tonight's service with hymn number
38 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnbook, and let's all stand
together. Number 38. Every sinner saved by grace,
you who by faith God's Son embrace. Tell all who hear your voice
below, the debt of love to Christ you owe. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee, all that I am, for hope to Thee I owe alone,
O Christ, to Thee. He left His Father's throne above,
and came to earth on wings of love. Thus he lived, the perfect
man, And so fulfilled the lost demand. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee, All that I am, Lord, hope to Thee. I, though
alone, hope Christ to Thee. Jesus endured His Father's ire,
And died at the appointed hour. But He endured, no tongue can
tell, To save our souls from death and hell. Dear Lord, I
lift my praise to Thee All that I am or hope to be I owe alone,
O Christ, to Thee From death's dark grave our King arose, And
triumphed over all our foes. Up through the skies the victor
rose, And reigns on high our Savior God. Dear Lord, I lift
my praise to Thee. All that I am, Lord, owe to Thee. I owe a loan, O Christ, to Thee. From heaven Christ will quickly
come, And bring His ransomed people home. There we shall see
His lovely face, And chant the praises of His grace. Dear Lord, I lift my praise to
Thee. All that I am, or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Please be seated. All I am, or hope to be, I owe
alone, O Lord, to Thee. Paul said, I am what I am by
the grace of God. Every believer can say that.
Let's open our Bibles to Exodus chapter 15. And if you want to
keep them open, when I come back up, we're going to continue in
this chapter. The Lord has brought the children
of Israel across the Red Sea, delivered them from the Egyptians,
a picture, a parable, a type of what the Lord Jesus did for
us, delivering us from the taskmaster of the law, bringing us through
the baptism of the Jordan, I mean, of the Red Sea, and bringing
us into the wilderness where we follow him until that day
when Joshua takes us across the Jordan into the promised land. Moses and Miriam lead the children
of Israel in a song of praise. And in this song, beginning at
verse nine, they rehearse what the enemy said. And I want you
to notice how many times I will is in This one verse, verse nine,
six times. Six is the number for man. And
this is the free will gospel. This is what man believes he's
capable of doing. The enemy said, I will pursue. I'll decide when I want to believe
and when I want to have God in my life. And when I make that
decision, I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. I'll
make what Christ did work for me. I'll put it to work by my
decision. My lust shall be satisfied upon
them. I will draw my sword, that's
the tongue, by your words you shall be justified and by your
words you shall be condemned. And my hand shall destroy them. The works of my hands are gonna
earn me favor with God. That's so clear, isn't it? That's
the enemies of the gospel. That's the man-made, freewill,
works gospel. Now look what Moses and Miriam
say under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And notice how
many thous there are. There's seven of them. Verse
10, thou didst blow with thy wind and the sea covered them.
They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Oh, that the Lord would
blow the wind of his spirit upon us. Who is like unto thee, O
Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? He has done wonders. Thou stretcheth out thy hand,
thy right hand, and the earth swallowed them. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the strong right arm of God. He's his right hand. He saves his elect and destroys
his enemy. Thou in thy mercy hath led forth
the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy
strength unto thy holy habitation. That's where he's gathered us
under Christ and that's his holy habitation. And the people shall
hear and be afraid. and sorrow shall take hold on
all the inhabitants of Palestinia." When we see that our salvation
is in the hand of God, we become mercy beggars, don't we? All
the inhabitants of Palestina come before him for his mercy
and for his grace. And that's what we're doing tonight. Jennifer, our daughter, spent
the last two days at Mayo having scans to see what effect the
nuclear injections that she had last year have had. And one of
the tumors that was on her spine, this is the first time this has
ever happened, other than going in with a surgery, one of the
tumors on her spine has gone away. And the other tumors have
not gotten any larger. The ones in her liver and in
her lungs are still the same. So we're very hopeful and very
thankful that the Lord was pleased to do that. Let's pray together. Our heavenly
Father, truly salvation is of the Lord. It is all in your hand. Lord,
our will and our ways are not able And we're not able to cure
ourselves from a common cold, Lord, much less the cancer of
sin that infects our souls. Lord, what great hope we have
in knowing that you have stretched forth your right hand and that
you have delivered your people from the bondage of sin and from
the judgment of death and hell. You did all that through the
shed blood of that Passover lamb Lord, we pray tonight that the
inhabitants of Palestina would be brought by your spirit to
look again to Christ, to rest our hope in him, to rejoice in
him. And Lord, we are thankful. We're
thankful for all your many gifts. We thank you for the hand of
mercy that you've shown us towards Jennifer. And Lord, we pray for
your Continued mercy on her and on each of us as we trust you
