Welcome again. Turn in your Bibles
to Exodus chapter 17. Last week we followed two wayward
disciples on the road to Emmaus and the Lord Jesus opened the
Scriptures. Before he revealed himself to
these people, he revealed himself in the Scriptures. And he spoke
to them about how the scriptures speak of him. And in Exodus we
have this wonderful, wonderful story. It's an exhilarating story.
They've just made a movie of it, haven't they? Is it called
Moses or something? Anyway, I'm not saying you ought
to watch it. I'm not recommending you watch
it. I'm just saying that it is a gripping story and it's a wonderful
picture, of course, without Without the Lord Jesus being
the centre of that movie, the movie is meaningless in terms
of what the scriptures are saying. The Exodus account, of course,
is a remarkable picture of redemption. Redemption by grace, redemption
by power, redemption by the justice of God, redemption by the blood. of a lamb. And as I've often
told you, as those people walked out of Egypt carrying the treasures
of Egypt, as much as they could carry, they carried away. And
as they walked past those houses, every house of the Egyptians
was holding a funeral that morning. And every Egyptian knew and every
Israelite knew that as the Israelites marched out, they could look
at their first born and they could say, our family is not
in mourning and my son lives because the lamb died last night. And God passed over his people. And it's a remarkable picture,
isn't it, of the judgment of God upon this world. And Pharaoh
typifies Satan and Egypt, this world. And God leads them out
after those remarkable events, and he leads them in a fascinating
way. He doesn't lead them directly.
It wasn't a long journey to go along the coast directly from
Egypt up to Palestine. But He led them on another path,
and you can read about that path He led them on in Exodus 13,
14, 15, and 16, and here we are in Exodus 17, and they've come
again and again. It's just extraordinary. They
come led by God. led according to the commandment
of the Lord, 17 verse 1. They are led by God into these
situations where they are placed in a situation where again and
again they have no way through unless God acts. They are led
by God to the Red Sea. There is miles of sea in front
of them. There behind them is an Egyptian
army. There they are, defenceless people. And what are they told to do?
They are told to stand still. Fear not, Exodus 14 verse 13,
fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which
He will show you today. And the Egyptians whom you have
seen today, you will see them again no more. forever. And Moses lifted up that rod
and that sea part and there was a wall of water on either side
and they walked across that Red Sea on dry land. And then he led them to that
place where the waters were bitter. There they were being led into
a desert. And he led them to that place
of bitter water and Moses was shown a tree. That
tree represents the cross of the Lord Jesus, and when that
cross was thrown into that water, when that tree was thrown into
the water, the waters became sweet. No longer Mara, and they
were led to a place of wells and tarn trees called Elam, and
then they were led into the wilderness of sin, it's called. They journeyed
from Elam, chapter 16, verse 1. And the congregation of the
children of Israel came unto the wilderness of sin. It's remarkable
how graphic the names of the Old Testament are. And I looked
up that name to see if it had any other meaning and it was
just some mistranslation, but that's actually what it says.
There aren't any other names for it. What a great picture
of this world that we live in. What a great picture the trials
are of us in this world. And in chapter 16 they are led
to a place where they have no food. And the Lord reveals Himself,
doesn't He, in chapter 16 verse 7. In the morning you shall see
the glory of the Lord. They murmured and complained
against Moses again and again and again. And that bread from
heaven, that bread, you can read about it in John Chapter 6, the
bread that the Lord has given them, has given them to eat,
that bread represents the Lord Jesus, it represents His Incarnation. In Chapter 17, which we're looking
at more closely, we have a glorious picture of the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus. Let's read these verses in Chapter
17. And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after
their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord,
and pitched at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people
to drink. Therefore the people did chide,
did contend with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink.
And Moses said unto them, Why do you contend with me? Why do
you chide me? And wherefore do you tempt God,
tempt the Lord? Why do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there
for water. And the people murmured against
Moses and said, Wherefore is it that thou hast brought us
up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with
thirst? They'd only just been watered
miraculously again and again, had bitter water turned to sweet,
been led to a place of palm trees and wells. And Moses cried unto
the Lord. Moses goes to the mercy seat
of God. He lays out his case. He says,
what shall I do unto this people? They are almost ready to stone
me. the Lord's answer. And the Lord
said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee
the elders of Israel, and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the
river, talking about the river Nile, when it was struck by Moses,
and the waters turned into blood. Take in thy hand and go." And
this is his promise, isn't it? He says, Behold, I will stand
before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite
the rock, and there shall come water out of it that the people
may drink. And Moses did so in the sight
of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the
place Nassar and Meribah, strife and contention, because of the chiding of the children
of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, they tested God. And this is what they said. Isn't
this so typical of us in trials, apart from the grace of God?
