Look and Live
Sunday, January 5, 2025 – Morning Service
Pastor Bud Talbert
Text: John 3:14-15
Introduction to William Augustine Ogden
Good morning. Merry Christmas. Happy anniversary. Happy New Year and happy birthday. Covered everything for the year. Good to have you back today. It’s nice to be back to a regular schedule. I hope you enjoyed any time away that you had and that whatever your regular schedule is, you’ll enjoy getting back to that. Nice to have you.
If you want to follow along in the message, you can turn to Numbers chapter 21, where our reading was from. And I want to introduce you to William Augustine Ogden, born in 1841. He died just before the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Ohio but he and his family moved to Indiana when he was just six years old. It was a bit of a progeny when it came to Prodigy, when he came to Indiana. Indiana, began to study music in the local schools there when he was 8 years old. By the age of 10, he could read church music well. In other words, he could read the music out of the church book after 2 years of studying music from the age of 8 to 10. He began to write music at the age of 9. He could write out a melody just by listening to it sung the first time. He could put the proper notes down on paper as a 10-year-old. What an amazing gift for music that he had.
William enlisted in the Civil War in the 30th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was 20 years old at the time. For those of you who don’t know, the American Civil War began in 1861 and ended in 1865. And so he participated in that, but as a musician, he participated in that, organized a male choir that became well known throughout the army of the Cumberland, of which the Indiana Regiment was just a part. After the war, he returned home, resumed his music study, and taught school. married and had two children and for most of his life worked in the Toledo public school system in Toledo, Ohio, where he taught together with well-known gospel musicians, Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings. They were his fellow teachers and actually helped him to learn. because their training was better than his was. He wrote many hymns, both lyrics and or the music, and even issued his first book of songs, first of 11 of them, when he was just 29 years old. One of Ogden’s most sung gospel songs is entitled, Look and Live.
The Hymn “Look and Live” and Its Connection to Scripture
When I was first saved, the hymn book that we used had a lot of this kind of music in it, so I learned that hymn at a very young spiritual age, and that’s the one we just finished singing, Look and Live. And I wanted to tell you a little bit about its author and its writing. because it fits the text we’re going to look at this morning. John chapter 3 verses 14 and 15, which are the two verses ahead of Well, let me put it this way. They’re the two verses at the end of Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. Verse 16 is the beginning of a five-verse section of John the Apostle’s commentary on Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. So, we’re going to talk about that a little bit more when we get to John.
The People Sinning (Numbers 21:4-5)
I want to begin, though, by looking at Numbers 21 verses 4 through 9, the passage we read, and I’ve entitled it, The Beginning of Faith. Really the theme of this entire idea, which occurs in Numbers 21, 4 through 9, is the idea of faith, even though faith is never mentioned in this passage. But there are three sections, verses 4 and 5, the people are sinning, verses 6 and 7, the people are repenting because God’s punishing them for their sin, and then verses 8 and 9, the people are healed. So those three parts of this passage are before us.
Israel’s Journey and Faithlessness
To begin with, the people sinning, the year is about 1400 BC. Israel has wandered, they’re just finishing wandering about 38 years in the wilderness. He said, I thought they were punished and had to wander for 40 years. Well, they spent three years getting to Mount Sinai. They spent the next 11 months, almost a full year, on Mount Sinai or at the foot of Mount Sinai. The people, Moses and Joshua, were the ones who were on Mount Sinai. So when they were free, it took them about three months to wander to the Kadesh Barnea, the town just on the south border of the land of Canaan. And if you remember Numbers chapter 13 and 14, they sent some spies to sort of rendezvous and look over the land so that they would have an idea of what was involved in moving in there. But when they got back, 10 of the 12 leaders of the reconnaissance work did not want to go in.
