The Rock 1 Cor. 10:4 © Dr. Victoria Sarvadi

Have you ever stopped to think what is the Rock of our Salvation? What does it mean?

 

What is it about the stone that the builders rejected?

 

The idioms of stones and rocks are awesome mysteries in God’s Word. We only know God as He chooses to reveal Himself.

 

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deut. 29:29

 

We would never (on this side of eternity) be able to comprehend the depths and heights of God. It’s like talking to an ant – taking him to college and trying to teach him science and math and history. An ant or a worm doesn’t have the capacity to understand human life. It is only the miracle of God working in us that we can understand His mysteries and to the “ungenerated” human it’s all nonsense.

 

The prophet Daniel declares there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries to us. And it is only God that can reveal these heavenly things – The Holy One must open our eyes and give us the capacity to receive spiritual understanding.

 

A rock – the Messiah? The Introduction

 

Abraham was a Newbie to the faith!!!  God who had been hidden was now introducing Himself. His sensational interjection into Abraham’s life made an impression. Abraham left his non-living idols of stone and began to seek the God of Creation. He listened, learned, and began to trust that Adonai was truly God! He taught his children and his servants about the God that cut a covenant with him and showed him great favor. The reputation of Abraham’s God began to spread.

 

Jacob had heard the great testimonies of his father and grandfather. He knew their stories. But He never experienced God like his fathers did.

 

One night while sojourning, Jacob stopped in Luz to rest. There he had the most profound and powerful dream. A dream where the magnificent God of his father’s spoke to him. The dream was recorded in God’s Word and is endeared for all time. (Genesis 28:10-22) When he awoke, he was overcome with awe. He poured holy oil upon the rock where he had laid his head the night before and declared that the rock is the place where God resides. Jacob then, remembered what God told him in his dream – that He would never leave him (and his future generations). He would “stay” with him and bring him into a Land of Promise. Jacob vowed that if God would keep these promises for the land and to watch over him or follow him all his days then He would indeed be his God. He renamed the town Beit El (house of God).

 

The rock wasn’t just any rock. We find references to this remarkable rock. In Scripture it was called the the Rock of all Ages – ages of the past, present and future.  The Ancient of Days – The “I am that I am” that manifested to Jacob in his sleep.

 

The rabbis teach that when Jacob continued his journey, he took the stone with him or perhaps it “followed” him. We can see throughout scripture that a mysterious stone shows up in various times and places.

 

 

The Rock

 

  1. When Jacob pronounces a blessing on his son Joseph, he calls him the shepherd or custodian of the Rock of Israel (Jacob).

 

  1. The LORD say to Moses,”Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. Numbers 20:8

 

  1. The apostle Paul explained that the rock that followed them in the dessert was Messiah. (1 Cor. 10:4)

 

… For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
—1 Corinthians 10:4

 

God established a gateway to eternity through an amazing stone. If you can receive it – the Rock was the very Presence of Yeshua the Messiah Himself!

Some scholars feel that the stone that Joshua declared a witness was also Jacob’s stone that had followed him.

 

Joshua helped Israel make an agreement with the Lord that day at Shechem. Joshua made laws for Israel 26 and wrote them down in The Book of the Law of God. Then he set up a large stone under the oak tree at the place of worship in Shechem 27 and told the people, “Look at this stone. It has heard everything that the Lord has said to us. Our God can call this stone as a witness if we ever reject him.” Josh. 24:25-27

 

 

Yes! Yeshua is our witness, and He manifests Himself through His creation. An ordinary stone becomes extraordinary – non-living stones are made into Living Stones.  He pursues us (follows us) and knocks on the doors of our hearts so that we can let Him in – to give Him a home.  And just as He makes water come from a rock, the miraculous God comes in and changes us– we become Holy – set apart for His glory and purposes too! Like the Rock!

 

Our Messiah provides life giving water. He promises us that allowing Him into our hearts we will never thirst. Like Jacob, Messiah has opened the gateway to eternity to us. He is the ladder to Heaven and the rock of our salvation that we can stand on.

 

Romans 9:33 says if you believe in that miraculous stone of Zion- you won’t be ashamed.

 

We are the living stones of His Temple and He is the Chief Cornerstone. Selah!

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