THE ROCK

G. A. Brown

Deuteronomy 32: 1–4; Exodus 33: 13, 17–23; Matthew 16: 13–18; 1 Corinthians 10: 1–4

I desire, dear brethren, with the Lord’s help, to say a little as to what is stable and unchanging. We live in a changing scene. Man’s world is constantly fluctuating and those who seek to manipulate events in the world find that they themselves are being manipulated by the events. We are thankful for government, of course. It is of God, but politics are largely a matter of expediency, changing all the time. It is rather like the sea, and Scripture uses the sea as a figure of this very thing. You will remember that in the book of the Revelation the first beast rises out of the sea, an unstable, changing condition of things, and also it is worthy of note that, when the eternal day dawns at the end of Revelation, it says that “the sea exists no more” (Revelation 21: 1). That is to say, God has worked out all His designs. Finality has been reached and no one will ever know uncertainty again. But in the meantime we are in this scene of uncertainty. I suppose every one of us here must at some time or another have watched the sea, watched the waves break on the rocks. It is fascinating to watch, the tremendous power of the sea. No man is able to control it. I am sure the children have all been fascinated by these waves crashing on the rocks. Frightening it is indeed and yet when the sea retires, the rock is still there, it has not moved. It was there yesterday, it was there a century ago, many centuries ago, unmoved, immovable; no matter how tremendous the power of the sea is it cannot move the rock, and that is what I want to speak about.

You will have noticed these scriptures we have read refer to the rock and the first thing I trust that we all may learn very early in our lives is what Moses tells us here, at the end of his life, that God is the Rock. He says, “the name of Jehovah will I proclaim—Ascribe greatness unto our God! He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are righteousness”. Now there is something, young brother and sister, to grasp at the very beginning of your life, that whatever else may be failing, you can always trust God. You will know storms in your life. You will know uncertainties. You will know disappointments, bereavements. Many sorrows come into our lives and, like Peter, you almost think at times that you are going to sink. But God is the Rock. That is something you can always rely on. Your God has never ever changed, and He never ever will. In His ways and in His attitude it is necessary at times that He should appear differently because of our needs, but in Himself (and this is foundational in the soul of the believer) God is a Rock and we need to learn to trust Him.

Of course, in our day, in Christianity, when we speak of God, we speak in the full light of the way that He has revealed Himself, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You come to know the Father, One who is to be infinitely relied upon. The Lord Jesus speaks of Him in that way as

“your heavenly Father”. You might wonder at times what the outcome of a matter is going to be. Situations get so tight, so desperate. The Lord says that your heavenly Father will care for you. He knows. Oh, trust Him, trust the Father. It is a beautiful way in which God has made Himself known, because we all know what this relationship means, we almost all of us know what it is to have a father. A child can always go to his father, at least usually that is so; but earthly fathers are not perfect. The old hymn says that ‘Earthly friends

may fail and leave us, One day soothe, the next day grieve us’. That is true, but you can always trust your heavenly Father, you can always go back to Him. It does not matter how far you may have wandered, how far you have got away from Him.

The younger son in Luke 15, how far away he went! He got himself into such a situation that it seemed almost impossible that he could ever get right again, but then, when he was away in that far country longing for the very husks that the swine were eating, the thought came into his mind, ‘My father, he has not changed at all!’ He says, ‘I will go back to my father’, and that is just what he did. We all know this story well. I do not go into it in detail, but he knew his father. He had come to know what his friends could do to him, and how all his friends had let him down, how he had let himself down as well, but he knew that he could go back home and find his father just as he left him. Trust the Father, and trust the Lord Jesus. I suppose we have all trusted Jesus, have come to know Him as our Saviour, the One who died for us. You have trusted Him that far? Well, learn to trust Him all the way because He will never ever let you down. The blessed Holy Spirit, as another has said, is ‘your best Friend on earth’. Are we all conscious of having received the gift of the Holy Spirit? You may grieve Him, as we all have done, you may even quench Him, but He is always the same. This is how we know God.

“He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are righteousness”.