Do you remember why? There were giants in the land. They were afraid. Some of the cities had huge walls. And, I mean, they didn’t even, we don’t even know whether they went to Jericho, but the city of Jericho was there. And the walls of the city of Jericho were wide enough for people to live inside of them. I mean, imagine a wall that was 33 feet thick, but not solid. hollow in the middle. And we talked about that when we talked about Rahab over the Christmas holidays. But they had large, powerfully defensed cities and too many people, not just giants, but just too many people. So they got back from their reconnaissance and Caleb and Joshua said, we can go in, we can defeat them. And they said, no, no. We can’t defeat them, we need to go back to Egypt. And for their faithlessness, you know it is interesting when we read this part of the Bible that you see God divide the Red Sea, you see God lead them by a pillar of fire and cloud, you see God provide food supernaturally for them, they get tired of the food so he provides quail. Quail. I’ve never had quail before. They’re very good, very tasty meat. I mean, it’s not like McDonald’s. It’s really good, good food. And the people who gathered the quail, imagine the quail. You know, you’re in the land. Quail love lots of trees, lots of cover. And here they are, and they’re all starting to leave. And a quail says to another quail, why should we leave here? I don’t know. We just have to. But look, there are millions of them. Yeah, I know. I don’t understand. But we’ve got to go south. But there’s nothing in the south but sand. I know. We have to go. I mean, God did all of this and then all of a sudden we can’t defeat these people. I think we get that way about our sins sometimes. Oh, we just can’t. Have you ever overcome anything? Well, yes. Well, what makes you think you cannot do this? It’s just too strong. It’s not just too strong. We simply choose to be defeated in this.
Well, here they are. Down there, the nation of Israel was not permitted by the Edomites to pass through their territory. They had wandered for these 38 years. They came down to right at the end of the Dead Sea. They just wanted to cross over right there at the end of the Dead Sea, the southern end of it. And Edom said no. So where did they have to go? They had to go south all the way to the end of the border of Edom. And then they had to go to the east. Now, if you’ve never looked at this on a map, when you go east on the other side of Edom, it’s the Arabian desert. No McDonald’s, no water fountains. I mean, it is grim. And so the scripture says the people became impatient on the way. It was hot. There was little or no water and food and they’re getting tired.
Imagine this. They’re getting tired of just eating manna. It’s called angels food. It’s called the bread of God. They’re tired of it. I mean that’s like getting tired of eating Tim’s doughnuts. Only this is better food. Well, they begin to complain and to grumble. And the Christian is urged to be content with what we have because God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And here’s the idea in those two ideas. How can I, those two statements together, how can I be content? because God is with me. It’s because he’s with us that we can be content. Why? Because he will always provide for our needs. He didn’t take Israel out into the desert to kill them and yet they kept thinking that. And sometimes when we go through hardship, we think, why are you doing this to me? Why are you punishing me for this? It is not punishment. It just is to teach us that we live by the commandments of God, and not by food, and not by just money, and not by just these circumstances that I think are so necessary for my life. and for which we complain so much when God takes them away and says, in essence, now believe in me, trust in me.
Complaints Against God and Moses
Well, something may have happened to bring their unhappiness to the breaking point. Verse 5, 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 and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” [Numbers] [21]:5. And they’re talking about the manna, worthless manna. I wouldn’t mind walking into a Sobeys and saying, you know, where do you keep the manna on your shelf? I’d like to try some of this angel’s food. It might be nice to have. Suppose the Sobeys was empty of everything but that. We would have the opportunity to have some for a long time. And maybe we would get to the point where we complain.
And I want to speak about that for just a minute. They’ve been wandering for 38 years. During that 38 years, what’s been happening to the parents of these young people? They’re dying. They’re dying by the thousands every week and they’re dying because that’s what God said. You said my children and my wife will die if we go into Canaan but because you won’t go into Canaan you’re going to die and your children and your wives will survive. And so here we are in Numbers chapter 21 and all the parents, all the husbands are dead. but the children now are grown up and they’re adults. You remember what the people said to Moses and Aaron, that they had brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. And then what do their kids say? What do their children say? Exactly the same thing. I was raised in a home where From time to time, my father said, don’t do what I do, do what I say. That’s a farce, folks. For anyone here who’s a parent, that’s a farce because your kids know what you do and they will follow that, not what you say. And this is what’s happening here. That generation’s complaint was a charge against their parents, against the Lord, against their spiritual leaders, Moses and Aaron. There is a proverb for that, by the way. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Yes, you’re raising a bunch of little apples, but they’re going to be big apples. And they’re going to be just as rotten at heart as you are if you show that kind of behavior in front of them.
