Exodus chapter 17. Exodus chapter 17, we are walking with our friend Moses and his autobiographical record of the exodus of Israeli people from Egypt and Yahweh's moving on their behalf, moving for them, moving in them, and tonight moving in response to him and him moving in response to them. First Corinthians chapter 10 tells us that these things are recorded to be an example to us. The example of what not to do very much of how they responded to Moses, how they responded to God. But what we see and what we have seen, what we've made very clear and what we have made the focus of our study of Exodus, we're learning about our God, we're learning about Yahweh, we're learning about the Lord. We're growing in the grace and knowledge of God in this. And I want us to refrain from what I consider to to very often be a mistake. I don't want us to immediately attempt to look at the Old Testament through the prism of the New Testament. I think there is much error to be experienced by doing that if you make the Old Testament only about what is revealed in the New Testament. Because we want to, for what the New Testament says about these episodes in the Old Testament, we must understand what is going on in the moment. You must understand the context of Exodus chapter 17, what was going on in the minds of the people, what was God's response to these people. And then as we look back at it, we make connections in the New Testament. They don't redefine it, they don't make it something that it never was. They let the Old Testament be what it is and point back to it in ways that are profitable and ways that are illustrative for us that we can learn from. Most of your Bibles will have a heading something like water from the rock at the beginning of chapter 17. That is what I have titled this passage. I wrestled with the title to try to give it an expression of what's actually the big idea in the passage. But I couldn't come up with something that wouldn't have filled up several lines. We've had some colons and commas and semicolons in for the full sentence. What happens here is the water comes from a rock. But it's more than that. We want to see exactly what it is. We want to make the right connections and then we will have the right and the ability to make connections to you, your life and mine today. When God moves in your life, is it always the way you expect it? Let me ask you a different, is it ever the way you expect it? When you petition the Lord and pray to the Lord for a particular issue in very specific terms, does he ever accomplish it the way that you anticipate as you are praying about it? Very seldom, very seldom. Does God always move in your life in a way that you, from a human perspective, would define as it being good? good for your health? In the immediate moment, is it good for your emotions? The answer to that is no, he does not always and very seldom does he move in a way that you would deem to be a humanly defined good. But we have to be careful with verses like Romans 8, 28. You can go to the funeral of a family who was in, who is grief stricken over the loss of a child or the loss of a spouse, loss of a sibling. And you can go to them and say that Romans 8, 28 says that all things, God is at work in all things for the good of those that are called according to his purpose. God is at work in all things for good in the life of his people. But that does not mean that you go and tell them, well, this is going to be good for you. You can't go and tell him, well, you know, you really ought not be too bent out of shape because God said this is good. Didn't say God said that's good, said he's at work in all things for good by his definition. Good by our definition doesn't always match the good of his definition. Which one would you rather have in your life? Well, right now, I'd rather have my definition of good, but for eternity, I'd rather have his definition. And we as believers must have a perspective. Like I've told you, I once heard that good parenting doesn't focus on today. Good parenting focuses on 50 years from now. Christian living doesn't focus on today. Christian living focuses on the honor of the Lord for eternity. And it causes us to make different decisions today in light of that. Israel is going to be facing something that they would not have asked for. They're in a position that they would not have volunteered for, but they're in a situation that is going to be for the eternal good of God's people. They find themselves in a state of panic in this passage. He purposefully put them there. He commanded them to be there. Strange are the providences of God sometimes. Let's read verse seven verses of Exodus chapter 17. This is on the heels of the provision of manna and quail. This is on the heels of the institution of the Sabbath and this Sabbath provision that he has made. The first mention of the Sabbath in all of the scriptures in Exodus chapter 16. And he tells the people that tomorrow is going to be a Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath to Yahweh. Yahweh, I told you it is a Sabbathon Sabbat. It is going to be a Sabbath that is a holy Sabbath, a holy rest to Yahweh. And he gives them instruction that they've never heard. This seventh day is going to be a day of rest that Yahweh has provided. It is something good that he has given them. He's given you the Sabbath in verse 29. He tells them to take a jar of manna and keep it with the ark of the covenant. to happen in a couple of chapters here. Moses, remember, is writing about this after the fact, so he's saying it was put in before the testimony was kept. Verse 35 tells us that they had manna for 40 years until they came to the inhabited land, came to the border of the land of Canaan. After all that is done, we pick up chapter 17. Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Zin according to the command of Yahweh. And they kept at Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people contended with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink. Moses said to them, why do you contend with me? Why do you test Yahweh? But the people thirsted there for water and they grumbled against Moses and said, why now have you brought us up from Egypt to put us and our children and our livestock to death with thirst? So Moses cried out to Yahweh, saying, what shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me. Then Yahweh said to Moses, pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb and you shall strike the rock and water will come out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So he named the place Masa and Meribah. because of the contending of the sons of Israel and because they tested Yahweh, saying, is Yahweh among us or not? On the surface, this is a very interesting and detail-laden story told in very concise terms in an economy of words that is almost staggering. But the last clause in verse seven tells us the whole story. Where is God? Where is God? You ever asked that before? Lord, where are you? Where is God in this? What these people are going to teach us, whether they learn or not, most of them do not learn it. Most of them die in the wilderness in unbelief. 1 Corinthians 10 tells us that. The writer of Hebrews tells us that. The majority of them die in the wilderness. But what we can learn from this and what they should have learned is realize in mind, Yahweh never goes anywhere. Where is God? God's where he's always been. The question is, where are you? Begin in verse one, we see the providence of Yahweh. God's providence, what he provides, what What he institutes, what he directs, what he sends into your life, what he directs your life into, the providences of God. Sometimes they're very strange to our mind. Friends, the providence of God always produces the will of God. We see the providence of God first illustrated here in an unavoidable journey. It says that the whole congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Zin. They've been in the wilderness of Zin. Technically, this doesn't necessarily need to be translated that they left the wilderness of Zin because they stay in the wilderness. They come to Horeb, and it's still a desolate land. It's a wilderness. There's still no people that live there. Heard recently that in Saudi Arabia, all of this is in the Sinai Peninsula in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government doesn't let people go out into that area. Who knows why they claim they don't want people in that area, but people that have gone there, believers that have gone there on work visas and been in oil field operations, things like that, they have time off and they will go off into the wilderness and they've found places where where the Israeli people would have camped. And it's rock. And they set their tent up in the rock. And they put rocks around the edge of the tent to hold the tent down in the wind. Those things are still there because nobody else is out there. There's no reason for someone to be there. You can't survive there. You can't just go out there and live. The reason that the Israeli people were able to survive there is because God continued to provide for them, even in this barren So they traveled from one place to another in this wilderness area, in this barren, desolate area. All the congregations of the sons of Israel, they all journeyed, it says journeyed by stages. The term by stages just means that they picked up their tent and they moved their tent. I mean, that's all they were doing. But they left from one place to another very picturesque word in the original according to the mouth of Yahweh what Yahweh said to do so this is an unavoidable journey because Yahweh is calling the shots and Yahweh said it is time to go get the people out of here let's go they don't know where to go they go where he tells them to go and says he brings them to a place and it's a place with an uncharacteristic name it's it's a misnomer You ever known somebody that had a nickname that just was the opposite of what they really were? You ever had a friend like that and you just called him, got a guy that weighed 350 pounds, called him Slim, stuff like that. It's kind of what is going on here because it says that they camped at Rephidim. You say, okay, they found a place called Rephidim. You need to understand that Rephidim is the name of the place, but Rephidim technically means rests. It's the word rest in plural. You see anything with the I am at the end of it. Elohim is a plural of El. It's God plural. Rephidim is a word that means rests. They're in the wilderness and he brings them to a place that is an area that is now punctuated with a name that is completely uncharacteristic. This is not a place you go to rest. This is a place you go to die if you're not paying attention. But this is where God brings them. And these areas wouldn't have had a name that anyone would have known until the Israeli people came and named it that. It wouldn't have had a Hebrew name of Rephidim until after the Hebrews had been there. So what they experience here, this gives us a clue as to what is coming and how this this reality of rest that they experience here. Remember, this is on the heels of the Sabbath rest. He's trying to do what is good and provide for these people what they don't expect. And he's always doing it in a way that they don't expect, so that no one can take credit for it. But they come to Rephidim, they come to this place of rest in a wilderness. It will receive that name because of what happens here. This