I invite you this morning to
take your Bibles and turn with me to Exodus chapter 17. Exodus chapter 17. I'd like for you to read with
me the first six verses of the chapter. And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sinai. 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 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 hast brought us
up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with
thirst? And Moses said unto the Lord,
he 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 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 in 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, Israel as a nation, when
we're reading in the Old Testament about Israel, the people, the
children of God, the children of Israel. Israel as a nation is a typical
people, a typical people. I know that you've heard that
phrase a lot, but what does that mean? What does that mean? When we're reading about Israel,
and somebody tells you that Israel is a typical people, what does
that mean? Well, it means they stand in
figure for someone else. It means they stand in figure
as the elect of God. And there's no way that you can
make every man, woman, and child physically born of Abraham to
be the children of God. It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. Paul, who
once believed and taught that, was shown differently after his
conversion. He believed that at one time.
He believed that. He believed that he was a child
of God because he could trace his birthright back to Abraham. You can read about it in Philippians,
I believe it's chapter 3, where he talks about folks thinking
they had a hope. He said, I once thought that
myself. And I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
He can readily trace his roots back to Abraham. He believed
that. And what he tells us in Romans
chapter 9 verse 6, that if the Jews, because of their blood
heritage, were the sons of God, then by way of their rejection
of Christ, they would have made the Scriptures of none effect.
If you try to give any spiritual significance by way of their
inheritance to Abraham, you've discounted all the promises of
God in the Scriptures. That's basically what Paul said.
Because they rejected him. They had nothing to do with him.
And that's what he said. Does that then make the Scriptures
of none effect? God forbid. Why? They're not
all Israel which are of Israel. Ain't that what he said? Neither
because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children,
but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Now listen. That is. That is. They which are the children
of the flesh, these are not. Isn't that what that says? These
are not the children of God. But the children of the promise,
that's who they stood for. That's who they typified. That's
who they figured. The children of the promise are
accounted for the seed. And it's just so important that
you understand this when you read and study the Old Testament
scriptures. If you cannot see the spiritual
significance of Israel in their representation of the church,
then you cannot benefit from the things which God teaches
us by that representation. You've just totally missed the
message of the Old Testament. I appreciate that Sunday school
lesson this morning because that's, and I told him, I said, I hope
the Lord will duplicate what he did there this morning because
that's my message. That's my message. And that's
basically what the Lord said to them, old fools, and sloth,
you don't understand what you're reading. You don't understand.
You're saying, I believe, but you don't know what you believe.
You're ignorant of the prophets. You're ignorant of the message
of the Old Testament scriptures. And so what'd he do? He went
back to Exodus chapter 17, and he told them what Moses said
about Christ. That's what he did. That's what
I'm doing this morning. You see, Abraham had two sons,
and they were allegories. Ain't that what Paul said over
in Galatians? They were allegories. They stood for the two covenants,
one of works and one of grace. They talked about our heritage
and talked about our inheritance and talked about our descent.
One was from his mother was a bondmaid. The other one was from the free
woman, according to the purpose of God. And then in Romans chapter
9, after what I read to you this morning, Paul goes straight to
Isaac. And he talks about Isaac. Isaac was the son of promise.
Isaac was born according to God's will in God's time by God's means. And no matter what they could
do, they couldn't produce Isaac. Only God could produce Isaac.
And when God got ready, and when his time was fully come, Isaac
was born. And that's what he says about
the children of God. And then of course you know who
Jacob and Esau, you know what that's all about, that's God's
election. He said, I said this to their mother before either
one was born or either one had done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to elect. Can you see what I'm saying about,
this is figurative language. This is, these stories are spiritual. These things point ahead to Christ. These things tell us how God
saved sinners. If you get anything else out
of it, you just missed it. You've missed the message of
God. And throughout their history, Israel typified the church and
taught us how God saves sinners by His free and sovereign grace
in Christ. And to make anything else out
of these things is to rest the scriptures and miss their teaching
altogether. Stephen said that. Stephen went
throughout the history of Israel talking to those Jews and those
priests and those Pharisees and that whole Jewish structure of
elders and he stood there and told them and he finally at the
end of it he said you stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ear you do always resist the Holy Ghost. How did they do that? They wouldn't receive the message
of Christ that those Old Testament prophets taught. It wouldn't
happen. It just wouldn't happen. Now what we're looking at this
morning is a picture of the very foundation of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And I pray that the Holy Ghost
will convince you of that and impart this message this morning
in both your mind and heart. Now I've got several things in
this brief story here in Exodus 17 that I want you to see this
morning that I believe will be a help to you as you go through
and read the Old Testament scripture. First thing I want you to notice
here is the place where all this happened. Let's look at the place. Their journey was from the wilderness
of sin. Isn't that something? How God
named that desert, that wilderness, sin. What a type. The wilderness of sin. And I
can't overemphasize the importance of this fact. You and I are sinners
in a sinful world. People do this. They look like
that little dog in the back of the window you see when you're
going down there. They're all doing it. But boy, I tell you,
when it comes right down to it, it's this. It's this. They don't really believe that. They don't really believe that. We're not good folks gone astray. That's what most people believe.
