Dr. Todd Smedley | Water from the Rock

Sunday Morning, May 24, 2026

Given by Todd Smedley | Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

Water from the Rock
Exodus 17:1-7

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It is a great joy to be with you this morning to worship together. I bring you greetings from the saints in Bethesda, Maryland – the sweet, sweet saints – as they pray for you as we worship this morning. And as we turn to God's Word, let me invite you to turn with me to Exodus chapter 17 this morning. We're going to look at verses 1-7. Encourage you not only to turn with me now, but to keep your Bibles open as we follow along. Exodus 17, verses 1-7. This is God's Word: 

“All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim. But there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up 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, and 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. Water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” 

Let's pray together. 

Gracious God of light and wisdom, as we come to your Word today, we pray for the light of your Spirit to illumine the truth of your Word today, not only to the informing of our minds, to the renewing of our minds, but to the shaping and renewing of our hearts. We ask, Father, that you would take this Word, sown in weakness, and raise it to everlasting power, that those here this morning who sense your distance, those who are far from you or do not know you, that you would open their hearts wide to the marvelous love that you've offered in Christ, and that those of us who do know you, you would root us deeper within Christ today. As we seek to find him in your Word today, Lord, give us the ability to do so, and in so showing us Christ in your Word, you would cause our hearts to burn within us with joy and praise to your name. For we ask this in Christ. Amen. 

Is the Lord among us or not? Now that is a loaded question, isn't it? It's how our text ends this morning. Is the Lord among us or not? Of course, the way that it's asked, the answer is obvious. He is not among us, according to the people of Israel at this point. Not only is this a question that ends our text this morning, but it might be a question that you've walked into this sanctuary this morning with. Is the Lord with me, or is he not? Because there's a lot of circumstances and situations in each of our lives, of course, if you've walked with the Lord for any amount of time, where you have sensed the Lord's distance. You have sensed a season of drought, of being parched in your soul, and you've been suspicious for long enough. You don't articulate it in church, of course, but you've been suspicious long enough to wonder, is he really with me? Is he for me? Because what I'm experiencing now is a spiritual drought. Sometimes we're in those positions and in those places because we've put ourselves there. And when we ask the question, “Where are you God? And why have you moved away from me?” the response back, if we were to listen carefully, would be, “Guess who moved?” You moved, because we've neglected the means of grace. We've neglected and forsaken the Lord's Day worship, or we've not engaged in the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and appreciated the wonders of the waters of baptism, or we have not drunk deeply recently of the Word of God on our own or been engaged in prayer or in loving fellowship with other brothers and sisters. Sometimes we have wandered into dry, dusty and weary places because we have brought ourselves there. 

There are other times, though, that God sovereignly allows us to end up in those places. In fact, he calls us to places of spiritual dehydration or spiritual testing. You know that the hand of the Lord deliberately sometimes leads us to those places to test us, to stretch us. He's done that already for Israel a number of times up to this point in Exodus. He has done things and put the people of Israel in places where they have known the testing of the Lord, and these are designed not to be places where God brings us to leave us there, that we might stay there, but so that we might – just as he says here – camp there for a season. Set up our tent for the moment, to lead us through it. And he puts us in these places not because he's a cruel or unkind father, or because he enjoys somehow that you don't sense his presence, or that somehow he takes delight in the fact that that you feel spiritually dry and parched. He brings us to those places so that our roots in Christ in particular might grow deeper, right? Just like a tree that is in a dry land would receive signals from the leaves that they are parched and send signals down to the roots to go deeper so that it might find water, so, too, the Lord does this for us, so that we might be there for a season. And that's what he's doing to the people of Israel here as he directly commands them, our text tells us, to this dry place called Rephidim. 

The Lord moved them from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord. The word for “commandment” there actually isn't commandment. It's the word “mouth.” And I don't know whether or not they actually heard, or perhaps Moses heard directly from the mouth of the Lord, but whatever we're to understand of that word, they were called by God directly to go to Rephidim. And on one of the rare occasions in the book of Exodus, the people of Israel do what the Lord said. Isn't it amazing? They go, and they go with Moses to Rephidim, a place that we're told is called a resting place. But they were soon to discover that although it was a resting place, it wasn't a refreshing place. It's like being on a long road trip with children. You get to the rest stop, and you find that all the vending machines are either empty or out of order. The water fountain doesn't work, and your kids are quarreling. This is no refreshing place, although it is a resting place. And so, these people, the people of Israel, although obedient in verse 1 by going to Rephidim by the mouth of the Lord calling them to go, now like us can flip the switch so easily from obedience in one moment, in one breath, to sin and rebellion in verse 2. And they quarreled with Moses. Isn't it shocking how we can go from moments of obedience, of spiritual refreshment, to moments and seasons of sin? It's shocking to us that the very thing, sometimes, we pray and ask the Lord would deliver us from, as soon as we say amen we find ourselves falling into again. Lord, have mercy on us, because this is us – Israel. Although often times it's easy to point the finger at Israel, it points the finger at us, too. 

