look here in verses 22 down to
the end of the chapter 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 when they
came to Marah they could not drink of the waters of Marah
for they were bitter therefore the name of it was called Marah
Remember that was Naomi, she went out full and she came back,
don't call me Naomi anymore, call me Myra, for I came out
full and I came back bitter. Bitterness, don't call me Naomi
anymore. And the Nevus calls Myra, 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 into the waters, the waters were made sweet. there
he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved
them, and 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 brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth
thee. And they came to Elam, where
were twelve wells of water, Three score and ten palm trees and
they encamped there by the waters It says there they went into
the wilderness of sure You know God led them up to the
Red Sea, but they hadn't been into the wilderness yet And it's
in God's purpose For his people that's been redeemed bought by
his blessed blood Those that he brings to himself It's His
will and His purpose that we pass through the wilderness before
we ever enter into the promised land. They were heading for Canaan,
but they had to go to the wilderness first. They had an inheritance
given to them, but they had to go through the wilderness first.
And there's two reasons for the wilderness journey that all those
that Christ bought with His own blood Two reasons for the wilderness
journey that we all have to pass through before we reach the promised
land. The first reason is to manifest our weakness, our corruption,
and the evil of this flesh, and teach us that it's incurably
corrupt, and to humble us, to teach us that if we enter into
the inheritance It will be holy of the free and sovereign grace
of God. Paul said, I know that in me,
that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. You know when the
no good thing quit dwelling in him? When it's time for him to
depart. Time for him to depart. And that's
the one reason why we have to go through the wilderness. And
then the second reason that we go through the wilderness is
that where He leads us, He goes with us. And not only does He
go with us, that He's for us in this wilderness. And He displays
His grace and He displays His power and gives us grace upon
grace while we're going through this wilderness. You know, he
said, James said it like this. He said, remember Job, that the
end of the Lord was patience and the end of the Lord was mercy
and so whatever God's design for us is the end of it is grace
and mercy and I tell you it's not just trials for trials sake
and the wilderness gives us a revelation of ourselves and oh what a revelation
it is and also instructs us in the
ways of God as we journey through this wilderness and this is the
first time we read of them being in the wilderness God led them
right up to the edge of the wilderness and I tell you they didn't go
into the wilderness until they passed through the Red Sea they
passed through the Red Sea first and that's when they went out
into the wilderness it was after the blood shedding after that
supernatural Miracle way that God saved them when he brought
them through the Red Sea. Oh, what a miracle What a power
what an act of God Nobody, but God could save those people in
that situation The enemy was behind them a sea in front of
them and how in the world are they going to be saved? Moses
lifted up his And he said, stand still and see the salvation of
the Lord. And they stood there and I water
parted. And they went through dry shod.
What a miracle! And I tell you, every soul that's
ever saved by the grace of God, it's a miracle. You know it yourself. You know it yourself, how could
you possibly be? If it didn't take a miracle to
save us, what in the world did it take? If it wasn't a supernatural
act of God, what was it? And when they passed through
that Red Sea, that was the same thing that Paul said in 1 Corinthians
10, that we were baptized into the sea, and Moses was, and into
the cloud. And beloved, this shows of our
union with Christ. that while I tell you in our
union with Christ in His death and in His resurrection death
was behind Him life was in front of Him and Israel here now is up on
their three days journey into the wilderness and it was three
days when our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead so there's
a three days journey of Israel's upon resurrection ground and
I tell you it's for new creatures only new creatures in Christ Listen, it's after and only as
we're made new creatures in Christ that we become conscious of the
wilderness. After you're saved by the grace
of God and he puts in that new heart and that new mind, that's
when you become conscious that you're in the wilderness. You
didn't know you was in the wilderness till God saved you. And I tell you, the more we apprehend, and enjoy our union with the
Lord Jesus Christ, the more this world becomes a wilderness to
us. The more it becomes a wilderness to us. Now the natural man, he's
not like that. This is his home here. He has
everything he wants right here in this world. But to the eye
of faith, Everything we see and everything
we touch and every relationship we have is a temporal thing.
It's a temporal thing. And I tell you, the old hymn
writer said, change and decay. All around I see. O thou who
changes not, abide with me. Abide with me. And so it's new
creatures. It's only after we're made new
creatures that we're conscious that we're in the wilderness.
And the wilderness is a place for travelers. A place for travelers. They was going from one country
to another country. And that's what we've done. We're
going through the wilderness. And we left this world here.
