We want to look at the first
seven verses here in Exodus chapter 17. The children of Israel had
journeyed out of the land of Egypt. God had sent Moses down
to deliver his people from bondage and now they were traveling into
the wilderness. And they came to a place called
the wilderness of sin and pissed there in remorse. There was no
water for the children of Israel to drink, and there's two lessons
that we need to try to learn from this particular portion
of scripture. The first one is the depravity
of the human nature, the depravity of the human heart. We can see
the murmuring and the chiving that the children of Israel did
against Moses. Moses had came by the direction
of God and Moses was sent into the land of Egypt and there he
brought the children of Israel out by the hand of God. You remember
the story how God sent the plagues and the famines and this and
that upon the children of Egypt or the people of Egypt and they
let the children of Israel go. In fact, if you read the history
of them, they loaded them down with goods. The gold that they
had, they gave unto them to get them out of there, to get them
out of there. But we'll read here the first three verses in
Exodus chapter 17. And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin according
to their journey, according to the commandments of the Lord,
and pissed in Ramothadan, and there was no water for the people
to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, or complain,
or murmur. is what that word means, that
there was no water to drink. And Moses said unto them, Why
chive ye 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? This is a picture of you and
I. The children of Israel pictures
God's people, God's elect people. All through the Old Testament
Scriptures, we see that the children of Israel, they said they would
serve God. God would bless them, give them
food, manna, all these things. And in just a few days, they
would forsake God. They would forget God. That's
a picture of the natural mind, the natural heart that each and
every one of us deals with. And Moses said, wherefore do
you tempt the Lord? Why do you tempt God? When we
complain and murmur against God, I don't feel good today. I'm
sick today. I don't think I'll do this or
I don't think I'll do that. I'm not able. That's murmuring
and complaining against God. Everything that we have, God
gives us. God gives unto us the breath
that we breathe, the health that we have, the family we have,
everything that we have is a gift from God. And God blesses us
abundantly. He loadeth us daily with benefits. But yet, this human nature, this
human flesh that we still have to deal with murmurs and complains. We read in 1 Samuel 8 and verse
7, He said, And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto My
voice, hearken unto the voice of the people, and all that they
have said unto thee, for they have not rejected thee. When
we murmur and complain, we're not rejecting the pastor or the
preacher of the gospel, we're rejecting God Himself. but they have rejected me that
I should not reign over them." Let us remember how depraved
and how sinful this human nature still is. You say, well, I'm
a child of God. I've been changed. God has blessed
me. God has given me the Spirit of God to dwell within me. Yes,
He does for His people, but yet this flesh remains the same. If we do not know something of
the human nature, The human heart, we will not understand what Jeremiah
said when he said in Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9, he said,
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? This thing that we have to deal
with right now, this flesh, this old nature that is still within
us, And Paul cried out his old wretched man that I am. Not that
I used to be. This was after Saul had been
converted and his name was changed to Paul. Wrote the majority of
the New Testament scripture. He said, old wretched man that
I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Who's going to deliver me? If
we didn't know something about this, we would be at a loss to
understand. The unbelief that is here still
with us, still with us. The ingratitude that is still
here, still here. The insensibility of these people
of God's goodness and faithfulness. How often, how often do we forget
God? Robert Murray McShane wrote a
book or wrote a a chapter in a book, he said, why do I forget
to pray? Why do I forget to pray? It's
because of the human nature that we still have to deal with. Oh,
look back at the children of Israel, how God had blessed them.
