Scripture

All of them ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that travelled with them, and that rock was Christ.

Observation

The ancestors in the wilderness are a warning to followers of Christ. They were guided by the cloud, they passed safely through the sea, they ate and drank miraculously, and yet God was not pleased with them.

Despite all of these miraculous signs of God’s presence, they worshipped idols in the wilderness. They indulged in sexual immorality and 23000 of them died in one day.

We must not put Christ to the test by grumbling as some of them did, and they were destroyed. These things happened as an example to us.

Application

Although the book of Exodus does not mention the rock travelling with the people through the wilderness to supply them with water, the rabbis taught this and Paul mentions it also.

Imagine being in that place where every day you receive food and water in miraculous ways, and the presence of God is visible as a cloud of smoke in the day and a flame at night.

You would really know that God is real, and that He is with you. Yet, the Israelites sinned in so many ways, including idolatry

We are not so different. We become complacent about salvation, answers to prayer, and signs and wonders. We take God and His grace for granted, becoming cold over time.

We must constantly come back to the Rock, that is Christ. We need to return to our first love, to seek again God’s Kingdom and His righteousness.

Our faithfulness to God does not withstand years of walking through the wilderness, unless we work on the relationship with Him.

Prayer

Father, Please forgive my sinful ways. Help me to turn to you, and fan into flame the love for you that sometimes grows faint. Amen.