Today our Scripture is Ps. 28 and David makes a declaration that every believer must fully understand before you can understand what the Rock, Jesus, means in your life.
Read with me Psalm 28, vs. 1, "To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock: Do not be silent to me, Lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit."
David, here, refers to the Lord as a Rock. "O Lord, my Rock". What does that mean to you as a believer? When we say that Jesus is the Rock of Ages, what does that mean? When Paul says, "The Lord, God, Jesus Christ is our Rock" What does that mean? Unless you understand what the Rock was at Kadesh & Horeb in the travelings of the children of Israel, you do not understand that one phrase. It is to you then, a phrase that has no historical or spiritual lessons. But by God's grace, at the conclusion of this message this morning, you will be able to say "The Lord is my Rock" and know exactly the historical and spiritual lessons of that phrase.
May the Lord bless the proclamation of the Word of God.
There is a word, the word Rock, that has to be treated in 2 unique manners. I have at home a set of books written by Jewish Rabbis. Four hundred years of Jewish scholarship and they treat this word with absolute contextual perfection with two different and unique translations. The Hebrew word here can be translated rock and it can also be translated sculptor. A sculptor is a person who can bring shape and definition to a block of granite.
The Jewish translator says, "The Lord is my Sculptor" David said, "The Lord is my Sculptor", and with hammer and chisel He is carving away everything that is unnecessary and unwanted in my life and He is presenting us to God, shaped in His own glorious image. The Bible says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" Say that with me. (repeat) The translation is, "You are special. You are unique. God chiseled you out of the rock of His creation. He made you a very special person. There is not another person on plant earth like you. (Now, don't say thank God). There is not another person like you. You are an original. Turn to your neighbor and say, "I am very special." Some of you are being very timid, do it with some enthusiasm. (pause) That's a little better.
A young lady went to her pastor and said, "Pastor, I want you to pray for me, I have sinned." And the pastor said, "What is your sin?" She said, "It's the sin of vanity. I look in the mirror every morning and say, "how beautiful you are"" And the pastor said, "young lady, in your case it is not a sin, it is only a mistake."
Notice that the rock is in the hand of the Sculptor. It will become what the Sculptor wants. How many of you know that God has rocks on His sculpting block that talk back to Him? You are living stones and when God starts to chisel away the unwanted elements of your life, some of you talk back. How many of you know that's true? And as God raises the hammer and chisel and begins to go after your fleshy parts and you say, "Oh, no God, that's not what I want" and God says, whack, whack, whack, that's really what I want.
You will be what God wants you to be or He will get you in the END. The wife went to the reading of the will for her husband who was very wealthy. A multi-multi millionaire. And as the lawyer read the will, the husband had left every thing to the secretary. The wife raced out of the building and went straight to the cemetery and said to the young man who had engraved the tombstone, "I want to change the engraving on the headstone." He said, "Lady this is granite rock, this is not something you can erase. It cannot be changed" She said, "Alright. Alright, if it can't be changed, right after the words, REST IN PEACE, put the phrase, UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN."
Christ the Rock. Paul said in I Corinthians 10:4, "...For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, AND THAT ROCK WAS CHRIST." Christ is the solid rock.
Paul says that He is the Cornerstone, precious and elect in Zion. Before I get to Horeb and Kadesh, you need to understand this. That in the times of the Bible, the cornerstone was selected and the cornerstone determined the strength of the building. The cornerstone had to be without flaw. Without blemish. A hairline crack in the cornerstone rendered the cornerstone totally useless. JESUS IS THE CORNERSTONE OF YOUR LIFE. You can build your life upon Him and have absolute confidence that the future is going to be alright, because you are upon, not just a precious cornerstone, but a perfect cornerstone, without spot or blemish.
And then, the Cornerstone determines the potential. Jesus the Cornerstone looked at His disciples, after performing miracles and said, "Greater things than these shall you do" Say that with me. (repeat) It was God's intention for His church to be a supernatural church. Jesus was born supernaturally, He lived supernaturally, He performed miracles supernaturally, He cast out demons supernaturally, He rose from the dead supernaturally, He's coming back supernaturally, it is His desire that we be a supernatural church, BUILT UPON THE CORNER STONE, that is our foundation. A foundation of supernatural power.
LET THAT BE THE CORNERSTONE OF YOUR LIFE and you will not be ashamed, neither will you be bored with your Christian experience. The Cornerstone determined the completion of the building. Listen. Not only was the cornerstone the first rock that was laid that determined the strength and the size of the building. If you were to go to Israel the guide there would take you and show you the last stone laid in the temple and he will call that the cornerstone. Because as the first cornerstone laid determines the strength, so is the last cornerstone laid that determines its completion.
