Sermons of Christmas Evans

by Christmas Evans

It does not appear that Moses sinned the first time he smote the rock; but the second time, the servant of God was evidently off his guard, and the meekest of men “spake unadvisedly with his lips;” on account of which, both he and Aaron were shut out of the promised land. His sin consisted in entering into a quarrel with the people, instead of asking God for water to quench their thirst. It appears that their chidings had provoked him to anger, and he had lost the spirit of sympathy for their sufferings, and his hard feelings stood like a thick wall between him and the miracle which God was about to work for his own glory and his people’s relief. Neither did he as God commanded him; for instead of simply speaking to the rock, as he was bidden, he smote it twice, with evident agitation of mind; and at the same time, bitterly reproached the people with their rebellion.

Every minister of the gospel is a “drawer of water,” to his congregation, from the “Spiritual Rock” which follows the church. He must be clothed with meekness from Heaven, or the provocations of the people will be apt to embitter his spirit. God would have us minister mercy, in the spirit of his own mercy. “The servant of God must not strive, but be gentle toward all men; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if, peradventure, God would grant them repentance unto the acknowledging of the truth: and that they might recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”

The smiting of the rock was intended to open it, that the water might flow. This prefigured the smiting of Christ, “the Rock of Ages,” and “the Shepherd of the sheep.” The shedding of the blood of lambs, and goats, and calves, and bullocks, for the space of four thousand years, faintly shadowed forth the sacrificial passion of our blessed Lord. Their groans and struggles under the slaughtering knife; the sound of the blood, falling into the golden basins, and poured into the flames upon the altar; the noise occasioned in cutting up the victim, and piling the pieces upon the fire and the smoke and vapor ascending from the consuming sacrifice to heaven; all, all, in their own way, foreshadowed the necessity of mangling the body and shedding the blood of Messiah, that pardoning mercy might have an open way to flow to sinners, like the water from the smitten rock; and the agonies of those slaughtered victims were an imperfect type of the agonies of the soul of Jesus, in the garden and on the cross.

The smiting of a flinty rock, for the purpose of obtaining water, was a scheme of the Divine Mind, whose ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts. It was certainly the last place to which Moses would have gone for water; and he might have expected the stroke to elicit sparks of fire, rather than cool refreshing streams. What eye had not seen and ear had not heard, either of men or of angels—what had not entered into the heart of any created being to conceive, terrestrial or celestials—was, that the smiting of the Shepherd should save the sheep; that the condemnation of the just should bring the unjust to God; that the making of Messiah a curse should secure infinite blessings to mankind; that the poverty of Jesus should enrich us, and his death raise us to life eternal. Consuming flames of Divine indignation might have been expected to flash upon the guilty world from every wound of the thorns, the nails and the spear, in the sacred person of Emmanuel; but, to the astonishment of men and angels, a tide of love and mercy ran freely from every bleeding vein, to wash away the guilt and pollution of human crimes, according to the determinate counsel and immutable promise of our God.

The rock must be smitten by a rod. Had Moses been left to choose his own instrument, he would probably have taken a hammer, or perhaps a lever; but God commands him to take the rod. The rock would not have yielded water to any other instrument than the rod that smote the waters of Egypt, and turned them into blood. This rod was an emblem of the sovereignty of God over Israel, and is therefore called “the rod of God, which the Lord gave unto Moses”—as his deputy governor—“to lead Israel, and to work miracles before their eyes.” It was also a symbol of the royal law of Heaven; which, prior to the fall, was a rod of life; but afterward became a rod of iron, to break in pieces the offender—an angry serpent, to sting the transgressor with dreadful torments; and finally, when Christ endured the curse, and honored the violated mandate, by his death upon the tree, it was transformed again into a guiding and correcting rod. As the rock would have yielded water under no other stroke than that of “the rod of God,” so the sufferings of Christ would have been ineffectual, had they not happened under the law of the Father, and according to the counsel of Infinite Wisdom. When Isaac was about to be offered up on mount Moriah, the wood, the fire, and the knife, must all come from his father’s house, and the dreadful deed must be done by his father’s hand. So Jesus must die in no ordinary or accidental way. He must not suffer himself to be slain by the sword of Herod, nor cast over the brow of the hill by the people. He must receive the mortal cup from no other hand than that of the Father. He must die the appointed death; at the appointed time; in the appointed place, without the camp; and in the appointed manner, by hanging on a tree. The wreath of thorns, the scarlet robe, the nails, the cross, the spear, and even the vinegar offered him in his agony, were all according to his Father’s counsel. He knew the necessity, and said—“Thy will be done!” The Shepherd of Israel would bow under no other stroke than that of the Lord of Hosts. A cradle, a cross, and a grave, all of his Father’s appointing, must Jesus have, in order to open a fountain of living water to the world.

