Address—C.D. Andersen
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We were singing and asking the Lord to lead us through the desert, and we find in the Old Testament that the Lord did lead his people through the wilderness. And we might turn to numbers, the Book of numbers.
Is the wilderness book in the Old Testament?
And it answers to Philippians in the New Testament.
And we find in the New Testament in Philippians, that the blessed Lord is brought very much before us, and He is the One.
That leads us through the wilderness.
And we need grace from God to look to Him, to trust Him for His guidance.
Here in numbers chapter.
Chapter 20. I'll read a few verses beginning with.
Verse seven And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying.
Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together.
Thou and Aaron, my brother, and speak ye unto the rock.
Before their eyes, and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them.
Water out of the rock, so thou shalt give the congregation, and there be strength. And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock. And he said unto them.
Here and now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand.
With his rod, not the rod, his rod, he smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, because she believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore.
Ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
This is the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and He was sanctified in them. The children of Israel had stood before the rock previously, as recorded in the 17th chapter of Exodus.
And there we find that the people were in need of blessing. They were in need of water.
And Moses, according to the word of the Lord, smote the rock, and the water came out.
Well, that answers to what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, lifted up on Calvary and smitten there for the blessing of all that believe in Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ was a smitten rock because we read in First Corinthians chapter 10 and that rock was Christ.
Isn't it lovely for us to look at this rock that we have in the Old Testament and think of it as pointing to Christ? Speaking of Christ, that rock was Christ. Well, it was really Christ, Jehovah, that was leading his, his people along.
We find in the very first part of Genesis in the beginning.
The name God is used, but then after a while the word Jehovah is used.
And the word Jehovah is used because now God is thinking of having a people in relationship with him. So Jehovah is the name of relationship that God has with his earthly people, with the people on earth.
Search the Lord Jesus Christ himself that we find really in the Old Testament.
Leading his people along, yearning over his people, helping them, guiding them, sustaining them.
And now, when we come to the wilderness journeys of the children of Israel.
We find that they are still in need, they are still in need and they still have to come before the rock in their need.
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And we, we have need all the time. We cannot do without the Lord. We need him all the time. There's not a moment of the day or night that we don't need him. And the Lord has said without me ye can do nothing.
I don't suppose that really hits us like it ought to.
But he has said it, Without me ye can do nothing.
And if we try to do anything, like our brother who spoke previously said, if we try to do anything without the Lord, where is it going to land us? Oh, David had confidence in the Lord.
But then he got away from the Lord, and where did it end? Where did it land him?
Oh, how solemn.
Now here are the directions are given to Moses to take the rod. This was Aaron's rod, a rod that's been referred to previously.
16th chapter of Numbers.
We find there in the 16th chapter that there were those that rose up verse 2 before Moses.
Verse Three. And the gather themselves together against Moses, and against Aaron, and said unto them, He Take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord. And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face.
So he says, and he spake unto Korah and all his company, saying, Even tomorrow the Lord will show who are his and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto him. Even him whom he has chosen will he cause to come near unto Him. This do take your sensors core on all his company, and put fire there in. Put incense in them before the Lord tomorrow, and it shall be that the man whom the Lord doth choose shall.
Holy, you take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi.
Then in verse 10 And he hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren, the sons of Levi with thee, and seek ye the priesthood also.
For which caused both thou and all the company are gathered together against the Lord.
Well, this was a solemn time. And then we find that the fire breaks out among the children of Israel, and there's a burning.
And in verse 41 it says on the Morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses.
And the order is given.
In verse 45, get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censor, and put fire there in from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly.
Into the congregation, and make an atonement for them, for their wrath gone out from the Lord. The plague has begun. And Aaron took us. Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation. And behold, the plague was begun among the people. And he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the living and the dead and the plague of state.
Now here we find that God puts on display.