unavoidable journey to this uncharacteristically named place confronts them with an unexpected providence. Typically, when we talk about the providence of God and what God provides, we talk about it in positive terms. It's a positive thing. In the providence of God, I met my wife. In the providence of God, I got this job. In the providence of God, fill in the blank. And it's usually something very positive. There's an unexpected providence in these people's lives that God brings about. He brings, remember, they've come by the command of Yahweh, and they find themselves in Rephidim, and look at the last clause of verse one. And there was no water for the people to drink. Now this one thing, when you show up at the ballpark, and it's hotter than a fire and on a blister, and the kids are playing on turf, and nobody has any water. Hey man, there's no water to drink. What do you do? Find the closest stopping route, get a case of water, a bag of ice, you got something to drink in 10 minutes. When you're in the wilderness, what do you do? You panic. They've come from where they've been and they've seen well at Mara, they've seen the provision of manna, they've had water provided for them, and then God takes them with the food that they have, he's just provided food for them. This is so like you and I. Avery and Rogers used to talk about trials in this way. As a believer, you are either in a trial, you're coming out of a trial, or you're preparing to go into a trial, because trials are the way of life. for the beloved. It's what the Lord uses in our life to mold and shape us into the image of Jesus Christ. It's not that he has ever promised to provide us a smooth path. He has promised to provide us a path that provides and produces our eternal good according to his plan. And these people find themselves in this situation. They come to a place where there is no water. They've just come out of a situation where they didn't have food that they wanted. Now when they were complaining about food, They brought flocks and herds with them. They had something to eat. But God provides them with more. He gives them this special provision of manna. He takes this provision of manna in spite of their grumbling, in spite of their to this unexpected province of no water and things really get heated because now they're in panic mode. We can survive with water and without food for a while. We cannot survive with food without water for more than a couple of days and we are 10 days from nowhere right here. If we don't get some water, nobody's going to make it. I watched a movie with the greatest cowboy actor of all time the other day. One of his early movies, Hang Him High. And Clint Eastwood was a man that survived the hang and became a lawman and had an opportunity to go and catch the guys that hung him. Really good show. And he catches one of them while he's in the process of rustling cattle and moving out through between Oklahoma and Texas, and no man's land, and the cows are without water. The guys that he brings with him, when he finds the perpetrators, they need to get the cattle back. He said, these cows are going to die if they spend one more day without water. We've got to get them back to water. And they just take them and run. I don't know exactly how accurate that is, if they were that desperate for water. Running doesn't seem like the... would prescribe, but they're desperate for water in that situation. These people are in a place where there is no way to get to or get back to water. And they're in panic mode. As we're going to see, this is a providence of God. This is an opportunity for these people to grow. You know, this is an opportunity to do. It's an opportunity for them to take the immediate lesson that they just learned in chapter 16 and apply it to their life in chapter 17. And they don't do it. In fact, they don't do the same thing that they did in 16. They go overboard even more. It's a worse response in 17 than what they had in 16. It's a worse response even if all things were equal, but it's a worse response on top of the fact that they just learned the equal lesson in chapter 16. This is where you and I really can sympathize with these people. Because the Lord sends, seems like he sends the same trial over and over and over and over. I'm like, why am I going through this again? Guess we haven't gotten right yet. That's why I'm going through this again. These people have opportunity to take what they've learned and apply it. And they don't. We need to be careful as we look at these people. Why can't they get it? Well, you're a New Testament believer. if you're a believer, and you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God, you have a capacity that no one in the Old Testament had. The Holy Spirit came and went. What Jesus tells the disciples in the upper room is, it's good for you if I leave, because if I leave, the helper will come. You know him because he's been with you, but he will be in you. The difference between folks in the old testament and believers in the new testament is the ministry of the holy spirit is more intimate with us than he was then it's the reason that you don't see quite as many of the the heinous types of sin in the lives of old testament believers are as many in the new testament believers as you do in the old testament believers listen abraham committed adultery with hagar i don't care how you slice it Jacob had a pile of wives. David had a pile of wives. Solomon said, hold my root beer. I'll show you what a pile of wives looks like. It just continued to pile up. You don't see that in the New Testament. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is different. One of the things that is different is that the other thing that is different that really doesn't give these people a pass. You can't say, well, if they would have had the Holy Spirit, they would have responded different. Friends, it seems to me that a blind person would have been able to respond different in chapter 17 than these people responded because they just saw the glory of God. When they looked in the wilderness, they saw the glory cloud and they were terrified of it. And he said, I'm going to give you manna and you're going to quit griping and you're going to feel like dirt because you complained against me rather than coming to ask me for it. And they probably did for a while. I mean, we see in, In verse 22, that they went and gathered twice as much as they had on the other days. They actually listened. There was something of a submissive spirit there. But chapter 17 shows up and they're right back to their old shenanigans and even worse. See the providence of Yahweh in verse one? We see the provocation of Yahweh in verses two to four. These people go and provoke Yahweh. The old adage, you don't poke a bear. Friends, You don't tug on Superman's cape and don't mess around with Jim, is that the old song? You don't want to provoke the Creator. But these people directly do. If they've seen the patience of Yahweh and the mercy of Yahweh up to now, what they're about to experience is the grace of Yahweh. Not just that he's patient. It's not just that he says, what you deserve is this, but what I'm going to give you is this. He goes the extra mile here, as you'll see in a moment, even though he is being provoked again by the same people that should have learned the lesson two weeks ago. This is weeks apart. Maybe. This may be week, maybe plural. It's probably a week apart. It's not very long because It was in the middle of the second month that they wind up here getting the manna. This is 45 days or so after the exodus. And there are 45 days or less from that time separated from coming to Mount Sinai. These things are happening rapid fire. They're happening almost daily to them and they continue to respond wrong and continue to respond wrong. Yahweh continues to not only be patient but he becomes more gracious Verse two, we see a desperate people. This provocation of Yahweh is perpetrated by a desperate people. Says therefore the people, therefore in relation to them being in a place with no water, they're in this barren wilderness, there's no water there for the people to drink. Yahweh has placed them there. Don't lose sight of that in all of this according to the command of Yahweh. Yahweh says go here, Yahweh says stop, this is where they are, and they stop and realize there's no water. Therefore, that the people contended with Moses, two problems here. One, they contended with Moses. Moses is doing what God told him to do. And you're doing what God told you to do. It's not Moses that you have the problem with. Two, it says that they contended with him. Now, this word contended is different than the grumbling that they do, as you'll see. He says, in verse three, he says that they grumbled. We'll get there in a moment. contending with them and it means to quarrel. Let's get a little insight into what this, the graphic nature of this description. Moses is being very kind even in the graphic description that he's giving to this. In Exodus chapter 21, just four chapters ahead, 21, 18, God is giving them some laws about personal relationships and personal injuries. This is what he says, uses the same word. If men contend with each other. Okay, there's that word, contend. If men are contending with each other. This gives us a clear view of what is intended by this term, contend. They're contending with Moses. I mean, you can see at the moment that people come up and start complaining to Moses and you've got the elders of 600,000 people, 600,000 men and their families, the elders show up. There might've been a thousand elders that showed up. All of them talking at one time, and it escalates from a complaint to something that is far more aggressive. Because men contend with each other, and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist. That elevates the idea of contending here, of contention. It's not just that they're arguing, they're getting violent. They are desperate. They're in panic mode, and they don't know what to do, and they're putting all the blame on Moses. The idea of contending, in verse 21 says, if he, in chapter 21 says, if he strikes a man with a stone or with his fist, that he does not die, but remains in bed. This is talking about assaulting someone with death blows. Not just that you decided to throw a rock at your brother, unless some of y'all did that. I remember when I was a kid, we lived in Iraq, and we'd get out, we lived on a gravel road, we'd just get out there and have rock fights. Y'all get this side, we're gonna get this side, we'll just have a rock fight. There was no winners, only losers. Everybody loses at a rock fight. Except me, I was the fastest one, so running away was my forte, I did. Never got hit. This isn't talking about that, this is talking about guys that are so angry that they wanna kill one another. This is the word that Moses uses here. They began to contend with Moses. We're getting a very gracious rendition of this, but it's graphic at the same time. We catch the drama of the moment. These people are desperate. They're coming to Moses and they're getting violent. And they say to him, give us water that we may drink. They don't say we're thirsty. Give us water. They're laying the hold of him. We have to have water and you have to give it to us. Why are you attacking me? Why do you contend with me? And again, just what he told them in chapter 16, he's getting to the core of the matter. The problem that you have is not with