Does This Look Infected

We'll be back with some special music. Certainly appreciate the pre-recorded concepts. For those of you that have that as a talent and those of you that are blessed in that way, it might be interesting to see if there are some possibilities of doing some recordings and being able to send those out so that we can have special music going forward. Certainly do appreciate, maybe consider something along the lines of like a little virtual choir or solo type things or something along those lines. So if that's something you're interested in, maybe interface with Linda Hansen and maybe myself. And we can kind of see about getting that squared away.

We certainly do want to have special music in this time. It is nice to praise God and to worship Him in that fashion. So certainly appreciate the special music and really the focus on where would we be without our great and mighty God. You know, it is incredible to consider the blessings that He gives to us and the just love that He shows us as we go through our lives. Well, I'd like to talk just a little bit today about some topics leading up into the Passover season. As Passover obviously is coming up quite quickly.

We're about a week and a half out now from the service itself. We will have opportunity for another Sabbath in between then and now and we'll have a chance to do some pre Passover examination type messages. But I want to talk just a little bit today. One of the jokes that sometimes goes around among medical professionals and doctors and nurses and techs, kind of anybody who's put themselves in a position to serve people in the public health sector, is that upon entering your chosen field, once you reach the point where you have decided, I'm going to now serve in this capacity, that you will forevermore get the, does this look infected, questions from your closest friends and family.

Now, I am guilty of that. I'm guilty of sending quick little free medical advice questions to friends and family who happen to be in the medical field. I think everybody loves free medical advice. Everybody loves, you know, personally knowing a doctor or a nurse that ensures that you have a direct pipeline to someone who has a real difficulty telling you no. I have a number of people in my life that fit that bill. My cousin, Kalen, is an emergency physician in Aurora, Colorado.

My cousin, Aaron, is a director of REMSA, which is an emergency management service out of Reno, Nevada. And then I've got friends from college and church and other things that have gone on to end up in the medical field. So I have a cell phone full of individuals that I'm able to turn to in the event that I need a little bit of free medical advice. And I have. I have before. A few weeks back, just a couple of days into our trip into West Africa with Mr. Moody, I noticed something in the palm of my left hand that was giving me a little bit of grief.

It was really tender, and I kind of kept massaging it a little bit as we were driving around Lagos for the first couple of days in the hopes that I could get it to kind of calm down. I thought maybe I'd, I don't know, strained a muscle or something in my hand, but it was really, really tender and a little bit swollen. And, you know, I noticed as the pain in the swelling kind of began to subside, that there was a small lump in my left palm, like about the size of a pea, and it was really, really tender.

I know what you're thinking. It was not a worm. You know, the last time I had something that ended up like this, it did, in fact, end up being a worm. This was not a worm, thankfully, but I will say for about 20 seconds, I thought, did I get a botfly? Did I get like a weird larva or something? And I'm looking, there's no bite mark, so they have, it's not a botfly in Africa. They call them pootsie flies or mango flies in Africa.

But essentially the same thing. I would highly suggest, don't Google that. Don't Google those two things. You don't want to see the images or the, you know, discussion of them. But I had a moment where I went, well, maybe that's what this is, you know, and then the biologist in me went, ooh, that's kind of cool. That's kind of neat. And then the rest of me went, no, there's no bite mark. Everything's fine.

So I concluded that wasn't ultimately the case. But it was swollen enough to be noticeable underneath the skin, and it was still really tender. It didn't seem to be real serious. And I figured, well, once I got home, I'd call one of my pocket doctors and kind of see what they thought.

Of course, right around that time, coronavirus blew up in the world, and our doctors and emergency room techs and nurses and everybody are working around the clock. And I just couldn't bring myself to add to their stress levels by asking for a pocket doctor visit. So I went ahead and scheduled with my general practitioner once I got home. Now, we got home, and at that point in time, we had reached a point with the spread of COVID that my doctor actually only was offering telemedicine appointments.

So literally connecting with him on Skype and sitting down and kind of talking about the different things that we were dealing with. And then he'd be able to tell us a little bit of what's going on. Well, I thought to myself, this is ridiculous. You know, he's not going to be able to see it. He's not going to be able to poke and prod like doctors do. My camera can't be that high resolution to actually be able to diagnose something over my camera. It just seemed to me like a huge waste of time. But the appointment was made regardless, and on the day of the appointment, we connected up.

We had a little bit of small talk about Africa and had a little bit of kind of talk of the crazy times in which we're all living. And he had me describe what I was experiencing. So I did. And he asked me to hold my hand up to the camera, and he said, oh, yeah, yeah, there it is. Yeah, no biggie. It's just a tendonsist, or what they call a ganglion cyst. You know, it'll likely go down on its own, but he said, if it causes you problems going forward, there's treatments that you can look into, and we can get it taken care of. That was it. Seven minutes on Skype, and I had a diagnosis.

