Do Not Harden Your Hearts

Good morning. Very glad to be here with you. Appreciate the kind words from Brother Conley. And I can credit my pastor and Conley's grandfather in ACBC counseling, Tim Pasma, with having taught me most of what I think I know about what he said about me.

I'm going to read from Exodus 17 and Numbers 20 to set the table for you. You're free to turn there if you like. I'll be reading from the Berean Standard Bible. So if it reads differently from yours, that is why.

And then we'll be going back through these texts. So you're also free to just listen to me narrate the passage for you if you would like. I will ask if you're able to stand for the reading of God's word out of respect.

Israel Grumbles in the Wilderness

Exodus 17, 1 through 7. Then the whole congregation of Israel left the desert of sin, moving from place to place as Yahweh commanded. They camped at Rephidim. But there was no water for the people to drink.

So the people contended with Moses, give us water to drink. Why do you contend with me, Moses replied. Why do you test Yahweh? But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses.

Why have you brought us out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst? Then Moses cried out to Yahweh, what should I do with these people a little more? And they will stone me. And Yahweh said to Moses, walk on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you.

Take along in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.

So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Amasa and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested Yahweh, saying, is Yahweh among us or not? Now Numbers chapter 20, we have a similar passage starting in verse 1.

In the first month, the whole congregation of Israel entered the wilderness of Zin and stayed in Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered against Moses and Aaron.

The people quarreled with Moses and said, if only we had perished with our brothers before Yahweh. Why have you brought Yahweh's assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you led us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place?

Is it not a place of grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates? Or it is not a place of grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink. Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting.

They fell face down, and the glory of Yahweh appeared to them, and Yahweh said to Moses, take the staff and assemble the congregation. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will pour out its water.

You will bring out water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock. So Moses took the staff from Yahweh's presence, just as he had been commanded. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, listen now, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?

Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff, so that a great amount of water gushed out, and the congregation and their livestock were able to drink. But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not trust me to show my holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.

These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with Yahweh, and he showed his holiness among them. This is the word of the Lord, amen. You may be seated. I will remind you of what you already know, and that is that in 1 Corinthians 10, verse six, Paul writes, these things took place as examples to keep us from craving evil things as they did, and in verse 11, now these things happened to them as examples, and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

So as we explore these two passages, and I try to explain to you a fraction of what's going on in these passages, and what God has to say to us, I want you to keep in mind that this is not just a story about some ancient people.

It's not just a Bible story that you can memorize so you can get facts straight. These things were written for our instruction, and I am modestly overwhelmed by how deep scripture actually is, and to try to narrow down what I want to tell you about these passages to a short time is impossible, and so we will trust that the Spirit of God will use the things that I have come up with to share from my heart in these passages to work in your lives, and I will qualify all that by saying that Pastor Owens has not given me any personal information about anyone here, so if I say something that strikes you right to the heart, credit the Holy Spirit with that, and take it seriously.

Israel’s Grumbling Despite God’s Deliverance

So back in Exodus chapter 17, I'm gonna set the table here. Moses has led the people of Israel out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage they were in, and one of the very first things that happens if you turn back to Exodus chapter 14, verse 26, when they are before the water, well, verse 21.

They're before the water, and in verse 21, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night, Yahweh drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with walls of water on their right and on their left.

And then the Egyptians chased after them, and we see in verse 26, Yahweh said to Moses, "'Stretch out your hand over the sea "'so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians "'and their chariots and horsemen.'.

So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak, the sea returned to its normal state. As the Egyptians were retreating, Yahweh swept them into the sea. The waters flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen, the entire army of Pharaoh that had chased the Israelites into the sea, not one of them survived.

So you see the very tool that God used for the deliverance of his people was used for the judgment of those who rebelled against him and hated his people. Turning to Exodus 16, verse 24, I'm just showing you a couple of times right before the passage that we're going to talk about where God used water and did miraculous things in the sight of these very people.

Exodus 16, verses 24. So the people grumbled against Moses saying, "'What are we to drink?'. This is because the water was bitter. And Moses cried out to Yahweh, and Yahweh showed him a log, and when he cast it into the waters, they were sweetened.".

So you have people without water, they get a drink, it's bitter, and then they complain about it, and Yahweh is able to give them water. So now here we are in verse one of chapter 17, the people who had witnessed the, I want to say unbelievable, but it's unbelievable from a human perspective, the parting of a sea.

