Good morning everybody. Good
to see everybody this morning. Let's turn to Exodus chapter
17. Verse 5 says, The Lord said to
Moses, Go on before the people. and take with thee of the elders
of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river, take
in thine hand and go. 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. Let's
go to the Lord. Our Father, we thank you for gathering
us this morning. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this privilege. Father, we ask that you would
be pleased to hear us for Christ's sake, that you would send forth
the Spirit now and make your presence known in our
hearts, that you would be the teacher and help us to behold
Christ. Lord, we thank you for this time,
and we pray that it truly will be a time of worship by your
grace. Forgive us, Lord, our sin. Help
us to focus and to hear what you say in your
word. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. In the past
few Psalms, we've referenced the smitten rock. So I want to
go back this morning and look at this again one more time. Back in Exodus 17.1, it says,
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. Now, from the time the Lord brought
Israel out of Egypt, Everywhere they went, the Lord led them
where they went. Everywhere they went, the Lord
was leading them. If you look over at Numbers 33,
it holds your place there. Look back over at Numbers 33. Everywhere they went, the Lord
was leading. It says in Numbers 33a, I will
just pick up here, but it says, they departed from before Pahiroth,
and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness.
This was when they came through the Red Sea. They went three
days' journey in the wilderness of Etham and pitched in Marah.
And they removed from Marah and they came to Elam. And in Elam
were twelve fountains of water and three score and ten palm
trees, and they pitched there. And they were moved from Elam
and encamped by the Red Sea. And they were moved from the
Red Sea and encamped in the wilderness of Sin. And they took their journey
out of the wilderness of Sin and encamped in Dofka. And they
departed from Dovka and camped in Elish. And they were moved
from Elish and encamped at Rephidim. That's where we are in our text,
where there was no water for the people to drink. Now look
at Numbers 9. I want you to see just why did
they go to those places? Why did they, each time they
went, why did they go there? Numbers 9, verse 18 tells us, Let's start in verse 18. It says,
At the commandment of the Lord, the children of Israel journeyed.
At the commandment of the Lord, they pitched. As long as the
cloud abode upon the tabernacle, they rested in their tents. When
the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many days, and the
children of Israel kept the charge of the Lord, and they journeyed
not. And so it was, when the cloud was a few days upon the
tabernacle, according to the commandment of the Lord, they
abode in their tents. And according to the command
of the Lord, they journeyed. So it was when the cloud abode
from evening unto the morning, that the cloud was taken up in
the morning, then they journeyed. Whether it was day or by night,
that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed. Or whether it
were two days or a month or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the
tabernacle. Remaining their own, the children
of Israel abode in their tents and journeyed not. But when it
was taken up, they journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord,
they rested in their tents. At the commandment of the Lord,
they journeyed. They kept the charge of the Lord at the commandment
of the Lord by the hand of Moses. Now this was so when they came
out of Egypt, when they ended up at the Red Sea, when they
went through the Red Sea, and all the way till they got to
this point here at Rephidim. The Lord was leading them every
way. And He would have them stop. They would stop. When He would
lead them, they would go. The Lord was leading them the
whole way. Now, the Lord Jesus is our shepherd. He's the shepherd. It's a gracious blessing to know
His people are His flock. And He's the shepherd, the shepherd
of the sheep. He leads us. Scripture says this,
Isaiah 40 verse 11, He shall feed His flock like a shepherd.
He shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His
bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young. He's leading
us. When the Lord makes the way plain,
that's when you act. And when the Lord doesn't make
the way plain, you wait on the Lord. And we're seeking to do
all things at His moving. And when He moves, we move. When
He stops, we wait. Our times are in His hand. He's
leading. And so the Lord led them here. He led them to Riphidim. The
word Riphidim means rest. He led them to this place. Christ
is our rest. And wherever the Lord is leading
his people, he's making us know through everything he leads us
through that he is our rest, that Christ is the rest of his
people. He called the place Meribah, which means chiding. Look down
at verse, I'm sorry, just look here at verse 1. He says, and
they pitched in Riphidim, and there was no water for the people
to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses. And they
said, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them,
why chide you with me? Wherefore do you tempt the Lord?
