Exodus chapter 15, going to endeavor
again tonight to preach Christ from the book of Exodus. That's
my desire every single time we meet together, to preach Christ
from the text. And the purpose of this Old Testament
study of Exodus is the same as it was with Genesis. We're not
just hurriedly going through the book, just so we can say
we've studied through it. Just like a lot of folks at the
first of every year commit to follow one of those schedules
where they read through the Bible in a year. And I think that's
good if you do it and stick to it. But sadly, most of the time,
They hurriedly read through it, just so they can say, I read
through the Bible this year, and they read without any understanding
of the things that they read. Our purpose of preaching, especially
in the Old Testament, is to see Christ in the Scripture, the
same as the New Testament believers did. This was the only scriptures
that the disciples, the apostles, and the children of God had.
And it was written, Paul said, for our learning that we through
patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. I find the same
hope of seeing Christ in the Old Testament as I do seeing
Him in the New Testament. It's the same gospel. It's the
same message of substitution. It's just in the Old Testament
in pictures and types. Christ is clearly seen in these
pictures and types of these Old Testament books. The Old Testament
declared that one was coming, a redeemer, a savior, a sacrifice
for sin. And God would provide for himself
that sacrifice and he would provide himself as that sacrifice. We see that clearly in the Old
Testament. The New Testament declares that
He came to do all the things that the Old Testament pictured
in type. And He fulfilled all that God
demanded of the chosen sinner. And that's why you and I can
rest. Just rest. Stand still and see
the salvation of the Lord. That's why we can do that, because
Christ has done the work for us. I think that you'll agree
that in our verses up for consideration tonight, we again have a picture
of Christ and His gospel. Let's 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 in the
wilderness and found no water. In chapter 13, verse 18, we're
told that God led the people about the way of the wilderness.
Yet in verse 20 of chapter 13, it makes it clear that they hadn't
actually entered into the wilderness yet, for it says they encamped
in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. But now we are told
that Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, which pictures the
believers' union with Christ in His death and in His resurrection.
Their passage through the Red Sea is what introduced God's
redeemed to the wilderness. It's only when in faith the believer
lays hold on Christ and understands something of their union, their
oneness with Him. That is the key. We see something
of our union, our oneness with him through his substitutionary
work for us. We're made new creatures, and
it's then that we become spiritually conscious of this wilderness
of a world in which we live. To natural men and women, this
world offers much that's attractive and alluring. You know it so,
and so do I. but to the born again man and
woman who's been made spiritually alive. This world is, it's a
dreary and desolate wilderness. To the eye of the sensual, there's
much in the world that is pleasant and pleasing, but through the
eye of faith, nothing but death is seen. There's something in
the world for the lust of the flesh, for the lust of the eye,
for the pride of life, but there's nothing there for the new man,
the new creature in Christ. So as far as spiritual life is
concerned, the world is just simply a wilderness. It's barren
and desolate. And the wilderness is a place
for travelers that journey from one country to another. Only
an ignorant man or a madman would think of making the wilderness
his home. And that's exactly what this
world is. It's just a place where men and women journey from time
into eternity. And that's what we're doing.
We're just traveling. We're just passing through. Now
in time, one day in eternity. The point I'm trying to make
is this. It's faith in Christ that makes the difference in
the way a believer regards this world. The unbeliever, for the
most part, is content to remain in the world. They're always
looking for ways to live and stay longer, but not the child
of God. I'm thankful for the things that
we have in this life. I really am, and I know that
it's God that gave them to us. But we're just passing through,
and we do ourselves good not to hold on to things too tight.
