Look To Christ - Reid Ferguson

Walk in Wisdom – Gleanings from Scripture

Today's Readings Mar. 9/06 : Matt. 24:1-14;
Romans 6:15-23; Psalm 55; Numb. 21-22


The Gospel was first preached by God Himself:
Gen. 3:15 "I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your offspring and her
offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall
bruise his heel." All mankind knew the promise of
God to send a Redeemer. And by God's grace, that
message was preserved by some, while others
rejected it, forgot it, or simply neglected it. To those
who believed it, and through whom it was
preserved, God continued to expand and clarify all
of what it would entail, until at last Christ was born
in Bethlehem. He lived a perfect, sinless life of
obedience; died at Calvary as the sacrificial Lamb
of God for our sins; rose again the third day; and
ascended into Heaven until His return to judge all
men in righteousness. All along, God in His mercy
and grace took pains to point people over and over
to the reality of His saving grace. And the account
in Numb. 21 of the brazen serpent and its being
provided by God to save those who would look
upon it – already bitten by the fiery serpents He
sent among them for their sin – Jesus' Himself
likens to His own death at Calvary. Indeed, it would
not be too much of a stretch to liken Numb. 21:8 to
John 3:16: 8 "And the LORD said to Moses,
"Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and
everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."/
16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life." So Calvin, likening the
setting of the brazen serpent on the pole to the
Gospel aptly writes: "that Christ should be "for an
ensign" to all nations, (Isa 11:10) which we know
to have been the case, by the spreading of the
doctrine of the Gospel through the whole world,
with which the look of faith corresponds. For, just
as no healing was conveyed from the serpent to any
who did not turn their eyes towards it, when set up
on high, so the look of faith only causes the death
of Christ to bring salvation to us. Although,
therefore, God would give relief to their actual
distress, it is still unquestionable that He even then
admonished all believers that the venomous bites of
the devil could only be cured by their directing their
minds and senses by faith on Christ. Brother, sister,
have YOU looked to Him, that YOU might be
saved? That is the question.





--
Blessings: Reid
Dulcius Ex Asperis