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[0:00] Well, good evening, guys. God is so faithful. Amen. You know, that's actually a hard song to end on. I can't help but getting emotional. The words, I mean, are so good, but the faithfulness of God. God is so, so good.

[0:15] And, you know, I look around this room, and I'm an outsider looking in, and I've seen a lot of unity. I've seen a lot of love between you all. I've been blessed by it myself. My wife's been blessed by it.

[0:25] And 30 years, that's, you know, 30 years of coming here, church longer. It just, it speaks to the faithfulness of God. Amen? So that's good. That's good. Now, again, as an outsider looking in, I couldn't help but notice that word vineyard was said a whole lot.

[0:44] I heard Tash quite a bit. Thornton? Thornton? Did I hear that one a lot? Yeah, so those are the three families that are pretty much reigning in every competition. So you all need to step up your game and be throwing them.

[0:56] So, all right. So as we started out this morning, we were talking about Christ being the fountain.

[1:08] And what I spoke of this morning was just God's interaction with this girl, Hagar, in this time of affliction in her life where she was just struggling with hopelessness.

[1:21] And we're going to change gears a little bit tonight. Tonight, we're going to talk about God's dealing with the masses. And so this one's mercy for the masses. And we're going to see how God deals with a people.

[1:34] We are, again, going to see how God deals with a man, men, I guess, specifically Moses and Aaron. And it's going to be the water from the rock. So if you can turn to Exodus 17, that's where we're going to start this evening.

[1:46] And we'll also kind of flip over to the other water from the rock in Numbers chapter 20. It's going to be a message of God's provision, of course, in the water.

[1:58] But it's going to be kind of a message of judgment that goes on. And if you're familiar with the story, God has to deal with the heart of Moses in addition to the heart of the people. And it's a story of mercy because God is gracious to a people that are starting out grumbling and ending kind of thankless.

[2:17] But I think that we can see that pattern in our life to some extent. So let's read together. Let's start off just in these seven verses in Exodus chapter 17. And so verse 1, it says, It says, And the people will drink.

[3:27] And Moses did so. And the side of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massa and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel. And because they tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not?

[3:42] Let's just go one more time before the Lord. Father, as we open your word tonight as brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that you would just speak to our hearts. Father, that we might lean into your word, though, and take it for what it says to us.

[3:55] Father, we know that you're living. Father, your word is living. It has just been prayed that it divides spirit and soul, Father. It runs deep into our hearts and asks questions and makes us wrestle with the truth of who you are.

[4:09] But, Father, we want to trust you. We want to understand what you have for us this evening. So I just pray that you would just speak into the hearts. Father, you know the needs here better than I do.

[4:21] So I just ask that your Holy Spirit would move as you will. We pray this through Jesus' name. Amen. So Israel, like just to set the stage, and this is kind of familiar territory for most of us, but Israel had been led out of Egypt, right?

[4:38] This momentous and life-changing event where men and women and children and all their possessions, and even more possessions because the Egyptians have blessed them with a bunch of stuff.

[4:49] They are coming out, and they are literally going forward into this desert land. They've crossed the Red Sea through the provision of God, and at that huge moment where God parted the sea, they walk through on dry ground, and they get into this wilderness, and the Lord is leading them by day with a cloud and at night with a pillar of fire.

[5:14] I mean, so you're just kind of going at the leading of God, and you have some understanding. If you're putting yourself, just try to imagine what that would be like to be a mother or a father or a son or a daughter, and your parents are leading you, and you kind of hear a little bit of whisperings about where you're going, but you might not get it.

[5:35] You're just kind of going with the masses, and you're amazed by these things that you're seeing, but you're still kind of questioning, like, where am I going to fit into all this? How is this going to end for me and my family?

[5:48] The chapter before, we read about God providing this manna, right? This bread from heaven. And so that miracle is something that initially the people are like, we have this need, and God is meeting it.