I was really seriously impressed. Admittedly, I had a moment where I thought, you know, I hope the Skype rate is cheaper than the office rate. I suspect that it isn't, but I kind of hoped that it was, given the amount of time that we spent. But I, you know, if you've ever had a chance to sit down with a doctor that is a decent doctor, they have a system in which they diagnose things that really is incredible.

They have developed this very systematic way of diagnosing problems. It's like they're trying to solve a mystery. It's like they're a detective. They're asking these series of questions to confirm things or rule out certain scenarios and then ultimately come to the final conclusion where they have solved the mystery. Sometimes it's really easy. Sometimes you have a broken leg. It turns out your leg's not supposed to bend that way. We need to get that fixed. Sometimes it's simple. Sometimes it's very easy.

But there's other times where it's not so simple, where they have to run a battery of tests. They run blood work, the CT scan, PET scans, MRIs. And with each test, the possibilities and the things that it could be are limited down a little bit more and a little bit more with each and every one of those tests. Until they eventually are able to pinpoint that scenario pretty much exactly and able to tell you what you're dealing with in detail.

Now, why are they able to do that? Why can they do this so well? Well, brethren, they can do it so well because they are experts in examination. They are experts in examination. They know the right questions to ask. They know the right tests to run. They know the right images to order so they can get to the bottom of what it is that's going on inside of you.

So when you call them and you ask, hey, does this look infected? Or you go into the doctor's office and say, hey, does this look infected? Well, they have a specific set of circumstances that help them to identify infection. They're looking for redness. They're looking for swelling. They're looking for is it hot to the touch? You know, does it feel warm to the touch?

Is there some discoloration at the top, at the surface that would indicate some infection on the inside? You know, sometimes it might even be more serious. You might have a red line moving up the from the side of the cut or whatever it might be that is infected. But each of these things, it fits a specific pattern most of the time. Now, it's not always perfect. Sometimes doctors miss completely. We know that. But really, a good doctor is right significantly more than they are wrong. Now, believe it or not, you and I are pretty good at examination as well.

We know when something's not right. We can feel it. We know when there's a lump there that wasn't there before, or we suddenly have a pain that was plaguing us that wasn't there a day earlier, or, you know, we intuitively kind of know that there's a possibility that something might be infected, which is why we ask the question.

And the reason we know that is because there's something that just feels off. We live in these bodies day in, day out for a number of years, some of you for a lot of years, and you intuitively know them inside and out.

And so when something comes up that doesn't seem right, we know there's something wrong. We do a quick kind of 12-point inspection on ourselves and go, hey, we have a problem here. And so we go in to get checked out. We get anointed and we go get checked out. Now, once that diagnosis is made, the doctor will provide treatments or suggestions to ensure that you're going to heal.

They may prescribe you necessary medication. They may suggest that you change your diet. They may suggest that you exercise. They may suggest that you take a radiation or chemotherapy treatment or have an operation. They may suggest vitamins. They may suggest more sunlight. There's a lot of possibilities for treatment, but they'll suggest something that will hopefully help you to feel better. Now, after that, they'll likely also schedule regular checkups after that treatment to ensure that the situation has resolved itself. And they may, depending on the situation, choose to monitor you either very directly going forward by keeping you in the hospital for a time, or they may set up appointments with you for the first few weeks every week and then a little bit further out, or they may say, hey, you know what?

I want to see you again next year. I just want to find out where things are at with regards to this particular issue. But it follows three basic steps. It follows an examination, a treatment, and ultimately a follow-up. It follows an examination and a treatment and ultimately a follow-up. They determine the issue, they treat the issue, and then they check back in to make sure that that issue has been resolved. What I'd like to do today is I'd like to take a little bit of time to kind of explore these things more fully as we head into the Passover. The title of the sermon today, as I mentioned before, with the question that gets asked to every medical personnel that starts down this road is, does this look infected?

That is the title of the sermon today. Does this look infected? Let's begin today by turning over to 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 27. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 27, and we'll take a look at our first point. Okay, 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 27. The book of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul, is writing to the church in Corinth, coinciding with the spring holy days.

In it, he talks about a number of the aspects of the Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread. And one of the things that he really brings out to those in Corinth was the importance of a spiritual examination to ensure that they were able to take of the Passover in a worthy manner. 1 Corinthians 11, we'll pick it up in verse 27. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 27. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 27 says, 1.

Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 2. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 3. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 4. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world.

So Paul introduces us, in addition to a number of other aspects in this passage, introduces us to this idea that we need to ensure that we have properly examined ourselves before we take of the emblems of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. Now why? Why do we need to ensure that we examine ourselves? Well, he said it in the passage, so that we don't take them, take the emblems, in an unworthy manner, not recognizing the magnitude of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf.