We believe it because it's in Scripture, and we know that with God, all things are possible. But this phenomenal, miraculous miracle of a sea parting, and then they taste the water that is bitter, see Moses throw in a log, and then the water is sweet.

Now here they are, not much time later, then the whole congregation of Israel left the desert of sin, moving from place to place as Yahweh commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

So now you have the people of God having been delivered from the bondage that they were in by the miraculous power of God, and their immediate response is that they contended with Moses. And they said, give us water to drink.

This is intentionally written in such a way so that you may see that they are once again grumbling. They're contending. It doesn't say they politely asked. It doesn't say they let their requests be made known to Moses, their representative.

And Moses says, why do you contend with me? And he says, why do you test Yahweh? So what we have is we have a group of people, the people of God. They don't have something that they think that they need, something they desperately want, something we could say they do in fact need.

They need water. It's not that God expects people to go without water, at least not for extended periods of time. It's a real need, but they have decided to contend against Moses. Moses is their leader, and in verse three, they grumble.

And they ask him, why have you brought us out of Egypt? Why did you deliver us from slavery to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst? So these are the people who were whining when they were in slavery.

When Pharaoh said, make more bricks, but don't give them straw to use, they complained about that. They didn't like being slaves. These were people who were subject to the ordinance of Pharaoh. At one point where they would have seen their children killed when the baby boy was born, when Pua and Shiphrah had to come in and save the children of Israel.

And their response to having been delivered miraculously, being granted water miraculously on a previous occasion is to complain and grumble. Now remember, these things are written as examples to us and for our instruction.

And so lest anyone in this room looks down upon the Israelites in such a way as to think that you are somehow more righteous than they are, it's time for you to look at your own heart and think of how often you have grumbled.

How often after a miraculous deliverance from the slavery that you were in to sin and to Satan himself, the prince of the power of the air, how often after you've been given new life in Christ, you have even if only in your heart grumbled against God about the circumstance that he has put you in.

Jesus said, in this world, you will have tribulation. It was predicted for you that you will have suffering, you will have affliction. I have a friend who says, God only promises us two things, eternal life and a cross to bear.

So for us to spend our time as Christians grumbling about the providence of God in our life, grumbling about the moments where we don't have our needs met, our wants met, we are imitating the Israelites.

We are imitating the very people that some of us may stand in judgment over as we read a passage like this. So Yahweh says to Moses in verse five, "'Walk on ahead of the people.'". So before that, Moses is afraid they're gonna stone him.

I mean, this is how bad it's gotten. He's delivered them from slavery and the way that they're speaking and contending with him, he's afraid they're gonna stone him. Pray for your pastor, pray for more elders to come.

But so Yahweh gives him an instruction. He says, take the elders of Israel with you and take the staff with you. The staff, of course, representing Moses' great power that he has, the miracles that he performed, not only in the presence of Pharaoh and Pharaoh's magicians but he had this staff that went with him.

And he says, take the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. And God says, behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. The people of God can't see God. Nobody can see God, no one has seen God.

And so when we get angry with God, which is what's going on here, we tend to lash out against God's representatives. When somebody that represents God cares about us enough to confront us about our sin, it hurts because we have pride.

Sometimes it's the pride of just not having realized it yourself. You actually agree with the person sometimes when they say, hey, I noticed you did this or you didn't do this. I think you broke the law of God.

And because of our pride, we're angry that we've now been identified as living outside of the will of God. And what happens? We lash out against the person that brought the message. We try to find a fault in their life because then if we can find out that that guy isn't doing everything according to God's law, how dare he confront me?

That's our tendency. In the Psalms, it says, let a righteous man strike me. It's like oil on my head. We should have the humility of somebody that wants to hear from God where we need to be corrected.

And we should be grateful to anyone who would even mistakenly attempt to correct us. Can you imagine in your own life? Imagine right now there's somebody that you know that I would dare say God has put it on your heart that you know there's someone you should probably talk to about something that concerns you and you're scared.

It's a scary thing. I'm not saying it's bad to be scared for this. It's a fearful thing to go to a brother or sister in Christ and say, with as much humility as you can muster, I think there's something in your life that needs to change.

And then imagine somebody coming to you with that level of bravery and courage and love for you that it took to finally confront you. I think the right way to receive that is to thank them for even being willing.

