Blood Water and Stone

Let's pray. Blessed Lord, you have caused all Scripture to be written for our learning. We ask that you would grant that we may so hear your word, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest it, so that by patient and comfort of your holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Exodus as a Pattern of Christ and the Church

By way of review, you've noticed that ever since we got out of Egypt, notice I'm saying we there, because you're going to note, this is really our story. Ever since we got out of Egypt, everything in the book of Exodus has in some way really clearly been pointing to something.

In the New Testament.

So in fact, it even begins before we leave Egypt. But the children of Israel, they have left the land of slavery, have been set free from slavery through these mighty acts of judgment, culminating in the death of the Passover lamb, their baptism in the Red Sea.

Now they're in their wilderness wanderings, and they are being fed bread from heaven. Does this sound familiar?

Yes.

We too have been set free from slavery to the devil. We have been baptized in the Red Sea, in Christ's blood and water mixed together in the waters of our baptism. We are now in our wilderness wanderings as we head toward the promised land.

And if you heard correctly in the sermon today, the promised land is not a postage stamp piece of property in the middle of the Middle East. The promised land is actually the whole world, the Earth itself.

And as we are heading to the promised land then, we also heard about the Sabbath and how the Sabbath itself points to salvation by grace through faith apart from works, that Christ is our Sabbath rest, and you're going to see how all of this points to Him.

As we work then through Exodus 22, I'll back up just a little bit to pick up our context so we can kind of get our bearings. We're going to run back over just a little bit of the Sabbath bits of it, and then we're going to move forward and we're going to get to something really strange, a rock, a really big rock that gets struck, and the rock gushes out water.

And we're going to learn that Scripture says in the New Testament that that rock is Jesus, which is sitting there going, huh? And we'll pick up on one of the motifs because you can talk about how Christ is the rock of stumbling and, you know, the stone that makes men stumble.

You can talk about it in that sense. We're going to focus in on the living water today, at least that motif in Scripture. And we're also going to then see Moses visibly turn himself into a cross and win a battle.

And then we're going to, in Exodus 18, look at a very interesting passage that I think in type and shadow points us to the pastoral office, but I'll explain it as we go along. So we're in Exodus 16, verse 22, a little bit of review.

On the sixth day, children of Israel gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. It makes you wonder, you know, how big is an omer compared to, like, you know, those plastic containers we buy at the supermarket, you know?

Yeah, right, exactly. How many pieces, how many Chinese food boxes is that? I don't, I'm not, two quarts. So an omer is two quarts. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, this is what the Lord has commanded.

Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest. We talked about this last week. A holy Sabbath to the Lord. And you remember, the Sabbath is not a commandment to worship on a certain day. The Sabbath is a commandment to do nothing.

You do nothing. You go nowhere, you do no thing. You just veg. It is some good couch time. That's the idea. Tomorrow's a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake. Boil what you will boil.

And all that is left over lay aside to be kept until the morning. So they laid it aside till morning as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.

Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather, but on the seventh, which is a Sabbath, there will be none. On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.

There's a shock. You ever notice that that's how we are as human beings? And it starts like immediately. Have you ever noticed that our kids, when they come out, it's never, go clean your room. Yes, mom, I'll be happy to go do that.

Let me get on that right away. And then they're off cleaning their room.

Or it's bedtime.

Okay, let's stop. What we're doing. Quick, hop in bed. Let's say our prayers and go to sleep.

No, it's.

And you'd give them a command, right? Something to do. And then it's like they wander off and do their own thing. And you sit in there going, didn't I tell you to clean your room?

Oh, I forgot.

I don't know how parents survive parenting. We just, it makes us crazy.

Just saying. I have a twitch.

So on the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather. They found none. The Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? The Lord has given you, given the Sabbath.

Notice the Sabbath is gift. Therefore on the sixth day, he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.

Now the house of Israel called its name, Mahna. We all know what that means now, right? What is it? That's what they named it. What is it? It was like coriander seed, white. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

Moses said, this is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.