Well now, Moses makes that statement at the very end of his life, but I wanted to refer to Exodus 33 which relates to a time when he is facing one of the most severe exercises of his life. He has been up on the mountain with God and received a great deal of light from God; he has received the tables of stone with the law written upon them and he has come down from the mountain and found the

people engaged in idolatry. What a blow that was for him! So he shattered the tables of stone beneath the mountain, and it was right that he should do so because it shows that he was on God’s side. Moses is a great mediator and he comes down and shatters these stones, indicating that the law in the hands of man had been broken and that man after the flesh is incapable of keeping the law. Now Moses has much before him. He has to go up the mountain again and he is going to receive the tables of stone again like the first; note that, there is no change in God’s standards, and then he has to come down the second time. He tells us about it in Deuteronomy 10 very beautifully. He says, “And I made an ark of acacia-wood ... And I ... put the tables in the ark which I had made—and they are there”, Deuteronomy 10: 3, 5. It speaks to us so beautifully of the Lord Jesus. He says, “thy law is within my heart”, Psalm 40: 8. God has found in Christ a Man who is not only able to keep the law but to give a fulness to it which no other could.

But here we have Moses in the middle of all this exercise coming down to find the law broken, the camp in idolatry, the people under Aaron’s leadership (if you could call it leadership), all having gone to pieces. What is he going to do? God was very angry with the people, so angry that He proposed to Moses that He would consume them. And He said to Moses, “I will make of thee a great nation”, Exodus 32: 10. Moses besought Jehovah for the people and says, “This nation is thy people!” But he needs help and encouragement here. He says, “And now, if indeed I have found grace in thine eyes, make me now to know thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thine eyes; and consider that this nation is thy people!” Oh, what a man Moses was; able to remind God of His promise to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Moses declined, as it were, the offer that he should become a great nation and said,

‘No, your promises are to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; this is Thy people’.

But Moses needs encouragement. He asks God just for a look at His glory. Remember, this is not the Christian dispensation we are talking about. Moses had never really seen God. He had been up on the mountain, but everything was in mystery. Jehovah said to Moses, “I will do this thing also that thou hast said”. Then in verse 21, “And Jehovah said, Behold, there is a place by me—there shalt thou stand on the rock”—that is Christ. The hymn says, ‘On Christ the solid rock I stand’. What a foundation for our souls, to stand upon that Rock! But then He goes on to say, “And it shall come to pass, when my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand”. Oh, how tender God is; what a God He is! Are you not thankful, beloved, that that Rock has been cleft for you? How touching it is that the death of Christ had to take place that we might find a place where we can be safe.

Now God’s glory can be seen and we not be consumed by it. The death of Christ has met every moral question. We would never have been able to stand in the presence of God’s glory were it not for that Rock ‘Rock of Ages! cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee’ (Hymn 396). That is what Moses did here. Jehovah tenderly takes Moses and puts him there in the cleft of the rock and covers him with His hand. It was not possible, of course, for Moses to see God’s face, but he saw His glory passing by.

I was just thinking of the way God’s glory passed by in the life of Jesus here. ‘Nor yet in triumph passing, but human infancy!’, Mr. Darby says. Think of Him coming in by way of the manger, coming into such lowly conditions. Jesus “came out from God and was going to God”, John 13: 3. He met the woman of Samaria; it says He “must needs pass through Samaria”, John 4: 4. Think of Him passing

by to be available to the blind beggar—Jesus of Nazareth passing by. Oh what a wonderful thing that God should come so near to men in Jesus, going on to the cross itself, where the Rock was cleft. Thus that place was found for us that we might know security, safety and satisfaction, to be able to be there as God’s glory passes by. We know now in Christianity the full shining of the glory of God. It is in the face of Jesus Christ. “We all”, the apostle says,

“looking on the glory of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3: l8). No longer is the glory hidden. In Christianity the clear outshining of God’s glory is seen in the face of Jesus Christ, something that Moses, great man as he was, was never able to see. I suppose he sees it now where he is; and he saw the glory of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration Moses and Elias, it says, appearing in glory. Wonderful!

In Matthew 16 we have the Lord Jesus Himself speaking. There was evidently some great controversy as to who He was. “He says to them, But ye, who do ye say that I am?” Bear in mind that this took place when the Roman Empire was at its height and the land of Palestine was under the Roman yoke. Idolatry was everywhere; gods of stone were to be found on every street corner. Palaces, shrines, temples were everywhere, erected to these gods of stone.

You might say it is not like that today, but really it has not changed very much. Things have not changed morally, because the streets of our cities are full of temples dedicated to the pleasure of men and women and young people. These gods may have different names now but morally they are not any different. Idolatry is still the same and there is at least one of these gods for everybody. There is something in the world system which appeals to every one of us. The stamp of death is upon it all. Every one of these gods has death upon it.