And God saved us by His grace and takes us into the wilderness.
And we got an end to this thing. We're going to another country.
We're just traveling through. We're just passing through this
world. We're just going from one country to another. Only
a fool would drive his stakes down here and make his home here.
But the world, beloved, is a place where men journey from time to
eternity. This world, we're just passing
through here. I heard one person say one time,
this world here is just a place for us to get dressed up, to
get to go to glory. Just a dressing place. And I
tell you, faith is what makes the difference between the way
and men regard the world. Faith makes the difference. The
natural man, look what he says about the world in Psalm 49.
The natural man, look what he says about the world in Psalm
49. This is the way he thinks. I got some pictures the other
day of somebody I love very, very much. Got a big, fine home. Nice car, great job, but also taken up with the world
that it just discouraged me. Made a big splash, made a big
impression on a lot of people. But oh my, like it's the world's
only place they're going to live. The matcha man, this is what
he thinks about the world. Look here at verse 11. Their inward thought is that
their houses shall continue forever and their dwelling places to
all generations. They call their lands after their
own names. After their own names. I heard
old Scott preach one time. He was talking about people,
you know, said this world's gods and everything that's in it.
He said people get them a great big mailbox and put their name
on it. And then they'll put no trespassing
signs all over their property. Let everybody know that this
is mine. This belongs to me. Look at it. Look what glory it is. Look what,
oh my, won't everybody know that so and so lives here. I tell
you what, that's the way they think. Oh, my house is going
to be here forever. My name is going to be here forever. But you know what the believer
is doing? He's looking for a city. He's looking for a city
whose builder and maker is God. He's looking for a city that
has foundations a real foundation to it oh my and that's why he
says he says we are strangers and pilgrims with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob we're strangers and pilgrims in this world and
oh Canaan was the promised land and we sang that hymn and we
stand on Jordan's stormy bank and cast a wishful eye to Canaan's
fair land Canaan was the promised land and the wilderness was just
a strange land through which they had to pass on the way to
the promised land in their inheritance now look what happens now verse
22 they went three days journey into the wilderness and listen
here and found no water found no water first lesson Nothing here, nothing here can
meet the needs of the life that we have from Christ. Nothing
here can do it. That's what that woman at the
well said. When she came, found the Lord Jesus sitting on that
well. She'd get wet, drop her buckets, you know, get her some
water out of there. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
if you would do who it was that you're speaking to, you would
have asked of Him. And He would have given you a
drink of living water. And she said to Him, art thou
greater than our father Jacob, who dug this well? He said, oh,
listen. Oh, my. And He began to talk
to her. And in a little while, she threw
her water pot away. She forgot getting that water.
Christ gave her a drink of that living water. And she forgot
that pot and threw it away and ran into town. She said, come
see a man. Told me everything. Everything
about myself and everything about himself as far as I could tell
right then. And all believers heart, I mean
look what the believers heart cries. Look at Psalm 63, 1. This
is the difference between the world and the believers heart.
The world said, oh my, I'm going to live here forever. My house
is going to go on and on and on. But look here at Psalm 63. Psalm 63 and verse 1. Oh, they
went three days journey and found no water. And I tell you, nothing
can meet the needs of that life that Christ get us in this world. Nothing can do it. Oh my, look
what he said. Oh God, thou art my God. Early whilst I seek thee, my
soul thirsteth for thee. It's not water from a well. My
soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee. In a dry and thirsty land, listen
to this, where no water is. Our Lord said, he's the water
of life. He said, if any man's thirsty, let him come unto me. And then it says in verse 23,
and they came to Marah, And they could not drink the water. Why
couldn't they drink the water? Because it was bitter. It was
bitter. It was bitter. And I tell you
what. Three days journey into the desert.
Three days journey into the wilderness. Three days journey and not finding
any water and then when they find water they can't drink it.
It's bitter. And then we found That most of
the things in this world that we think sometimes is going to
satisfy us and going to help us out and going to encourage
us a little bit, we find it to be bitter. Find it to be very
bitter. We'll decide that we're going
to do something and like Bruce said, we're going to go here
and do that and that. And we'll find out that when we start out,
it's bitter. So bitter. I remember when I
was a kid, my grandmother down North Carolina, she had a quince
bush in her yard. You know what a quince is? Don't bite into one of them.