This was ultimately put into the Ark of the Covenant. And now the Ark is gone. And Moses said to Aaron, take a jar, put an omer of manna in it, place it before Yahweh to be kept throughout your generations as the Lord commanded Moses.

So Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. The people of Israel ate the manna for 40 years till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

And omer is a 10th part of an ephah. That is very helpful information right there.

Yeah.

We're having problems with the metric system here in the United States. Forget this omer system. But I mean, we continue. So all the congregation of the people of Israel, they moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the commandment of Yahweh.

They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and they said, give us water to drink. Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me?

Why do you test the Lord? And when I would read these stories to our kids growing up at the dinner table, Barbara would always go, oh, poor Moses. Poor Moses. Tough job. So the people thirsted there for water and the people grumbled against Moses and said, why did you bring us out of Egypt?

To kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, what shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go.

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock and water shall come out of it and the people will drink. Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel and he called the name of the place Massah.

I think that's grumbling. Yeah, or testing or quarreling. Okay, and Meribah. That's gonna be your quarreling. Because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying, is the Lord not among us?

So interesting story there. And that's kind of that piece of it from Exodus. They're thirsty, they're wandering and there's the rock at Horeb and God says, take your staff and strike it and water will come out of it.

Now, let's take a look at the rock itself. I think this will help us visually. Now, here, this is our Mediterranean Sea. Israel is over here, Cyprus is there, so the Nile Delta is here and this is the Nile itself.

Here's the Red Sea and the crossing of the Red Sea, we've noted, takes place down here at the Gulf of Aqaba. Zoom in just a smidge so you can kind of see what's going on here. So here's where they cross the Red Sea.

They come down this way, end up, here's the Oasis at Elim over here. And where we're going, they're gonna come up inland just a bit, probably to this point and then come on up this way. They're heading over to Sinai.

But the place that we're gonna look at, let me pull it up this way so that it'll zoom in on its own. I want the split rock at Horeb. We zoom in, now we're going into Saudi Arabia.

Wee!

All right, so here's where we're at. It's a little tough to see, but this is the rock itself and that's the shadow that it's casting. That's a very large monolith. And the thing is probably a good four or five stories high.

And let me get a photograph of it so you can see it. This doesn't give a scale. Let me see if I can zoom in just a smidge on that. There it is, itself. A human being, literally, if you were standing right here, a tall human being would come up to about right here.

So this is the rock itself. And the photographs that I've seen from people who've actually gone to visit the site show that there's a huge amount of water erosion down in this part of it. So this is the rock.

It gets struck, it splits in half, and then out comes water gushing from that. So that's the split rock at Horeb. And let's go back to Google Earth. And I want to back out just a little bit from this region so you can kind of see how this plays out.

You'll notice that it's on a little bit of a ridge. You know, there's like a little hump in here. Let me see if I can get there. Yeah, you can see the human being. There's a human being right there. Kind of get the scale.

This thing is ginormous. And let's see if I can get a pull-away picture so we can get a little farther back. Oh, that's the other side of it. Hold on. There, you can kind of see how it's up on a hill right there.

That's the monolith itself sticking straight up right there. And so the idea then is Moses takes a staff, he strikes it, and out comes water. And the water comes out so much, let me back this up, that this whole area, so here's where the split rock is right here.

This whole area right here, around here, and up to here, this all becomes literally a lake. This is a dry lake bed at this point. So the water's coming out so profusely that it fills up this basin in there.

And the children of Israel, who number almost a million at this point, are able to go and get their water. It's not a small trickle. It's a gusher that's coming out. And so I think that's rather fascinating.

But now the question is, what does it all mean? Let's go back to one of our governing texts. And our governing text is going to be 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 1 Corinthians 10. And note again how it points to the type and shadow and the fulfillment in Christ.

Here's what he says in verse one. I don't want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed to the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

So what do we do with this?

