Exodus 17:1-7 - Smiting The Rock

Exodus • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Exodus 17:1–7 (ESV) — 1 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Intro

This lesson in chapter 17 is very similar to the same lessons learned in chapter 15 to 16.

Why are we essentially getting the same lesson 3 chapters in a row? For one, they didn’t learn their lesson. And two, we learn a great deal about the heart of God to fickle sinners from this exasperating account of Israel’s grumbling.

This is the equivalent of Israel being held back a year like in school

Setting:

Wilderness of Sin = Desert near Mt. Sinai (Sinai = “of Sin”)

No water in Rephidim

People quarrel with Moses, even to the point of potential stoning. This is more than complaining.

God mercifully provides water from a rock

Massah = testing — This town is remembered as Testingville

Putting God In The Dock

C.S. Lewis has a great essay entitled ‘God In The Dock’ in which he describes how sinful humans have turned the tables on God. Using the image of a courtroom, Lewis says that we are the ones who act as if we are sitting in the judges booth while we place God in the dock (or place where the criminal would be interrogated).

We make him prove himself. Think of the insanity of this --- Hebrews 1:3

Moses said, “Why do you test the Lord?” (v.2).

“And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (v7.)

You might think that it is crazy that the Israelites would not believe in God when he walks among them in a pillar of cloud and fire every day. But does not God walk among us and show his power among us every day as well? We too are fickle and grumbling ling people

This story became a byword (a lesson) among the Hebrews.

Deuteronomy 6:16 (ESV) — 16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

Deuteronomy 9:22 (ESV) — 22 “At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.

Psalm 95:1–11 (ESV) — 1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! 3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” (repeat at closing with communion charge)

What does this story mean?

1 Corinthians 10:1–8 (ESV) — 1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

Christ is The Rock

These things took place as an example for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.

This grumbling leads to idolatry. The heart of sin says “I will worship an idol if it gives me what I want” (See James 4)

4 Things From This Story In Light of 1 Cor. 10

1) The Rock was stricken

John 19:16–18 (ESV) — 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

Isaiah 53:3–8 (ESV) — 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

REPEAT: CHRIST IS THE ROCK THAT WAS STRICKEN

2) The Rock provides

Isaiah 55:1–3 (ESV) — 1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

The thirsty and hungry of this world are beckoned to come. God is not stingy with mercy. Israel should have said by faith, “God has provided for all of our needs. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us now.”

John 4:13–14 (ESV) — 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Revelation 7:15–17 (ESV) — 15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

REPEAT: CHRIST IS THE ROCK THAT PROVIDES

3) The Rock succeeded where Israel failed

Matthew 4:1–4 (ESV) — 1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

Hebrews 4:15 (ESV) — 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

REPEAT: CHRIST IS THE ROCK THAT SUCCEEDED WHERE WE HAVE FAILED

4) The long-suffering Mercy of God on display

Who is God?

Moses asked, “show me your glory” (Ex. 33)

God passed by after tucking Moses into the cleft of the rock and says, you can turn as I pass and see my back, but not my face.

When he passes, God says, “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”” (Exodus 34:6–7, ESV)

Amazingly, God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

We are quick to anger and slow to love. God is quick to love and slow to anger.

He is faithful

He will forgive, but He will not clear the guilty

2 Corinthians 4:6 (ESV) — 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What is it like to look at God full in the face? It’s to see our sin, our grumbling, our pathetic slavery to sin and self, our whining, our hatred, our disease, and to see a Savior who was stricken - the Rock - who became obedient even unto the point of death on a cross. He is merciful. He is patient. He is gracious. He is holy, holy, holy and worthy of our worship.

“Fatherlike he tends and spares us

Well our feeble frame he knows

In his hand he gently bears us

Rescues us from all our foes”

- H.F. Lyte

REPEAT: CHRIST IS THE LONG-SUFFERING MERCY OF GOD

Repentance

“Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,” (Ps. 95:7-8).

Assurance and Communion

His obedience had now become ours.

His contentment without complaint has become ours.

John 7:37–38 (ESV) — 37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

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