Where can you find solutions to besetting sin in your life? When you're thirsty for God and you have this deep inner thirst, where can you find living water for your soul? I want us to look at that and learn from what God has done in the past, in time and space.
As we look at God's word in Exodus 17 and we learn that: “The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarrelled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?" But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?" Then Moses cried out to the Lord, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me." The Lord answered Moses, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarrelled and because they tested the Lord saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?" The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up-one on one side, one on the other - so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord. The Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation."
What do you do when you come to the end of yourself? What do you do when you come to the end of your psychological emotional resources? What do you do when you're tired deep down? For some of us, it's just been two weeks back after the new year and already we're thinking about our next holiday. We know we're tired when we overreact to criticism. We know we're exhausted when we blow it in little and big ways. We know we need rest but where? Where can we find rest when you seem to be dragging your feet through life from one thing to another? Where can you find water for your thirsty soul?
You see if you're a Christian maybe you've walked with the Lord you've turned to Jesus Christ for help. He has changed you. You've been born again. You know that you've trusted in Christ and he has worked a miracle in you. Yet sin still nips at your heels like the Amalekites biting at you from this side and that side. And you get cranky and you wonder where is God in all of this? Yes, maybe you're a Christian but why are you still wrestling with sin, in the same sin, maybe a habit that you are ashamed of, that you keep falling back into, that you don't even want anybody to know about. And so that besetting sin leaves you shamed in your own heart. Like the Israelites you are thirsty but for more than just water. Water cannot fully satisfy in this way - you are thirsty deep, deep, down. That's why we need to look at how God, through Jesus Christ, can satisfy your deepest need, as you go to Jesus Christ with your deepest need, as you turn to him from that sinful nature that seems to trip you up all the time.
The first thing I want us to see from this passage is “the end of yourself.” Usually, the end of yourself comes as you walk and follow Jesus as you do all that God commands. Moses of course is an example in this passage. Moses was God's chosen leader. Moses had been fully obedient to all that God had said but now he says he has no more resources to give. He has no water for the people. He was running dry like the harsh wilderness all around him. Moses was at the end of his abilities. When people demanded water again from him this time they were arguing and they were looking for natural resources. The people were quarrelling.
We are sometimes said as South Africans to be people who don't easily complain about bad service. We put up with many things in life. The problem here was that Israel was complaining and quarrelling, not against Moses as God's servant, but against God himself. They owed God everything. They owed God their existence. God had saved them out of Egypt. God had brought them this far and God was their Ebenezer, but they were doubting God again. Moses points out that they are quarrelling against God. They were infuriated as a mob. They were just mad at Moses. They were breaking through all the barriers that were erected by society, like gratitude. They broke the barriers of patriotism as God's people. They flattened the all the barriers of self-respect, which no longer held them back. The memory of God's faithfulness in the past was not stopping them. The mob wanted water or they wanted Moses’ blood.
Verse 4 sees Moses cry out to God as he recognizes that he is ready to turn the job over to someone else. Just as I know some pastors have given up. Elders have given up. Deacons have given up. All because of the grumbling of God's people, the arguing and the criticism that exists in these difficult days. Maybe you're at that place yourself. Maybe you've come to the place of coming to the end of yourself and you are tempted to give up. What do you do when you come to the end of yourself?
Secondly, I want you to see that when you come to the end of yourself you find the beginning of God. You find the beginning of God because God is patient with us. It is God who gives his people leaders and in this instance the leader is Moses. Moses and the Elders are to go ahead and to use that ordinary shepherd's stuff that has now been set aside as a tool of God's miraculous usage. It is God who will provide this miraculous water from a rock.
I never understood how water can come out of a rock until I had the privilege of going to Morocco. The missionaries I went to visit took me up into the Atlas mountains and there was a solid rock face in a desert-like mountain and out of one rock flowed so much water it formed a river 10 meters across. Along the banks of that river, the king had even built one of his small palaces. You see God can bring water out of a rock. I saw that in Morocco. But here in this passage this rock wasn't naturally gushing water that had fallen in another mountain far away and come up with the aquifer and came to the surface of this rock. No, this rock was supernatural. This passage tells us that God himself will stand in front of Moses and Moses was to strike the rock. It tells us that Moses was unaware of possible water-bearing rock formations in this context.
