might please the Lord to bless
us together this evening as we look together at his word let's
turn to the book of the Exodus chapter 15 and we'll read verse
26 the book of Exodus chapter 15 and reading verse 26 and it
said if thou wilt diligently hearken to 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 thee
which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord
that healeth thee. We have here in this chapter
the account of Moses and Miriam praising God for that wonderful
deliverance. They had not only been brought
out of Egypt, which of course was a wonderful deliverance,
but of course the enemy, the Egyptians, were still there when
they came out. But then they came to that great
obstacle, the Red Sea. And that was something which
appeared to be impossible to comprehend how any deliverance
would occur. The Egyptians were coming behind
the Red Sea in front. But the Lord appeared. And the waters opened up before
them. And Israel went over on dry land. And then when they all got safely
across, and we observe what happened then. Egyptians thought they
would follow. The whole host came into the
Red Sea, and then God worked. Once again, the waters closed
together. And the Egyptians, who the Israelites
had seen, would they see no more forever. What a wonderful deliverance
it was, was it not? How God had been so faithful
in fulfilling his promises. There had been many times when
they wondered whether that would ever occur. There were many difficulties,
many temptations, but the Lord appeared. And indeed, he did
appear gloriously, did he not? As Miriam sang, sing unto the
Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. It is a great blessing when we
observe the glorious triumphs of our God. Now that's twofold. That's first of all in our natural
lives and it's also in our spiritual life. But it is a wonderful thing
to observe God's triumphing and be sure of this, God will always
triumph when he's dealing with his people. He will always triumph. There will always be honour and
glory brought forth to his name. And we should not pass over the
wonderful fact that they'd come over the Red Sea, they'd been
delivered, and the first thing they did was to praise the Lord. It's a good thing. That's an
important consideration that we should not forget to do And
don't forget what the devil will do, and try and do, and often
succeeds in shutting our mouths. Yes, he sometimes says, well,
that's not worth mentioning, that's not worth saying. But
if the Lord has done anything, it's worth saying. It's worth
saying in our natural lives. It's worth saying with regard
to our spiritual lives. Because God is honoured and glorified. And sometimes such statements
are not very easy. And they're not easy because
the devil doesn't want you to say them. That's why they're
not very easy. But as the Lord may strengthen
us and enable us to declare His great goodness and His love and
mercy, when we've been able to do that in a right way, for His
honour and His glory, it brings into our hearts a thankfulness
and peace that we've been able to honour Him perhaps in a small
way. But my friends, as you think,
what He's done, done for us, How willing was Jesus to die
that we, fellow sinners, might live. Oh, what a wonderful Saviour
we have. And so we're thankful that we
have a record of these great truths in the Word of God. But
then we also need to notice that here they come across the Red
Sea. They'd sung this song. It was
a time of rejoicing. And then what happens? They travel
then for a mere three days and they don't find any water. Is
that a problem? It's not a problem to God. God
has done wonderful deliverances. We would have thought, would
we not, that they would have automatically recognised the
Lord would appear for them. But no, instead of that, we find
they They come to a place called Mara. There was water, but they
couldn't drink it. It was bitter. Well, that was
a blow, wasn't it? What was it? It was a testing
of their faith, whether they were truly believing in God. A time of testing, a time of
proving. And the Lord still proves this
today. We may have known something in
the blessing and then we find something in the bitterness and
we're being proved. What was the result? The people
murmured against Moses and they said, what should we drink? They
were complaining. How quickly we see the change
in nature, how quickly we see the change in our own hearts.
Yes, left to ourselves. We won't be any better than these
Israelites. One day we may have been blessed,
the next day we may be complaining because we're not enjoying the
blessing of the Lord and we might find the situation is not what
we expected and we find it's bitter to face and to go on with. It's God's gracious way. It's
God's leading. It was with Israel. The Lord knew what he would do.