The People Repenting (Numbers 21:6-7)
So the people repent, verses 6 and 7. What causes them to repent? Well, they are complaining to God. We don’t think of grumbling as a real bad sin. Look what he’s doing because of that. By the way, they were grumbling when they didn’t want to go into Canaan. We grumble about some of the tiniest things, relatively speaking. You say, well, it’s a really big thing. What if you were to die today? Would it be that big really once you’re dead? You know, we always think rebels are right. I mean, they bring up a good point until they’re dead. Then it’s not a good point anymore. It doesn’t make any difference anymore. Why didn’t they behave differently when it came to trusting in? the one true God.
God’s Punishment: Fiery Serpents
Now we don’t know, well, what verse 6 says is, then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. [Numbers] [21]:6. Now the reason they’re called fiery serpents, we don’t know. We just have to guess at it. Because when it bit them, they swelled up in that biting place and it turned red, fiery red. Maybe that’s why they were called fiery serpents. But the Lord made them that way. It may be just because the serpents had that effect on people or the serpents look like that when they were biting the people of Israel. They repent because God punished them for their sin of grumbling.
What would God do to us for complaining? Especially complaining against the Lord’s servants. I’m not holding myself up in this way. But I mean, this is what they were doing. And the Lord responds very seriously. So we don’t know how many fiery serpents there were, but many people of Israel died, so there were probably many serpents doing this. Many people rebelled and so they died and the rebel sounds, as I mentioned, the rebel always sounds like he has a good point until he’s dead. His situation doesn’t seem to be so bad compared to being destroyed for all humanity. What happens when people die? Saved and lost, they immediately go. to the presence of God and they understand everything in their lives at that point is compared to what he says in his word. They either are put in a temporary Hades until they stand before Christ at the white throne judgment or they are ushered into the presence of the Lord. Somebody asked me, what was wrong with committing suicide? If you were a Christian, then why was that a bad thing? I said, because you stand uninvited immediately in the presence of God. And that’s a bad place for a Christian to be if you’re uninvited. Was not him who chose to end your life. That was you who did that. if you do that, and I digress, sorry about that.
Moses’ Meekness and Intercession
So verse 7, many people came to Moses, they said, we have sinned, here’s their repentance, for we’ve spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he would take away the serpents from us. [Numbers] [21]:7. So Moses prayed for the people. It’s a good example of Moses’ meekness. The people attack him, they speak against him. And yet when they’re in trouble, he prays for them. That’s a good sign of meekness.
The People Healed (Numbers 21:8-9)
And so this takes us to verses 8 and 9, the people are healed. But notice the Lord did not take away the fiery serpents. He did not remove them as they asked for Moses to ask God to do. But the Lord said in verse 8 to Moses, Make a fiery serpent out of brass or bronze and set it on a pole. Everyone who is bitten when he sees it, that’s the first word to underline in your Bible, he sees it, shall live. [Numbers] [21]:8. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look, there’s the second word. Underline that. They see, they look. Two different terms, which is interesting. And they look at the bronze serpent and live. [Numbers] [21]:9.
Faith and Obedience Required for Healing
So rather than remove the snakes, God made a way for them to be healed by faith. You say, why do you say it’s by faith? Because it’s what Moses told them to do. It’s because it’s what the Lord told Moses to tell them to do. So what are all the people obeying? They’re obeying the word of God through the servant of the Lord. But it’s God’s word. And I’m going to speak to everyone here this morning and tell you to look at the raised Jesus and have eternal life. And somebody probably in this group, a group this size, is gonna say, well, either I don’t want to, I can’t do it, we have all kinds of reasons for why we will not do it, but it is, As the song says, it is only that you look and live. It is a very simple thing to do to get saved. It is not complicated. You say, well, I have to clean my life up. No, you don’t. In fact, no, you can’t clean your life up. That’s impossible. God’s not going to like you for saying, I don’t believe you, but I do believe what I’m doing.