This is the testing, isn't it? This is the tempting of God.
Is the Lord among us or not? It's so easy, isn't it? I'm so
prone, I speak for myself, I'm so prone to think, and I read
these stories, and there you have this remarkable event of
the whole deliverance, those ten plagues. And the remarkable
thing about the latter ones of those plagues is that there was
darkness, a darkness that you could feel, a darkness over the
land of Egypt, and yet there was none. There was this special
group of people protected and separated from Egypt, and you
think of all of the evidence. With all of the evidence, all
of that that I've seen before me, I wouldn't be like these
people. I wouldn't do that. I would have
been in the Red Sea and I would have trusted. I would have been
thirsty and parched and I wouldn't have whinged. Such is what we need to be rescued
from, isn't it? That sense in which We have no reason for accounting
for the unbelief and the ingratitude and the insensitivity of the
people, these people to God's goodness and faithfulness. If
it wasn't for God showing us from the scriptures and showing
us from our own hearts. What does Paul cry out? The chief
of sinners, he says, O wretched man. Not that those Israelites
are, wretched man that I am. Who's going to rescue me from
this body of death? We learn from Israel's wilderness
journeys, that journey that typifies the journey of God's people from
deliverance from Satan in this world and deliverance by God's
hand into that new land, that Canaan. We learn some very much
needed lessons. Those men on the road to Emmaus,
they had three years of the most remarkable testimony and witness
of God in human flesh. feeding them miraculously, rescuing
them and their friends miraculously, teaching them as only God can
teach. And what did they do on the road
to Emmaus? They turned away from the witness of their friends
and they said, we had hoped. As if in the trial that they
were going through, their hope had been dashed. We have in these
lessons the unvarying tendency of the human heart to doubt God. That is just the unvarying tendency
of your heart and mine, the heart that we inherited from our father
Adam, the heart that beats inside of us. Now wonder Hebrews 3.12
calls it an evil heart of unbelief always ready to depart from the
living God if we are sustained. We're going to be sustained by
grace that holds us and keeps us and makes us again and again
to find ourselves resting in Him. God is in the business of
taking away and it's a painful process of all of the props of
all of your life. If you're one of his children,
that process is an ongoing, continual process until you are left. You are left at rest in him. We are so often caused to be
busy, aren't we? to say what shall we eat, and
what shall we drink, what shall we wear, all of these things
the pagan world seeks. The answer from God, the answer
for the children of God is faith, isn't it? Faith's answer says
God will do it. God takes these people to a place
again and again and again, to a place where He alone can provide,
where He alone can sustain them with food, where He alone can
sustain them with water, where He alone can protect them from
their enemies, where He alone can protect them from the serpents
that bite them under the justice and judgment of God. Have you
been there? Have you been taken to that place
where there are no props, where there is nothing? Nothing. Nothing that satisfies and nothing
that protects and nothing that sustains except Him and Him alone. That's Heaven's glory, isn't
it? What did He say when He gave them the manna? He says, you
will see the glory of the Lord. What did He say to Mary and Martha? There's this wilderness that
we are so often put in, aren't we? How just was their complaint. Where was God? Is the Lord amongst,
they could have said. He left them for four days. He
left them thinking no doubt in their natural heart that He who
had promised that He'd love them and told people that He loved
them had for some reason abandoned them at this time. How often
we are like Mary and Martha. And what did He say? He said
to them, if you believe, and you will see the glory of God."
And they saw the glory of God. The glory of God is the Lord
Jesus. He speaks a word, a word of power. He speaks a word. And Lazarus
comes out and they are restored as a family. He must speak. There is nothing. We have this
amazing picture, don't we? The amazing picture again and
again played out before us of the extraordinary wickedness
of the heart of man, that evil heart of unbelief. As someone,
I think it might have been Henry Mayhen wrote, there is nothing
that exceeds the wickedness of the human heart except the abounding
grace of God. The only thing greater than our
sin is the greatness of His grace. There are two things that have
never been fathomed, says someone. One is the depths of sin. We've
never plumbed the depths of sin. We only see a glimpse of our
sin, but we'll never fathom the grace of God. Evil springs up in us all the
time. I'll never forget when we were
poor as a family many years ago and we sold our lawn. We sold our lawn to survive.
