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.

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.

And there was a place there called the Gates of Hades, which was believed to be the portal

into the netherworld itself there in Caesarea Philippi.

So Jesus literally takes his disciples, they're now outside of Israel.

They're not in it, it's important.

And he says to them, who do people say the Son of Man is?

Who?

They said, well, some say John the Baptist.

John the Baptist is dead by this time.

Others say Elijah.

Others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

He said to them, all right, who do you say that I am?

And you can almost hear Jesus saying the words and them just kind of sitting out in outer space for a second.

And there's Peter, man.

He, for whatever reason, Peter seems to be the first to either stick his foot in his mouth or do something

brilliant.

And you never know which it's gonna be.

So he hangs it out there and he says, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And the guys are all looking at him.

Did he get it right?

Did he get it right?

And Jesus says, blessed are you, Simon, bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

but my Father who is in heaven.

I tell you, you are Peter.

And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell or Hades shall not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

This is talking about the office of the keys itself, which ultimately are not given to Peter, but actually given to the whole church in

the gospel of John chapter 20.

But there it is.

And Jesus says, flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, but who?

The Father.

The Father has revealed this to you.

And come now back and take a look at John four.

In John four, we have Jesus saying this, verse 23.

The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the

Father is seeking such people to worship Him.

So here we have this woman and what's going on

on a spiritual level?

The Father is seeking her and opening her eyes to who Jesus is.

And she becomes a believer.

And she confesses Christ as Messiah and

Savior just like Peter does by a miraculous working of God.

And so we can see now in the story that God is busy, busy

going and gathering and finding His lost sheep, regardless of whether they are Jew or

Gentile, Samaritan, Scythian, slave or free.

And also, you'll notice that it says in Scripture, Christ died for the ungodly.

This woman qualifies.

So does Peter.

So do I.

So do you.

So the woman said to Him, I know the Messiah is coming who is called the Christ.

When He comes, He will tell us all things.

Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He.

Just then the disciples came back.

They marveled that He was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her?

So the woman left her water jar, just leaves a water jar there, and she went away into the town and said to the people,

come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?

And they went out of the town and were coming to Him.

Now, a little bit of a note here.

Is this woman engaging in evangelism?

She is.

She's become an evangelist.

She believes in Christ.

And so what does she do?

She goes and tells everyone about Him.

And you'll notice, she's not rebuked.

Well, well, well, we don't let women do that.

No.

No.

Women are permitted to go and tell the world about Jesus.

Women are not permitted to hold the pastoral office and to engage in word and

sacrament ministry in the church.

You see the difference?

There's a big difference.

This is why we do not ordain women, nor do we condemn them when they go and tell the world about

Christ.

They are free to do so.

In fact, I would even say admonished to do so.

So notice, she's engaging now in peacemaking activity.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Yes, Janet.

Sychar.

Samarian people.

Yeah. Yeah.

She's in Sychar.

So meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, saying, Rabbi, eat.

He said to them, well, I have food to eat that you don't know about.

So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat?

Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.

Do not say there are yet four months, then come the harvest.

Look.

Now watch what He says.

Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields are white for harvest.

He's talking about, look at the Samaritans.

Look at this whole territory, this city of people who are despised by

the Jews, whom we have no dealings with.

He says, lift up your eyes and look.

The fields are white for the harvest.

Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper

may rejoice together.

For here, the saying holds true.

One sows and other reaps.

I sent you to reap what you did not labor for.

Others have labored and you have entered into their labor.

Meanwhile, the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's

testimony.

He told me all that I ever did.

So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them.

And Jesus stayed there for two days.

And many more believed because of His Word.

And they said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves

and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.

Huh.

Sounds like a bunch of Christians.

In Samaria.

Believing in Jesus.

They're all a bunch of idolatrous fornal caboodle -ators.

Yeah, and this shows you the mercy and the grace and the kindness of God in seeking and saving

the lost.

Great story.

So all of that was to pick up on the second half of the theology.

The second half of the theology having to do with the living water.

And there's another cross -reference, and we'll look at this in a second.

So Jesus says 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 there's that rock, struck, gushing water.

Picture of His crucifixion and a picture of that spring of water welling up to eternal

life.

The one who comes to Jesus and drinks.

Now John 7, verses 37 and 38 also give us a little bit of that picture of the

theology.

Let me read the verses.

37 and 38, on the last day of the feast, this is the Feast of the Passover, the great day, Jesus

stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers

of living water.

So this story in Exodus 17

points us right back to Christ.

Christ the crucified and Christ who gives us the living water.

