Looking around us, the world is chaotic with confusion, lies, and humanity wounded by the shadow of death. Now these signs of the times give us an understanding: how much we need healthy information and a healthy pattern. In the Book of Numbers, when the people were poisoned by the snake, the solution was to make a brass snake and put it on a pole. When the people who were poisoned looked up at the brass serpent, their disease was healed. How can a serpent take away the nature of poison? Everybody knows that brass in the Bible stands for the final judgment or was the end result of judgment. The brass serpent is the fallen human form, but was dealt with. When the Lord came as a man, He likewise took the form of flesh but without sin. And when He was crucified, He ended sin on the cross once and for all.
When the serpent was lifted up, it was very visible to all the people. This uplifted brass snake was a kind of new media (the trumpeting) in the Book of Numbers. And that cured the people.
Today, our generation who is sick, wounded and poisoned needs a pattern like this. We need to present a pattern that is not low; it has to be uplifted. The church is the uplifted testimony today. You see Paul, Timothy and Silas — a group of people serving the saints and outreaching to Macedonia. People were watching them as a pattern, the pattern of salvation. We need a pure and sanctified pattern, which is a living gospel. This living gospel is Christ lived out and manifested in us, the church. When people look upon us, may we be this new media to them, trumpeting this uplifted Christ as the true information and pattern in the end times. When anyone looks upon this one, he/she will be saved.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 2/20/20, not reviewed by the speaker.)