must look to if we would live. O sinner, took to Jesus on the cross, for He is the one rem edy for all forms of sin’s poisoned wounds.
There was but one healing serpent, and that one was bright and lustrous.
It was a serpent of brass, and brass is a shining metal. This was newly-made brass, and there fore not dimmed, and whenever the sun shone, there flashed forth a brightness, from this brazen serpent. It might have been a serpent of wood or of any other metal, if God had so ordained it; but He commanded that it must be of brass, that it might have a brightness about it. What a brightness there is about our Lord Jesus Christ! If we do but exhibit Him in His own true metal He is lustrous in the yes of men. If we will but preach the gospel simply, and never think to adorn it with our philosophical thought, there is enough brightness in Christ to catch a sinner’s eye, aye, and it does catch the eyes of thousands. From afar the everlasting gospel gleams in the person of Christ. As the brazen standard reflected the beams of the sun, so Jesus re flects the love of God to sinners, and seeing it they look by faith and live.
Once more, this remedy was an enduring one.
It was a serpent of brass, and I sup pose it remained in the midst of the camp from that day forward. There was no use for it after Israel entered Canaan, but, as long as they were in the wilderness, it was probably exhibited in the center of the camp, hard by the tabernacle door, upon a lofty standard. Aloft and open to the gaze of all hung this image of a dead snake– the perpetual cure for serpent venom. Had it been made of other materials it might have been broken, or have decayed, but a serpent of brass would last as long as fiery serpents pestered the desert camp. As long as there was a man bitten there was the serpent of brass to heal him. What a comfort is this, that Jesus is still able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make inter cession for them. The dying thief beheld the brightness of that serpent of brass as he saw Jesus hanging at his side, and it saved him; and so may you and I took and live, for He is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Faint my head, and sick my heart,
Wounded, bruised, in every part,
Satan’s fiery sting I feel
Poisoned with the pride of hell:
But if at the point to die,
Upward I direct mine eye,
Jesus lifted up I see,
Live by him who died for me.
I hope I do not overlay my subject by these figures. I wish not to do so, but to make it very plain to you. All you that are really guilty, all you who are bitten by the serpent, the sure remedy for you is to look to Jesus Christ, who took our sin upon Himself, and died in the sinner’s stead, “being made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Your only remedy lies in Christ, and nowhere else. Look unto Him and be ye saved.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
