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When Faith In God Is Challenged
~Exodus 17:1-7~
In-person service at
Second Baptist Church,
Griffith Hall!
William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
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1Next, they journeyed forth, the whole company of the sons of Israel, from the wilderness of Sin, setting out as Yahweh directed, they pitched camp at Rephidim (“places of spreading out”?), where there was no water for the people to drink. 2So it was that the people became dissatisfied with Moses, and said “Give us water, so that we may drink,?” But Moses answered them, “Why are you so dissatisfied with me? Why are you putting Yahweh on trial?” 3Still the people were parched for water there, so the people grumbled against Moses, and said, “What is this? You have brought us up from Egypt to kill us, along with our sons and our stock, of thirst?” 4Moses then called out to Yahweh for help, saying, “What am I to do with these people? A little more, and they will be stoning me to death!” 5So Yahweh said to Moses, “Move along in front of the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel: take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river Nile, and go along, 6When you see me standing in front of you, there on a rock in Horeb, then strike the rock, and water will flow forth from it, so that the people can drink.” So Moses did exactly that, as the elders of Israel looked on.b 7For that reason, he called the name of the place “Massah (Testing) and Meribah (Dissatisfaction),” on account of the dissatisfaction of the sons of Israel and on account of their putting Yahweh to the test, asking, “Is Yahweh present with us, or not?"
Exodus 17:1-7
Introduction
Exodus 17:1-7 shares a story about faith in God being challenged. Here is an instance about people asking “is God among us or not?” In their frustration they vented their doubt, disappointment and distress passionately. Has your faith in God ever been challenged? Imagine a situation in which you may have ask like the children of Israel did, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Here is a story about a people's faith in God being challenged.
The unfolding drama of this dilemma is quite interesting, insightful and inspirational.
A contingent of persons set out as directed by God into the wilderness. They came to a place called Rephidim (a place of spreading out) but there was no water to drink. The people became dissatisfied with Moses and expressed it. “Give us water, so that we may drink,!” But Moses answered them, “Why are you so dissatisfied with me? Why are you putting Yahweh on trial?” 3Still the people were parched for water there, so the people grumbled against Moses, and said, “What is this? You have brought us up from Egypt to kill us, along with our sons and our stock, of thirst?”
The Lord instructs Moses, “Move along in front of the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel: take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river Nile, and go along, 6When you see me standing in front of you, there on a rock in Horeb, then strike the rock, and water will flow forth from it, so that the people can drink.” When Moses did this, water came forth in abundance, providing for the needs of the Israelites. Moses named the place Massah (test) and Meribah (quarrel), an epitaph which the Israelites would gladly have stricken from their history.
Consider what it means to have your faith in God
challenged, doubted and questioned.
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The point of this narrative is underscored by its summary conclusion: Moses names the place “Testing and Dissatisfaction,” a name that reverses the sequence of previous events. Since the dissatisfied people put Yahweh (and Moses) to the test by their complaining, a complaining which posed the unbelievable question, “Is Yahweh present with us, or not?” The scandal of this question of course is that their release and their freedom, their rescue at the sea, their guidance through the wilderness with sustenance, and their very presence at Rephidim all answered such an inquiry in unmistakable events. The only unbelievable aspect of the narrative is that the Israelites could possibly ask such a question at such a time, and on the basis of so flimsy a provocation. The question anticipates the terrible doubt that is to come (Exodus 32), even as it poses their basis of the grumbling and their negligence to realize the many proofs of the Lord’s presence with them.
The Israelites should have learned to trust God to supply their needs, based upon God’s previous provision of water at Marah (Exodus 15:22-26) and quail and manna in the wilderness of Sin in chapter 16. Furthermore, the Israelites did far more than just grumble, as they had previously done. Before this, the Israelites had grumbled against Moses and Aaron (15:24; 16:2, 7-8), but now they are quarreling with Moses and about to stone him (17:4). Before, the Israelites asked Moses what they were to drink (15:24), but now they are demanding that Moses give them water to drink. Since Moses had been able to miraculously sweeten the waters at Marah and to produce quail and manna, the people appear to be demanding that he perform another miracle for them.