[6:00] And it's not long before this greater need seems to present itself. But even as it's easy for me to read through and see the Israelites grumble and complain, if you kind of think, man, we've just run out of water.

[6:18] What are we going to do? What is my mom or my dad going to do? What am I going to do for my children as it gets down to the last drop in our skin? What are we going to do?

[6:29] So that real need is there. But I want you to notice a phrase that is in there that we read. They were being led to this place. What does it say?

[6:41] It says, according to the commandment of the Lord. So let's try to frame it this way. God is leading them by fire at night and cloud by day into this place that has no water.

[6:58] Isn't that interesting? At the command of the Lord, they were going to a place where there's no water. You know, sometimes when I'm in a place where things are pretty tough, and I'm suffering, and not because of my own sin necessarily, right?

[7:16] But I'm just going through a challenging time, whether it's financial or a lot of times with relationships that I'm struggling with. I'm very tempted to think that I must be there because I've done something wrong.

[7:27] Have you been there before? You thought, yeah, Lord, man, I must have screwed something out. I'm going to kind of go back through my life and think about what I've been doing because surely I've made a wrong turn. I haven't followed the will of God if I'm at a place where I'm finding myself particularly thirsty.

[7:43] But when we read this verse and we see that they were led by the command of God to a place where there's no water, that God would lead them into a space where anxiety and worry would seem naturally to abound, one asked a question, did Moses lead us the wrong way?

[7:59] Was that the right cloud that I was following? Surely that pillar of fire, I had to be following the right pillar of fire, right? You just start to question, like, is God leading me to a place where it's not in his will?

[8:13] But no, we're told that according to the command of the Lord, they were led to this place. Sometimes life is going to be hard, and we're going to go through suffering, and we can maybe question, like, okay, does God want me to be happy?

[8:28] You know, in these moments of suffering when life is particularly heavy, we can think maybe the goodness of God that we just sang about isn't something that's really a reality for me.

[8:39] But sometimes the Lord is going to lead you into hard places, and you need to lean into him, and it's going to be because, you know, we're not necessarily going to see a miracle, maybe not, to the extent that the Israelites get to experience in this chapter, but the Lord is going to have something for us to learn, and we need to lean into that.

[8:56] Amen? Amen. It's not that the Lord doesn't want us to be happy. My wife, Debbie, she's a first-grade teacher. She comes home with all these great stories. And one time she had a student, and she had some Twizzlers, you know, the licorice candy, and she says to this kid, she goes, do you want a Twizzler?

[9:15] And he goes, uh, hmm, uh, and it's a first-grader, mind you. You know, they all like candy. And she goes, what, you don't like Twizzlers? And he goes, ah, you know, I'm just, I don't think really my mom likes it when I get too much sugar.

[9:31] And Deb goes, oh, okay. And he goes, yeah, I just don't think my mom likes me to be happy. Sometimes, we might think that about the Lord, too, right?

[9:46] But trust me, eat the Twizzlers. The Lord's fine with that. All right, unless you're diabetic, then don't eat the Twizzlers. Okay. Suffering is part of the Christian's life. It just is. If you have learned the faithfulness of God, you've actually learned this lesson over decades if you've been saved.

[10:02] And if you haven't learned that lesson yet, it is the reality in the Christian's life that suffering is going to be part of it. Paul would write in 2 Corinthians 1, 5, he says, for we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comforts, too.

[10:18] And his point there, if you read 2 Corinthians 1, is that God was going to use the sufferings that he had experienced to actually comfort others. Paul goes on to say later in that chapter, for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.

[10:34] For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Sometimes we want to take that verse that says, God never gives us too much that we can't bear it out, right?

[10:46] But I'm reading this, and he was despairing unto death. He goes on, it says, indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely, what?

[10:56] Not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. Amen? Amen. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.

[11:08] And I don't think Paul was talking about, the Lord's going to deliver us from every earthly peril. I think Paul had the confidence to know that even if he was dead, that was deliverance from the Lord. We're all going to meet that point someday, unless the Lord returns and we're taken up with him in glory.