each day to provide for us truly all we are or hope to be. Lord, you've made us to be so
in Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Number 17 from your hardbacked
hymnal. Let's stand together again. Number
17. Every blessing, tune my heart
to sing thy praise. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
all for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming toms above. Turn the fount I'm fixed upon,
it's fount of thy reward. I never deserve hither by thy
help I've come and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to a
private home. Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wand'ring from the fold of God He to rescue me from danger Interposed
His precious blood Oh, to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm
constrained to be, Let thy goodness, like a fetter, Find my wandering
heart to be. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh, take and
seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Please be seated. We'll continue in Exodus 15,
the psalm of Moses, and we'll begin reading in verse 22. So Moses brought Israel from
the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur,
And they went three days into the wilderness and found no water. When Moses went to Pharaoh and
told Pharaoh to let God's people go, he told Pharaoh, he said that
they might go into the wilderness and sacrifice. Sacrifice is always
the center of worship. So now they're three days out
into the wilderness And before they can make sacrifice, the
Lord has to make them needy. He has to humble them. And what
a picture of how the Lord provides for us. He causes us to be thirsty
and there's no water. Verse 23, and when they came
to Marah, they could not drink of the water of Marah for they
were bitter. Therefore, the name of it was called Marah. Marah
is mentioned four times in that one verse. The word bitter is
the word Marah. And the people murmured against
Moses, saying, what shall we drink? And he cried unto the
Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast
it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. Therefore, he
made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved
them. and said, if thou will diligently
hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that
which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments,
and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon
you, which I have brought upon the Egyptians. For I am Jehovah
Rapha, the Lord that healeth. And they came to Elam, where
there were 12 wells of water and threescore and 10 palm trees,
and they encamped there by the waters. Psalm 119, verse 132, David said
this. In prayer, he said, look upon
me and be merciful unto me as thou in judgment Show mercy to
all those who love thy name. Look upon me, show mercy upon
me, as thou hast been faithful to do in judgment upon all of
those who fear thy name." The names of God, they define his
glory and and his attributes and his work of redemption. And here he gives us another
one of his Jehovah names. We've looked at Jehovah Shalom. We've looked at Jehovah Nissi,
the Lord is my banner. We've looked at Jehovah Sabbah,
the Lord of Hosts, the sovereign God. over the armies of heaven
and all the inhabitants of the earth. And last week we looked
at Jehovah Jireh, the Lord, our provider. And here he calls himself
the Lord who healeth. The Lord who healeth. These names tell us about the
glory of our God and cause us to love him when he's pleased
to show us in his word what these names mean about him. They reveal
more of his glory and more of his character. I heard of a brother
who had a Jehovah's Witness come to his door and after ascertaining that they were Jehovah's
Witnesses, he said, well, do you know anything about Jehovah
Sidkenu? And they said, no. Well, what
about Jehovah Nisi? And they said, no. What about
Jehovah Shalom? And they said, no. And he went
through all the names of God. He said, you're not Jehovah's
Witnesses. I am. You know, that's what the names
of God do. They witness who he is. And,
uh, The word Jehovah, the glorious,
self-existent, eternal I am, the creator and sustainer of
all of life, physical and spiritual, the omnipotent, immutable God
that we worship. This is who he is. And he's revealed
himself. He revealed himself first by
that name to Moses at the burning bush. And now Just a short time
later, after he's delivered his people from the Egyptians, he
said, this is my name. This is my name. Jehovah Rapha,
the God who heals. Now we know that all healing
is a work of grace performed by God. It is God's work. He may use doctors. He may use
medicine. He may use our immune system,
but those are but secondary causes of physical healing. Our God
is the first cause of all healing. And so we do what the Lord instructs
us to do in James. If any man is sick, call the
elders and pray for the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. Lord, we depend upon you for
all of our healing, for all of our strength, And yet we know
that each and every one of us are going to get sick one day
and we're not going to get better physically. We're going to die. And so all these healings that
the Lord performs are temporary. They're temporary. Another brother
diagnosed with cancer and someone asked him, is it terminal? And
he wisely said, yeah, but we all are. We all are. How true that is. And so when
the Lord calls himself Jehovah Rapha, yes, he is the cause of
our physical strength and the very breath that we draw is by
his mercy and by his grace. But the healing here that we're
most concerned about is not the physical healing of our body.
