McCandless, Murray: Numbers 21 ~ Sussex Gospel Hall Ministry

I'd like to read with you in the book of Numbers, please. Numbers chapter twenty one. That's in the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, then Numbers, and chapter twenty one. And verse five, Numbers twenty one and verse number five. 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. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. Now, to their credit, they knew that much. We have sinned. And they knew what their sin was. Here's what they say, verse seven, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord. They understood they needed somebody to pray for them, like we've been hearing tonight. Pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. Moses made a fire, a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole. It came to pass that if the serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Now over to the New Testament, to John chapter three. and what we have read in Numbers chapter twenty one is referred to by the Lord Jesus in John chapter three. John chapter three and verse one. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. John chapter three verse one. there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time, uh, into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. Now, please down to verse number fourteen, and the Lord re- takes this man back to what we read of in Numbers chapter twenty one. Verse fourteen: 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. 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. I've been preaching the gospel for over thirty years, and quite often in gospel preaching, and other preachers I'm sure do, I know do the same thing, we'll read passages, and then we'll convey to the audience the link that we see in the various passage. Sometimes those links might just be a little forced, not the truth necessarily, but we may see something that you don't see. But when you come to John chapter three, the Lord Jesus spoke about a person being born again. He went back and he linked that with Numbers chapter twenty one. They said, what happened back there, Nicodemus, has to happen to you if you're ever going to be in God's kingdom. And so what I'm saying is this, is that he actually authorizes, if you like, authorizes me to read these two passages together tonight, and not to allow you to leave this building until you have a clear understanding that the only prerequisite for heaven is new birth. This atheist that is dying in the United States, I just had it read to to me tonight, a bit of a blurb. They've been following him and wondering if he's going to kind of denounce his atheism. Uh, simply when it comes to the end of the road, he's decided that he's going to be debaptized with a hairdryer, if you can imagine. That may strike you funny, and it may not. But it's no more silly being de-baptized with a hairdryer, and when he says he's getting rid of the sprinkling that took place when he was an infant, than it is to baptize an infant, because it won't take anybody to heaven. A week ago, this afternoon, in the rain, I walked over to the Crapo Cemetery in Crapo PEI. Had been there for a while, and the rest went over there with us, started looking at those gravestones. Looked at Albert Ramsey's, Peter Orzox, many, many, Debbie Thomas, people you almost sometimes forget about. There they are. I thought, you know, this is real. These people once flew with me. These men once preached with me. I preached with them. I stayed in their house, they stayed in my house. They're gone. But then my mind went further, and I thought about the, uh, men maybe at Nelson's Monuments and other companies like that, that would, you know, uh, you know, day after day they're engraving into that granite different things to put on a headstone. I wonder if it ever occurs to them when they take that power chisel and start chipping out the word saved by grace, redemption, redeemed. Ever occur to them what's going, they just relegate that to something that was just a, a little to the extreme. Because immediately it reminded me of my uncle Ray McCandless, and uh, not that he would be known necessarily to many in the meeting tonight, his, one of his twin daughters is married to Frank Sona. And my uncle Ray, I went up to the funeral, flew up to it, St. Thomas, Ontario, Lyle B. Sifton Funeral Home. Families related to the Siftons, that's where most of McCandless funerals are taken, is at the Sifton Funeral Home. But it's interesting that my uncle Ray's body was on this side of the funeral home, and Lloyd Pressy, a man that was born and raised in the same county, went to the same school, was on this side. And when you picked up the memorial cards, they were both the same. Both had the same sunset on them. Both had the same little verse at the front of it. But there were, obviously, there were some changes. And of course, when you began to read about Ray McCandless, it just gave his name and it said, born April the fourth, nineteen twenty three, And then it said, died May the twenty fourth, nineteen ninety seven. Interesting that Mr. Pressy was born the same year and died in the same year and died in the same day. But as you looked at that memoriam card ever so close, that looked so similar, so similar, there was something, and I say tragically missing on Mr. Pressies. Nothing about