It was a very simple solution. So Moses was told to take a tree,
a special tree, and to cast it into the waters and the waters
were made sweet. So we read, there he made for
them a statute and an ordinance And there he proves them. And then we come then to these
words. Now remember here, Israel hadn't
been long out of Egypt, only really a few days. And God is
now speaking to them in these terms. And it's worth our while
just noting what the Lord says. He says, if thou wilt diligently
hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God." You may say, well that's
not difficult, that's pretty obvious. It's not as obvious
as it may seem because we have a word here which is important
and that word is diligently. When God speaks, sometimes we
just grasp the word and we put our own interpretation on it.
We know what we want, and therefore we grasp the word with our interpretation. And it may be that we haven't
actually diligently hearkened to that word. You see, to be
diligent means we need to consider it very carefully. Very carefully. We may think things are going
to suddenly happen. The Lord may never have told
us things are going to suddenly happen. The Lord may have told
us things would happen, and we read into that they would happen
quickly. Your time is always, but my time
is not yet. It's a good thing to read the
Word of God carefully. if thou would diligently hearken
to the voice of the Lord thy God. Diligently hearken. It may be that even tonight we
have to go back in our lives and to ponder words which we
may have received which we haven't actually diligently considered. We may have put our own view
on it and we may be disappointed because it hasn't come to fruition,
because it hasn't occurred in the way we thought it would,
well we need to bring it to the Lord, lay it before the Lord,
and get God's interpretation on it. That may be a help, that
may be a strength, that may be a comfort, as we realise that
in actual fact we've assessed it in a wrong way. God's ways are higher than our
ways, And God's ways do unfold, and God's ways are worked out,
but they're often in a way different to the way that we anticipate.
And so the Lord tells Israel how necessary it was and how
they forgot the truth of these words so often. And they just
looked at that which appeared to them immediately rather than
diligently hearkening to the voice of the Lord thy God. And then he goes on and will
do that which is right in his sight. Do that which is right
again in his sight, not in our sight. Simple words, aren't they? Easily misunderstood. Easily
we pursue our own path. And yet we have a statement so
clear here and that would do that which is right in His side,
in God's side. It's an important consideration.
If we really desire to be a true follower of our Lord, then we
are to do that which is right in His side, and not that which
is in our side. Sometimes we find that those
two views are really quite different. We may have thought they We're
going along the same road, but as we analyse it, we find that,
in fact, the way that we thought was right was our way. And the right way of God was
a different way. And so here is this word, and
really this word diligently refers to all these statements, if they
were diligently do that which is right in his sight. And not only that, that we will
give ear to his commandments. Again, we are to be diligent
in listening to the commandments of our God. These words are very deep, aren't
they? separating really, if we just
stop for a moment and think carefully about them, as to whether we
are giving ear diligently to his commandments. Sometimes we
think we're obeying the Lord. We may think we're doing that
which is right in his sight. We're following that which is,
we believe, his commandments. But we may be only following
part of those commandments. We haven't been diligent in our
consideration of them. Bless God then if we are favoured
to have this true godly desire to read the Word of God and take
it to heart, that it may come to us with power. When the Word of God comes with
power, It makes a difference. It does that within us, which
we could not do ourselves. It has an effect. May we bless
God for it. And so here we have this statement,
If thou wilt diligently. And again, it's a question, isn't
it? If thou wilt. Well, may we be found amongst
those who are diligently walking this way, giving ear to His commandments
and to keeping all his statutes, keeping all his laws. It doesn't
say, well, be selective on those things that you think you should
keep. And, well, just forget about
others which don't seem to be appropriate for the present situation. There are no exceptions here.
The Word of God tells us so clearly. And, now remember, diligently
keep all his statutes. It's a very penetrating word,
isn't it? In fact, the Word of God is penetrating. Because it
doesn't leave any room for manoeuvre. And we like to manoeuvre in our
lives, don't we? We like to shoot our lives. For
the situation which we feel will be best for us and will be easiest
for us, the great question is, are we diligently doing that
which the Lord sets before us in his word? Because that which
he sets before us in his word would have one good and gracious
effect. Do you know what that is? For the glory of God. For the glory of God. What a
blessing if our hearts are made tender before this gracious God. You see, the Lord is giving wonderful
directions to his ancient people here. He's not speaking things
which are of no benefit. He's setting before them great
truth, wonderful truth. And may we pray that our lives
may follow such a gracious and glorious position. The Lord said it before Israel.
