CHRIST THE ROCK
[p. 97] CHRIST THE ROCK
2 Samuel 22: 1 - 3; Psalm 71: 3; Psalm 27: 4, 5; Exodus 17: 6; Isaiah 32: 2; Psalm 81: 16
It is evident that solemn times are at hand both for the world and for the church of God. There is restless activity in both the political and the religious worlds. We are in the rapids of time and as the stream rushes on things shift and change on every hand. Old principles and creeds are being discarded, and the truth of God surrendered by one section of Christendom after another. We read that in the last days “difficult times” should come, and we see the features of these times all around us. But amid the storm there is a haven where our souls may come to anchor; in the midst of the conflict there is a strong tower into which we may run and be safe; amidst all the changes there is One who is “the same yesterday, and today, and for ever” — One who remains in eternal stability as a Rock.
A rock is the standing type of what is secure and steadfast. It stands firm in sunshine and shade, in storm or calm. When the dead leaves and brushwood are swept away by the torrent the rock remains. Hence the rock has a prominent place among the symbols of Scripture and many times the Lord is spoken of as a Rock. I want to bring a few of these passages before you.
2 Samuel 22: 1 - 3, this is what I call the Saving Rock (cf. verse 47). David multiplies figures to express his appreciation of the Person he is speaking of. He searches his mind for figures in which to set forth the excellence of that blessed One. Listen to this sevenfold description — “my Fortress, my Deliverer, my Shield, the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower, my Refuge, my Saviour”. Let me ask, Has your heart ever found itself so full of Christ that you were at a loss how to speak sufficiently of Him? Do you know this Person? All these titles which David’s faith and love lavished upon Him are comprehended in the last — “My Saviour”. “David spoke to Jehovah the words of this song in the day that Jehovah had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul”. David had a perfect deliverance; in type a full salvation. The little word ‘all’ makes us think of the precious gospel message that “by him all that believe are justified from all things”. Saul, too, a type of Satan, had lost his victim, as we are delivered from the power of darkness. We, like David, have a saving Rock, and we wreathe His brow with the tribute of our gratitude and love as we sing,
‘Jesus! our Saviour, Shepherd, Friend,
Thou Prophet, Priest and King,
Our Lord, our Life, our Way, our End,
Accept the praise we bring’. (54:4)
I trust that every soul here knows Him and loves Him in His blessed character of Saviour!
Psalm 71: 3; Psalm 27: 4, 5. I call this the Shielding Rock. In both these psalms enemies are mentioned; there is conflict and danger. We need ever to remember that we are passing through an enemy’s land. A host does encamp against us, and war does rise up against us; that is, if we are true to Christ. The worldly professor and the half-hearted believer may go on in peace, because they have surrendered to the world or at any rate have made a truce with the foe, but if the disciple is true to his Lord, the world will not be guilty of the inconsistency of hating the Master and loving the servant. There is an old-standing and deadly enmity between the world and our Lord, and if we would be preserved from confusion and defeat we must keep under cover of the Shielding Rock.
Notice the words, “Whereunto I may continually resort” in Psalm 71 and “All the days of my life” in Psalm 27. It is not to be occasionally but “continually”, for you never know a moment beforehand when the attack is coming, or from what direction; not on Lord’s Days only but “all the days of my life”. We are called to ‘abide’ in Him. What wondrous [p. 99] grace that we should be preserved and shielded by that which most gladdens our hearts! Fortresses are not always the most comfortable places, and on the field of battle the place of safety is not always in itself an agreeable spot. But look at this place in Psalm 27: 4 - 5. Could any place be more attractive to the heart of a Christian? And it is the only safe place. We not only may continually resort to this sweet retreat, but we must be there to escape the onslaughts and fiery darts of the enemy.