[11:22] We're going to reach that point of death. It is just a spot, a space, a transaction where we are glorified and we will be with him in eternity. And that's a hard reality for us to accept because it means brokenness in relationships for the season.

[11:37] But that is the reality. We need to trust the Lord with it. Trust the Lord with it. Paul goes on, he says, on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

[11:51] He will deliver us again. So suffering, even to the point of death, is just part of the Christian. I hate to be so heavy early on, but this is something that really, when we see a passage like this, where we see God leading a people, thousands and thousands and thousands of people into a wilderness, and that most basic need that we talked about this morning, what, three days without water?

[12:13] We're going to not be around? Then we have to say, what's the Lord doing here? But the Lord did have a plan. He was going to display his glory. Amen? He's going to display his glory in an amazing way.

[12:26] It doesn't mean I seek out suffering, though. I mean, you can read some of these New Testament passages. I was talking to a brother at church, and he said there was a problem in, like, pretty much the second century of the church, so after 100 A.D., where there was so much of a desire to suffer for the name of Christ that people were actually putting themselves in harm's way.

[12:47] There were just people being martyred for the sake of the gospel, for Jesus, for claiming Christ. And the church leaders had to say, hey, back it up. Hold off. Don't run into the lines then, necessarily.

[13:01] You know, we're going to be experiencing suffering for Christ by just associating with the name. And I think that is ever more present in this world today, by associating with the name.

[13:11] Something as simple as claiming your faith in Christ is going to perhaps make you a target. Don't shy away. Don't shy away. Associate with Jesus, because we know he has overcome the world, right?

[13:23] We are told that the world is going to hate us because it first hated him. We don't seek it out, but it will come if you're living in obedience to the word of God. So suffering, it's just, it's something that comes with it.

[13:37] But what are the Israelites' response, right? Let's get a little critical of them. I don't want to make them sound too great here. They do quarrel. So their response is to complain to Moses.

[13:50] When your needs aren't being met, who do you go to? I mean, like, if I'm looking for dinner, I'm going to ask Debbie. Say, what's for dinner tonight? That's where my most immediate need goes.

[14:01] That might be some of you, but, you know, who do you go to when your need is something as desperate as, I can't pay my house payment. Or, I've broken this with my parents.

[14:17] Or, my marriage is falling apart. Who do you go to? Now, God has put godly people into my life that I seek counsel of, but our first go-to should be going to God, getting on our knees.

[14:34] That's Moses' response. The people, actually, they have this need of water, and they're going to go to the person that God has anointed as the leader, so I don't want to be critical of them for that. You know, they should be like, yeah, I'm in a desert.

[14:45] There's no water. I need this. But at the same time, they go and they quarrel to Moses. Moses, they had an expectancy from Moses to meet that need, and they didn't go to God for it.

[15:01] And that's where their hearts should have been, especially after seeing God just provided manna. He had split open the waters of the Red Sea for them to go through on dry ground. He had delivered them from the Egyptians who were bearing down on them with chariots.

[15:13] And yet, when this next need came upon them, they quarreled and grumbled. And what does it say? Okay. Moses goes before God and says, they were about to stone me. They were going to kill me.

[15:23] They were going to kill me, the one who they were coming to to meet the very basic need. What were they going to do? There was no water in this place. Were you going to start wandering everywhere else? They were going to stone him.

[15:36] Ultimately, I need to go to the Lord. And if I don't go to the Lord, if I go to the Lord with expectation and not ask, then ultimately, I'm kind of like just a petulant child. I need to trust that the Lord is good.

[15:49] Because he's shown it in the past. He's been faithful in the past. We lessen our anxiety and we increase our trust in God when we've seen that he's already done what he's promised to do.

[16:02] Has any of the promises of God ever failed you? They haven't failed me. So I can go forward into these hard times that are trying, these relationship struggles, these financial challenges, because I've seen him already act.