He said it before spiritual Israel. My friends, that includes you
and me today. And so let us recognise the wonder of it. And the Lord
speaks then. He gives a solemn statement. He says, and if we do these things,
I will put none of these diseases upon me which I have brought
upon the Egyptians. Now of course that can have a
double condition. It can have one with regard to
our physical position and also one with regard to our spiritual
position. But I'm sure whatever that means,
we do not want to be found with natural diseases and spiritual
diseases. because we have ignored the gracious,
loving words of our God. Because the Lord tells us, and
it is an important word, if ye walk contrary to me, I will walk
contrary to you. And a contrary way to God is
to not listen to his gracious words which he puts before us
in his word. I will put none of these diseases
upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians. It may be
so in our lives. We know what it is to suffer
in measure some of those diseases because we have not listened,
we have not heard as it were, we have not obeyed the gracious
word of our God. So let May God give us grace
to take these things to heart because they are written for
our spiritual good. They're also written for our
natural good. And we should be thankful that we do have a statement
like this which directs us so very clearly and in detail with
regard to that which we should do in hearkening and doing that
which is right and listening and keeping his commandments
and his statue, so that his name may be honoured and glorified.
And then we come down to these words, for I am the Lord that
heareth thee. It almost seems that these words
are out of context, and yet how important they are, and how we
are thankful that we have a God We have the Lord, who is that
Lord who heals us. And again this is in two directions,
one in natural things and one in spiritual things. We have
many evidences in the Word of God of those natural healings,
those miraculous healings. We have that account of that
man who was by the pool of Bethesda, been there for 38 years, and
needed healing. And he was unable to get down
into the water when that annual occasion occurred. When the healing
of waters did appear, and the first person that entered in
was healed, he was never able to do it. But the Lord came. The Lord came and healed him. 38 years that man had been in
that condition. And we might understand, and
it is an encouragement, that although that long time, he never
gave up. And the Lord came and healed
him in a very different way to that which he expected. We see
the wonder working of our God. We see the appointed time had
come to heal that man. It may be sometimes in our lives,
we may have gone on for many, many years, but what a blessing it is to
believe the Lord can come and heal us in His time. And then
we have that woman, that woman who had an issue of blood for
18 years. She had done everything she could
to heal herself. She had gone and spent all her
money on physicians and was no better. Yes, and the Lord came and he
healed her. Virtue came from the Saviour
to heal her. I am the Lord that healeth thee.
Wonderful, wasn't it? And then we think of going to
the Old Testament, the occasion of Naaman. Naaman the Syrian. He was a leper. He was a great
warrior, but he was a leper. That was a hindrance. He was
well known, well thought of, but he was a leper. How was he
to be healed? Well, It's good to read that
account and to know that there had been a little maid who lived
in Israel who'd been captured. And she spoke to Naaman's wife
and told her there was a prophet in Israel who could cure him. Well, that was news worth listening
to, wasn't it? And the wife listened, and Naaman
listened, and he went to Israel, expecting to be healed of the
leprosy. Again, we see God's power being
exerted. We see God's sovereignty being
exerted. He expected of the Prophet to come out in person and to
work a great miracle. But instead, the Prophet just
sent his servant and told Naaman to do a very menial thing, to
go and to dip in the River Jordan seven times. Well, he was offended
by that. He expected, as a warrior, to
be asked to do something really worthwhile, something really
amazing, and no doubt something which would have brought glory
to Naaman. But no, God told him to do something very simple.
