Exodus chapter 17 and reading
from verse 1. And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after
their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord and pitched
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. And
Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt
the Lord? And the people thirsted there
for water. 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? 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 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. And he called the name of the
place Massah 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? Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading from his word. We always say that it is good
for us to look for the Lord Jesus in these Old Testament accounts. And it is a practice that we
do whenever we are reading the scriptures, is to look for the
Lord Jesus. Because the Lord has told us
that he is in all the scriptures. And when we see God's dealings
with his people, we should be expecting opportunities to have
pictures and similarities and types and metaphors of the Lord
presented to us. Sometimes it will be the Lord
Jesus coming to earth. or his work on the cross or the
deliverance and freedom that he gives us from the captivity
of sin. Sometimes it will be God's mercy
that will be in view or his love or his grace But today we don't
need to look too far to see the Lord Jesus because in fact the
Apostle Paul in the New Testament tells us exactly where the Lord
Jesus Christ is in this story, in this history. And Paul tells
the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 4, speaking
about the children of Israel in the wilderness, he said, and
they did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them. and that rock was Christ. And so when the apostle is telling
us about the rock that is Christ, he is referring to this incident
at Horeb where Moses struck the rock and water came forth to
the refreshment and to the deliverance of the people of Israel. So although
this incident in the history of the children of Israel speaks
about the people needing water in the wilderness, and Moses
obtaining water from a rock by striking the rock with his rod,
a miracle in its own right, we learn from Paul that there's
a deeper meaning to this history, that it gives us spiritual knowledge
of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. And as we think
about these verses, we might think that in many ways there's
little difference about the people here. Last week we were thinking
about how they complained to Moses and murmured against the
Lord because they didn't have any food. And the Lord provided
them with manna and quails. And then a little while later
we discover that they are back to their murmuring again. because
their water has run out and they have nothing to drink. And again
we learn how that as soon as times get hard, the people of
Israel rebelled against God. They tempted God and they threatened
God's servants. And so this is a good lesson
for us to learn. Just because things don't go
as we would like them to go is no reason for us to become angry
with God. You know, sometimes we do get
angry with God. Sometimes that rebellious nature,
which is our human nature, which is our nature of sin, the nature
of the old man, rises up and murmurs against God, complains
against God, and rebels against God's dealings with us. We should
be wiser when we look at the example of the children of Israel. We should learn from their mistakes. They should have been wiser.
The people should have asked for water, not demanded it. They should have prayed with
Moses to God for help, not threatened to stone Moses. They should have
waited patiently upon the goodness of God and the faithfulness of
God who had promised to deliver them rather than lose their temper
and begin to complain. We're told that Moses cried to
the Lord. And I think it's interesting
to see that he cried. This was a loud and urgent appeal
to the Lord on behalf of the children of Israel and on behalf
of his own life because he truly felt that he was in physical
danger. He says, these people are about
to stone me, stone me to death. And perhaps it's because of the
urgency of the need of water. You can't live long without water,
as we saw just a little time ago when the people were at the
waters of Mara and Lord provided water for them then. But here
they were again, needful of water in this wilderness place. They
needed water for themselves, for their children, for their
cattle. And so Moses took this request
to the Lord with urgency and with some passion. He cried out
loudly and earnestly to the Lord and the Lord heard him and answered
him. God told Moses to take his rod
and to gather a group of elders, the leaders from amongst the
children of Israel. So this was not something that
the whole nation was to observe, but the elders or representatives,
leaders of the tribes, of the people of Israel were to observe
what was about to happen. They were to become witnesses
and they were to go with Moses to a rock that the Lord would
show him. And there the Lord would meet
him and provide water for all the people's needs. This rock,
we're told, was at Horeb. And it seems to have been a particular
rock. Indeed, it may even have been
a rock that Moses was already familiar with. Because you might
recall with me that Moses knew this area. because it was here
that he first met with the Lord in the burning bush. It is called
Mount Horeb and also at different times it's called Mount Sinai
and no one's really sure exactly which mountain in this little
group is Horeb and which mountain is Sinai or whether they're both
the same or whether they're just used interchangeably. But here
it was at Sinai or Horeb that the Lord had this rock. And it would be here in these
mountains also that the Lord would give Moses the Ten Commandments,
his law. So God showed Moses this rock,
and he showed him the place where the rock was to be struck. And he told Moses to smite the
rock. And when Moses did smite the
rock with this rod that he had, we're told that water flowed
out. And it flowed in such large quantities
that it was enough to satisfy a vast number of people and their
cattle for a very long time. We'll speak about the length
of time that the waters lasted another day, but it was for almost
40 years. and we're told that here the
children of Israel made camp and we're also told that it is
here that they fought their first battle. But that's an account
for another day. I would like at this time just
to give us three little lessons which I think can be drawn from
these verses and they might be suitable applications for us
today. The first one is this. When we
read these verses, may we send up a prayer to the Lord. God,
give us grace to trust thee. Give us grace to trust thee. You know, trusting the Lord is
not simply about knowing a few facts from the Bible and believing
them. Trusting the Lord is about placing
our confidence in the Lord. Placing our confidence in the
Lord for all our needs. spiritual, physical, temporal. Our spiritual need is our need
for forgiveness for sin, and for cleansing from sin, and for
salvation for our souls. And we should trust the Lord
for our spiritual need. Our physical needs are the needs
of our bodies for food and for drink and for health and for
clothing and for warmth and for security. And we should trust
the Lord for our physical needs, our spiritual needs and our physical