And look at us, how God has blessed us. God had just brought these
people out of bondage. Hard taskmasters ruled over them. They ruled them with an iron
fist. They ruled them with a rod of
correction. But God sent his apostle, or
sent his prophet, his preacher, to deliver them. Is this not
a picture of you and I? Sin ruled in our life, in our
hearts, and in our mortal beings, and God sent a preacher to preach
the gospel to us. And by that preaching of the
gospel, now the preacher had nothing to do with it. Don't
misunderstand that. This gospel that he sent was
delivered by a man. Moses went down and under the
instructions of God, he brought those people out. But it was
not Moses' power, it was God's power. And so it is with the
preaching of the gospel. We uplift the preacher. We magnify
the man that preaches the gospel to us because of who he is. He's
a preacher of the gospel. He's a servant of God. But in
himself, he's just like Moses, sinful, wretched, and apt to
fall, and sure to sin. And God had just led them through
the Red Sea. You remember the story how Pharaoh
come upon them And God told Aaron to stretch out his rod, and the
sea rolled back, and they went across on dry ground. What a
blessing. What a wonder to see these things. And then just a few days later,
they began to complain. We have no food. We have nothing
to drink. And God gave them this thing
of manna. This bread that just fell from heaven. Every day,
they didn't have to go out and till the ground. They didn't
have to do nothing except go out and rake it up and bring
it in and eat it. And just a few days later, they
complained, we hate this light bread. We hate this manna. Is
that not a picture of you and I by nature? Can we see ourselves? Can we
see our complainings, our murmurings? Look around us, what God has
blessed us with. What God has blessed us with.
And often we only see the natural blessings. The outside are the
blessings that everybody can see. But oh, can you remember
the guilt of sin that has been removed? This blessing that God
has forgiven you, your trespasses, and he has forgiven you all your
sin. Our daily lives, plenty to eat. Most of us has comfort that is
indescribable. Most of us has good jobs, good
homes to live, decent vehicles to drive. Is these not blessings
from God? But yet, at the smallest trial,
the smallest infirmities, we complain and murmur. And I ask
myself, Why? Why is this? After all that God
has given me, why do we forget God? It's because of this old
flesh. Now, I'm not justifying us forgetting
God. Don't misunderstand that. But
it's something we're going to have to deal with. It's something
we're going to have to deal with. The depravity of the human flesh. Let us learn, oh let us learn,
from the children of Israel a needy lesson. Let us not forget God. Let us
not forget our Lord. One old writer said, when the
clouds of trials come, whether they be dark, stormy clouds,
or just a brief shower, we murmur. It don't take much for me to
complain. It don't take much for me to be dissatisfied, but let us learn. Our Lord and
our God has blessed us abundantly. We should never, never, never
complain or murmur in any degree, but yet we do. No wonder Paul wrote unto us
in the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 12, he said,
take heed, brethren, take heed, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Take heed,
make sure, make sure that there is no unbelief in you. How do we do this? We do this
by leaning upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Every hour of every day,
every moment and every way, let us lean upon Christ, depend upon
Christ, look to Him, and worship Him for who He is. The children of Israel here,
if you read Exodus chapter 16, it deals with what shall we eat?
What shall we eat? Exodus chapter 17 deals, what
am I going to drink? What am I going to drink? After
these things, the scripture says, the heathens seek. But we be
the children of God. We be those that are regenerated
by the Holy Spirit. We be those that are washed under
the blood of Christ. We be those that have been redeemed
from our sin. So what should we seek after?
What should we seek after? The scripture says, seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things, whatever
they are, food, raminate, drink, possession shall be added unto
you, but first seek ye the kingdom of God and His righteousness. One old writer said, there's
nothing that exceeds the wickedness of a human heart except the abundant
grace of God. Where sin did abound, grace did
much more abound. You say, well, the more I sin,
the more grace God's going to give me. That's not what he's
talking about here. The deeper we fall into sin, the deeper,
the deeper, the deeper the pit that we fall into, God's grace
is sufficient. to bring us up. He comes to where
we are and he picks us up and he brings us out of this miry
pit of clay and he puts us, he puts us in the place and standing
that we are standing there robed in the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, standing there having all His goodness about
me, standing there able to appease God in and through the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When God looks upon us, He sees
the blood of Christ and He says, when I see the blood, I shall
be satisfied. My wrath has gone over thee.
My condemnation has been spent upon your Redeemer. And now,
I have no fault with you." That's our standing before God right
now. Standing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The only thing greater than our
sins is God's grace to us. The children of Israel sought
for things of the flesh. What shall we eat? What shall
we drink? Let us not be so. Let us not be so. Let us seek
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these
other things shall be added unto us. Now look at verse 4 down
through verse 6. 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 the elders of Israel, and thy rod,
wherewith thou smote the river, take it in thy hand, and go.
