In distress you called and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Hear, O My people, while I admonish you! O, Israel, if you would only listen to Me! There shall be no strange god among you. You shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. (Verses 7-10)
Rephidim had no water to drink. The place was dry as a bone. It was up to Moses to get these people, the children of Israel, some water, by golly! After all, it was he who organized a mass exodus of probably a million people out of Egypt. And what for? To die of thirst in the desert? Their shoes were still fresh and they still had manna stuck in their teeth when the Jews came at Moses with stones because they were thirsty.
"What shall I do with this people ready to stone me?" A good question.
"Walk on ahead of the throng," God said. "Take some of the elders and the staff with which you struck the Nile when it turned to blood. I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb. You shall strike the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink."
Enough water for a million people flowed out of a rock in the desert because God said so. The place was named Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling), though. Because they tested God by saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Ouch.
Are you a little thirsty? Wondering where your water is today? You've arrived at a very dry spot in your walk through the desert and you don't know where God is? If we are honest with ourselves, we don't go through a day that we don't have something we need to trust a god for. Distress is part of the stress of this life, so get used to it. What our God wants is for us to call out to Him alone for the resources we need. Why? Because He delights in providing for us. From a rock. From a fish's mouth. From heaven itself. And at the last minute. Right when we need it and usually, in my experience, not a minute too early. But with flare. An unexpected source. An unusual way. So there's no doubt your God is the God. Not little "g." And if we get thirsty enough, we'll cry out.
Standing on the rock at Horeb was God Himself. Moses had to have understood that in striking it he would also be striking the Lord, Who wanted no mistaking of the fact that He was the provision. The life-giving water flowed from the Rock. But first it was hit, wounded, broken in two. To provide for people who doubted the very God allowing it. Sound familiar?
Here's what's interesting to me. The Hebrew children had to come back around to Meribah and Massah a second time. You know they just walked around in circles in the desert for forty years until the complainers and grumblers died off, right? Sure enough, second time around, the story is much the same. Moses and Aaron are still putting up with the same old stuff. Listening to the crowd. "Hey, weren't we here not long ago? This place has no water! Some land flowing with milk and honey! We can't even plant a fig in this dirt!" And so on and so on, blah, blah, blah. Moses sick to death of it. He went, at his wit's end, to the entrance of the tent of meeting where God spoke to him as friend to friend, and fell on his face. God said: "Take the staff, assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So shall it come out of the rock."
Ew, boy. Moses really made a mess of it this time. "Listen you rebels! Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" And Moses lifted the staff and struck the rock twice. The miracle is that God brought the water abundantly forth from the rock anyway. But He was so angry with Moses that He didn't allow Moses to go into the promised land, either. Why? Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it. God thought that made Him look foolish because Moses did what he wanted to not what he was told to do. "We" didn't bring water from anything. God did. But in His great grace, despite Moses's hubris, they opened their mouths wide and He filled them. His standard for obedience for Moses was much higher than for those wandering after him. They were following Moses following God. And it looks like Moses had simply had enough. So much so that he failed to listen to his Friend.
And that is God's admonition to us. Oh, people, if you would only listen to Me. He is the Rock. Our provision in the desert as well at the oasis. Why didn't the people remember the rock from the first trip to Rephidim? How come they didn't say, "Wow, this is where all that water came out of Mt. Horeb!" Bad memories? Why would God do again what He did before? Thirst too great? Still not the promised land. That's what I think. Because I know us. God gave us water, sure, but we're still not where we want to be. We still can't settle down with the cows and the fam, put up the picket fence and know we've arrived. Still walking the dirt of the desert waiting for a promise that's a long time coming. So what's a little water. How about God peeling us a grape from Jericho?
That is also why they didn't get to the Promised Land. Not that group. God provided what they needed, but He couldn't give them all He wanted to. Because they still didn't know Him. Every time it got rough, they forgot all He'd done in the past. Abundance awaited them and they could've gotten there in a few short weeks had they spent the time given over to accusing God praising Him instead.
It makes sense to me as I look back on them that I should listen to the One who can bring something from nothing. A cracked Rock providing thousands and thousands of gallons of water. But if I think I deserve the water. God owes it to me to get me where I want to go. Where indeed He promised to take me. And don't stop to wonder at the process. To be grateful for all I see Him doing in the desert to get me where He wants me to go. Well, what will I do when I don't need Him so much? When my memory fails me so badly in the good land I don't take Him there with me? Find other gods. Because I dídn't allow myself to be glued to His side in the desert. To marvel at God's power and open my mouth wide for living water purchased because He was struck. Took for granted that my needs were met because my wants were still ahead of me. I might just miss the promised land that way. God tested them at the waters of "quarreling." Arguing with Him about His plans. And the Rock was there all along as the Hebrews ate heavenly food and miraculous water and only wanted more.
