^ They did well, when they came to Moses, and said, " We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee." So far as I know, it is the only real expression of true sorrow and willing confession which we find in the wilderness story. "We have sinned." And if so, it is well worth while for us to notice, that this was the occasion for God's giving to them the great sign of mercy to which Jesus Christ pointed a8 a sign of Himself. So it is that God gives grace to
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the humble, encouragsB the contrite, is found of those who seek.^
2. Recalling this incident of Israel, Jesus found in it a type and prophecy of Himself. " 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."
H It is very instructive to notice the New Testament use of the Old Testament record of Moses. His history and its incidents are constantly referred to as illustrations and types of Christ. St. Paul again and again finds his illustrations in the life of Moses, and much more than illustrations. Not with any curious fancy is it that his sturdy logic finds the materials for two compact arguments in these chapters. The manna, the rock, the veil on the face of Moses, are all immediately connected with Jesus Christ. St. John, too, in the Book of Revelation, constantly finds here the imagery by which he sets forth the things which are to come. And the Church in all ages has found in Egypt and the wilderness journey to the goodly land a very Pilgrim's Progress. No type is more familiar, no illustration more constant. The arrangements of Jewish worship are full of predictions of Christ — living pictures of our salvation. The Lord Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins — the Lamb of God which beareth away the sins of the world. He is the Mercy-seat, as the word propitiation is rendered in the marginal reference. He is the High Priest who ever liveth to make intercession for us, and who is able to save to the utter- most all that come to God by Him.*
^ The old is always becoming the new. " As Moses ... so the Son of man"; as the old, so the new; as the historical, so the prophetical. All the pattern of the spiritual temple has been shown in the mountain, and has been frayed out in shapely and significant clouds which themselves were parables. "That the Scripture might be fulfilled." History always has something more to do than it seems to have; it does not only record the event of the day, it redeems old subjects, old vows and oaths ; it takes up what seems to be the exhausted past and turns it into the present and energetic action of the moment. As Moses, as Jonah, as Solomon, as the bold Esaias ; it is always a going-back upon the sacred past and eating up the food that was there provided. Do not live too much in what we call the present; do not live upon the bubble of the hour;
1 K. S. Tftlbot ' V. O. PeanM.
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have some city of the mind, some far-away strong temple- sanctuary made noble by associations and memories of the tenderest kind. You could easily be dislodged from some sophism of yesterday. If you are living in the little pro- grammes that were published but last night you have but a poor lodgment, and to-morrow you will be found naked, destitute, and hungry. Always go back to the "As Moses, as David, as Daniel, as Jeremiah," and see in every culminating event a confirmation of this holy word — " that the Scripture might be fulfilled." The plan was drawn before the building was commenced; the specification was all written out before the builder handled his hammer and his trowel; we do but work out old specifications — old, but not decayed; old with the venerableness of truth. See that you stand upon a broad rock, and do not try to launch your lifeship upon a bubble.^
We have here —
I. A Pressing Danger.
i. Death from the bite of a Serpent — " The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people ; and much people of Israel died " (Num. xxi. 6).
ii. Perishing in Sin — " might not perish " (John iii. 15 A.V. ; " should not perish," iii. 16).
II. A Way of Escape.
i. A Brazen Serpent lifted up on a pole — "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a standard " (Num. xxi. 8).
ii. A Sin-bearer lifted up on the Cross — "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up " (John iii. 14).
III. How to use the Way of Escape.
i. Looking to the Serpent — "If a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked unto the serpent of brass, he lived" (Num. xxi. 9).
ii. Believing in the Sin-bearer — "that whosoever believeth in him," RV. "that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life" (John iii. 15).