Consider all the things that they've been through. I know you're a church that knows your Bibles well. You're steeped in faithful teaching and preaching of the Word. You know that they've already seen the Lord carry out 10 plagues. They've seen the Lord deliver them from Pharaoh and Egypt. They've seen the Lord divide the waters, the Red Sea, that they might go through, and then collapse the waters in judgment upon their enemies so that they might go free and worship the Lord. And in chapter 15, there's been joy and praise and worship and delight in God's presence. And then they come to the waters of Massah, and they find that it's toxic water, and the Lord changes the toxic water, the bitter water, into clean water. And then they're wondering where food is, as the Lord tests them again, and he gives them manna from heaven. And in addition to that, he gives them the protein of quail. And now today they come through all their deprivation, and yet God's provision, and they're still grumbling that there is no water. 

Now, the word for grumbling here is a strong word. It's not the kind of grumbling your children are doing in the car on a long road trip, asking whether or not we're there or how much longer till we get there. This is a word that communicates, in the original, an outright rebellion. This is escalated not only with the word grumbling, but more so, even more egregious, the word quarreling with them. That word kind of ups the ante. They're striving against the Lord, and Moses here on behalf of the Lord, with hostility, a sense of striving against God because he's at fault. Why would you lead us here to have us die of thirst and our children? Notice who they're complaining against. And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" as if Moses is somehow able to provide them water. As if, somehow, Moses knew that there was going to be no supply to slake their thirst. It's like a person who works at a particular place, and they don't make the rules. They don't supply the shelves, but they just ring you up at the counter, and you rail against them, and they say, "You need to talk to a higher authority here. You need to talk to my boss. I just work here. I don't make the rules. I can go get my boss if you'd like." You know, those kind of people that rail against folks, especially in airports when the weather's bad, and all the flights are canceled, and tempers are flaring, and people are raging and raising their voice, and the poor woman or man behind the counter is thinking, "You need to appeal to higher authority. I don't control the weather. I didn't cancel the flight. I'm just here trying to get you on another flight. And it's clear that you're upset. And it's clear that there's nothing I can do about it. And it's clear that you think you are a very important person that needs to get somewhere very important.” Reminds me of a story of my sister-in-law, who was in the airport at one point on such an occasion where many of the flights were cancelled, and people were upset, of course. And this one guy goes up to the counter of the woman behind the counter at the gate and begins to slam on the counter, and he says, "Do you know who I am? Don't you know who I am?" And after enough of this and people beginning to be embarrassed for him – he the only one who wasn't embarrassed – the woman cleverly picks up the microphone and clicks over the loudspeaker and says, "Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt, but does anyone know who this man is? Cuz apparently he's forgotten." It's like Israel here is saying to them, "Do you know who we are? We're God's people. Why would he bring us here?” And we might pick up the words from the Apostle Peter. If we were to hear God answer, he'd say, "Yeah, you were once a people. You were once not a people, but you're now my people. You were once a people who did not know mercy, but now you know mercy. And of all times and occasions when you needed mercy, it's today at Rephidim. Your grumbling and arrogance against me, I'm going to supply with water. 

I want to highlight the word “to test” here. Why do you test the Lord? Remember, the Lord is the one who does the testing. As we said, when there was no bread in chapter 16:4, we're told that God was testing the people, that their roots might go deeper. And he tests them here. But now the unthinkable happens. They flip the tables on the Lord, and they test the Lord according to Moses. The audacity and the arrogance here is chilling. It's, as it were, to put God on trial, to put him on the witness stand, to take him off the judge's seat, to put themselves on the judge's seat, and to put him on the witness stand. More is happening here than we might at first appreciate in the 21st century in America. God here is clearly being brought into a courtroom in a criminal case. And he's the guilty party, and they're the ones that are quarreling, contending, and testing the Lord. That's why he calls these places Massah and Meribah. These are legal terms. They're terms for quarreling. It's terms often used in a lawsuit, in bringing someone under prosecution. The covenant-making God with Israel – who were once not a people, who are now a people – [is] now being prosecuted by his people, who he has redeemed, who he called out from their enslavement in Egypt to go into the wilderness to worship him, are now prosecuting him. Why would God bring us out here to kill us? This isn't just a civil case. This is a criminal case. This is a capital offense. This is the essence of your sin and mine, isn't it? The tyranny of sin that so often we take too lightly. I know I do, and I'm sure when you're honest with yourself, you do as well. But our sin in the face of God, and in particular, our grumbling even in the place of God's provision, is treasonous. It's a high hand of tyrannical sin against the almighty God. This is the picture of what I do and you do, when I say yes to myself, when I know better than the Lord, when I wonder where he is and call him into question, and I subpoena him to my court, and he's the one who has to answer my questions – to call his wisdom, his timing, his goodness, his presence into question. 