And the people thirsted there for water. And the people murmured
against Moses and said, wherefore is this that thou has brought
us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle
with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord
saying, what shall I do unto this people? They be almost ready
to stone me. Now, this, we saw in the Psalm,
this is called the rebellious people who always turn back. Everywhere the Lord brought them
to, they did the same thing. They murmured, they complained,
they turned back in every instance. They were an unregenerate people.
They hadn't been born of the Spirit of God. But, don't we
see ourselves in them? Every believer with a sin nature
can say, I see myself right here. This is who I am. Is this who
you are? This is who I am. You know, we,
we, our, our, I don't think we always consider it murmuring.
But you know, it could be the weather. And not being happy
with the weather. Or the least little trial. But especially if a big trial
come. And we always, if we don't say it, we have it in here. And
we have some discontent. And all that is, brethren, is
murmuring. And it's not against man. They
murmured at Moses. But it's not against man. We
may murmur at the second causes. But it's murmuring at God. It's
chiding with God. Look down there at verse 7. He
called the name of the place Massa and Meribah. because of
the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted
the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? That's what
they were saying. By just complaining against Moses,
they were saying, is the Lord with us or not? Murmuring and
complaining is questioning the Lord. It's questioning his presence. Whether he's with us or not is
questioning his providence, as if you and I can question what
the Lord's doing. who's all-wise and all-knowing
and does all things right. It's questioning His promise
to us as if the Lord will not bring His promises to pass. It's
questioning His power as to whether or not the Lord can work good
in the trials He brings us to. They doubted and they questioned
the Lord whether He could give them water in a dry and desert
land. And that's what we see in ourselves. God sends us a little trouble,
just a little trouble. And a believer is reminded very
quickly, we still have a sin nature. We still have a sin nature. We hate our sin. We hate this
about, this old body of sin we carry with us. But we have him
with us. We have to be saved from our
sins continually. And it's pure grace. It's God's
grace. that He spares us for Christ's
sake. He chose us in Christ, He saved us by Christ, and He
keeps giving us grace for the sake of His Son. We don't deserve
it, do we? We don't earn it, we don't merit
His favor. It's all of God's free grace
that He does this. But God's bigger than all our
needs. Whatever it is He's bringing us into, He's bigger than our
need. He brought us to it to show us that. We have to see
first of all our inability, that we can't save ourselves. You
think about when he first saved you and he taught you this. That's
what he's teaching us over and over. Our total inability to
save ourselves spiritually. And he brings you into a physical,
carnal, temporal situation where you just can't save yourself
out of it. To remind you, you can't save yourself. We have
no inability. He brings you there. He brings
you to see your sin. He brings you to the place where
He brought you in the first hour. He made you see in that first
hour that because of our sin we couldn't save ourselves. And we couldn't make ourselves
willing to receive His Word. We couldn't make ourselves willing
to believe on Him. We couldn't make ourselves willing
to follow Him. And brethren, after He has saved us, we're
as utterly dependent on God to work these things in us as we
were the first time we ever heard of Him in truth. He had to work
that. And He does make us willing by
His power, but we have to say what Paul said, Yet not I, but
the grace of God which was with me. But He's going to bring us
to these places to show us That in ourselves, we're thirsty.
He's going to make you thirst. He's going to bring you to a
place where you see it's a dry desert. Are you thirsty? Anybody thirsty for God, for
His grace, for life in Christ? He's going to have to show us
that our will is of ourself. Our will is a dry desert. There's
no life there. Our works are just dry deserts.
Our wisdom without Christ being our wisdom. So we have some spiritual
discernment and can discern things aright. Our natural wisdom is
just dry desert. The life, the water of life is
given from Christ through His blood, the Spirit of God that
gives us life and discernment that keeps us looking only to
Him. And so He brings us to these places to teach us this over
and over and over throughout this life. The Lord said to Moses, go on
before the people and take with thee the elders of Israel. And
thou rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand
and go. 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. Now I want to focus on these
verses. The Holy Spirit used Apostle Paul to tell us in 1
Corinthians 10 that this rock is Christ. That rock was Christ. And what we're being shown here
is Christ is the smitten rock. He is the smitten rock. From
Him, life comes. He's the smitten rock. The water
of life comes from Him. Now first of all, God has to
lead us to Christ in the first hour and He continues doing so
the rest of our days. It says here, the Lord said to
Moses. Moses is brought into this situation
and he can't do anything about this. And we're talking millions
of people here. And they're angry and they're
ready to stone Moses. Moses can't produce water for
them. Moses can't, he can't save himself from them. They're angry at him. He can't
do anything about this. What was, how was Moses saved
in this situation? The Lord said to Moses, the Lord
said to Moses, go on before the people, take with thee of the
elders of Israel and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river,
take it in thy hand and go. God brought Moses to see he didn't
have, he didn't have ability here. And the Lord spoke to him
and said, now you go on. I'm taking you to the rock. And
this is what the Lord does for His people. You know, when He
brought Moses to the place where Moses couldn't do anything about
this situation. And you know what Moses did when
the Lord brought him there? What did he do? He cried unto
the Lord. And this is what the Lord is
going to do. He's going to keep us crying unto Him. He's going
to keep showing us our constant continual need of Him. And that's when you cry to Him.
