in the Israelitish camp and had been bitten by one of the fiery serpents, it would have done us no good to look at the wound. Looking at the wound will never save any one. What you must do is to look at the Remedy—look away to Him who hath power to save you from your sin.

Behold the camp of the Israelites; look at the scene that is pictured to your eyes! Many are dying because they neglect the remedy that is offered. In that arid desert is many a short and tiny grave; many a child has been bitten by the fiery serpents. Fathers and mothers are bearing away their children. Over yonder they are just burying a mother; a loved mother is about to be laid in the earth. All the family, weeping, gather around the beloved form. You hear the mournful cries; you see the bitter tears. The father is being borne away to his last resting place. There is wailing going up all over the camp. Tears are pouring down for thousands who have passed away; thousands more are dying; and the plague is raging from one end of the camp to the other.

I see in one tent an Israelitish mother bending over the form of a beloved boy just coming into the bloom of life, just budding into manhood. She is wiping away the sweat of death that is gathering upon his brow. Yet a little while, and his eyes are fixed and glassy, for life is ebbing fast away. The mother’s heart-strings are torn and bleeding. All at once she hears a noise in the camp. A great shout goes up. What does it mean? She goes to the door of the tent. “What is the noise in the camp?” she asks those passing by. And some one says: “Why, my good woman, have you not heard the good news that has come into the camp?” “No,” says the woman, “Good news! What is it?” “Why, have you not heard about it? God has provided a remedy.” “What! for the bitten Israelites? Oh, tell me what the remedy is!” “Why, God has instructed Moses to make a brazen serpent, and to put it on a pole in the middle of the camp; and He has declared that whosoever looks upon it shall live. The shout that you hear is the shout of the people when they see the serpent lifted up.” The mother goes back into the tent, and she says: “My boy, I have good news to tell you. You need not die! My boy, my boy, I have come with good tidings; you can live!” He is already getting stupefied; he is so weak he cannot walk to the door of the tent. She puts her strong arms under him and lifts him up. “Look yonder; look right there under the hill!” But the boy does not see anything; he says—“I do not see anything; what is it, mother?” And she says: “Keep looking, and you will see it.” At last he catches a glimpse of the glistening serpent; and lo, he is well! And thus it is with many a young convert. Some men say, “Oh, we do not believe in sudden conversions.” How long did it take to cure that boy? How long did it take to cure those serpent-bitten Israelites? It was just a look; and they were well.

That Hebrew boy is a young convert. I can fancy that I see him now calling on all those who were with him to praise God. He sees another young man bitten as he was; and he runs up to him and tells him, “You, need not die.” “Oh,” the young man replies, “I cannot live; it is not possible. There is not a physician in Israel who can cure me.” He does not know that he need not die. “Why, have you not heard the news? God has provided a remedy.” “What remedy?” “Why, God has told Moses to lift up a brazen serpent, and has said that none of those who look upon that serpent shall die.” I can just imagine the young man. He may be what you call an intellectual young man. He says to the young convert “You do not think I am going to believe anything like that? If the physicians in Israel cannot cure me, how do you think that an old brass serpent on a pole is going to cure me?” “Why, sir, I was as bad as yourself!” “You do not say so!” “Yes, I do.” “That is the most astonishing thing I ever heard,” says the young man: “I wish you would explain the philosophy of it.” “I cannot. I only know that I looked at that serpent, and I was cured: that did it. I just looked; that is all. My mother told me the reports that were being heard through the camp; and I just believed what my mother said, and I am perfectly well.” “Well, I do not believe you were bitten as badly as I have been.” The young man pulls up his sleeve. “Look there! That mark shows where I was bitten; and I tell you I was worse than you are.” “Well, if I understood the philosophy of it I would look and get well.” “Let your philosophy go: look and live.” “But, sir, you ask me to do an unreasonable thing. If God had said, Take the brass and rub it into the wound, there might be something in the brass that would cure the bite. Young man, explain the philosophy of it.” I have often seen people before me who have talked in that way. But the young man calls in another, and takes him into the tent, and says: “Just tell him how the Lord saved you;” and he tells just the same story; and he calls in others, and they all say the same thing.

The young man says it is a very strange thing. “If the Lord had told Moses to go and get some herbs, or roots, and stew them, and take the decoction as a medicine, there would be something in that. But it is so contrary to nature to do such a thing as look at the serpent, that I cannot do it.” At length his mother, who has been out in the camp, comes in, and she says, “My boy, I have just the best news in the world for you. I was in the camp, and I saw hundreds who were very far gone, and they are all perfectly well now.” The young man says: “I should like to get well; it is a very painful thought to die; I want to go into the promised land, and it is terrible to die here in this wilderness; but the fact is—I do not understand the remedy. It does not appeal to my reason. I cannot believe that I can get well in a moment.” And the young man dies in consequence of his own unbelief.

God provided a remedy for this bitten Israelite—“Look and live!” And there is eternal life for every poor sinner, Look, and you can be saved, my reader, this very hour. God has provided a remedy; and it is offered to all. The trouble is, a great many people are looking at the pole. Do not look at the pole; that is the church. You need not look at the church; the church is all right, but the church cannot save you. Look beyond the pole. Look at the Crucified One. Look to Calvary. Bear in mind, sinner, that Jesus died for all. You need not look at ministers; they are just God’s chosen instruments to hold up the Remedy, to hold up Christ. And so, my friends, take your eyes off from men; take your eyes off from the church. Lift them up to Jesus; who took away the sin of the world, and there will be life for you from this hour.

Thank God, we do not require an education to teach us how to look. That little girl, that little boy, only four years old, who cannot read, can look. When the father is coming home, the mother says to her little boy, “Look! look! look!” and the little child learns to look long before he is a year old. And that is the way to be saved. It is to look at the Lamb of God “who taketh away the sin of the world;” and there is life this moment for every one who is willing to look.

Some men say, “I wish I knew how to be saved.” Just take God at His word and trust His Son this very day—this very hour—this very moment. He will save you, if you will trust Him. I imagine I hear some one saying, “I do not feel the bite as much as I wish I did. I know I am a sinner, and all that; but I do not feel the bite enough.” How much does God want you to feel it?

When I was in Belfast I knew a doctor who had a friend, a leading surgeon there; and he told me that the surgeon’s custom was, before performing any operation, to say to the patient, “Take a good look at the wound, and then fix your eyes on me; and do not take