Chapter 17. This evening, Exodus chapter 17. Here's how the chapter
begins. Chapter 17, verse 1. which of course connects it to
the previous chapter. And as we studied this morning
in Exodus chapter 16, God gave to Israel bread from heaven. Though they murmured against
God, though they were very unhappy with the conditions into which
he led them, yet his mercy toward them never failed. They had professed to believe
the Lord. In fact, if you want to look
back just a couple of pages, at least it is in my Bible, chapter
14, look at the last two verses of Exodus chapter 14. This is after the Lord brought
them through the Red Sea. Thus, verse 30, chapter 14, verse
30 of Exodus, thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand
of the Egyptians. And Israel, they saw the Egyptians
dead upon the seashore. And there was therefore a twofold
result. That's set forth in verse 31.
In Israel, they looked, they saw that great work which the
Lord did upon the Egyptians and the people. Here's the twofold
result. The people feared the Lord. That is, they worshiped him.
They referenced him. And secondly, they believed,
they believed the Lord and his servant. I think the accurate
understanding of that is they profess to Moses, we believe
you. We believe God. We get over to
chapter 16 where they were hungry and we find out they're not so
strong in faith after all. And they said, have you brought
us, Moses, Aaron, have you brought us out into the wilderness that
we would die of hunger? And the Lord heard their murmurings,
but instead of rewarding them for their iniquities and for
their murmuring, he gave them bread. He blessed them. He showed them mercy. Now we
get into the next chapter, chapter 17, and the same congregation,
the congregation of Israel, they journeyed away from the wilderness
of sin, the wilderness of thorns, after their journeys, according
to the commandment of the Lord, and they pitched in Rephidim. There was no water for them to
drink. Wherefore the people did, they
chided Moses, they contended with Moses, and they said, give
us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, why
chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? The people thirsted there for
water, and the people murmured. against Moses. They murmured. Now, as you read the history
of Israel, you'll find out, and I'll give you this right now,
this is actually not the first or the third time that they murmured
against the Lord in a particular event. The first time, go back
to chapter 15, And the verse, we found that in verse 23, they
came to Marah. Chapter 15, verse 23. They came to Marah. They could
not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore
the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against
Moses. That's the first instance of
their murmuring. Drop down in the chapter number
16, And look at verse three, verse two. The whole congregation
of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the
wilderness. That's the second time. First
time was over water. The second time is over bread.
And then we get into chapter 17. Here's the third time. Once
again, they're murmuring over a lack of water. Now, Israel
professed to believe God. And you profess to believe God. Most of you profess to believe
the Lord Jesus. You say, He's my Savior. He's
my Redeemer. He's the one I look to. I have
no confidence in anyone else or in anything that I've ever
done. My confidence is in Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. I am a believer. And that is
my profession. I say I'm a believer and you
say you're a believer. Also, I guarantee you this, that belief is going to be tested.