In fact, we sold our lawn twice to feed us. And they come along
and that lawn hadn't been touched for a hundred years. In fact,
my grandparents moved there in 1925 and outside of our house,
outside of where the fence was, there were still the holes in
the ground where the truck or the big sort of horse-drawn cart
had got bogged because it was a wet year and the holes were
still there. So it hadn't been ploughed since
1925. And the remarkable thing is they
come along and they, in those days, You didn't need any special
mission. They sort of took not only the
koi kiri off the top, but they took half an inch of soil and
rolled it up and took it all away. And there was this bare
lawn, looked like this floor. And what comes up? They'd taken
the grass off the top, they'd taken the soil, half an inch
of soil off it, and it just sprang up with all of these weeds. And
you'd think, where did they come from? It's just such a picture
of the hearts, our hearts, isn't it? They just spring up. It's
just there all the time. Mercifully, there is a wonderful
solution, isn't it? That's why the Gospel is good
news. That's why the gospel is not
good advice that tells you that you must do something, because
every time we touch something the weeds are there all the time.
The gospel is good news. It's good news about a saviour. It's good news about a salvation
that's been accomplished. You've got to remember these
people They were journeying according to the command of God and there
they were every morning they woke up. And what was before
them? A pillar of cloud. Every night
they went to bed and they looked up and above their camp and lighting
their camp was a pillar of fire. And then they say, is the Lord
amongst us? Is he with us? There they were
with just weeks after this remarkable deliverance. And we are just
like them. So these people thought again
that they would perish in chapter 17. All hope is gone, without
water, in a dry and dusty desert. There is no life. And that's
just a picture, isn't it? A picture of us in our Adam flesh. There is no spiritual water. There is no life with God. There's
only death in a dry and thirsty and barren land. As the psalmist
says in Psalm 63, O God, You are my God. Early will I seek
You. My soul thirsts for You in a
dry and thirsty land where there is no water. And the psalmist
goes on to say, so I have looked for you in the sanctuary to see
your power and your glory. One of the beautiful pictures
in Song of Solomon is that picture of her coming up out from the
wilderness. And how does she do it? She comes
out from the wilderness leaning on her beloved. resting in Him,
being carried by Him. As the deer pants for the water
brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. God creates a thirst. It's a God-given thirst and a
God-appointed thirst. You saw it there in verse 1.
on their journeys according to the commandment of God. This
thirst wasn't something that took God by surprise. But it exposes us, doesn't it?
The human well is dry. The religious well is dry. The well of the wisdom of this
world is dry. I happened for some reason yesterday
to look up something that someone had sent me and it was about
a ministry in America where they run apologetic ministries. So
they are trying to convince people that God exists. And so here
is this guy giving a five minute lecture on how you can prove
to people that God exists. And he sort of talks about the
reason, the reasonableness of the probability of God existing. And so you're actually appealing
to the wisdom of these people. You're appealing to something
that's still there and still active and still good in these
people, that they actually can think their way into understanding
that God exists. Not according to this book. Not
according to this book anywhere do you find God's servants doing
that. They declare the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified and they declare it and God, God
gives life. The natural heart is enmity against
God. I love how Jeremiah describes
it and he's talking to religious people in the beginning of Jeremiah
chapter 2 verse 13 I think it is. He says, my people have committed
two sins. He's talking about a religious
people. He's talking about, I would say, the people in church. My
people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters. and hewed out themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, broken wells they are, that can hold no water."
One of the wonderful pictures of the abounding grace of God
is that so often in the scriptures we see the fountain and the waters
are in the plural, aren't they? But people are committed to evils.
They have forsaken God. Instead of looking to Him, these
people are like us. They're whinging, aren't they?
