There is an amazing illustration of this; let’s read it together:
Exodus 17:3-6 ESV But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (4) So Moses cried to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” (5) And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. (6) Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Question 3. According to Exodus 17:5-6, what solution did God provide for the thirst problem?
Isn’t that a unique solution? Striking a rock to find water? It’s as if the rock was punished! But that can’t be, the rock obviously didn’t do anything wrong, it’s a rock! What is God teaching here?
Notice Paul’s comment about this very story in the New Testament:
1 Corinthians 10:4 ESV they and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Ah, do you see it now? Just as that rock had to be “struck” for the water to flow, so on the cross, Jesus, our Spiritual Rock, was struck and He died, that the Holy Spirit might be given. It is the cross that quenches our thirst!
So consider this picture for a moment:
See Jesus being struck on the cross for you, like the rock in the wilderness was struck for the Israelites.
See the Holy Spirit flowing from the death of Jesus, for you. Just like the rock was struck, Jesus was “wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities” and out of His death the Holy Spirit flows to all who are thirsty.
See that this precious, thirst-quenching Spirit-river is to be the satisfaction of your heart, to meet your needs, to free you from craving and yearning.
Now, in light of this good news, consider again Jesus' words in John 7:38-39, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
Question 4. According to John 7:38-39, what did Jesus say you, as a believer, would experience?