what he left behind. Nothing about my uncle Ray, that he was an electrician and so on, none of that. But between those two dates, again, some operator at a company that sells headstones literally etched in these words, born again, May the twelfth, nineteen forty one. Now that had to be a very important date and day to my uncle Ray to have it on a headstone. Let me ask you, something happens to you, will you have to go with the missing line? Or will they put like we've been hearing from Ben tonight, born again, September the second, two thousand and nine. Or for you, born again, July two thousand and ten. Now listen, friend, we're not overworking the date or the day on your watch or your calendar, but we are overworking, if you want to call it that, the actual unforgettable moment when you were born again. Now, do you have that? It's real. I, I, I have taken all kinds of funerals. I don't know how many funerals I've taken, a lot of them. It just impressed me as I walked over those graves last Sunday afternoon to realize how real this is. Life is real, and death is real. Heaven is real, and hell is just as real. Every person here tonight is going to heaven or to hell. It all depends on, not whether you, not whether you've got something that the gospel hall says is acceptable, has nothing to do with it. But it all depends on, as you've been clearly hearing tonight, what you do with the one who shed his blood at Calvary, because that's what this man had to understand that night. I've read these two passages, and I linked them like this, I think in a very simple way. Numbers chapter twenty one, we read about the serpent's bite. John chapter three, we read about the second birth. And what is so interesting is they only had had to happen once. A person only has to be born again once. I had a man tell me at an airport one day, he said, well, you know, really, he said, uh, I've been saved many, many times. I said, that might be. I said, how many times were you born again? He said, I I don't know if that's happened. You see, he didn't understand the word saved. Because if a person understands the word saved, they understand the word born again, the two words born again, if you like. That, my friend, this is a moment, as you've been hearing, when a person comes off this road and starts on that road. That's where the Lord Jesus said, you enter in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, broad is the way which leadeth unto destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate, narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, few there be that find it. The serpents bite. Now just bring our minds back to Numbers chapter twenty one for a minute. Here are people on a journey. You and I tonight are on a journey. We're going through. How much longer any of us have got, I do not know. I just read a National Transportation Safety Board ex- just a little expert on the, uh, that summer crash a number of years ago with JFK Jr. And it said the ten mistakes, the ten mistakes of John F. Kennedy Jr. that he made that unforgettable night when he spiraled his Piper Saratoga into the Atlantic Ocean with his wife and her sister on board. Ten mistakes he made. You know, as I looked at that, read it, I thought, really, there's only one mistake he made. Only one. He died without Christ. Died without a savior, to my knowledge. Died without being born again. Wouldn't matter if it was the Archbishop of whoever. Listen, in all due respect, it wouldn't matter if it was the Pope himself that put water in his forehead. It would not keep J- it would not keep JFK Jr. to hell. Because the Bible says he must be born again. The serpent's bite. What do I mean by the serpent's bite? Well, we've all been bitten tonight in this meeting. You might not think of it that way, the Bible says. The Bible says that our first father, Adam, had sinned. And you remember that in Genesis chapter three, that the serpent came into the garden, and while he didn't even realize it was happening, and quicker than he could understand it, Adam was bitten. He was bitten very subtly and very suddenly by that serpent. Here's the form of the bite was this. He says, he listens, first of all, to a voice he should never have listened to. He'd heard from God. Why didn't Adam say, out of here, serpent, get out of here. We don't need to hear from you. We've heard from the one that's created all this. I've heard from the one that built me out of dust. But no, he listens to him, and he begins to just question, just question the word of God. That's all it took. It wasn't that he was denying so much of it, he was just making him to question it. I visit people all the time, and uh, I don't have a whole great number that outwardly reject the word of God, but they question it. They would look at a chart like this, and they question it. Talk about working with tombstones and that, not thinking about it, without bringing any names into it, but the printing company that has printed literally hundreds of thousands of these tracks with this chart on at the back, that really works in the design room, not the printing shop right here in Sussex. I came in to proofread one one day, calling her by name, I said to her, I said, uh, you ever read this, Betty? She said, I have to. I said, because it's your job. Yeah, she says it's that. I says, you've read it more than