And as soon as they go through the Red Sea, we're told in verse
22 that they went three days' journey in the wilderness and
found no water. Now, can you imagine? I picture
this in my mind probably as many as two million people, men, children,
women, cattle. Three days without water. The
first thing that this wilderness should teach us is that there's
nothing in this wilderness of the world that can in any way
satisfy or in any way minister to the life that we've received
from Christ. The pleasures of sin, the attractions
of the world no longer satisfy a believer. The things that used
to charm us now repulse us, and the things that used to be so
pleasing for us, they've just become distasteful. The things
in which we used to delight now only cause us to groan, in most
cases. Nothing in this wilderness that
we call the world that can refresh our thirsty souls, I know that. The shallow cisterns of the world
have run dry for God's elect. There's nothing here that satisfies,
nothing here that quenches our thirst. God's people are looking
for a city which hath foundation, whose builder and maker is God.
And look at verse 23. And when they came to Myra, and
they could not drink of the waters of Myra, for they were bitter,
therefore the name of it was called Myra, which means bitterness.
Now Israel's entrance into the wilderness here, they left the
Red Sea and all they were singing, you remember? They were singing,
they were praising God, they were thanking God. They looked
there and their enemy is dead on the shore. God drowned every
single one of them. And they're so thankful, but
now they've gone into the wilderness three days journey without any
water. And when they finally find that
water, it's bitter. Israel was now made to feel the
barrenness and the bitterness of the wilderness. But this is
the way God led them. After experiencing God's great
work of deliverance for them at the Red Sea, they obviously
thought. They thought and counted on God
to provide a smooth and easy path for them. I remember believing
the same thing when I first believed. I'm like, somebody's finally
told me the truth. Everything's going to be so good
now. Well, it's been good, but it hadn't always been easy. Little
did Israel, or we, I might add, anticipate the difficulties and
the tribulations which lay before. And all who believe at first
seek to make themselves happy in the world, only to be disappointed
and discouraged when they find no water in this world. And then
when they find it, we discover that it's bitter. Like Israel,
we enter into the wilderness without understanding really
what the wilderness is. what a picture the wilderness
is of this world. Drought and bitterness are all
that we can expect in a place that has no Christ. Now does
God mean for us to settle down and be content in a world that
hates Him and His beloved Son? I think many a believer's failings
in the wilderness can be attributed to just starting out with a wrong
view of what the wilderness is. It helps us to know. Life in
this wilderness world is mara, it's bitter. Life in this worldly
wilderness is bitter. There are a lot of bitter things
in this world that are hard to drink. Our first reaction is
to murmur. Have we figured out that Israel
is a pretty accurate picture of the rebellious men and women
that we are by nature? Verse 24, we read, And the people
murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? Three days
before, these same people were dancing and singing on the shores
of the Red Sea. That gives place to complaining
at Myra. And once again notice that they
reprove and rebuke Moses for bringing them into the trouble.
It's the same thing they did at the Red Sea when they were
hemmed in and the enemy approached. They blamed Moses for it and
they do the same thing here. But Moses was only following
the pillar of the cloud and the pillar of fire to this place. He was following the Lord. The
Lord was in that pillar of the cloud and the pillar of fire.
And they murmur against Moses, but ultimately, as we saw before,
Israel's blaming God for their trouble. We're all guilty of
it. Our Lord tells us that in this world, in this wilderness,
you shall have tribulation. The writer of Hebrews asks, what
son is he that the father chasteneth not? God's gonna wean his people. I've seen this and I've experienced
this. God's gonna wean his people from
this ungodly wilderness of a world and he's gonna make it bitter
to his people. None of God's elect will desire
to make this wilderness their home. I can guarantee you that.
And again, Israel begins to murmur. What is the cause of their murmuring?
Well, it's the only thing that it can be. They say that it's
the water, but the truth of the matter is their eyes are no longer
upon God. They speak as if this had to
do with Moses only, and it's the same with us. We're always
looking for someone to blame, aren't we? Adam did it. Eve did
it. We all do it. Some friend we've
trusted told us this. Some preacher from whom we took
counsel said, some arm of the flesh on which we lean. One or
the other of these things failed us, and we blame them because
of the bitter water." And that's the tendency of human nature.
Israel is our example, shows us something of what our heart
is, and it's our nature to murmur, complain, and to find fault.