Behold I, behold I will stand before thee there upon the rock
of 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." Make this event so special, so
special. What makes this event so special? What is there about this smitten
rock that is so special? Paul answers this question in
1 Corinthians 10, verse 4. He said, that rock was Christ.
That rock was Christ. This brings us to our second
lesson. First, we learn the depravity of the human nature, the human
heart. Second, we learn where the blessings of God is to be
found. Where is God's blessings to be found? Is it in my doings
or my not doings? Is it in my beings or my not
being? It's found only in Christ. The
only place that they could find water was in this rock, and that
rock was Christ. Behold, I will stand before thee
there upon the rock of Herod, and thou shalt smite the rock,
and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.
The children of Israel thought, no doubt, that they would perish. No perish. They would perish.
If we don't have a supply of water I believe, if I understand
some of the historical facts, we can only live a certain amount
of days without water. Our blood veins begin to close
up and we begin to get dehydrated and this and that. I don't know
how far along the children of Israel was. Probably not very
far. They probably just ran out of
water a day or so before that. But they begin to chide. What
are we going to drink? What are we going to drink? All
hope was gone. There was no water. All hope
was gone. Where there's no water, there's
no life. And I'm sure that the children of Israel ran to every
place that looked like would be water. If they seen a tree
or a shrubbery, they run to it and begin to dig. That's also
a picture of you and I. We ran to the church. We ran
to a profession. We ran to an altar. We ran to
our works. But there was no life there to
be found. No water there to be found. Nothing but dry thirst
and a barren profession. David said in Psalms chapter
63 and verse 1, O God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My
flesh longeth for thee. In a dry and thirsty land where
no water is, to see thy power and thy glory. So as I have seen
thee in the sanctuary, because thy lovingkindness is better
than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee
while I live. I will lift up my hands in thy
name. My soul shall be satisfied as
with mar and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with
joyful lips when I remember. When do we do this? when I remember. When I remember thee upon my
bed, a bed of affliction, a bed of rest, a bed of trials, a bed
of thirst, whatever it was, we often forget God. But when he
calls these things to our remembrance, when I remember thee upon my
bed and meditate on these things in the night watch, because thou
hast been my helper. Therefore in the shadow of thy
wings shall I rejoice." The human will is dry. The human will is
dry. My works is not sufficient. My
doings is not sufficient to receive the blessings of God. The religious
will is dry. We can run to this religion or
that religion and we find nothing but a dry, dry, dry place. The philosopher well is dry.
Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to straighten my life
up. I'm going to get my life into a shape that God will accept
me. That's a dry, dead place. There's nothing that we can do.
Nothing that we can say. Nothing that this world offers.
that will appease God. The only thing that will appease
God is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That rock was Christ
and God was pleased to bring water out of that rock and God
is pleased to bring His blessings unto His people in and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. But there is a rock, there is
a rock, there is a rock in a weary land and its shadows falls upon
the burning sand, a place of rest, a place of comfort. In
appearance, it's only a rock. I'm sure the children of Israel
looked at it and said, well, I don't see no water there. I
don't see any water there. It's a dry and thirsty land,
and that rock is a dry, barren rock. With anointed eyes, one
can never see, or without anointed eyes, one can never see. the
beauty, the power, the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
without anointed eyes, Moses could have stood there before
the people and they could see no water. But when Moses lifted
his rod and he smoked that rock, there came the water. It's hard
to see how this dry, thirsty, or dry rock can picture our Lord
Jesus Christ, our Savior, but it does. It does. Look at the
rock. A rock is an unlikely thing to
give water. It's only a rock, but that rock
was God's rock. That makes a difference. That
was God's rock. The world saw only a man when
our Lord came. They said, we know him. We know his father. We know his
mother. He's a carpenter from the Nazareth. We know all about
him. They saw only a man. And without anointed eyes, that's
the only thing that you and I can see, but God. Oh, but God. This rock was the
rock that God had anointed. Our Lord and Savior was the sun
that God had anointed. This rock was the rock that God
had appointed. to give water to save much people. Our Lord is the rock, the person,
the man that God had appointed to save much people from their
sins. To wit that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
He has reconciled us to God in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Another way this rock pictures
our Lord, the rock was smitten. The rock was smitten. There was