Both true faith and false faith are going to be tested. And there's
going to be a revelation of the genuineness of that belief. And God has different ways of
putting us to the test. Even as he put Israel to the
test, he puts them in a setting where their faith is going to
be tested. First of all, here they are and
they're traveling, they come to bitter waters. And everybody's
thirsty. Here are the cattle, and the
sheep, and all of the people, and they see this vast body of
water, and they're really excited, and they run to the water, and
then the cattle begin to drink, and then all of a sudden they
raise their heads up. And the people dip down, and
they begin to drink, and they spit it out. And they begin to murmur against
God, rather than believing that God had led them there, They
began to murmur. And then we get into chapter
16, and they're hungry. And they murmured because there's
nothing to eat. All the corn that they brought
out of Egypt has now been exhausted. All the grain, it's gone. And
now there's nothing for them to eat. And here are their children,
here are the adults, here are the elderly people of the whole
congregation of Israel, here are all their animals, they're
hungry. And once again, they murmur. Once again, faith is
put to the test. In chapter 15, at the bitter
waters, they failed. In chapter 16, when they had
no bread, They murmured again, they failed. And here we get
into chapter number 17, the people thirsted for water, and verse
three says they murmured. Once again, they failed, they
failed. What's the reason for these trials
that God brought into their lives, and what are the reasons for
the trials that God brings into our lives? Number one, to show
the inexcusableness of unbelief. Listen, if God has redeemed us
by his blood, the blood of the lamb, if he has delivered us
from Satan, from the world, if he's washed us from all of our
sins, if he's robed us in the garments of salvation, Will He
not make provision for all things that He deems necessary for us
to have? No wonder our Lord said to His
disciples and His followers in His Sermon on the Mount, He said,
He said, you seek, you seek very first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness and all these other things will be added to
you. Be anxious for nothing. You need not worry about all
the things that are going to face you tomorrow or the things
that face you in life. That which you need to be occupied
with is the salvation of your own soul, the worship of God,
the glory of God, and the glory of Christ Jesus. That's all you
need to concern yourself about. God will take care of these other
things. He knows you've got to have a roof over your head. He
knows you've got to have clothes on your back. He knows you've
got to eat. You take care of first things
first. One writer said, you take care
of God's business, he'll take care of yours. Good advice. Here are the children of Israel.
They're put to the test. And this, another trial, it reveals
the inexcusableness of unbelief. It is just awful for you and
me to be unbelieving toward our God. And I just say shame on
us because let's face it, aren't we all guilty? And I said this morning, the
most difficult thing for any of us to do is just to absolutely
quite simply believe God's Word. In fact, I'll tell you this,
it's an impossibility. That's why God's got to give
us faith. You see, He sent His Son into this world. There's
the Lamb of God. There's salvation. There's everlasting
life. There's the forgiveness of sins.
There's righteousness. That's everything a sinner needs
for this life and throughout everlasting eternity. And God
says, believe on my son. And that's it. Look and live. And that's the last thing we'll
do. In fact, we won't even believe
unless he gives us a gracious gift of faith. We'll work, we'll
weep, we'll keep all kinds of commandments. We'll walk aisles,
we'll count beads, we'll say prayers. We'll keep laws, we'll
obey rules, give us commandments, we'll try to keep those. But to just say to us, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, cast your poor soul upon him. Well,
there's gotta be more to it than that. No, there isn't. And the only way anybody is ever
gonna believe is God's got to give them faith. You do not have
the ability. Do you have the responsibility
to believe God? Yes. Do you have the ability
to believe God? No, you lost it in the fall. You see, we're utterly, totally
dependent upon our God to do everything necessary to take
us to everlasting glory. And He who chose us unto salvation
and redeemed us by the bloody sacrifice of His Son, He must,
He must send His Spirit to make us alive through His Word. and then grant us repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He sends these
trials to reveal to us the inexcusableness of unbelief, but he also sends
up another reason to magnify his marvelous mercy. Though Israel, they keep on murmuring
against the Lord. And I've showed you three times,
three big events. These are gigantic things. And they can't believe God. They
won't believe the Lord. You don't wanna hear anybody
saying, listen, listen, folks, the Lord brought us out of Egyptian
bondage. He'll take care of us. Nobody's
saying that. but in spite of their murmuring,
God's there with mercy. God's there with grace, and you
must not lose sight of this. As I said last week, and I'm
kind of building, you see, on what I said last week, the reason
God showed mercy to Israel was because of a covenant that he
made with Abraham. It was a covenant all of grace. a covenant in which all the conditions
were upon God's part. And all of the blessings were
Abraham's by God's faithfulness, God's promise and God's oath. And then it was Israel who later
entered into a covenant of works with God. All that you've laid out for
us, we will do. And then, every time you find
them murmuring, you don't discover mercy that follows. It isn't
grace that follows. It's chastisement. It is the
penalty of sin, which is death. And over and over again, you
see that. And you see, you and I, who are
the people of God, we fail miserably, don't we, in the Christian life?
And we don't want to. We want to walk by faith. We
want to believe God. We want to rest in Him. I want
to never doubt. But we all fall. We all have our faults. We're
not a perfect people. We're perfect in Christ Jesus.