needs. And we should trust the Lord
for our temporal needs. Temporal needs are the needs
of our time, the broader needs that we have in the world. We
should trust the Lord for our future. We should trust the Lord
for our families. We should trust the Lord for
those matters in this world and to do with life that concern
us and impact upon us. so that trusting the Lord for
these things is what faith involves. And when we read the Bible or
when we hear it spoken of, may we come with open ears to hear
what the Lord has done and to learn of His ways so that we
can trust Him more and more. with growing confidence all the
days of our life. Every time the children of Israel
had a problem, they moaned and they murmured and they tempted
the Lord. But Moses trusted the Lord. He
took his problems to the Lord. He cried to the Lord and the
Lord heard him and the Lord answered him. So may we learn to be like
Moses and to understand how the Lord has provided for his people
in the past, in the present, and trust him for the future. So that's our first little lesson,
that we might trust the Lord. Here's another thing, we mentioned
that Paul tells us that the rock was Christ, or that the rock
represented Christ. When we know this, we realise
that what happened at the rock to bring water to refresh the
people is a picture of what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ. and
it's a picture of what the Lord has done for his people. What this rock was to the people
of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ is to his people, his church. The rock brought water to refresh
the people. And that is what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for his people for whom he died, for whom his
blood was shed. Moses by himself could not give
water to the children of Israel, nor could the law of Moses bring
righteousness and grace. But the Lord Jesus Christ came
from heaven to give to his people that which they needed. Righteousness and grace and forgiveness
from their sin. This rock looked just like any
other rock, nothing special. And the Lord Jesus Christ does
not appear special to most people in this world. They can't tell
him from any other person. But the Lord Jesus Christ, when
our eyes are open to see him and to see what he has done for
us, becomes very special to the Lord's people. Then the Lord
becomes sweet and refreshing to our souls, just like the water
from this rock to these thirsty people in a dry land. The Lord
Jesus Christ becomes the fairest and the best amongst 10,000,
and we have a love for the Lord and an appreciation for the Lord,
and we long to know him better. But Moses had to strike this
rock. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
in order to be that provider of grace and mercy, had to be
struck. And that speaks of the Lord bearing
our punishment and dying in our place and being judged in his
body for the guilt of our sin. When we break God's law, when
we do things wrong, we're called sinners. The Bible speaks about
us as sinners in our sin. And that sin, that disobedience,
that transgressing God's law and rebelling against God, it
has to be dealt with. And the price for that sin has
to be paid. And either we shall pay for it,
by judgment and punishment for eternity in hell, or someone
else has to pay for it. And the only one who is worthy
to pay for the sin of another was the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is why he came into the world. That one who paid for our sins
is the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was struck in his body with
the rod of God's justice, the rod of God's anger against the
sin of all of God's elect for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died. Out of this rock flowed the water
that brought life. And out of Christ flowed blood
to cleanse our conscience and grace to bring us life, spiritual
life and everlasting life. And there was sufficient water
in this rock for all the people to drink and be nourished for
many, many years. and there is sufficient redemption
in Christ for all of our sins. Don't ever think yourself too
bad or too old or too young or too anything for the Lord Jesus
Christ. There is sufficient grace in
Christ even for you and even for me. Ask of him and he will
give you living water. And one more thought and then
we're done today. When the people did not immediately
have all that they wanted, they asked this question, is the Lord
among us or not? Is the Lord among us or not? Now that question that the children
of Israel asked showed terrible lack of faith. But if we are
honest we all ask that question from time to time because we
are all weak and we are all easily tempted. Doubt is the enemy of
faith. And this world, and all its temptations,
and our flesh, and all its weaknesses, and the devil who is a liar from
the beginning, will all try to make us doubt the goodness and
the mercy of the Lord. The people should not have doubted.
God had proved himself time after time. He had proved himself faithful. He proved himself faithful in
the past and he would prove himself faithful in the future. And the
people should not have asked, is the Lord among us or not? But perhaps you're tempted to
ask, is the Lord among us or not? Is what I am being taught
true or not? Is what I am being told the truth
or not? Can I trust the Lord Jesus or
not? Did you notice how the Lord told
Moses to take the elders to Horeb to see the miracle being performed? Not all the people saw what was
done that day, but the elders came back with the good news
that life-giving water was flowing from a rock there in the mountains
and soon it would be seen by the people and tasted by the
people and it would give them nourishment and comfort and life
And the people might have thought, is this true? Is this true? Can
this message be trusted that these elders are bringing back
for us? Is this good news really to be
believed? We have witnesses like these
elders. We have witnesses in the Bible. to the good news of the gospel.
We have the apostles testimony of the things that they have
seen and heard. We have got the experiences of
men and women of faith. The book of Hebrews calls them
a great crowd of witnesses. And even in the world around
about us, there are witnesses to the glory of God. But ultimately, It is the Lord
Jesus himself and God the Holy Spirit who witnesses with us
and witnesses to us. Romans chapter 8 and verse 16
says, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that
we are the children of God. And in Galatians chapter 3 and
verse 26, for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ
Jesus. So if you ever find yourself
asking, is the Lord amongst us or not? Listen to the witness
of the gospel. Listen to the witnesses that
are the apostles. Listen to the witness of believers. But most of all, ask the Lord
Jesus Christ to witness to your spirit that you are a child of
God. It is Christ and the Spirit of
Christ who gives the faith to trust and confidence to believe. Revelation chapter 22, And verse
one says this, And he showed me a pure river of water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb. and the Spirit and the Bride
say, Come. And let him that heareth say,
Come. And let him that is athirst,
Come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely. May the Lord give us grace and
faith to drink the grace that comes from the Lord Jesus Christ,
the water of life. Amen.