once? Yeah, she's more, I read the, I've read every word, I look at every comma, every punctuation. I've read it and reread it. I said, do you understand what it's saying? Or is it just words that you're going to print? Well, she says, I don't know how to answer that. I said, Betty, we're talking about heaven and hell. And do you realize that should you never sit in a gospel meeting, should you never crack open the pages of your Bible, you will be the person that will never forget. I read this on my job. Now, my friends, your job may not be as a headstone designer. You may not work in the Nelson Minims where they're chiseling out the date of your birth or the day of your death, but we are travelers. These people were traveling, and they did something that just happened so easily. They just began to speak against God. They just started to blame God for the circumstances of life, that's all. Don't be too hard on them. They, life was rough, it was tough, and they began to blame God for what was happening. What, what they didn't understand was their own sin, their sin that had brought this on them. See, that's what's wrong in our world tonight. We have a world out there that wants to blame God for all its problems. Why does God allow this? Why does God allow that? Where was God when this was happening? Where was God when that was happening? And it never occurs to them, huh? Maybe we're wrong here. I like the old, not it didn't happen that long ago, the big bulletin boards in the state of Florida, mainly across the southwest. They're just black, and of great white letters they had this, need to talk God. You see, that's what this young man did in his bedroom that night. I missed all the debris or whatever it was there. He understood. I've got to talk to God. You ever talk to God? You ever got down, I don't care if it's the side of your bed or in it or wherever, in your barn or at your house or wherever it might be. Started to talk to God. I meet all kinds of men, and I rebuke them every time I hear them. Take God's name in vain. God's going to hold them accountable. People don't understand just what that means. You know why they don't understand what that means? Because they don't understand the invested authority and power in that name. I've been just reading about it this past day or two. Men will take it off their tongues, like whatever, but just speak to them about God. Oh no, that's a different subject. These people began to speak against God, and God just allowed fiery serpents among the people, and it bit the people. You know what that is? That was the consequence of their sin. See, nobody wants the consequence of their sin. Nobody wants to feel it. With the prodigal in the far country, everything's good until he starts to feel the effects of his sin. And one day, on an empty stomach and an empty purse and an empty life, he said, what am I doing here? Good question, isn't it? Now, I'll take it further than that. What are you doing here on planet Earth? How come, my friend, other people's grave you've gone to, and they haven't gone to yours? How come you're in a gospel meeting tonight, lots of men you know aren't? You think that's just a happenstance? No, my friend, God has got great designs in that, just as he did with these people here. God didn't want these people burying each other in the sand as they were doing. Families that would be burying family members. But these people had to be awakened to the fact that their sin, I'm one of those old-fashioned type preachers, you can call it what you like, but until people understand that it is their sin and their sin alone that is taking them down to hell. The truth of being born again and saved is meaningless. First Corinthians chapter one says it's tasteless, has no appeal. It would have as much appeal to them as it would to me, sitting in my home on one oh nine Bryant Drive on a warm summer evening, and somebody opened the door and tossed me a life preserver and says, grab it. What for? What for? You find out tonight of this gospel meeting, I'm going down. That if my next breath is my last breath, before these men could carry my form out of this little hall, I'm in eternity. Start to think different. And these people started to, it's interesting, took death, so often it does. It took death to speak to them. That's what spoke to me. I've told it so many peop- times, people I can tell better than I can. Wasn't until I stood in the funeral home, a uh fifteen-year-old cousin, young farm boy, killed on a tractor, got flipped over on top of him, Alice Chalmers WD-45. That steering wheel, impaled against his chest, took James from time into eternity. I come from a large family. My breath is my last breath. Before these men could carry my form out of this little hall, I'm in eternity. Start to think of it. And these people started to, it's interesting, took death, so often it does. It took death to speak to them. That's what spoke to me. I've told it so many peop- times, people I can tell better than I can. Wasn't until I stood in the funeral home, a uh fifteen-year-old cousin, young farm boy, killed on a tractor, got flipped over on top of him, Alice Chalmers WD-45. That steering wheel, impaled against his chest, took James from time into eternity. I come from a large family. My uncles, most of them are in heaven now. Thinking about the other day, great big