Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive those who Lord, help us now when we come
to worship you. Help us that we worship you in
spirit, in truth, and rejoice in your words. Lord, forgive
us of our sins. Lord, help us to remember those
who have sinned against us. Those who are in all manner of
need, Lord. We know your grace is sufficient. Turn to Exodus 17. Exodus 17. The title of the lesson is Christ,
Our Rock. God has made him to be everything
to us, hasn't he? You go through the Old Testament,
you got manna, you have the rock, you have the water, you have
the blood, you have the sacrifice, you have the high priest, you
have the tabernacle, you have the ark. He's all those things
to us. He's everything to us. You know,
I've learned this. If you really want to grow in
knowledge of Christ, you have to read the Old Testament as
far as believers go. I'm talking about believers.
You read the Old Testament and then you read the New Testament
and you just get this full knowledge, this knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There's no growing in grace and
there's no growing in knowledge apart from the whole word of
God, the whole word. Now last week we looked at chapter
16, children of Israel were complaining about food and God gave them
manna. And this week in chapter 17,
the children of Israel are complaining. They don't have anything to drink.
And so God gives them water out of a rock. Isn't God merciful? God's so merciful to us. We're
such complainers. Pay attention when you get up
in the morning or the rest of the day. Pay attention to how
much complaining we really do. It's pitiful. It's just pitiful. They are a picture of us in our
unregenerate state. this israel here in the wilderness
which is a picture of the church there's there are believers there
some a remnant interim that's what there is most of them are
unregenerate because they died in the wilderness most of them
died in the wilderness but uh we'll see here that they are
a good picture of us in our unregenerate state HOW WE NEED THE WATER OF
LIFE, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. NOW, LET ME READ VERSE 7, VERSES
HERE OF EXODUS 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. SEE, THEY'RE COMPLAINING,
THEY'RE COMPLAINING AGAINST MOSES, AS WE'LL SEE HERE, BUT WHO'S
LEADING THEM? IT'S THE LORD. So their complaint
is against him. And they pitched in Rephidim,
and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the
people did chide with Moses and said, give us water that we may
drink, as if he gave him the manna. God gave them that manna,
and it'll be God who gives them something to drink. But they
say to Moses, they say, tell him to give them drink. And Moses
said to them, why chide you with me? Wherefore do you tempt the
Lord? You tempt the power of God. You
tempt the mercy of God. And the people thirsted there
for water. And the people murmured against Moses and said, Wherefore
is it, is this, that thou hast 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. And the Lord said unto 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 thy hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee
there upon the rock in Horeb. thou shalt smite the rock and
there shall come out of it water out of it that the people may
drink 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 massa and maraba because the chiding of the children
of israel and because they tempted the lord saying is the lord among
us or not if he's among us and what the Pharisees say, show
us a side. Israel has been journeying through
the wilderness of sin, as we just read, and they came to this
place named Rephidim. They set up camp there. God led
them to that place. You know, they wandered in the
wilderness, but God didn't. God wasn't wandering. God was
leading them to every place they camped and God brought them to
this place on purpose to prove them He's gonna prove them That's
what you know, God's gonna prove faith or the lack thereof or
the total absence of it. He's gonna prove it And so they
they come to this place and they have no water And what do they
do they chide they argue they get in Moses face and And I said,
why'd you bring us here out of Egypt? To die? Is that why you
brought us here? Here is an example of our human
depravity before God saves us. This is, isn't this, this is
us. This is us. This is human depravity. In Hebrews, it's called an evil
heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. Always,
always ready to depart. It's amazing how little trouble
has to come upon us before we're ready to depart. Argue, murmur,
complain. That's just that evil heart. That evil heart's still there.