His priesthood, that is in Aaron, the priesthood in Aaron is put on display here. He makes much of the priesthood. He makes much of Aaron. Well, that can't point to anyone else but the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this doesn't finish. They keep on murmuring and on into the 17th chapter we read in verse 5.
I will make deceased from me the murmurings of the children of Israel.
Or by the murmur against you. Well, what was it he had said? Well, he said to them in verse two of chapter 17.
Take of every one of them a rod according to the House of their fathers, of all their Princess according to the House of their fathers. 12 rocks. Right thou every man's name upon his rod, and thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the right rod of Levi, verse four, And thou shalt lay them up in the Tabernacle of the congregation.
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Before the testimony.
And so in verse seven says Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the Tabernacle of witness.
And it came to pass that on tomorrow Moses went into the Tabernacle of witness, and behold, the rod of Aaron for the House of Levi was buttered, brought forth buds, bloom, blossoms, and yielded almonds.
What a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ going into death. Just like that rod was a dead stick, the Lord Jesus lay in death. This rock buttered, brought forth buds and bloom blossoms, and yielded fruit. A picture of the Lord Jesus Christ coming forth out of death, bringing forth fruit for the Lord's glory.
And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel.
And they looked and took every man in his rod you can imagine.
Their eyes looking at these rods when they're brought out.
There they see only one rod that has budded and bloomed, borne fruit.
What a picture that must have been to them. God was again vindicating his priesthood. So the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony to be kept foretoken against the rebels, and thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me, that they die now.
Again, the priesthood of Aaron is put on display. God makes it known whom whom he has chosen to be priests.
And Aaron was the one who stood between the living and the dead. And I believe we can safely say that if it had not been for God's priesthood in Aaron, there would never have been one of those people brought into the land of blessing, never brought into the land of Canaan. And I believe we can save today that if it were not for the priest, who the Lord.
Christ, not one of us would get safely to glory.
All we thank God for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is now our High Priest at God's right hand, and we're told in the book of Hebrews.
That He sympathizes with us in our weaknesses, and we can come boldly to Him to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Or how we need the service of that high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. What would we do without it? We just can't do without Him.
And if we find ourselves growing cold in our souls and getting away from the Lord Jesus Christ, it just means we're getting away from the One who's the only One who can keep us and sustain us and uphold us.
We've been told to come boldly to His throne of grace, to get mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. All we need it all the time, every one of us, young and old. We never get old enough. We never get to the point where we're beyond needing that grace of God's high priest. And looking back again at chapter 20.
We find that this is a very striking chapter.
The chapter begins with death and it ends with death. A typical wilderness chapter.
Because we're in the wilderness of the dying.
And dear Saints of God are taken home 1 by 1.
And our hearts are touched, and they grieve. Lately, quite a number have been taken away, taken home to glory and those who are left behind.
They're left to mourn and to grieve, and certainly they need comfort, but oh, how wonderful that we can go to the blessed Lord our High Priest and get that comfort, that grace.
At mercy we need. What would we do without him in a time like that?
We often speak of those who don't know the Lord standing beside an open grave looking into the face of a dead loved one.
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And you don't know really what they're thinking, but we've seen them beside themselves. I've seen it in Africa, standing beside the open grave where a girl but 10 or 12 years old was to be buried, and the parents there beside themselves, not knowing what to do.
What a privilege it was to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who came into this world? He was smitten that they might have the blessing of salvation.
Have eternal life and know their sins forgiven.
And that it was possible for them to have light beyond the grave. They would only believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then if they did lose a loved one, why, they could still look to the Lord to comfort them and sustain them. But those poor things had nothing like that.
What our treasure we have in the Word, God has brought before us these precious things, that we might have one upon whom we can lead.
In times of stress and strain and Ohio, there's a lot of stress and strain these days.
We're living in the last days. The apostle Paul says in the last days, perilous times shall come. The word really means difficult times, difficult times. And brethren, we're living in difficult times.
We can't go on without the Lord, We can't do without Him.
We must look to him. We must lean upon him.
