Exodus chapter 15 and reading
from 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. And 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 Mara. 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, and three score and ten palm trees,
and they encamped there by the waters. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. After seeing the enemies of the
children of Israel destroyed at the Red Sea, Moses began to
lead the people into the wilderness. and we learn from the verses
that we've read today that they travelled there for three days
without finding any water. And I wondered when I read that,
how long can a person go without water? Now, it's possible that
they had a supply of water, but we need to remember as well that
when they crossed the Red Sea, they were crossing salty water
because that was literally a sea. It was salt water that was there.
So I think that probably the availability of water was a constant
question for the children of Israel. And here we discover
that they travel for three days without finding any water. And
when I looked it up on Wikipedia, it tells me that three days is
just about the maximum that anyone can go before there begins to
be some real serious threats to their life and well-being.
Water is essential for life and being without water in a hot,
dry place for the length of time that they seem to have been unable
to find water was becoming very dangerous to the children of
Israel. So there was no question but
that the nation of Israel was once again, just within a few
days of seeing their enemies destroyed at the Red Sea, they
were in a serious situation. And remember, this was a vast
body of people with cattle who needed a lot of water. And now
they were at very real risk of dying of thirst. When the people
finally reached water, they reached what is called the waters of
Mara, and they discover that the water is too bitter for them
to drink. and hence the use of that word,
mara, because mara means bitter. So they discovered this water,
but they found that it was too brackish, it was too salty, or
perhaps it was acidic in some way. But whatever, it was undrinkable. And I can only imagine that it
must have been fairly bad water for people who had travelled
for three days to find it unpalatable. And there was great anxiety amongst
the people and they murmured against Moses, we are told, because
no doubt they feared for the well-being of themselves and
their families and all their cattle. And they were concerned
that they might quickly die there in the wilderness for want of
something to drink. So Moses prayed to the Lord and
Moses had faith to believe that the Lord who had delivered them
from Egypt in the first instance because of all the plagues and
then with the passing over of the death angel, and then from
Pharaoh and his army in the wilderness at the Red Sea, and the same
Lord who had pledged to lead the children of Israel to the
land promised to their fathers would not now leave them to perish
in the wilderness. This is what Moses believed.
He looked at the evidence of God's goodness to the people
in the recent past and he remembered the promises that had been made
long ago and he brought these two things together and they
helped him to trust in the Lord. He believed that the Lord would
keep his promise and these past evidences The past deliverances
and the promises encouraged Moses' prayer of faith. And what Moses
was showed was something kind of odd and strange. Here was
help from a tree. The Lord showed Moses a tree. And if we had been given a blank
sheet of paper and said, well, what might God use in order to
help the children of Israel here in this situation in the wilderness? I'm sure we would not have thought
of this. a single tree is cast into the
water. Now it doesn't actually say it,
but I imagine that it was cut down and cast into the water. And once it had been thrown into
the water, the bitter taste of the water was removed and they
became sweet and pleasing to drink. Now we don't know what
kind of tree that this was, but it is quite certain that this
was a miracle because one tree could not, because of the makeup
of the tree or the sweetness of the tree, its bark or its
sap or anything like that, could not naturally sweeten sufficient
water to satisfy all the people and their animals. So this was
clearly a miracle. And what we discover from these
few verses is that the Lord was arranging these events for a
purpose. We're told that the Lord used
the circumstances of this day to prove or test the people and
to teach them a lesson. The Lord was speaking to this
people. He was speaking to them through
Moses, but he was also speaking to them through their experiences
and the circumstances that they were encountering. And he was
preparing the way ahead for them. If they would listen to God's
Word, if they would obey His will, if they would follow His
direction, then God tells them that they would be helped, they
would be blessed and they would be protected from all the troubles
and the plagues and the diseases that God had brought upon the
Egyptians. And God uses this small, relatively
small incident at the waters of Mara, nevertheless important,
in healing these better waters to show the children of Israel
God's healing power. and to reinforce this promise
that he has in his hand the power to heal the people, to preserve
them and to protect them, and to do them good both in body
and in soul. And he calls upon them to dutifully
obey his commandments and his ways. So although we've been
told that the children of Israel were free from bondage in Egypt,
it doesn't mean that they were free to do whatever they wanted
to do. It's not that they were without
obligation. They were obliged to obey God
and his law. Now this was not the time when
God gave the children of Israel the Ten Commandments. That would
come at another time. But here they were given to understand
that this was the beginning of God's will for them. It was a
process of informing the people of their duty to obey God and
follow Him. And by this simple incident,
a great lesson had begun. So, having watered their animals,
having drunk of the waters of Mara, now sweetened, the bitterness
taken away, and this lesson learned that they were to follow after
the will of God through his servant, his prophet Moses, the people
moved on. And they continued on their journey
until they came to Elim. And there at Elam, they found
12 wells of water, which is a good number of wells to find, because
perhaps they were able to divide those wells up amongst the tribes
in some appropriate way. And they also discovered 3 score
and 10 palm trees. Now, I wonder if anybody can
tell me how many 3 score and 10 palm trees are in in our normal
vocabulary. Does anybody know what a score
is? Yes, it's 20, isn't it? So if there were three score