It's the healing of our sick souls. I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. The well don't need a physician,
but they that are sick. We have a sin problem that is
not temporal. It's not a temporary problem. It has eternal consequences lest
the Lord heal us. And so we come before Him We
understand what the Lord meant in Isaiah chapter 53 when he
said he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was placed upon him and by his
stripes, we are healed. Healed. That's the healing that
we need to be first and foremost interested in. The healing of
our sin. We might be delivered from the
judgment and the wrath of God. Isaiah, Psalm 103. David put it like this. He said
he forgives all of our iniquities and he cleanses, he cleanses
all of our diseases. There's the disease. The disease
that we are most concerned about is that disease of the soul called
sin. And he's the only one that can
do it. That's why leprosy is shown as a picture of our sin
problem, because leprosy is a blood disease and it's incurable apart
from the miracle of God. And that's where we are, dependent
upon the Lord to make us clean, to put away our sin. Turn with me to the last book
of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter four, Malachi chapter
four. Look at verse one. For behold,
the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud,
yea, all that do wickedly. The proud man has no need for
Christ. He can take care of his own sin
problem. He can atone for his own sins.
He can do enough good works to satisfy his conscience and to
give him a false hope for salvation. That's the self-righteous pride
of the natural man. When God humbles us and shows
us that we've got a problem we can't fix, then we need Jehovah
Rapha. We need the God who heals to
take away our sin. And here's what the Lord saying,
that day of judgment will come. They that do wickedly shall be
stubble. And the day that cometh shall
burn them up. Sayeth the Lord of hosts, that
it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But, here's the good
news, brethren, but aren't you thankful for the butts of God?
Man, man says, but he's always opposing God. But when God says,
but it's a good, it's a good word. A judgment's coming, but
unto you that fear my name, here it is, Jehovah Rapha. Lord, you've
got to heal me. I've got a sin problem that I
can't fix. You're going to have to, you're
going to have to cover it under the blood. I can't even put it
under the blood of Christ. You know, someone says, well,
you know, you need to apply the blood of Christ to your sin.
You can't apply the blood of Christ. That's why there's great
crying in Pilesia, because we come, Lord, you're gonna have
to put my sins under the blood of Christ. You've got to do it
all. But it's you that fear my name,
shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. Now, I looked up that word wings. It's also used for the hem of
a garment. It means the edge of a thing.
And it's the same word that's used for him. And I thought about
what the scripture says about Aaron, who is our high priest,
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how good and pleasant it
is when brethren dwell together in unity. And that doesn't mean
just we're all getting along and loving each other. We're
in union with Christ. And it is like Aaron who had
the oil, the anointing oil, poured on his head and went down his
beard and dripped off of his, off of his skirt. The oil dripped
off. And then I thought about the
woman with the issue of blood and what does she say? Oh, if
I could just touch the hem of his garment, I would be made
whole. And she humbly crawled into the crowd, seeking just
to touch the hem of the garment that one drop of the anointing
oil might drip from the hem of his garment. There is healing
in his hem. In his hem. You know, translators
have to take these Hebrew words and they translate them, you
know, the same word might have several different meanings. the son of righteousness, they
that fear his name, he will arise with healing in his wings and
he shall go forth. You shall go forth and grow up
as calves in the stall. There we are. When the Lord heals
us, he brings us into his stall and he feeds us and he provides
for us. He continues to heal us. And
the drops of that anointing oil The Lord Jesus Christ is said
to have been anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. He came as the anointed one of
God as our Aaron with oil poured on him in the full power of the
Spirit of God. And what does he do? He takes
drops of that oil and gives them to us. And we pray right now,
Lord, just Or like that woman with the, the Syrophoenician
woman. Lord, yeah, but the dogs eat
the crumbs that come from my table. Lord, one crumb from you
would be better than all the meat that the world has to offer.