Paul says we need to examine ourselves, and then as Paul states, we need to eat of the bread and the wine. That's the crucial aspect of this lesson on examination. None of us are worthy in the sense that we deserve the ability to take this. None of us are worthy in that capacity. We all need that sacrifice on our behalf. We all need Christ's body and blood. We need the time to examine ourselves and to put ourselves to the test or prove ourselves so that we can recognize the magnitude of what Christ did for us. Testing and proving ourselves prior to going in and taking that, really seeing where we're at with things, really deeply examining our lives, not just a surface level examination, but really getting in and examining ourselves is critical.

Because ultimately it's that examination that helps us to really acknowledge the depths of our sin, the depths of our issues, and understand the magnitude and the desperate need for Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. You know, at times in our spiritual examination, much like we mentioned before in our doctor's examination, sometimes it's easy to identify obvious issues.

We look at something that maybe wasn't present last year, but it is now. We may end up with something that was present last year and is still present this year. Maybe we have an attitude of pride that has cropped up, or we have doubts, we have a lack of faith in some ways, or we have sins that have cropped up or have continued and have been habitual over time.

Maybe we're experiencing a distancing from God as a result of spiritual lethargy or rebellion or something along those lines. But sometimes that situation in our lives isn't as obvious. Sometimes we're not able to necessarily identify the issue ourselves. We may come into the Passover and think, you know, I've done a pretty good job here. I'm doing really, really well.

And it's those times where we need to stop and really ask God to examine us and to really dig into our lives and illustrate to us where we have areas of growth and where we really need to put in the work. There are often times that there are bigger issues that are buried underneath those obvious issues. Sometimes the obvious issue is just a symptom of a depreceded issue.

And there's times that you may have experienced where you just feel like something's off, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Again, in those times, it is absolutely crucial that we go to God in prayer, asking Him to help us to see our sinned, help us to see kind of the spiritual state that we're in, because God knows our hearts and knows our minds. Let's go ahead and turn to Psalm 26. Psalm 26.

If you want to go ahead and turn over that way. Psalm 26.

Psalm 26. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 2. We know that King David was a man after God's own heart. We know that he had an attitude that God appreciated and a willingness. And one of the things I think that is just so incredible to see about David, a willingness to adjust his course when he discovered or when it was brought to his attention that he had been wrong or that he has sinned before God.

You know, we saw that in the situation when he took the census of his people. We saw that in the situation where, you know, he sinned against Bathsheba or against God with Bathsheba. We see that in a number of places in David's life. When it is brought to his attention that he has made a mistake, he owns it. He doesn't push it off on other people, more or less.

He owns it. But when he discovers that and he realized he'd sinned against God, he had this attitude of really returning to God in humility. And it's an incredible attitude to look at and it's an incredible attitude to consider. Psalm 51, when he's dealing with the aftermaths of his sin with Bathsheba, just the level of repentance and the focus that he had on being washed clean and having God created him a new heart, it's just beautiful.

It truly is beautiful. And I think it's one of those things that attitude in particular is very pleasing to God. But in Psalm 26, we'll pick up his thoughts in verse 2 as he kind of ponders this idea of redemption and God's scrutiny on his life. Psalm 26 in verse 2 says, You know, David asked God to prove him. That word prove has an underlying concept of like testing metals. Like we say, like a person might assay gold or other precious metals to determine the quality and whether or not it really is that metal.

You know, David asked God to prove him, to really assay him as a man assays gold. And as we know, the way to do that is to melt it down and to put them, put that metal into the fire and do everything that you can to ensure that it is, in fact, pure by looking to see if there's impurities that rise to the surface.

To put him into the fire and to try him, or the word as Greek is used to refine him like a person would refine silver. Again, melt it down, scoop off the impurities, and you have pure silver. Go through that a few different times and you have a pure sample. But David asked God to do that to him to provide him with an understanding of his mind and his heart. David desired that God test his desires and his motives. He wanted God to examine him. He wanted God to look inside of him and help him to see his spiritual condition.

Now, we know God tests us. He proves us, often through trials and tribulations in life, through the fire, so to speak. And it's in those moments when we are tested and we are tried and we are dealing with incredible difficulties when God gets his answer many times. God puts us into situations, or allows us, I should say, to enter into situations where we have to turn to him, we have to rely on him.

And God is looking to see, will we turn to him or do we turn to something else? Do we turn to God or do we turn to the bottle? Or to whatever other vice it might be that we experience? Who are we turning to in these times of difficulty? Who are we turning to in these difficult times? Where do we turn? God is asking, will that person double down on my way of life? Really putting the focus in on that, doubling down on my way of life?