They've gone astray. We're not righteous folks who
have made some mistakes. We're sinners born in sin. What's that mean? That means
we wake up every day and knowingly choose to sin. That's what that
means. That means we knowingly practice
sin. It means we think sin and we
drink iniquity, Job said, like water. We think no more about
it than going to the sink. It's as common to us as drinking
water. We're sinners. We're sinners. And there's no gray area here.
There's just no gray area here at all. Now, we either pray with
Paul, old wretched man that I am, or we pray with that Pharisee
who stands afar off and said, I thank God I ain't like the
rest of them. There's no in-between. There's
no gray area. We either confess with David
that we come forth from the womb speaking life, or we boast like
the Pharisees did to Christ that we be not born of fornication. We either say with the unconverted
soul of Tarsus that is touching the law, we're blameless, or
we cry with Isaiah that we're all together as an unclean thing
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Which is it? Which is it? Well, the Israel
of God journeyed from the wilderness of sin. Faith is a journey. It's
a journey. That's what he's teaching us
here in the book of Exodus. He's showing us a picture of
the Israel of God that he delivered out of Egypt, that he caused
to pass through the sea, whom he resurrected on the other side,
and now they have a journey. And that journey is 40 years. What does that 40 years represent?
The lifetime of a believer. That's what it is. It's a journey. You know where
they journeyed the whole time? In the wilderness of sin. They
just went around and around and around. In the wilderness of
sin. They journeyed from the wilderness
of sin. Now that tells me even though
they went around and around and around, they were headed somewhere
else. They were journeying from the
wilderness of sin. And then it tells me here in
Exodus chapter 17, if you'll look back there for just a minute,
it says that God commanded this journey. God commanded this journey. Boy,
I tell you, I look at my past, sometimes I can't find God in
it. But He was there. He was there. And He was commanding
every step of the way. God's people are led of God. And folks convicted of the Holy
Spirit, of what they are and where they are and how they are,
willingly follow the Lord. That's what they do. And men
and women who murmur, and that's what took place here in Exodus
17, don't know God. Now the believer will occasionally
murmur. A believer will occasionally get angry. He'll occasionally
do things. I'm not saying that he's spotless
or anything like that, but I'm just saying that the tenor of
his life is not to murmur against God. But murmuring is what took
place here. And this is one of those ten
times you get a little bit later on when God said, that's enough.
When the spies went into the land and came back with the evil
report, he said, that's the end of it. These ten times you've
done this to me, and there's not going to be a number left. You know, the Lord Himself proclaimed
the Gospel to the Pharisees, and they murmured. You know what
Christ told them? He said, quit murmuring. He said, no man can come to Me
except the Father which has sent Me draws him, and I raise him
up at the last day. God breaks His people, He delivers
His people, and He teaches His people, and all those who are
not of them, All those who can't be led, all those who are resisting
Him constantly, they're discarded in the wilderness. Now you look at the picture and
see if I'm not telling you the truth. You go to Hebrews chapter
3, He tells that all the way through, Hebrews chapter 3. Those people will be discarded
in the wilderness and they'll never see the rest of Canaan. Now watch this. The first thing
that happened on this journey took place in Rephidim. Rephidim,
I'm told, is the plural word for Rephidah. Rephidah means
rest. Rest. Rephidim means rest. Rest. Now those who God makes
thirsty seek a remedy for it. That's why He gives you thirst.
And they seek a remedy for it. Those who God disturbs seek rest
for their souls. And all those who seek these
things become prime targets for Satan and his ministers. When
God gives that man an interest, when that man begins to be thirsty,
Satan's ministers do like this. What's this I see? And they become
prime targets. Prime targets. There was something about Repidem
that caused Israel to pitch there. They were out in this wilderness.