It just is. To murmur is our tendency. But
let me ask you, should we let the tendencies of the old nature
rule us? May God give us grace to say
with Joe, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Now that's
faith. Lord, no matter what you bring
my way, no matter what you do to me, even if you slay me, I'm
going to trust you. I have, along with others, often
blamed my sin on the old nature. We've all done that, too. We
say things like, well, sin's what I am, and I sin because
I'm a sinner. But do we hate our sin, or we
just excuse it? Are we to let human nature rule
the divine nature within us? May God enable us to refrain
from murmuring, and I pray that He start right here with me.
As we said in a previous study, Israel's murmuring toward Moses
was really murmuring against God. That's always the case.
And their question was, what shall we drink? I definitely
can't be too hard on them because if I had been with them three
days without water, I'd have been complaining as loud as any
of them. But what shall we drink is their
question. Now you think about this. God
had just divided a whole sea. Do you think sweetening a fountain
would prove too hard for God? Would it prove more difficult
to purify water as to divide it? Is anything too hard for
the Lord? Look at the first part of verse
25. And he, Moses, cried unto the
Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. Has the Lord shown you
a tree? Now before I move on to this
tree, did you notice that Moses immediately took this matter
to God? He cried unto the Lord. Is that
not what our bitterness in this world should do? Drive us to
the Lord to cry for mercy and help in time of need. Did you
notice that as soon as Moses cried, God provided a remedy? Again, verse 25. I love the way
this reads. And he cried unto the Lord and
the Lord showed him a tree. He cried unto the Lord and the
Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters,
the waters were made sweet. Moses cried unto the Lord and
the Lord immediately showed him a tree. And is it not beautiful
to see Moses here as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ? It was
in response to the cries of an interceding mediator that God
acted. Moses is seen all through the
book of Exodus as the one who stood between God and the people
of Israel. And it was in response to Moses'
cry that the Lord came and gave Israel relief. What a picture
Moses is of the one who ever liveth to make intercession for
us. On what ground does our holy God deal so tenderly with us?
Is it not with an interceding mediator? There's one mediator
between God and men, the man in Christ Jesus. Moses cried
unto the Lord. He cried out of dependence on
God. That's when a man will cry out,
a woman will cry out, when they're dependent on God. When we are
dependent on Him, when we've exhausted all our personal attempts
to satisfy God, to resolve the matter on our own, that's when
we cry, depending on God. That tree had been there a long
time. Moses didn't see the tree. He
didn't know it was there, nor was he unaware of its sweetening
properties. And it wasn't until the Lord
showed it. that he learned of the sweetness of the provision
of God's grace. That's something God has to show
you, isn't it? And we see how blind we are in
and of ourselves and how dependent we are upon Christ. Truly, the
hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both
of them, Proverbs 20, verse 12. And this tree not only points
to the cross of Christ, but to Christ himself. He is the tree
of life. A tree is a living thing, and
Christ is the tree of life. And when they cut down this tree
and put it in the water, it turned the water sweet. The cross of
Christ is a very effective sweetener. Christ, the tree of life, a glorious
tree indeed, with spreading branches reaching into heaven's glory.
But in order to save his people from their sin, he must suffer
the acts of God's wrath, judgment, and justice in the elect sinner's
place. And like the tree in Myra's water, Christ, the tree of life,
had to be cut down in the room instead of his people, completing
the work of righteousness and making sweet the drinking waters
of life that flow from salvation and healing. Oh, don't you love
to drink that water? Christ is the remedy for the
bitterness that we experience in the wilderness. The next time
we come upon one of these bitter trials, may we stop and think
upon Christ and take a drink from His living well. Do you
know what takes the bitterness completely out of affliction?