So, they're here at Massah and Meribah – legal names of places, of proceedings, to take place here. Here's the subpoena to God. The first one is this. Here's the charge: give us water to drink, since it was you who led us here, oh Lord. The second charge: why did you bring us here to die? The third charge: is God among us or not? They are doubting and questioning God's provision, his protection, and his presence. His provision, though, has already been given by the manna and the quail and about to be by the water. His protection has already been proven in guiding them out of Egypt and through the waters of judgment in the Red Sea. And his presence has already been proven and confirmed by the pillar of fire and cloud in the wilderness. They're visible before them. Of course, God is with you. But they charge him of this capital offense. You brought us out here and our children to die of thirst. You brought us out here to kill us. And that's why they begin to look for rocks, for stones, to pick up to stone Moses, because you only stone someone when it's a capital offense. Picking up rocks to throw at God. C.S. Lewis, you might know, wrote a book called God in the Dock. And he says this, "The ancient man approached God as the accused person approaches his judge. But the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge, and God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge. If God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty, and disease, he's ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench, and God is in the dock.” This is what they're doing. Putting God on the witness chair, demanding that he justify himself. 

Now, let me say for a moment here, to people who've walked in today who do feel the distance of the Lord, if you're in a period of dryness spiritually, I want to say you're not alone. A lot of people walked in here this morning. It's not wrong to ask God where he's gone when your motivation is not to call him into question, but to genuinely want to know his intimacy again, to experience his presence afresh again. It's not wrong when our motivation is to draw near to him. It's wrong when our motivation is to put him on trial, to call into question his wisdom. “Lord, why are you so distant to me” isn't a wrong question when asked appropriately. Do you think he's up in heaven with his arms folded, thinking, "Well, I just wondered and waited for you to ask this question." No, of course, he's a kind father. He wants you to know his presence and his nearness. Think about a child – many of you who have had children, when they were toddlers go through periods of time where they struggle with separation anxiety from their parents. You can imagine a scenario where a toddler is in a grocery store and rounds the corner ahead of mom or dad and goes into the next aisle – literally just a few feet away – and panic strikes the child, and dad (the father) walks around the corner, and the child looks up – tears, screaming, flailing – “Why did you leave me? Why did you – where have you been?” And the father doesn't look down at the child and say and reason with them, “I didn't leave you. You actually wandered away from me. You do that all the time, and look at the result.” No, the father doesn't reason with the child who's unreasonable, who feels the distance and is anxious because the father was not seen and known and experienced, but the father just silently picks up the child and holds. So, if that's where you are today, let me ask you to allow the Father to pick you up and to hold you. And if you're feeling thirsty, weary, and worn, let him hold you. 

But here, Israel is not like that. To further clarify that this is a courtroom, their elders are present. Why do you bring elders? You bring elders to serve as the jury here, and that's why they're there. And so, Moses cries out to the Lord for help. Lord, you need to help me deal with these people, because they are about to pick up stones to kill me. And then here's how the Lord responds to their unjust accusations, to their crimes of high treason, to their quarreling against him, to their wondering whether or not yet God will provide: again, he puts himself in the dock. He's not held in contempt of court. He doesn't say what he had every reason to say: “Let me judge you all. Let me put you to the test. I will put you on trial.” He voluntarily puts himself on the stand. He willingly submits himself not to their judgment ultimately, but to his judgment for their judgment. Verses 5 and 6 say, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold,’” – and here's where he shows up – “‘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.’ And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.” Now, think about the rod. Now, here's where the people of Israel should have been nervous, as soon as the rod shows up, because whoever's on the other end of that rod, bad things happen, isn't it? This is the rod with which he struck the Nile to turn the water into blood. This is the rod with which he struck the dust of the desert to turn into gnats. This is the rod he used for the frogs. This is the rod he used for the hail, for the locust. On and on. This is the rod of judgment of the Lord. This staff of judgment, now, is not pointed at their enemy – not pointed at them – but pointed at the rock, at God who stands before on the rock. Behold, I stand before the rock at Horeb. The word “before” there is a word that clearly, in the ancient world, would have sent the message to them that God is there. He is the one who stands before them, not as the judge but as the one who is condemned because of their sin. 

