Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow
along in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from 1 Corinthians
chapter 10, and my main verse that I'm gonna deal with is verse
four. I began this last week on the message entitled That
Rock Was Christ, and this is part two. This'll be the conclusion,
two-part message. That rock was Christ. And it's
where the Apostle Paul is seeking to admonish, correct, and encourage
the Corinthian believers in the obedience of faith. And he goes
back into the Old Testament and uses the Israelites under the
Old Covenant, especially when they were brought out of Egypt
and began to wander in the wilderness going towards the promised land,
how they were disobedient to God. and how even though all of them
who come out, they came out of Egypt, and they were brought
to Mount Sinai, and they participated in some of the physical blessings
that God blessed the people with, but they were still unbelievers.
And the idea there is this, just because you're in a church somewhere,
even where the true gospel is preached, don't take for granted
that you're a believer because there are evidences of the grace
of God and faith and the obedience of faith is one of them. Now
obedience, when we talk about obedience, we're not talking
about the cause of salvation. I made this point last week.
Cause of salvation is the sovereign will, purpose, and grace of God. where God said, I'll have mercy
on whom I will, and I'll be gracious to whom I will. It's not of him
that runneth, nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth
mercy. God is the source of salvation, and it's his purpose, and his
will. The obedience of faith is not
the ground of salvation. The work of Christ, the obedience
unto death of Christ, the righteousness of Christ is the ground. Christ's
death on the cross put away my sins. His death on the cross
worked out a perfect righteousness that justifies me before God.
I'm forgiven of all my sins, not because of what anything
I do or have done or will do. The forgiveness of sins is conditioned
on the death of Christ. The blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sin. It's not my prayers that gives
me forgiveness. It's not my repentance. Repentance
is not the condition that I must meet in order to be forgiven.
Repentance is the product of realizing that I am forgiven
by the blood of Christ and nothing else. The waters of baptism does
not wash away my sins. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. So understand that. So the ground
of salvation is the obedience unto death of Christ as my surety,
my substitute, and my redeemer. And then the obedience of faith
is the result, the fruit. Christ said, I am the vine, you're
the branches, and you bear fruit. from the vine. Christ is the
life. He gives life. And that life
evidences itself in faith in Christ, repentance of dead works
and idolatry, and the obedience of faith, perseverance in the
faith. That's the result. And I always quote Ephesians
2, eight through 10 on that because we need to be reminded. God said
there through the apostle Paul, for by grace are you saved through
faith. Not because of faith, not based
on faith, not the condition of faith, but through, that is by
means of faith, we're united to Christ spiritually. So for
by grace are you saved through faith, and that faith and salvation,
they're not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should
boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto,
not because of, but unto good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them. So Paul is seeking to
encourage them in the obedience of faith, motivated not by mercenary
promises of earned reward, and not by legal threats of loss
of reward or punishment, but motivating them by grace, love,
and gratitude. And so he goes back to an Old
Testament reference. And this is in verse four. He
says, verse one, well, let's read the first four verses. Moreover,
brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that
all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through
the sea. All were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the
sea. They were united to Moses. They were with Moses. All did
eat the same spiritual meat. That's the manna that fell from
heaven. God provided it. Verse four, and did all drink
the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. And we
went back over to Exodus chapter 17, where that's recorded. How that they came to a place
in their journeys after Moses had brought them out of the bondage
of Egypt, God delivered them through Moses, and they came
to a place where there was no water. And rather than just turning
to the Lord, and in the confidence that the Lord would provide for
them as he had in the past, and all not because of their obedience
now, no, no, and not because of any conditions they met, but
because of a promise that he'd made to Abraham 400 years before. You see, God's honor, God's glory
is on the line here, and we're gonna see that in just a moment.