To know that Christ died for us, making us God's children,
and knowing that any suffering that we now suffer is at His
hand, and sent by Him, and from His heart, and for our good,
and for His glory. Every single trial, bitter or
sweet. That's what sweetens Myra's bitter
waters. All trials, tribulations, and
even bitter things are sent from His hand. God had long before
purposed this tree to be the means of sweet water. And it
was there that God made sweet the waters of His wrath, judgment,
and justice. And when God's people come to
a bitter well, God provides a healing tree. For every trouble in this
wilderness life, there's a remedy by God's decree. That's what
causes God's people to press on to the promise of heaven's
glory. That's what keeps us looking
to Christ alone with confidence in and on the provision that
He made for us. That was the very thing that
later on drove Joshua and Caleb and enabled them to stand on
that day saying, let's go. Let's go on up and take the land.
The Lord is with us, fear them not, they said. There are giants
in the land, they said. The Lord's with us, fear them
not. If God be for us, who can be against us? And it's here
that we see another great lesson of this wilderness life. Nothing
can sweeten the bitter cups of life in the wilderness like sitting
down at Christ's feet and resting in His finished work. That tree's
been cut down and it's been put in the water and that water's
sweet. It's sweet. Can you imagine how
freshing that water in Myra was after that tree had been put
in? My friends, the message is not
for us to do. The message is what Christ has
done. And no doubt this tree points
to the cross of Christ, who his own self bare our sins in his
own body on a tree. We don't cherish the old rugged
cross. I sung that for years. We cherish
the Christ of the cross. The cross of Christ is the ultimate
work of God. The substitution of Christ on
Calvary's tree in our place is what made the salvation of God's
elect effectual. Christ did for me what I couldn't
do for myself. We say that all the time. That
may be one of the best definitions there is of grace. God doing
for me what I could not do. God providing for me the perfection
that I could not provide. And that's why Christ and Him
crucified is all we endeavor to preach. It's the cross of
Christ that sweetens every bitter pool of providence that comes
our way. And I said providence, God's
providence, I might add, on purpose, because it's God that sends them,
and He sends them for our good, all things work together for
the good of them who love the Lord, who are they called according
to His purpose. And you can count on the fact
that God's gonna send some bitter water for us to drink. Most of
us here tonight are old enough to have experienced that already.
than some bitter waters to drink. How does the cross sweeten those
bitter waters? By revealing to us that Christ
is a sweet smelling savor of life unto life and by causing
us to depend on Him and in His finished work alone. What are
you going to plead, David, when you stand before God that day
of judgment? I'm going to plead the perfect
righteousness of Christ and the work of righteousness that He
worked out in my stead. That's all I've got to plead.
When Israel crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, and they looked
on each side of them, and I ain't no telling how high those walls
of water were. And as they looked at those walls
on each side, I'm telling you beyond a shadow of a doubt that
they knew that it was the Lord that held them in their place.
Do you think they were dependent on God then? Well, you know they
were. They knew it was the power of
God that held those high waters in place. And they knew it was
by God's miraculous power that they crossed on dry ground. They
sure weren't thinking about all that they were doing for God
as they crossed over. Now look at what I'm doing here
for Jesus. I can guarantee you they weren't
thinking that. They knew that their deliverance depended totally
and completely on the Lord. And it's no different when they
go three days journey looking for water. They're going to see
in the providence of God that they're just as dependent on
the Lord now as they were when they walked through the Red Sea.
As long as we live in this world, the wilderness that it is, we
are totally dependent on God for everything. In verse 25,
the bitter waters of Myra are made sweet, or in other words,
they were made to be what they were not. It's in Christ alone
that His people are made to be what they are not. We are made
the righteousness of God in Him. Now look at the last part of
verse 25. It says, There he made for them
a statue and an ordinance, and there he proved them. This all had something to do
with God proving them. Isn't that what David said in
Psalm 26 verse 2? He said, Examine me, O Lord,
and prove me. The Lord is going to prove you.
And not just once, it's time and time and time again. This
wilderness is full of bitter waters. He's going to prove your
faith and He's going to prove your faithfulness to Christ.