And it keeps us crying out to Him. Brings us to the end of
ourselves, to the end of all ability, to where you just don't
know what to do. And it keeps you crying to Him.
And then we see here, God chooses who He'll save. He chooses who
He will reveal Christ unto. That's the prerogative of God
to do. We see just a little glimpse of it right here. The Lord said
to Moses, go on before the people. And He said, take with you the
elders of Israel. He didn't take everybody. He
just took Moses and his elders. And God chose who He will save. who he will reveal Christ unto. That's God's grace. That's his
sovereignty to do. And he brought these elders here
as witnesses. And that's what he makes his
people. When he gives you the witness and he reveals Christ
to you, he makes you a witness of Christ. But these elders here
and Moses, we remember too that the law and the prophets are
witnesses of Christ. The Law and the Prophets, Romans
3, Paul said, he said, now the righteousness of God, this is
what's being revealed here, the righteousness of God. Now the
righteousness of God without the law is manifested. What does
that mean? It means the righteousness of
God without you and I doing the law. The righteousness of God
apart from us doing anything to fulfill the law. It's manifested. How? It's witnessed by the law. This is what the law is teaching.
We're reading the law here. We're reading Moses. These first
five books is the law. And all the prophets bear witness.
This righteousness of God is witnessed by the law and the
prophets. And this is what Paul says in
Romans 3.22. Even the righteousness of God
which is by the faith of Christ, of Jesus Christ. We've seen this
over and over, and I'll say it again because some translations
of the Bible change that to faith in Christ. But the righteousness
of God that's fulfilled and manifest is Christ's faithfulness, by
His faithfulness, by His doing, by what He did. It's His faith,
it's His faithfulness to God is where we see the righteousness
of God. He is the righteousness of God. He is going to, just
like He took these elders to be witnesses, God has witnesses
and this whole book is declaring the righteousness of God. This
is the message, the righteousness of God. How can God be just and
save a sinner? How can He justify a sinner and
yet at the same time pour out justice and satisfy His law?
How can he execute a sinner so that he dies and yet show that
sinner mercy and save him? No law in this land can do that.
You can't send a man to suffer death and save him. It's either
going to be justice or it's going to be mercy, but you can't do
both. God can. That's the righteousness of God,
how he can be both just and justifier. So he says here to him in verse
6, Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb.
Now you go back before time, before God made anything, God
stood the glory of His name on the Son of God, on Christ the
Rock. God chose His Son and He trusted
the glory of His name and the salvation of His people to Christ
the Rock. He stood on the Rock before this
world was ever made. Christ is the one foundation.
He's the Rock. Isaiah said, Thus said the Lord
God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried
stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. Here you have this rock. And
the Lord said, I'm going to stand on this rock. And Christ is that
rock on whom the Father trusted all his people and all the purpose
of God was all on the shoulders of Christ. Isaiah 9.6 said the
government should be upon His shoulder. This government of
upholding God's righteousness. This government of declaring
God's attribute of being immaculately holy. He can't receive a sinner
who is a sinner. That sinner has got to be made
as holy as God. He has got to be made as righteous
as God. And no sinner can do that. We
can't do that for ourselves. But God sending His own Son In
human flesh, He came to take the place of His people, to do
for His people what we cannot do for ourselves. He came to
bear our sin and bear the wrath of God and satisfy God's justice
and in the same death blow, justify His people from our sin. And
that's what we see taking place here. Thursday night, I had a
real blunder. I went home, and I locked my
keys in my truck. And not only that, one hearing
aid went out, and the other one started beeping. And so I barely
can't hear anything. And my phone was at about 35%.
