God on Trial
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If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to Exodus 17 (page 112 in the Red Pew Bible in front of you). And if you’re able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word. Exodus 17, beginning with verse 1:
1 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. 2 So they quarreled 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?”
3 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?”
4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front 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. 6 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. 7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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A lot of this—our text for this morning—sounds familiar. The people of Israel are grumbling, again. Their grumbling is caused by their lack of water, again. There’s no water to drink and the people grumble. Hop in a time machine and travel back two weeks and you’d hear a very similar passage of Exodus read and then preached; turn back to the end of Exodus 15 and you’ll see something very much like this here in Exodus 17.
Some scholars believe that this text is merely a retelling of Exodus 15—but, really, the details are quite different, even if the circumstances are kind of the same.
Exodus 17 isn’t describing the same event as Exodus 15; this is a different, yet similar experience. Once again, the people of Israel are out in the wilderness and they are out of water.
For the purpose of their sanctification (making them holy, making them into a people more and more like Himself, a people who trust Him more and more, a people set apart from the rest of the world)—for the purpose of their sanctification, God had led them away from the place of provision to a place where there was nothing to drink. Again.
They were traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. All of this is of the Lord’s doing. He has, in His providence, with His guiding hand, led them to this point and is leading them onward. He wants them in this predicament; He’s working on them, testing them to see how they will respond to a familiar problem. How are they going to react when they find themselves without water again?
One would hope they remember how the Lord provided for them the last time this happened, just days ago. One would hope they would gather for prayer and then wait for God to provide as He had, trusting He always would.
Instead, the Israelites do what comes most naturally. They complain.
But it’s more than complaining, more than grumbling. Grumbling has morphed into demanding. Grumbling has become quarreling.
This is not quarreling in the back-and-forth sense. There’s no evidence that Moses is bickering with them, screaming and yelling at them as they’re screaming and yelling at him.
This is one-sided. They are ticked, hostile. This word—quarreling—suggests a new level of hostility. They’ve turned their grumbling up to 11.
They might be quarreling with Moses, but they’re putting the Lord to the test.
2 So they quarreled 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?”
The people take their complaints to Moses. But their real beef is with God. This, we’ve seen before: all our dissatisfaction shows our disappointment with God.
“We deserve better than this!”
“I don’t want this; give me that! I want what she has, what he has!”
“I can’t believe the Lord brought me here; He must not care for me at all!”
The people demand that God provide for them, telling God what He had to do, or else.
The people don’t believe that God will protect them, either.
We’ve seen this before: “Brought us here to die, huh? Great. Thanks a lot, fella. Gonna make us and our children and livestock die of thirst? Good work.”
The people who had been saved by His hand now accuse the Almighty of intentionally putting them in harm’s way.
Again, all this so far is very familiar. The questions of God’s provision and protection, though awful, are common in the Exodus story.
They’ve wondered if God would provide them with water, with food, and now (again) with water.
They’ve wondered why God would allow Pharaoh to rule over them, why He’d lead them into the desert to be overtaken by Pharaoh. No doubt, they wondered why God didn’t strike down all the Egyptians immediately.
Will God provide for us? Will God protect us? These are questions we’ve seen before. We’ll see them again.
But the other question they have…it’s new. They’ve never posed it like this. They’ve never asked it outright.
7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Is the Lord among us or not?
I want to raise my hand and say, “Um, yeah…just stop and think about it: what did you have for breakfast today? Bread from heaven? Manna? What about the quail He just provided for you? Or what about the pillar of cloud/fire that’s been leading you from place to place ever since you left Egypt? Remember the sea opening up, allowing you to walk through on dry ground? Or the plagues He performed against your enemies? Is the Lord among you?!? I think so!”
I want to interject, but I have the advantage of being detached from this story by several thousand years.
If I were there with them, hungry and thirsty, I can’t say I’d be any better; I’m not sure I’d be any less quarrelsome than they.
Circumstances cloud our judgment and we forget what He’s done for us, and so we ask: “Is the Lord among us or not? Are you really there, God?”