And one drop of your oil is better than all the, all the hopes that
the world has to offer. Lord, this is the healing that
I need. And this is the healing that
the Lord is talking about here. The Lord said, you know, the
physical healings. Oh, I know when the Lord said
this, he was talking about those who were threatening the lives
of the disciples when he said, fear not them who are able to
kill the body, but rather fear him who has the power to cast
both body and soul into hell. But that's true of sickness too,
isn't it? Don't fear a sickness that can kill the body. Fear
that sickness that is capable of killing the soul in eternal
separation from God. We're always coming as sinners
in need of Jehovah Rapha to heal us. We sang that hymn just a
few minutes ago. Lord, we're prone to wander.
We're prone to leave the God we love. So we've got this body
of death that we're carrying around with us. Lord, I've got
a continual sin problem. They sinned in continuance and
they shall be saved. They shall be saved. Yes, sin is the cancer of the
soul. It is the incurable leprosy of
the blood. We've got a blood issue. We've
got a blood problem. That woman that crawled and touched
the hem of the garment of the Lord Jesus and was made whole.
Scripture said she had an issue of blood. That's our problem,
isn't it? We inherited it from our father,
who inherited it from his father, goes all the way back to Adam.
It's in our very nature. And here, the children of Israel, go back
with me to our text in Exodus, because the Lord's gonna make
his people thirsty. He's gonna withhold the awareness
of his presence. And he's going to allow, he said,
I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And that's our hope. But
we believe that by faith, not always by experience. The Lord
will withhold the awareness of his presence and create a thirst
in us by causing us to be confronted again and again and again with
our sin and our own unbelief until we cry out to him. And
he shows us a tree. and cast that tree into the bitter
water and makes it sweet. This is our life. This is the
walk of faith. The whole gospel is a parable.
You know, the Lord, the scripture is at one place, I think it's
in the book of Mark, it says, and he spake to them in nothing
but parables. He only spoke in parables. The
gospel is a parable. The scripture calls it a mystery.
It has to be revealed. And so here it is, this is not
just a story about a miracle of a tree being thrown into a
river of water. This is a gospel message for
sinners to find Jehovah Rapha, to heal them again and again
and again, and to be all that they need for the hope of their
souls. You know, we, The natural man
is much more concerned with his, we're all concerned with our
bodies. We get sick, we get, you know, we do something about
it. But the natural man is more concerned for his physical health
and wellbeing than he is for his spiritual. And only by the
work of grace in the heart, God give a sinner a concern for his
soul that makes it paramount. Lord, my sin problem is the biggest
problem I've got. So they have no water. And then he shows them a river
that's bitter. It's called Mara. Bitter. It's undrinkable. It's polluted.
If you drink it, they're only going to get, they're only going
to be worse off. Kind of like, you know, being out in the ocean
and drinking salt water. It just dehydrates you to make
you, make you die quicker than drinking no water at all. So
here we've got bitter water. What is the water a picture of
in the scriptures? You know what it's a picture
of. When that high priest was pouring out that drink offering,
and there was great silence in the city during that great feast,
and the Lord Jesus cries with a loud voice, and he says, if
any man thirst, let him come unto me. And out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water. He's the water of life. Water
is necessary to sustain life. But it's gotta be, it can't be
polluted water. It can't be the broken cisterns
and the polluted wells of man-made religion. It has to be that river
that's clear as crystal that we read about in the book of
Revelation that flows from the throne and from the land. That's
the river. It's the river of life. It's
called the river of life. The first reference we have of
the river is the Garden of Eden. And a river flowed through it,
and the garden got its life from that river. And then in Psalm 1, the Lord
Jesus is that man who walks not after the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
He's that blessed man. He shall be like a tree planted
by rivers of living water. And his fruit will, his leaf
will not wither. The leaves on the tree in the
book of Revelation are for the healing of the nations. Again,
we're back to Jehovah Rapha. And how many medicines do we
have today from plants in the world? Most of our medicines,
from what I understand, were discovered in plants. Here's
the Lord Jesus and that river, that tree that's planted by the
river is on both sides of the river. Why? Because God's people
are on both sides of the river. You and I are on the east side
of the Jordan right now. waiting for Joshua to take us
across into the promised land. And there's other brethren that
have already crossed and they're in the promised land. And there's
a tree on both sides of the river and it produces 12 seasons of
fruits. There's never a time when it's
without fruit and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.
