I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to Exodus chapter 15 and you can also follow me in your
pastor's commentary. We will be working through the
points in our outline today. Exodus chapter 15. We are going
to begin a series within the series of choice gleanings with
respect to a decision that I have made to want to go back through
a process that many of us engaged in several years ago, where we
went through a study of the children of Israel's journey through the
wilderness. How many of you went through
that wilderness sojourn study with me about four or five years
ago? Only a handful of you? You guys
don't remember that long excursion through Exodus all the way into
the promised land? Well, that's good. What that
means is the vast majority of you, if you stay with us over
the several weeks, you will be privileged to go through the
wilderness sojourn with us and learn what God was seeking to
teach the children of Israel about what it means to walk with
God. What it means to walk with God. Now, if you look at the account
that we are dealing with in chapter 15 verses 22 through 27, isn't
it strange the manner in which Israel is responding to God after
having experienced such a wonderful, wonderful manifestation of God's
glory just a little while ago. Don't you wonder when you read
the accounts in scripture about God's dealing with the people
of Israel, how they can be so hopeful one day and the next
day so fickle? Don't you scratch your head and
say, how can people act like that when God manifests his glory
the way that he does? Don't you ask that question?
But I bet you don't ask that question about yourself. But see, the Bible is given to
us as a mirror. And if you fail to allow the
Bible to be a mirror to you, you will fail to see yourself
as you really are in light of the people that are used in scripture
to help us to see how mankind is as he really is. You and I would be just like
James says in James chapter 1 and headed towards chapter 2 as a
person that looks at himself in the mirror, fails to observe
carefully his condition and walks away from the mirror and says,
I'm all right. But you who have been with us at grace for many
years, you and I know that we're not all right. And you and I
know that the Bible has been for us a mirror for a long time.
Isn't that right? Now, if we use the mirror correctly,
as we're going to do over the next 12 weeks to, as it were,
go through boot camp all over again, because, you know, sometimes
you go through boot camp and you don't get it right the first
time. So you have to go through it again. And I hope that you
are motivated and wisely aware of the necessity that we must
go through boot camp. We got to learn how to walk with
God. And so this is what the 12 weeks of study for us is going
to be that will lead us towards summer of walking with God. How quickly we can go from triumph
to temptation, from conquest to complaining, from singing
to sadness, from witnessing the glory of God to whining about
the goodness of God. from a vertical view of the king
of glory in the manifestation of his power to a horizontal
dilemma, which is designed to wither our
faith, much like the worm that ate up Jonas Gord, leaving him
exposed to mere human reasoning. How quickly we go from hallelujah
to, Lord, where are you at? Am I telling the truth? And so
what I want us to do is to understand this process. Because you and
I are aware that we have a God who is long suffering and patient.
And he has a goal and an agenda that he's going to accomplish
with or without us. But I'd much rather him accomplish
that not only with me, but through me. But I know that just as the
children of Israel had to come to learn what it means to walk
with God, we do too. Or we will miss the experience
that the scripture lays out richly for us to learn from. And so
that's what I want you and I to be able to do. I want us to understand
and learn from what our brothers and sisters went through in their
walk with God. After all, Romans chapter 15,
verse four says, the scriptures were given for our learning.
They were written for our admonishment that we might through patience,
patience, patience, patience and consolation find hope in
the future with God. So they're written for us. So
what I want us to do is to understand what's taking place in our account
and over the next several weeks make a very clear application.
These cannot be the same people that we looked at last week.
They were shouting and dancing and singing, weren't they? They
were triumphing in the glory of God. They were boasting in
the future, weren't they? They were talking about the promises
of God as if they already had them. Remember that? They were
singing the Lord's song. Hallelujah. The triumph of the
Lord is a man of war. He has brought us into our inheritance. Here today they're crying, where
the Lord at? Now what this is, ladies and
gentlemen, is a 30 plus mile journey from the Red Sea to Shur,
which is where they are now, which was approximately a three
day excursion through a route and course that they had taken
from the Red Sea to this little encampment called Shur, this
excursion, this journey that they took, which required three
days. It was a three-day journey. We're
just talking walking three days. We're talking a million and a
half people, men, women, and children, cows, cattle, luggage,
everything, gold, silver, all the resources that they had accrued
from the Egyptians. They're loaded, right? We're
talking a journey now that covered the span of three days. Now stay
with me now, because I'm laying a foundation. A journey from
the wilderness or from the Red Sea where we are boasting in
the glory of God, the presence of God, the power of God, the
goodness of God, the might of God, the arm of God revealed.