The Act of Looking: A Deliberate Faith
Well, Moses did two things. He set the bronze serpent on a pole and it had to be high enough for all the people to see it from a relatively far distance. Also, the bronze serpent had to be of sufficient size to be clearly seen from relatively far away, but the people then would look at the serpent, see the serpent. These terms, especially the second one of looking, is not a glance but a deliberate focusing. As one examines something, one commentator said, it was necessary to do more than simply see or catch a glimpse of. One actually had to fix one’s gaze. Pay attention to this figure, a definite act of the will, this is faith, that’s what it is. I will do this if one wanted to be healed. So the bronze serpent was made, fixed on a high pole, perhaps some of the priests were the ones who held it up. Many Israelites died that day but many Israelites looked at the serpent and lived. How long did this drama last? We don’t know. An hour? Many hours? How long did the fiery serpents last? We don’t know that either. How long after being bitten before the deadly poison killed its victim? If they were all black mambas, about 10 or 15 minutes. If that long, depending on how much of a bite they got. But these are all questions. that were not given the answers to, how many died, how many refused in their hardness. You say, oh, surely nobody would refuse. Oh, yes. Never underestimate the depravity of your own heart to do wrong. Never underestimate that. You are far worse, I am far worse than we have any real idea of. We are capable of the worst possible sins ever committed by any one of the human beings who’ve ever lived. Some definitely would refuse to look until it was too late.
Whatever the answers are to these questions, the one thing we know for sure is that the bronze serpent on the pole was kept. It was not thrown away.
The Perversion of Faith (2 Kings 18)
That takes us to 2 Kings chapter 18, where we move to the subject, the perversion of faith. This perversion of faith moves us ahead about 700 years. So we’re about 700 BC. This was the time when Hezekiah was king. He actually came to the throne in 715 and ruled to 686. We’re told about Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 that he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. Why did he do that? Because in those, or until those days, the people of Israel had made offerings to it, to the bronze serpent. And after Hezekiah had destroyed it, they called it Nehushtan, a piece of brass, a hunk of metal.
I got news for you. I grew up in a well-known religion where we were surrounded by pieces of ceramic. And we were commanded to bow down and show reverence to them and pray to them as though there was something there in these statues. And if you did not revere them, something bad would happen to you. The Bible calls that something. He calls it idolatry. It is not worship. It is not real. There is no being in there except, well, we’re going to talk about what there is.
The Bronze Serpent’s Transformation into an Idol
So I want to go back then to the plague being over, the priests aren’t going to just toss in the trash the artifact that saved so many people and that represented the power and grace of the Lord of Israel. Perhaps they hauled it out of this, they hauled out this museum piece for the one-year anniversary of this event, and the celebration was so great they did it again the next year. After a few years, they cut the pole shorter so it wouldn’t be so difficult to store. When it was brought out to the people, some got the idea of bringing poor Aunt Bessie to stare at the bronze serpent so maybe she could be healed of her rheumatism. It didn’t work. They had some kind of regard for this thing that had healed so many people. No, folks, the thing did not. How did those people get healed? God did that, not the thing. And here they were making offerings to it. But it’s nothing but nehushtan. It is nothing but a piece of metal, a hunk of metal that perhaps Hezekiah just threw on the pile of bronze that was being saved up for the building of the temple or for the renewal of the temple.