That's a bittersweet. It's just awful. Well, that's
what I found out about sin. That's what I find out about
trusting the flesh. That's what I find out about
trying to find any satisfaction or peace in this world outside
of Christ. Bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter. You've heard people say, boy,
that's a bitter pill to swallow. I tell you, this life's a bitter
pill to swallow without Christ. Bruce and I talked yesterday
afternoon and said, wouldn't it be awful to go through this
world and not know Christ and go through what you go through
and not have no hope? But oh, we have Christ to call
on, Christ to trust, Christ to believe. And oh my, and how often,
how often especially young believers find things that they'll satisfy
and find it only bitter. And Israel started their journey
three days earlier. Three days earlier. they had
been saying in God's praise remember when I was saying it priest do
you know that the first song in the scriptures first song
in the scriptures and Moses began to sing about the song of sing
unto the Lord he had triumphed he had triumphed and now their
three days journey into wilderness no water and what water they
have is bitter they expected a smooth and easy
path After all, God has saved them in such a glorious, miraculous
way. But I tell you, that first stage,
that first place that they came to, pretty much tells the rest
of the journey. You know that? They run into
bitter water, and that's just the start. That's just the start. And what it starts, pretty much
forecasts the way the whole journey is going to be. I'll tell you
something, and I do know this without a shadow of a doubt.
God does not mean for us to settle down and be contented in this
world. He's going to wean us off of it. I heard Henry say
one time, he'll break your arms if you get a hold of something
he don't want you to have. And you don't want to let it
go. He knows how to twist them fingers and get it off of them.
And he certainly does. But oh my, He don't want us,
He ain't gonna let us settle down in this world and be content
in the world that hates Him, despises Him, and makes a sham out of His glory,
that lies on His Son and despised His Son, and cast out His beloved
Son. and took him, and lied on him,
and mistreated him, and beated him, and you think he's going
to let us sit down in this world? No, no. And the true nature of
the journey that they're on is moral, bitter. Job said, man
that's born of woman is a few days, just a few days, and full. of trouble and look
what he said in verse 24 and the people murmured and the people
murmured against Moses saying why shall we drink the people
murmured three days earlier they sang
it three days earlier they sang
it and the women was shaking their tambourines and dancing
And now they're murmuring. Just that quick. Huh? Murmuring. They was praising God, now they're
complaining. Oh, a real trial for Israel,
right off the bat, and they failed it. Of all the trials you've
been through, and some of you have been through some pretty
deep waters, and you'll go again. But do you ever feel like you
went through a trial and come through that thing with flying
colors? You ever felt like you handled it really, really well?
Boy, I've done excellent through that trial. Boy, the Lord's gonna
really look down on me with a smile now. I went through that trial
like it wasn't nothing. I told some people one time,
I said, as far as I know, As far as I know, God never really
put me in a trial. And they began to tell me all
the things, you know, said, oh, this happened, that happened.
I said, well, you know, but the only trial, as far as I know,
that I've ever really been through, that really, really, really hurt,
was when Mary got sick. And I don't want to bring that
up, but that's the way. That was everything else before
that. It was just living. It was just
the way God ordained it to be. But I tell you, I'm looking back on it, it is
a few days and full of troubles. I remember now, I started trying
to raise them teenage kids. Woo! We'd go through that again
for nothing. I thought, well, ain't no trial,
but oh my goodness, we'd go through that again for nothing. I took
my daughter to rehab five times. Don't want to go through that. And if God's blessed you with
a believing home, a believing wife, a believing children, and
gave you a comfortable, peaceful, happy home, Thank God for it. God took you through a trial
and you got through it and the sun was shining again. Bless
Him that He kept you going through it and bless Him for the darkness
and bless Him for the sun when you come back out. Because bless
Him. He's the one that, the Lord,
blessed be the name of the Lord. And I tell you what, so they
went to complaining, they went to murmuring. And their murmuring,
it says they murmured against Moses. And really when they murmured
against Moses, it says really truly murmuring against the Lord.
See, God's the one who saved them. God's the one who took
them through the Red Sea. God's the one who destroyed their
enemies. God's the one who brought them
up out of the land of Egypt. And God's the one that's teaching
them. But they murmured against Moses. They really murmured against
the Lord. And I tell you, God works all
things after the counsel of His own will. And these things that
were written when they went into the wilderness were written for
our warning and for our instruction. And why did they murmur? Why
do they murmur? Have you ever watched TV or anything
like that and you know they'd be in a courtroom or something
like that and everybody goes to murmur and you know everybody,
somebody will say something and they go, everybody look around.