[16:16] And I say, God, you are good. Suffering is going to be part of it. I can't just pray for that comfortable day all the time. I don't seek out the suffering, but I know that when I'm in it, I'm going to lean on you because God, you've delivered me.

[16:30] You will deliver me again. Amen? Yeah. Trust the Lord. So Moses, he's going to, he strikes this rock. So there's four things that are interesting here that God asks of Moses as Moses gets on his knees before the Lord and the Lord says, I want you to do these four things.

[16:47] So if we kind of look at the passage, it says he wants him to pass on before the people. And where does Moses go? He passes on before the people and the Lord asks him to go to this region of Horeb.

[16:58] What is Horeb? Does anyone know the other name for Horeb? Horeb. You guys all are in food coma, I think, tonight. California? Yeah.

[17:10] Yeah. Yeah, Horeb, California. No, Mount Sinai, right? So this would have been, Mount Horeb would have been associated with Mount Sinai. In other words, it was the region. It says not the Mount again, but go to the region of Horeb. So it would have been going to the land where the law was given, right?

[17:24] Where the law, the 10 commandments and all that was given to Moses. So it's a picture of the law, if I could be so bold. So he's going to this area that's associated with the law.

[17:34] And we're going to see the importance of that in a second, if you haven't already read between the lines. The other thing he says to him, he says, take some of the elders with you. It says some of the elders.

[17:44] I don't know why it didn't say all 70, but it says take some of the elders with you. And I think the reason for that, just practically speaking, is Moses was going to go and do this. And God wanted this miracle to not just be associated with this man, Moses, because the people were already struggling under his leadership.

[17:59] So he says, take some of the elders with you. They're going to be part of this miracle that I'm going to perform, right? Which Moses doesn't know exactly what it is. I think he has an idea. There's a practical lesson here, right?

[18:11] And just this idea that in leadership, we always need to bring others along with us. Because there's godly counsel there and just having others. Even if those elders were among the ones grumbling, taking some alongside you, if you are an older brother in Christ, if you're an older sister in Christ, and just leading people down the path where God's faithfulness is apparent, where you've shown them God has been faithful, and you're going to kind of hold them by the hand and take them along with you.

[18:40] Because that's just how you pass on practically your faith to others, so they can see it. And it might be something like taking brother and sister along with you to go to visit, right? To visit another Christian, to go just encourage and strengthen.

[18:53] There's just practical truths there. It's sometimes easier for us, especially if you're a parent, you've had this experience, right? You want your kid's room cleaned, and you can either say, clean up your room, or you can go in there and very quickly, in five minutes, get it exactly how you want it.

[19:06] But there's no lesson taught there, right? There's just something practically that is being taught there. But Moses is told to take some of the elders along with him. And then Moses is told something strange.

[19:17] He's told to take what? What does he take with him? The staff. Yeah, the rod. Is there anything magical about this staff? Why would the Lord have him take it?

[19:28] I mean, it's a practical part of the miracle itself. This staff was the same staff that Moses had, I believe, in Midian, right?

[19:38] When he was just a lowly shepherd, and he turned aside to see that strange sight of the burning bush. The Lord would then have him take that same staff and use it to perform signs, like touch the Red Sea, and it turned into blood.

[19:52] There's nothing magical in this staff necessarily. It was an ordinary staff. But by having Moses take it, I think this was more for Moses. This was to show Moses that it wasn't the power of his hand to touch a rock, but it was the staff, that this was God working this miracle.

[20:10] It just took it a little bit off of Moses, so it wasn't in his head. And then the last thing, the fourth thing, is the striking of the rock. I love this phrase.

[20:22] I love what the Lord asks, or what the Lord says to Moses. He says, Behold, I stand before you. Behold, I stand before you. Moses must have taken great comfort in that.

[20:36] He had just been told to pass through the people, this people that are grumbling, angry, thirsty, worried about their finances and their cattle, stressed out.