me. The problem you have is with the Lord. Why are you contending with me? And in the same vein, he's asking the same thing with putting Yahweh in a position to have to respond to what you said so that you get what you want. Why are you attempting to manipulate and bully Yahweh by assaulting me? He's warning that, look, you need to back up and think. Yeah, you're putting your hands on me, but you're attacking Yahweh. He is not gonna let this slide. You cannot stand against God. It's a great warning for these people to receive, for anyone to receive. Verse three, they're dissatisfied with that. They're dissatisfied with the situation. They seem to have backed off a little bit. He's calmed them down enough that there isn't this physical aspect of the assault in verse three. In verse four, he's going to make it plain that he doesn't think that that's gonna last very long, but in verse three, They don't completely calm down. They, they cease their physical assault on him, but it says, but the people thirsted there for water. They're still thirsty. They're desperate. And they grumbled against Moses. Now they're starting to talk about Moses all over the camp and they're trying to build up all of the people. It's a handful of people. Now they want to get all the people kind of like a walkout on the union job. If enough of us get together, we can force his hand. You mean you're going to force the hand of the one that split the sea and killed that army? You're going to force the hand of the one that killed the firstborn of every family in Egypt, except for the ones of you that did this foolish thing of killing a lamb and putting blood on her door? You mean the one that turned the Nile to blood? Oh, you mean the one that sent hail and destroyed all the crops and everything outside, killed every man and animal outside? That one, that's the one that you're going to book. That's what you're going to do. Pretty easy for us to ridicule. Friends, we see ourselves here more often than we would like to admit in public. We grumble. Look at what they say. Like a broken record, it's the same thing every time. Why now have you brought us up out of Egypt? Literally in the original, it's speaking in first person. It says, why have you brought me up from Egypt to put my children and my livestock to death with her? They make it very personal. They're taking it very personal. All of them are saying the same thing. That's why English renders it in the plural. And it's fine. It's very personal to them. They're dissatisfied with the whole situation. Why have you brought us from Egypt to put us and our children and our livestock to death with us? You're gonna kill everybody. They're just piling guilt on. They're trying to put a guilt trip on somebody. The silly things that we will do to attempt to manipulate somebody. Verse four, this desperate, dissatisfied people produces a desperate prophet. Moses is about to reach his lowest point. Moses is ready to give up. He doesn't know what to do. Moses has invested his entire existence, his entire life, his entire eternity, he has invested in these people. He has sold out for Yahweh and his people. He's given up his life twice for them. Once when he was run out of Egypt, and again when he was called out of Midian to leave the life that he had made for 40 years. He's here with these people. His wife and his kids are not with him. He's separated from his family here in order to minister to these people. And they keep coming to him, and they keep saying, you did this to us. You brought us out here to kill us with hunger. Now you gave us soup, and you're going to kill us with not giving us water. We look at this, and we say, like, four minutes ago, I read in chapter 16 that this happened then, and you didn't learn your lesson? No. Moses is coming to the end of himself. This first clause in verse four, so Moses cried out to Yahweh, I don't care what comes after that. Whereas that is a place that we need to find ourselves more often than we are. Best place for you and I to be is at the feet of the Savior. You know, He didn't give us prayer just so we can go to Him when we're dissatisfied. He didn't give us prayer to go to Him just when something goes wrong in life. He's given us the privilege of prayer that we get to come to Him. Cast your cares on Him. Why? Because He cares for you. Do not be anxious about anything. In everything, in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to Him. Come to Me, all. are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest." It's to be in communion with God in perpetuity is the best place for us to be and sometimes He will allow very difficult things to keep us there because that's the best place for us. That is for our good. It's not necessarily physically enjoyable and emotionally It takes difficulty to put us in that place. And he's putting these people in difficulty so that they will see it, respond to it. They continue to respond incorrectly. And if God was like a man, this would be the last straw. We run out of patience with our family. Moses cried out to Yahweh with the desperation of Moses' voice. What shall I do to these people? It's an interesting statement. As I say, what can I do with these people? What can I do for these people? What shall I do to these people? Why does he say that? They grumbled against Moses. They're passing word through the camp. They're getting ready to stone this guy. I said, look, we've got these rocks. We'll take care of him. He's going to produce or else. Question is then, if you're a part of that mob and you're marching up there with the stones, you know what's got to be in the back of your mind? I sure hope they don't pick me to replace him. I'll go along with getting rid of him, but I ain't taking