Some of the people just never let go of the idea that the serpent itself had power, that the thing had power. Century after century of idolatry. Other religions celebrated their amulets. They had power. Why can’t we do the same thing? Because we don’t have the religion of other people. Because we don’t worship a false god the way they do. We worship the true God. And it wasn’t the serpent that saved them, and it wasn’t the serpent that deserved the offerings. So here it is, in the time of Hezekiah, it’s nothing more than a whittled block of wood or a carved piece of rock, nothing but an idol. So the cloud dark, the dark cloud rather, does have a silver lining and what is that? If we read the verses before 2 Kings 8 and verse 4, we read that when Hezekiah became king that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
God, the Real Source of Healing
Now, the interesting thing is for the people to worship the bronze serpent did not take faith in God, it took faith in the bronze serpent. And when people are called to fall down in front of a statue, it takes their faith in that statue. But that’s why we called it the perversion of faith. That is not what we believe in. Well, how do I know what to believe in? It says what to believe in. That’s how we know what to believe in. That’s why we preach from the Bible. That’s why we urge people to trust in Jesus Christ to get saved. It’s not just up for the best idea I might have for how to do.
Well, there is faith, there’s real faith in Hezekiah even though there wasn’t in the people. The Lord had said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made the bronze serpent, set it on the pole and if the serpent bit anyone He would look at the bronze serpent. Why did that make him live? Because that’s what God said to do. Why do I look to Jesus to make me live? Because that’s what God said to do. And that’s what the Son of God was doing. What did the serpent do to effect a healing? Nothing. Nothing.
The Perfection of Faith (John 3:14-15)
So we come to the perfection of faith in John chapter 3 verses 14 and 15. This passage in John 3 brings the reader about 800 years from the piece of brass from Nehushtan to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re moving from Before Christ, B.C. into Anno Domine, after the Lord. We’re moving from B.C. to A.D. and from Hezekiah to Nicodemus and Jesus. It is night. Why is it night? Because Nicodemus has no faith. He’s curious and he has something of an open heart. But he does not truly believe, and the Lord will tell him that.
This passage features Nicodemus the Pharisee as the central figure in a discussion with Jesus focusing on three questions. Questions in verse 2, verse 4, and verse 9. Aren’t you sent from God? It’s not stated as a question but that’s what he says. We know that you are from God because no one can do the signs you do unless God is with him. And the Lord Jesus answer to that is you are paying so much attention to the sign. I mean, we may be like Gideon, you know, I’ll believe what you’re saying, God, if you do something special for me and you do it the way I want it done. We give a little too much credit to Gideon for asking for that if we want to follow his example.
The second question, how can a man be born again? And he answers the same way he answered the first one, except the first time you have to be born again to see the kingdom of God. And in the second one, you have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God. And then this teacher of Israel says, how can this be? That’s his third question, which the Lord answers saying four different things. Number one, are you a teacher in Israel and you don’t know? Ezekiel 36, folks, is very, very clear about what being born again is, about how we behave when we’re born again, about what it means to be born again. And here’s a guy who’s supposed to teach people the Old Testament and he doesn’t even know what that is? Well, why is that? Because he hasn’t grown up with the Bible. He’s grown up with tradition. He’s grown up with all that the other rabbis say, all that they need to know about what the rabbis teach. Don’t you know this? And the answer is no. I mean, he’s asking the question as though he expects a negative answer.
Number two, he says, we have told you this, but you will not believe. He says it three times in verses 11 and 12. This is the problem with the Pharisee. They are instructed not to follow anybody that doesn’t agree with their theology. Jesus didn’t agree with their theology, so they ask him to be murdered, forgetting that there’s a problem with murdering according to God’s Old Testament. But Jesus responds to that. I know what is true because I came down from heaven.” Did any of your rabbis come down here from heaven? No. Verse 13, he is the one who brings the answer from God the Father in this. And then he says this, you need to believe the same way Israel believed in Numbers 21. The same way they had to look, and as a result, you had to live. You need to do this. Only you’re not looking at a piece of brass at Nahushtan, you’re looking at the only Savior.
The Call to Believe: Parallels with Numbers 21 and John 3
There are six points of analogy between the Numbers 21 demand for faith and the Gospels demand for faith. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him, not in it, in him, may have eternal life and he’s not making that a conditional may, he’s making you have to look, you have to believe, you have to surrender in order to be saved, in order to have eternal life. [John] [3]:14-15.