Even if you think, I don't know if I agree, we need to talk through this and figure out what the law of God says. Have the humility and the joy to be grateful that somebody in your church wants to function the way the Bible has commanded brothers and sisters to function with one another.

I think about, it's a little personal thing with this church. This is the church where Conley is the pastor. And Conley, of course, is confronting a gigantic cultural Christian sin that's going on. And we've never heard a biblical argument against it.

We only hear people accusing people of all sorts of other things. You tell somebody about the Dorian principle and their response is, oh, you just want pastor's children to starve. The only thing that's gonna make pastor's children starve is if they keep me in the house too long.

I eat all the food before Conley's kids can get to it sometimes. Pray for your pastors. Pray for your brothers and sisters and be open to correction. Be open to talking about these things. So Moses goes to the rock with the elders and he says that, Yahweh says, I will stand before you at the rock of Horeb.

Quarreling, Desire, and Trusting God’s Providence

So what's happening here is that the Israelites are putting Yahweh to the test. And Yahweh's putting them to the test as well. But there's a trial going on. God's faithfulness to take care of his people is being tested.

And Yahweh says he will stand there by the rock and when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink. And Moses did it in the sight of the elders of Israel at this point. So just, you don't have the same view as in Numbers 20 where it was the whole congregation and then Moses names it Massa, which means testing and Meribah, which means quarreling because the Israelites tested Yahweh and they quarreled.

When you hear the word quarrel, it should remind you of James chapter four. Why don't you turn there? I was gonna quote it, but I want you to see it. Hebrews, James. If you have a Bible that's got everything in the right order.

James chapter four, what causes the conflicts and quarrels among you? Interesting, James is not speaking to non-believers. James is talking to people in the church and he says, don't they come from the passions that were within you?

You crave what you do not have. You kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. So you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask. And you do not receive when you do ask because you have the wrong motives to squander it on your pleasures or your passions.

The Israelites are quarreling because they're not getting what they want. This is not a matter of needs not being meant. This isn't, oh, Hezekiah was so dehydrated and so he had a very good excuse for quarreling or a good excuse to grumble against Moses.

Keep in mind, as they grumble against Moses, God's representative on earth, they're actually grumbling against the God of Moses. What God is telling us and what James has told us is that there's no excuse to sin, no matter what you're not getting.

And if you're unsure about that, look at the life of Jesus Christ, who, while hanging on a cross, didn't complain, didn't grumble. In fact, he prayed to God, let this cup be delivered from me, but not my will, but yours be done.

Jesus utterly trusted in the sovereignty of God. Ultimately, you're whining, you're complaining, you're grumbling, you're quarreling, you're disputing. Whichever one of those words you'll receive today, some people wouldn't, you wouldn't wanna be called a whiner, but that's really what we're doing when we complain.

You're whining and complaining is shaking your fist at God. And if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ today, you're telling God, I don't agree with your providential care upon me at this moment.

God's sovereign, he's ordained every moment, every little bit of wind that's blowing now and is moving a leaf, he has utter control over. He has total control over when your next cup of water is gonna come.

He has control over whether you're hungry. And when you complain about your circumstance, you're letting God know, I would have done it differently from you. Which is in fact true, because none of us would do things like God.

The problem is, is you stand in judgment of God, because you want what you want when you want it, and God knows what you need and when you need it. We will talk more about how to overcome grumbling and whining toward the end of the sermon.

I don't wanna just leave you wallowing in your difficulty. So the Israelites are asking if God is among them, because they are focused on their circumstance. Turn to Numbers 20. On the first month, the whole congregation entered the wilderness of Zin.

Israel’s Second Water Crisis and Moses’ Failure

So this is almost at the end of the 40 years. Up to this point, this is actually really amazing to me, this rock, this rock that he broke. So this is how I always imagined the rock. There was like a big rock I imagined, and Moses smacked the rock.

And I just always imagined like a little trickle of water coming out. I don't know why. I don't know why I imagined it that way, because it doesn't make any sense for actually nourishing people. But in Psalm 78, 15 through 20, it says, he split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers. But they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High. They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

Still in Psalms 78, they spoke against God saying, can God really prepare a table in the wilderness? When he struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can he also give bread or supply his people with meat, they asked.

So you have people who at this point have had a rock that has given them water for decades. God has demonstrated his power to do this and it's miraculous. Torrents raged. Entire nation of people was able to drink from the water that came out of this rock.