The message is, that without Christ, you are not complete. Until He has become your all in all, your life cannot not have His perfection. If He is the Cornerstone of your life, AS HE IS SO SHALL YOU BE. As He is enduring, so shall you be enduring.
When I was a little boy in church, people use to get up and give their testimony and without fail they would end it with this phrase, "Pray for me that I'll hold out to the end." Friend, if you are on Christ the Solid Rock you don't have to worry about enduring to the end. Jesus is the first and the last, He is the Alpha and the Omega, He was here in the beginning and when the fight is over, He'll be here in the end. If you're on the Rock, Christ, you'll endure and the powers of hell will never conquer you.
As He is enduring, so shall you be enduring. As He is stable, so shall you be stable. On Christ the solid rock I stand (say it with me) all other ground is sinking sand. There are only 2 foundations, rock and sand. There are only 2 kinds of builders, wise builders and foolish builders. And if you have selected for your life, the foolishness of sand, your life will come to frustration and ruin. But if you have been built on Christ the solid Rock, you will endure, you will prevail, you will be stable, you will have strength, your potential will know no limit, and your completion will be absolute and perfect.
HE IS THE ROCK IN THE WEARY LAND.
Now what does that mean? Turn to Ex. 17:6 and read with me. ""Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." Israel is in the wilderness at Horeb. They are hot, they are thirsty, they are desperate for cool, clear, refreshing water. They knew that water could come from sand. They knew water could come from the sky, but who expects to get water out of a rock. It was an unexpected source of blessing.Isaiah said, "When they shall see Him, there shall be no beauty in Him that they should desire Him." The Jews said of Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry, "How can He be a Savior, how can He be a Messiah? He's nothing but a carpenter's boy." God the Father said, "This is my rock. This is my Son in whom I am well pleased."
Notice that the rock gave forth no water until it was smitten. Christ provided solutions only when He was smitten at the cross. Now listen closely. Christ alone is not my salvation. I say it again. Christ alone is not my salvation. But Christ at Calvary conquered my sin. Christ at Calvary removed my guilt. Christ at Calvary guarantees me eternal live. Christ at Calvary guarantees me healing. Christ at Calvary guarantees that I'm adopted into the family of God. So this morning I can say, Hallelujah for the Cross, because I am part of the family of God.
It was not the end when they placed Him in the tomb, it was only the beginning. On the resurrection morning, when death's prison bars where broken, the stone was removed from the mouth of the tomb. THE STONE WAS NOT REMOVED TO LET HIM OUT, the stone was removed to let us in. To see that He was not dead, that He was in fact risen forever more.
He came forth the Cornerstone, precious and elect. He came forth the Rock of my salvation. Jesus is the Rock of my salvation. He came forth the foundation of the church and that CHURCH IS A VICTORIOUS CHURCH, that church is a triumphant church, that church is an enduring church. That church is a stable church, it is a steadfast church.
WHY? Because it is not built upon prima donna preachers, because it is not built upon superstars on television.
WILL THE CHURCH ENDURE?
I pledge to you the church will endure. It is not built on human flesh--IT IS BUILT UPON CHRIST THE SOLID ROCK AND HE WILL ENDURE FOREVER. Bless His name.The Lord is my Rock. The church is a stream of living water pouring life into the lives of people, barren as the desert. We are, if you will ladies and gentlemen, we the church are streams in the desert. Speaking words that heal. Speaking words that bring peace. Speaking words that bring deliverance to the captive. Speaking words that bring hope to the hopeless.
But alas, some of God's children are wells without water, trees without fruit, clouds without rain. You have nothing in your soul but a religious routine and ritual. You have ceremony that hasn't changed your conduct. You have a creed that hasn't affected the way you speak or the way you think. But when you plug into Christ the Solid Rock, and you BEGIN TO FEEL HIS LIFE AND HIS VITALITY and out of your inner most being shall flow rivers of living water, and everyone that gets around you will begin to live because in you in the living breathing, resurrected Son of the Living God.
The church is a stream in the desert. How do I give life, I speak life. How do you give life? You speak life.
Upon the Cross of Calvary they pierced Jesus' side and from His side flowed blood and water. Blood that forgives all of my sins and water that refreshes, "for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish". Moses smote the rock, God smote the Rock and because the Rock has been smitten, I live thru the authority of the Cross. Because of His love for you, and for you and for you, He died at Calvary. And when He died at Calvary the veil was rent from top to bottom and the ground shook and the dead rose and walk among the living. And because the veil was rent, the veil that separated man from the Holy of Holies, we have access to the Father, hallelujah to the Lamb.
It was not the end when they placed Him in the tomb, it was only the beginning.
The Lord is my Rock and the Church will endure because we are built on Christ the Solid Rock.
Can we stand.