It was dying. So I'm deaf, trying to call somebody
to come and open up, unlock my truck. And my phone's about to
die. And it took me, I didn't get into my house until 10.30. to find somebody to do it. And
I thought, and when that happened, I thought, you know, you just
don't think about how valuable a key is until you don't have
the key. Well, listen to what the scripture
says. The key of the house of David, God said, I will lay upon
Christ's shoulder and he shall open and none shall shut and
he shall shut and none shall open. God the Father stood on His Son. He put it all on His shoulder.
He's the key. He is the gospel. He's the key.
He's the one that can open this and make you understand and make
you enter in. Now, it's in Christ that God
reveals His righteousness. He said there in verse 6, Thou
shalt smite the rod. Now that's what we've been talking
about. Moses, that rod, Moses represents the law. And that
rod is the rod that represents the law and he told him, go forth
now and you smite this rock. You smite this rock. And so our
Lord came into this earth and took flesh like those he came
to save. And when he went to that cross
and he was made sin for his people, God smote him just like Moses
smote this rock with this rod. This is what Romans 8.3 says.
What the law could not do. There's nothing wrong with the
law. Here's the problem. It was weak through the flesh.
We couldn't keep the law. That's the problem. What the
law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us or among us which walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. Now that's what Christ did. You
think of this word smite, that just sounds bad doesn't it? That
just sounds painful to smite. I picture Moses, I don't think
he tapped that rock. I mean Moses read back and he
smoked that rock. Christ bore the fierce fury of
God's wrath that he bore the hell his people deserved. And he satisfied justice. He
did it for his people. He brought in everlasting righteousness
for his people. Now later, about 40 years later,
Moses has been wandering in this wilderness with the children
of Israel and there had been more murmuring and complaining going
on. And at one point they were thirsting again and they were
crying out for water again and they were blaming Moses again.
And Moses went to that rock and he took glory that didn't belong
to him. He said, must I fetch water out of this rock for you?
He didn't fetch the water out of the rock the first time. But
Moses smoked the rock again. Now God saved Moses, but God
took Moses' life right there too because Christ can't be smitten
a second time. He satisfied divine justice by
his one offering. And He redeemed His people. He put away our sin and made
His people everlastingly righteous by that one offering, by burying
that one smiting from God. He cannot be smitten a second
time. And His people can't be smitten a second time. And that's
why that was wrong for Moses to smite that rock a second time.
It dishonored Christ. Christ can't be smitten but once.
And He did that, brethren. He accomplished it. So now that
His people or redeemed, the Holy Spirit, the water of life, is
given freely to His people in regeneration. He says here, verse
6, Now so smite the rock, and there shall come water out of
it, that the people may drink. That's why Christ was smitten.
He receives all the glory. Now through Christ, because He
having justified His people, God is going to bring the gospel
to each one Christ laid down His life for. And He's going
to send forth the Spirit and quicken them, and they're going
to believe on Him. And this water of life, it's
in you, welling up in you. It's life. It's the Spirit of
Christ. It's Christ being formed in His people. And Christ gets
all the glory for this. This is through His blood. It's
through His righteousness. That's what Titus 3.5 says. It's
not by works of righteousness we've done, but according to
His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ, our Savior, that being justified, and the word there
is that having been justified by His grace, we should be made
heirs according to the hope of eternal life. In other words,
if you're in prison, and you're locked, and you can't get out,
and the president has pardoned you, and the law says you're
free to go, the just thing is, somebody has to come and open
up that jail cell and let you out, because you're free. And
Christ, having paid the price that his people owed to justice
and made us righteous, the law says the just thing is, they
must be given the water of life. They must be quickened and brought
to Christ. And this is what Christ was declaring when He stood up
there at that Feast of Tabernacles on the last day. And He said,
If any man thirsts, let him come to Me. He that believeth on Me,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. He quickens
us to make us come to Him and draw us to Him. And when you
believe on Him, it's like what Christ said in John 8. You're
made free and He continues to make you see this freedom. He's
given you life and when you believe on Him, He makes you know it.
He makes you know you have this life. And it's a well of living
water springing up. It's what Christ said to the
woman at the well. If you knew who it was speaking to, you would
have asked me and I'd have given you living water. And He did
before it was over with. He gave her living water. Now
you think about the lesson here. This people was brought exactly
where God would have them be brought to. He brought them right
there. And there was no water there
on purpose. You know why we're all coming to this world sinners?