That old nature's still there, isn't it? It raises its ugly
head up from time to time. The wonder of this is what they
saw up to this point, what they had experienced up to this point. They are in Egypt in hard bondage,
and all those plagues that God sent on Egypt, not one of them
fell on Israel, even to the death of the firstborn. The lamb was
given to them, the blood was put over the door, and they were
spared. They were spared. And then they go out of Egypt
with great riches. I mean, the Egyptians threw just
whatever they needed was thrown upon them. And they went out
of Egypt with a great deliverance, scriptures say, a great deliverance.
You know, God's salvation is called in Hebrews, what? Great
salvation. God has saved us with a great
salvation. He hasn't barely saved us. We
are delivered and saved from our evil nature, the law, Satan,
darkness, with a great salvation. It's a great salvation. And they
saw that, they witnessed this. And not only did they witness
this, as they traveled and as they left Egypt, The army of
Pharaoh, Pharaoh and his army, came after them. And here they
are up against the Red Sea and Pharaoh's army. They witnessed
the Red Sea being parted. And it wasn't ankle deep. It
wasn't waist deep. It was a wall of water over their
head, way over their head. And not only did they cross it,
they crossed it on dry ground. They weren't wading in mud. They'd
cross it on dry ground. And then when all of them, every
one of them, made it to the other side, you see, Christ will lose
none. He said he will lose none. All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh
to me I'll know whilst cast out. He'll lose none. All those Israelites
were delivered. And then that sea folded up over
there, over Pharaoh's army and Pharaoh, which is, which is our
sins being gone, drowned, cast, it says, into the depth of the
sea. God has cast our sins. They look behind them and it's
like their sin's coming after them, in a sense, and all of
them are gone. All of them are gone. Christ
has put them all away. And yet, they murmured against
God. Is the Lord among us? Really?
After all that you've seen, and you're going to ask that question?"
And then when they started complaining in chapter 16, God gave them
quail and manna. How would you like to go to the
grocery store every morning and get it free? You know how much
it cost us to live? You know how much the groceries
cost? Now, well, you know that. You live where I live. It's expensive. They didn't pay a dime for 40
years. for 40 years. They didn't plant
a garden. They didn't do anything but go out and pick up manna
and quail. Then they started complaining
about that. What a sad lot. The problem here in their complaining
is this. Their heart was not right with
God. As I said, for the most part,
the biggest part of them was not, they were not regenerated,
they were not saved, they were just evil, unbelief. It says that they didn't enter
the promised land because of unbelief, they didn't believe
God, they didn't believe Him. Jeremiah 17, 9 says this, the
heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked, who
can know it? Well, I know my own heart. Oh,
no, you don't. God does. God does, but we can
never really know that, especially that old heart, we can never
know the depth of depravity. Only Christ really knew and knows
the depth of human depravity. He knows what it is. And listen
here to Romans 7, 24. This happens after God saves
us. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I never said that
until God saved me. Paul did not say that until God
saved him. And no one will say that until
God saved them. And then they realize what a
wretch they are. All the way to the grave. All the way to
the grave. A sinner all the way to the grave.
And if it were not for the gospel, if it were not for the knowledge
that God has given us, a saving knowledge that God has given
us in the gospel, we would think they were far worse than we are,
wouldn't we? We'd think, how in the world
can those people be like that? I know how they can be like that.
Because I have the same nature they have. I've complained, I've
complained about things over the years since the Lord saved
me. I've complained and murmured. You know, I lost three jobs in
those early years, and I was like, why? And I was, the Lord
did that on purpose to try faith, to try my faith. Now you would
think them happy, but they're not. They're not. I don't care what you do for
an unregenerate person, they're not gonna remain happy. They're
not gonna do it. There's still, they are still
in unbelief. They still don't believe. After
all they've experienced, after all they have witnessed, they
still don't believe. You know what really concerned
them the most? In chapter 16, in chapter 17, what was it they complained about?