I think that's a great way of understanding what's going on in this text because, well, I mean,

after all, 1 Corinthians 10 says the rock is Christ

and who am I to quibble with the Holy Spirit?

Verse 8, Exodus 17.

We talked about this ever so briefly a couple weeks ago.

Here's the story itself.

Watch what happens, it's very fun.

Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.

So Moses said to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek.

Tomorrow I will stand up on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.

So Joshua did as Moses told him.

He fought with Amalek while Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed and whenever his hand lowered, Amalek

prevailed.

But Moses' hands, plural, grew weary so they took a stone and put it under him and he

sat on it.

And while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, the other on the other, so his

hands were steady until the going down of the sun and Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his

people with the sword.

So there's a battle going on and as long as Moses looks like a crucified one,

they're winning.

His hands get droopy.

He's sitting on a stone too.

No, no, in this case it doesn't say that, but

he's sitting on the stone and he's doing this.

As long as he looks like he's crucified, they win.

Hands go down, we're losing.

Get those hands back up.

And so there you got it.

I mean, another example of the cross shows right up here in the story of Exodus.

And none of this is by accident.

This is all taking place exactly how God wanted it to take place.

Exodus 17, 14, Yahweh said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a book recited in the years

of Joshua that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

And you're gonna see here now the beginning of the command to begin to write the scriptures.

It's starting to show up now.

Moses built an altar and called the name of it, Yahweh is my banner, saying,

a hand upon the throne of the Lord.

The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

Now, the last thing we'll cover today is Exodus 18.

It'll go pretty quick, but let's review where we are.

Set free from slavery through the Passover lamb, baptized in the Red Sea,

in the wilderness, heading to the promised land, being fed bread from heaven,

having the Sabbath to rest, and being watered from a rock

who happens to be Jesus.

So this is a picture of the church.

You have been set free from slavery to the devil through your Passover lamb, Jesus,

washed in the Red Sea when you were baptized.

You are now in your wilderness wanderings, heading to the promised land, which is the new earth.

You are fed by Christ.

You are in his Sabbath rest.

He's your rock.

He's giving you living water.

Now the question is, as church, how do we organize ourselves?

There's a lot of us.

So you're gonna see that God, through Moses' father -in -law,

gives overseers for the children of Israel.

And this, in type and shadow, then points to the pastoral office where God gives his church overseers

to care for his wilderness -wandering Christians as they're heading to the new earth.

I'll explain.

So here's our story.

I'm very thankful for Moses that he had a reasonable father -in -law.

Sometimes that doesn't always work out, but in his case it did.

Here's what it says.

Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses' father -in -law, heard of all that God had done for Moses

and for Israel, his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

Now Jethro, Moses' father -in -law, had taken Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent

her home along with her two sons.

The name of the one was Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

The name of the other, Eleazar, for he said, the God of my father was my help and delivered me

from the sword of Pharaoh.

And Jethro, Moses' father -in -law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he

was encamped at the mountain of God.

And when he sent word to Moses, I, your father -in -law Jethro, am coming.

Who announces like that?

Yeah, if my father -in -law called me up and said, hey, I'm your father -in -law and I'm

coming to say.

Yeah, I know who you are, okay.

So Moses went out to meet his father -in -law, bowed down, kissed him, and they asked each other

of their welfare and went into the tent.

Moses told his father -in -law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh, to the Egyptians, for Israel's sake, all the

hardship that had come upon them in the way and how the Lord had delivered them.

And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel in that he had delivered them out of

the hand of the Egyptians.

Jethro said, blessed be the Lord who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh

and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.

Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods because in this affair, they dealt arrogantly with the people.

And Jethro, Moses' father -in -law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God.

Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father -in -law before God.

The next day, Moses sat to judge the people.

And the people stood around Moses from morning until evening.

Apparently he had office hours, and the office hours were the whole day.

So when Moses' father -in -law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, what is this that you're doing

for the people?

Why do you sit alone and all the people stand around you from morning until evening?

And Moses said to his father -in -law, because the people came to me to inquire of God.

And when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and His

laws.

Moses' father -in -law said to him, what you are doing is not good.

You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out for the thing is too heavy for you.

You are not able to do it alone.

Now obey my voice.

I will give you advice and God be with you.

You shall represent the people before God and bring their case to God.

And you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in

which they must walk and what they must do.

So you notice, Moses becomes a discipler.

A discipler of, well, the knowledge and the ways of God.

Moreover, look for able men.

Notice what it says there.