We are God's people. Three days later, we're complaining. So there's a lesson for us to
learn about who we are, who we are and what God is up to. Who are we and what is God up
to? And so our first point in our
outline is back to the classroom in the wilderness. Back to the
classroom in the wilderness. And the text says in verse 22
and 23, so Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went
unto the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days into
the wilderness and they found no water. And when they had come
to Martyr, they could not drink of the water of Martyr for they
were bitter. Bitter. Therefore, the name of
the place was called Marta. Now, I'm calling your attention
to this excursion because if you remember, when we studied
this several years ago, I told you that the Old Testament church,
National Israel, corresponds to the New Testament church,
the body of Christ. Haven't I taught you that? And
I've shared with you that you and I, much like National Israel,
we're making our journey through a wilderness. We're not in glory
land yet, are we? So we are making our way through
the wilderness. And the wilderness is a particular kind of journey
with a particular kind of lesson that we must learn. And it is
a place where God is going to manifest his glory to his people
in order to prepare them to enter into their inheritance. So the
wilderness is not an optional place, it's a necessary place.
I want you to get that first. Because I know some of you have
been taught in your churches that you can go through a wilderness
sojourn if you want to, but if you have enough faith, you can
go right from the Red Sea into the land of Canaan. Don't ever
believe that. Don't ever believe that you go
from, watch this now, justification to glory without first going
through sanctification. Don't ever believe that God takes
you right from the conversion and rebirth of your coming to
Christ to a status of being glorified and exalted and embracing the
full inheritance without first going through the long 40-year
sojourn of sanctification that you might come to know who God
is and who you are in God. Don't ever buy the notion that
you go right from God saving you by his grace to you inheriting
all things with Jesus Christ without God first testing you
and trying you and showing you his glory. I'm laying this foundation
down because I know that some of us don't, we don't quite grasp
this middle ground between justification and glory called sanctification.
And if we grasp it properly, we would understand that we are
in a place where God wants to show us some things and will
show us some things. But will we learn those things
that he shows us? I submit to you that where Moses
has led the people of Israel from the Red Sea to the area
of Shur, the encampment of Shur, is the first of what we call
42 encampments. It's the first of 42 encampments.
There were 42 encampments, 42 stops that Israel had to go through
in the wilderness before they entered into the promised land.
You can mark this down and search it out yourself in Numbers 33.
Numbers 33 gives us literally all the encampments that Israel
went through. Every one of them. And they were
42 encampments. Now that number 42 is a very
specific number that corresponds to God's agenda of calling people
out of darkness through the wilderness into the promised land. The number
42 corresponds to the three and a half years equaling 42 months. which it also corresponds to
the time times in half the time in Revelation 11 Revelation chapter
12 and in Daniel chapter 7 11 and 12 it corresponds to what
we call the last half of the week a week is seven days half
of a week is three and a half am I making some sense and 42
months is that number, numerical number by which the children
of Israel has to go through this wilderness sojourn that would
last literally 40 years. Now in the Bible, the number
40 corresponds to the idea of testing, testing, testing. This is why Moses was in the
Mount for 40 days receiving the law of God while the people of
Israel were down on the ground being tried by the patience of
God. This is why our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the last Adam and the representative of all us who
believe, had to go through his 40-day wilderness test as well
before he was ready for ministry. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? There are corresponding patterns here that we have to
grasp if we're going to learn the truth. And so what I am saying
is I want us to go over again, one third of the 42 weeks, which
is 12 weeks, where I'm gonna pick out specific passages to
highlight God's work in our lives so that we can learn what it
means to trust Him between justification and glory, because this is where
God would grow us up. And I think we need to actually
go back and learn what it means to walk with Him. Isn't it a
good idea when we mess up the test, that God would tie that
paper up and give us another test sheet and say, okay, take
the test all over again. Is that okay? Because I, you
know, as a watchman and overseer, I will admit to you that if necessary,
I'll take the test over five times until I get it right. But I actually want us to grasp
the concept because I want all of us individually and collectively
to do a better job with walking with God. So the first encampment
was not done by accident, it was done on purpose. God knew
where they were going to be in their first encampment before
he brought them out of Egypt. He knew that he would have Moses
lead them to the encampment of Shur, to the place of Shur in
the wilderness, so that they would experience what they're
experiencing right now, so that they might learn something about
God. You notice the text says that it was a three-day journey,
right? Well, God had already told Moses twice in Exodus chapter
3 and 4, go tell Pharaoh, now watch this, ladies and gentlemen,
go tell Pharaoh to let my people go, let my son go, let my son
go. Remember, Israel is an adopted
son, like Adam was an adopted son, and both of those adopted
sons points to Jesus Christ. Let my son go that he may worship
and serve me three days into the wilderness. Literally God
had told Moses to tell Pharaoh. I want them to journey for three
days So they are prophetically where God had intended for them
to be right now So the situation that's about to occur is not
a happenstance. It's not a coincidence This is
exactly where God wants them to be Because you and I are about
to learn something about how God reveals his glory to his
people in a specific place at a specific time in a specific
way So that they can learn what it means to walk with God That's
what's going on in our account. And so we're back in the classroom.
