Passage: Exodus 17:1-7

The Big Idea

God led Israel to Rephidim, a place with no water. The real enemy wasn’t the desert; it was the evil heart of unbelief. The people quarreled with Moses; Moses cried out to God. And God said, “I will stand before you on the rock; strike it, and water will come out.” Paul tells us plainly: that Rock was Christ. Jesus was struck for us, and from Him flows the living water of the Holy Spirit to all who are thirsty, even the rebellious. Anyone can come and drink.

The Real Enemy

The most consistent truth in God’s Word about us is that we struggle to trust the Lord. We’d rather lean on the cobwebs of human sufficiency than on the strong, grace-filled hand of the living God. We fail test after test. Yet God is patient, loving, forgiving and gracious, and He will finish teaching His children to trust their Father.

Hebrews warns us to watch out that none of us has a wicked, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God (Hebrews 3:12).

Israel was headed to the promised land, but they were tested many times along the way. If they’d walked straight in, we wouldn’t have so many perfect pictures of our own struggle: a heart that resists trusting the Lord at almost every turn.

That heart is the enemy.

The journey isn’t the enemy. The desert isn’t. The trials aren’t. The bad guys aren’t.
The cancer isn’t the enemy. Your job, or lack of one, isn’t. The heat wasn’t.
The evil heart of unbelief is the enemy: the heart that turns from the living God and puts its hope somewhere else. That’s the heart of the flesh, not the Spirit.

Led to Where There Was No Water (Exodus 17:1)

The whole Israelite community set out from the Wilderness of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

God sent them there. He led them there.
God led them to a place with no water.
Another test of faith. Would they look to their Deliverer, or to man again?

“It seems like I keep getting stuck in the same place, tempted by the same thing, over and over.” Maybe God is trying to get your attention. What does He want? Trust.

In whatever trial you’re in, will you seek your own way out, or seek the Lord? Trust the Lord with your whole heart, don’t lean on your own understanding, acknowledge Him in everything, and He’ll make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6).

“But I do trust the Lord!” With all your heart? He sees places in our hearts we can’t see, and He goes after them.

Quarreling (Exodus 17:2-4)

The people quarreled with Moses: “Give us water to drink!” Moses said, “Why are you quarreling with me? Why are you testing the LORD?” But the people were thirsty, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us, our children and our livestock with thirst?” Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What am I supposed to do with these people? They’re almost ready to stone me!”

The people failed again. They looked to a man. They got angry and anxious. They had no peace, because they weren’t trusting the Lord.
Did they have a right to worry? There was no water!
No. God had promised to care for them. He had led them there, and He would provide every step of the way, according to His word.

“I’m just being wise. God gave me a brain, and I need to use it.”

He did give you a brain. But it’s your heart that’s worrying. Your mind should decide to trust the Lord and His promises, because He is faithful. But the heart resists that, and when the heart won’t trust God, the mind has to find something else to trust: plans, effort, people, wisdom, the internet.

Moses showed us the better way: “God, what do I do?”

We’d save ourselves so much pain if we asked the Lord for wisdom first, then responded according to His Word instead of reacting however we feel (James 1:5).
To really ask the Lord for help, you need two things:
Believe that you don’t have what you need. That’s humility.
Believe that He does. That’s faith.

The Rock (Exodus 17:5-6)

The Lord told Moses, “Go out in front of the people, and take some of Israel’s elders with you. Take in your hand the staff you struck the Nile with, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of Israel’s elders.

Paul tells us exactly what this means. Our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual Rock that accompanied them, and that Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

So we have it explicitly: the rock pictures Jesus.
And our walk with God is deeply affected when we see our connection to these wilderness wanderers. Their failures are ours, and God’s dealings with them are His dealings with us.
God met their need in His way: through His Son.

“Isn’t it unkind of God to make His people thirsty? Couldn’t He just make the thirst go away?” Their thirst made them ready to receive the water from the Rock when God provided it. And with God, they were never really in danger.

“I will stand before you there on the rock, and you shall strike it.”

That pictures the death of Jesus for us.
Jesus is God, and He allowed Himself to be struck for us, to give us what we need.
He stood before men, and they struck Him down.

“Water will come out of it, and the people will drink.”

The sacrifice of Jesus is the only thing that will ever truly satisfy.
And we only drink when we’re thirsty, when we realize we need His living water, when we come to the end of depending on anything else.