and 10 palm trees, there must have been 70 palm trees. And here the children of Israel
set up camp. So the implication is here that
there is a place of water. There is a place where they can
rest. There is a place where they can
find shade. and the trials and disappointments
of Mara and wandering in the desert without water are now
replaced with this relative comfort of Elim. There's a few things
that I want to just point out to you from these verses and
maybe we can learn some lessons. And here's the first one. Sometimes
in life we shall have disappointments. And even although we may be younger
or whether we're older, we will discover that life and the circumstances
of life can sometimes be very disappointing. The children of
Israel had travelled for three days in the wilderness and they
hadn't found any water and the anxiety levels were building. The people were quite stressed
and there was this concern for the life and the lives of their
family and the well-being of their cattle. And whether it
was this, I'm sure we'll never likely be in exactly the same
situation as the children of Israel then, but whatever it
might be, usually in life there is something that is causing
us worry. And as we grow older, we'll find
that those worries don't diminish. In fact, very often they become
more intense and bigger and they cause us to be concerned. Finally,
the people, thirsty, parched, did find water. But there was
a problem. They couldn't drink of the water
because it was bitter. And this must have been an even
greater disappointment and frustration to the people. And we're told
that they murmured against Moses. How quickly, do you notice, how
quickly the victory song at the Red Sea had been forgotten and
the grumbling and the complaining returns. Why was that? Because
the people were disappointed. And learning to manage disappointment
is important. And I think that Moses teaches
us a lesson here. The very first thing that we
should do when we feel disappointed is to pray to the Lord. And whether we're old or whether
we're young, we can pray to the Lord. He hears our prayers. Whether
it's a clever prayer with lots of big words or whether it's
a very simple prayer As long as it comes from the heart, the
Lord has an ear to hear. And taking our troubles to the
Lord is good advice that Moses gives us here. And we all ought
to take heed to that. The Lord uses all our circumstances. Sometimes we are happy and things
are going well and life is pleasant. Usually we forget to pray at
times like those. And sometimes to accomplish His
will and His purpose, the Lord brings disappointments into our
lives and He drives us to prayer. And it will do us all good, especially
as we come trusting Him, waiting upon Him to have those disappointments
healed. Sometimes, as in this situation,
the Lord brings the disappointments in order to teach us a lesson.
But it is always good for us to look to the hand of God in
all our circumstances, and it is always good for us to wait
on the Lord and see what he will do. What means he'll use to provide
for our needs? Might be a tree, who knows? or
some other way. The Lord will always bring good
out of our trials, out of our hardships and our disappointments. And there's another little lesson
here as well. We have our disappointments.
The bitter waters of Mara were at first a disappointment, but
they became a source of sweetness and life and health. when the
Lord showed Moses this tree to cast into the waters. And one
lesson we can take from that is that the healing of the bitter
waters was not obtained by something that the people did, but something
that the Lord did. It was the Lord that showed Moses
the tree. It was the Lord that made the
tree. It was the Lord that caused the
tree to grow there. and the power always rests with
the Lord. Sin produces bitterness in our
hearts and in our souls and in our minds. And we may try many
things to get peace and to find pleasure and sweet rest for our
bodies and our minds and our spirits. But true peace, real
peace, rest and spiritual happiness is a work of God's grace and
a gift of His goodness. And the sin that causes our bitterness
has to be dealt with and it has to be removed. It has to be healed. And that can be done only by
the Lord Jesus Christ. Often we think that we can work
things out by ourselves and we do things our way. And the Lord
has to show us His way and our folly. And it might not seem
likely that chopping down a tree and casting it into a pool of
salty water would make the water fresh and sweet to drink. but
the Lord delights to surprise his people with blessings that
we never could imagine, never could foresee. So may we all
learn to trust the Lord more. And here's the third little lesson
for us today. This tree that Moses cast into
the bitter waters may be seen as an emblem of the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. And just as the tree was
made of wood, so the cross was made of wood. And these are not
accidents or mere coincidences. The Lord was showing the people
of Israel there that there was something inherent in that tree,
something special about that tree that would lead to their
good. And there is a tree that carried
the curse that was placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. This lesson
then is about spiritual life, new life that comes from Christ,
new life that flows from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
on the cross. Our Saviour was cut down when
he died on the cross. He was plunged into the bitterness
of our sin and he was submerged under the weight of God's justice
and yet he overcame the bitterness and he brought sweet waters of
everlasting life to guilty sinners like us. The Gospel of God's
grace in the Old Testament Scriptures was given in picture form and
they can be seen in great events like the Passover in Egypt or
the destruction of Pharaoh's army and the deliverance of the
people out of the Red Sea or they may be seen subtly in small
events like a tree being thrown into a pool and life-giving water
being supplied to a thirsty people by God's goodness. The church
in the wilderness saw these miracles and trusted the Lord. They trusted
the Lord to fulfil his promises and to bring them safely to their
place of rest. and so seeing the hand of God,
they looked forward to the Lord Jesus Christ's coming. Today,
we see the fulfilment of those pictures, those types and promises
in the work of the cross and the sacrifice of our Saviour
Jesus Christ. But we all, whether it's Old
Testament or New Testament or the saints alive today, we all
look to one Christ. We all trust in one Redeemer. May the Lord give us eyes to
see and ears to hear and taste buds to enjoy the sweetness that
is found in drinking at the fountain of God's grace in Jesus Christ. Amen.