the lead. Desperate, dissatisfied, grumbling people don't think, they only feel, and they allow their emotions to justify their feelings and their anger and their anxiety, and their fleshly mind will tell them that they're right, just like yours and mine will. Moses says, what shall I do with this people? I don't know what to do. Verse two, the people are desperate. Verse four, the prophet is desperate. But there are two different reactions. Actually, there's not. There's one reaction and one response. The people react, they attack and assault Moses. Moses responds by going to the Lord. His first reaction, his first step, his first thought is to run to the Lord. How much better off we are when we learn to do that. We've seen the providence of Yahweh has put these people in this position. And they get in this position and they provoke Yahweh. He's been provoked. They've poked the bear. They have insulted and assaulted God. How does he respond? Obviously, you know that there are chapters after 17 in Exodus. So something happens different than what you would anticipate happening if you were reading this for the first time. God does something. God makes a provision for these people. You see the provision of Yahweh in verses five to seven. He doesn't provide for them. The same number of king cobras in the camp as he provides quail at night, which would have been quite poetic. He doesn't send a blight into the camp. He doesn't send a disease into the camp. He doesn't send the people something that is going to bring about their suffering and their demise. See what he does provide. See the provision of Yahweh in Moses' Moses is instructed here. Moses is empowered. You'll see Moses's monikers at the end. It ends with a, just a little touch of, almost a touch of humor at the end of this. Just a little bit of sarcasm. And I like sarcasm. It's my superpower. Moses is instructed as Yahweh makes his provision. Verse five, you see Moses receives instruction. He comes in verse four, he cries out to Yahweh. This is a very, Yahweh turns to the Lord, what shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me. He gets an answer immediately. Receives these instructions in verse five. Then Yahweh said to Moses. Could have said to the people. But he didn't. Says to Moses, pass before the people. He's gonna set a scene here. I want you to pass before the people. I want you to pass through the people, in front of the people, get all of their attention. I want all eyes on you, Moses. Pass before the people. He's setting a scene. I want everyone to see what is about to happen, and I want them to know how it happened, so take some witnesses. Pass before the people and take with you some of the elderly. I don't think that all of the elders would have been involved in this mutinous activity, because in verse 22 of 16, we see some of them, the elders that they've gathered twice as much, and then the leaders of the congregation, the elders of the people went to Moses and said, okay, we've done it, what do we do next? There would have been the remnant, even in this initial group of Israelis brought out of the, brought through the Exodus, and Moses grabs a handful of them. I don't know that Moses necessarily handpicked those that were all on his side. If he was thinking straight, he would have picked those that were the most vociferous in their attacks against him. Oh, you're the one that's starting to rattle. You come with me. You come with me and you come with me. Take some witnesses with you. Then he says this, take in your hand your staff with which you struck the nine. Interesting that he would refer to it as that. Take that staff. Now there's different views on what the staff represented. Some say it represented the presence of God and the power of God. It's the staff that Moses took that he threw down before Pharaoh that turned to a snake and devoured all of Pharaoh's snakes and then turned back to the staff. It's the staff that he struck the Nile with. It's the staff that he held over the Red Sea when the Red Sea opened. It's the staff that he had in his hand when he cast the dust into the air and it became life. It's the staff that he used in all of this. It was the staff of God. Others look at this and not see the power and the presence of God. See it as an object of discipline. So Moses, you pass through the people like you're on a mission. Get everyone's attention. Bring along some of the elders with you and bring that staff. You're setting a scene. Everyone would have now been quiet because now when that staff comes out, things are about to get interesting. And some of the people are starting to say, hey, you know, Moses is probably right. We shouldn't be testifying. this is going to go, this may not end well. This instrument of discipline, this instrument of destruction, you know what Moses would have wanted to do with it? Oh, yeah, I know what you want to do with that. We're going to go up there and we're going to whoop some of these guys in public. We're going to give them a caning with the staff of God right here. This is what we should do. This is what he asked, what should I do with these people? I don't know that that's going through Moses' mind, but Moses was a man like you and I, and I know he had to deal with some of those thoughts. would have been poetic. He'd want elders from every tribe, and they're going to take the punishment for everybody, because he's brought this stick of punishment. He brought this rod of punishment. Take your staff in your hand. Look how he describes it, the staff with which you struck the Nile. He used the staff for a lot of things. But he struck the Nile with it. and it caused the Nile to turn to blood. It's a little bit of a prelude as to where he's going with it. Take