There's Jesus in rock form, and He's struck, and out comes water. Well, let's go with something a little bit obvious, and then we'll pick up some of the theology along the way. In the Gospel of John chapter 19, we have the account of Jesus' crucifixion.

And John is the only one who records this little bit of data. And let me, it's near the end here. Let me pick up the story at verse 23. John 19, 23. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments, divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also His tunic.

But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill what the Scripture says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, woman, behold your son.

Then He said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her as His, took her to His own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the Scripture, I thirst.

A jar of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch, held it to His mouth. Then Jesus had received the sour wine. He said, it is finished. He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

Since it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other two who had been crucified. And the reason for this is that men die via crucifixion by asphyxiation. In order, the way it works is the way you're pinned and impaled against the cross, the way your diaphragm works, you literally can't breathe unless you push up.

So if you're hanging down, you can't breathe. To breathe, you have to push up to take a breath. Down, now I can't breathe, like this. So a fellow who had no ability to use his legs couldn't continue on the cross because he would literally suffocate, and that's the idea.

So that's why they broke their legs. Now Jesus, because He's our Passover Lamb, remember, a Passover Lamb cannot have any of its bones broken. So Jesus doesn't have any of His bones broken. Here's what it says, so the other had been crucified with Him, but when they had come to Jesus, they saw that He was already dead, and they did not break His legs.

One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness, this testimony is true, and He knows that He's telling the truth that you may believe.

So one way we can look at, and I think this is a fine motif, we can look at the rock at Horeb being struck by Moses' staff as prefiguring Christ's death and Him being speared by the Roman spears. Now, a little bit of a side note, I've done a lot of research on fascism, and this is kind of the focus of my doctoral studies, and a little bit of a weird thing, fascists were really into the occult.

The Nazis were really big into witchcraft and the occult and all kinds of crazy things like that. They believed in what was called the legend of the spear of destiny. Have any of you ever heard of this?

You have heard about the legend of the spear of destiny. So here's how the legend goes. So there's the spear, it pierces Christ while He's on the cross, and the way the occult legend goes is that Christ hadn't fully died yet, and that that spear was the thing responsible for killing the Son of God.

And it becomes the ultimate occultic thing to possess in all of the earth. Hitler believed in this thing, and the head of the SS actually had a replica of the spear of destiny on his desk, and a vial of his blood, but that's kind of disgusting, but that's a whole other story.

But they actually believed in this spear of destiny that somehow it's been passed down through the generations as some kind of an occult satanic symbol. And the way the legend goes, and this is really funny, in my research on this kind of occultic side of fascism, I was actually contacted by and spoke with a gentleman who claims that his grandfather was part of a special ops team in World War II to capture the spear of destiny from Hitler.

He had nothing to back this up, I thought it was quite the fascinating story. And he claims that the spear of destiny is real, that he's seen it with his own eyes, and that there is a very nefarious group of people who have possession of it, and their goal, no joke, is to bring about the ultimate fuhrer of the world to create this one world fascistic government, and then his coronation service would include the slaughtering of a pig via the spear of destiny on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in order to desecrate the thing altogether.

Oh yeah, this is pagan stuff. Yeah, so now he was not able to provide a shred of evidence to support any of the things that he said. This might sound like a conspiracy theory to some of you. Yeah, but I bring that all up for this reason, and that is that, believe me when I tell you, the devil pays attention to the details of these stories, and he always comes up with his own weird narrative.

And there are people who knowingly, willingly want to participate in that kind of occultic story. Now, whether this is real or not, we do know that Hitler did believe in the spear of destiny, that the head of the SS did believe in the spear of destiny.

This is most certainly true. Oh, and the other part of it is because this occultic symbol was the thing that killed Christ, at least the way their lore goes, whoever possesses the spear of destiny is undefeatable on the battlefield.