What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? And
if it was not for their clothes wearing out and their shoes wearing
out, they'd be complaining about what we're going to wear. But
their shoes didn't wear out, their clothes didn't wear out
for 40 years. For 40 years. God kept them. They were a kept people. And
yet they were a complaining people. But the only remedy, there's
only one remedy for murmuring. There's only one remedy. You
know what it is? Faith. Last week we looked at
John 14. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. The one thing that'll stop murmuring,
and it's really the only one thing that will stop murmuring,
is to believe God. It's what Eli said, it's the
Lord. Let him do as he pleases. All things are of God. You really
believe that? Then we will quit complaining
over the second causes. The second cause, third cause,
whatever cause you want. God's the first cause. God brought
them to this place of no water because he's going to give us
a picture. You see over in, I think it's 1 Corinthians 10. It says these things are written
for our examples. This situation right here, this
situation is for our example. This is for us. God's bringing
him through this wilderness and he's putting through all this
trouble for us. His church, the ones whom he
saves, we have examples and reasons not to murmur. We can look back
at the Word of God and say, that's of God, this is of God, it's
of God. Now, the Lord speaks to Moses
in verse four and six. He says, go out, take the elders. You see, these are witnesses.
These are for what? There's over a million people.
A million people can't stand around that rock. There's a lot
of people there that's never gonna see what happened to that
rock. They're gonna drink the water later as it comes out.
But he said, you take the elders as witnesses as to what's about
to happen. Moses is gonna strike the rock
and the water's gonna, you know, and one place it says it gushed
out. Another place it says it came out of the flinty rock,
hard, hard, that was not a, that was not just, that was not gravel,
the hard rock, the flinty rock, hard. And he says, go out, take
the elders, there's the witnesses, and your rod, the one you used
at the Red Sea, the one you used when it turned into a serpent,
you take that rod, that same rod, and this is, this is, This
is astounding. Here's the gospel. I will stand
upon the rock in horror. He didn't say, Moses, go stand
upon this rock and smite it. He said, Moses, I'm gonna stand
on the rock and you smite the rock. God was in Christ. You know, I'm getting ahead of
myself here, but I don't know if I'm gonna make it through
this, but God was in Christ, reconciled the world to himself.
When Jesus Christ went to the cross, he didn't quit being God. He did not quit being God. That's
God Almighty hanging on the cross. That's God in human flesh hanging
on the cross. We'll see this in the next service,
but that's God. And God said, I'll stand on the
rock and you smite the rock. Well, Lord, move over. I don't
want to hit you. I don't want to smite you. Oh,
yes, you're going to. Oh, yeah. The Son of God, God
in human flesh, is going to be smitten. He's going to be struck
for our sins. Smitten and afflicted of God.
That's what it says in Isaiah 53. He was smitten and afflicted
of God. Wounded for our transgression,
bruised for our iniquities. You shall smite the rock, and
there shall come water out of the rock, and the people shall
drink. Now turn over to 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10,
it helps if I tell you the chapter. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Moreover, brethren, I would not
that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under
the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the
same spiritual meat, manna, that came from heaven, God gave that,
and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them. And that rock was Christ. That rock was Christ. Verse 11, here's the one I quoted
to you. Now all these things happen unto
them for examples or types, and they are written for our admonition
upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him thinketh
he standeth, take he lest he fall. Because many of them did.
Most of them fell in the wilderness. Most of them thought they were
standing, but they weren't. But here's the answer to this type.
You see, if you don't, if you miss Christ, you miss the answer.
All you see is a miracle. That's all the Jews saw. When
they saw Christ, then they saw him raise the dead and give sight
to the blind. All they saw was miracles. And
if we miss Christ, that's all you see there in Exodus 17. You just see a miracle. You don't
see Christ. But if God has saved you, He's
given you eyes other than these eyes of flesh, and you see, you
truly see the Lord Jesus Christ in this type. You see, you don't
see just a miracle, you see the Son of God, you see the Lord
Jesus Christ. You see, the Lord purposely brought
them into this place to try their hearts and give us this picture
and to teach us the absolute necessity of the Lord Jesus Christ,
our need of Him. Without Him, I die. It's either
give me Christ or else I die. Give me Christ and I don't die.