Or are they going to put that way of life aside when it becomes challenging and when it becomes difficult, when it suddenly isn't as easy anymore?

Will this person allow themselves, as we're dealing with this outbreak of COVID-19, will they allow themselves to become distracted by the cares of this world? Or will they focus on truly what is important? How will they respond in these times of stress and times of trial? Now, in modern medicine, we have MRIs, we have EKGs today that allow us to physically examine our minds and our hearts, quite literally. You can look at a picture of your brain or a really good image of your heart and how it functions. But God can see our hearts and see our minds, our hearts, our desires and our motives in a way that we simply cannot. You know, in many ways, God is like an EKG and like an MRI to be able to really tell us what is going on inside, under the surface. You want to turn over to the book of John, John 2. John 2. And we'll pick it up in verse 23. John 2 and verse 23. You know, we see that Christ is described as knowing all men. Christ is described as knowing all men. And that doesn't mean that, you know, he knows this person's Harry and George and whatever, and he knows all these individuals necessarily by name. But what it means is he had no need that anyone should testify of man and what man is like, because he knew what was in man. John 2 and verse 23. We'll just read 23 to 25 here to kind of make our point. But John 2, verse 23, says, Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. We see other situations, other scenarios that occurred in Scripture that show him perceiving the thoughts of men. He, as God, knew.

He understood man's desires, man's motivations. He could perceive their intent.

Now we have to be asking him, as we go through our lives, we have to be asking him to illuminate those places in our lives to help us to understand whether we are fully in line with his expectations. We have to know whether we are fully in line with the standard that we have been provided. Many of you that are in medicine, I know we have a number of nurses and we have a number of other individuals that have taken medical classes or perhaps worked as CNAs or RNs or whatever as time goes on.

I have no idea who all is on this call, so we might even have some doctors from various places around. But many of you realize in most modern medicine scenarios, there's a certain pattern of health markers that indicate a person's health status. They call them vital signs. They are like a normal clinical standard. And they are in ranges, most of them in ranges. A person's body temperature is roughly 98.6. We were getting on a plane from Benin City on our way back to Lagos. One of the systems that Africa has put into place to deal with this outbreak is you take your temperature check on the departure of your airport and on the arrival.

So before you get on the plane, they want your forehead with the temperature, the forehead thermometer, for lack of a better term. Although the one that I had in Benin City was an in-ear one, and he didn't know that. So it kind of got a weird result. But when you get off the plane, then, in Lagos, they do the same thing. And that's the way that they're not messing around. Like, if you run high or you're running hot, you're quarantined. Whether you want to be quarantined or not, you really don't have a choice. And so we got to the airport in Benin City. Some of you might have seen the picture on Facebook.

And the guy wanted me, and I registered high. I registered higher than 98.6. Now, mind you, it was 97 degrees outside, and we just hoofed it up there from the hotel to be able to hop on the airport. And, you know, it's the middle of tropical Africa. It's warm. And eventually, cooled down, they let me go in, and everything was fine. But there's certain, like, patterns. There's certain clinical standards. 98.6 is roughly one of those clinical standards. A person's blood pressure, roughly 120 over 80, though they've adjusted that a little higher now with all the blood pressure issues that people have.

Glucose level, roughly 120. 12 to 18 breaths a minute. Pulse, 60 to 100 beats per minute, kind of in that resting heart rate. That's the standard. That's the accepted normal. Now, what God does is He examines us against the standard. And that standard is Him dwelling in us. His characteristics, His attributes, being expressed to those around us. That's the clinical standard, so to speak. That's the clinical standard. And so what we would expect, then, is when we discover anything that's outside of that clinical standard, we would call that a symptom.

So if we have anything that exists in our lives that is outside of that clinical standard, then we have a symptom. What's a clinical standard? Galatians 5, 22 to 23. We'll just reference it. We won't turn there. But Galatians 5, 22 to 23, shows us generally the basics of the clinical standard. We would expect to see in our lives, if we are allowing God to lead us, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We would see aspects of those things, fruits, of that spirit in our life, if we are allowing that spirit to lead us.

That's the clinical standard that God operates from. Are you allowing His Spirit to live and dwell within you and to produce fruit? So the question that we have to ask ourselves when we're coming into the Passover, when we're doing an examination on our lives, is, do I see these fruits in my life? Do I match these things? Or, if I'm being honest with myself, would I say that my pulse rate is a little high? Is my blood pressure low? Do I have a fever?

If there's issues, and we come into the Passover, hopefully recognizing that there's issues, recognizing that there are things that we still need to take care of, still things that we need to fix, then what we need to do is get them sorted. We need a treatment plan, so to speak.