We're made the righteousness of God in Him. But in our daily
experience, our Christian life is a struggle. At least mine
is. And you may be one of those that
says, well, not me, preacher. Well, I can't enter in then because
I have struggles. And I know this according to
the word of God, all of believers have struggles. And if you don't
have struggles, I don't have any doubts. I don't have any
unbelief if you don't know yourself. You just don't know. If God ever
opens our eyes to see some of the depravity of our hearts,
just some of it, I don't think we could stand to see it all.
There's such vileness within every one of us who are the people
of God to make another devil. I'm telling you, we're evil still. I know that God has given us
life. He's given us a love for the
Savior, but the old Adamic nature, it is still very real. And it
causes us all kinds of difficulties, and it always will, because it
will never, ever get better. Don't you believe those folks
who say, oh, there's progressive sanctification, and your flesh
is getting weaker, and one of these days, you're gonna be so
ripe for heaven, the Lord's gonna pick you like a ripe tomato and
just take you right on to heaven. That's what some of the Puritans
believed. You're not getting better. The old nature, it's just as
rotten as it ever was. The new man, we're growing in
grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but this
old nature, it's gonna bother us, it's gonna plague us until
we die. Then it'll be over. No more struggles
then. And so the Lord, he tests us,
he tests his people. which reveals our own unbelief
so often. But it also reveals his unfailing
mercy. It's a wonderful passage of scripture
in 2 Timothy chapter two, where it says, though we believe not,
yet he abideth faithful. That helps me. That helps me. I struggle like all of you do. And these things expose our unbelief. I don't know why God sent that
trial, why God sent that trouble to me. And then in the midst
of it, just why, why, why? Well, to show you a little bit
more of what you are. You ain't as perfect as you thought
you was. I thought I was a strong Christian.
No, you're not so tough. You're not so strong. Just a
little bit of trial can bring you down. I'll tell you how strong
we are. We can come to the place of worship,
you shut your car door on your thumb and you say a couple of
choice words. Yeah, that shows you what you
are. That's just the way we're made. But these troubles come to us
and the Lord just keeps on sending His grace. He keeps on sending
His mercies. And that's the way it was with
the Lord and Israel. And here are the people there,
thirsty. And they go to Moses and they
quarrel with Moses. The word chide means quarrel
or contend. He said, I don't know why you
tempt the Lord. Why do you tempt the Lord? I
thought you said you believed him. The people thirsted for
water, verse three, and the people murmured against Moses and said,
wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to
kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? But here's
what they forgot. And this is what we forget too
as the people of God, when he leads us into a situation where
there is no water or no bread, some great difficulty. Go back
up to verse one. So they journeyed from the wilderness
of sin after their journeys, according to the commandment
of the Lord. In other words, the Lord, according
to His foreordination, according to His will, He led them to Rephidim. He knew full well there wasn't
any water there. He knew exactly what they was
gonna face. And they forgot it was the Lord
who was leading them all along. And so verse four, Moses cried
unto the Lord. And as I read that, I thought
about Moses is a picture of Christ Jesus here, who when he was reviled,
reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not. Here are the people jumping all
over Moses. And he did what we ought to do
when somebody hurts our feelings or says something. Take it to
the Lord. That's what Moses did. He just
took it to the Lord. That's a pretty wise thing to
do, isn't it? Take it to God. Don't take it to your neighbor.
Don't take it to another brother. Do you know what so-and-so did?
Take it to God. He cried unto the Lord, saying,
what shall I do unto this people? They're ready to stone me. The
Lord said to Moses, go on before the people and take with thee
the elders of Israel. How many of them were there?
70. And take your rod, the rod of
judgment, wherewith thou smotest the river, the river Nile, and
it turned to blood. Take it in thine hand and go.