strong men, men I really respected. They're something else. They're, they're just a lot of fun to be around. I remember, I can remember them yet. My aunt standing there, dabbing their eyes with their handkerchiefs in tears, and my uncles too, their eyes were red. You see what was wrong? Family member died. Yeah, I'll tell you, he died. But you know more than that? He didn't leave us any hope that he was saved. What- whatever happened in the last minutes, I don't know. I can only hope and pray the best. That left an impression on me like preaching never did. Never did. My father, who's in the meeting tonight, took me to a first time I was ever in a funeral home. I was scared to death out of him. Scared the life out of me, I should say, I guess. The Ched in Ontario. The funeral home was older than the town. Remember, remember these old lights along the wall? What? I have a place of this. This was some uncle of an uncle of his that died. I looked at that, I thought, an old man, he had died. Didn't mean a whole lot to me. But I'll tell you something. When I saw a fifteen-year-old boy, nice looking boy, light brown hair laying in that casket, it looked too real to me. My friend, we'll all be there someday. Death started to speak to these people. Finally they realized, finally it comes to, hey, we've sinned. You know, they don't come to Moses and say, no, Moses, just in case we've sinned, maybe you could, you know, make some kind of a prayer for us, just in case. Like there are pla- I- I- my father had a, had a, uh, neighbor in Garnerville, Iowa, Pete, and Pete was paying money so that they would say prayers for his wife Marie, who died in their travel trailer, wealthy, wealthy farmers in the state of Iowa, hoping that in, in case she had sinned, that she could be accepted by God. Until I sat one day in Pete's living room with Pete's priest and told him that's not in the Bible, and the both of them needed to be born again or they'd never be in heaven. These people realize something's wrong here, and they needed Moses' prayers, but they needed more than Moses' prayers. You know what they needed? A savior. In a very unique way, God says, here it is. Here's my plan. My God's plan is always so simple, isn't it? To the natural eye, it looks so ridiculous. God says, okay, Moses, you make a serpent of brass. A serpent. The last thing they'd want to see is another serpent. Make a serpent of brass, put it on a pole, and everyone that looks to that serpent of brass will be healed. Now, they didn't have to, only if they wanted to be healed. You might look at it and say, kind of ridiculous. Hey, I don't know how many tools Moses had in the desert, but he did the best that he could with what God told him. And the salvation really wasn't in a, a serpent of brass, it was in the word of God. And the moment that pop at eighty or ninety years of age, or young brother at ten or or eleven, bitten, simply looked from his situation and his sin to that serpent of brass, he's made whole. Explain it, you can't do it. Explain the new birth, I can't do it. I've been preaching it for years, still can't do it. All I can do is declare it, because God says you have to be born again. And those people immediately were made whole. The serpent's bite just happened once. Only took one look. God didn't say, listen, you look at it today, and then, you know, if you kind of fall off the thing, come back a month later, look again, and kind of revive the thing. Not at all. Don't be so ridiculous. Now come to John chapter three, the second birth. The second birth. I have, I have no idea. Sorry? I have no idea how men supposedly could go, or women too, if you like, to schools of theology and go through John chapter three and tell me anything different than what I believed all my life about it. When you read the books of men that are not born again or saved, you know what they do? They jump the chapter. They'll talk about a blind man receiving sight from the Lord Jesus, a picture of the new birth, and about the man by the pool and so on. But the truth of the new birth? They jumped the chapter. Do you know why they do that? They've never experienced it. Never experienced it. Now we come to a very interesting scene in John chapter three. We have a man, if you'd allow the words, that had religion to the eyeballs. There wasn't a lot that you could tell this man about Judaism that he didn't already know. Okay? It was a been there, done that. He would instruct you. He was a teacher. Bible says he was te- he actually taught it. But with all his teaching, with all his knowledge, he comes to realization something's, something's missing here. Just like Ben did. Something's missing. He could talk it. He could pass coin with it. He knew about the kingdom, about its predictions, its prophecies, its king, but he didn't know the king. And you know who the king was? The one he went to see. He thought he was just a teacher, come from God. He was God who came to teach. And he came to him that night. The Lord Jesus just looked at him and he says, Nicodemus, you need to be born again. Born again? He thought, I'm born again? He knew the rebirth of the nation. He would have, he had to. He thought this is something that was kind of a general thing, and he would be part of it, and so on. How's this, Nicodemus? Whether you're a Jew or Gentile, no matter where you went on Sunday