Thankfully there were those around Naaman, those old men who took
counsel and spoke to him and said, If you've been asked to
do some great thing, you would have done it. Why not do this
simple thing? So we see in the end, Naaman did heed their advice
and took, went down into that river, dipped himself seven times
and was cured of his leprosy. What a wonderful account that
was. So we have these physical evidences
that God does cure, but then there are those spiritual things
which really are far deeper and in one sense are far more difficult
to actually cure. And we can think perhaps of the
analogy of Naaman and that leprosy. You see, leprosy in the Old Testament
was significant of sin. And naturally it was incurable. It was a terrible thing to become
a leper. There appeared to be no way of
cure. A leper was cast out of the camp. A leper had to cry out, unclean,
unclean. Naturally, there was no way of
curing. Sometimes the Lord did cure,
but mostly there was no cure. And so, in a spiritual sense,
how relevant that is, to realise that we suffer from that great
disease of sin. And naturally speaking, There
is no cure for it. We cannot heal ourselves. We
cannot do ourselves any good that will cure us of that terrible
illness, that fateful illness of sin. Because all creation groans under
sin. I wonder if you and I have grown
because of our sin. Every true Christian groans under
their sin. Sin is not something trivial. Sin is something which brings
death with it. And it brings eternal death.
Because if we die with sin, we shall die in our sins, and there
will be no salvation. And we shall, as it were, die
eternally. That means we shall live in hell forever and ever. It is the terrible effect of
sin. And therefore, sin must be a
real burden, a real effect upon us, not something trivial. Many people today very glibly
turn themselves as Christians. They may very glibly say that
they believe in Jesus, You don't really understand or
know why they believe in Jesus, or why they need to believe in
Jesus. My friends, the great need is
to take away sin. That's the great need. And therefore,
if there is no real appreciation of sin, there's no real need
of a saviour, is there? There cannot be, can there? because
Jesus came to seek and to save, not the righteous, but those
that were lost, those that had no hope in themselves, those
that had to come to Jesus for healing. I am the Lord that healeth
thee. Now, how is A guilty sinner to
be healed. How are we to be healed? There's only one way to be healed. Do you know what that is? It's through the application
of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way. that you
and I can be healed from our sin, to be found under the blood
of the Saviour. The Lord Jesus shed his blood
to atone for sin. He died upon that cross as that
one sacrifice for sin. And so if we have no real knowledge
of the effect of sin, there will be no real need of a saviour. There are many people today who
do not possess the life of God in their souls. They are rushing on ignorantly,
assuming that everything is alright. What are they doing? They are
relying on their own righteousness. which is but as filthy rags. And they're assuming by doing
this and doing that, they will be well with their souls. It
is only well with our souls if we are in Christ Jesus. It's only well with our souls
if we've been healed of all our sins. That means we've been washed. in the blood of the Lamb. Washed in the blood of the Lamb. The great truth is that to a
hell-deserving sinner who stands guilty before a holy God, the only way of salvation will
be through the shed blood of the Saviour. And my friends,
then, and not until then, Christ will be precious. Christ will
be a reality. He won't be just then a theory
in the mind, a theory in the head. It will be that which God
has done for our soul. What has He done? His great work
of salvation in delivering us from the wrath
to come. He stood between in garments
dyed in blood. We were freed from that condemnation.
The soul that sinneth it shall die. My friends, that's the word
of God. That's the law of God. And it's
the truth of God. And we shall, as we sin, we shall
die. And die in our sins, unless the
Saviour comes and delivers us And we have the wonderful evidence
that Christ has died for us. It's a personal thing. Real religion
is very personal. You can't borrow someone else's
religion. You can't borrow someone else's
experience. My friends, it's a personal experience
between your soul and God. It's His work. It's his work
which brings honour and glory. It's his work which we desire
to exalt and to praise God for. Nothing of ourselves. No, nothing
of ourselves. And so we will come like that
leper and we will feel indeed to be unclean. unclean. We cry out. A sinner cries out
to God. What does he cry? He cries for
mercy. He cries for mercy. Mercy to
be delivered from all his sins. My friends, we don't stop singing
in this world, sadly, because we have our old nature. Oh, that
wretched sin, that wretched nature. But bless God if we have that
new nature, that pure nature, that righteousness which God
gives. And He gives to those for whom He has shed His most
precious blood upon that cross at Calvary. And so, how important it is that
we have the evidence that we are healed. Now, we read in the
New Testament of those lepers that were healed. How were they
healed? The Lord touched them, the Lord
spoke, and they were healed. The Word of the Lord is with
power. My friends, if God has spoken
His Word, His Word into our hearts, If God has done it, it would
have come with power. It won't have been something
that you and I could have produced ourselves. It won't be of the
flesh. It will have been of the Spirit.