Nothing out there. I didn't find anything in this
wilderness, except what God had given and provided, but they
found something in Repidem. that appealed to them, something
that perhaps looked and promised water. I don't know what it is,
but they camped in reckoning. And I don't want to get lost
on this point and miss the best part of this whole message, but
there's a danger out there for seeking sinners. There's a danger
out there. False prophets live for this. They live for folks who are seeking
God, and they hear them, and they love to cry, peace, peace,
when there is no peace. They go down to the hospital. I recently spent a little time
down there and you go out there in the waiting room and those
guys look like, they remind me of a bunch of vultures out there
preying on those people who are in there with loved ones in there
being operated on or sick or dying or whatever. They're just
like a bunch of vultures. False prophets live for this.
And a spurned-hearted man is exactly what the great whore
lies in wait to entice into her house. You read about it in Proverbs. Repidem to me is a picture of
false religion, or at least, at the very least, it's a teaching
which they so polluted the world, and it's so polluted our own
hearts that we can't get the thoughts of it out of our head.
Half the time we're still thinking along those same principles,
along those same thoughts. And it's always the first stop
for the seeking sinner to pitch his tent in Repidim. He seeks
for something to rest in. But the scripture says, Exodus
17, 1, there, T-H-E-R-E, there was no water for the children
to drink. It's not in these rests. Not in these rests. There's nothing
in the water of religion to satisfy the thirsty soul. There's nothing
there but cisterns, the prophets said, broken cisterns that can
hold no water. So the place from the wilderness and to where they set up camp
in Ripponim, this is picturing the walk of the believer and
he's He's made thirsty of God, and he's thirsty, his soul is
thirsty, and he can't find anything in this wilderness to satisfy
that thirst. But he sees something, and he
longs, he goes over there, and he's looking for something to
satisfy this thirsty soul. So he goes in to rep it. And
you can just go on and on and on with the religious rest, but
you see where I'm going with that poem. All right? That's the place. Secondly, let's
look at the situation. The situation is men blame God
for their trouble. You never hear a man hold his
hand up and say, well, it's my fault. You know, like they're
doing basketball, my fault. They're always doing this. They're
always pointing at somebody else. They blame God for their trouble. They blame God because they hate
God. They hate the idea They hate
the very idea of a being higher and better and more powerful
than they themselves ordering things, controlling things, demanding
things, and calling them into account. Paul knew that when
he wrote Romans chapter 9. He wrote that right in the letter.
He said, I know what you're going to tell me. If nobody can resist
God, why does he yet then find fault? They don't like it. They don't
like the idea of it. They hate this kind of a God.
They don't hate this manby-pamby God. They don't hate this little
peanut God who just kind of sits up there and waits on you if
you've got some kind of a need. He'll run over and give you whatever
it is you need and then go away. Go away. That's the kind of God
this world loves. They want his assistance when
they need it. The rest of the time they want
him to go hide. When men first discover their
situation, they get angry. They get angry. And they murmur
and complain about it and blame God for their troubles. But they can't get to God. They
can't get to God. They can't see God. They can't
pinpoint God. They can't get God in the corner.
So you know what they do? They do the next best thing.
They go to God's ambassador and they point to Him. They said,
why'd you do this? We're thirsty. Give us some water.
Moses said, why are you upset with me? I don't have any water
either. I'm not the giver of water. He's
the giver of water. He's the giver of water. Moses
said, they'd be ready to stone me, Lord. All right, here's the
third thing. What are you going to do about
it? I talked to some folks the other
day. Boy, they want me to come to the house and they want me
to say this and intervene and do that, do something else. I
said, what exactly do you want me to do? What exactly do you think I'm
able to do? I can't raise the dead. I can't
convince men of sin. I can't defeat your enemies.
What do you want me to do? Isn't that what Moses is saying
here? What are you upset with me about? I can't do anything
about it. I'm out here too. I'm as dependent on him as you
are. Now, I sympathize with your problems,
and I do, and I'll give folks an ear when they call me. I'll
do that. But in the end, what exactly can I do about it? One
thing. I can cry unto the Lord. That's
all Moses could do. That's all I can do. I can cry
unto the Lord. I've got no power to convert,
convince, conquer, regenerate, or raise from the dead. I can't
give life to the salvation of the Lord. And I'll tell you this, if He
don't speak, we're all in trouble. We're all in trouble. Moses, I found this interesting.
Moses didn't call a meeting of the elders and say, what are
we going to do about it? What do you think, Bob? What
do you think we ought to do? He didn't call a meeting of the
elders, did he? Something else he didn't do,
he didn't start a prayer chain. I heard a lot of that while I
was down in the hospital. We're going to put you on a prayer
chain. I don't even know what that is. Moses didn't consult his brother
Aaron. Though he prayed the Lord send
him with him when he first came, he didn't bother to ask Aaron.
And he didn't ask his wife's opinion either. He cried unto
the Lord. That's all a preacher can do.