The difference with this situation and the response of the people and other instances is apparent. When the waters at Marah were bitter the people complained what shall we drink? Moses cries out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a piece of wood that made the bitter water sweet. It is as though he must prove he has God’s authority to lead them by producing water miraculously. The people were challenging God here as well. The challenge of the Israelites was, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Imagine this question being asked as the pillar of cloud, in which God was present and by which God revealed God’s glory and led them to this place, hovering in their sight. Moses' rebuke (that the people were putting God to the test) fell on deaf ears. They began to rehearse their memories of the "good old days" in Egypt, contrasted with their miseries and lack of resources in the desert (17:3). Unable to dissuade the people, Moses could only cry out to the Lord for help (17:4).
This incident at Massah and Meribah becomes a description for the hardness of the hearts of the people. Also, Massah and Meribah are evidence of the grace of God and of God’s presence and provision for the people.
Consider what it means to demand that the Lord do
what you want to prove that God’s presence.
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Firstly, faith in God is challenged in circumstances of dissatisfaction.
"So it was that the people became dissatisfied." Dissatisfaction leads to doubt.
Doubt leads to demanding proof. This neglects to remember all that has been done. Listen to the admonition, "do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did" (Psalm 95:8-9).
Do not be disloyal and faithless and unreliable.
Satan challenged our Lord to prove that He was the Son of God by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple, but our Lord rebuked him with a reference this incident at Massah and Meribah with the response “it is written, you shall not tempt the Lord, your God.”(Matthew 4:5-7). Satan had no right to challenge Jesus for this would suggest that God is so unreliable that God must prove God’s self.
They went from asking to demanding. Dissatisfaction can lead to making some awful choices. Choices whose consequences that can be devastating. The Lord delivered them from bondage and captivity. The Lord led them into the wilderness. The Lord provided the sustenance to sustain them in the wilderness. You have the audacity to ask if the Lord is with you or not?
Consider what it means to question whether God is
with you when you are dissatisfied.
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Wednesday, October 4, 2023 | |
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Secondly, faith in God is challenged when God's Presence seems absent.
“Is Yahweh present with us, or not?" Mack King Carter refers to what he calls the absence, ambivalence and ambiguity of God. (The ambivalence (the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone) / absence / (indifferent) and ambiguity / (uncertainty)
Wrestling with the God question, "Is God with us or not?" ignores God's previous sustaining grace.
There was a lot of complaining and grumbling in the wilderness. Delivering one kind of "ultimatum" after another, they set themselves up as the ones who could judge whether or not God was with them, and whether God was doing what God was supposed to do. If we are the ones to decide what shall count as evidence of God's good presence and activity among us, how presumptuous would that be to determine the kind of God you want as opposed to being chosen by a God that covenants with you. We have seen the outcome when we make and want a God that we manipulate and use at our whim and fancy to fulfill whatever desires we have at any given moment. We want a god that is a cosmic genie that we can command. The Lord is not a genie that we can command and demand at will.
Notice that the people are all about God's need to act when there's no water, but then seem to take the water for granted when it was provided plentifully in the past. Which experiences shall we take as the most reliable evidence concerning God in the world and in our lives?" In fact, in Exodus 15:27, just before the manna story, the Israelites spent time in "Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water." The narrative about that comfortable part of the journey doesn't mention any conversation about God's care or Moses' leadership when things were going well. Imagine the Israelites' conversations
during the comfortable parts of the journey.
Consider what it means that how you confirm the Lord’s presence in your life,
is determined by the experiences of which you choose to reflect.
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Thursday, October 5, 2023 | |
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There is a parallel between the doubts of the people at Rephidim, and our own doubts at different points in our lives, when things get tough. In response, think about,
"the memory of oasis points in our past, where provision of our needs has carried with it a strong sense of God's presence," but also on the future hope that draws us forward, "something that reaches back to us from the future, to give us a foretaste of what lies ahead." It's hard to imagine that the people had any idea of what lay just ahead, up on that mountain, and how it would shape their lives, when water gushes from that rock at the base of Horeb (another name for Sinai, where they would receive the Torah), "sustaining water comes not from where they are but from where they are headed." What would it look like to be sustained by the future more than by what is right before us in the present, or by what we've received from our ancestors before us? Have you ever had that experience?
Consider what it means to remember oasis points in
your wilderness sojourn experiences.
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Thirdly, faith in God is challenged by our perspective of our wilderness experience.