So once we have examined and once we've kind of diagnosed what it is that we're dealing with, now we need to start looking at some treatment. There's an interesting story that's recorded for us in the Old Testament with some hints that are relating to the symbolism and the ultimate meaning of the incident and why it was recorded for us in a few other places in the New Testament.

Mr. Moody spoke on this topic while we were in Africa, and it just fits too perfectly in what we're trying to discuss today to not mention it and bring it up here today. Turn with me, please, to Numbers 21. Let's go over to Numbers 21. Those of us that are doing the year, the chronological read-through, have been in through this the last month or so, a little more than a month ago now, I guess now, in Numbers 21.

But Numbers 21, and I want to take a look at this particular account because it is really indicative of what our treatment is. It's really indicative of what God's treatment for the sin and the things that we deal with is. The Book of Numbers records a number of the journeys of the people of Israel, and they're wandering through the wilderness. By the point that we reach in Numbers 21, we're beginning to near the end of their journey.

By that point in time, Moses has sinned against God and is striking of the rock. Aaron has died. Israel is kind of now making the final southern loop, which they'll then loop down around Edom and then come back up north through into the land of Canaan. Now, those in the host of Israel at this point in time, I mean, just to kind of provide some perspective, the host of Israel at this point are the children of those that largely left in the Exodus. Most of their parents, most of those that were in that older generation, by this point had begun to die off, not everybody, but by this point in time, that generation had thinned significantly.

They'd been wandering at this point in the wilderness for the better part of 40 years, following again their rebellion against God on numerous occasions in the wilderness. Keep in mind, God had done nothing but deliver for Israel. He'd made it so their clothing didn't wear out. You know, he worked these incredible miracles.

Their clothing didn't wear out. You know, he provided water miraculously from the rock, gave them manna to sustain them. You know, he was with them in the wilderness for that time, led them, protected them, delivered them from their enemies, provided for their sustenance consistently. To that point, God's role with Israel had been that of their protector, their sustainer, and their deliverer. So in Numbers 21 and verse 4, we'll go ahead and pick it up.

Numbers 21 and verse 4. Numbers 21 and verse 4 says, The word discouraged here can actually be translated impatient. They had gotten impatient. They were discouraged. They were downtrodden. They were impatient. By this point in the journey, they were headed in the complete opposite direction of Canaan. They were headed south at this point in time toward the Gulf of Aqaba. The mountains of the land of Seir, the Mount Seir range, would have been on their left at this point as they were moving south.

And they knew if they were headed towards Canaan, it should have been on their right. And so they know they are now walking away from the land that God had promised to them. They know it's been almost 40 years, or it's been roughly the 40-year mark. They should be able to kind of be entering into the land at this point. But no, instead, now God has them going south again around the land of Edom before He finally takes them on that final turn north and moves forward.

In fact, to add to the discouragement, they had just conquered King Arid and the Canaanites and their surrounding cities. Who, by the way, 40 years earlier, soundly defeated that host when they tried to take Canaan by force. Now they had conquered Arid. They had conquered the Canaanites. They had conquered their cities.

But now, instead of turning and marching straight into Canaan after that victory, they turned around and now were headed south. Away from Canaan. They knew something was wrong. They knew something was wrong. Verse 5, it says, the people spoke against God and against Moses and says, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food, no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.

Worthless bread. That worthless bread that they were complaining against was the miraculous manna that God had given them day in and day out through the wilderness journeys. He provided to them a double portion on the preparation day so that they could gather and it would not spoil. God without fail had cared for them. But after 40 years of the same thing, day in, day out, they complained.

It's just more of the same we loathe this worthless bread. In other words, God, we don't want your miracle. We don't want your bread. God responds to their complaints in verse 6. Verse 6, Now, I mean, to Israel's credit, they recognized right away, okay, this was a bad idea. We shouldn't have said that. We should have been grateful. We shouldn't have sinned against God. We shouldn't have spoken against you and spoken against God. And they come to Moses, you know, probably in some capacity to save their own skin. It may not have been the most humble coming before Moses, but specifically said, please pray for us, that God would remove these serpents that were ultimately plaguing them. I've never been bitten by a poisonous snake. I've been bitten by plenty of non-venomous snakes. But I've never been bitten by a poisonous snake, thankfully. I'm very thankful for that. As a child, we used to have a hill up behind our house. We would go up and catch gopher snakes, and rubber boas, and garter snakes, and a few king snakes even now and again, which we never could figure out how they got there because they weren't native to that area. But we would find all kinds of cool stuff up there. No rattlesnakes. We never found anything super venomous. But I have been bitten by a non-venomous snake more times than I'd like to admit. It's not comfortable. I mean, it doesn't really hurt in the long run. You get over it. But I don't know what it's like to have venom coursing through your veins. I don't know what it's like to have that pain and that agony of that bite, to have the tissue destruction that happens at the area of that bite, to have that slow, methodic spread, to know that with every single beat of your heart you're pumping, that venom closer and closer and closer to the point where your body is just going to give out. The fear and the anxiety that comes along with knowing that you're not going to make it. I don't know what that's like, thankfully. I am so thankful that I've not had to experience it. But this is what the people of Israel were experiencing.