He's going to prove your dependence on Him. He's going to prove your
obedience to Him. And He's going to prove Christ
again and again to you. Now look at verse 26. He made
this statute and this ordinance and He said, If thou wilt diligently
hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which
is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments,
and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon
thee, which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord
that healeth thee." Now as I begin to read that list of things there
in verse 26, the first thing that came to my mind was that
I'm a goner. Because I don't know that I've
ever diligently hearkened to the voice of the Lord, like I
should anyway. And I don't know that I've ever,
no I haven't, I've never done that which is right in His sight
and I won't give ear to His commandments and keep all His statues. Notice
first of all it has to do with hearing. By diligently hearkening
to the voice of the Lord thy God. How does faith come? By
hearing. And hearing by the Word of God.
James said, be swift to hear. We ought to be swift to hear
when preaching begin. Be swift to hear God's Word.
But not only that, James said, slow to speak and slow to wrath.
Do you know how much grief I would have saved myself over the years
if I had just been swift to hear? Nothing had been said at all
in Egypt to Israel about Jehovah's statutes and commandments. But
now they were redeemed. Now they had been purchased by
God for Himself. And God has a right as God, as
His people's Savior, to press obedience upon Israel. The Lord
was dealing with Israel here in wondrous grace, but grace
is not lawlessness. Grace only makes us more indebted
to God. Our obligation to God is increased,
not canceled. Paul said that grace reigns through
righteousness, not at the expense of it. And the obligation of
obedience can never be liquidated as long as God is God. God will
always require Perfect obedience because God can only accept that
which is perfect. He can't accept anything less
than perfection But again, I remind you that we can't provide the
perfection that God requires We can't provide the righteousness
that God demands, but I'm telling you that we want to And why can't
we provide the perfection that God requires and demands? Because
we're sick and we're diseased with sin. And there's only one
reason that God will not put the diseases upon his people
that he brought upon the Egyptians, and he tells us why right here.
For I am the Lord that healed them. He's the one that makes
us perfectly holy. He's the one that makes us perfectly
righteous. He's the one that heals us and
makes us whole. And Christ is the one who in
our place did all that God required. And look at that list again in
verse 26. Well, He's the reason that we diligently hearken unto
the Lord. He's why we always do that which
is right in His sight. He is why we always give ear
to His commandments. He is why we keep His statutes. And He's why God spares us from
judgment and wrath. Again, I say Christ did for us
what we could not do for ourselves. And by the act of substitution,
He's the Lord that heals us. And in Him, we perfectly do these
things. In choosing a doctor, matter
of fact, when choosing a doctor, I want a doctor with some ability,
don't you? Our great physician has great
ability. Our Lord can do anything. He
can do everything. Now, I want a doctor that's qualified. I want a doctor that has some
credentials. I don't just want a doctor that
graduated med school. I would like to have a doctor
that graduated med school at the top of his class. But our
great physician is highly qualified, isn't he? He sits on the throne
of God. He's God the Son. He's highly
qualified. I want a doctor that has some
experience. When I had back surgery last
year, I chose the surgeon for my back. I chose the oldest,
most experienced doctor in the group. I wanted someone with
experience, and I think he turned out to be the best. But our great
physician has great experience, doesn't he? And I want a doctor
that's got a good success rate. You know, my doctor had confidence. He was convinced that he could
help me. He said, you're going to be good as new when we get
done with this, and pretty much was. I liked that. I liked that
he had confidence. I was convinced he could, and
he did. But our great physician has a
success rate that is 100%. I want a doctor that's kind and compassionate. I want a doctor that takes time
with me. I want a doctor that seems concerned about me. Our
great physician is so compassionate, so kind. He loves his people
with an everlasting love. He's out to do you good. My ideal
doctor would be one who could heal me of everything. I don't
want a doctor that comes in, shakes his head, and goes, I've
done all I can do for you. Our great physician is the one
who can do all things. He is Jehovah Rapha. The Lord, the dealer.