As I said, our text comes to us from Exodus 17, which is found in the Pew Bibles on page 71. We're going to read verses 1 through 7. Exodus 17, 1 through 7, hear now the very word of God. The whole Israelite community set out from the desert of sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled Moses and said, give us water to drink. Moses replied, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test? But the people were thirsty for water there and they grumbled against Moses. They said, why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst? Then Moses cried out to the Lord, what am I to do with these people. They're almost ready to stone me. The Lord answered Moses, walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile 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 the elders of Israel And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not? Here ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. There was a song that I used to like to sing in my youth group, and I recently discovered that youth groups still sing this song. It's the song, Lord, Prepare Me. And it says, Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. That was a song that I heard many of the youth sing at the RIS convention this past summer. And the song stands true. It is the Lord who prepares his people, trying them, purifying them, making them holy. And in the text before us, we see that the Lord is preparing his people Israel. And we see that he prepares them in three ways. He first prepares them with the problems that they face. Second, He prepares them with the provisions that He gives them. And finally, He prepares them with salvation. Salvation He provides. Let's turn to our first point. God prepares His people with problems. Verse 1 says, The whole Israelite community set out from the desert of sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So the problem would seem to be that there was no water. And can you imagine being in the desert without water? We who live in this part of California should be able to sympathize with them. Maybe you've camped in the desert. Maybe you've hiked in the desert. And can you imagine being there without any water? Well, this is what Israel was experiencing. And so, immediately, we should not downplay the problem that these people are faced with, the circumstance that they're faced with. You see, we so often become familiar with these stories that we think to ourselves, Come on, Israel. Get over it already. Man up. so you have no water. The Lord God is there with you. But we should be sensitive to this real challenge for this people. Notice that they weren't asking for anything luxurious. They weren't asking for gold. They weren't asking for fame, for glory, for power. They were asking for water. A very basic element of life. And this problem that they are faced with is very similar to the problems that we face in our own lives. Problems that, maybe in the eyes of others, people might think, it's not really that big of a deal. But for those of us who are in the midst of that problem, faced with that difficulty, those circumstances, they're real problems. And they challenge our faith in God. They challenge us kind of like Israel to question, is the Lord with us? Is the Lord's favor upon us? Well, without downplaying this problem, we should also realize that Israel should have been, in a sense, prepared for this problem. You see, this wasn't a new problem to them. They had already been through similar circumstances. It was just in the previous two chapters before this chapter, chapter 17, in verses 15 and 16, the people found themselves in need. In 15, they were again without water. There was only bitter water to drink, and the Lord provided for them. And then in 16, there wasn't any meat to drink. So the people again cry out and the Lord provides manna and quail for the people. So the people should have been somewhat prepared for this kind of difficulty. Even one as real as having no water at all. They should have realized that such circumstances they had already experienced and the Lord provided for them. Furthermore, they should have realized that it was God himself who had brought the people to this place. Notice that verse 1 says, The whole Israelite community set out from the desert of sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. You see, when the Israelites moved, when they camped, when they broke camp, when they established camp, it was all according to the Lord's command. The Lord was leading the people throughout these places. He was the one who led them to a place where there was only bitter water. He was the one who led them to a place where there was no meat. And now he has led them to a place where there was no water at all. So they should have realized that it was God who had brought them there, the God who had already provided for them in those previous circumstances. But the people seem to have forgotten all that the Lord had done for them. And they question, is God among us? You see, they couldn't see beyond their present difficulty. They couldn't see beyond the circumstances that they found themselves in. They couldn't realize that God was in control, leading them and preparing them. Instead, they focused on themselves and their own difficulties. We see their lack of faith in God and their reaction. Verse 2 says, Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water that we may drink. Now the word quarreled here doesn't fully capture all that's going on in the text before us. You see, the Hebrew word that's used here is the word reb. It's spelled or transliterated R-I-B, like rib, but pronounced reeb. If you look down in verse 7, you'll see this word. It's contained in the title Meribah. Moses called the name of this place Masa and Meribah. You see that word reeb there. And what this word refers to is it refers to a legal dispute. It's a word that is used in the court setting. used to refer to a lawsuit. It wasn't just the fight that these Israelites were picking with Moses. They were bringing a legal charge against Moses and against God. They were charging God with covenant unfaithfulness. This is further shown in the fact that the people were willing to stone Moses. It says in verse 4, Now stoning in the ancient Near East wasn't some mob violence. It wasn't as if the people were just so enraged and frustrated with the situation that they didn't know what to do so they looked for stones just to throw at him. No, what a stoning was, it was a public judicial act of judgment. It was the people coming together on their own, declaring guilty, guilty of unfaithfulness. That's