And murmuring. We forsake the fountains. of living waters, and we dig
out for ourselves systems. We dig out for ourselves a righteousness. We dig out for ourselves some
worthiness that we can meet God with, and they're broken systems. God ensures that they're broken
and they can hold no water. This world offers nothing. And there is nothing in our flesh
that can save our eternal souls. These people are led to a place
where they are searching for water and they are searching
in vain. Don't forget, they wouldn't have
just sat down and whinged. They would have searched under
rocks and they would have searched under old dry creek beds. They
would have searched and searched and searched and there was none
there. Divine Providence has brought
them. Divine Providence is there to
show them that in this wilderness world we will find no rest. and we'll find no rest until
God gives us rest. And God will take his people
through trials. I don't know the trials that
you're going through at the moment, all of you. I know that you are
going through them and I know that when these ones are finished
and you're brought to a place of deliverance, it's only so
that you can be reminded of God's faithfulness and be prepared
for the next one that comes along. is the life of God's people.
Think of the most eminent of his saints. David's life was
a trial after a trial, a trial and a deliverance, a trial and
a deliverance. Paul went through trial after
trial, all the apostles went through trial after trial. I love the way Peter begins that
first epistle of his. He says, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant
mercy has begotten us again into a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. Here is a man basking in abundant
mercy and with an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven, what a great place to
have your inheritance, who are kept, abundant mercy a great
inheritance kept by the power of God through salvation unto
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein you
greatly rejoice." So here is this abundance of mercy causing
these things, this abundance of grace, this amazing gift of
faith. You rejoice, though now for a
season. They're just for a season, a
purposeful season. If need be, you are in heaviness
through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith,
the testing of your faith, being much more precious than gold
that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found under
praise and honour and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus. Abundant mercy, And all of these
great gifts that accompany the grace of God are there in place
that the trial of your faith, the testing of your faith, the
strengthening of your faith might be found under praise and honour
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Whom, having not seen, you love. in whom though you now see him
not, yet believe, and you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your souls. Trials are appointed by God.
Trials are to remind us again and again of His faithfulness. And God uses the sin of this
world and He uses the wickedness of the people of this world,
He uses the sin of our hearts and the wilderness that we live
in as a backdrop against which He can display the glories of
His grace. When trials come, The trials
are there that God might have another opportunity to take you
into the trial, to sustain you through the trial, and to bring
you out that you might say, isn't he amazing? Isn't he faithful? Moses had trial after trial. Moses, a man like us. And in
his trial, in Exodus 17, Moses goes to the mercy suit, and Moses
prayed, and he lays out his life and the circumstances before
him. And I love the Lord's answer. It's one of the most glorious
pictures in all of the Bible of the salvation of God's people
by the sin-attaining death of the Lord Jesus. God's answer is, go on before,
verse 5, go on before the people and take with you some of the
elders of Israel and take in your hand the rod with which
you struck the river and go. Behold, I will stand before you
there on the rock in Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and
water will come out of it that the people may drink. There is
a rock, isn't it, to the natural eyes The rock has no power or
beauty or anything of life-giving water within it, the most unlikely
place in all of that desert to find water. You dig anywhere
else except go to a rock. It's a rock. And it's a rock,
remarkably, upon which God himself stood. And Moses is instructed
to take in his hand that rod, that rod of divine justice, that
rod of divine judgment, and he's to strike the rock that God is
standing on. God is standing on that rock. And we have no question about
the interpretation of it. Let's turn in our Bibles to 1
Corinthians 10. And we'll just see how the Holy
Spirit leads us to know what this is. So we're left in no doubt whatsoever
about who this rock is. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. I love
how Paul has this frequent expression, my over brethren, I would not
that you should be ignorant, He doesn't wish for God's people
to be ignorant of God's purposes and God's plans and God's covenant
and God's history of redemption. How that all of our fathers were
under the cloud and all passed through the sea, verse 2, and
were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same
spiritual drink, For they drank from that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was
not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness."
