bitter waters made sweet. Now
that basically refers to the last few verses on your lesson
there, Exodus 15, 22 through 27. But I want to just say a
few words about the first 21 verses because that's what is
known commonly as the Song of Moses. And of course this is
Moses' praise. It's a psalm, actually a song,
S-O-N-G, but a psalm, P-S-A-L-M. In fact, it's the first recorded
psalm in the scriptures. And it's Moses crying out in
praise and worship, lauding and lifting up the Lord for delivering
them from Egypt, and especially in such a great way. We'll read
part of it. Look at verse one of Exodus 15. He says, Then sang Moses and
the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spoke, saying,
I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. That's talking about Pharaoh
and his army. The Lord is my strength and song,
and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare
him in habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. And
of course, what we see in this psalm is that it's all attributing
all glory and all power and all goodness to God for salvation.
this physical deliverance that God brought Israel out of bondage
in Egypt. And the spirit inspired Moses
to compose this song of worship because Moses was the deliverer
of the nation. And of course, Moses is a type
of Christ who is the redeemer and the savior of spiritual Israel. And that's really, this song
is all about Christ. I mean, you know, the way he,
look at verse three. He says, the Lord is a man of
war. The Lord is his name. This man
of war. Christ as Moses himself and the
children of Israel, they didn't fight at all. But over, you remember
over in Exodus 14 and verse 14, it says, the Lord shall fight
for you. and you shall hold your peace.
And that's what Christ did for us on the cross. In fact, that's
what he did his whole lifespan here on earth. He fought for
us, he fought against sin, he fought against Satan, he fought
against the world, fought against the flesh, and then he went to
battle finally on the cross as our surety, our substitute, our
redeemer. and he waged a warfare there,
you need to see it that way, and in that warfare he conquered
all of our enemies. We didn't have to lift a finger,
of course we couldn't, because we were totally unable to do
so. There's no way that we could
have had victory over sin, over Satan, over death, over the flesh,
over the world, no way. The Lord fought for us and what
do we get in return? We get salvation, we get peace. We hold our peace because he's
the Prince of Peace. And so here we see that and we've
seen how the physical deliverance celebrated by Israel here has
a great resemblance to the eternal and spiritual redemption accomplished
by Christ for his people. Moses mentions Pharaoh and his
chariots, how they were conquered. Verse six says, thy right hand,
O Lord, has become glorious in power. The right hand of God
is Christ. Remember, he's seated at the
right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for
us. And he's become glorious in power. Now he, in himself,
as God the Son, he was always glorious in power. But now Moses
is projecting into the future when he would become glorious
as the one who conquered all of our enemies on the cross.
And that's what happened when Christ said, it is finished,
the warfare is over. And he says, thy right hand,
O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. Verse seven, and in
the greatness of thy excellency, thou hast overthrown them that
rose up against thee. Thou sent us forth thy wrath,
which consumed them as trouble. With the blast of thy nostrils,
the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as in
heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. And
then he goes on, he talks about the enemy said, I will pursue
it, I'll overtake it. Pharaoh and his army, they had
every intention of winning this battle, but God had other plans. And we see that in our salvation.
In verse 11, he says, who is like unto thee, O Lord among
the God. There's no God like our God.
You know, the holiness of God, when we think about holiness,
we normally think in terms of moral purity. And certainly that
would be included. But the holiness of God speaks
more of God in his uniqueness. There's no one like God. He is truly unique. He's one
of a kind. There's no one to compare with
him. That's why he told them, you don't make any graven images
of God. God is spirit. And there's no
likeness of God. There's no pictures of God. There's
no paintings of God. And there's no God like him.