For I want you to know that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. I Corinthians 10
"I am the first and the last. Besides me there is no god. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim it... Let him declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from old and declared it? And you are My witnesses! Is there a God besides Me? There is no Rock. I know not any." God. Isaiah 44
Rephidim had no water to drink. The place was dry as a bone. It was up to Moses to get these people, the children of Israel, some water, by golly! After all, it was he who organized a mass exodus of probably a million people out of Egypt. And what for? To die of thirst in the desert? Their shoes were still fresh and they still had manna stuck in their teeth when the Jews came at Moses with stones because they were thirsty.
"What shall I do with this people ready to stone me?" A good question.
"Walk on ahead of the throng," God said. "Take some of the elders and the staff with which you struck the Nile when it turned to blood. I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb. You shall strike the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink."
Enough water for a million people flowed out of a rock in the desert because God said so. The place was named Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling), though. Because they tested God by saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Ouch.
Are you a little thirsty? Wondering where your water is today? You've arrived at a very dry spot in your walk through the desert and you don't know where God is? If we are honest with ourselves, we don't go through a day that we don't have something we need to trust a god for. Distress is part of the stress of this life, so get used to it. What our God wants is for us to call out to Him alone for the resources we need. Why? Because He delights in providing for us. From a rock. From a fish's mouth. From heaven itself. And at the last minute. Right when we need it and usually, in my experience, not a minute too early. But with flare. An unexpected source. An unusual way. So there's no doubt your God is the God. Not little "g." And if we get thirsty enough, we'll cry out.
Standing on the rock at Horeb was God Himself. Moses had to have understood that in striking it he would also be striking the Lord, Who wanted no mistaking of the fact that He was the provision. The life-giving water flowed from the Rock. But first it was hit, wounded, broken in two. To provide for people who doubted the very God allowing it. Sound familiar?
Here's what's interesting to me. The Hebrew children had to come back around to Meribah and Massah a second time. You know they just walked around in circles in the desert for forty years until the complainers and grumblers died off, right? Sure enough, second time around, the story is much the same. Moses and Aaron are still putting up with the same old stuff. Listening to the crowd. "Hey, weren't we here not long ago? This place has no water! Some land flowing with milk and honey! We can't even plant a fig in this dirt!" And so on and so on, blah, blah, blah. Moses sick to death of it. He went, at his wit's end, to the entrance of the tent of meeting where God spoke to him as friend to friend, and fell on his face. God said: "Take the staff, assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So shall it come out of the rock."
Ew, boy. Moses really made a mess of it this time. "Listen you rebels! Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" And Moses lifted the staff and struck the rock twice. The miracle is that God brought the water abundantly forth from the rock anyway. But He was so angry with Moses that He didn't allow Moses to go into the promised land, either. Why? Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it. God thought that made Him look foolish because Moses did what he wanted to not what he was told to do. "We" didn't bring water from anything. God did. But in His great grace, despite Moses's hubris, they opened their mouths wide and He filled them. His standard for obedience for Moses was much higher than for those wandering after him. They were following Moses following God. And it looks like Moses had simply had enough. So much so that he failed to listen to his Friend.
And that is God's admonition to us. Oh, people, if you would only listen to Me. He is the Rock. Our provision in the desert as well at the oasis. Why didn't the people remember the rock from the first trip to Rephidim? How come they didn't say, "Wow, this is where all that water came out of Mt. Horeb!" Bad memories? Why would God do again what He did before? Thirst too great? Still not the promised land. That's what I think. Because I know us. God gave us water, sure, but we're still not where we want to be. We still can't settle down with the cows and the fam, put up the picket fence and know we've arrived. Still walking the dirt of the desert waiting for a promise that's a long time coming. So what's a little water. How about God peeling us a grape from Jericho?
That is also why they didn't get to the Promised Land. Not that group. God provided what they needed, but He couldn't give them all He wanted to. Because they still didn't know Him. Every time it got rough, they forgot all He'd done in the past. Abundance awaited them and they could've gotten there in a few short weeks had they spent the time given over to accusing God praising Him instead.
It makes sense to me as I look back on them that I should listen to the One who can bring something from nothing. A cracked Rock providing thousands and thousands of gallons of water. But if I think I deserve the water. God owes it to me to get me where I want to go. Where indeed He promised to take me. And don't stop to wonder at the process. To be grateful for all I see Him doing in the desert to get me where He wants me to go. Well, what will I do when I don't need Him so much? When my memory fails me so badly in the good land I don't take Him there with me? Find other gods. Because I dídn't allow myself to be glued to His side in the desert. To marvel at God's power and open my mouth wide for living water purchased because He was struck. Took for granted that my needs were met because my wants were still ahead of me. I might just miss the promised land that way. God tested them at the waters of "quarreling." Arguing with Him about His plans. And the Rock was there all along as the Hebrews ate heavenly food and miraculous water and only wanted more.
For I want you to know that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. I Corinthians 10
"I am the first and the last. Besides me there is no god. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim it... Let him declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from old and declared it? And you are My witnesses! Is there a God besides Me? There is no Rock. I know not any." God. Isaiah 44
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