what that stoning act was all about. And so the response to the circumstances of not having water is to bring a lawsuit against God and Moses. But what this whole scenario really points out is that the people had no faith in God. You see, though they thought their biggest problem was the circumstance that they found themselves in, that they had no water, in reality, their biggest problem was the way that their hearts responded to these circumstances. They simply refused to trust in God. They were willing and ready to break fellowship with the Lord, even after all that He had done for them. And isn't this the way circumstances work in our lives? Can't they affect us in such a way that we're challenged? Our faith in our God is challenged to where we, in a way, forget all that He has done for us. Or, difficulties can be used in our lives to challenge us to look all the more to the Lord, to look to Him in faith all the more, to provide us with all that we need. The Lord God knows that difficulties and circumstances challenge us, and so we see here Him preparing His people through these difficulties, using them to cause the people to look to Him. And He uses them in our own lives. We've already seen in verse 1 that it was God who brought Israel to this place. It was God who brought them to the other places as well. And it was God who provided for them. The Lord uses difficulties to strengthen our faith in Him. And isn't that what James speaks of in James 1 when he says, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. The Lord uses trials in our lives. He is in control. He brings us into certain difficulties and circumstances and He causes us to look to Him through those difficulties, to trust Him. And this applies to us individually as well as a church as a whole. As it stands today, Escondido URC is without a minister and this may have caused some of us here to doubt what the Lord is doing. Is He not in control? Why would he allow this to happen? But he is in control. He has a plan. And he will provide for us. Just as he always has, and he will always do so. The fact that God provides for his people is expressed further in this text. And that leads us to our second point. That God prepares us with his provisions. He prepares us with what He provides for us. And the last point, we considered the problem that Israel was faced with. Now we begin to see God's solution, His problem, or His answer. The people have brought a lawsuit against God. They, in a sense, have called God into the dock. And they have judged on their own that God has been covenantally unfaithful. And so notice what it says in verse 5. Here we see God's response. The Lord answers Moses, walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. The Lord tells Moses to do three things here. First, he says, go on ahead. And where does he tell him to go to? Well, we see in verse 6, he calls him to go to Horeb. And what's significant about Horeb? Horeb was the place where Moses first encountered the Lord. It was a place where Moses encountered the burning bush. The second thing that God calls Moses to do is to gather the elders together. God calls Moses to do this so that there would be witnesses to what the Lord would do. Remember, the people had brought a public lawsuit against God and Moses. And so the Lord will now publicly vindicate himself in and through the eyes of the elders. The last command is for Moses to take his staff, the staff which he struck the Nile with, by that same instrument which the Lord administered judgment upon the Egyptians. Moses now is called to take with him. And so what these commands begin to do is they set the stage for what the Lord is going to do in the narrative. You see, imagine if you were there that morning. You wake up, you come out of your tent, and there you see Moses. And he's gathering together the elders. And they begin to take off. They begin to walk away from the rest of the people, separating themselves. And then you see in his hand that staff, That staff that you're familiar with. That staff that you recall being an instrument of judgment. That staff that struck the Nile. That staff which separated the waters of the Red Sea, which eventually swallowed up the Egyptians. What will that staff be used for on this day, on this occasion? And then it strikes you. you and the rest of the people have brought a covenant lawsuit against God and against Moses. Well, we see God's response to Moses in verse 6, or I'm sorry, God's response to the people in verse 6, where he says, 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. God's response to this quarrelsome, contentious people is to provide for them, to give them the very thing that they need. Now we should notice that the Lord could have done the opposite. He could have done the opposite and still been a just and righteous God. He could have responded in wrath and consumed all the people at that very moment. And again, He would have been just for doing so. You see, God is not someone to be put on trial and questioned. He's not someone to be accused of something. And furthermore, we're not in the place of charging the Lord with anything. But Israel did it. And instead of the Lord responding in wrath, we see that the Lord displays His patience with His people. He displays His kindness to them and He provides them with the very thing that they need. And doesn't the Lord always do this? Isn't this the way that the Lord always is towards His people, always providing for us, even when we doubt His faithfulness? And yet, we continue to struggle to trust in Him. when difficulties come our way, we continue to wrestle with whether the Lord is worthy of our faith, worthy of our trust in Him. And so the question stands, why? Why do we continue to struggle although the Lord provides us with everything that we need? Why in the midst of difficulty do we continue to lack faith in Him? Well, I think it's simply because we are not content in the Lord. You see, this is expressed of Israel in the text before us in verse 3 when they say, Why is it that you have brought us up out of Egypt? To kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? In this statement, in this statement is this underlying desire to return to Egypt. The people believed that Egypt was better than what the Lord had given them. To put it simply, Israel was discontent with the Lord. And therefore, they looked to Egypt as something better, something greater than what God could provide for them. And notice how ridiculous that is. This place where they were enslaved as a people, where they were treated harshly, They desire to go back. But