They began to complain, and they didn't believe. They even longed
to go back to Egypt, go back to their bondage. That's the
nature of unbelief. It's foolish, it's madness, thinking
that bondage is better than freedom. And of course, people by nature
don't even know they're in bondage when they are. Remember when
Christ told the Pharisees, he said, you shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. They said, we've never
been in bondage to any man. They were in bondage. They were
in bondage to legalism, their own works. What a burden, and
it doesn't work. By deeds of law shall no flesh
be justified in God's sight. You see, any preacher who puts
you under a works system of salvation, Salvation conditioned on you
at some stage, in some way, to some degree. He's putting you
in bondage and you may not even recognize it. Well, if you recognize
it, you wouldn't stay there. You'd get out of Egypt. So Moses,
it says in verse five, this is Exodus 17. I read this last week,
but let's read it one more time. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Moses asked, what should I do? And the Lord said unto Moses,
verse five of Exodus 17, go on before the people, take with
thee of the elders of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou smotest
the river, that rod of Aaron's that Moses stuck in the Nile
River and it turned to blood, and take in thine hand, take
that rod and go, and behold, verse six, I will stand before
thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock,
striking 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. So Moses struck the rock, water
flowed from the rock, and the people drank. Now Paul says in
1 Corinthians 10, 4, that that rock was Christ. What does he
mean by that? Well, that rock was a type of
Christ. This rock was typical. There's
a gospel lesson here. And what he's talking about is
Christ. You know, Christ is the water of life. His blood, which
is sometimes represented by water, is the only thing that can wash
away the sins of his people. And Moses striking that rock,
that's all a picture of how God saves sinners. through Christ,
the God-man, the surety of his people, the substitute of his
people, the redeemer of his people. As the surety of his people,
Christ had the sin debt of all the elect of God, all whom God
chose before the foundation of the world and gave to him, their
sin debt was charged, accounted, reckoned, imputed to him. And
in order to pay that sin debt, He freely and fully agreed to
come to this earth and unite with sinless human nature, God-man,
God in human flesh without sin, the Word made flesh, and to obey
the law perfectly and go to the cross and die and pay the sin
debt of His people. And by that, establishing what
the Bible calls the righteousness of God, Paul said, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and the Greek
or Gentile also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith. That is knowledge revealed. To
faith, knowledge believed. For it is written, the just shall
live by faith. The justified. And what is it
to be justified? It's to be forgiven of all my
sins on a just ground. It's to be counted righteous
in God's sight, legally, on a just ground. And what is that just
ground? It's the blood of Christ. It's the righteousness of Christ.
Now this rock that Moses struck back there in Exodus 17 was a
picture of that. Moses represented the law. That
rod represented the justice of God. The rod of justice. and it came down and struck Christ. The justice of God, the wrath
of God for the sins of God's chosen people came down upon
Christ, the substitute, the surety, the redeemer. He took the full
brunt of God's wrath for all the sins of all of his people
that God had given to him before the foundation of the world,
the elect. He took the full wrath and he
drank damnation dry. And out of that death of Christ,
out of his death, comes rivers of living water. Here comes his
blood that washes away our sins, the water of life. Here comes
the water of the word, the water of the spirit. Christ told the
woman at the well, if only you knew the gift of God, you'd take
what I have to drink and it would well up within you fountains
of living water. That's what Christ is to his
people. This is salvation that is conditioned on Christ who
fulfilled all the conditions to secure the salvation of his
people. Now, Moses was commanded to strike
the rock. He wasn't commanded to beat up
on the rock, to hit it over and over again, but to strike it
one time. Why is that significant? Well,
it's because the picture has to fit what the picture illustrates. And the picture illustrates the
one death of Christ that was sufficient to do all that God
required to secure the salvation of His people. His one death
was sufficient to put away all the sins of all of His people. His one death was sufficient
to bring forth an everlasting, perfect righteousness by which
God justifies His people. His one death was sufficient
to bring forth the water of life to give to His people. He didn't
have to die once. He didn't have to be struck more
than once. Hebrews 10, 14 says, by His one sacrifice, His one
offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That's
the perfection. When He was on that cross over
in John chapter 19 and verse 30, He cried out, it's finished. Doesn't have to be done again.