Verse 6 tells us a very interesting fact, God says as he stands before Moses so water will come out from the rock, now the New Testament interprets this for us and explains this for us in 1 Corinthians 10:4. It tells us that “they drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanies them.” That rock was Jesus Christ. Here we find a wonderful picture of the second person of the Trinity appearing before he was born in Bethlehem and appearing to his people and providing them. As they struck him with that rod so from him flowed water to feed two and a half million people, to satisfy their thirst in the desert place.
God often uses a rock as a metaphor. In the Bible, Jesus calls us to build our lives on a rock and he tells us this Rock is stable. A rock is steadfast. Psalm 61:2 says, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 78:35 says, “God was their rock. “ God is a firm foundation. God is a rock on which you can build your life. Charles Spurgeon says that there was once a young pastor who went to visit a dying elderly lady. He said to this elderly lady as she lay on the sickbed: “Sister are you sinking? Sister, are you sinking?” This wise and Godly old lady turned to this young pastor and said, “If I was sinking, Laddie, then my life is built on sand but there is no sinking sand for me for I stand on the rock of ages.” That lady understood that Jesus is the one that we are to build our lives on. From Him flows this living water.
You might say, “what happens for the water to flow from the Rock?” Here God tells Moses to strike the rock. Again that picture of striking the rock is a picture of what happened to Jesus Christ, when Jesus came from Heaven. He was born in Bethlehem. He lived an upright life. He lived a rock-solid human life. He demonstrated to us what true humanity was like. He was the best teacher in the world. He was the best example to all of us, in the world. The reality is, none of us can live up to his standard. He was perfect and we fall far short of that standard. Until Jesus Christ was crucified, till we as a human race struck him and nailed him to that cross there was no water. He as God allowed himself to become our substitute, and He died in our place on that cross. From that one event in time and space, the love of God, the water of life, flows out from the cross. Now two thousand years later that water is still available to you and me. That water of Christ can nourish our deepest needs. And so Jesus calls us to trust him as the living water, as the source of continual renewal. We come and we drink of Christ every day. We draw strength for our Christian life every day. This water of life that Jesus gives us overflows from our lives and blesses others and provides eternal life not just for us but for others. From deep within us, He flows out and strengthens others. Jesus invites you to come to him, who was struck on the cross for your sin and mine, to break the terrible curse. Now you say, “But I’m a Christian why am I still struggling then if I have water of life coming into my life?”
The third thing to see in this passage is that there is “an ongoing struggle.” The ongoing struggle is a reality that you must face when you come to Jesus Christ for living water. When we come to Jesus and we receive eternal life it is not a case of “coming to Jesus and all your problems are solved.” No! It is a case of an ongoing struggle. For Israel, it was the Amalekites who were the distant cousins of theirs, who descended from their war-like uncle Esau. Esau was the brother of Jacob who became Israel. It seems from Deuteronomy 25:18, that these Amalekites attacked the stragglers of the people. With two and a half million people moving through a desert. They must have been the little children, the babies, the toddlers, the pregnant mothers, the elderly. They were the stragglers. The ones on the edge of the camp. These cowardly Amalekites attacked like a hyena going for the weak and the straggler. Instead of caring for the underdog, caring for the weak, they attacked and mercilessly murdered the defenceless. That's why God speaks so strongly about them, out of His loving, righteous anger.
It tells us here in verse 9 that God, then through Moses, commanded young Joshua, as Moses's junior assistant, to lead the battle against these merciless bandits. This battle was an ongoing struggle. The Amalekites would plague them even more and it would be likened to the ongoing struggle that you and I have as Christians as we battle with our sinful nature. We read about the struggle with our sinful nature in Romans 7:23 onwards. "We want to do what is right, but the law of sin is waging a war within us, so the things we want to do we do not do, and the things we do not want to do we do." “O woe is me,” we cry. “Who will save me?” And Jesus cries out, who was struck on the cross? “I am the living water. Whoever drinks from me will never thirst.” We run to Jesus and we receive from Jesus living water. This is what the end of Romans 7 and going into chapter 8 says, “Now, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” What a wonderful promise. Yes, we're in an ongoing struggle, but Jesus has made a way. He gives us now supernatural power. Living water flows into us and through us and out of us to satisfy a thirsty world. We come to Jesus with our sinful nature. We need Jesus.