Look at Psalm 31: 19, 20. Here are two things in reference to which we specially need our Lord as a Shielding Rock: “The pride of man” and “The strife of tongues”. The pride of man is a fearful enemy and more to be dreaded in our own hearts than anywhere else. It is this that makes Christians want to get on in the world where Christ died, so that for the sake of worldly gain they will sacrifice meetings, christian fellowship, private communion and meditation and the interests of Christ. It is sometimes painful to discover, after all we have said and sung about being crucified and dead, and about sacrificing the vain things that charm us most, how much our hearts are influenced by the opinions of men, and how we shrink from being “fools for Christ’s sake”. Then again, if through grace we devote ourselves in any little measure to the work of the Lord, how soon we become in danger of another kind of “the pride of man”! Beloved brethren, we need shielding from this and there is One who can hide us from it in the secret of His presence. Mark! it is in the secret of His presence. Anything that gives us prominence before men or our brethren has a tendency to nourish “the pride of man”, and if our public life is not balanced by our private life we shall fall into the snare.
It is of infinite importance that the inner life of our souls should be developed. Icebergs of very great magnitude and splendour are often seen floating in the ocean, but it is a fact that for every ton of ice that appears above water there are eight tons under water, and it is the enormous unseen mass that balances and ballasts that which is visible. The secret life [p. 100] of the soul must be in excess of the public life or we shall become top-heavy and there will be spiritual disaster. May the Lord give us to know more of “the secret of His presence”! There, alone with Him, the pride of man withers and dies. There we learn our nothingness; we see imperfections in ourselves that others cannot see, and we discover that the spring of everything is grace. May the Lord draw us continually to His presence to know the blessedness of divine love, and to be so filled with it that there shall be no room in our hearts for “the pride of man”.
Then our Rock shields us from “the strife of tongues”, and never was there a day when saints have needed Him more in this character than now. Christendom is a vast Babel of contending voices, and this is not only true in the outer circle of profession, but amongst those who are true children of God. What is the simple soul to do? When questions arise and Christians differ in judgment, and the strife of tongues begins, let the simple believer betake himself to the Shielding Rock, and he will prove what it is to be “kept secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues”. While others are discussing and disputing he will be enjoying the company and love of Christ.
Isaiah 32: 2. This is the Shadowing Rock. The beautiful and striking figure here employed by the Holy Spirit is one of a group of three which respectively set forth the Lord Jesus as a Hiding Place, a River and a Shadowing Rock. Imagine a poor traveller crossing a burning desert. There has been no attractive scenery to occupy his mind; it has been “a weary land”. The fierce rays of the sun have been beating down upon him, and his feet are sore with the roughness of the way. He longs for rest, but it is impossible to lie down on the ground which is so hot that the naked feet cannot bear contact with it. He sighs for a tree as a shade but there is no such thing within sight, and the weary limbs must move onward and the throbbing brain must still endure the scorching heat. But at last an object rises in distant view. The traveller’s step [p. 101] quickens, and his hopes revive. He draws nearer, and behold, it is a great rock. He hastens to it, and unloosing sandal and girdle he casts himself down in its cool and blessed shade. Such is the figure used by the prophet when he speaks of our Lord as “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land”.
It needs no great depth of spiritual understanding to find the whereabouts of the “weary land”. If we were to speak as natural men we should not think of calling the world a weary land. To the unconverted this world is not a wilderness — it is an attractive Sodom, a rich Egypt, or a splendid Babylon. But to the child of God this world is a wilderness. It contains nothing to minister to the divine nature. To the saint — the one born of God — the world is a “weary land”.
The sun was made to rule the day (Genesis 1) and so the sun is in Scripture a type of the influence of the day. So long as we are in the world we shall be subject to many influences that test and try us, and tend to spiritual exhaustion. There is a time coming of which it is written, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat” (Revelation 7: 16). But while we are here the sun does light on us, and oftentimes we feel the heat of the day. Most of us have to earn our bread by some form of manual or mental labour, and the minds of many have necessarily to be much engaged with what we are doing here. Then, again, many have to mix with worldly men and women from morning to night, and however much you desire to be separate you cannot always shut your ears to what is said, or your eyes to what is done, and it all has a certain influence upon you which tends to weaken you spiritually.
Then further, the action of the sun’s rays is used by the Lord in the parable of the sower as a figure of persecution. Many dear saints are much exposed to the scorching sun of persecution. Perhaps some of us have not so much of this as we should have if we were more faithful; but according to the measure of our fidelity we all know something of it. A brother told me the other day that a work-fellow in the [p. 102] forge had struck him a blow on the head with a hammer that might have killed him, for no reason but that he would not run to the same excess or riot as the ungodly around him.