The rock must be smitten in a public manner, in the sight of the sun, and before all the elders of Israel, that God might be sanctified in the eyes of his people. This was intended to foreshadow the publicity of the death of Christ, which took place during one of the great public festivals of the Jews, in the presence of nearly the whole nation, and on the hill Calvary; and to denote the proclamation of Christ crucified throughout the world, as the true propitiation and object of faith, to be looked upon by Jews and Gentiles, to the softening of the heart, and the flowing of repentant tears, according to the prophecy—“They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only son.” The Spirit of grace directs the eyes of men to the cross, upon which the prophet Isaiah, with transcendent sublimity of language, describes the Saviour as passing from Calvary to the grave, from the grave to the empyrean, and thence back again to earth, crying—“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and beside me there is no Savior!”

The rock must be smitten in the presence of God. “Behold, I will stand before thee there on the rock in Horeb.” (Ex. xvii. 6.) He stood upon the rock in Horeb, though invisible, in the glory of his loving-kindness and his power, to guide the hand of his servant Moses, and open a source of timely succor to his perishing people. But when the rod of the law smote the Rock of our salvation, when the curse fell upon the sinner’s Substitute and Surety, then God stood forth before the world upon the rock of Calvary, amid the darkened heavens, the trembling earth, and the opening sepulchres, as if all the machinery of nature had been suddenly disordered and disorganized—stood forth in the plenitude of his power, his wisdom, his justice, his mercy, and his truth, to prosper the work of man’s redemption, and open a channel through which the river of life might flow out to a famishing race. On Calvary still he stands, with the cup of salvation in his hand, and streams of living water rolling at his feet, and cries—“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!”

According to the command of God, the rock was to be smitten but once. Once smitten, it needed only to be spoken to; and, though it was more than thirty years afterward, it would yield forth its water. But Moses, provoked to anger by the murmurings and complainings of the people, transcended the Divine injunction, and though he had once smitten the rock, smote it again; yea, when he should have spoken to it only, smote it twice with his rod. This was his sin, for which God would not permit him to enter the promised land. Christ has been once smitten, and wo to those who smite him again! He has once offered himself a sacrifice, and once entered into the holy place, having finished his work of atonement, and made an end of sin, and superseded the sacrifices of the law. Henceforth, ye Jews, relinquish your burnt-offerings, your meat-offerings, your drink-offerings, your peace-offerings; and trust no longer in beasts, and birds, and flour, and oil; but in “the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” Crucify him afresh no more, O ye backsliders; for “there remaineth no other sacrifice for sin!” Smite him not again, lest he swear unto you in his wrath, as unto Moses, that ye shall not enter into his rest!

II. Having spoken of the smiting, let us now look at the result, the flowing of the waters; a timely mercy to “the many thousands of Israel,” on the point of perishing in the desert; shadowing forth a far greater mercy, the flowing of living waters from the “spiritual rock,” which is Christ.

In the death of our Redeemer, we see three infinite depths moved for the relief of human misery; the love of the Father, the merit of the Son, and the energy of the Holy Spirit. These are the depths of wonder whence arise the rivers of salvation.