[20:48] He's passing before them, but when he gets up to this rock, and maybe in his mind, he's thinking, What's the Lord going to do here? It says, Behold, I stand before you.

[20:59] What better comfort could he have gotten from the Lord in that moment except the Lord's presence before him? So it's God who does this. Moses strikes the rock.

[21:10] According to the commandment of the Lord, water comes out and people drink. And then you see this big celebration of worship by the people. They just fall on their knees before God. They praise God and say, Hallelujah, thank you for meeting our needs.

[21:23] Did you read that part in your translation? No, neither did I. Has it ever struck you as a little strange? There's nothing said about how the people respond. It just says that there was a lot of water and they drank.

[21:34] And apparently they no longer grumbled about it. But Moses, of course, names the place Massa and Meribah. What does Massa mean?

[21:45] Does anyone know? Testing. What does Meribah mean? Quarreling. Place of testing and quarreling. And this would be a point in Israel's history that the Lord would recall and say, this is where you tested the Lord.

[22:03] This is where you tested the Lord. In seven small verses, right? Seven short verses, this little tiny section, almost a parenthesis, where the Lord meets this need. This becomes a pivotal point in Israel where the Lord looks back and says, you tested the Lord here.

[22:18] And it's because the people should have known that the Lord would care for them with the care and concern that he had already shown them. But no, they quarreled against God.

[22:29] There was something in their hearts that said, I'm not going to trust God with this basic need despite everything else he has done. Can we do that today?

[22:41] A hundred percent. We can do that today. We can forget and get in this state where just, I'm not going to trust the Lord because surely he doesn't hear me now.

[22:53] If you've never read the Psalms and really dug into them, it's such a great space to look and see how you can really have this heartache of the soul. But nearly all of them end with hope that God hears, not only a hope that God hears, but a deliverance that God does hear.

[23:10] Our God hears us. We can take comfort even in the words of Paul. We've already read that he will deliver us. It might not be in the way we think. It might not be giving us a check in the mail to cover our mortgage.

[23:21] It might not be a healing of a relationship. There's lots of hard things that we go through that we don't see the band-aid or the fix or anything on this side of eternity. But we have to trust, just like we say, that God is good.

[23:35] He is good. He is not the God of all the earth, just, Abraham would say. So we have this picture here. This is such a sweet picture, right?

[23:46] We have Israelites and the Israelites are at Horeb. They go there from this wilderness of Zin where they're thirsty. They're in Horeb and Moses strikes the rock, of course, and we see that that rock, that space is where the law is and we just see such a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we?

[24:04] Where Jesus was struck for us. He who placed himself under the law and lived it perfectly while he was on earth, he was struck.

[24:17] He was placed on that cross and he experienced the wrath of God poured out on him. All of the requirements of that law that we failed was laid on him.

[24:30] And he died and he was buried and three days later he rose to show that death had been conquered. You know, it's for no small reason that the Lord Jesus talks about himself as being the living water.

[24:44] He proclaims at the end of the Feast of Booths, right, he stands up and this just would have been a very public moment for the Lord where he basically stands up and he says, whoever believes in me as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

[25:03] He is the living water. He is the rock who was struck. He is the rock He is the rock who was struck. He is the rock who was struck. Let's go on to the next section. You can flip over to Numbers chapter 20.

[25:14] It's a little bit longer section. I've titled this Moses' second strike is Moses' strike three.

[25:27] Did you catch that? No. It wrote better than it reads to be honest. But you'll get it. All right. Numbers chapter 20. So just to give context for this, just even before we read it, this is 38, 38, 40 years later.

[25:48] Okay. So this is actually, some of the same people are going to be there, but a lot of this is the next generation, right? And they're finding themselves actually right back at the place where the spies, the 12 spies, were sent into the land of Canaan to spy it out.

[26:03] And so if you think about just that timeline that has gone by, new people who maybe, you know, a lot of them weren't there, and so they're going to experience this.