How sweet it is, in view of all this, to have a Shadowing Rock under which we can lie down, and find the repose which our tried and weary spirits need. One could say, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight”. Beloved Christian, do you not know what it is to grow so weary of men and things that your spirit faints for the company of Christ, and you know no repose and no joy until you get under His shadow? We all know what physical exhaustion is and how delightful it is after toil to throw the weary body down in comfort and rest. Now the spirit gets weary as well as the body, and if you do not give your spirit rest you will get spiritually worn out; your soul’s health will break down. I think I have seen many cases of spiritual sunstroke — believers who have exposed themselves to the influence of present things until they are completely paralysed for Christ. Get into the shade, my brother. It is dangerous to be under the beams of the sun too long. And when you get into the shadow of the great Rock do not be in a hurry to depart. Sit down there; linger in the blessed spot until your whole soul is filled with tranquillity and joy.
In Exodus 17: 6 we read of the Smitten Rock. There could be no blessing of any kind for us apart from the death of Christ. It was necessary that He should take up all our liabilities, and that He should come under all that was due to us, in order to deliver us from death and judgment and the lake of fire. But this aspect of the death of Christ — deeply important and blessed as it is — is not presented to us in Exodus 17. The smiting of the rock is a figure of that precious death as opening up eternal springs of refreshments for our souls. Pitiable, indeed, would be the case of the believer if he had no divine refreshment to invigorate and sustain his spirit in the wilderness. He has turned his back on Egypt’s resources, and Canaan’s riches are not yet actually possessed.
[p. 103] Then from whence is he refreshed in the wilderness? The smitten rock supplies the answer.
The death of Christ has not only relieved us, but it has revealed God. The everlasting springs of the divine nature have flowed out thereby in blessing to man. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5: 8). “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4: 9, 10). “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3: 16).
It is the love of God flowing out to us through the death of Christ that refreshes and invigorates our hearts in the wilderness, and gives us the consciousness that God is for us. The death of Christ has not only revealed the love of God, but it has so settled every question connected with our responsibility as children of Adam that we are on an entirely new ground with God. God has taken us up on the ground of accomplished redemption, and on that ground we receive the Holy Spirit. In the death of Christ sins have been removed, sin judged and God glorified about every question that sin had raised. And now “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5: 5). That blessed love thus becomes the refreshment of our hearts as we pass through “a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” (Psalm 63: 1).
Finally Christ is the Satisfying Rock. “With honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee” (Psalm 81: 16). There are hidden stores of sweetness and blessing in the Son of God, out of which God delights to minister satisfaction to His saints. Do not think that because you have believed on His blessed name, and have tasted something of the joy of salvation, you have got everything. Nay, what you have received is only a few drops out of a boundless ocean. By the grace of [p. 104] God you have begun to know Christ. Now go on to know Him. The apostle Paul, after many years of christian growth and devoted service, was still longing “that I may know him” (Philippians 3: 10). Alas! there are many who seem as though they would like to have Christ for salvation and the world for satisfaction. Such are doomed to double dissatisfaction, and they deserve to be of all men most miserable.
In Psalm 81 we see that God has taken up His people in infinite grace. He had removed their shoulder from the burden, and delivered their hands from the pots; they called in trouble and He delivered them, and He told them to open their mouth wide and He would fill it. But His people would not hearken to His voice, and Israel would none of Him; so He gave them up to their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their own counsels. Is there any satisfaction in such a path? No. If we do our own will we never gain happiness thereby, but the thing we have desired becomes a scourge to us. Satisfaction, as we see in this psalm, is closely connected with obedience. “Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! ... with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee”. When any little bit of worldly gratification attracts your heart, remember that God has something infinitely better, and if you hearken to Him and walk in His ways he will feed you with the finest of the wheat, and satisfy you with honey out of the Rock.
The true spring of obedience is devotedness. It is as we cleave with purpose of heart to the Lord that we find our joy in walking in His ways. In the path of holy obedience the Spirit is not grieved, and He is thus free to carry on His delightful work of ministering Christ to our hearts. May each one of us be found ever walking in such a way that there may be no hindrance to our being fed with the finest of the wheat, and satisfied with the honey out of the Rock.