That's called, they pay people to go into scenes and do that.
Teach them how to murmur. They'll all look at one another
and go, and make everybody think they're all talking about what's
happening and go up on the stand or something like that. Well, these folks were murmurers.
complainers. Ah, boy Moses, what has he done
to us? Why'd he bring us out here? What
in the world's a matter that we left him? What's going on
here? And I'll tell you why they murmured. They no longer had
their eye on the Lord God. You take your eye off of him,
then you'll start murmuring too. He had miraculously saved them.
But here they didn't think about God. They didn't give Him a single
thought. They talked as if Moses is the
one that saved them. And Moses was the one that was
going to take care of everything for them instead of looking to
God. And when we reach Marah, and they blame Moses. When we
reach Marah, are we going to blame somebody else? Or are we
going to thank God? and look what Moses did in verse
25 he done what Israel should have done and he cried unto the
Lord I must tell Jesus I must tell Jesus I cannot bear
these burdens he cried unto the Lord that's what they should
have done And this is what God gives us
our morals for. This is what He gives us this
bitter water for. This is what He gives us these
trials for. To drive us to Himself. To drive
us to call on Him. To drive us to look to Him. To
drive us to cry out, Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Lord, who can help us now? Who can speak to us now? Who
can get us out of this mess now? Who can touch our hearts? Who
can touch our souls? Who can clear our minds? Who
can give us strength? Who can save us if He don't do
it? And that's what He sends us these
bitter waters for. To drive us, drive us, make us
cry out to the Lord. And it's sad but true. But it
takes a Mara to make us cry unto God in earnest, in earnest. And now look what he says now,
and he cried unto the Lord, and oh my, I'm going to preach on
this next Sunday night. And the Lord showed him a tree. But everything looks so bad.
Moses cried unto the Lord and He showed him a tree. Where did
that tree come from? It's always been there, but when
you get in all this trouble and everything, God's got to give
you eyes to see it. And oh Moses, oh he didn't cry
in pain. Thank God He doesn't deal with
us after our sins. Oh, God deals with Israel's sins
through a mediator, through Moses. And thank God, God dealt with
our sins through our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto you. And
he showed Moses a tree. It had been there all the time. Moses didn't see it. And surely,
and here's what it says, and he showed him a tree which we
had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. He didn't
know, the tree had always been there, he just couldn't see it.
And surely didn't know it was sweet, the water. And how dependent
we are on the Lord. And how blind we are in ourselves. You know when God Abraham sent
Hagar out, and she ran out of water and she had Ishmael with
her and she sat down and cried and she said I'm going to die
here in the wilderness and God opened her eyes and there was
a well right there there was a well right there you remember
when Elisha was in his house and the king of Syria come down
and surrounded his house because he was telling Israel everything
this king of Syria was gonna do And that young man said Oh
master master. Look at that. We're gonna die
here. Look at this great army Well, I just didn't even get
up off this office chair He said go outside said Lord open his
eyes. He said there's more for us than
there are More for us than there are them and he opened his eyes
and there was the Lord's cherished the Lord's army surrounded that
bunch God's got to open our eyes. And
to see an eye in the here and here comes from the Lord. And
oh, the Lord showed Moses a tree. A tree. A tree. There's a lot of different trees
in the scripture. There's two that really stand
out. There's the tree. of the knowledge of good and
evil. Adam partook of that tree. And
when he partook of that tree, he died. He failed. He lost the way. He lost the
truth. He lost life. He lost everything. And we did in him. And our Lord
Jesus Christ, His tree, He himself bore our sins upon the tree. Christ was hung on a tree. And I tell you, you know, and
he's called as the apple trees among the trees of the woods.
So is my beloved among the sons of men. And he shall be as a
tree planted. Christ would be that. And that's
tree. That's all the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. On that cross, he was the one
that bore all the bitterness. He was the one that carried all
the weight. He was the one that drunk that
bitter cup. He was the one that took that
cup that he said, if it be possible, let it pass from me. He was the
one And then, beloved, because He
bore our sins and suffered for our sins and put away our sins
and our sacrifice for sin once and for all, it's His death and
His life and His suffering and putting away our sins that make
our bitter waters sweet because of Him. You know, you remember
when Paul and Silas were in jail? They put them in jail for preaching. Big riot started over there.
They put Paul and Silas in jail. He said, oh my goodness. And
then not only did they put them in jail, but they beat them. Put them in stocks down in Philippi. Oh, that's a bitter, bitter thing.