You and I are learning what it means to walk with God. And I
told you the difference between the wilderness sojourn, where
God calls you out in the power of justification into the wilderness
of growing you and maturing you in Christ. The difference between
that experience in that realm of being in the wilderness and
entering into the promised land is the difference between learning
how to depend upon God, depend upon God, and being used by God
to bring men and women to a saving knowledge of Christ. The wilderness
sojourn is the place where God is training us. The wilderness
is that place of exclusion where there's no one out there but
you and God. And in the wilderness, God is
going to teach you something about his character, his nature,
his attributes, his glory. without you being distracted
by all of the circumstances around you, as it will be when you get
into the land of Canaan, of which God is going to tell you several
times before you get there, don't get tripped up by what you see
in Canaan. Now you see what I'm doing is
laying down the foundation of really how God works with us
when he saves us. You know one of the mistakes we make when
God saves us? It's for us to think we are ready
to go out and do battle and win people to Christ and tell them
about Jesus Christ until we've come to know God. We make the
mistake of start talking about Bible verses and doctrine and
this and that before we actually come to know who God is for ourselves.
We get the blathering off at the mouth about how good God
is and how he saves and how I'm learning this. And then when
we fall in the midst of those people that are watching us,
we don't know how to get up. So what God does in his love
before he gives you over to the task of evangelism, because the
land of Canaan is a place of evangelism. where you manifest
God's glory after having been taught for 40 years in the wilderness,
what it means to walk with God, what God's will is, what His
statues are, what His precepts are, what His conditions are,
what His plans is, what His purposes are, before you go in there telling
people they need to bow the knee to Christ, you have to learn
how to bow the knee to Christ for yourself. Are you following
me so far? This is what's so crucial about
the 40-year sojourn. And I want to say it again, the
40-year sojourn corresponds to the 40-day experience of Christ
in the wilderness before he did ministry. Just in case you think
it's optional for you not to regard what I'm saying, I want
you to know that our master had to go through 40 days in the
wilderness before his father. He was driven into the wilderness
by the Spirit of God. And he had to be tested. for
40 days before he entered into ministry. Those are the corresponding
factors. And so now what I want us to
do is to enjoy and learn and benefit from the first test that's
in front of us. Is that okay? So then our second
point goes like this. This is a test. Now, I'm gonna take my time because
I already know the Spirit of God is operating right now. I
know I've got your ear. I know you're listening. You
know the problem that we have when we are operating under certain
assumptions about God? Is we fail to hear the alarm
that says, this is a test. When we're going about our life
and we're doing certain things and we, you know, our life is
normal, pedantic. It's very predictable. We have
an everyday course that we're doing certain things, right?
We're just going about our life. And as we're going about our
life, we fail to walk in a conscious awareness that God is up to something. And then when something abruptly
occurs, we find ourselves responding carnally and fleshly. This is what I meant by the,
I want you to write it down, the horizontal dilemma, the horizontal
dilemma. What happened was we were surprised
by an event that God was really preparing us for, but we weren't
aware that God had called us to walk with him so that when
that test came, we'd be ready to deal with it. By the way,
let me share something with you. God tries and he tests all his
people. Everyone whom the Lord loves,
he chastens. You're gonna go under tests.
