27: The Promises to Israel - Object Teaching
The Present Truth : November 5, 1896
God deals with us as with children, and teaches us by object lessons. By the things that we can see, He teaches us the things that mortal eye cannot see. So in the water that flowed from the rock, and in the water and the blood, which flowed from the side of Christ, we learn the reality of the life that Christ gives those who believe on Him. Spiritual things are not imaginary, but real. The people in the desert could know that the water that refreshed their bodies came direct from Christ, and from that they could know that He can actually give life. They could not know how, but that was not necessary. It was sufficient for them to know the fact.
If we believe the Word, we may know that we drink as directly from Christ as did the Israelites in the wilderness. He made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water. “In Him all things consist.” The water, which we drink, coming forth from the ground, is as truly from Him as that which gushed from the rock in Horeb. “He layeth up the depth in storehouses.” Psalm 33.7
People speak of the water on the earth as a “natural product,” almost with the thought that it is self-existent. The falling rain and the flowing spring are referred to “natural causes.” Convenient terms are these to avoid giving God the glory. Stand by a stream of clear, sparkling water as it rushes on its way from its birthplace in the mountains. It is ever changing, yet ever the same. Unceasing in its flow, why does it not exhaust the supply? Is there a reservoir of infinite capacity in the heart of the earth that enables the brook to “go on forever,” without ever diminishing the quantity. Is there not something marvelous about that constant flow? “Oh no,” says the man who knows it all, “it is a very simple matter; the water on the earth’s surface is drawn up to the clouds, and these give rain which keeps the supply constantly good.” But who causes the rain? “The Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King; . . . when He uttereth His voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth.” Jeremiah 10.10-13. He is the “living God” and the operations of “nature” are but manifestations of His ceaseless activity.
No doubt the Israelites in the desert soon ceased to look upon the flow of water from the rock as miraculous. No doubt many of them never, even at the first, gave a single thought to it, save that it afforded a supply for their thirst. But as it flowed on year after year, and became a familiar thing, the wonder of it diminished, and at last ceased altogether. Children were born, to whom it was as though it always had been; to them it seemed but a product of “natural causes” as do the springs which we may now see coming from the earth; and so the Great Source was forgotten, even as He is now.