It makes no sense from any kind of materialistic, humanistic standpoint. So Miriam, who was also a complainer, number 12, I think, died and was buried at the beginning of chapter 20 and then it goes into the same narrative.

Now there was no water for the congregation. So again, we have the congregation, there's no water at this point. And so what do they do? They gather against Moses and Aaron. As imperfect as these guys were, I kind of feel bad for them now.

They did not deserve the treatment that they were getting. Maybe Aaron deserved a little bit of earthly consequence for some of his foolishness. Moses described himself and through the Holy Spirit of God as the meekest man on the face of the earth.

And now they're grumbling against him again. The people quarreled, it says in verse three with Moses and said, if only, listen to the foolishness, if only we had perished with our brothers before Yahweh.

Basically, we'd be better off dead right now. That's how bad it is. It's not stated here, but I'm gonna say these people evidently, I believe, had their eyesight. They could hear, they could speak, they could walk.

Their sandals hadn't worn out. They were breathing and they had enough sense to know they were thirsty. These people were pretty well off from a blessing standpoint when you consider what we all deserve as sinners.

And their response to getting a little thirsty is the same response that we see in our own lives when we're not getting what we want. We'd be better off dead, better off somewhere else. I'd be better off being a slave to Satan.

At least then I had lots of money, lots of fun. You know, some Christians may even eat better while they're still sinners. And then they become saints and life isn't as good. Think of the Apostle Paul.

There's been many like Paul. Asaph in Psalm 73 was jealous of the wicked because the wicked were fat. We think of being fat as a bad thing and you probably shouldn't be fat and you should lose weight if you are.

The whole point though in the passage is that they had the abundance to be fat. That was the blessing of God and the wicked's life. And we as the people of God need to remember that we have an abundance of blessings that we don't deserve.

The fact that right now you're not in hell already is a blessing. If you're not yet saved, if you haven't bowed the knee to Jesus Christ yet, you haven't come forward to the waters of baptism, or at least, depending on when that's able to happen at your church, if you haven't at least expressed that you call on the name of the Lord for salvation, you're already living under an amazing amount of forbearance to complain about anything is to be complaining against God's wisdom and His sovereignty.

So they say, why have you led us up out of Egypt? We're still in verse four of Numbers 20, verse five. Why have you led us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? If this was a movie, this would be a comical part where you'd say, who is this fool?

Because what you have to try to imagine in your mind is that the extent of their thirst compares nothing to the difficulty they faced in their affliction as slaves. And I want you to think about your slavery to sin.

I want you to think about your helplessness. Some of you may not remember so well. Some of you need to have your memory jogged about it. But I can remember being a sinner and having no choice. I remember being led so strongly by my passions, so strongly by my wants, my perceived needs, that everything I did was dictated by, at that time, my master Satan.

I didn't know it. The Bible describes people as rational creatures and there are people who function so much as unreasoning animals that we only follow our lusts and instincts and we're slaves to that.

And it's horrible. It's a horrible way to live. So as a people of God, to ever be jealous of that life you once had is terrible sin. So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

So they go to inquire of God and it says they fell face down. They're not the ones arguing. They're not the ones quarreling. But they're the ones going to God, being intercessors for people and they're going face down.

The glory of Yahweh appeared to them. We read past these statements kind of quickly sometimes. This is an amazing thing. The glory of Yahweh appeared to them. And now Yahweh's speaking to Moses face to face as we'll once get to see Jesus.

And he says take the staff. Again, take the staff. This is the example of the power of God in Moses' hand. Moses is God's representative on earth. He takes the staff. It says assemble the congregation.

Last time it was assemble the elders. So now God's on trial again. God's the one that's going to stand there and he's the one that's going to be struck ultimately so that rivers of water can flow so that the people can drink.

And now the whole congregation needs to see it. He says you and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch. Interesting. The first time he said to strike the rock, he would be standing upon it.

This time he says speak to the rock. He says it'll pour out its water. You will bring water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock. So now Moses gets explicit instructions of what to do.

He is told exactly what to do. So Moses took the staff from Yahweh's presence just as he had been commanded. He's a faithful man. He believes something's going to happen. And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly in front of the rock.

When you read commentators, they all make a big deal about how, like at this point, Moses is acting very faithfully. He's doing something faithful. He's believing God. And now you see the meekest man on earth lose patience.

Commented on in Psalm 106, 33, and 34, if you want to read about that later. And Moses says to these people, he says, listen now, you rebels. Must we bring you water out of this rock? Moses, in his frustration as the leader, is frustrated now.