All other gods are false gods. And so he is holy. Verse 11,
who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee,
glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, and
Moses goes on with this praise about God. Verse 14, the people
shall hear and be afraid. In other words, they're gonna
give reverence and respect and worship and praise to God. And that's what happens when
the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us and in us. That we see
the true and living God as opposed to our idol or idols that we
saw before. Remember in First Thessalonians,
I think it is chapter one, when he talks about how one of the
evidences of their salvation is their repentance. God has
given them the gift of repentance and what is that? You turn from
your idols to serve the living God. And that's what Moses is
lauding here in his worship. how he brought the people out
and he set them on dry land. Verse 19, the horse of Pharaoh
went in with his chariots, with his horsemen into the sea. The
Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them, but the
children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.
So in the midst of that which would naturally be our enemy
and kill us, we go through on dry land, safety. Untouched by
the wrath of God because Christ as our substitute took his wrath
because of our sins imputed to him And we have his righteousness
imputed to us. So we're safe and secure now
and then it speaks about Miriam and the women who sang with Moses
and How he brought him in up up there and then look at verse
22 now This is where the main part of this my lesson today
the bitter waters made sweet. I It says, so Moses brought Israel
from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of Shur.
Now that was a desert, a dry land where there was very little
water. And it says, and they went there,
went three days in the wilderness and found no water. So there
it is. And then in verse 23, look here,
it says, and when they came to Marah, They could not drink of
the waters of Mara, for they were bitter. Therefore, the name
of it was called Mara. The word Mara means bitter. I
notated in your lesson, you remember the story of Ruth, when Naomi,
her mother-in-law, her husband had taken them down
into Moab, away from Bethlehem. Bethlehem means the house of
bread. So took them away from the house of bread down into
Moab. And you know what God calls Moab?
He calls Moab his wash pot. In the Psalms it said. And so
you know what happened, how her husband and the girl's husbands
got killed, and Naomi went back to Bethlehem and Ruth went with
her. And when the women of Bethlehem
saw Naomi, they said, oh, this is Naomi. And Naomi means pleasant,
but she wasn't pleasant, she was bitter. And she said, don't
call me Naomi, call me Mara. And it's the same word, it's
spelled a little different in Ruth without the H, but it's
the same word, call me bitter. Well the waters of Mara, this
is why this, they found no water, and what water they found they
couldn't drink. What a picture of our spiritual situation by
nature. No water, which means no life,
spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. And what water there
is, it's poisonous. It's undrinkable. And I thought
about that. This is a picture of our natural
state and habitation in this world as lost in our sins, spiritually
depraved and dead, without hope, dry. In a spiritual sense, this
world is a dead, dry desert. And where there is something
that looks like water, there's no life to save us. What kinds
of water is that? That's like religion. Man's religion. Go drink at the cisterns of man's
religion, and what are you gonna find? Death. The way that seems
right unto a man, and it's a way of death. The broad road that
leads to destruction. Other ways that people try to
satisfy their thirst. Materialism, philosophy, economics,
whatever. Whatever. It's like the waters
of Mara, the bitter waters of Mara. And so, this is where God
brings us when he converts us, when he regenerates us in the
new birth. He brings us, in a spiritual sense, to see that we're lost
and dead and dry and we have no hope in ourselves, no hope
in this world. And he shows us our need of Christ,
who himself is the water of life. And salvation, he's the water
of life. Apart from God's power and grace, we would die in this
spiritual desert, just like the children of Israel, were it not
for what God is about to do here through Moses. They would die
right there. No water. You gotta have water
to live. And we may look in our lost state,
we may look for water in different places, and we may think we found
it. The waters of baptism, the waters
of false religion, but it's deadly. It's really undrinkable to those
who are spiritually alive. And so the Lord exposes this,
but look at verse 24. It says, and the people murmured
against Moses saying, what shall we drink? Now, think about that. Now think about what all they've
seen up to this point. How many miracles? How much of
the power of God in the destruction of Egypt and the deliverance
of them from Egypt have they seen? The parting of the Red
Sea. The pillar is still there, the
pillar of light, the pillar of cloud, it's still there. And
yet what do they do when they come to the end of the road?
They complain against Moses, which in essence is complaining
against God. Now why is that? Is it because
Moses is equal to God? No. He's the servant of God. He's preaching the word of God.