this staff with which you've already performed one miracle in regard with water, the people are asking for water, and go, take them and go. Go where? Great question. Verse six answers that. We see that Moses is here empowered by God. You take the staff, you take the elders, You go. Now, he doesn't mean go right here across the street, 150 yards away. They have to go up on the side of the mountain where all of the people can see them. But they're gonna see them in a small way. What they're gonna see without any question is they're gonna see the Shekinah glory of God in the cloud is there because he's gonna go with them there. Verse six says it, that I will stand before you there on the rock of Horeb. on a rock on this desolate hill, this desolate mountain has this, it's called the rock of Horim. He said, I'm going to stand there. I'll have all of the people's attention and they're going to be so far away. I said that he had to bring some witnesses. He's going to bring the elders of the people that are trusted by the people because somebody needs to see what happened so that the right version of the story gets back to the people. And the version of the story that gets back to the people needs not be that Moses made something happen, but that Yahweh did it. But there's some nuances in the language here that I want you to catch that I don't know that you've ever realized or even heard before. In verse six, Moses is empowered here by God. Those that are going to act, God is going to do it. The people are going to see something that they've never heard of. Verse six begins with behold. That gives you just a little hint that this is about to be unbelievable. This is gonna be something over the top, unexpected, inexplicable. This is something only God can do. Behold, I will stand before you on the rock. He said, yeah, preacher, you said that already. Yeah, well, I need you to understand that he's going to be standing on this rock. Presence of God will be on that rock. I'm just over it. I'm going to stand before you on that rock. However, the glory of God manifested itself in that pillar of cloud. It will be on the rock. You will strike the rock. Water will come out of it. people may drink. But do these people need more than anything right now? What do they need? They need water. Have to have it. Their only hope of survival is to get water. Yelwin says, I will stand before you on the rock. I'm going to be there, I'm going to be standing there, and you're going to approach the rock that I am on. He says, you will strike the rock. Says that he uses the same word, strike the knot that you struck the knot on. You need to know that that does not mean that he just went up and poked it with a stick. to open up the phosphorous to the air, and it kind of does its own thing with the oxygen. You strike a flint, you just hit it hard enough to make a spark. There was some flint yesterday. I want you to flip back to Genesis chapter 8. We want to use the same writer's vocabulary and get a little bit of an understanding of what these words mean so that you capture the nuance that is here that is very hard to see in English. It's virtually impossible to see in English, unless you really go back and look at some of these places where this same word is used. Verse 12 of Genesis chapter eight. That's not the right verse. suffered from my dyslexia that's absolutely never experienced before. Verse 20, Noah built the altar to Yahweh and took up every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. It's one of the reasons he brought so many on the ark. Verse 21, Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma and Yahweh said to himself, I will never again curse the ground for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. living thing as I have done. Here's that word again. The word strike means a death blow, to deliver a death blow. He wouldn't have taken the staff and poked the rock. He would have hit the rock with the staff as though he was swinging an axe, splitting wood. It was an assault on the rock. Same writer, same vocabulary, Exodus chapter two, verse 12. Moses is going to visit his people. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers. So he turned this way and that and saw that there was no one around. So he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. How can you hide a guy in the sand? Because he killed him. He delivered a death blow. The same writer, Exodus chapter 17, uses this expression to describe what God told him to do to the rock. I'm going to be on the rock. The rock will be me. What shall I do to these people? These people have sinned against Yahweh in such a grievous manner that they deserve to be annihilated instantaneously. And Yahweh says, I'll take the blow for you. strike the rock and water will come out of it that the people may drink. From the New Testament, looking back, we see an unmistakable foreshadowing of substitutionary atonement. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that they received water from the rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. need in the spiritual dimension more than anything else is not water, you need forgiveness. That spiritually sustaining water of forgiveness is provided for you and I in abundant measure through the one that took. Death blows for us on the cross. Not the crown of thorns, not the nails driven through his hands and feet. That is not what purchased or pardoned. It's when he bore the wrath of God for three hours on that throne. God delivered the death blow. Jesus will tell the people in John chapter 7 that if they will come to him, they will have rivers of water flowing from their own soul. John chapter 6, he says, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. If you will come to me, I am the bread of heaven, the water for your souls. You will never thirst again. What you need to know that these people did see in Exodus chapter 17, what they did recognize is that God put himself on display as the one who took blow that they deserved for their disobedience and through the absorption of that chastisement that was taken upon himself, he provided for them in abundance what they needed. Water came from a rock in the middle of the desert. Inexplicable miracle. The death blow was delivered and absorbed by another and it provided more for them than they ever could have imagined. Moses, if you don't give us water, they probably had in their mind that he could make it rain. He did not have this in mind. Providence of God put them in a place where only he could provide and could only provide it his way. Unmistakably, Moses brings the witnesses. No one can say Moses did this. Yahweh did it. drink from it. Moses paid the most of the opportunity here in verse seven. We see Moses's monikers in verse seven. Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. Everyone saw it. Everyone gets the point that Yahweh has absorbed the blow that we deserved and has provided for us more than we ever could have asked for. Unsolicited No one struck a bargain with him. This is what he chose to do. Moses says, I want you people to remember this. It's a good idea. Good idea. We want to remember some things. We want to put down some landmarks in our life and look back and remember that time and that time and that time as we look back and that they are bolsters for our current courage because of what we've experienced in the past. So Moses named the place Masa and Meribah. You say, well, he named it two things? Yeah, he probably referred to it as Masa and Mirabah from then on. There are times that we read, I read it in one place this afternoon, where he referred to Masa and Mirabah in two sentences. But what you capture here is this became the name of it. The word Masa means temptation because the children because of the contending of the sons of Israel and because they tested Yahweh, saying, where's God? Where is God? Oh, hey, where's God? Is God gonna take care of this? You ever say something in somebody else's presence to try to get them to hear what you're saying to another person to see if you can get them to do what you're telling them to do? That's what these people did, it's manipulation. Oh, where's God? Is God among us or not? The audacity. That's the heart of the unbeliever. It's the heart of the flesh. Masa means temptation. And he named it Masa and Mirabal. I said, everywhere they go, Temptation and Strife is the name of this place. Oh, you remember back there when we went to Temptation and Strife? I was showing somebody some pictures of my family. I said, everybody here except my oldest daughter. And the guy looked at it. They were behind the sign at Dollywood when we went to Dollywood in the summer. And he said, oh, y'all went to Dollywood? Yeah. We went to Dollywood. You'll never tell somebody we went to Temptation and Strife. But you could. You could. I told you it ends with something a little bit comical. You could visit, if you wanted to, the town of Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky. That's a real place. Or you could visit, and I've passed through Cut and Shoot, Texas. I don't understand how that got its name. I really don't understand Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky, unless there's something on the side of the hill that they named it that way. One of my favorites, you could go That's a place. But I think that all of us would probably put on our bucket list that one day before we die, we would like to visit Ham Lake, Minnesota. I have no idea how that got its name. But I'm sure there's a story behind it. Moses wanted these people to remember this story every time they thought about Masa and Meribah. He's going to tell them in Deuteronomy, don't tempt the Lord like you did in Masa and Meribah. Moses is about to go. Moses has been 40 years with these people, and they're still doing the same thing. He says, listen, you've got to get a grip on this Masa Mirabai stuff. Don't go into the promised land and keep doing this. So it was well named, and he used it often and used it accurately. What he wanted these people to remember is that even that God was on full display in the provision of the water for these people as he took the blow upon himself and provided for them what they never could have achieved or even were asked for. I hope that that was worth the price of admission tonight. You serve a great God. Father, we praise you for who you are. We praise you that you always accomplish what you set out to do. that you have a plan that nothing stands in the way of, and that we put our full faith and trust in the one who can do more than we can ask or imagine. And you prove it time and time again. You proved it this day. In Exodus 17, on the rock in Horeb, you've proven it. and the substitutionary atonement of your son on the cross of Calvary that provided for us a greater spiritual blessing than the physical blessing of water from the rock ever could have been. We praise you for being that God, that you will embolden us to be more faithful servants and witnesses of Christ in this world as we contemplate what it is that he has done for us. May it fill us with a zeal continue to perpetuate this message that is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness, to Gentiles, but to those that believe. It is the power of God and the salvation. We praise you. We get to know you and serve you and proclaim you in this life. We pray that you will be honored in the lives of everyone here this night. We pray it in our dear Savior's name. Amen.