My dad has suffered, struggling with cancer for more than a decade. My beautiful wife and I are unable to have biological children. Our best friends’ son has a rare and incurable autoimmune disease that will likely take his life before he reaches the age of 12. Each and every week, members of my church family suffer loss and grief and sickness, they deal with pain and cancer, depression, financial stress. The world is crumbling down around us—University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) beats Virginia…this world is upside down, chalk-full of hatred and racism, terrorism and murder, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, division (both political and otherwise), wars and rumors of wars...
Is the Lord among us or not? Are you really there, God?
The lack of water (again) made them wonder if God was really with them after all.
They’ve seen His glory in the pillar of cloud. He’s guiding them day and night, feeding them manna six days out of seven, and still they wonder if he’s there for them.
Their unbelief is unbelievable. And yet, their unbelief is totally believable because I’ve been there. I’ve asked the same questions of my Lord and Savior. I’m ridiculously quick to forget His provision, His protection, even His presence.
Here’s a little mid-sermon application from Phil Ryken:
“When we are in need, we should recount all the ways that He has met our needs for food and shelter, for work and play, for love and friendship.”
Count your blessings, name them one by one.
“We should rehearse the times when He protected us, sparing us from physical danger or from the consequences of our own folly.”
We can, all of us, call to mind at least a handful of occasions when we should have, but didn’t, end up hurt or dead or in ‘the clink’ thanks to our own stupidity. If the Lord hadn’t intervened, protecting us, where would we be?
“And we should revisit the places where He was close to us.”
I could pick literal places, physical places: Dr. Arroyo, Nueve Leon, Mexico where God called me to ministry, the campus of Southwestern College where He confirmed my calling, Greensburg Christian Church where I was commissioned into ministry by my church family...
Recount the times where He met our needs, rehearse the times when He protected us, revisit the places He was close to us.
“God is our provider and protector, our ever-present help in trouble.”
As the Psalmist sings:
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
>Much of Israel’s complaint at Massah-Meribah sounds familiar, with one significant difference.
Here, the people bring God to trial. They initiate a legal proceeding against the Lord of Hosts.
The people are supposed to be the ones on trial; this was a place of testing for them, to see if they’d listen to and obey God.
God’s been testing them all along. He tested them at Marah where the water was bitter. That was referred to as a test (15:25). He tested them when He sent manna from heaven. That was referred to as a test (16:4).
He tests them again here. He wants to see if they will trust Him to provide water. But they’re tired of being tested.
They want to ask the questions, not answer them. So they charge God with breaking His covenant.
Twice this is called a test:
2 So they quarreled 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?”
7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
The Hebrew word used in these verses is rib—the term for a covenant lawsuit. The word—rib—is right there in the middle of one of the names of the place they did this: Meribah.
This is a trial; they’re even using legal jargon. The people present a list of grievances. They charge God with neglecting to provide for them, failing to protect them, refusing to be present with them.
The alleged crime is a capital offense: murder.
3 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?”
They are charging God with attempted murder and are willing to carry-out the death sentence.
Moses, crying out to God, makes this clear:
4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
Stoning, being the conventional way to carry out the death penalty. “We’re going to die of thirst anyhow, let’s make sure Moses dies first.”
The Israelites are instituting legal proceedings. What’s significant is not so much the procedure as the attitude behind it. The people want to hold God responsible.
They aren’t happy with the way things were going, not at all. Instead of trusting that God’s plan was good and gracious, they are going to bring Him to judgment.
We’ve reversed the roles, says C.S. Lewis: We are the judge, and God is on the stand. If God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, we’ll listen, maybe. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But make no mistake: man is on the bench and God is on the stand. We are the judge; the gavel is in our hand. And God has to answer to us.
>To our amazement, when Israel puts God to the test—as wrong as that was—God goes ahead and gives them the hearing they want.
5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front 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.
The Lord answers Moses. The Lord tells Moses to go out in front of the people, to take some of the elders with him. To take in his hand the staff of God, the staff with which Moses struck the Nile.
The Lord is going to show that He would provide and protect. He was going to show that He is present with them.
The elders are witnesses of all this happening. They could, then, go among the people and reassure them of God’s provision and protection.