And that's why it is, with any preacher who preaches God's word,
if you complain against him for his preaching, you're complaining
against God. Now I'm not saying that just
to protect myself or to build a wall around myself at all.
You check me out. You test my words with the word
of God. And any preacher who doesn't
preach the word of God, he deserves to be murmured against. But Moses
was God's servant. Moses was just doing what God
told him to do. He led them where God said to
lead them. When he led them to the Red Sea
on the brink, where they could have no hope in themselves, that's
where God said to put them. When he led them through the
desert of Shur to this water hole called Marah, that's where
God said to put them. But they murmured against God.
Now that, again, that's another example of our natural state. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. And
that's the way we do, unless the Lord changes us, unless the
Lord powerfully gives us a new heart. And so that's the reaction
of the people. That's what's left to ourselves.
But look at verse 25. This is the first part of it
here. In verse 25 it says, Moses cried
unto the Lord. Now that's what we should do.
Instead of murmuring against Moses, we ought to do like Moses,
cry unto the Lord, Lord help me. And that's not just a saying. You know, a lot of people, even
unbelievers say, Lord, help me. But we're talking about the Lord
that we know, the Lord who has revealed himself to us through
Christ in the gospel of how God saves sinners. Our God, he's
a holy God. Moses said that. There's no God
like our God. He's a just God and a savior.
I think I was talking to somebody last week about the Shekinah
glory of God. You've heard that term the Shekinah?
The word Shekinah is from a Hebrew word that means the presence
of God. God is present. I'm going to
be talking about that in the next message. And what the Shekinah
was That was the greatest manifestation of God's presence and God's favor
and God's glory and God's attributes to be found at any given time
in any given place. Now, in the Old Covenant, after
this episode and as you get on into Exodus, the Shekinah dwelt
in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. And what was that
showing you? Well, that was showing you how
God can be just to justify ungodly sinners through the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Shekinah that we know is
the person and work of Christ. It's called the fullness of the
Godhead in him bodily. It's called the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. And so When God brings us to
see our state, that we have no hope within ourselves, no salvation,
no power, no goodness, no righteousness, what does he do? He turns us
to cry out unto him, like that old publican, God be merciful
to me, the sinner. Well, Moses cried unto the Lord.
Now, what did the Lord do? Look at verse 25. This is what
the Lord always intended to do. The Lord showed him a tree. which
when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."
Now, what do you gotta do to a tree to cast it into the water?
You gotta cut it down, don't you? Has to be a death, so to
speak. And you know, the image of trees
in the Bible is so blatant, isn't it? I mean, think about it. In creation, in Genesis 2 and
verse 9, God showed Adam and Eve the tree of life, and the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that tree of life
is a picture of Christ who is our life. The tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, that represents God's standard by which he judges. God is the one who tells us what's
good and what is evil. He doesn't leave that to ourselves
because in ourselves, especially in our fallen state, we'll call
good evil and evil good. Isn't that right? until he shows
us his standard, which is exemplified in Christ, that righteousness.
How righteous do I have to be to be accepted with God? Well,
God's gonna judge the world in righteousness by that man whom
he hath ordained, and that he hath given assurance unto all
men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. I've gotta
be as righteous as Christ. And 99% won't get it. It's perfection. And so we see that in the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is Christ.
Christ is the only tree of life for his people. And then as our
surety, our substitute and redeemer, he died for us on the cross,
which is called a tree in Galatians chapter three and verse 13, that
tree. And the tree here, I don't know
what kind of tree this was. Some commentators speculate on
it, but I think it's silly. Well, it doesn't matter. The
tree represents life. But the tree had to be cut down.
And that's what Christ had. Christ is our life, but he had
to be cut down in his humanity because of our sins imputed,
charged to him. He had to die, the soul that
sinneth not. Now he didn't sin himself, but
our sins were charged to him. And the wages of sin is death.