We can't cover up our sinful nature, especially when we're hooked in habitual sin, like gossip, masturbation, immorality, or lies. We can't break free unless God intervenes in our life. We sometimes forget that we need outside help. We think we can cover over our sin and pretend everything's all right. It's a little bit like that well-known story of the man who kept one of those boa constrictor snakes in his glass cage. Every day he'd drop a little white mouse into the cage and the boa constrictor would lie there and sleep and the little mouse would cover the snake with the sawdust at the bottom of the cage. As he covered that snake with sawdust, he hoped that everything would be alright. The mouse would run around the cage thinking, “I can't see a snake, everything's dealt with. I've covered up my sin.” However, the snake would wake and eat that little mouse trapped in his cage. In the same way, unless somebody reached into that cage and rescued that little white mouse that mouse is doomed and you and I are doomed by our sin. We cannot break the habit of sin unless God intervenes and breaks into our life, rescues us, and saves us, and we need that. That's why when you are trapped in sin. You need to get outside help.
All of us are involved in an ongoing struggle. As a young Christian, it's one type of struggle. As a growing Christian is another type. As a mature Christian it is another type of struggle but all of us need continual prayer. All of us need to cry out to Jesus to break through in our lives and save us, so that now there might be “no condemnation.” Our sin traps us and even if we try and cover it up it will not be a solution to our problem. We need God to intervene. We need people to pray for us. If you're trapped in sin get mature Christians around you, one or two of them, and just ask them to lay hands on you and pray for you to be free. In the process to also hold you accountable as you grow because the battle is ongoing.
The Amalekites of life bite at your ankles and want to trip you up and drag you down. The good news is there is victory and the battle is won in prayer. Why do I keep encouraging you to join the prayer meetings? Because that's where you grow and where you receive prayer and can pray for others. So there is victory. We need to remember that we are involved in a great battle. It's more than just a sporting battle. A sporting battle is where 20 or 30 men are exhausted on a playing field and they are playing for all their might. All those in the stands around them are in desperate need of exercise and those watching on television are even more in need of exercise. God has put you in the arena of life and this is a great battle. We need God to intervene, to come with the water bottle who is Christ and not just that, but to give us life overflowing that strengthens us, that we might be mighty warriors for the Lord, that we might keep playing the game of life to the final whistle. Prayer is the ultimate victory and why? Because God is like a flag over us. The flag at the finish line. God is the banner over our heads that he is the one that will carry us and he will take our sin, even upon himself, as Jesus did on the cross.
I want to ask you, are you thirsty in life? Are you thirsty for more of life? Go to Jesus Christ with your deepest need. Has the snake of sin coiled itself around you and strangled your soul choking the life out of you? Is that sinful habit dragging you down and making you doubt even your salvation? Get help. Get two or three around you to pray for you. Go into battle. Pray and fast even. Seek the Lord's face. Ask him to break him into your glass cage and pull you out. That's why we need to pray, because the church often is caught up in grumbling. We must stop grumbling and go to the prayer meetings. There we win the battle in prayer. There you need to go to Jesus Christ with your deepest need. Have you got a sinful habit that's tripping you up? Run to Jesus the rock from whom the living waters flow. Jesus is the water of life, gushing from a perfect sound solid life. Jesus lived as an example of true humanity. Now by his Holy Spirit is in you. God's Spirit empowers you to do your best work and live your best life. As you are empowered from within, not with another adrenaline high jumping off a cliff. Not with a new human adventure trying to pump up the adrenaline in your life, but with God's Holy Spirit empowering you. Go to Jesus Christ with your deepest need. He came to give you life. Jesus came to give you the power to overcome sin. He came as the Lord who is banner over your life. The Holy Spirit is always with you. He is ready to answer honest pray. Cry out to Jesus.
Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, we come to bow before you and ask you to intervene in our lives. You know each person and every struggle. You know the snake that would devour them and drag them into hell, the habit that is holding them back. O Lord Jesus, today reach and touch each one of us by your Holy Spirit. Pour out your living water into our lives that we might be saturated and filled, and our thirst might be quenched, and that we might be so blessed, that we overflow with blessings to others around us. O Lord Jesus, save us. We pray and ask you to fill us with your Spirit, so that living water then flows from us to be a blessing in this thirsty world. For this, we pray in the all-powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
May God hear your prayer and your heart cry, and may He answer you. If I can help you in your journey please comment in the comments below. God bless you and may you live your life overflowing with living water to his glory. To his praise and honour, be all of your life now and forevermore. Amen.