And he speaks harshly, rashly, angrily. He doesn't show the holiness of Yahweh or the glory of Yahweh to people. He's angry with the people. I think he's tired of it. And this isn't just Moses getting a little preachy with them, which I, of course, think is okay because I'm going to do that with you.

This is Moses being actually angry and frustrated. He's tired of these people. He's been leading them. They've been watching the miracles of God. He's had to deal with going to God and interceding on their behalf time and time again.

And he just did it again. He watched the 21 ,000 get swallowed up in the earth for whining one day. And now they're doing it again. And he loses his character in Moses' sins. And I'm going to say, try to live a life so that your leaders, whether it's pastors or whoever's leading you in any endeavor, try to live a life so that you don't tempt them to this level of frustration.

The book of Hebrews tells you to obey your leaders and submit to them so that they may do their job with joy and not grief. Hebrews 13, around verse 17, you have a responsibility to take care of your leaders.

Leaders have a responsibility to be holy men of God. And regardless of the difficulty that's caused by the sheep, they have to control themselves. And that means all the way into your heart. But so Moses raised his hand, verse 11, and here's the key moment for me.

He struck the rock twice with his staff so that a great amount of water gushed out and the congregation and their livestock were able to drink. And so what happened? God tells Moses, speak to the rock.

Christ the Rock and the Sufficiency of His Sacrifice

And I'm going to tell you the rock is Christ. I'm going to tell you 1 Corinthians 10 validates that for me. And God tells him, speak to the rock this time because the rock only had to be struck one time, the first time.

And after that, we just go to God and we speak to him. Jesus made one sacrifice for his people. I think this is all pictured here. He made one sacrifice for his people. He was struck. He was smitten by God, afflicted.

He was counted as unrighteous for the sake that transgressors would be counted as righteous. And after that one time that Jesus had to die for his people, he doesn't need to be struck again. He doesn't need to be re-sacrificed every week in a Catholic mass.

And he doesn't need your disciplinary efforts and your forms of asceticism and self-discipline and flagellation that you do to try to add to his sacrifice either. What Jesus did was sufficient so that your sins could be forgiven, so that you could enter the throne room of God and boldly go to God with access to the Father through Jesus Christ.

And what he commands of you is to speak to him now. You do not have because you do not ask. I'll confess it. I've had these moments. I sin or I discover a sin that's in my heart that I didn't know was there.

God brings it to my mind. And my first response sometimes is I need to do something about it. I need to do something about it. Me, I'm gonna overcome it. I'm gonna quit doing this. We have such a low view of God.

Jesus paid for your sins. And he's the one that says, if you confess your sins, if you agree with me about your sins and come to me for forgiveness, he's faithful. He'll always do it. And he's just to forgive you of your sins.

That means that your sins have already been paid for. If it's just for God to forgive you of your sin, it's because to punish you for it would be unjust because Jesus once for all sacrifice was sufficient for every one of your sins.

It's hard to imagine because I have no idea what I'm gonna sin tomorrow. So for us, it's like, wow, this is a new one. It's almost like a surprise sometimes. I hope you're surprised by your sin. And if you're so besetting in your sin that it's just normal to you, that's not a good thing.

But once in a while, something new happens where I said, wow, I didn't realize the depth of my depravity. I didn't know that was still there. I didn't even know that one was there at all. There were so many layers of other sins I had to go through first.

And in our self-righteousness, we think we're gonna atone for our sins before we go to God. And then we'll go to God and we'll be in his good grace and we'll be in fellowship with him because sometimes we feel so far from God when we sin.

But it's at that exact moment when you're suffering the difficulty and affliction of your sin that going to God before you try to fix it yourself, that you are demonstrating your faith that his son's death was sufficient for you and that he really does love you and he will never cast you out.

So go to God while you are still dealing with your sin. Confess to him you can't stop it. Confess the truth that you even kind of like it a little bit sometimes. It's a horrible thing to say when you think about it out loud.

We don't want to think it, but what God wants is for you to agree with him about your sin and to be honest with him. And I think it's possible to both loathe your sin and realize there's a part of you that must be clinging to it still that is true.

And God can cleanse you of all unrighteousness. So Moses strikes the rock twice. Sometimes I imagine it this way. It doesn't say it in the text. But when you read it, I imagine he just hits it twice. That's how it reads.