[26:15] And we'll start just in verse 1 with the death of Miriam just to give some context as well. It says, And the people of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh, and Miriam died there and was buried there.

[26:30] Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord.

[26:47] So that actually, just quickly, is referring back, I think, to the rebellion of Korah. So a lot of stuff has gone on. There's a lot of animosity and anger here. Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness that we should die here, both we and our cattle?

[27:04] And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there's no water to drink. Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces.

[27:21] And the glory of the Lord appeared to them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.

[27:33] So you shall bring out water, you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle. and Moses took the staff from before the Lord as he commanded them.

[27:44] Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock and he said to them, Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice.

[27:57] And water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.

[28:13] These are the waters of Meribah where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord and through them he showed himself holy. It's a similar scene arising, right?

[28:27] Physical thirst, need. These people are worried about their cattle, they're worried about their children, they're worried about their parents and brothers and sisters, but there's a different spirit here. Did you catch it?

[28:39] They were assembled against Moses and Aaron. Assembled against. There might have been some of that in the beginning. Of course, they were threatening to stone Moses, but at this time they're now assembled against.

[28:53] And their needs are a little bit different, right? They're talking about why have you brought us to this evil place? For some reason, they are still hearkening back and maybe in a way that their parents didn't quite do.

[29:05] They're harking back to Egypt. Remember, the first group did. They said that we had meat pots, we had all this stuff, and even this generation that's removed, they still have some kind of looking back at Egypt as a place where maybe there was some hope back there.

[29:20] Why have you brought us to this evil place right on the edge of the promised land? They're assembled against. And look what else they say. This place doesn't have vine and pomegranates and all this good stuff.

[29:33] They're even doubting not just the water, but they're actually doubting the greater promise that was given to them, right? There is a hope that they have been living on through these 40 years that the land of promise wasn't just a place that they would have water and a cattle could stay and they could build houses, but they were gonna have vine and pomegranates and all of these extra things, the things that made it great.

[29:53] Remember that the giant grapes, the cluster of grapes that they came back with when they were the 12 spies. So they're back at this space and they're thinking, man, we don't believe this. They are doubting not only God's provision of water, they're doubting God's whole promise and they're assembled against.

[30:12] And we see something here that we don't see the first time when they don't trust or when they're not trusting. They quarrel against Moses the first time. We see Moses and Aaron at this point, what do they do?

[30:22] They go to the tent of meeting, they fall on their faces. They just, I mean, it's the right place to be for them, but I think it speaks to just the higher level of concern and threat.

[30:35] This is a big moment here. It's a big moment. God tells them to do three things here. And I think most of you note the details pretty well.

[30:48] Assemble the people, take the staff, speak to the rock. Speak to the rock. It's a subtle thing, isn't it?

[31:01] Really small. You can kind of read through it real quick and Moses, if you don't read the following section about him getting in control, you might think, oh, well the water was given. He struck the rock twice.

[31:13] It's an important detail. We need to be careful to follow the whole counsel of God. Sometimes I can think God wants me to do a certain thing, but if I'm not walking in close obedience to God, this is what God wants.

[31:29] He wants obedience. He wants obedience in the small things, the little things, not just the big things. There was a detail that Moses missed, and I think I have some insight into why.

[31:41] I think Moses, by this point, is getting pretty frustrated. I think the Lord ultimately takes him out of leadership because really, he's not got a heart for the people anymore. This is the same Moses that after the golden calf, do you remember what he does?

[31:53] God says, all right, skip them. They can all be burned up. I'm gonna make you into the nation of Israel. We're just gonna start with you. Moses, you, Zipporah, come on, let's go. Leave this people to their death.

[32:05] But Moses says, no, Lord, please, please, for the sake of your name, before the peoples who see this, I want you to just have mercy on this people. He had a heart for the people then, and he doesn't quite have the heart for the people now because what does he do?