And so he had to be cut down, Christ himself and his people. As we stand before God in him
are given life from him and we're described as a tree planted by
the rivers of water that bring forth his fruit in his season. Psalm 1 verse 3. His leaf also
shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Now,
essentially that's talking about Christ, but it's also talking
about his people as he is our representative, our surety. our
substitute and we have a righteousness and God's people are called trees
of righteousness, the planning of the Lord that he might be
glorified in Isaiah 61 in verse three. Think about the tree of
life in Revelation 22. It's mentioned two times in verse
two and verse 14. That's a symbol of Christ who
is the creator and giver of life to his people. He said, I am
the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh under the father,
but by me. The tree that God showed Moses is a picture of
Christ who is himself the tree of life for his people. And as
I said, sin demands death, righteousness demands life. There's no life
without Christ because without him, there's only sin. There's
no righteousness. Remember he told the Pharisees,
he said, if you don't believe that I am, you'll die in your
sins. All you have is sin. If you die without Christ, without
being washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness,
all you have to present before God at judgment is sin, even
your best. Lord, Lord, haven't we preached
in your name? So without Christ, there is no
righteousness. But in Christ, God will not impute
our sins to us. Blessed is the man whom the Lord
imputeth not iniquity. In Christ, God has imputed his
righteousness to us, and from Christ, we have life. He gives
us life from the dead. So here's Moses casting the tree
into the waters. That's a symbol of Christ. That's
a picture of Christ suffering and dying on the cross. The sweetness
of Christ on the cross. Doing the work of a Redeemer
for the glory of His Father and the good of His people saves
us from our sins and sustains us even in the worst of times.
And out of the bitterness of His death as our substitute comes
the sweetness of righteousness, the forgiveness of sins, the
sweetness of the Spirit who gives life. And Christ is the water
of life for His people. He said this in the Sermon on
the Mount, Remember in Matthew 5 and verse 6, he said, blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. They
shall be filled. You know what that tells us.
The thirst, you know, people say, well, you know, we thirst
after Christ. Well, that's right. We thirst
after life, we thirst after righteousness. This is a thirst that God gives
us that we don't have by nature. We have all kinds of thirst,
but by nature we seek to fulfill that thirst in ungodly ways. But righteousness is only to
be found in the glorious person and finished work of Christ.
And if the Holy Spirit has given us this hunger and this thirst,
The only way that it's going to be filled is by looking unto
Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, looking unto him
for forgiveness, looking unto him for all righteousness. Christ said this to an adulterous
woman at Jacob's well in Samaria, you remember, in John chapter
four. Listen, he told her, he said,
he said, if you only knew who asked you to give him a drink,
you said you'd ask of him to give you water. He'd give you
water springing up, a well of living water. You can read about
that in John 4. But let me read you this. This is John 7. You
know, this is when the people were engaged in the feast of
the Passover and all the different feasts, the great feast. They
were performing a religious activity. But apparently they went away
as thirsty as when they came, because it meant nothing. And
so in John 7, 37, listen, it says, in the last day, that great
day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth
on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water. Now that's basically the same
thing he told the woman at the well back in John 4. But that's
what this picture is. And look at verse 25 again. It
says that when Moses cast the tree into the waters, the waters
were made sweet. They were drinkable. And I thought
about myself, you know, when I first heard the gospel, it
was a very distasteful, bitter message to me. But when the Lord
gave me eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to understand,
those waters became sweet. It became what I saw as the worst
message I'd ever heard, I now saw and see as the greatest story
ever told. The best news I ever heard of
how God saves sinners. And it says in verse 25, there
Moses made for them a statute, not a statue now, a statute,
a law, and an ordinance, and there he proved them. And look
what he said now. This is kind of like a preview
of what's to come from Mount Sinai concerning the law that
was given to the children of Israel through Moses. It's the
establishment, it's a foretelling and a foretaste of the establishment
of the old covenant law. And he says, 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, there's your key,
and will give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes. Now
notice it doesn't say keep part of his statutes. It doesn't say
do your best to keep them. It says 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." That's Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that
heals. Well what's that all about? Well
that's that old covenant and it was a conditional covenant.