Here's the tree and the river. God's word ends with this, if
any man thirst, Let him take of the river of life freely,
freely. But this river is bitter. It's
the broken cistern of man-made religion. It's the dry and thirsty
land in which we live. It's the wilderness of sin. James said, can a fountain bring
forth sweet water and bitter? No, no, it has to be changed. It has to be changed. So this water is the washing
of the water of the Word of God. And the word bitter. Genesis
chapter 27, you remember when Jacob deceived Isaac. The scripture says that Jacob went to his father and
pretended to be his elder brother. You remember what Isaac said
to Jacob? He said, it is the voice, it is the voice of Jacob,
but is the hand of Esau. What did Jacob do? He put hair
on his hand and he came to his father and he presented himself
as his elder brother. And the father said, it's the
voice of Jacob, but it's the hand of Esau. And when we come
before God, it's our voice that we cry out to him for, but we
bring to him the hand of our elder brother, the works of Christ
for the hope of our salvation. And Jacob left and right on his
heels, Esau comes in. And when Esau heard that Jacob
had stolen the blessing, deceived his father and taken the blessing.
The scripture says he cried exceedingly bitter cries to his father. He thought that, you know, if
he begged enough and cried loud enough that his father would
have mercy upon him and give him a blessing, the blessing
had already been given. The Lord had already, had already
spoken and said that the elder will serve the younger. And now
this is being fulfilled. with a great exceeding bitter
cry. Esau had already sold his birthright
two chapters before for a bowl of soup. And the birthright involved,
and what did Esau say to Jacob? Jacob said, sell me your birthright
and I'll give you this pottage. And, And Esau said, that birthright
doesn't mean anything to me. I'm going to die anyway. He said,
I'm dying. Give me that. Give me that. The
birthright involved the coming of the Messiah. That's what the
birthright involved. So Esau was saying, I'm not concerned
about, that's way past my, I'm more concerned about my temporal
needs. I need my belly filled. though he cried exceedingly,
very bitter. These are the bitter waters that
they came to. We try to fill our own bellies
with the polluted, broken cisterns of sin, don't we? And we only
find them to make us worse. And then we're brought to calling
out. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 17,
speaking of Esau said, he found no place for repentance. There was no way for him to change
his mind. He thought, well, you know, if
I just plead with God enough, my sincerity and my prayers will
be sufficient to make a change, no? No, that's the bitter waters. That's bitter waters. The Lord
has to give us the gift of repentance. And we know that everything that
God requires, he must provide. And so, Lord, you're gonna have
to make me repentant. Lord, I've drank these bitter
waters long enough. If I continue to drink them,
I'm gonna die. Not physically, spiritually, I'm gonna be separated
from God. The bitter water is looking for
life outside of Christ. It's polluting the gospel of
God's grace with works. It's trying to build a tower
to God with bricks as stone and slime for mortar. It's a works
freewill gospel. That's the bitter waters. It's
the bitter waters of our sin and our unbelief. And the Lord
puts us there. before he shows us the tree. The bitterness of death. Oh, how the Lord makes it sweet in Christ. So that we can say with the Apostle
Paul, for me to live as Christ and to die as gain. Oh, what
a glorious day it'll be when this corruptible is made incorruptible
and this mortal is made immortal and I see him as he is and be
made like him. No more bitterness, no more sin,
no more unbelief, no more sorrow, no more tears. Notice in verse 24, and the people
murmured against Moses saying, what shall we drink? Isn't it true that the hardest
words to speak are, I was wrong. I'm sorry. You're right. Please forgive
me. It's all on me. Those are the
hardest words for men to speak. The easiest words for us to speak
is to point the finger at someone else and to accuse someone else.