Look for able men from all of the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy,

hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, hundreds of

fifties and tens, and let them judge the people at all times.

Every great matter they shall bring to you, any small matter they shall decide for themselves, so

it'll be easier for you and they will bear the burden with you.

If you do this, God will direct you and you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their

place in peace.

So Moses listened to the voice of his father -in -law, did all that he said.

Moses chose able men out of Israel, made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands,

hundreds of fifties, of tens, and they judged the people at all times.

Any hard case they brought to Moses, any small matter they decided for themselves.

Then Moses let his father -in -law depart and he went away to his own country.

I wanna pull this up real quick.

So, Shaphat is a judge,

is a lawgiver, a governor, one who decides cases.

So, not influenced by bribes.

So somebody to kind of be an overseer over the people.

That's really the concept here.

I think here's our cross -reference.

Let's go to Titus chapter one.

Titus chapter one.

We'll start in verse five.

Paul is writing to Titus, who he has left in

Crete, and his job is to organize the church.

Gospel has gone out.

People have been brought to penitent faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, and they need to be cared for.

This is what it says.

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I

directed you.

If anyone is above reproach, husband of one wife, children or believers, not

open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination, for an overseer.

Notice how it's translated, an overseer.

As God's steward must be above reproach.

He must not be arrogant, quick -tempered, or a drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain.

Instead, he must be hospitable, a lover of the good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

Sounds like these able men who don't take a bribe.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give

instruction and sound doctrine, and to rebuke those who contradict it.

Interesting.

So here, the church and her wilderness wanderings, just

like the children of Israel, they had judges, we have overseers.

That's what a pastor is.

So my job, I'm one of these fellows who has been instructed

in the word of God, and have met the character qualities necessary for an

overseer, and my job is to, well, teach the trustworthy word as taught,

give instruction and sound doctrine, and here's the thorny part, because this is the non -Norwegian portion of it,

rebuke those who contradict it.

Now, note how Paul goes about instructing us how to do this, because it's so politically incorrect, it's

rather fascinating, and here's what he says.

The reason why you rebuke those who contradict false doctrine, for there are many who are

insubordinate.

That's right, people who teach false doctrine are insubordinate.

They are empty talkers.

That's right, because their words are empty words, and they are deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party,

and they must be silenced.

I want you to note that.

God wills that those who are teaching false doctrine, that they be silenced,

silenced through pastors.

Since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain, what they ought not to teach.

Now, one of the Cretans,.

A prophet of their own,.

Said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons, and you go, oh, he did not

just do that.

Yes, he did.

He called them names.

Can you believe that?

Totally politically incorrect.

You liar, evil beast, and lazy glutton.

This testimony is true, he says.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply so that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths, and the

commands of people who turn away from the truth.

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and the unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their

consciences are defiled.

They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their works.

They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

Is it popular to talk this way today?

No.

Yeah, I mean, everyone's big fear.

I'm gonna offend somebody.

Paul just kind of just hung it out there.

It's like he didn't care.

You're offended, so that's your problem, not mine.

Yeah, right.

Okay, so all of that, like I said.

So you notice then, Christ's church, this mass of people from every tribe,

every language, every nation, as they are in their wilderness wanderings heading to the new

earth, the real promised land.

God has placed over them pastors, overseers, delegated the task, and some of them are

taking care of hundreds or thousands or fifties or tens.

Doesn't matter, they all have the same task.

They all have the same responsibilities and the same qualifications.

They have to be able men of good character, not known for a bribe, not doing this out of seeking

selfish gain and things like that.

They must know what God's word is and what His statutes are so that they can help

oversee the flock of Christ.

Yes.

Who is?

Yes.

Okay, now you'll notice we haven't arrived at Mount Sinai yet.

We are almost there.

I mean, we're like in the neighborhood.

We're in the same zip code now as Mount Sinai, but we're not quite there.

Next week, we'll get into 19, and then 20 is the actual giving of the 10 commandments

and the revelation of what's going to become the Torah and the Mosaic covenant.

And so here we've got Moses's father -in -law

offering sacrifices as best as he understands how to without the Mosaic covenant

yet being revealed.

And you can already tell by the dialogue between Moses and God, that Moses is already starting to get some stuff

ahead of time, but it hasn't been disseminated to the wider public yet, and that's

coming.

Stay tuned.

Next week in Exodus, we get to Mount Sinai, and it's going to be a terrifying, bone rattling,

melt your heart kind of experience.

The giving of the law comes with a lot of thunderings and lightnings and people are freaked at

the experience, but we'll save that for next week.