And 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
we know from passages such as 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that
when he hit the rock, water came out And everybody drank. And they just kept on drinking
of the water that came forth from that rock. There's several
things I'd like to talk to you about in the little bit of time
I've got left here this evening. And here's the first thing. Let's
just consider the rock. The rock. This rock is a picture
of Christ Jesus. We even sing, on Christ the solid
rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. He's the rock. He's the rock
for weary sinners. The scripture says in Deuteronomy
32, 15, Israel forsook God and lightly esteemed the rock of
his salvation. The psalmist admonishes us to
sing unto our rock. Oh, come, let us sing unto the
Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Isaiah spoke of the coming of
Christ Jesus into this world using these words, a man shall
be as a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest
as a river of water in a dry place and as the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land. Oh, Jesus is the rock in a weary
land, a weary land. He's the rock, and He's the rock
who's been wounded for us. Rock of ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee, is what the top lady wrote. The reference
is to that passage a little later in the book of Exodus when Moses
said, I want to see your glory, Lord. And the Lord said, I'm
going to pass before you, but you can't look on me and live.
But there's a place in the rock, a cleft of the rock. You hide
in there. You'll be alright. I tell you,
there's only one place to hide from God. That's to hide in God. In Christ the Savior. In that
One who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.
Hide in the Rock. Hide in the Rock. He's the Rock
of our salvation. He's the Rock for His strength
and stability. He's the strong Rock. Some of you will remember I bring
kind of a worldly illustration in, a secular illustration. Bob Seeger wrote a song a long
time ago, Like a Rock. And General Motors used that
for their Chevy pickups. You remember? Like a rock. Like a rock. It says it's the
most dependable, longest driving pickup that anybody makes. Like
a rock. But let me tell you something,
our Christ Jesus, He's like a rock for His durability, for His stability,
for His long lasting existence, which is forever. And we stand
upon Him. And upon this rock, you must
fall or else the rock is gonna fall on you. You fall on Him
for salvation, He'll hold you up. No matter who you are, no
matter what you've done, no matter what you think is the great amount
of your sinfulness, you fall on the rock. Other great sinners
have fallen on Him, and they have found out there's stability
in Christ Jesus. He's the rock who will hold us
up. You fall on Him. But be warned,
if you don't fall on Him, He's gonna fall on you. And great
will be the judgment. He's the rock to whom we run.
The psalmist said, hear my cry, O God, attend to my prayer. From
the end of the earth will I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. When my heart is overwhelmed,
where do I need to go? What do I need to do? I need
God to do something for me. Lead me to the rock. Lead me
to the rock because when I'm overwhelmed and when you're overwhelmed
by the trials of life, the troubles of life, our minds get cluttered. Sometimes we don't even know
what to do. Oh Lord, lead me to the rock that is higher than
I. And that's where we find safety.
Christ is the rock. Secondly, the rock was smitten. The rock was smitten. no smiting
of the rock, no water. God said very clearly to Moses,
go on before the people, verse five, take with thee the elders
of Israel, thy rock wherewith thou smotest the river, take
it in your hand and go and behold, I'll stand before thee there
on the rock in a horrib, thou shalt smite the rock and water's
gonna come out of it that the people may drink. The rock's
gotta be smitten. No smiting, no satisfaction. This is a vivid picture of the
sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 16, you might make a
note of this. Here's what the manna speaks
of, the incarnation of Christ Jesus. He had to come. He had to come into this world.
but his coming into this world by itself saved nobody. He's the rock who's gotta be
smitten. So the bread, the manna from heaven speaks of his incarnation,
the smiting of the rock, that pictures crucifixion and salvation. He must be smitten. The rock
must be smitten because of our sins and for the sake of all
of his people, Christ died upon the cross of Calvary. And you
know who he died for? Well, let's just take it to this.