Oh, well you say he can preach. Not if God doesn't preach through
him he can't. Huh? Get you a little outline. Huh? Go home and get you one.
You got books. There's a whole library full
of books in here. Don't let you use it. Go get you an outline.
You can find an outline in there somewhere. Sit in there and think about
it. Cleverly arrange things. Get you something that really
looks good to you. Boy, this is going to appeal
to them here. I'll get this. I'll get there. Get it all around. Get you some good illustrations.
And get up here by yourself and see what you can accomplish.
Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. And do it
four or five times, and there'll be about this many people coming
to hear you. And when they get there, they
wish they'd stayed home. Now that's the truth. I'm telling
you. Cry unto the Lord. Yes, study. Yes, prepare. Yes, get an outline. Yes, get
illustration. Yes, do all of those things.
But cry unto Him. If He don't speak, you're just
wasting your time. Just wasting your time. Moses
cried unto the Lord. Now, listen to what the Lord
told him. Here's what you can do, Moses.
I'll give you something to do. You go get the elders, and you
go get the rod that I gave you. You remember that? When you first
come down here, and you couldn't talk, and you couldn't communicate,
and you scared of this, and scared of that, and scared of Egypt,
and scared of Pharaoh, and everything else, and I gave you a rod. You remember that rod? You go
get it. How come Moses got to stand on
the rock? Why doesn't everybody stand on
the rock? How come Moses stood up? Because Moses was the only
one in Israel that had the rod. You know how he got it? God gave
it to him. Now you read Romans chapter 10
and see if I'm not telling you the truth. People fight this
tooth and toenail. They fight this and fight it
and fight it. But I'll tell you this, you'll bow under God's
authority when he appoints a man to speak to you. You're going
to hear him or God will send you to hell. Now that's just
the truth. Romans chapter 10 said, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord be saved. But you can't
call on an unrevealed God. And the only way you're going
to know His name is for God to reveal it to you. And the only
way He's going to reveal it to you is through this preacher.
And he can't preach if God don't give him the rod. But if He gives him the rod,
you better gather out in front of the rock. and see what God's
gonna say. Might be you'll get some water.
Might be. Now here's another question.
I was talking to Larry about this yesterday. God said, I'll
meet you on the rock in Horeb. Do you know what Horeb is? Have
you ever studied that? That's a mountain chain. It'd
be like God telling me I'll meet you at the rock down at the Rockies. Down in the Smokies. Go down
to Gatlinburg, I'll meet you on the rock. What rock? The only thing more plentiful
than the sand that lay at the foot of Horeb was the rock that
covered its slope. God said, I'll meet you on the
rock. What rock? Had Moses known which
rock to go to. How'd Moses know which rock God
would be standing on? You don't want to stand on the
wrong rock. You want to stand on the rock on which God stands. I was talking to my nephew one
time about the Lord and trying to communicate something to him
about what the Lord had done to me. He said, well, I got some
questions. And this was one of them. He
said, this man tells me I'm called of God. And God taught me his
gospel. And I know it. And I can point
me into the Lord. But he said, there's a man right
down the street from him. And I meet him. And he said,
I'm called of God. Now, he don't preach the same
thing this guy did. He's talking about something
entirely different. But he said he knows the Lord, and he knows
the gospel, and he can point me into Christ. And then another
right down from him, and another right down from him, and how
does somebody like me, a seeking sinner, one that you say doesn't
have the ability to know God, how am I supposed to know which
one stands for God? And here's what I told him, but
for the grace of God, You never will. You never will. You never will. I'll tell you
what you're going to do. You're going to wander around
until you find something that appeals to your nature and your
personality, and you're going to pitch your tent there and
rest with them. And that's where you're going to stay until you
die. And God's going to give you over to believe a lie and
be damned. Isn't that what Paul says there
in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2? But he said, oh, he said, thank
God for you. God from the beginning has chosen
you unto salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto he called you by my
gospel. Now, back to the question. How
did Moses know which rock the Lord would stand on? because
Moses had been to Horeb before. See, you can't tell what you
don't know. You can get that little outline, you can get those
illustrations, and you can stand up here and talk all day long,
but you don't know which rock to go to, you don't know which
rock God's standing on, because you've never been there. Moses
had been there. God led him through that same
wilderness up to that burning bush at Horeb and revealed himself
to it. And when he said, you go to the
rock, Moses knew exactly what rock he was talking about. He
grabbed those elders and he took them down to that rock. He'd
been to Horeb before. You know it says over there in
Hebrews chapter 11 that Moses endured, seeing him who is invisible. Only one who could see God on
that rock was Moses. And he saw Him by faith. Listen to Peter. The Lord said,
Peter, whom do men say that I am? Well, some say you're a prophet.