I'm gonna go under tests. We're gonna go under tests as
individuals. We're gonna go under tests as couples. We're gonna
go under testing as families. Families are tested. We're tested
by, you know, subtle things, everyday common things, and then
things that are very unique to your own family. And you wonder,
Lord, why did you bring this into my life? To test you, to
show you something, to help you understand what it means to walk
in the spirit So I want you to recognize that where Israel is
right now, complaining, having gone from conquest to complaining,
from triumph to tribulation, from singing to sadness, from
conquest to complaining about God's goodness, is because they're
stuck in what we call the horizontal dilemma. What is that? The horizontal
dilemma is when you fail to think vertically. The horizontal dilemma is when
you are stuck in the box of viewing things down here in an empirical
dimension or on an earthly level or from what we would call secondary
causes. Like, say for instance, as a
practical experience, you were in a hurry to go to an appointment
to get a job. You were really banking on this
job and you got to be there on time. And you go to your car
and you realize that you locked your keys in the car. And you got to go through all
of the hassle of calling AAA or whatever to come open the
door so you can get your car. And you know now you're going
to be late for that appointment. A horizontal dilemma will cause
you to start complaining. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And you are now so far out of character with resting with God's
sovereignty, with God's providence, with God's power, with God's
ability, which he just showed you yesterday in the sermon that
you were so glad to hear. Can I stay with you? And so what
I'm saying is the horizontal dilemma is what occurs when you
and I are not legitimately walking consistently with God, asking
God to manifest his glory to us every day. But now Israel's
problem was this, and I want you to grasp this. They actually
just did not know and they didn't recognize that what had happened
in terms of God breaking in on Egypt and destroying the greatest
kingdom of the world and delivering Israel out with an outstretched
hand and a mighty arm by which he got glory to himself, they
didn't realize that they had come under new management. They
didn't realize that they were now bought by a new sovereign,
a new monarch, a new king, a new authority, and that they were
under a new system, a new paradigm, a new model, a new constitution. And in order for them to operate
under new management, a new king, a new authority, they would have
to learn how to change their mind so that they could be in
lockstep with the agenda, the covenant, the gospel, the purpose
of God. So what God is doing is now showing
them that it's time for you to be transformed by the renewing
of your mind so you can think my thoughts after you. So that
as I lead you from encampment to encampment, from encampment
to encampment, from encampment to encampment, and bring you
into the promised land, you will be transformed significantly
enough to be ready for deployment. So what I'm going to do for you
in the wilderness is teach you through trials and tribulations
what it means to really trust God. So this test that's before
us is called the test of bitterness. Bitterness. Bitterness. Bitterness. It's a place of bitterness. And when they came to Martyr,
they could not drink the waters of Mara, for they were bitter. Now, what is a bitter place? It's the place where your resources
run out. It's the place where all your
resources run out. God did this on purpose. Remember
I told you? He told Pharaoh, let my people
go three days journey into the wilderness so that there, right
there, they could worship me. Now I submit to you that you
cannot worship the true and the living God until he reveals his
glory to you and prompt you to worship him. So they're journeying
three days after seeing the glory of God in the Red Sea opening
and bringing them out, destroying their foes and giving them a
song. But now they're in class number one. And the first class
that God brings us to is the place of bitterness. Now, If you are older than 12
years old, you know something about bitterness. Bitterness
is a disposition of the mind, an attitude of the mind where
you become angst and grieved and perturbed and troubled about
things that are not going your way. Are you following me? Bitterness is that attitude that
rises up in us when we subconsciously believe two things, that what
I'm going through, I don't deserve. Secondly, what I'm going through,
I can't get out of on my own. When we subconsciously fall prey
to being trapped by a situation that we don't think we deserve
and we don't have any way out Naturally, because we're stuck
in that horizontal dilemma, we start waxing bitter. The Hebrew
word mara in its root form, marer, literally means to trickle, trickle,
trickle, trickle, trickle. It's the analogy of a faucet
of water being cut on, fully open spout, and the only thing
that comes out is a trickle of water. Now that trickle of water
provokes you because you wanna drink a gallon of water. You
wanna satiate your desires, you wanna satiate your thirst, you
want to satisfy your palate, right? Our labor is for that,
that's our desire. And imagine you are expecting
when you go to the faucet to cut it on and for it to pour
out blessing on you. and all it does is trickle, trickle. You get enough on your tongue,
enough in your palate to make you mad. Are you following me on the analogy?