[32:18] We see when he comes before the people, what is his response to them? He says, he's prayed to the Lord. The Lord said, take your staff, the same things. Moses can expect the same provision that the Lord had done 40 years ago, and he goes to the people and he says, hear you now, you rebels.

[32:32] He gets accusatory. I mean, he gets a little nasty with them, if I'm being honest, right? Like, rebels? Okay. He says, and then read what he says. He says, should we give you water from the rock? Should we give you water from the rock?

[32:46] Who is Moses talking about? Like him and Aaron? Him, Aaron, and God, if he's being generous? It's just an interesting tone that Moses is striking here, and it speaks to his heart. He's just getting a little bit, not a little bit, he's getting a lot frustrated at this point.

[33:01] And I think because of that, he's blind to obeying what the Lord had asked him to do. I can get the same way, you know? I can become frustrated at people.

[33:16] It could be my family. It could be people in my church. It could be people at work. I can get frustrated at people pretty easily when they're not doing what I think they should do or their needs or wants aren't where I think they should be.

[33:28] I'm always, I'm typically on the self-righteous end of things, right? I'm doing it right, they're doing it wrong. But in truth, what it speaks to is a heart that is just not, the Lord was going to provide and he did.

[33:42] You know, something in both of these miracles that I find just astounding is that despite the fact that the people were quarreling and grumbling, the Lord still provided for them. Did you notice that?

[33:53] He didn't let them die of thirst. He didn't even let their animals die of thirst. God still showed mercy to the masses despite their hearts of contention and animosity towards Moses, Aaron, and especially the Lord.

[34:08] There's a lesson there too that God's grace can sometimes be exercised to me even when I'm not living the right way. That's a little scary on one hand because sometimes I want to associate God's blessing with me doing things right.

[34:23] But that's not the gospel. So why should I think that is my life before him? The gospel says I'm an enemy of his. That he died for me while I was yet a sinner.

[34:36] That he loved me when I was unlovable. Well, God's provision in my life is still borne out by his grace towards me. I'm still undeserving. I don't get his blessing because I'm just doing it right.

[34:50] And in fact, the scary thing is sometimes I could be doing it wrong and he'll still bless me. And that's a goodness of God. It's a grace of God. And it's actually something that can cause me to move to repentance.

[35:00] Right? The Lord is good that sometimes he'll bless me when I'm doing something that I shouldn't necessarily. You know, maybe not just abject sin but maybe I'm just not even abiding in Christ and he blesses me.

[35:13] And I need to be aware that the Lord might be using that just to be gracious and push me back to him. Pull me back to him. But never make the assumption that I'm doing everything right just because God's given me the water.

[35:28] It's just not in line with the gospel. So Moses in his anger, he strikes the rock and it's kind of, you know, I speculate what this looks like.

[35:39] Did he strike it once and nothing happened? He strikes it again. You know, was it a quick tap? Just double tapping the rock? Water came out. But the people, again, did not celebrate.

[35:50] We don't see a great revival. We just see people nourished. And that's what the Lord does. He nourishes even the undeserving. But there was a reckoning for Moses.

[36:03] A reckoning for Aaron. And what are they accused of? They're accused of unbelief. Unbelief. Do you think Moses didn't think that God was going to bring water?

[36:20] No. He somehow or for some reason believed that God was going to do it in the same way. God doesn't do it in the same way. I think of just that parallel of the Lord Jesus.

[36:34] The Lord Jesus was put on the cross once for our sins. He, as that rock, was not struck twice. He went to the cross once and he ever lives to make intercession for us.

[36:47] We place our faith in that one-time sacrifice. And that's sufficient for all life. Yeah? But hear me out.

[36:58] All eternity. All eternity. That's the value of that. And in a sense, Moses, by striking that rock twice, he kind of ruined it. He kind of ruined it.

[37:10] He not only disobeyed, but he just didn't believe God. And there's another thing that is said here. It says that him and Aaron did not uphold God's glory. They did not uphold the glory of God before the people.