They were dying in an agonizing way with these fiery serpents that were biting and killing the people in droves. So Moses prays for the people, and God responded. He says, Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent, set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and so it was, if the serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Now God instructs Moses to craft a bronze serpent and to place it on a pole. He says, if and when a person was bitten by the snakes that had overrun the camp at that point, and they were to look upon it, they would live. So Moses does what God instructs, ultimately. When a person was bitten by a snake, if they so much as looked upon the bronze serpent that Moses had made, they would be healed of their affliction. And so they did. The snakes eventually phased out, and people eventually survived the plague as time went on. But as time went on, and Israel conquered Canaan and became a nation in and of itself, the nation flourished under David and under Solomon, and then eventually declined under a number of the subsequent kings. For several hundred years, that bronze serpent was with Israel. In fact, by the time we reach the time of King Hezekiah, Judah was worshipping it and had given it a name, Nahushtan, the bronze thing. It's literally what it means in Hebrew, is the bronze thing. You can jot this down in your notes if you'd like. We won't turn there. But in 2 Kings 18, King Hezekiah is recorded as having destroyed Nahushtan, along with a number of the other high places throughout the nation. Now, when we read this account, we kind of pause and we ask, wait a second.

Why would God have instructed Moses to build this idol? Well, he didn't. He instructed him to build a bronze serpent, yes. But God didn't intend for this bronze serpent to become an idol. Instead, it was a type. It was a shadow of things to come. It was a way for Israel to understand how their ultimate salvation would come. Let's turn over to John 3. John 3. When we talk about treatment, we talk about treatment. When we talk about the cure, so to speak, for our sin, we talk about the way that we work to rid sin from our lives. This bronze serpent and the symbolism of this bronze serpent is a big aspect of it. John 3. We want to turn over there now. John 3 were introduced to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He was a prominent man, and he came and he met with Jesus at night. He knew that Jesus had come from God. He knew that no one could do what Christ had been able to do unless he was sent by God. So he came at night and he met with Jesus. During their conversation, Jesus informs Nicodemus that he needs to be born again, needs to be born of water in the spirit, he needs to be baptized, coming up ultimately in newness of life. And he explains to him what was to come. And he does that in verse 14. He does that in verse 14 of John 3. Which, mind you, leads right into probably one of the most quoted scriptures of the entirety of the Bible. We'll read John 14... John 3, I'm sorry, verse 14, and pick it up there. John 3 and verse 14, we'll see that again, this serpent was a type, it was a shadow of things that were to come. It says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him... Oops. We just lost our phone conference, folks. Oh, bummer. Hopefully they'll call back. I'm gonna set them back up here real quick. Sorry. Pardon me.

Oh, good. They're all still there.

Sorry about that. For those that are on the phone conference, we had the call dropped somehow. I'm not sure what happened, but it looks like you're all still there. So thank you for your patience and my apologies for the slight tech hiccup. But I've got two of me in here now, though, and I don't know which one to mute.

If I could have somebody at some point check to see on the audio on the telephone hookup whether or not I'm coming through duplicated or not, and if it's echoing really weird and shoot me a quick text to let me know if it's good or not, I'll keep going here and then I'll make a change in the event that I need to change something. But thank you for that. So again, this bronze serpent was to be a type of Jesus Christ. It was to be a shadow, again, of things to come. Really what it represented was victory over the serpent. Victory over the serpent. Says verse 14, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Again, this bronze serpent was to be a type of Jesus Christ. It was to be a shadow of things to come. It represented victory over the serpent and that serpent's venom, which at this time, in our age now, with Satan as the God of this world, is coursing through the veins of the entire world. There was only one place that people could look to be saved from that venom that was going through their veins, and that was Jesus Christ. We ask the question, does this look infected? Yes. It most certainly does. And it doesn't look good. You need treatment right now. The whole world has been bitten by the serpent.

Okay, I got the information that would sound good. Thank you very much for those who checked.

The whole world has been bitten by the serpent. We have his venom coursing through our veins, and frankly, if we do nothing more, if we don't take any action, we will die.