morning or you didn't go on Sunday morning, you've got to be born again because I'm saying it. That's what the Lord Jesus was saying to him. Marvel not, he said. Don't be surprised, don't be alarmed. That I say unto thee, ye must be born again. This man never asked why. He says, how? How can I be born again? You know what he said, you know he talked like that? He was a man that I hope you make up your mind tonight, that that son's not going to go to his bed of darkness until I am born again. This man had no guarantee he was going to make it home that night, nor do you, nor do I. And he wanted, he did not want it explained. He wanted to experience it. So what's the Lord Jesus do? He does what most gospel preachers do. He illustrates it. He's Nicodemus. As Moses lifted up that serpent in the, of brass in the wilderness. Didn't have to tell him what chapter it was. Wasn't written in chapters then. Didn't tell more much about it. He knew all about it. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. In other words, just as that serpent of brass was lifted up for that provision, I'm going to be lifted up. Now remember, he hadn't been to Calvary yet, okay? He had not been to the cross yet, but he says, just as he was lifted up, I'm going to be lifted up. And everyone that looks to me will be born again. It's interesting he uses the word see, doesn't he? Same as you have in Numbers chapter twenty one. You know, when he says a man cannot see the kingdom of God, what, what really he is saying there, it's not that he is unable to see it, he doesn't have the capacity to see it, okay? He just doesn't have the capacity to see it. That's what people will say to us. I'm sorry, they said, I just don't see it. It's because they're darkness, and they are in darkness, and they're blinded. And he just went over to that man so carefully. He says, Nicodemus, I'm the one sent from God. I'm the true witness. I am the one. And he says, 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, period. Then he says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. What's he telling him? That, oh no, not only does God love you, Nicodemus, but he loved those people back there in Israel. He loved those people back there in Numbers chapter twenty one because Moses reminded the people that God loved them. My friend, don't go to this hall tonight and take anything from our preaching less than the fact that God loves you. God loves you. You wouldn't be here tonight if God didn't love you and didn't want to save you and didn't want the absolute best for your future. That's what he wanted for this man Nicodemus. He did not say to this man Nicodemus, well, you know, Nicodemus, you, after all, there there's there's, uh, got to be some understanding here. You're you're you're you're a teacher, and and likely it's happened, and maybe you just don't know it. None of that at all. That wouldn't satisfy the Lord Jesus, that wouldn't satisfy Nicodemus, because Nicodemus wanted to go home knowing that if something happened, he'd be in heaven. How do you want to go home? To go home any other way is to, is to go home contented to remain in your darkness. That's what the Lord Jesus said to those people. He says, if you believe not me, in me, your darkness remaineth. You can stay in the darkness. That's what he says in John, same chapter. Neither cometh to the light. Just if I'd gone on further in the chapter and read it. They don't come to the light. He's talking about something, my friend, that happens in a moment. One moment on the broad road, next moment on the narrow road. One moment in a s- in a person are in their sins, the next moment they're in Christ. Once lost, next saved. Once afar off, the next brought nigh. Uh, let me ask you, how's that done? By blood. Whose blood? The blood of his dear son. Much more than being justified by faith, we shall be saved from wrath through him. You tonight, friend, can be born again. You can be saved. It be the miracle of the moment, unforgettable. The second birth, remember? You have had the serpent's bite. The very fact that every one of us are destined for the grave tonight proves we've had the serpent's bite. But whatever happens, you make sure that you've had the second birth before you die. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank thee for the gospel, and we thank thee for hearing this testimony tonight, and thank God for when the gospel triumphs. In the life of a young man like Ben, that has the whole of his life to live for God as we know it, yet life can be so fragile, it can be short, so short, and it can be so brief. And Father, we just pray that I'll preserve him and preserve his testimony. And all these other young men here, young sisters too, young people that God has saved. What a wonderful thing to be saved in their youth. This man Nicodemus was an old man. It was late, but it wasn't too late. We thank God. Lord, look upon us tonight. Bless thy word. Bless the gospel wherever it has been preached this night, as we give thee thanks for the Savior, the one who we preach in his name. Amen. Number fifty seven. In number fifty seven, How solemn are the words, and yet the faith how plain, which Jesus uttered while on earth, ye must be born again. Ye must be born again or never enter heaven. 'Tis only blood-washed ones are there, the ransomed and forgiven. Number fifty-seven.