The blood of Christ was and is enough. I read an article years
ago, a man wrote, and he entitled it. He said the blood is not
enough. Now the point he was trying to
make in the article was this, that not only did Christ have
to die for his people, but they also must be born again. Well,
that's true, but that's not because the blood is not enough. God's
people must be born again. They must be given spiritual
life from above because we fell in Adam and we're born in a state
of sin and death. And unless we're born again,
we will not see or enter the kingdom of God. We will not believe,
we will not repent, we will not obey unless we're born again.
And I made the point last week to show that the new birth does
not come about as a result of anything we do or decide or believe. What we do and decide and believe
is the result of the new birth. But we must be born again. But
that's not because the blood is not enough. We must be born
again because the blood of Christ is enough. His blood being enough,
His righteousness being enough demands that everyone for whom
He died be born again and brought to faith in Christ. But Moses
struck that rock once. But I wanna show you another
example of that rock. Now, we talk about, as I said
last week, I love to talk about Christ our rock. I mentioned
this last week. He's the rock upon which the
church is built. He's the cornerstone upon which,
by which all the church is measured. If you wanna talk about how are
you right with God, Understand that it must be by the righteousness
of Christ imputed and not by anything you do. The judgment
of God is based upon Christ's righteousness. That's the standard.
God has commanded all men everywhere to repent because he's appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained and that he has given assurance
unto all men and that he has raised him from the dead. I must
be as righteous as Christ. Well, I can't get there by my
works. And I don't get there by the help of God either. I
get there by God giving it to me, imputing it to me. Now, I receive it by God-given
faith, but that's the result, that's the fruit. Well, over
in the book of Numbers, see if you can find the book of Numbers
in the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. There's
another episode with this rock. And here, The children of Israel,
this is Numbers chapter 20. Numbers chapter 20. And here's where the children
of Israel, they had traveled a little further. They encamped
below Mount Sinai for about a year. And during that year, God gave
Moses and the children of Israel all the law. All the law, the
Ten Commandments, the ceremonial laws, the tabernacle, the priesthood,
the feast days, all of it. And that was about a year at
Mount Sinai. And then they began to travel on. And they were to
go to the Promised Land. Well, on their way, they came
to another episode, another time, where they found no water. There
was no water. Numbers 20, verse two says, there
was no water for the congregation. And what happened? Now, you remember
back the first time in Exodus 17, when they found no water,
what did they do? They didn't get on their knees
and pray to God. They didn't turn to God. They
turned against Moses. Well, later on, here's another
episode. You say, well, maybe they've
learned their lesson. Well, we're sinners. And you're either sinner lost
in your sins or sinner saved by grace. And listen to what
happened. In verse two of Exodus 20, there
was no water for the congregation, and they gathered themselves,
not to have a prayer meeting, but they gathered themselves
together against Moses and against Aaron. So here they are again. Same problem, same attitude. This is man by nature. I'll tell
you what, if you don't see yourself in the people of, if you think
you're better than them, go over and read Romans chapter three
sometimes. You know, Paul comes to, he's bringing in the whole
human race in as sinners who deserve nothing but hell and
death in those chapters. Romans 1, 18, all over to Romans
3 in verse 20. And in verse nine, he asked the
question, are we better than they? And he says, knowing no
wise, there's none righteous, no, not one, verse 10. He goes
on to say, there's none that seeketh after God. They're all
gone out of the way. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. That's us by nature. And here's what I'm telling you.
By nature, we are no better than the people of Israel who gathered
themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And to do
so was to gather themselves against God because Moses was God's prophet
and Aaron was God's priest. And they gathered themselves
together. We're no better than them if I'm saved. Now most of these were not saved
eternally. There were a few, a remnant,
the Bible calls it. But if I am saved, It's not because
I'm better than these guys or I wouldn't do what they've done.
It's because of the grace of God, period. No other reason. By the grace of God, I am what
I am, Paul said. It's all of grace. We're saved
by grace. If we're saved, we're kept preserved
by grace. and will be brought to glory
by grace. I was reading an article in the
paper where a preacher talked about how to think that you can, once saved, always saved is dangerous.