But instead, God provided the world with a solution. In faith, looking to Jesus Christ, as Israel was instructed to look to the bronze serpent in order to survive the venom, and truly believing faith and action, not just belief, but faith and action in Jesus Christ, and that he was sent to save the world, in looking to him would allow someone to live despite that venom that was coursing through their veins. You know, in the medical world, there's a variety of treatment paths. There's prescription medications. There's surgical options. There's various therapies. Sometimes issues can be managed simply through diet and exercise. But if you, as a patient, are dealing with something that is uncomfortable enough and is causing you to, you know, real extreme difficulty, you will generally seek out a fix for that issue, regardless of the temporary difficulty with the treatment. Sometimes the treatment is a challenge, but you will more than welcome take the treatment in order to take care of the issue that you're facing. You will generally seek out a fix for that issue, regardless of the difficulty of the treatment, because you want to get it dealt with as soon as possible. You want to make absolutely certain that whatever it is that is bothering you and that is causing issues in your life has been defeated and put out of your life. Brethren, what about in our spiritual lives? Do we approach sin in our lives with the same urgency?

Do we approach the struggles that we have living God's way in the same fashion? Do we look to Christ and ultimately to God the Father for our deliverance? Do we do it with a sense of urgency or do we do it with an attitude of, well, I'll get around to it when I have the time? If we were bitten by one of those serpents on the road toward the Gulf of Aqba, would we have waited? Would we have postponed our treatment? Or would we have found that bronze serpent as quickly as humanly possible so that we could gaze on it and live?

Christ was the shadow of things to come. It represented and symbolized the world. Jesus Christ. He is that treatment, looking to Him and yielding to Him, allowing Him and the Father to instruct us through their Spirit dwelling in us. As you consider your Passover preparation this year, are you seeking treatment? I mean, truly seeking it. Are you seeking it with the urgency of a dying man who is looking for anything and everything that might be able to save them?

Once it's been examined, once we've been diagnosed, once we recognize the need for treatment and have started that process of treatment, really looking to Christ, looking to God the Father, looking to and yielding to that Spirit in our lives and allowing that Spirit to yield to us, the final thing that we have left to do is to circle back and check in periodically. Do some follow-up care. The third point today is follow-up care.

The first was examination. The second was treatment. And then thirdly, follow-up care. Doctors currently set up a periodic check-in after treatment so they're able to monitor where the patient's progression is at. The first check-in, if the patient hasn't responded to the treatment, they'll try something else or they'll consider treating it maybe more aggressively. Even if the treatment, though, has been successful, sometimes the doctor will want to see the patient again once every few weeks to ensure that they're doing okay. Rarely is a treatment provided and a patient just completely jettisoned.

That's rare. It happens sometimes, but it's rare. Typically, doctors do want to follow up, you know, once a week or so for the first few weeks or maybe once every couple of weeks, maybe once every three months, six months, once a year, just to make sure that things are going well. Well, brethren, we have an opportunity every year before the Passover for a yearly check-up.

We have a chance to be able to periodically check in throughout the year as well. We don't wait until the Passover to do examination, but we have a chance to periodically check through the week. We have a chance to be able to check through the rest of the year as well in order to ensure that the treatment that we've received, whether we're really allowing that Spirit of God to lead us in our life or not, is working. But it's really important to recognize that it's really on us as to whether or not that necessary aspect of that treatment is getting done.

I'll tell you a quick story. A couple of years ago at High Sierra, and some of you know this story already, a couple of years ago at High Sierra, I slipped in the kitchen and fell, dislocated my left shoulder. It caused a fracture of the little dish that the shoulder bone sits in.

So the shoulder bone has a little knob on the end of it, and it sits inside of this little dish. When I fractured it, I broke an edge off of the little dish that that bone sits in. It's called the glenoid fossa. In the process of dislocating the shoulder and fracturing the glenoid, I managed to also tear the labrum in my left shoulder. The injury, as a result, has left me prone to further dislocations in that shoulder because the whole dish isn't present.

When the bone moves around and gets right to that edge spot, it gets really unstable and move wrong with the wrong amount of pressure or wrong angle of movement that can pop right out again with very little stopping it because the lip on that cup is gone. When that happens, it aggravates the labral tear and causes all sorts of pain and instability. I went in to get looked at after it happened, and my orthopedist told me that a surgical fix was pretty substantial.

He said that we're at the point where if we were to fix that, truly fix it, it would require a pretty serious surgery, which would require bones to be cut out of one place, screwed into the shoulder, ground down to make a new dish, muscle detached and put over something else and then reattached. He said we really kind of want to avoid that surgery if we can, so you're not dealing with a really reduced mobility in that shoulder. And so he said, you know, if you want to do the surgery, we absolutely will. But, you know, he said you might consider physical therapy. He said, OK, so called a pocket doctor.

A friend's husband is an orthopedic surgeon. And so I called him and said, hey, what are your thoughts? He said, I'm with him. You want physical therapy over the surgical fix if you can. So he said, get a good therapist and do your homework. Get a good therapist and do your homework. Make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing in order to ensure that things are getting taken care of. And if you do so, well, you might not need surgery.