Zechariah 13:7 says, “‘Awake, oh sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,’ declares the Lord of hosts. ‘Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. I will turn my hand against the little ones.’” This text from Zechariah 13 is quoted by the Lord Jesus when he says to them, right before he dies, all of you are going to abandon me when this shepherd is struck. Isaiah 53:5 says, “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed.” This rock is going to produce water, but not until it's struck with the rod of judgment. And God here stands before the rock to be judged for a people that test him, quarrel against him, with hostility and arrogance. There's another story later in the Pentateuch, in Numbers chapter 20 – very, very similar to this one – where, in that occasion, Moses is told, “When you come to the rock, speak to the rock, and the rock will pour out abundant waters for your people,” and Moses thinks to himself, “I know better than the Lord. You know, last time he told me to strike the rock, so this time I'm not just going to speak to the rock, I'm going to, for good measure, I'm going to strike the rock twice” – the very reason why Moses is not admitted into the promised land, because Moses didn't need to strike the rock again, because judgment and justice had already been served to God on that rock once. No longer needing to be struck, because judgment was meted out in full by God himself. 

Who and what is this rock? You already know, because the point was given away in our New Testament reading, that Christ is the rock. But they didn't need 1 Corinthians 10, because Deuteronomy 32 already said multiple times that God is their rock. Psalm 78, as well as many other places – Psalm 78 says, "He splits rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers." Verse 20, Psalm 78, “He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed.” Verse 35, “They remembered that God was their rock, the most high God, their redeemer.” That rock was their savior and ours. And so, here he shows us through this visual image of what he would do in flesh and blood through his Son. They all drank the same spiritual drink, and they drank from the same spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. This is a glorious picture, my friends, of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, where on the cross of Calvary he receives capital punishment for capital crimes that he didn't commit. And because he’s struck there on the cross and flowing from his side as blood and water – as we'll sing in a moment, “Let the water and the blood, from his riven side which flowed, be of sin a double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt and power.” Because he was struck, and because he took the judgment and the wrath of God, he is the water of life. John 7, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” This same Lord Jesus Christ is the one, too, who was sovereignly thrust into a weary, dry wilderness to be tempted by Satan, with no food and no water, there to be tested. And there the devil and all of his evil tempted Jesus to throw himself down from the temple saying that God would save him. And Jesus says, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” And yet, the Lord Jesus took on that test as he hung on the cross for you and for me. 

Israel here is putting God to the test, and rarely does God respond to us in our behavior like that proportionately to our grumbling, to our sin, to our wandering, to our high treasonous offense. But he responds proportionately as the wrath and rod of judgment strikes the Son, the rock, Jesus Christ, where his wrath is in direct proportion against sin towards the sinless one. Christ never tested God, but he obeyed God and was crucified. We tested and got water, life-giving water. He was tested, and he got judgment, struck by the wrath of God. He went before God's holy tribunal, the court of heaven, and he was punished. And the rod of God's just wrath struck him on the cross, and what we get in return is life-giving water. 

John Newton puts this text to poetry, to hymns, and his only hymns, and here's what he says, “When Israel's tribes were parched with thirst, forth from the rock the waters burst. And all their future journey through yielded them drink and gospel too. In Moses's rod, a type they saw of his severe and fiery law. The smitten rock prefigured him from whose pure side all blessings stream. But ah, the types were all too faint his sorrows or his worth to paint. Slight was the stroke of Moses' rod, but he endured the wrath of God. Their outward rock could feel no pain, but Christ was wounded, torn, and slain. The rock gave but a watery flood, but Jesus poured forth streams of blood. The earth is like their wilderness, a land of drought and sore distress, without one stream, from pole to pole, to satisfy a thirsty soul. But let the Savior's praise resound. In him, refreshing streams are found, which pardon, strength, and comfort give, and thirsty sinners drink and live.” 

Let's pray together. 

Gracious God, our heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you, Father, for feeding us according to your Word. I pray for any in here this morning who have felt your distance, who have either wandered from you – or you, in your mysterious providence, have placed in a time of testing – and ask that you would cause their roots to sink deeper down into this wonderful gospel, this loving Christ, who has endured the affliction, the abandonment, that we'll never know so that we might know your nearest presence. Father, we pray that you would satisfy our thirsty and parched souls with Christ; you would give us the streams of water that flow from him; and ask that your Holy Spirit would take all that is Christ's – all that he is to us, all he has done for us – and that he would pour it directly into our hearts; that we might be overcome by this marvelous love, by this wondrous grace in which we stand; and that you might draw us nearer to yourself; and that we might never doubt your presence. For truly, in Christ, you are God with us. We give you the praise in Jesus’ name. Amen.