The staff was there to symbolize God’s presence—the miracle of water from the rock would be attributed to God instead of Moses. Moses struck the water of the Nile with this staff, and how he strikes water again, though in a different sense.
God, in a sense, takes the stand and shows Himself to be provider, protector, and present with them.
So present with them is He, the Lord says (v. 6): “I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb.”
The Lord is going to stand there by the rock, or there upon the rock at Horeb, just to make sure Moses and the other witnesses don’t miss it.
Who knows what this looked like. We don’t have any details. Was God there by the rock or on the rock in the pillar of cloud/fire? Maybe He wasn’t visible at all.
But, then again, maybe He was visibly present. The NT takes this account and gives us something to chew-on.
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10. Here Paul is using this moment in Israel’s history to teach the Church. This is what he writes:
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
And that rock was Christ.
The whole Bible is about Jesus. Don’t forget that.
The OT is the anticipation of Jesus. The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are the manifestation of Jesus. Acts is the proclamation of Jesus. The epistles/letters are the explanation of Jesus. And Revelation is the consummation of Jesus.
Your Bible is about Jesus. Every page. Every chapter. Every verse. Each jot and tittle. Your Bible is about Jesus, from beginning to end.
Of this rock in the desert where the Israelites are, longing for water, Paul says: and that rock was Christ.
Somehow, in some way we don’t have eyes to see, God was present there; Jesus was present there. The rock that gave them water to drink was Jesus—and that rock was Christ.
God took the stand, subjecting Himself to the peoples’ judgment. He proved that He was their provider and protector. He showed Himself to be present among them. They wanted to know if God was with them or not. Well, here He is—their Savior—among them, in their midst.
Shortly after World War II, Günter Rutenborn wrote a play called The Sign of Jonah. It was first performed in West Berlin.
The play is about a group of people who put God to the test. They wanted to know who was responsible for the Holocaust—the destruction of millions of Jews and others in the Nazi concentration camps. Who was to blame?
The play not only asks the question—“Who’s to blame?”—but it also draws both the cast and audience into the answer. No one is really to blame.
A soldier merely followed orders. A worker merely kept working. A citizen simply kept his head down.
In defending their own innocence, each of the accused becomes an accuser. All are guilty. Some are guilty by words; others by silence. Some by what they did; others by what they did not.
Suddenly, all the accusers shout: “We are to blame, yes, but we are not the most to blame. The real blame belongs much higher. God is to blame! God must go on trial!”
So that’s what the people do: they put God on trial. In the play, God is accused, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced. What is the sentence? The characters decide that God must “become a human being, a wanderer on earth, deprived of His rights, homeless, hungry, thirsty. He Himself shall die. And lose a son, and suffer the agonies of fatherhood. And when at last He dies, he shall be disgraced and ridiculed.”
Of course, that is exactly what happened. God sent His Son into the world, and people did to Him what the Israelites wanted to do with Moses. The Son of God was a man without a home, a wanderer on earth. He was hungry and thirsty. And when His life was almost over, He was deprived of all His rights. He was stripped, mocked, beaten, and then condemned to die the most disgraceful and excruciating death—death on a cross.
Paul says: and the rock was Christ.
God would submit to the blow of His own justice so that out of Him would flow life for His people.
The rock was Christ because, like the rock, Christ was struck with divine judgment. Christ was bearing the curse for our sin, and God struck Him with the rod of His justice.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We will not suffer eternal death for our sins. God has taken the judgment of our guilt upon Himself, and now we are safe for all eternity.
From Christ, living water flows out—providing what we need: eternal life.
>Here in the desert, the people question whether or not God is there for them, whether He is for them or against them. Instead of striking them down, He shows them, once more, that He is their provider and protector, providing them water from a rock. He shows them that He is present with them, standing by the rock.
We need not wonder whether God has provided what we need—we have Jesus. We don’t have to question whether or not God is going to protect us—we have Jesus. We shouldn’t be concerned with whether or not God is among us—we have Jesus.
Jesus is our Providing, Protecting, Present Savior.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Friends, do not harden your hearts as they did at Massah and Meribah. Trust in Him. Repent of your grumbling and quarreling and run to Jesus! He is everything, He is all; He is life and salvation for all who believe.