So I did. I found a great therapist right here in town, a guy that does wonderful job with shoulders and actually has done some work with brethren in their shoulders, had several meetings with him. And lo and behold, after about eight to 10 weeks of regular, two-day-a-week physical therapy, really strengthening all the muscles that are around that injury and retraining my brain to move the shoulder in a different way, all was right in the world. So I stopped doing my physical therapy exercises. After all, I was cured, right?

Who needs to keep going on those? Turns out I needed to keep going on those, as those support muscles grew weaker, one that didn't have that targeted focus a couple times a week, the shoulder became more and more unstable and the pain returned in certain positions and with certain pressures. Why? Well, because I didn't follow the prescribed treatment plan going forward from treatment. The regularity of the appointments were designed in order to ensure that the follow-up was there and that the treatment continued, but in my own brain, they were no longer needed because I was healed.

The issue is I wasn't healed, and I would require follow-up treatment, kind of working those things going forward for the rest of my life. It's not a temporary fix. It wasn't an instantaneous change. It was a change in lifestyle. I was not able to go back to moving my shoulder in the way that I had moved it before I'd been injured. You know, going forward, things were going to have to change. I would have to use a new way of moving it. I had to ensure that it was getting moved daily, getting exercise daily, having those support functions worked out to where those muscles were strong to really hold that bone in the center of that disc so that it didn't get sloppy and get over towards the side where it would disconnect.

I had to ensure that the daily work was getting done, or that problem would return. I needed to ensure that I was in contact periodically with my physical therapist. But, brethren, that was on me. That's not on him. That's on me. Let's turn over to 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5.

1 Peter 5, and we'll go ahead and pick up the account in verse 6 of 1 Peter 5.

1 Peter 5.

It helps to remind us of that. It says, Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. Notice it says, Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, the hand that brought the nation of Egypt to its knees, the hand that parted the Red Sea, that delivered his people into the Promised Land, who called you and called me, and who has taken our heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh, that we might work with him and allow him to live within us. Going forward. Our God is mighty. Our God is great. And so, brethren, we have the ability to cast our cares upon him. To cast our anxieties and our concerns and our worries, our fears. We have the ability to give them to him because he cares for you and he promises he will care for you. So that means we can come before him and we can ask for forgiveness. We can ask him to grant us repentance, thankfully, through the sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ and the blood that was shed on our behalf. We can ask him to help us focus and cast our eyes upon the treatment.

Focusing on Jesus Christ, focusing on God the Father and the way of life that they have called us to lead. Making sure that we do our daily work, that we follow his prescriptions, that we might someday eventually be cured of a body that is subject to decay and be healed completely. To a glorious spirit body that is free of our afflictions and the aches and pains of this life. Brethren, that's what God the Father has called us to. And the Passover, as we look at these spring Holy Days, the Passover illustrates to us the incredible need that we have for a Savior. The recognition that we have sins and we have struggles that need to be healed. We are painfully mortal. It's a recognition that we've been bitten by the serpent and that we need his blood on our behalf. We need him for the remission of our sins and for the cleansing of our lives. As we move into the days of Unleavened Bread, we recognize there's a follow-up to that treatment. We need to be changing our habits, changing our mindset, putting out the leaven in our lives, removing the sin and taking in that Unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth. It requires us to continually be focusing on these adjustments in our lives for a lifetime. So as we come into these days, there's incredible work to be done by us. Each and every one of us must stop and turn our focus inward, looking at our own spiritual condition and really identifying the obvious issues and praying that God will help reveal to us the things that are not so obvious. That he will show us our heart and our mind and our spiritual condition. Praying that he apply that treatment in our lives and then remain in regular contact with him for regular checkups and treatment as necessary. Once again, we're pretty good at examination intuitively. Usually we can sense when something's wrong. Intuitively, we know when something is wrong. That as a result of living in this body, we know when it's not operating in the way that it should be operating. And it's that way in our spiritual life as well. If we're open and we're honest with ourselves and we really can look at our lives objectively, we should be able to see the things that are not firing on all cylinders. When we have one or more things that happen to be outside of that clinical standard, maybe when that relationship with God is not as close as it could be. Or when we're struggling in the realm of patience or self-control or love, kindness or gentleness. Now, unfortunately, when we're human, or because we're human, I should say, we don't always deal with these things with the sense of urgency that is needed. And when we don't deal with things with that sense of urgency that is necessary, things fester.

And they continue to fester with time. They become more serious as a result of our inaction than it would have been had we gotten it taken care of when it became an issue initially.

So, brethren, the question, does this look infected? Absolutely it does. You should definitely see a doctor. Well, that's all for now.