And we will bless God that it was His grace, His favour that
has come to us, that has made us spiritually alive. We pass
from death to life. from darkness to light. And what
is it? It's all of grace. All of His
free unmerited favour to unworthy sinners. And grace will be a
wonderful theme which we will desire to speak of and to glorify
God because of His grace that has come to us and found us. He found us. How did he find
Jacob? In the waste-hounding wilderness.
Where has he found you? Has he found you? Bless God if he has. Bless God
if he's found you. There you were, wandering away
from God, following your own course in this life. God knew
where you were going. God knew where you were. God
knew what you were doing. God watched over you. What a
blessing. You have the evidence that God
has found you. He's gone after you. And he's redeemed you. How are you redeemed? From your
sin. How are you healed? Redeemed. with the precious blood of Christ. Oh, it's a wonderful truth, isn't
it? And the Apostle Peter speaks
of, and we should never really weary of reflecting on those
words. Peter knew the wonder and the
glory of those words which he was able to declare so faithfully
and so truthfully, and to be able to declare that We are not
redeemed. We are the corruptible things,
as silver and gold from our vain conversation, received by tradition
from our fathers. See, all those things are good
and right, but my friends, they're not saving. But here's the difference. With the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot, who verily
was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested
in these last times for you who by Him do believe in God that
raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory that your faith
and hope might be in God. God gives faith. God gives that
hope that my friends might be in God, it's not in ourselves.
And as it's in God, we can praise and honour and glorify His great
holy name and he goes on to say being born again not of corruptible
seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth
and abideth forever it is the word of God that God speaks to
our souls and is the evidence of that wonderful gift of eternal
life what a wonder it is now that
word which God speaks It's not something which passes away. It's something which God imprints
in our heart, indelibly. The word of the Lord endureth
forever. That word which God gives to
us does endure forever. Now, the wonder is this, for
I am the Lord that heedeth thee. And if God has spoken to our
hearts, If God has revealed himself to us as our Saviour, the blessing
is, it's this God who has healed us. Yes, we've been so desperately
ill, that great illness of sin, which of course we still have
to endure, but to know the Lord has eternally healed us. We are complete in Him. We are
washed in the blood of the Lamb. Well, let us recognise tonight
the wonderful blessing of God. Neither is of healing, how important
it is. Jeremiah speaks to that. We've
spoken a lot about Jeremiah recently, but Jeremiah has some wonderful
truths to proclaim and to speak to our hearts. He tells us, he says, O Lord,
in the 17th of Jeremiah, O Lord, the hope of Israel. Well, is
that true? Is it your hope tonight? O Lord,
the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed.
They that depart from me shall be risen in the earth, because
they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.
Heal me, O Lord. And I shall be healed, save me,
and I shall be saved, for thou art my praise. The Lord surely
is our praise. He surely is the God that we
desire to honour and glorify. And then just turning again to
Isaiah 53, and we read these glorious words. But he was wounded
for our sins, our transgressions. That's why the Saviour's wounded
for our transgressions. And he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And with his stripes we are healed. Ponder that. With his stripes we are healed. For I am the Lord that healeth
thee. How are we healed? Through His
death. Through His sufferings. That's
how we are healed. What does it do? It directs us
to the wonderful mercy and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. What love there was in the heart
of the Saviour to suffer so much so that you and I might be healed. Now these words are true, for
I am the Lord that healeth thee and may it tonight have a blessed
application to every one of us so we can indeed rejoice and
be thankful to believe that this great almighty God in heaven
has condescended to look upon us in our sinful condition and
have mercy upon us and to redeem us from all our sin through his
precious blood and to fulfill these words in our life for I
am the Lord that heeded thee. Amen.