Now as I've told you and I won't go into all of this today but
The initial choosing and bringing together of Abraham's natural
descendants, the Hebrew children, was not conditioned on them.
It was a promise that God made to Abraham. What even conditioned
on Abraham? God chose Abraham, God brought
him out of Ur of the Chaldees, God established him, and God
made promises to him that were totally unconditional. He didn't
say, now Abraham, I'm gonna privilege you with this part in history
if you'll do this, that, or that. No, God didn't say that. So God
choosing this nation and bringing them together and delivering
them out of Egypt and establishing them in the promised land was
unconditional. And that's a picture of grace.
That's a picture of our salvation. God chose spiritual Israel. His
elect before the foundation of the world gave us to Christ.
And all the promises of God of salvation and eternal blessedness
are in Christ, yea and amen. But when he establishes them
as a nation, which officially takes place at Mount Sinai, and
he brings them under the old covenant law, He makes it clear
that their blessedness, their privileges, their prosperity
is based upon their keeping the covenant law. And their punishments,
even their captivity would be based upon their breaking that
law. That was a conditional covenant. Now, God had promised Abraham
that through him the Messiah would come. So God unconditionally
kept this nation intact in some form until Christ came. But their
prosperity in the land of promise, their blessedness physically
in the land, and it was based upon their obedience. And their
punishment was based upon their disobedience. What do you know
about their history? They were a continually rebellious,
unbelieving, and even idolatrous people. There were some brief
moments when they had godly kings who led the people in the truth
and worship of God, but it didn't last long. And even those godly
kings showed themselves to be what? Sinners. You can think
about King David. You can think about Solomon.
What was King David? He was a sinner saved by grace. And after Solomon, the kingdom
became in such deray that it split in two. You had the northern
kingdom, the southern kingdom. In the Northern Kingdom, there
was not one king in their 1,500, or, well, it'd probably be about,
yeah, almost 1,500 years. In 1,500 years, in the Northern
Kingdom, or you might say 1,400, there was not one godly king. Every king in that Northern Kingdom
was an evil. He did that which was evil in
the sight of the Lord. And in the Southern Kingdom,
There were a few godly kings, but not many, but God kept them
together until Christ would come. So the point is this, if thou
wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, this
is the condition for your prosperity, your blessing. What happened?
They failed. But what we have to understand,
unlike false religion today, we would have done no better.
If God placed us under a conditional covenant telling us that if you'll
keep his commandments, he'll bless you and save you and all,
what would happen to us? We'd be failures. We're sinners. And that's why salvation is based
upon a covenant made with Christ. Not conditioned on us, but conditioned
on him. And that's why I tell you, when
you read the Old Testament, you see these if passages. He says,
if, he says, thou wilt diligently. That's a conditional if. And
they failed. But when you read those passages
in the New Testament, when it says, if you continue in the
faith, that's an evidential if. That means that you will evidence
that God has been gracious to you if you continue in the faith. How do you know the difference?
Look at the covenant. We're under the gospel covenant.
We're under the new covenant. We're under the everlasting covenant.
We're a covenant of grace. We're not under the old covenant
law. Thank God. They were. They failed. So would
we. How do you know? God justifies
the ungodly. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I'm chief, but the same God is the Lord
that healeth us. He heals us. I love that passage
in Malachi where it talks about the son of righteousness, which
is Christ, coming with healing in his wings. He heals us from
all our diseases. Now that's not talking about
physical health, as some of these charismatic false preachers say. When the Bible says in Isaiah
53, by his stripes were healed, that's talking about spiritual
health, spiritual wellbeing. Well, look at verse 27, I'll
close. And they came to Elam, where there were 12 wells of
water, plenty of water here, and three score and 10 palm trees,
plenty of vegetation. And they encamped there by the
waters. And that's just after the time
of testing, that's what verse 26, gives us their testing. God gives them a time of refreshing.
That's the way he does with us. We're proven and tested and tried,
and we have times of refreshing. But all of our times are in God's
hands, and he's going to take care of his people. All right.