I don't die. Christ said, he that believes
on me shall never die. Now we learn here that where there's
no water, there's no life. And the Lord Jesus Christ, we
know through the scriptures, is the water of life. And if
we never drink at him, we never have life, spiritual life. We
have this natural life. You know, my dog has an animal
life. We have natural life. But spiritual
life is far, far higher than the life we have naturally. There's
really no comparison. No more than there's no comparison
to my dog having life and the life I have. big difference and
it's a big difference in spiritual life and just natural life and
without the water of life we don't have spiritual life we
don't have it and what we see here in this
portion of scripture is our condition by nature before God saves us
this is us isn't it it's us Murmuring complaining thirsty
dry in a barren land in Psalm 63 1 & 2 listen Oh God thou art
my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee My
flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water
is We have a thirst for God if God has saved us We have a thirst
for God. How is that? How is that seen? How do we know that, that we
have a real thirst for God? When we have a real interest
in Jesus Christ. When our interest is we want
to be here, we want to read the Word of God, hear the Word of
God preached, we want to drink in. You know, when someone's
preaching and the Lord's giving power, and I hope it's happening
this morning, you're drinking in Christ. You're drinking in. I couldn't tell you how many
times sitting and listening to my pastor preach that I went
away watered. I went away watered. I went away
fed. The Lord said to Peter, feed
my lambs, feed my sheep. And many, many, many times I
went away watered and fed. And a few times I didn't, it
was not my pastor's fault. I can tell you it wasn't his
fault. It's because I was already full of something else when I
came in. So if you're full of something else when you come
in, you don't have any room to eat and feed on Christ. Lord,
empty us. I'm serious. Empty us before
we come here. Empty us that you might fill
us. We might be filled with you. But now here, there's good news,
there's good news. Someone said you have to hear
the bad news before you get to the good news. If there's no
bad news, you'll never understand the good news. But there's a
rock, there's a rock that God is giving. God said to Moses,
Go out to this Horeb, and there's a rock there. Don't go out there
and pick a rock. Most go out there and pick a
rock, and I'll stand on it. Moses, there's a rock out there. And you go out there, you take
your rod, and I'm gonna stand on that rock. I'm not gonna stand
on all the rocks out there. I'm standing on that rock. And
you're going to smite that rock. But thank God he's given us a
rock to stand on. And God's in that rock. God's
in Christ. God's in Christ. And here's something
else. That rock looked like, I'm sure
it looked like all the other rocks out there. Just like Christ
looked like all the other Jewish men. We know you're the carpenter's
son. You look like the carpenter's
son. We know you. No, this is God's son. It's God's
son. But this rock is God's son. There's no other rock like this
rock. I'll read some scriptures to you here in just a few minutes.
You know, our Lord said to that woman at the well, if you knew
If you knew me, I'm going to paraphrase, if you knew me, you'd
ask me for living water. And if you knew who was talking
to you, you'd ask me for living water. He's the living water.
He's the rock, and he's the living water that comes out of that
rock. Now this rock, I'm going to have
to jump ahead here in order to try to get this done. This rock
is to be smitten. One time. One time. Is to be smitten. There's no
water. It's going to come out of this
rock until Moses takes that rod and he smites it. If he doesn't
smite it, no water is coming out. If Christ is not crucified,
we're not saved. And there's no water for us to
drink. No living water. He's got to be smitten and afflicted. He's got to be smitten of God
and afflicted. There is no way for anyone to
be saved except Christ and Him crucified. Our Lord said in the
garden, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. If
it be possible for what? For you and me to be saved. He
said that, I have no doubt, he said that, that you and I would
know there is no other way. And that was written down for
us, to know there's no other way. No other way. And that rock's
gotta be smitten, and water come out of it, and the people drink.