In chapter 16, Jesus was pictured as the bread from heaven. His life feeds us. But the picture wasn’t complete. The bread doesn’t show how He was punished for His people’s sins. The Rock does. First He came down from heaven like the manna; then He stood and was struck for His people like the rock.

Isaiah says He carried our griefs and sorrows, yet we thought He was being struck down by God. But He was pierced for our rebellion and crushed for our sins; the punishment that brought us peace fell on Him, and by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5).

In the picture, Moses did the striking. In the reality, God did.
The Father laid the wrath of a holy God on His beloved Son, so we could drink the water of heaven and be healed.

The Water Is the Spirit

What does the water picture? The Holy Spirit.

On the last, great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John explains: He said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; the Spirit hadn’t yet been given, because Jesus wasn’t yet glorified (John 7:37-39).

The gift that flows from the crucified Christ is the Holy Spirit: a new nature, and the limitless resources of God’s favor and grace.
Who receives it? Those who come to Jesus and drink, believing He’ll give them His grace and life.

“How do I know if I believe?” Did you ask?

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. … Which father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:9-13).

“Is the LORD Among Us or Not?” (Exodus 17:7)

He named the place Massah (“testing”) and Meribah (“quarreling”), because Israel quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?“

Sometimes we just need to know: is the Lord really with us?
That’s an okay question. So ask it honestly.
“God, I don’t feel satisfied. I feel thirsty. I’m walking through a desert. I’m struggling with sin. I’m doubting You and everything else. I’m out of hope!”
And Jesus is calling out: Come to Me! Ask the Father! He’s good. He won’t turn you away. He’ll pour out My life into you, My Holy Spirit.

The people weren’t perfect when the water came. They were as rebellious and unbelieving as ever. But in their rebellion, God gave them water from the struck Rock.

Do you need this water? The way to get it has nothing to do with your worthiness. God’s love has already secured every blessing for you in Jesus Christ.

“But will it work for me? How can I be sure God will meet my needs?”

Jesus Christ wasn’t “Yes” and “No”; in Him it has always been “Yes.” All the promises of God find their Yes in Him, and through Him we say “Amen” to God’s glory (2 Corinthians 1:19-20).

God loves to meet your needs. It glorifies Him.
He loves it when people put their hope in Jesus alone, so much so that it’s the only way He works: in Him.
If we seek anything outside of Him, we’ll thirst again, and it won’t glorify God.
Ask yourself: Could I do what I’m doing if Jesus didn’t exist? Am I counting on accomplishing this myself, or on some person or program coming through? If it isn’t Jesus, it doesn’t honor God.
Who in Israel didn’t drink from the Rock? Nobody I know of. They’d all have died.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). There’s no other way to life.

Come and Drink

Who needs to come to Jesus fresh today? Who’s thirsty for rivers of living water?

It’s simple to come to Jesus and drink. Confess your need and your unworthiness, and look to His unending grace to meet every need.

“Save me, Jesus! Fill me! Forgive me! Transform me! Heal me!” Take drink after drink after drink. “I’m done being thirsty. I’m done with my own way. I surrender to You alone as my Lord and Savior.”

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been saved for fifty years. It’s never a bad day to come to the Rock for a drink. He’ll welcome you. He turns away no one who comes to Him (John 6:37).

Turn your eyes to Him, and don’t turn them away to the world and the things it thinks are important. They aren’t. Your personal abiding in Jesus is what matters.

This is the gospel. Drink it in. Rest in it.

Rephidim may come from a word for “rest” or “support.” Israel arrived thirsty and found refreshment. They arrived worried and left satisfied. Maybe the name seemed ironic at first, but they understood it by the end.

God will give you that kind of rest as you taste and see that the Lord is good and ask the Father to pour out the water of His Spirit on you. His peace will be His gift. Jesus promised to leave us His own peace, not the kind the world gives, so our hearts don’t have to be troubled or afraid (John 14:27).

Grace Takeaway

God led His people to a place with no water so they’d discover the Rock. The Rock was Christ, struck for us under the judgment we deserved, and from Him flows the living water of the Holy Spirit. The water came while Israel was still grumbling; that’s grace. Whether you’re new to faith or have walked with Him for fifty years, come to the Rock today, ask, and drink.

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