And so part of the lore of the spear of destiny actually makes its way into the movie, The Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the sense, they change the object from the spear of destiny to the actual Ark of the Covenant itself.

You know, whoever possesses this thing cannot be defeated on the battlefield. That was the idea, and that was the underlying concept of why this guy, when he talked to me, he said that the US had to get a hold of the spear of destiny because Hitler was undefeatable until that moment.

I crossed my eyes in case you didn't see that.

But they were wrong, because Scripture says he was already dead, then they pierced him.

Yes, that's correct. So already the whole thing just comes crashing down because they claim that that's the thing that killed Christ, and he had said, he said, it is finished, and he gave up his spirit.

And the fact, now this is the interesting thing, the fact that by the time his side is pierced, that his blood and stuff like that had split into water and blood, shows that he's been dead for a while.

So your blood doesn't behave in this manner. So it's beginning to separate and things like that. No, they don't. They do have blood in them, but they don't bleed. So what the soldier ended up doing was piercing the heart sac, the pericardium, around the outside, and that's where the blood and water came from.

All right, a little more detail than I intended, but you kind of get the idea. Fasten, you get these little nerdy things along the way. My apologies. But you get the idea. So the striking of the rock in some way, in typology, points then to Christ being pierced, being struck.

Now here's the question I have for you. Do you all remember why Moses doesn't end up being allowed into the promised land? He struck it twice. He struck it twice. You see, he was told to go the second time and talk to the rock, speak to the rock.

And what did he do? He struck it a second time. Jesus can't be crucified twice.

Now you see, you're starting to get it, right?

Huh?

Well, listen, if you're dealing with a million grumblers for 40 years in the middle of the wilderness and all you had to eat was manna, you'd probably screw up too. No, he really messed up on that. And I think it works out quite fine because the law doesn't bring us into the promised land, it's the gospel.

So Moses can't bring us across the Jordan, only Jesus can. And it just so happens the guy who brought the children of Israel into the promised land was named Joshua, which is Jesus' name in Hebrew. All this kind of stuff, that can't be coincidence because it's not coincidence.

That's the idea. Now, there's more to it than just the picture because here we do see a picture that's pointing to Christ because Christ is the rock. There's more to it than that because what comes out of the rock is water to feed the thirsty.

And so that's kind of the other piece of all of this. If you'll turn with me to John chapter four, John chapter four, we're gonna read this story in its entirety, although we're going to get the piece of it that I wanna talk about in relation to the split rock at Horeb very early in the story.

I just don't like telling half of the story. It's like telling part of a joke and never getting to the punchline. I like telling all, when you get to tell a joke, you tell the whole thing. So here's what it says.

Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples.

Than John.

That's John the Baptist. Although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples. He left Judea and departed again for Galilee. He had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph.

Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. Now to kind of help us out here.

First of all,.

Jews and Samaritans don't have relations with each other. They are not on talking terms. And if a Jew had to travel from Jerusalem up to the northern part of Israel to Galilee, they would find a way to go around Samaria rather than go through it.

And if you remember, after Solomon was king, his son, Rehoboam became the king in Israel and his foolishness led to the ripping apart of Israel. It split into two pieces, the northern and the southern kingdom.

The northern kingdom had 10 tribes. And the Levites ended up leaving there and coming down and staying with Judah and Benjamin down in the lower, in Israel. So actually Judah and Israel at the top. And they, the northern kingdom, immediately starts going into idolatry.

Like hardcore, crazy idolatry. And God sends prophets to warn them to turn and they don't turn. And then he ends up literally like wiping them off the face of the earth. The remnant of Jews that stayed in the northern kingdom, which is where Samaria is, they ended up interbreeding with pagans and just became kind of this weird half-Jewish, half-pagan people.

And their religion kind of reflected that too. They no longer worshiped in Jerusalem. They had their own place of worship. And it was just a mess.

Just a mess.

And so by the time Jesus gets around, they're not talking with each other. And if you really want to insult somebody who's Jewish, you call him a Samaritan. That's like the ultimate insult. So here's Jesus.