What are the six points of analogy between these two? Well, Israel had sinned and we sin. Wasn’t the snakes that made them sin. They just did that on their own. the same way we do it on our own. Israel sinned. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. (That reference is to [Romans] [3]:23, though not quoted here in the sermon text.) And so Israel was punished. I mean back in Numbers 21. They were punished with fiery serpents. We are punished too for something much worse. or buy something much worse. Number three, God provided a way to be healed. The analogy with the gospel, God has provided a savior who will save us. And what does it say? If you confess with your mouth and believe in the Lord Jesus, if you confess him with your mouth and believe in your heart that God really did raise him from the grave, you will be saved. You will be, not you might be. (That reference is to [Romans] [10]:9, though not quoted here in the sermon text.) If you’re good after you do this, you might be. Not if you follow all these rules, you might be. God provided a way for Israel to be healed. God provided a way for us to be spiritually healed. A serpent was lifted up, a savior was lifted up. Israel must look to the snake in faith. We must look to the Savior in faith. If Israel had faith, they were healed. If we have faith, we have life. And we can observe the ordinance of remembering his death for us.
William Ogden’s Hymn, “Look and Live”
Well, William Ogden’s most popular hymn, the one we sang just before the message, I have a message from the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord that I have a message from him. The message unto you I’ll give. That’s what I’ve been doing. It is recorded in his word. Hallelujah. And you know that because you’ve either followed along or listened to me read the passages. It is only that you look and live. Look and live, my brother, my sister, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word. Praise the Lord. Why? He wrote this. He wrote this New Testament part 2,000 years ago. Why do we still have it? Why is it still here? Just some freak accident that people decided to publish this thing when they created a press that was able to make a book like this? No, no freak accident. God did this. It wasn’t Nehushtan. It wasn’t just somebody saying, hey, I think I will make a copy of the most widely published book in the history of humanity.
Well, look and live. Look to Jesus now and live. Why would you wait? Why would you wait? I mean, if somebody said, look, I’ll give you $10 million if you just come right now. I mean, you know, we would tear off the door. We would ruin the car just trying to get there in time because now you have a real motivation. Boy, if that’s the case, you got serious, serious problems. It is only that you look and live. It’s not complicated to get saved. It is simple. Look to Jesus on the cross. He is there paying for your sins, all of them. Look to him in earnest faith. Do you mean to really believe? Or, and I’m speaking to the young people here, did you just go through the motions of saying, I want to be saved? I want you as my Savior.” Did you just make up the words? Did you just say that to make people leave you alone or did you really mean it in your heart because you will not be saved if you just did it to make people leave you alone? Do you mean to truly receive it? Because if you do, if I do, then eternal life is ours. And we don’t have to worry about dying. Now, I do pray about that. Lord, if you can make it so it doesn’t hurt so much. But if hurting would make me holier and better prepare me for heaven, then Lord, just give me the grace to bear with that.
Conclusion and Prayer
This is what we are participating in today, remembering his death to save me, to save you from our sins. Let’s pray. Father, we ask your blessing now upon the participation in these elements which are A memorial for us to remember what you’ve done for us and as a time of rededication. We are yours, Lord. We do not belong to ourselves. It is not our career. It is your career that you have moved us into. And if not, then Lord, give us the understanding and the wisdom to change careers. We ask, Lord, that you would save us from our sins. You died for us on the cross, Jesus, and we are saved, in fact. But, Lord, save us from the practice, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us.
Latest Transcribed Sermons
- Look and Live | John 3:14-15Look and Live Sunday, January 5, 2025 – Morning Service Pastor Bud Talbert Text: John 3:14-15 Introduction to
- The Church’s Use of OfferingsThe Church’s Use of Offerings Sunday, September 29, 2024 – Morning Service Pastor Logan Seibert Text: Various Scriptures