Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

In the book of Exodus, we find two references to a cleft rock.  The first comes in the seventeenth chapter.  The people of Israel have run out of water in the wilderness.  They cry out to Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”  Moses turns to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people?  They are almost ready to stone me.”

     God guides Moses to a rock and tells him to strike it with his staff (presumably breaking it open).  As promised, water gushes from it. Some thirteen hundred years later the Apostle Paul wrote of this moment, “For they [the Israelites] drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (I Cor. 10:4).

     The second reference to a cleft rock comes in Exodus 33:17-23.  The people have created and worshiped a golden calf in Moses' absence, a plague has descended upon them and God has announced that he will no longer go up among them.  Moses pleads with God , “Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight.”  The Lord responds: "See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back…"
 

     In 1776, an Anglican clergyman named Augustus Toplady drew on these accounts to create one of the great hymns of the Church, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.”  It opens and closes with the same beautiful plea: “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.”  Toplady, drawing from the Apostle's interpretation, makes it clear that it is Christ who is that rock, Christ alone in whom we find God’s saving grace: “Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law’s demands.  Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone.  Thou must save, and thou alone.”

     Toplady died two years later at thirty eight, but his end was jubilant and triumphant.  “I enjoy heaven already in my soul,” he said as he lay dying, “My prayers are all converted into praises.”

     Where do we find that ever-flowing stream that cleanses and renews?   We find it in turning towards the one, true rock: Jesus Christ, the Lord.

“O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!  Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!  For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Ps. 95:1-3).


- Pastor Chris