Our Youngest daughter, Cil, Husband Peter, and two beautiful grandchildren have often photographed Uluru, or Eyre’s Rock in the heart of Australia’s desert. It is the world’s grandest monolith, although they have visited its little-known equal in Western Australia. Eyre’s Rock often flames with bright red or gold at sunrise or gentle blue to violet in the late evening. Streams of tourists from around the world daily view and scale this majestic mount.

Scripture records a significant mountain in Exodus 17.

2 1/2 million of the children of Israel, obeyed God’s command when they migrated from the wilderness of Sin. They pitched their tents in Rephidim, which means ‘support’. However, they were dismayed on finding no water. They were parched with thirst, while some craved for water, and others were dehydrated in the desert wandering, a serious medical condition. God has marvellously constituted our body with 90% water.

The people chided with Moses, wrangling, quarrelling, growling and complaining to their God-appointed leader. ( v2 ). They wailed " Give us water." Moses contended with them, " Why do you tempt the Lord "meaning, " Why do your hassle your God, or try to prove the character of God?

The people were tormented with thirst, causing them to murmur against Moses with the unbelievable complaint that their God had brought them out of Egypt to kill them, their children and cattle with thirst. They had short memories of the miracle freeing of an entire nation and knew that their God was not flippant, playful or mischievous God. ( v3 ) We too may readily misinterpret the testing times that God brings to us, wasting unnecessary emotional and spiritual resource.

. God was poised in the background waiting to show His unlimited power and His great grace.

Moses did the only thing that a man of God could do in crying out to His God. ( v5) He is the ideal example to each generation. We may often seek a myriad of ways when God has only one.

Moses directly asks the Lord, " Whatever shall I do? They are almost ready to stone me"

The Lord responded immediately, tenderly protecting His special servant Moses. God spoke to him in the Hebrew language in simple speech. " Go on before the people and take the elders of Israel with you", showing that action and fellowship with brothers are part of the calming process. God surprised Moses when He told him " to take your rod in your hand, wherewith you smote the river".. Its immediate effect was to flood Moses’ memory with scenes of the conquest of Israel over Egypt and the freedom of one people contrasted with the devastating destruction of the other. Let God stir our memory, especially where a crisis is developing.

Why the rod? It is a switch from a living tree, and relates to the Tree of Life. It is a sceptre, for a king - and Moses must rule in this hour. It is a crook for a shepherd, and he must lead his flock to the promised Land. It is a rod, for a father’s chastisement, and Moses is the father of this vast family.

The rod is a symbol of God’s power, exercised through faith. Moses went through a learning process, even as we must be schooled to take the rod in our hand - and go.

The eternal God promised to stand before Moses there upon the rock in Horeb. ( v6 ) Oh, how, the Presence of the most High God comforted the meekest man on the face of the earth, and reinforced every fibre of Moses’ spirit, soul and body. The rock is important in this transaction, hence y early illustration of Eyre’s Rock. Moses would strike this rock and water would come out of it. Surprisingly, many cultures have a proverb that "you cannot get blood ( or water ) out of a stone". Here God promised that He would perform a supernatural deed in bringing a flood of life-giving water out of mineral in the burning heart of the Sinai Desert. David later wrote, " The Lord is my Rock"

( Psalm 18:2), on which Sidlow Baxter writes, ‘ Beside being a rock of fortress for the weary, and a rock of refuge from the storm, He is the rock of Horeb giving water to the thirsty., Paul commented,

" They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ" , ( 1 Cor 10:4).

Why should " Moses strike the rock in Horeb ( mount of law-giving ) and water come out of it, so that the people may drink". ( v6) God stood on that rock, an allusion to the Father sharing the full blow or force of the offended law to fall on His beloved Son, The Rock of ages. Jesus explained that " I and My Father are one ", pictured here as the Father showed His oneness with His Son by standing on the rock. Paul expressed this truth in a different way, " Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us," Also. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself", was featured in this dramatic moment on Mount Horeb.

Water flowed supernaturally from the unyielding rock, showing the nature of our dear Lord. No one could explain how the eternal God provided sufficient litres of water for the 2 1/2 million to keep them in the hot, dry Sinai desert. During my hospital stay in Egypt in 1941 in world War 11, every patient was urged to drink three jugs of cool water daily to maintain their fluid balance. . How much more when the unguarded children of Israel migrated through the arid desert! The life-giving stream from the rock spoke of the unending, eternal life that our Lord Jesus had poured into our thirsty selves. He made complete provision for every longing, satisfied every pure appetite built in to His highest creation, fulfilled every yearning of spirit, soul and body. Oh, what a mighty stream

( a Yangste for the Chinese believers ), a Mississipi for the American saints ), a Rhine for the German and Swiss, a Darling and Murray Rivers, pouring their life into New South Wales and South Australia. a Nile for nations of Africa, an Elbe for the Ukraine Christians. . Living waters.

Christ our beloved Lord is all that.......and more. " And that Rock that followed them was Christ".

I am 79 years of age. HE has been my Rock during a childhood in the depression, my shelter in years in a bank , my Protector during years of costly separation overseas during World War 11, my sustenance during post-war study of medicine, our refuge during 54 beautiful years of marriage to my dear Gwenda, our support during the raising of 6 beautiful children, our Strength during the most profitable years in Java, and a generation of family medicine, meanwhile teaching the Word of God. He is truly the Rock of ages, or our everlasting strength.

The Scripture does not tell how God shattered the rock nor the immediate response of the people, but it tells how Moses obeyed God in the presence of the elders of Israel. Moses called the place

‘ Massah’ and ‘ Meribah’ because the people chided God and tempted Him. Hoe could the children of Israel possibly doubt that the Lord was among them ". ( v7 ) They had witnessed the 9 plagues in Egypt, the Passover deliverance and destruction, the parting of millions of tonnes of Red Sea for their release and the swamping of the Egyptian charioteers - and now this breat..h-taking show of God’s power.

Unbelief and ingratitude rob a people of the immense comfort and calm of resting in their great God.

.