Biography
Ben Haden is in his 21st year as a national radio speaker. Today, CHANGED LIVES - a non-denominational program - can be heard on by Americans and Canadians on both television and radio. He has been a regular speaker on the Sunday Evening Club for more than 20 years, and has been a pastor since 1963 of a large urban congregation. Before his conversion in 1954 he was a newspaper executive, attorney and an author. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Satan’s Weapon" 

And the people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food."

And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.

So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people.

The Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live."

And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
               - Numbers 21:5-9

If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
               - John 3:12-15

And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Christ.
               - Colossians 2:13-15
                 New American Standard Bible

We live in a time when the greatest fear is AIDS. I've never seen that kind of fear but one other time in my life. I can remember, as a child, driving through a city with my family - being told to get down on the floor in the back seat while they put the windows up because there was polio in that town and no one knew how to get polio or how to escape polio. One of the greatest tragedies of our day is that those who suffered in the late `30's and early `40's with polio - those who were paralyzed and have since walked - are now suffering from post-polio, again paralyzed. Often more helpless than they were before.

I think of a dear friend of mine who is a physician. As a young man, three times his toe was tagged as the toe of a dead man, with polio. Yet he survived, married, family, very successful career. Now stricken with post-polio, now unable to eat solid food, now strictly on a liquid diet, now having lost 100 lbs., wasting away with post-polio.

Guilt is like that. The paralysis we feel with fear, with anguish, with frustration, about the lives we've lived in the past, the things we've done, the people we've hurt. And then we come to Christ and years later we have post-paralysis with guilt over the same sins committed so many years before.

I want you to come with me now, back to the Old Testament. The new Promised Land has been spied out, the committee has returned with a vote of 10 to 2, and the people have become convinced, "we cannot take the Promised Land in our own strength." They have not trusted the Lord to give them the Promised Land. Now they are doomed to wander for a total of 40 years in the wilderness. They experience great anguish, great frustration. They become highly critical of everything, including God and including their leader, Moses. They say, "There's nothing to drink." Of course, there was something to drink - God had to provide it every day or they would have died. They say, "There's no food." Of course there was food - God provided it every day or they would have died. And then in commenting on the food he provided they said, "It's such a loathsome, miserable food."

At this point God - not Satan, not some unknown power, but God - sent fiery serpents among these people. The serpents bit them, and they were dying right and left. Then we're told they take stock of themselves and realize, "We've spoken against God and against his man." They go to Moses and ask him to intercede for them, "Give us help. We're guilty... we've sinned."

Moses does intercede for them. "This is the answer," the Lord says,
"you make a bronze serpent, you hold it aloft, you tell them that everyone who looks at it even if he has already been bitten, he will not die. And anyone who has not been bitten will not die. Hold it aloft."

Can't you hear the intellectuals saying, "Do I have to look at that place - can't I look east? Can't I watch the sun set? Can't I look at my fellow man? Can't I pray as a substitute?" The answer is that every substituted way resulted in death by a snake bite... there was one way. They were in trouble because of disobedience. "If you obey me", the Lord says, "this is what you're to do -you look at this bronze serpent." And every one who did, lived. Why? Because that was God's answer to their prayer, and you either responded to it or you didn't.

Now come with me to the New Testament. Nicodemus is a leader, a rich man, a man who had great influence and also great insight. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night - not sending someone as a substitute, but coming himself. He asks the question that plagues every one of us throughout our entire lives, "What must I do to have eternal life?" he asked. And Jesus tells him. And Nicodemus says, "How can I be born again, born from above? How can that happen?"

And Jesus looks at him and he says, "If I tell you earthly things in street language - nuts and bolts - and you don't understand it, do you really think you'd understand if I explained to you heavenly things?" He says, "Get it straight. Everyone who believes in me shall have eternal life, shall be eternally forgiven of his guilt."

Do you know one of the great tragedies of our times? It is how many churches you can go to and feel more guilt than when you entered it. The Christian church in the United States spent the first 100 years telling people how to go to hell. Everyone of us already knew. That wasn't news, and it certainly wasn't good news, and it was certainly not what we were empowered to share.

The Apostle Paul writes the Colossian Christians and he reminds them, "Every one of us owed a debt - the amount undisputed. And there was no way we could pay it. And Jesus paid the full debt that I owed and that you owed and he marked the debt PAID IN FULL and nailed it to a cross. Then, like a Roman victor with victory over all rulers, all principalities, all powers, he acted in triumph and celebration because it was done."

You know when Nicodemus was told "just as the bronze serpent was held up in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up that all men might come to him." For years you've heard that explained as Jesus on the cross. I don't think it means that at all. I think it means that every time that Jesus is explained it has to be in language that people understand so that he - the person Jesus - is lifted up that men and women might be drawn to him.

I have a friend who was born in the Midwest. He's a conservative type person. His daughter had been dating this boy for about 6 or 8 months. She'd never been in his home, she'd never met his family, but she was pregnant by him and she was now more than three months pregnant. When she called the boy he all but pretended he didn't know who she was. The family, being wealthy, thought it was a set up. The family was quite confident that she wasn't pregnant, though she was more than three months pregnant. She went to her father and laid bare her life.

He did a very unusual thing. He's from a large family. He telephoned his brothers, his sisters, his sons and his first cousins and he summoned them to his home on a certain date, in a certain city at a certain hour. It must have cost a lot of money. In any event everyone paid his own way and there were 50 of them there. He put his arms on his daughter's shoulders and he said, "This is my daughter, as you know. And as you know, I adore her. My daughter is pregnant and she is carrying my grandchild. I want each person in this room to vote yea or nay with this understanding - do you accept me? Do you accept my precious daughter as my precious daughter? And do you accept my grandchild as my precious grandchild? No scuttlebutt, no rumors, no rehashing, no condemnation - yea or nay. We'll go around the room." There were 50 yeas.

At that point I met the girl. She had already experienced, at the hands of her father, real forgiveness and real love. When I told her she had a heavenly Father and when I told her he had a Son who died for the forgiveness of her guilt, she slid to her knees and very willingly and very quietly confessed that Christ.

You say, "Did she know she sinned?" Oh sure. "Did she feel badly?" Very badly. "Did she rehash?" No. She took God at his word.

Do you know the most effective weapon of Satan in my life? It is to dredge up my guilt about my sins. Satan plays it both ways. When I committed the sin he said, "Go ahead, Ben. Do whatever comes natural, accept yourself - that's the way you are." And the same Satan turned around once I became a Christian and he said, "Do you know what you are? You're a hypocrite, you are a scumbum, you're a lousy, good-for-nothing man who's thrown away most of his life. What on earth would make you think that you, an unrighteous man, could do business with an all-righteous Christ?" You know, it's so easy when it's dark, when it's night, when your mind dwells on things, to question the forgiveness of Christ.

In the wilderness, God said, "Hold up the brazen serpent. Do just what I tell you - that's my one answer. If you've been bitten by a snake then you will live."

To Nicodemus God said, "I won't bother to tell you heavenly things you wouldn't understand. But earthly-wise, take my word on it, trust me with your life and with your death and you'll have eternal life."

Paul writes the Colossian Christians, "It's all been paid, it's been paid in full. Nothing remains to be paid, no matter what guilt Satan brings back to your mind."

Today, my friend, in your own life, you may be suffering from guilt and post-guilt, from paralysis or post-paralysis, you may be a believer or an unbeliever. Let me just say to you one thing: Jesus Christ tells the truth. You can trust him. He lives and he loves you and if he could forgive me with all my sin and all my guilt, he will forgive you.