For whom was the rock smitten? In this illustration, for rebellious
people, for a sinful people. But watch it, only for a particular
people, Israel. Our Lord Jesus was smitten He's
smitten for sinful people, for ungodly people, but only for
his people. And you know who was there? Well, Moses is there as that
one who executes the act of judgment in spiting the rock. The elders
of Israel were there. How many elders were there? 70, we learned that from the
end of chapter 16 where there were 70 palm trees and there
was one for every elder. You know, this is where the Sanhedrin
got its beginning. How many were there in the Sanhedrin? 70, they added one more, the
high priest who made the 71st one. When our Lord Jesus was
crucified, who was there? Well, God was there to execute
the deed, the deed of salvation, the deed of executing His own
Son, of putting His own Son to death. Who else was there? The
Sanhedrin. The religious leaders, they were
there looking on. And there's the rod of justice
that was there in the hand, not of Moses, but of God Himself.
Who will smite the Savior? The rock had to be smitten. Who did it? God did it. God was there. I know the Jews
were there at Christ's crucifixion. The Gentiles were there. A lot
of other people were there. As the religious leaders, they
were there. And the secular leaders, they
were there. I'll tell you who else was there.
The Son of God was there, suffering, bleeding, and dying for His people
that God might be just and justify the ungodly. And God was there. You see what the Lord says? He
says in verse number six, behold, I will stand before, I'm gonna
be there, God said. And I'll tell you whose presence
was first and foremost at the cross of Calvary, our great covenant
God. And our Lord Jesus died by his
decree. Christ died to satisfy the Father,
the Father's justice and the Father's will of salvation. The rock had to be smitten. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him, is what we read. He had put him to grief. Here's
the third thing. Water came forth from the rock. I think the water sets forth
at least three things. Salvation. What happened as a
result of Christ dying for our sins? Well, salvation flows from
him. The rock has been smitten. Listen,
the rock was not smitten in vain. Water came out. Water came out. And our Lord Jesus has been smitten
by the rod of God's justice. and there's salvation there.
And I think it also pictures everlasting life. In fact, James
read to us there from John chapter four. Whoever drinks of the water
that I will give him will have everlasting life, is what the
Savior said. Therefore in Isaiah, the prophet
Isaiah says, therefore with joy shall we draw water from the
wells of salvation. Are you thirsty for salvation?
You take your little cup and you dip it into the well of salvation. Oh, it's deep. There's plenty
of water there for all of God's people. And you dip into that
water of life and you put it to your parched lips and drink,
you'll have everlasting life. That's just another way of saying,
believe Him. believe in. It's salvation, it's
life, and I'll tell you something else this water represents, the
Holy Spirit. Strike the rock, smite the rock,
and out will come water. Our Lord Jesus indicated that
there in John chapter seven, when he said, if any man thirsts,
let him come unto me and drink, and out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living waters. This spake he of the Holy Spirit,
who was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified. The Savior said, if I go not
away, the comforter will not come. He's only gonna come on
the basis of me being smitten. That's what Christ said. The
Holy Spirit's given. Water from a rock. And here's
what it says. Here's the fourth thing in 1
Corinthians chapter 10. They all drank from that spiritual
rock. Preacher, what must I do? Shall I illustrate it? Drink. I didn't have to fill up this
glass. Bill did that. God gave me the ability to pick
it up. And he gave me the desire to
take a sip. That's what it is with salvation.
It's God's water. It's God's glass that he puts
it in. And it's God who gives us the
will to put it in our parched lips. In fact, it's God who makes
us to realize our lips are parched. Our souls are parched. We need the grace of God. It's
the Lord who enables us to drink and we live forever. But let
me give you this finally. Go to Numbers chapter 20. A rock
was smitten a second time. Go over here at the Numbers chapter
20. Israel is, boy, they're in their
40th year now. It's just about to wind up. Chapter,
20 of Numbers, Numbers chapter 20. Look at verse seven. And the
people are, they're thirsty again. Verse seven, the Lord spake unto
Moses saying, take the rod and gather thou the assembly together. This time, it's not the elders,
it's the whole assembly. Okay, it's the whole assembly.
Thou and Aaron thy brother, and this time, speak ye unto the
rock before their eyes. So all you gotta do is speak.
