“GIVE us the water that we may drink!” cried Israel in the wilderness, and Jehovah, by the rod and the rock, not only quenched their thirst, but in the record of His ways taught us a deep lesson.
A great rock stood in the barren waste of Horeb. We picture to ourselves the multitudes of the people of Israel in the wilderness: men, women, and children, murmuring against the servant of the Lord, who had already fed them with manna. Their murmuring was an occasion for the Lord to manifest His grace towards them. Yet it was indeed a strange spectacle—multitudes languishing for lack of water; and at the Lord’s bidding a company of their elders assembling around the great rock, which was to supply all their need. Little did Israel know what was about to happen, but Moses was in God’s secret.
The Lord stood before His servant upon the rock in Horeb. It was a holy place, and its meaning was invested with the deepest solemnity. Then, in the view of the elders who were selected to go before the host of Israel, and to see the wondrous work of God, Moses smote the rock, and from
THE SMITTEN ROCK
living streams gushed out, and Israel drank and was satisfied. In the New Testament we read, “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4), which leaves no room for questioning the solemn signification o the type.
Christ is our Rock; this world is for us wilderness, a dry and thirsty place, where no water is; and from Him, the Everlasting One, become in time a Man, smitten an wounded upon the cross, there flows forth the living water. All our title to this water is our thirst. Ah! would that men did truly thirst for these streams: “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have giver thee living water.” (John 4:1010Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. (John 4:10)). Does our reader know what this thirst is—this longing for that which the wilderness-world not to give?
The Rock yielded its miraculous refreshment when smitten, and it is as from the eternal One stricken for sinners that the Spirit of God is given to satisfy our desires. For the living water is the Spirit. Surely God would attract us to the Lord, wounded and under judgment upon the cross, and would fix our souls upon Himself, in everlasting might, and in His unutterable grace, enduring the stroke of judgment, so that we might be refreshed and sustained who, save for this, His grace, must have perished.
The rod wherewith Moses smote the rock was
THE ROD OF JUDGMENT.
Jehovah said to His servant, “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” (Ex. 17:55And 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. (Exodus 17:5)), and it is familiar to us in connection with the plagues of Egypt.
In ancient times, the rod was an emblem of authority, and even in their own land, relics of its old signification still remain in the rods borne before great personages, on state and other occasions. The wonder-working priests of Egypt had their rods; so also had the heads of the tribes of Israel their rods. In the land of Egypt, the rod of Moses, when turned into a serpent, swallowed up those of the Egyptian priests, signifying that their power was gone in the presence of Jehovah’s might. The princely priests knew well what the loss of their rods of authority meant, as they stood empty-handed before Pharaoh their king, and helpless in the presence of Jehovah’s servant.
The rod of Moses was connected with judicial dealings, for even when stretched out in mercy for Israel, it was to destroy Israel’s enemies. The river was the life of Egypt; its waters sustained the inhabitants of that land, who, in their rainless country, derive all the necessaries of life through its influences. In the ways of God, the first plague upon Egypt was the turning its life to death—the river became blood. And is it not so today, in respect of this present evil world? It is under the sentence of God’s judgment, and its very life, as we speak of the pleasures and the vanities of this world, is judicially death-smitten.
Let us inquire whether we have ever been in God’s presence as to the rod of judgment and our smitten Rock. We need to enter more deeply into the reality of Christ having undergone the judgment of God. What He endured does not enter sufficiently deeply into our souls. We need to seek grace to have hearts which can occupy themselves with the greatness of the Lord’s work in bearing judgment upon the cross.
“Jehovah lifted up His rod,
O! Christ, it fell on Thee,
Thou wast sore smitten of Thy God.”
We should more truly worship and adore if we more deeply realized His work in suffering.
It is all important to remember God’s order; first the Sacrifice, next the Spirit. We need to have engraved upon our very souls the fact of the blessed Rock of Ages being smitten by the judgment of the eternal God, before we begin to think of our drinking of Him. Moses and the chosen of the elders went on first, before the people, the Lord stood upon the rock, the marvelous transaction was wrought for Israel truly, but before their unbelieving hearts knew what God had done for them. They drank the water and were satisfied, but the water welled up out of the rock, not before, but after it was smitten by the rod of judgment.
THE LIVING WATER, even the Spirit, is ours, because of what Christ has endured for us. We have no title to the Spirit of God by nature. The Holy Ghost is not given to any man, unless that man has, by faith, received Christ, who died. And much sorrow often fills the souls of God’s people, because they practically seek first the Spirit, and next Christ; because they say in their hearts, we must drink of the Spirit before we can know whether we have a part in Christ! This is practically ignoring Christ smitten. Israel received no water in Horeb until the rod of judgment was lifted up against the rock. The Holy Spirit not only flows to us from Christ, but He is here to address our hearts to the source whence we receive Him.
The children of Israel drank and were satisfied; if they had cared to ask, “Whence come these streams in the desert,” by tracing up the waters to their fountain head, they would have seen the answer in the smitten rock, And was not there enough for all? Need one lip have been parched for thirst? And, Christian reader, it is not that the living water is given stintedly to us, we only require deep longings, deep thirstings, and constant return of soul to the crucified Jesus, in order to drink of the streams in the desert. But when we are occupied with finding the water and not with the Rock itself, we reverse God’s order, and we do not obtain the draft from the streams that we wish.
(To be continued).