THE Lord permitted that there should be two occasions on which the want of water brought out utter want of faith in God in the people of Israel. He has allowed also considerable resemblance in the accounts of the two occasions, which we find in Ex. 17:1-71And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. 2Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? 3And 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? 4And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. 5And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. 6Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not? (Exodus 17:1‑7), and Num. 20:8-118Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy 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 their beasts drink. 9And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him. 10And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? 11And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. (Numbers 20:8‑11); so that unbelief is apt to confound them, and lose the blessing of both.
The greatest blessing God has for man brings out, through unbelief, its unlimited danger; and there are none in greater danger than they who hear the truth constantly, and have not bowed to Jesus. No one who knows what the grace of God is, could regret that children should hear the word; but we may well tremble when we see them passing on from year to year without the blessing of that which is brought so close, and which God is urging on them in His word.
I shall endeavor to show this from what the Holy Spirit tells us in these two Scriptures.
The first occasion was when Israel was brought to an extremity. God purposely brings them into circumstances where none but God could appear for them. He brings them into the wilderness where there was no water; they were helpless; but God was there. He led them there, and was there to turn their desolation into an evidence of His tender and paternal care, which deigned to enter into their every want.
How painful to see that they murmured, not only against Moses, but against the Lord! Moses tells out his grief, and the Lord brings a beautiful shadow of the only means of blessing for sinful man. He was to take the rod wherewith he had smitten the river (Red Sea), and to smite the rock, and the water should come forth. How God has always Christ before him! How he loves to prove to us from His Word the ways of His grace, not only after the effect but before it. What a book the Bible is to our souls, when once we see what Christ does; for in truth it was Jesus, as we know from the distinct teaching of the Spirit— “That Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:44And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:4)).
That Rock in the first instance was smitten. The rod was to be taken and the rock smitten, and thus, and in no other way could the water flow forth. Was not Christ smitten—not merely given, but smitten; and have you learned for your souls, for your need, have you tasted for your blessing now and ever more, what there was in the smiting of the True Rock for your souls?
There are some who may read this paper, who have not rest; souls that have not the peaceful enjoyment of God; some that know there is a blessing, have seen the proof elsewhere, but have not got it. How is it to be had? In that which this scene means, and in no other way; by a smitten Christ—by an humbled Christ—by a Christ that passes under judgment—for that rod was the same that had brought judgment upon judgment upon Egypt; that rod that Moses had taken, and the plague had fallen on the enemy. What, then, can be the meaning of judgment falling on Christ? There is but one answer to it, as far as you are concerned-a little word, but a great thing—SIN! SIN! That dreadful thing, under which you lay helpless, and it may be hopeless, that very thing has given Christ occasion to show what He is for you, and to show it in the most solemn way.
It is impossible for a soul to have the blessing of God if sin be not only forgiven, but judged. But grace has come in—Christ has come in after the sin, and before the judgment. And why? That God might be able to send forth a full as well as a free message of pardon and peace. God must be able to fill the heart that accredits Him—that rests only on Jesus Christ the Lord. Such must be able to have the certainty now that sin—your sin—is judged, before the judgment. That your sin is dealt with more divinely than even the judgment will prove—that your sin has brought out the holiness of God. Nevertheless, to put it away brought out the righteous dealing of God, by which He makes you more happy than all His love ever could have done without it.
But would it be for God to say without this— “Thy sins be forgiven thee”? Very merciful, no doubt; but, could you respect God? Could you revere Him, if He who pronounced the hatefulness of your sin let you off? If He that thundered against iniquity closed His eyes to it? And more, He ought not; were such a great thing possible, it would be the ruin of your soul and of God’s honor, if such could be.
I need hardly tell you, the reverse is the fact. The glad tidings are not merely of “love” but of “righteousness.” They are not shutting out sin from the eyes of God, but having it all out before Him. This is what God has done in the smitten Christ, and all that God feels against evil, all the hatred of His nature against a selfish, vain, proud, rebellious race, has already come out. Do you believe in Him? Then not an evil thing that has passed in your heart, not only what you have done, but what you are, but has been charged upon the spotless Son of God! Most righteously God takes delight in Christ; He gives out His expression to His joy in this Man, which drew out all in God in the delight of what He was, as He walked up and down on earth.
Now, another thing, the delight God could have in Christ is transferred righteously even to such a poor sinful creature—to you or me it may be shown and is shown, if we have received the word of God.