But we're not gonna find that, the Lord's not gonna show us
that tree and he's not gonna be put into the bitter water
and be made sweet until the Lord brings us to that place where
this is all on me. Lord, I can't point my finger
at anybody else. I can't accuse someone else for
my sin and accuse God for my sin. Yeah, I heard people, We can do something completely
disobedient to God and then say, well, God's sovereign. What are
we doing? We're accusing God. Accusing
God of our sin. Our proud, sinful, self-righteous
nature will murmur and blame and accuse someone else And Moses,
look in verse 25, and Moses cried unto the Lord. Now I want to try to make something
as simple and clear as I can here. And I want to introduce
this point by saying that what God requires, God must provide. There is no salvation apart from
crying out. And we're not talking about free
will. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, nor
of God. It's of God that showeth mercy.
Esau cried, and nothing happened for him. And yet, there's no salvation
apart from crying out. The Lord said, knock. And that
word is in a continual verb. So keep knocking, don't stop
knocking, and the door will be opened unto you. Ask, keep asking,
and you shall receive, and search, and keep searching, and you shall
find. See, the Lord puts it on us too. He said, you have not
because you ask not. Moses cried out. Just like Peter,
when Peter was drowning in the sea of his own sin and unbelief,
said, Lord, save me. The Lord didn't stretch out his
hand to save him until Peter cried out to be saved. Blind
Bartimaeus, son of David, have mercy upon me. What would you
have me to do for you, Bartimaeus? Oh Lord, that I might see. God's
gonna make us cry. He's gonna make us ask him. and
confess our own sin and take full responsibility before he
makes the water sweet. The thief on the cross, Lord,
remember me when you come into your kingdom. The disciples in
the boat when the Lord Jesus was asleep said, Lord, save us,
save us. God's going to put you and me
in a place in our sin and in our unbelief where we are forced
to cry. And there's not going to be any
help until we cry. Now, the help is not the reward
for crying. And it's not, we don't obligate
God by crying. I'm saying that help and crying
are two sides of the same coin. And there's no help without crying
and what God requires for us to cry. David said in Psalm 80,
give ear, O shepherd of Israel, come and save us. Psalm 109 verse
26, help me, O Lord, our God, save me according to thy mercy.
And here's how the Lord summarizes it in Romans chapter 10. If you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in thine
heart that God has raised you from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart man believeth under righteousness
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. I was talking to a brother one
time who grew up under the gospel. And he said, you know, I just
didn't know if I was saved until He met the woman he was gonna
marry. And she said, well, honey, have you asked the Lord to save
you? Cry out to him, ask him. Call upon the name of the Lord
and thou shalt be saved. Now, here's the difference between
us and the Free Will Works Gospel. We don't make a work out of crying.
We don't believe that our prayers and our crying out to God in
any way obligates God, or forces his hand, or that he will reward
us because of what we've done. That's the free will gospel.
We don't make it work out of crying, but nevertheless, we
cry. We cry. Come unto me. I'll never leave you, don't forsake
you. The Lord has never forsaken anyone who has cried out for
his mercy. Never has. Now, if like Esau,
they're looking to the sincerity of their crying to obligate God
and for their reward, then that's different. But this cry of faith,
Lord, save me. Salvation is in your hand. Lord,
I'm completely dependent upon you and I'm fully responsible
for all my sin. Our crying is to acknowledge
our need to the only one that can meet it. And notice when
he cried in verse 25, and he cried unto the Lord and the Lord
showed him a tree. Oh, we're blind to the tree. This
is the tree of life. We've already made some references
to that, the tree of life in the garden of Gethsemane. I mean,
in the garden, in the garden of paradise, garden
of Eden, this is the tree of life. When they ate of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, they were barred from the
tree of life. Why? Because they had to die outside
of the garden in order to see that tree again in Revelation
21 and 22. If they ate of the tree of life
in their fallen state, then they would live forever in a sinful
state. So the Lord stationed the seraphim
at the gates of the garden, didn't he? See, death is a mercy of
God. Physical death is a mercy of
God to give us eternal life. They that believeth on me shall
never die. Here's the tree, but the Lord
has to show us that tree. We don't see it left to ourselves.