Some say you're Elijah. Some say this, some say that.
Well, he said, who do you say I am? He said, thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. Boy, you're blessed, Peter. You're
blessed. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
that unto you, but your heavenly father revealed that to you. And what did he tell you? Upon
this rock, he told you. Peter seen the rock too. He knew
which rock to go to. Peter got over there talking
to those Jews, I'm not sure if that was his
message on Pentecost, but it was early, I think it was in
chapter four of Acts. And he started talking to those
Jews about Christ. You know what he said? This is
the rock that you builders throw away. You know what he said? This is the stone that you builders
rejected, which God made the head of the corner. And there's
none other name given under heaven among men whereby ye must be
saved. He knew which one was the rock.
And the rock that he knew was the one they discarded and throwed
away. Moses was to stand where God
stands before him and take the rod God put in his hands and
by the commandment of God smite the rock. And the smitten rock
would pour out a river, it says in Psalm, not a stream, but a
river. We were studying about Israel
coming out of Egypt. And do you know if they walked
seven people abroad that they stretched out for 32 miles? 32 miles. Can you imagine all
of these? And that's not the cattle. You've
got to figure into that all the cattle, and all the sheep, and
all the goats, and everything that came with them, and the
tents, and all the wagons, and everything that they brought
with them. This was like Los Angeles coming across the United
States. I mean, it was huge. It was just
huge. And here's this rock, evidently
something a man could stand on, the most unlikely of sources
that there was. And Moses stood up there with
a rod, and smoked that rock, and you know it says, and I think
it's in Psalm 78, he says, rivers of water came out of that rock.
Huh? Sufficient for every man, woman,
and child in Israel. Most unlikely source. Moses cried unto the Lord, and
the Lord gave him clear instructions. He said, I'll meet you on the
rock in hope. I'll go before you. I don't think he's saying there
that I'm going to stand. He says here, I'll stand. Behold,
I will stand before thee upon the rock. He's not talking about
the Lord standing in front of him. He's talking about when
he went there and when he stood. How long has God been standing
on that rock? From the beginning. From the beginning. How long do you reckon he's going
to stand on it? Till the end. Till the end. I'll stand on the
rock in horror, but I'll go before you, and I'll be there when you
get there. And you bring every thirsty soul with you, and demonstrate
with the rod I gave you how God saves sinners. Paul understood that. He didn't
have anything but the Old Testament. He read the Old Testament and
he told them over in Romans chapter 3, he said, we're freely justified. Being freely justified. How was he? Through that one
that God set forth to be a propitiation for our sins. How'd he set him
forth? Well, there's one thing that set him forth on that is
a smitten rock. Smitten rock. Now let me show you one more
thing, and I'll play it over in 1 Corinthians chapter 10,
verse 4. Now this was a Jew. This was
a man who knew these stories forward and backward. Never did
get any understanding out of him until God caught him up to
the third heaven and taught him something about his grace. And
then Paul could take those Old Testament scriptures and make
them come to life. Read the book of Hebrews. Man,
he could take those things. Even Peter, who was a Jew himself,
said in one of his letters, things hard to be understood. Paul could
take anything in that Old Testament and show you Christ. He'd show
you Christ. And over here in 1 Corinthians
10, I'll just kind of read over the first couple of verses, but
he tells them that our fathers, all of our fathers who passed
through the sea, who were baptized in the cloud and in the sea with
Moses. They did all eat the same spiritual
meat. Every one of them went out and
gathered up the man of God. And they did all drink the same
spiritual drink, for they drank, now watch this, they drank of
that spiritual rock that followed them. Everywhere they went, that
rock and whore went with them. And they drank of that rock that
followed them, and that rock was Christ. If I understand what's being
shown here correctly, this is telling me that God's ambassador,
the only way he can give water to thirsty souls is to stand
on that rock, Christ Jesus, with that rock. and demonstrate how
God saves sinners. The smiting of Christ, the substitutionary
work of Christ, that imputed righteousness of Christ, and
those elders stood there and saw and drank from the water
that came forth. God'll bless that message, Larry.
He'll bless it. I don't care if you feel good
or feel bad. God'll bless that message because
It elevates Christ and it glorifies God. May God be pleased to bless
it to our hearts this morning. Our Father, we thank you. Oh, what a blessed opportunity to gather in this place with
the elect of God. Know that God stands here with
us on this rock. ready to send forth that water
of life into the souls of thirsty sinners. Oh, be pleased this
morning to do that very thing, for Christ's sake. Amen.