He's heading to Galilee. And it said he had to pass through Samaria. And anybody who knows first century Judea at this time is going, whoa, this is gonna be trouble. So he comes to Sychar. And if you remember when Jacob is dying, he gives his son Joseph this well.

This was part of his inheritance. And so Jacob's well, it's in this area. And it's the sixth hour, which is 12 noon. Time begins at six in the morning. First hour's at six. Sixth hour's at noon. You kind of get the idea.

Third hour's at nine. Kind of work it out. So it's literally the heat of the day.

The heat of the day.

And this is just really hot. This is not the time when people go to gather water. So, and which is important in kind of understanding the story here. This woman is getting her water, because we're gonna talk about this woman here in a second.

This woman is getting her water at high noon in order to avoid social contact with the people of Sychar. And the reason why is because we're gonna find out that she is, how should we say it, sexually immoral.

She's a little loose. She's got some problems. So a woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for me a woman of Samaria for a drink?

She immediately says, whoa, this is different. Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. So Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

The woman said to him, sir, and you can almost hear her saying it this way, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? It's almost like an air quote, right?

Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. So you'll notice then that I'm convinced that the water coming from the rock at Horeb is not indicative of baptism.

Instead, it has to do pointing to the living water that Christ gives us. He is our living water. So the woman said to him, sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

She's thinking this is some kind of magical water which will mean she doesn't have to come out at noon anymore to gather her water. That's not what Jesus is talking about. So Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.

The woman answered him, I have no husband.

This is a half truth.

So Jesus said to her, well, you're right in saying I have no husband for you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Now this is gonna be instrumental in the rest of the story. So there's the picture. We have a hated Samaritan woman who's been married five times and the chances of all five of her previous husbands dying of natural causes, probably zero.

And she's currently shacking up. So what all of us would expect from God because of his law is that Jesus is going to turn on her, rebuke her, tell her to clean up her act and just come down, boom, hard on her.

But that's not what's gonna happen. This is a picture of Christ, our good shepherd, going and finding one of his lost sheep. This is a story of mercy and grace and how Jesus goes and literally finds the most lost sinners possible and draws them to himself and to the Father.

So this is a picture of his mercy. So she says, sir, I perceive you're a prophet. She continues, our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

Because there's a big dispute. Jews say you worship in Jerusalem. Samaritans say, no, here's fine. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews. So notice he corrects her, but quite a little firm, but not overcooked here. And he says, the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. You think truth is important when it comes to worshiping the Father?

Indeed.

People seem to think nowadays that all's really needed is some good spirited worship. And they don't honor or even think that the truth has any value. And they hear very little in their church services.

But the two always go together, spirit and in truth. And here, spirit is not referring to the zeal of the worship. It's talking to a worship that really is born and created by the spirit himself. So they worship God in spirit and truth.

So the woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Now watch this. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Now look in all the other Gospels and you will not find Jesus ever this clearly identifying who he is.

He is speaking straight up, telling the absolute truth about himself. And he reveals himself not to the Sadducees, not to the Pharisees, not to the Sanhedrin, not to Jews in a synagogue. He reveals who he is without any reservations to an adulterous, formal caboodling Samaritan woman.

It's huge.

It's absolutely huge. Now, let me give you a cross-reference that I think helps us here. If you would like to flip over to Matthew chapter 16, I wanna show you something about the Apostle Peter. We'll come back to John four, so keep a finger there.

Verse 13, Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi, this is important, geography helps us. Caesarea Philippi is north of Israel. We are now outside of the border of Israel in a town called Caesarea Philippi.

And the name Caesarea should tell you something. It's named after Caesar. And in Caesarea Philippi, it's fascinating, there was a particular spot there where there was a cliff face. And in the cliff face, they had built these little grottos where they put statues of all of the different gods and goddesses into, kind of a little mini version of the Pantheon.