Now these things were our examples to the intent that we should
not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be
you idolaters, as some of them were, and as it is written, the
people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither
let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell
in one day, three in twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ. as some of them also tempted
and were destroyed by serpents. Neither murmur you as some of
them also murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these
things happened unto them for examples and they are written
for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come." And I love the admonition in
verse 12, it's so significant, isn't it? Wherefore let him that
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. If you think you
stand by anything other than pure sovereign grace, take heed
lest you fall. And as it goes on in verse 13
to remind us that God is faithful. There is no temptation taken
you that such is as common to man, but God is faithful and
will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but
will with the temptation also make way to escape that you may
be able to bear it. This rock is the Lord Jesus. This rock is Christ. We've just
read it. We read in Psalm 62 that one
of the prayers of the psalmist is, lead me to a rock that is
higher than I. Moses, at the end of his life,
spoke of Israel in Deuteronomy 32 and 15. He said, Israel forsook
the God who made him. and lightly esteemed the rock
of His salvation." What an indictment. May God protect us. May He protect us. from that
wicked heart of unbelief that lives in us, that lightly esteems
the rock of His salvation. David, when he was dying, spoke
of the Lord and he said, the Lord is my rock, 2 Samuel 22,
2 and 3, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
the God who is my rock, in Him will I trust. He is my shield,
the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my
saviour. Thou savest me from violence. Again and again throughout the
scriptures he's described as a rock. We are to sing unto the
Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Isaiah in chapter 28 and chapter
32 speaks of this rock. In chapter 32 he says, a man
and a man shall be a hiding place from the wind and a covert, a
sheltering place from the tempest as rivers of water in a dry land,
as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land. He's described
as this stone, doesn't he, in Isaiah 28. Verse 16, Thus says
the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation stone,
a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. He goes on to talk about that
overwhelming flood that will come upon the people of this
world unless they are hidden in this rock. unless they are
hidden, the overwhelming flood of God's justice and His holiness
that must be avenged when sin is revealed. He must and He will, in justice
and holiness, punish sin. But this is the rock, isn't it?
The Lord Jesus is the rock upon which He builds His church. and
the gates of hell will not stand against it. The rock speaks of
something that is old. Eternal love has arranged salvation's
scheme. Eternal love has arranged and
appointed the steps of the path of all of God's children. A rock
is something that's stable, something that cannot be shaken. A rock
is something that's powerful and mighty and durable. Just
up here at the shadow ground we have that hanging rock. How
many hundreds or thousands of years has that rock been hanging
out there? And it's only little grains of
sand stuck together, been hanging there for years. A rock is protective,
a place to hide and a place to shelter when these storms, these
storms, these cyclones and other things and tornadoes come through,
people find shelter in the most stable part of a house, the part
that has the most rock around it, the bathroom or something.
We're always in need of a place that's protective. And the rock,
this rock, is one that is the stone and God in mercy calls
upon his people, calls upon us to fall on that rock, to fall
on that rock. Jesus said to them, Matthew 21,
42, Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures,
the stone in which the builders rejected The same has become
the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing, and
it is marvellous in our eyes. Therefore I say unto you, the
kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation,
bringing forth the fruits whereof. And whosoever shall fall upon
this stone whosoever will fall and place all of the weight of
all of their life and find themselves fallen and resting on this stone. They shall be broken and they
shall fall on it, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind
him to power." on this stone, fall upon it are rocks, are rocks that build
our mountains, don't they? And it speaks of elevation and
it speaks of things being exalted. And we look up to rocks. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower, the righteous runs into it and is safe. The message from
God's servant is flee to the rock, hide in the rock, seek
no other refuge, be thankful that God has broken you, has
taken you and shown you that this world is a wilderness, that
your own best works are nothing but sin, and that you have fallen
on this rock. Hide. Hide in this rock. This rock in Exodus 6.17 is a
rock that was smitten. It was a rock that Moses took
that rod, that rod of the judgment of God, and he smote that rock. As I said earlier, the manna
in chapter 16 speaks of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus. This smitten
rock speaks of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. Remember,
the rock is smitten at the command of God. There is no water coming
from the rock until Moses has struck the rock with his rod. Our Lord Jesus was smitten and
scourged and crucified and that precious blood flowed out for
the redemption of our souls. He was smitten of God, Isaiah
53.4, smitten of God and afflicted. He was smitten by the wrath and
judgement and justice of God. He was smitten by God. He was
smitten for us, and by His stripes we are healed. The rock was smitten
because of sin and for the sake of sinners. Verse 5, the rock
was smitten by Moses' rod, representing God's law and God's justice and
God's judgment. And the rock was smitten by God's
decree. God determined where and when
and how and what would be the result of this smiting. God set
the time of Christ's death. When the fullness of time had
come, Galatians 4.4, God set the means. He made him a curse
for us. He set the place. for him to
be smitten. He was smitten outside the gate and the rock was smitten for
a rebellious people. The water could not be given
until the rock was smitten. I love what Zechariah 13 says. He says, a fountain will be opened,
a fountain for... I'll read the verse to you in
Zechariah 13. In that day there shall be a
fountain opened, and it's a fountain opened for a particular people,
to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It's
a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. They were a sinful, undeserving,
people as we are. They were a thirsty people. God
had created a thirst that he alone could satisfy. And they
were in a place where they could do nothing about it. They were
in a thirsty place and death was staring them in the face
unless God stepped in. God had mercy upon them. God
has mercy upon those who can do nothing to help themselves
at all. And God gave them water and life
from the rock, from the crucified Lord Jesus. The water and the
life of Christ flows to His people. What life comes from this smitten
rock? The rock produced an abundance
of water. The water fed and watered. Maybe two million people were
watered by this stream that flowed from this rock. And the water needed no purification. The water flowed out pure and
perfect, ready to drink. And all they were to do as they
were just to look, to look at the serpent. All they were to
do was to come and drink, to come and drink from a fountain.