really, that's what a discontent heart does to a person. It doesn't allow them to really see what they have, all that the Lord has provided for them. Really, it doesn't allow a person to see how great God is in and of Himself. You see, when a Christian is discontent, Ultimately, they're discontent with God Himself. And so now the question stands, how can we be content? Well, we're content by trusting in the Lord, by looking to Him with thankful hearts, realizing that all that He gives us is an expression of His love towards us. And He doesn't give us what we need so that we look to those things to satisfy us. He gives us those things so that we would look to the one from whom they come. You see, even through the provisions that he gives us, he's preparing our hearts to look to him for our satisfaction. And yet we see in this story that it's not only the physical needs that the Lord provides for this people, but he further provides for their spiritual needs. The water which flows from the rock only begins to express what God has given to his people. The fullness of what God provides for his people is symbolized in the way that water, this water flows from the rock. And this turns us to our last and final point. God prepares his people with salvation, with the salvation that he gives us. Here we see God preparing his people to trust in him by giving them what they need most. Salvation from their own sin and misery. In the beginning of verse 6, God says, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will come out of it. Now, although the NIV translates here, God standing by the rock. I think it would be better translated, God standing on the rock. If you have one of the other major translations, you'll notice that that's the way it's translated. That God says, I will stand there before you on the rock at Horeb. And if God is standing on the rock, and God calls Moses to strike the rock, then what God is calling Moses to do is to strike God who is on that rock. That staff, that staff which was an instrument of administering justice would now be used for judgment upon God while Moses strikes God on that rock. Let's bring the context in to better understand what's going on here. Israel has just brought a lawsuit against the Lord. And not only a lawsuit, but because they're willing and ready to stone Moses, they've already come to a judgment against the Lord. But we know that they don't have a leg to stand on. Israel is under the impression that because they are God's people, then God is obligated to give them everything that they desire. You see, they're under the impression that if they give tribute or worship to God, then God is obligated to provide for them. And so in their eyes, the absence of water is really God not holding His end of the bargain. But we realized this evening that salvation doesn't work that way. Salvation doesn't work as if we give a little something to the Lord and the Lord gives a little something to us in return. And if salvation did work that way, then we would all be condemned because none of us in and of ourselves could do any good before the Lord. The Lord knows this. And so when Israel brings this lawsuit against Him, it's obvious that they are the ones who deserve judgment. But yet we don't find God giving them what they deserve. Instead, we see God commanding Moses to not just strike the rock, but to strike the God who is there on the rock. And what this displays, this displays is God taking upon himself the judgment that should have been upon his people. He takes the judgment that Israel deserves. They should have been upon the rock that day. They were the ones who were unfaithfully testing and quarreling with God. But God, in His grace, takes upon Himself their punishment. And through this, God is again preparing His people, preparing them to look to Him in faith, to trust and know that He is faithful to them, that He has redeemed them, that He will provide them with everything that they need. Even salvation from their very own sin and the judgment that they deserve. What we see here is God saving His people by taking the punishment that they deserve so that they would learn and be prepared to place their faith in Him, to look to Him as their provider, to look to Him as their rock of salvation. And for us this evening, we know who that rock is. We know that rock as Jesus Christ. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that it was Christ upon that rock. It was Christ who was that rock. And it was upon the cross that Christ fully expressed Himself as the God who takes upon Himself the punishment of His people. You see, Christ didn't just deal with the sins of His people from a certain time at a certain event. But Christ, upon the cross, took all the judgment of His people, dealing with the sins of His people from the past to the present and even to the future. And what God does here in this story is He pictures that. He presents us with a picture of what Christ will ultimately fulfill in sacrificing His life upon the cross. And God prepares us by giving us the salvation in Christ to respond to Him in faith, Strengthening our faith. Realizing that He is a God that will save His people. A God that will not allow anything to separate Him from His people. And so what is our response to this? But to fall down and worship to Him. Realizing that we are only satisfied in Him. And that salvation is found in Him and Him alone. And so, in conclusion, we've considered from this story this evening that God prepares His people through difficulties, using them in our lives to cause us to look to Him in faith, to display Himself as a faithful God, a God who provides for us. And then He further uses those provisions that He gives to us to again cause us not to look to those things, not to hope in what He has given us, but to look to the One from whom they come. And finally, He prepares us with the salvation that He gives us, causing us to look to Him in faith as the God who will take upon Himself or who took upon Himself our judgment. That God is worthy of our faith, worthy of our trust. Amen. And let us pray. Father, we acknowledge this evening how undeserving we are of all that you have given to us. We admit that so often we doubt you, Lord. We doubt that you are able or willing to provide for us in our difficulties, in any circumstance. Lord, will you forgive us for such doubt? We acknowledge that you are the one who is faithful and it is us who are unfaithful. Lord, we ask that you would give us more faith, that we would set our hearts towards you, conform us into the image of your Son, Christ. For we ask this all in his name. Amen.