You know why we fell in Adam? Why did Adam fall? It was God's
purpose. It was purposed by God. Just
like He brought them here on purpose and there was no water.
God purposed for you to come into this world with no life. So He gets all the glory in saving
us from us. And the same as He brought you
to see in that first hour, you have no life except Christ. And brought you to believe on
Him and now you have life. Every other thing He's doing
leading us through this world is to continue to teach us He
only is the life. He alone is the life. We come
into these things and we wonder. We say, what's this about? What's
going on with it? What's this about? We get to
trying to dig our own wells. Whatever fleshly things interfere
between us and the Lord. Whatever sinful things come between
us and the Lord, it's just us trying to provide for ourselves. And we start trying to provide
for ourselves, dig our own well and fetch our own water and try
to find, to quench our thirst in this life and with sinful
things and from our fleshly will and our works and prosperity
in this world. All these different things that
we go after. And the Lord is not going to let His people do
this. He's going to keep making the desert dry and making us
see our inability and our need for Christ. And He's the only
one who is the life. He's the only one. And He has
to keep doing everything to keep us coming to Him for this life. Keeping us knowing He is our
life. I mean, when I say we are absolutely dependent on Christ,
We don't even have natural life without Him. We don't. We don't have spiritual
life without Him. We don't know Him without Him.
We don't believe on Him without Him. We can't walk in spirit
without Him. We can't believe on Him without
Him. And certainly we can't make ourselves righteous and holy
without Him. He's the righteousness of His
people. He's the one who keeps us partaking of His holiness
and walking after Him. This is what true sanctification
is. It's Him continually keeping
you looking nowhere but to Him and living for Him. And He has
to keep us doing that. He is life. We can't find it
anywhere else. He's life. He opened the rock
and the waters gushed out and they ran in the dry places like
a river. Why? Because He remembered His
holy promise and Abraham his servant. Everything he is doing
and keeping us is to honor his own everlasting covenant promise
in Christ. Abraham was saved by the everlasting
covenant of grace. The law wasn't even given yet.
430 years later, Abraham was saved by God's everlasting covenant
of grace, walked by faith, trust in Christ, led of Christ, Christ
was his life. He keeps on giving us this water
and He's going to keep on giving His people this water because
He's not going to lose you. When we talk about this water,
we're talking about life, eternal life, spiritual life, everlasting
life. He's not going to let you perish. He's going to keep His people
and He's going to do it by keeping us looking only to Christ. And that's what he's doing. That
rock followed them everywhere they went. Everywhere they went. I don't know how that happened
or what that looked like. I just know wherever they went,
they looked up and there's that rock that has the water gushing
out of it. Wherever they went. You believe that really happened?
Physically, I believe it really happened. I don't know how God
did that, but God does most things. I don't understand how God does
them. But everywhere they looked, that rock was there. And you
know what that's to tell us? Everywhere we are, Christ is
there. He's promised the Father to bring
His people to Him. He's not going to let us be separated
from Him. And He's with us every step of
this journey. You're not going to die of thirst. You might die of physical thirst,
but you're not going to die of spiritual thirst. I promise you
that. Christ is going to keep this
life in His people. He is that life. We're inseparably
united with Christ. You can't be separated. That's
His promise. All right, let's go to the Lord.
Father, we thank You for this Word. Keep us knowing this. Keep us Continually seeing your
purpose in every step we take in this life is to keep us looking
only to Christ. And help us, Lord, to truly drink,
drink of this gospel and drink of this good news. Lord, be the
life within us. Without you, this place is a
dry desert. Lord, keep us. We pray for our
brethren, those that are here, those that are not here, those
that are in other places. Lord, we pray you would just
keep your people. Make us see how short this life
is. Make us realize that there's
nothing in this life important But this one thing we need, Christ. Other things that we're doing,
Lord, make it to be subservient to His honor, His glory, His
gospel. And calling out your people.
Make us be useful for your cause. Lord, don't let us find life
in this flesh, in this earth, in these jobs and prosperity
in this world or anything in it. Keep us from our sin. Keep us, Lord, from anything
that would harm us and cause us to die of thirst. Lord, keep
us in Christ. We ask it by Your mercy, Your
grace, for Christ's sake. It's in His name we pray. Amen.