All the fitness he requires is for you to feel your need of
him. Are you thirsty? Are you thirsty or are you satisfied? Oh, to be thirsty and then find
Him satisfaction. The rock was smitten and the
water flowed out for a particular people. And the water flowed
out for a people who were a covenant people. There are many places
in the scriptures, and you probably know as many of them as I do,
where this is mentioned again and again, but in Psalm 105,
it relays this history. He opened the rock, verse 41,
opened the rock and waters gushed out. They ran in dry places like
a river. An extraordinary picture of the
grace of God, isn't it? It just flows over a dry and
desert and wilderness place. They ran out, they ran in the
dry places like a river. Why? Verse 42, because He remembered His holy promise
and Abraham His servant. He remembered His eternal covenant. All of the blessings of grace
flow from His eternal covenant to a particular people, a particular
people. I love what Titus says about
our God. It's a wonderful thing to remember
when we read our Bibles. Paul, a servant of God, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and
the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness, in
the hope of eternal life which God, which God that cannot lie,
promised before the world began. When you read this, God cannot
lie. This is not a book that has lies
in it. No matter what God is saying,
God is saying the truth. This rock, according to the promise
of God, Moses goes and he strikes God himself. God must be satisfied. by God's activity. God the Father must be satisfied
by God the Son's activity before God the Holy Spirit can be poured
out through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Go on before the
people and take some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand
the rod which you struck the river and behold I will stand
before you there on the rock. God was smiting God with that
rod of justice. And you shall strike the rock
and water will come out of it. God speaks and God promises that
the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight
of the elders of Israel and he called the name of the place
Massa and Meribah. because of the contention of
the children of Israel, because they tempted God, saying, is
the Lord among us or not? So this water flowed and this
rock, I love what 1 Corinthians 10 says, they all drank the same
spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them. Isn't it wonderful how David
describes, that goodness and mercy shall follow him all the
days of his life. That rock followed them. That
rock was Christ. That rock was the rock that Moses
was cleft for Moses. We sang that song, isn't it,
rock of ages cleft for me. Moses could hide in that rock
and God could come before him and pass over him. That rock
followed them. That rock was Christ. The rock
was struck, and the rock fulfilled God's purposes. There's one more
story, it's in Numbers 21, and we won't have time to look at
it, but there's a warning, isn't there? Moses and Aaron died because
they struck the rock again. they struck the rock again. And
he was to speak to the rock and strike the rock. And just briefly,
I just want to remind you that this sacrifice is a once for
all sacrifice. It is perfectly sufficient and
perfectly satisfies. Moses and Aaron died because
they struck that rock again. The beauty of it is, the beauty
of the warning and the beauty of the picture is, of course,
that the satisfaction of God in that one sacrifice is all
we need. We are not to look for another,
we are not to offer another sacrifice. There is no second striking of
that rock. The Lord Jesus has perfectly
satisfied the justice of God. He has absorbed the justice of
God and in perfect justice of that stricken rock, that smitten
rock flows grace and love and mercy, salvation and forgiveness,
eternal life and all the blessings of abundant grace. May God cause
us to find ourselves resting in Him, May He, in grace and
mercy as He takes us through trials, again and again remind
us that His grace is sufficient, that He has appointed the trials,
and He's appointed the trials so that He will have an opportunity
to reveal His glory and His faithfulness. May He cause us to be faithful. Let's pray.