Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Shana: I'm Shana with Joni Eareckson Tada sharing hope. Thanks for listening today. Joni, I know you've been reading through the Bible this year with Ken, and I'm sure both of you have been learning lots of wonderful things. Any lessons you can tell us from what you've read thus far?

Joni Eareckson Tada: I sure can, Shana. Ken and I were back in the book of Exodus just a short time ago. And with the help of a commentary and an article or two, we learned a fascinating thing about God that we'd never seen before. Because when you read through Exodus, you might be tempted to feel sorry for the Israelites who were led into a desert and there was lots of heat and no water.

But Israel was not the victim; they were the offender because they complained. God had proved His care by freeing them from slavery, yet they still grumbled to Moses, which means they were really grumbling against God, saying, "What is it that you have brought us up out of Egypt for? To kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"

And in Exodus chapter 17, it says they were so angry—now get this—they were about to stone Moses. So, the Lord had to intervene and save Moses. And so He brought the Israelites to trial. And everybody knew what God was doing when He told Moses to take his rod, that is his symbol of judicial authority, and call together the elders as witnesses. He then said to Moses, "Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock."

It says that in Exodus 17. So, with witnesses looking on, Moses raised his rod and struck the rock as hard as he could. So, Moses in effect struck the angel of God's presence standing before the rock. Even though God was not guilty, the angel of His presence received the blow of judgment, and water gushed forth.

One commentary says that the rock at Horeb became a symbol of the extent to which God would go to take the blow of His own justice so that out of Him would flow life for His people. Now, this should all sound familiar because the same thing happened at the Mount of Calvary on the cross. There the Son of God received the blow. He was struck with the rod of divine judgment, and when the soldier pierced Jesus' side with a spear, out flowed His blood and water.

Blood for our sins and water to represent life. And so the rock at Horeb that was struck, the blow of judgment, water burst forth so that all of God's people would no longer be thirsty. And that rock in the desert was a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the living water. The Apostle Paul even says in 1 Corinthians 10, reflecting back on God's people wandering through the desert, "For God's people drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ."

And Jesus says to you and me in the Gospel of John, "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." So friend, if you find yourself in a dry desert season of life, don't give up. Jesus was struck on the rock, not only at Horeb but at Calvary.

He took the blow on the cross when He died for your sins. So put your confidence in Him and there will well up within you a spring of water. Life may still be hard for you as it was for God's people in the desert wandering 40 years, but God always provided them water, and Jesus can do the same for you.