no water coming forth from the rock until Moses smote it with
his rod. They could have stood there all
day. They could have offered every prayer that they could
think about. no water, until God told Moses, smite that rock. And that water came forth of
the children of Israel, God's elect. So our Lord Jesus Christ
was smitten, scourged, and crucified, that His precious blood may flow, that it may flow forth as a redemption
of His people. That rock was Christ, smitten,
smitten. We read in Isaiah 53, a very
familiar portion of Scripture. Surely He has borne our grief
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted, as He hanged there between heaven and
earth, there on the cross. It pleased God. I don't understand
these things. I see through a glass dimly or
darkly, but the scripture tells us it pleased God that this man,
the only son of God, should hang there and be smitten and afflicted. I know men smote upon him. They spit upon him. They plucked
his hair. They put that crown of thorn
upon him, but it was God's punishment. It was God's punishment that
brought forth the blood of Christ. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He has put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. What did that rock do? It stood there, silent. Same
as our Lord Jesus Christ. He hung there in silence. under
the wrath and penalty of God. That rock stood there, and as
Moses brought out his rod and he smoked that rock, it never
changed that rock. It didn't say, oh, it didn't
crack. Water came out of it. Water just
came out of it. I don't understand that. That's
hard to imagine. But that's the way God works. This is God's work. And as our
Lord Jesus Christ hangs there between heaven and earth, He
never cried or complained. He never said all these things.
He said, Father, why has thou forsaken me? And he did, God
forsook him to whatever point that can be understood that he
may die under the wrath and penalty of God. Where God is, there is
life. And without God, there is no
life. And when God withdrew himself
Whatever point you may understand it to be, that's the reason that
life went out of him, because God forsook him. And God laid
upon him the wrath of condemnation against sin. And he suffered
there. And the Scripture says that soul
that sinneth, it must surely die. And there he died under
the wrath and penalty of God against my sin. And now, now,
He is risen, ascended, and seated on high. As a picture of Christ,
this rock was smitten for a rebellious people. So it was with our Lord. We don't need to dress up Israel
again. They were a sinful, sinful people, and so are you and I. We may dress up and put a suit
on on Sunday, but we're still the same. We're still the same. They were dead in their sin,
same as we are. And they could do nothing about
it, the same as you and I cannot. The only way, the only way that
we can have rest, peace, and comfort in our soul is looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. The only way the
people could get water was for Moses to smite that rock. And
there it came. It came out to where historians
said there was probably three million people journeying there
in the wilderness, plus all their cattle, and their animals, and
their horses, and their camels, and their cattle. They all drank
of this rock. That shows the abundant mercy
of God. That shows the abundant grace.
He said, My grace is sufficient for thee. And did you notice
this? That rock followed them. It wasn't
just there one time. That rock followed them through
the wilderness until they entered into the land of Canaan. That
rock followed them, and they drank of that rock. They drank
of it every day, every day, every day for ever how many days it
was that they traveled. And it never rained dry. That's
a picture of God's mercy unto us. That's a picture of God's
grace unto us, that he will never run dry. We cannot out-sin God's
mercy and God's grace. Oh, we sin and come short of
the glory of God daily. But God said, my grace is sufficient
to cover a multitude of sin. He said, well, if I believe that,
I'll just go out and sin all I wanted to every day. Brother
Henry said, if you believe that, If you believe that God's grace
is sufficient to save you, he said, you'll sin a whole lot
more than you want to. That rock followed them. We read
in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4, as we read a while ago, Paul
said, and all drink the same spiritual drink. They drank of
that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. That rock followed them through
the wilderness, over the hills, through the valleys, wherever
they went, that rock was there to give them water. Wherever
we go, our Lord is there to give us life, give us peace, and give
us comfort. So Christ is our fountain of
life. and the source of all grace through the wilderness of this
world until we come into the heavenly Canaan. Just as this
rock is in the wilderness, provides water, life for the people of
God, so the rock of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, provides water,
life for us. Life. There's life in Him. There's life to be found in Him. He is the giver of life. Our water is the word of life,
right here. He gives it unto us daily, every
hour of every day. Paul said in Galatians chapter
2 and verse 20, he said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. that rock was Christ, and He
gives unto me all I need, all I need. Look to the rock, look
to Christ, and be ye saved. Thank you.