That's a bitter thing. But you know what they did? They
began to sing. They knew that the sufferings
that they were going through was just filling up the sufferings
of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's all it was. Filling up His sufferings. And
when His sufferings filled up in us, no more suffering. And then look what He said here
in the latter part of verse 25. There He made for them a statute
and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and 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 brought upon the Egyptians,
for I am the Lord that healeth thee. When they were in Egypt,
Nothing had been said to Israel about statues and commandments. But now they're redeemed. They're
bought. They're not their own. They're
bought with a price. They don't belong to themselves anymore.
They belong to the Lord. He bought them with the blood
of Christ. He bought them with that Passover lamb. He saved
them because of that Passover lamb. And God's dealing with
them in grace. Saved him by grace. He's going
to get him through the wilderness. But grace is not lawless. His
commandments are not grievous. His yoke is easy. And his burden
is light. If grace makes a man feel like
that he can sin all he wants to, then he don't know nothing
about the grace of God. They told Walter grew with that
one time some people told him, said, Walter, if I believe what
you did, I can send all I wanted to still go to heaven waters
that I said more than I want to. And that you I don't, you
know, I don't even have to get out of bed. I don't have to get
out of bed in the morning to sin. You so mind, these old thoughts, Oh, grace makes us more indebted
to God than law ever could. Where sin abounded. Where sin
abounded. Where sin abounded. And it did
abound. It abounded right here. They
murmured, where sin abounded. Grace did much more abound. You
know what grace did for them? Gave them a tree. You know what
that tree did for them? May that water fit to drink. May that water sweet. May that
water sweet. And that tree that our Lord Jesus
Christ in his blessed death makes our water sweet. And I tell you grace establishes
a reason for our obedience. Faith works by love. Grace works
by love. Grace and mercy. That's what
works in us. That's what motivates us. And
then look what he says there. The last part of verse 26. I
am the Lord that healeth thee. Well, how do you heal them this
time? By a tree. Showed Moses a tree. Well, I tell you that tree ain't
going to do no good until it's put in the water. The water's not going to be fit
to drink until you put the tree in it. Put the tree in it. And then look what God does for
them. You're talking about grace for grace now. Grace upon grace. And they came to evil. Oh my, here they just three days
in the wilderness and no water. Why shall we drink? Well, God
give you something to drink. Well, they're bitter, I'll take
care of that bitterness for you. And then they came to Elam and
listen to this, 12 wells of water. 12 wells of water. Three score and ten palm trees. Seventy palm trees. Listen to
what it says there. They kept that where that water
was. That's the way God does us. He brings us while we're
going through the wilderness and we'll have these bitter,
bitter experiences and all of a sudden we'll come to a bunch
of palm trees and wells all over the place and water drink all
over the place and a place for us to camp for just a little
while. Huh? That ain't gonna last long. We'll
see. But ain't that what he does?
He'll bring us to this wonderful place. He'll lead us up the side
to still waters. Make us to lie down. And we'll
have them twelve wells. And we lay there. And he got
all this water and all this rest for a while. Our Father, oh, blessed, blessed
Master, our lovely, lovely, lovely Lord Jesus Christ. You who loved us, oh, you loved
us. You gave yourself for us. You gave yourself. Yourself. Whatever self is. Whatever you
were. Whatever you are. That's what
you gave. You gave yourself, soul, body,
heart, body for us. And Lord, enable us not to do
like these people. By your grace, don't let us be
like them. Not murmur. Not murmur. Lord you gave us the water of
life the Lord Jesus Christ and our hunger now is just after
righteousness and our thirst now is for righteousness and
we thirst for that land that promised land that blessed place
when we pass into Canaan pass into that blessed promised land
And so Lord, bless these dear saints of God. Encourage them. Strengthen them. Cause us to
love one another and love you more. Cause us to seek you, not
only for ourselves, but for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Enable us to give thanks for our brothers and sisters. Enable
us to pray and give thanks for the grace that you've given them.
for the love that they've expressed, for the hope you've given them,
and Lord, for how you've upheld them through their darkest days,
we give you thanks. Blessed be your holy name. Keep
us, preserve us, and never let us, never let us, as Brother
Dirk read tonight, make shipwreck of the faith. Oh, don't let us
do that. Give us grace and peace in abundance
through our Lord Jesus Christ in His name. Amen. Amen. Well, good night. God bless you.