God is not giving people abstract propositions to believe. I know nothing worse than a mere creed, a vague confession that means nothing, and confessing sin in such a way has a deleterious effect. When men are in earnest, sin is not confessed in a crowd; no, the closet is the place for true confession of sin. A sin common to all, all should confess together; but I speak of souls that have wants for eternity, whose deepest want has not been met. You know you are not fit for the presence of God; you know, when you read of Him, of His untiring devotedness. Is that what you are? Ever doing good to those around. Is that what you have done? Never sought His own will, never once! Came to do the will of God, and only did it. That is the One who was smitten for sinners, and when all His ways had brought such glory to the Father. It is thus and thus God gives that beloved Son and faithful servant. We see in Him a complete renunciation of His own will for God’s glory. He enters into and bears the judgment of sin, that sinners should be saved.
If this be the form and depth of the grace that God can show, what shall we say if you despise it? God speaks of “neglecting so great salvation.” Are you neglecting it? Have you secured it? Is He yours now? Can you say in the sight of God, “I have come out and confessed my own sins”? Have I come out before God alone, and taken God’s part against my sin and against myself, and been willing to go down to judgment in my conscience before God. Not hoping, and in the very hope showing that I do not believe the wrong I have been doing Him and His love? No; the only way that proves you have a sense of it is, that you come out and stand as a guilty and self-condemned sinner, and own you need His mercy; that you need that Saviour, that salvation, to meet your soul; that unless you have God dealing with all you have been, and putting it away in holiness that has forgotten nothing, you cannot be saved.
Blessed be God, we have to do with a God that can forget nothing, and has laid hold of all we are, in order to deal with it in a crucified Saviour. What, then? To receive Him, to take Him from God, to know this, is what God means for me—that it is the very reverse of presumption. My need draws me to Him. Ah, do not theorize about sin; bow to this, as God’s way of screening, cleansing, putting away all; so that even He may “remember (them) no more”!
But it is by a smitten Christ—no other way; and once He has that before Him, blessing can flow out, and the Spirit, instead of being a convictor of sin, can cause the refreshing streams of His grace to flow.
On the second occasion of which I read of this stream flowing from the Rock, we find the people just as bad as ever. Flesh is never better. We must not think it is anywise remarkable that flesh should show itself. There is no good in any save what is in Christ; and only so far as Christ is before the soul, that which is of Christ will be manifest.
We see Israel forgetting God, with no thought of His grace. What could they show but a rebellious spirit? But God always acts as the “God of all grace.” The time is coming when He will show Himself the God of judgment. You may well tremble. It is of the mercy of God that He has not yet closed the door. Israel broke out in complaints, the most ungrateful and unreasonable. The Lord says, “Speak to the Rock”; and Moses takes the rod, gathers the congregation together, and says:— “Hear, now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” “And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice.” Not only the spirit of Moses is an utter falsification of the grace of God, but what he did was opposed to the will of the Lord. He took the rod. He did right. But with Moses’ rod he smote the rock. Who told him to do so? He took the ground that unbelief does constantly—that the faults, the sins, the failure of the people of God, make it necessary they should be (as it were) saved over again! —that because the people had failed God, that God had failed the people!
He supposed this through haste. Overcome by the rebels, provoked, he acted differently from the word of the Lord, and from the truth involved in it. The rod the Lord told him to use was the priestly rod of Aaron, not of Moses. You have its history in this book. Never were the people in a more critical condition than when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had stirred them up to dispute the grace of God that had given Moses and Aaron their high place; and the Lord used that occasion to bring out the character of the priesthood. He not only destroyed their misleaders, but showed the difference between man’s pretension and God’s gracious power.
The rods were laid up before the Lord (Num. 17), and that of Aaron was taken, and caused to break forth into fruitfulness; the others were left dead and worthless—Aaron’s alone bore fruit. Which shows that the only power that can bring the people through the wilderness was the intervention of grace, the power of resurrection life, that produces life where all is dead; and the Lord Jesus is the only true and adequate expression of it. There was the rod given to show that nothing was too hard, nothing too good for the Lord; then when all is hopeless, it is just the time for God to show His resources.
This rod Moses was told to take; but he, filled with indignation, smote the rock. The incongruity of smiting the rock with the first rod would be seen at once, but he takes his own.
