Jesus Christ is citing Numbers 21, where God punishes Israel with fiery serpents for their sin. And Jehovah will save Israel through a graven serpent lifted up. By citing Numbers 21 and using this language, Jesus is teaching us that Numbers 21 is a figure of sin and salvation. And the graven serpent itself is a type of his person and work.
The simplicity that is in Christ stands here contrasted with the subtilty of the serpent: and the instance given of the serpent’s subtilty in his beguiling Eve illustrates what is meant by the simplicity which is opposed to it. In that first temptation, all on the part of God was abundantly simple; the command, not to eat of the tree, with the warning, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was, in fact, simplicity itself. On the other hand, the subtilty of the tempter is apparent in the complex and manifold pleading which he holds with Eve. God has but one argument against eating; Satan has many for it; and there is no surer sign of subtilty than the giving of many reasons for what a single good one would better justify and explain.
“Forsaking our own mercies.” How are they our own? Not ours in possession, for we are forsaking them, but they are our own mercies that we have a right to—mercies freely offered to us of God in Christ Jesus, in his blessed gospel. It is thus your own Christ that you neglect. He is in this sense your own in the free offer of God; your own Saviour, the Christ whom God is holding forth and giving in his gospel to you.
An event had taken place at Jerusalem, in which every son of Adam on the wide surface of the earth was interested, which was to bring unnumbered multitudes to Heaven, and thus greatly to influence the records of eternity. And Christ, looking steadfastly upon the faces of his chosen followers, and thinking of the multitude of sinners which then thronged this miserable world, and of the countless generations then unborn, who afterwards were to be blessed by his salvation, uttered these most emphatic words: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.”
These words occur in the course of the apostle’s address in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia. Wherever the Jews were scattered within or without the bounds of the Roman Empire, it was their desire to cleave fast to one another, and so, wherever they were sufficiently numerous to have a public place of worship, they had it, and met there on the Sabbath day for the reading of the law. From among the nations, there were those that joined themselves to them, laying hold of the skirt of him that was a Jew, saying, “We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” These were by the Jews distinguished from the other Gentiles, as those that feared God, and we find that in this synagogue there were present such proselytes from among the Gentiles, along with those that were Jews by descent. To both classes, the apostle addresses himself, and to each class, he declares the good news of salvation.
Some of the most noted triumphs of the gospel have been among those that were the despised of this world. God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the things that are mighty. He has chosen the base things. He has chosen things that were not that he might bring to nought things that were, that no flesh might glory in his presence. One such trophy of gospel power and grace lived in the Highlands fifty years ago, and the memory of Angus of the Hills is still fresh among the people of the North Western Islands.
Beloved, you may remember, I have preached ten sermons upon the glorified condition of the saints in heaven. It is now in my thoughts to speak of the tormented condition of the damned in hell, that if the former sermons about glory have not gained your affections, this of hell might startle your consciences. Ministers, as having a mixed people, must mix their doctrine, somewhile with comfort and sometimes with terror. You have heard ten sermons upon the former text; you may haply hear so many more upon this subject.
There is one thing I have to observe, from the Lord’s way with me in my journey heavenward; it is up the brae and down the brae. . .Alas! my predominant sin was like my shadow, it never left me. O the confusion that in a short time it brought me under! till at last, I concluded my spots were not the spots of God’s children; for I thought I was one of the most abominable creatures that ever was born.
David, from his earlier days, to the close of his long and varied life, was visited with many and painful afflictions. Like Him whom in spirit he called “Lord,” though descended of David after the flesh, he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. But sanctified affliction produces godly sorrow, and godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation. Of this, David was a most conspicuous and instructive example.
When the directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway resolved to run trains on the Lord’s Day, William Burns announced his intention of holding open-air services at the Haymarket (the Edinburgh terminus in those days), at the hours of departure and arrival of the trains.