And thinking about ourselves as individuals, how can we go on without Him? Thinking about ourselves as assemblies, Saints gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, We can't go on without him. No, we can't figure things out. We can't organize things. We're not sufficient for these things. We just have to lean on the Lord and trust Him.
To guide us and direct us and help us.
Moses is told to take this rod of priesthood.
And he says.
Speak to the rock. How lovely. Speak to the rock.
The rock was smitten the first time to get blessing. That speaks of the blessing of salvation. The Lord must be smitten. But now after you know the Lord is the smitten one and you have that salvation, now you speak to him. He doesn't have to be smitten again for you to get blessing. Just speak to him. Just talk to him. I need to learn more about that.
I'm sure every one of us needs to learn more about that.
We were speaking yesterday about the Lamb in the morning and the lamb in the evening. What is that? But getting into the presence of the Lord, being occupied with Him, feasting our hearts upon Him, talking with Him, reading His word, letting Him talk to us, how we need that lamb in the morning, the lamb in the evening. We need Him all the time.
Speaking to The Rock.
Do we know anything about speaking to him? Talking to him? Sometimes we're so busy that we don't even have time to settle down.
Be calm and quiet and talk to him in quietness, perhaps alone, perhaps in the family.
We're too busy. If we're too busy to talk to the Lord, we're simply too busy. So we read in verse 9, Moses took the rod from before the Lord.
He started out all right, and that's the way it is with us. We start out perhaps all right, but how is it we end up?
So Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels.
What a sad statement for Moses to make.
God wanted Moses to represent himself, represent God as a God of grace.
Moses missed the point. Moses missed the point. What a lesson for us that we shouldn't miss the point.
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Must we fetch you water out of this rock?
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod, the rod of judgment, the rod that Moses used in Egypt to bring the judgments on Egypt, the rod that Moses used to smite the rock and the water, came forth, the rod of judgment. He used that here. This was not God's mind at all.
God wanted Moses to use the rod of grace, the rod of priesthood, because he wanted to bless his people.
He wanted to be gracious to them. So the rock is smitten twice. Once wasn't enough, for Moses must be smitten twice.
Well, we find out later in verse 12.
Because he believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel. Therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I've given them. So before the chapter ends, Moses or Aaron is dead.
And then Moses never gets into the land. It was the government of God upon them for misrepresenting God. Representing God to the children of Israel Here is a God of judgment instead of a God of grace.
They must put before the people that there is a priesthood, and without the priesthood they would never get into the land of Canaan. Moses and Aaron missed this.
All that we should not miss the wonderful truth we have.
In the New Testament that the Lord Jesus Christ is our High Priest, that we might really go to him all the time, take everything to him, go to him in prayer, trust him, lean upon him. Where was God frustrated in His purpose of blessing for these people even though Moses failed?
It says in verse.
In verse 11, the water did come out abundantly.
The water came out. God gave blessing anyway, even though Moses made a mistake.
Why was it they were standing before the rock, and that rock was Christ? We may make mistakes.
But if we're standing before the rock, if we're looking to the Lord, he'll help us, He'll guide us.
We're not beyond making mistakes, Oh no.
We're very weak and feeble. We're nothing, but if we're standing before the rock, there's going to be blessing. If we're occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him, leaning upon Him, he will guide and direct and there will be blessing.
So it says in verse 13, and he was sanctified in them. Well, what did that mean? God wanting to be sanctified in his people, God wanted to be represented to them as a God of grace.
And they didn't deserve this water. They didn't deserve this blessing.
And even because of Moses mistake, they didn't deserve it yet because God is a God of grace. He gave them water anyhow. Isn't that lovely? That's the kind of a God we have. Yes, He's a God of government. That comes out too in connection with Moses. He couldn't go into the land. But God shows us he's a God of grace as well.
All that we shouldn't forget that just to go to Him to get grace and mercy to help us in our time of need.
And we have plenty of need, but He has all that it takes to supply that need. Oh, let us trust Him more.