It is in that context that this wonderful

confession comes from Peter. He says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Peter knew that there was a living God and that he stood in the presence of His Son. What a revelation it was that Peter had! Now the Lord says, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens”. Then He goes on to say, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. Now I know, and you know too, that there is a great deal of error taught as to this passage of Scripture. It is taught very widely that Peter is the rock upon which the assembly is built, but that is not the truth. Let us all be clear about that. Now I respect Peter immensely. In fact, I do not like to hear him referred to as ‘failing Peter’, as he sometimes is, because I do not think that Peter was characteristically a failing man.

Characteristically Peter was an overcomer; he was the first of the apostles. The Lord had a very special place for Peter, but he did fail and his failures were recorded for us, and that is one reason why Peter could never be the foundation of the assembly, because Christ’s assembly cannot be founded on anything which has a flaw in it. What Peter confessed, that He was “the Christ, the Son of the living God”, is the rock upon which the assembly is built.

Beloved young people, get this clearly into your souls that what you have to do with as belonging to the assembly is something which has a foundation which cannot be shaken.

Now the gates of hades supposes a very formidable enemy, an organised enemy. Gates usually involve administration and I can tell you this that the devil has an administration. It is very finely geared and very efficient, but remember this, that the assembly is founded upon something which can never be shaken, and no matter how far these powers of evil may

assail the assembly down here, “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. God is in control.

God allows certain things, but “Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed”, Job 38: 11. The rock remains immovable because it relates to the Person of “Christ, the Son of the living God”.

In 1 Corinthians 10 the apostle is reminding the saints at Corinth about the history that had taken place, how all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, and so on,

“and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them”. This rock moves, and you may say to me that that is a contradiction because I said the rock does not move, but the answer is, of course, just what it says in this scripture, that this was a “spiritual rock”. I cannot explain to you literally how this came about, but the rock appears in Exodus 17, this is the rock that was smitten and from which the waters flowed. Now you have known what it is to have your sins forgiven, you have known what it is to come under the shelter of the blood of Christ, but the rock that was smitten in Exodus 17 was smitten in order that water might flow. In other words, Christ was smitten on the cross in order that the gift of the Holy Spirit might become available to you and to me. Now let us be sure about that. The Lord Jesus has suffered for that, and for many other things as well, of course, but He suffered that the Spirit might be given. It is one aspect of the sufferings of Christ which perhaps we somewhat neglect, but He suffered, He was smitten, that the water might flow.

Now make full use of that water, beloved young people; right from early on in your lives get into the habit of making use of the blessed Holy Spirit as a source of satisfaction. Paul is speaking here of the way that the people had come and it was a

long, long journey through the wilderness and there were many sorrows in it. There were murmurings, rebellions, grumblings. What a people they were to handle! in fact Moses at one time lost his temper with the people, so much was he affected by their murmurings; but I think, beloved, that what this passage brings out is the grace of Christ that followed them.

Wherever they went, the rock was there. You have in another setting the ark going before.

When the ark moved forward, the people moved; that is one aspect of it, Christ goes before us in the wilderness; but here He is coming behind. Think of that, the grace of it, “they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them”. The water was always available but it was not always appropriated, and that was because of the state of the people. You will find that if the Spirit is not free in you and divine things are not satisfying you then there is a reason for it, and you will find it in your own heart. Well, get to the reason and judge it and you will find the waters will flow again. There is no need for that rock to be smitten again. We know the history, how Moses smote the rock again; that was not necessary. The work that was accomplished once and for all never needs to be repeated. In spite of all our history the grace of Christ is such that the waters flow.

It is most affecting to think of all the way we have come ourselves. Think of what a history it has been both individually and collectively; those who are older can remember further back—what a history it has been. There have been revivals, then decline. That is what the history has been constantly—revival and then decline. You will find it in the Scripture, of course; that is the history of the people of old and it has been the history of the assembly publicly too. Oh the grace of Christ, that “spiritual rock which followed them—

(now the rock was the Christ)”! Oh let us be affected to think of that! The Lord Jesus, no matter what our wanderings have been, that spiritual Rock has followed us and in Him the fulness of the Spirit is available, waters will flow and we can be fully and completely satisfied. Well, I trust, dear brethren, I have conveyed something. Let us just be assured that whatever the departures may have been on our part there is something that we can always come back to. It does not matter how terrible the disaster that has come into your life, you can come back to this that God is the Rock and He will never fail you. May we learn it for His name’s sake.

Address at Malvern
5 October 1985