Who was responsible to represent God? It was Moses, and a precious, honored servant he was; but he misrepresented God. This was most serious. Who is misrepresenting God now? O, beloved friends, it is the crying sin of Christendom— ever rising up before God—what sins are not? But this is one of them. Where, then, is the testimony to the grace with which He deals so pitifully with His people, because of the value of Christ? His is a redemption so complete that God would not add to it. Here is the gravity of the sin. The reason why people cannot rest simply on the blood of Jesus is, that they do not really believe in the full divine glory of His Person. If they entered more into who He is, they would believe more readily what Jesus has done. For whom has He done it? What God thinks of most is what will glorify Him. Would saving little sinners glorify Him most? No; but great sinners. There never was a soul the worse for having a deep view of sin; you cannot exaggerate what your sin is in the sight of God. A little sight of sin goes with a little value of Christ. When God gives you to feel what it is, and what God has expended, in the Lord Jesus, then how blessed to find that this is what meets His heart! and the only thing that can give pleasure to God in a guilty man, is to come confessing all, and to rest on Him.
May not a soul be guilty of dishonor, unwatchfulness, unprayerfulness, satisfied with what we hear? —not the word itself penetrating the heart and conscience? Beware of it, my beloved friends; if the enemy has gained an advantage, has darkened the soul. What, then? Must the work be done again? Is sin to be slighted? How does God meet this? He has not merely given a sacrifice but a Priest; One who enters into everything-to whom you can bring your difficulties. Go into His presence. That mighty work cannot lose its value; and the proof of its perfection is, that it was done once and for all, and never to be repeated. He died for sins once, He died to sins; that is what we know now.
We see the craving in souls after something yet to be done. If God had ordered the rock to be smitten then, why not now? The word was plain— “Speak to the rock.” Cleave to the word—never reason on it; cleave to it—rest on it, and you will find the foolishness of God is wiser than man. That which seems slighting sin, is the deepest testimony to it.
Constant asking for forgiveness, is sinning and repenting, and sinning and repenting; there is no real depth in either. The deepest judgment that can pass on sin has passed already on the only One that could bear it, and bring you deliverance.
It is all a question of believing who He is, and what He has gone through. This is what God gives you now to rest on. Doubt not, but believe in the efficacy of the work of Jesus Christ. You have Him now not merely living, but fruitful in resurrection. You have but to “speak,” and all the blessing comes. It is an assured spring of blessing. You can go to God—not merely to ask Him to intercept the judgment, but by Him you believe in Him who gave Him glory, that your faith and hope may be in God. Can you say that you now count on Him? I speak of your faults as that which grieves your soul; grieving the Spirit after you receive salvation is of all things most grievous; after all the blessedness—after the proof of His love, that you should forget Him. Do not add, then, a deeper insult, and slight what God has given. Make much of Christ—make all of Him that God is making. I appeal to your own conscience, to say what has He not met? It is impossible to find a difficulty which God has not anticipated. All are pressed to come boldly, with the certainty of finding grace for every time of need.
How easily a blessed and honored servant of God can forget it! Principles are all very well for fine weather, but the time will come when nothing but Christ will stand, and nothing but such a Christ will meet the wants of your soul. Forget it not; you are members one of another—you have to do with all that love Him, and ought to have to do with the hour of their danger. There is an enemy watching to dishonor Him. There is nothing so dreadful as to dishonor Christ. What was the proposition of Moses? Are we to suppose we have no such danger?
May God then keep us in the midst of all our weakness, cleaving to Jesus—using Him for the need of others, and never hesitating to do so. To disparage His grace is the same for a Christian, as to do without it in an unbeliever.
Why, in the face of such a presentation of Jesus, should you be another hour without Jesus—an offer pressed on you by God Himself? May the Lord give you to decide if your heart has been turned; if it has been seeking to escape, you are escaping eternal life-risking, nay, insuring eternal judgment.
Think of Jesus; but think of both sides. You are afraid of being saved—afraid of losing somewhat of “the life that now is.” You cannot be saved on your terms. God’s terms are these —be you a sinner ever so ungrateful, and ever so guilty, still He wants to bless you, to save you; and not only that you are to be saved, but to know it.
When you take that ground, beware of the enemy; he can speak as an angel of light—it is a lure of destruction and of dishonor to Jesus. He will tell you are not fit to bear His name; then you need the more such a Saviour. Remember the rod that budded; life out of death. What can it not do? What can it not bring through the wilderness? Jesus smitten for you; Jesus living for you.
The Lord bless you so fully, that you will feel all blessing apart from Him is only a snare of the devil!