My friend, if we're not preserved by God, we're gone. And that
grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. So the people turned against
Moses. And it says in verse three, and the people chode with Moses.
They had strife with him, spoke, saying, would to God that we
had died when our brethren died before the Lord. Talking about
another episode where some people turned against Moses and God
brought judgment down on them. It'd been better for us to die
with them, they said. Then they go on back and say, it's better
for us if we go to Egypt. Well, here's what the Lord told
Moses to do. Look at verse seven of Exodus,
or numbers 20. He says, and the Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, take the rod, same rod, and gather the assembly
together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the
rock before their eyes. Now notice, he didn't say, now
Moses, strike the rock again. Speak to the rock. Now why is
that significant? Because the rock had already
been struck one time. And that's all that's needed.
How many times does Christ have to die? How many times does the
justice of God have to come down upon him for him to put away
forever the sins of his people and to work forth a perfect righteousness
that justifies them forever? How many times? One time. You've
already struck the rock, Moses. That type has already been fulfilled.
Now speak to the rock. Speak ye, verse eight, speak
ye unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth
his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the
rock. So shalt thou give the congregation
and their beast drink. I'm preaching the gospel, speaking
to you of Christ. I'm not crucifying him again.
That's what they do at the Catholic mass, essentially, or during
the sacraments. They crucify him again. Say,
no sir, one time. He struck the rock. Now he says,
speak the rock. Well, if you read on here, what
happened, it says in verse nine, Moses took the rod from before
the Lord as he commanded him. Moses and Aaron gathered the
congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them,
hear now, you rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?
Now Moses is speaking out of anger, and that's always wrong. But verse 11 says, Moses lifted
up his hand, and with his rod he smoked the rock twice. Instead
of just speaking to the rock, he hit it twice. It'd have been
bad enough if he'd hit it just once, but he hit it twice. And the water came out abundantly,
and the congregation drank, and their beast also. Now the Lord
gave them the water in spite of what Moses did. because the
rock had been struck back in Exodus 17. But what happened
here? Moses, out of his anger, misrepresented
the Lord. He misrepresented Christ. Out of his anger, he struck the
rock when the Lord told him, no, Moses, just speak to the
rock. And the Lord gave them water
in spite of Moses' anger and in spite of their unbelief. That's
what happened. Well look at verse 12, and the
Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron, because you believe me not to
sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, to set me
apart, to represent me aright, to glorify me, therefore you
shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given
them. Moses was barred. He was the
leader, he was a type of Christ in his mediatorial work there.
But mainly, Moses represented the law. And so God, because
Moses struck the rock twice, God says, you will not take the
people on into the promised land. You'll lead them up to the verge
of it, but you won't be able to go in. Now some people look
at passages like that and they say, well, if Moses had just
done right, he would have been, let me tell you something about
this. This was God's plan all along. And I know that boggles
your mind. It boggles my mind. This is not
God being a cosmic chess player. Moses makes his move and then
God makes his counter move. This is not God being some kind
of cosmic janitor, we mess it up and he comes behind us cleaning
up the mess, no. This was God's will, purpose,
and plan from the beginning, and I'll tell you why. Moses
represents the law, and the law cannot get anyone into the promised
land of salvation. By deeds of law shall no flesh
be justified, forgiven, and counted righteous in God's sight. But
now who did lead the people of Israel over into the promised
land later on when they went in? It was a man named Joshua. And the name Joshua, you know
what the name Joshua means? It means Jehovah saves, or Jehovah
is salvation, and the New Testament equivalent of Joshua is Jesus. Moses represented the law. The
law and the works of the law cannot get you into the promised
land of salvation. Joshua represents Christ, and
it is Christ who gets his people into the promised land of salvation.
The law came by Moses, but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ,
our Lord, John 117. That rock was Christ. I hope
you enjoyed this and I hope you'll join us next week for another
message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7, contact us
by phone at 2-2-9-4-3-2-6-9-6-9, or email us through our website
at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today, and may the Lord be with you.