There's more than one way to see, and remember, the wilderness experiences.
We might explore several other themes in this reading: first, there's the wilderness, a powerful symbol, like Moses' staff, capable of being experienced in more than one way. Throughout the story of the people of faith (and even today), "wilderness" can be a lovely pristine, holy place where you can draw closer to God, or it can be a lonely, threatening place, symbolizing despair and abandonment. Think of the desert fathers or monks in monasteries away from "the world," think of Jesus preparing for ministry and being tempted by the devil. The wilderness can be seen as a place of preparation and hope. The wilderness can be perceived as a threating place where danger lurks.
If the wilderness itself embodies two very different meanings, the memory of Israel is also starkly divided about its time there. On the one hand, there's the memory of grumbling, complaining, and unfaithfulness, but it's also true that the people looked back on their time there under "God's gracious and miraculous care." And so, while manna is remembered to this day as God's gracious response to human need, what's remembered about the water incident is the grumbling rather than the gift, as verse 7 tells us, in the names Moses gives the place, Massah and Meribah.
“Losing feels worse than winning feels good.” Lewis Grizzard, the famous
twentieth-century American philosopher, left us with many memorable sentences, but none of them ever landed closer to the truth than this one: "Losing feels worse than winning feels good." Why does pain almost always seem to weigh more than joy?
It's another way of saying the pains of life weigh more than the joys of life. (Charles Poole / The weight of pain / pp.13-18)
Consider what it means that the weight of pain seems
to weigh more than the joy of life.
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Saturday, October 7, 2023 | |
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Conclusion
In the wilderness of need people grumble. When we are in need, the reality of basic physical human needs is where we are most vulnerable. The water question (concrete, material support for life) is turned into the God question. The bible understands God as sometimes present and sometimes absent. The Israelites were experiencing what led them to question whether God was with them or not. When persons are crushed by depression or deep mourning or a pressing need, the question is raised where is God? Is God with us or not? The answer to Israel’s deep question (the God question) comes back as Yes! The story, then, about "God's Big Yes" is not only about something that happened long ago and far away: it is about us, too, our own wilderness, our own needs, our own questions, and our own prayers. It’s about "being dazzled beyond every expectation," we too should expect to be nothing less than dazzled.
Consider our history and sojourn from the great tragedy and horrific disaster of the Maafa, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. During that time, millions of captives from the continent of Africa were taken captive, persecuted, beaten, separated from their families and forced into enslavement and free labor. A country formed with Judeo-Christian values and yet continued to perpetuate devaluing those from whom they expected labor as property and whom were considered less than fully human (3/5) of a person. Consider the Civil War galvanized by the question of slavery and state’s rights and the split with the death of 620,000 (360,222 Union soldiers and 258,000 Confederate soldiers. Consider the continuing Civil Rights movement today and how our initial division continues to bifurcate us into groups of for or against using our faith as the impetus to fuel our commitment, and posture. Imagine in this current wilderness the God question, is God with us or not?
The answer to question is yes, God is with us. God came in Christ to show us the way, the truth and life that God intends for all of the creatures made as objects of God’s love and affection. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and giving us the ministry reconciliation” to show forth the redemption, restoration and reclamation of God’s intention for life and life abundantly. (II Corinthians 5:19). The issue is not whether God is with us but whether we are with God and God’s vision for our lives and our world.
Adelaide Pollard had a burden for the continent of Africa and was convinced that God wanted her to go there as a missionary. She had been on the very point of going there, but she had to cancel everything since the necessary funds just couldn’t be raised.
You can imagine her disappointment. During a prayer group meeting she listened to
the words of a prayer, often uttered by an old lady she knew. She prayed, “It’s all right, Lord! It doesn’t matter what you bring into our lives; just have your own way with us!”
In a moment her burden had been lifted as she bowed in submission to the will of God. She went home that night and she meditated on the story of the potter, recorded by Jeremiah:18:34. “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”
She was questioning God’s will for her life. As she bowed in humble consecration before God, the words of a poem took shape in her mind, and she wrote:
Have Thine own way, Lord! / Have Thine own way!
Thou art the potter; / I am the clay.
Mold me and make me / after Thy will,
While I am waiting, / yielded and still.
Consider what it means to describe your wilderness experiences
as both promising and perplexing, threatening and hopeful.
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