And it shall give forth his water. His water, isn't that interesting
language? It's his, the Lord's water. and
thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock. So thou
shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses
took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him." Now,
two things need to be kept in mind. This is not the same rock
and this is not the same rod. It is not the same rock. It is not
the same rod. It's a different word used back
in Exodus chapter 17 for rock, which means a lowly rock. That's
our Lord Jesus in his humiliation. That's our Lord who stooped down,
who humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. It's the low rock. This is a high rock. This is
an elevated rock. You see, our Lord Jesus who died,
who was smitten by the rod of God's justice, having satisfied
God's judgment, and God's law has been elevated, He's been
exalted. Now, He's not low anymore. He's
not humiliated anymore. He did humble himself and become
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, but now he's
been exalted. This is a high rock. And it's not the same rod. The rod used before, the Lord
said, you take the rod that you smoked the river with. This is a different rod. Because
this is not the rod of Moses, this is the rod of Aaron. This
is the rod of Aaron. Earlier, just a very few chapters
before this in the book of Numbers, there's a big rowl about amongst
some of the people about who's gonna be the priest. And the
Lord said, well, let all these men bring their rods. And Aaron
brought his rod and they put him up before the Lord. And the
Lord said, the one whose rod buds and brings forth almonds,
that's my high priest. And that was Aaron's. And the
Lord said to Moses, and I won't get into that whole story, but
the Lord said to Moses, now you take that rod and you put it
up before the Lord. Look again at verse nine here
in chapter 20. And Moses took the rod from before
the Lord. No, this is not the same rod.
This is the high priest's rod. Because you see our Lord Jesus,
He is our high priest. He himself, He ministers to us
for God. as prophet, and he ministers
from God to us as prophet, he ministers for us to God as our
priest. He makes intercession for us,
having already offered the sacrifice for us. He is the great high
priest. He has the rod of all of God's
blessings. His is the rod that buds and
brings forth fruit for all of God's people. And here's what
you must do. If you want the water of life,
speak to Him. Speak to Him. Lord, save me. Lord, show me
mercy for Christ's sake. Speak from your heart. This is
not an outward speaking. This is just you talking to the
Lord. Can you do that? You do business with God. Lord,
I'm a vile old sinner. And I don't have any hope. And
I don't have any help. But your word says, and your
servant has preached today, that the Savior is Christ the Lord.
He's the bread of life, and he's the rock that's been smitten.
And from him there's salvation, there's life, and you give the
Holy Spirit from him. Oh Lord, give me this water. You think he'll withhold it from
you? No, no, never will. The Lord said, speak to the rock.
But look at verse 10. And Moses and Aaron gathered,
the congregation gathered before the rock and he said unto them,
hear now ye rebels. Uh-oh, they're getting in the
flesh now. They're getting aggravated with
the church members. Must we fetch you water out of
this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand,
and with his rod, he smote the rock twice. And water came out
abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also,
because God was merciful to them. But our Lord had already had
Moses smite that rock once. And that picture, the death of
Christ, which was a one-time thing. By one offering, he hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. Moses in a fit of
anger, he just decides he gonna hit the rock two times. And then
the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you believe me not, to
sanctify me, to honor me, to magnify me in the eyes of the
children of Israel. Therefore, you're not gonna bring
this congregation into the land which I have given them. This
is the water of Meribah. Because the children, it's the
water of strife. Because the children of Israel
strove with the Lord. and he was sanctified in them. There's the rock. The rock's
gotta be smitten. Since the rock has been smitten,
salvation, water, the Holy Spirit come forth from Christ crucified. Who did it? God did it. And what
about you and me? We come to the rock, Christ Jesus. We come in humility. We come out of neediness. And
we say, oh, show me grace. Show me mercy. I don't deserve
it. I'm just a rotten, dead dog sinner. But if you will, you can make
this old leper whole. Just speak to the rock. Speak
from your heart. You see, God does people, God
does business with people who are serious about these things.
Not just shallow. Not just a facade of religion. Everybody's got that just about. We talk about being serious about
the things of God. speak to the rock. He never turned
anybody away.