We, you know, men fashion a cross and they put it on a wall and
they put a statue on it and they think that's the tree. No. No, it's the Lord Jesus Christ
bearing your sins in his body upon that tree. Cursed is every
man that hangeth upon a tree. It's the curse of God falling
upon the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of his people. Moses,
you've cried. People have nothing but bitter
water. I'm going to show you a tree. And he showed him a tree. The natural man will have ears,
but he will not hear. He'll have eyes, but he will
not see. The hearing ear and that seeing eye are both from
the Lord. Lord, you're going to have to give me, you're going
to have to show me that tree. not just a statue or a cross
or some concept of that. Lord, show me Christ and what
he did. Moses cried and said, after this, Lord, show me thy
glory. Show me thy glory. And Moses
had seen the plagues in Egypt. He had seen the Red Sea divided.
He had seen the manifold from heaven, the water from the rock.
He had seen the mountain of the law shake. He had seen all these
glorious demonstrations of God's power. And now he says, Lord,
show me thy glory. Show me the tree. Lord, my waters
are bitter. My sin is going to kill me. I've
got to have Christ. And if I'm going to have him,
you're going to have to show him to me. You're gonna have to reveal
him. The gospel can only come by divine
revelation. You see, the Lord's making his
people dependent on every point, on every point. He cried, the
Lord showed him a tree. I love it where the scripture
says that Israel knew the acts of God, but Moses knew his ways. Israel knew what God did. Everybody
in Christendom knows the events of the Bible referred to historically,
and they know the acts of God. Only those who have had their
spiritual eyes opened know his ways, why he did what he did,
what he accomplished in his death on Calvary's cross. Lord, show
me your glory. Show me your way. Show me that
tree. In another place, Moses said,
if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way. Lord, if I've got grace in your
eyes, Lord, show me your way, show me the way of life, show
me Christ. Psalm 25, verse four, show me
the ways of the Lord and teach me thy path. The significance of the tree
in the Bible is seen all throughout the scriptures. The ark made
of shidom wood, showing the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's all most people know about Christ. They just know his humanity.
They don't know anything about his deity, overlaid with gold
with a mercy seat on top. The ark of Noah that survived
the great flood, made of gopher wood, made of a tree. pitched
within and without, that the people of God might survive the
judgment of the flood. This tree is brought in over
and over and over again. And God's people are called trees
of righteousness, which are the plantings of the Lord. And notice
at the end of our text that they were brought to an oasis where
there were 12 wells What is the number 12? It's the
12 tribes of Israel. It's the whole church. It's all the people of God. It's
the 144,000. And there's a well for each tribe. So there's plenty of water, no
lack of water. And there's three score and 10
palm trees. There's the whole church again.
All these trees, the plantings of the Lord, they shall flourish
as a palm tree. God proved them in that place.
And he said to them, if you will obey, you believe me, curses
of Egypt will not come upon you. And what were the curses of Egypt?
the diseases that God put upon Egypt. The scripture says that
God made a distinction, a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. He said a difference between
them. The judgments that the Lord's speaking of here in verse
26, when he says, if thou diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord,
believe God. Again, the Lord's calling on
us to believe him, believe God. The diseases that I brought upon
Egypt, Those 10 plagues culminating in the death angel. And the scripture
says that in the Israelite camp, not a dog moved its tongue. Not a dog moved its tongue. And
not a hoof was left behind when God brought out the people of
Israel. Why? Because they got behind the blood.
They believed God. They believed God. They put the
blood of that Passover lamb on the door and on the lentil of
the door. 12 wells of water, three scored
10 palm trees. Here's the promise of God. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe God. Everything else
is a bitter well. It's polluted, broken cisterns. The river of life flows from
the throne of God. It's Christ. Drink of that river
freely. Instead of blaming Moses or someone
else for your problems, just, Lord, it's my sin. It's my fault. Lord, show me the tree. Cry out. Lord, show me the tree. And he
cast that tree into the river, and the bitter was made sweet. Now what the Lord does when he
puts away our sin, not only does he just put them away, but he
continues, he continues to use our sin to cause us to look to
the tree and to cry out again and again. Lord, save me, save
me. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals. You need to be healed. We do,
don't we? Always in need of being made
whole. Our Heavenly Father, bless your word to our hearts for Christ's
sake. Amen. 53. 53 on the hard back teminal. Let's
stand together.