[37:25] That's something that kind of strikes my heart. I think, do I uphold the glory of God before others in my life? Do I uphold the glory of God before my family by walking in obedience and trusting him?

[37:39] If I have a struggle in our house, something practical where I'm like, I don't know if this bill is going to be paid or how we're going to fix this or the car breaks down, what do I do?

[37:51] Do I take my family around me and get on my knees and pray that the Lord would answer that need? Or do I just pick up the phone and call the mechanic and try to get a fix and try to figure it out and borrow money and, you know, all these things that maybe from a practical standpoint is what we'd do.

[38:05] There's a lesson here just in Moses and Aaron that they should have, they got on their knees and they got on their faces before the Lord but their heart didn't really go before the Lord and they didn't uphold him as holy.

[38:17] We have an opportunity as mothers, as fathers, as sons and daughters, as brothers and sisters, followers of Christ to just model this attitude of looking to God to meet our needs.

[38:32] I think sometimes I don't do that because I think God's going to answer it any which way. I trust the goodness of God. Amen? We do. We trust God's goodness and sometimes that causes me maybe, dare I say it, not to pray and ask because I just think God's got his way.

[38:49] He takes care of me. He's going to do it. But God, as our Heavenly Father, wants us to be on our knees before him, to be a people that don't just expect him to meet it because he is good.

[39:01] Most oftentimes, he will. He wants us to be children who ask. What does it say in James 3, James 4? You have not because you ask not. Right? The Lord wants us to ask.

[39:12] He wants us to be that father as Jesus says, whose earthly father when they ask for fish is going to give him a snake. The Lord wants us to be on our knees. He wants our dependency to be upon him.

[39:25] Yes, he's going to give the water. He's going to give the water abundantly a lot of times. But God forbid that we don't get on our knees and ask him for the water. And God forbid that after the water is given, we don't say, thank you, Lord.

[39:39] Thank you for giving it to us. Three things that I would kind of just overshadow this whole session in their history.

[39:50] As a believer, God's going to lead us into challenging seasons. It's not necessarily because of sin. In fact, it's just oftentimes because of our association with Christ and just also to show himself powerful in meeting needs.

[40:04] Trust him. Trust him. It's not because you are necessarily a bad person. Now, don't hear me wrong. If you're in sin, you're being judged. So that's another message.

[40:16] Another message. Second, as a believer, I must always take my needs to God first. Just as we talked, God wants us to ask. Be regular in your asking. And be regular in your thanking.

[40:29] And then three, obedience matters. Moses and Aaron weren't allowed to take Israel into the promised land. And you can read that at a glance and man, why is God so harsh? I've often had my heart just a little bit like, ugh.

[40:41] He's led them all this way. This is the Moses who murdered an Egyptian because he wanted to get the movement started, right? When he was 40 years old and then he went out into the wilderness.

[40:52] He lived another 40 years as a shepherd. And then God called him to lead this people and he was hesitant but he does it and he goes in and he sees God move in these miraculous ways and then it ends like this and you're like, God, why?

[41:03] Why couldn't he just cross that boundary and be with them? But you know what? God takes our obedience seriously. That is a reality that a lot of people in the world struggle to understand the gospel because they don't want to think that God and his holiness can send people that they think are otherwise good to hell for all eternity.

[41:27] It's a tough pill to swallow but when you understand stuff like this and how seriously God takes obedience, the gospel begins to make sense. Live in the grace of God but walk as obedient Christians.

[41:44] Know his word and obey it. this is what gives glory. This is what upholds the glory of God before your family and before him. Let's pray. Father, you are such a good God and we who sit here are undeserving of the grace that you've shown us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[42:03] We're undeserving of the living water but Father, it is your goodness, your love and your mercy that makes it available to us and available abundantly to us that we not only are saved through it but we live on it and so I pray that that would be the case.

[42:20]  Just thank you that we can open your word together and that you would just bless the rest of our evening to your glory through Jesus' name. Amen.