In John 19, 34, listen, but one of the soldiers with a spear
pierced his side, just stuck it through his side, And you
know what happened? It says water and blood came
out. Blood to justify, water to sanctify,
his word. Cleansed by the blood. Blood and water came out of his
side when that rock was smitten, that old Calvary's tree. And
that rock was smitten for a God-hating people. Christ died for sinners who hated Him. We didn't love
Him. He didn't die for me and He didn't
die for you because you loved Him. We did not love Him. We have a natural enmity in our
mind toward God. And if we could help it, we wouldn't
be saved, would we? We'd be runnin' around out there
in the honky-tonks and fulfillin' the lust of this flesh. It's
exactly what we'd do. We wouldn't be saved. But God's
gonna save us. He's gonna save sinners. He's
gonna save the ungodly. He died for the ungodly. If you're
not a sinner, if you're not ungodly, Jesus Christ did not die for
you. He died for sinners. He died
for the ungodly. And it's hard press to find anyone
that's really a bona fide biblical sinner. Because that one says,
none good, no, not one. I agree. I agree. So that rock is smitten. Christ
is that rock. And by God's grace, we are allowed
to drink. We are enabled to drink of that
life, that spiritual life-giving water, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what it says also
in verse 10 of chapter 10, verse 4? It says, that rock followed
them and did all drink of the same spiritual drink for they
drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. Christ has followed us all our
lives, even when we didn't know Him. And this morning, He's with us.
I have no doubt He's with us this morning. And this morning,
by God's grace, He enables us to drink again of that rock. Again. Now, I said to you, that
rock was smitten one time. In Numbers, we don't have time
to read this, Numbers chapter 20 verses 1 through 12, read
when you go on. The people murmured again for
water. God tried them again. God tried them again with no
water. That rock followed them. The
rock never dried up. This is not the problem. God's going to show us something.
He's going to show us a gospel truth. by this situation back
in Numbers chapter 20. They complain again. They chide
with Moses again. And Moses at that time said,
you're complaining against the Lord. He told Moses to go out there
and speak to the rock. Speak to the rock. I did this
morning before coming out here to preach. I spoke to the rock
this morning. I didn't smite it. I spoke to
it. Moses was so angry. He was so angry. He took that
rod and he smoked that rock. Listen, it says he smoked that
rock twice. See, the first time he just smoked
it one time and out came the water. This time he was out of
anger and not paying attention to what God said to him. He took
that rod and he hit that rock twice, mad, out of anger. Water came out. Because God's
faithful. God's faithful. You know, you
and I may have come in here this morning without, you know, our
minds on something else, but yet God in mercy so many times
still waters us. So many times. But God told Moses,
because you did not believe me, you're not going to take these
people into the promised land. Moses suffered from it. The law,
the law can't deliver, which Moses represented the law, the
law can't deliver it to the prophet. Only Christ can do that. Only
Christ. Let me read these, these here
and I'll close. You don't have to turn to them.
Deuteronomy 32, 31, for their rock is not as I rock. Even our
enemies themselves being judges, they know that. They know that
their rock is not like ours. 1 Samuel 2, 2, Hannah. There's none holy as the Lord,
Jehovah. Where there is none beside thee,
neither is there any rock like our rock. Water comes out of
our rock. Life comes out of our rock. That doesn't come out of
any other rock. 2 Samuel 22, 32, or I mean Psalm
18, 31. For who is God, save the Lord.
And who is a rock, save our God. Psalm 95, 1. Oh, come, let us
sing unto the Lord. And we're going to sing Rock
of Ages in the next service. Or who is a rock, save our God. Our God is a rock. He's a life-giving
rock. Life-giving, life-sustaining.
And that rock, listen, and that rock is Jesus Christ. Aren't
you glad you know the difference? Aren't you glad that you can
look back in Exodus 17 and know who that rock is? Well, we can thank the Lord for
that. All right.