And see what's going on here is this. You have thought that
every time you cut the faucet on, you're gonna get fresh running
water. And combined with that is this experience, that you
have been walking for three days, this is the children of Israel,
you're walking for three days, and the water that you had with
you was what was provided before you left Egypt, and it's running
out. And you've got these babies to
feed, and you've got these babies to take care of, and now you
come to that third day, that third day, and on that third
day, you don't have any water. And water is essential to our
life. Here you are, the professed people
of God, on a journey that you have never been before, in a
place that you have never experienced before, in a situation that has
never occurred before, and all of what I have just described
is called faith. That's what it's called. It's
called faith. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is a walk with
God day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, where God is
leading you places that you've never been before, where you've
got to trust God for situations that you have never experienced
before. Faith is that place where God strips you, strips you of
all your resources. All of a sudden you can't lean
on this, on that or the other thing. All of a sudden you can't
go to this person or that person or the other person. You are
all by yourself in the midst of a situation where you now
have to really learn the ABCs of a walk with God called faith.
But the problem you have is the horizontal dilemma. You got this wall, this ceiling
that keeps you from looking upward. You don't naturally look up,
even though you're the professed people of God. We first fight
and struggle and toil within ourselves, how can I solve it?
How can I manipulate the situation? How can I turn the situation?
How can I coerce the situation? How can I go and borrow this
or borrow that to get the job done? Are you guys hearing what
I'm... You go into anxiety mode and you start thinking in seven
directions all at once and you're trying to resolve it, only to
come to your wits end and say, I'm out of resources. Now, in
that situation, because you are stuck in a horizontal dilemma,
not looking up yet, you start to grow bitter. Intuitively,
you are complaining, am I making some sense? About your situation. Now God does that to help you
see and help me see how weak we are in our faith. Can I get
a witness by somebody? Say, I know a lot of people love
to talk like they're walking well with God, but the reality
is, if you go, if some of us go with missing one meal a day,
We are as carnal as a goat. I just want you to stay with
me because we've got to learn something over these 12 weeks. Because
see, you think you are entitled to a stable, consistent flow
out of the water sprocket of water gushing out and satiating
your lust every time you go for it. You're under the assumption
that God must bless every event that you go through. You're under
that assumption. But the problem is assumption
is a false faith that's not based in reality or scriptural truth. It actually is an enemy to true
faith because assumption places you at the center of all the
blessing rather than God. It's an entitlement mentality
that says God must bless me because of who I am. Am I making some sense? And I want
to make sure that I lay this foundation down today very clearly,
because I want us to be blessed by this series this second time
around. That place of bitterness is the
place where your resources run out. It's the place where the
immediate situation is beginning to be desperate. And trusting
God, trusting God now is uncomfortable. Have you been there? Trusting
God is uncomfortable because now follow this, trusting God
at this point, humbling, is humbling. And in our twisted
notion about our intrinsic worth, we don't believe God is going
to develop and strengthen our faith in the context of humility.
especially in American Christianity where God must prosper us soon
as we take God's name up in our lips, the notion that for God
to strengthen our faith he would cause us to be brought to places
of humility is oxymoronic in most systems. We would view God
bringing us to the place where we don't have any water to drink
as a failure on God's part in some systems. In some systems,
if you find yourself going through reverses where your bills can't
be paid, or you're in a situation where misunderstanding occurred
on a contract, and now they're ready to take your car back,
or you're in a situation now where you have labored and worked
and exercised and avoided all of the toxic foods, and you are
as healthy as Atlas, and then the news come in, you got cancer,
and now all of a sudden you mad at God. Are you hearing what
I'm saying? And so we're at we're at class
number one and it's the place of bitterness and bitterness
has ranges Bitterness can get ugly It can get so nasty that
you can become so full of bitterness that you don't want to be around
anybody even God Bitterness is a sweet morsel
in the soul when the soul is operating out of carnal principles
and predicated upon and assume self-righteousness in a sense
of entitlement. It is a corrupt vile principle
bitterness because basically bitterness destroys you while
it makes you feel good. You opine away in your bitterness
while all around you is falling apart. And your bitterness is
the company that you keep. But what really bitterness is,
is ladies and gentlemen, bitterness is the fruit of pride. Bitterness is the fruit of pride.
And the reason why we are stuck in a bitter place is because
of what I call the horizontal what? Dilemma. Isn't it amazing how long it
takes for us to look up and call on God in time of trouble. I had a brother come to me about
three years ago, and he said, Pastor, man, I've been going
through hell for the last three weeks, and I didn't know what
was going on. Man, this was happening, that
was happening, everything falling. Anybody been there? This is falling
apart. He come in the church every Sunday
and said, I don't know what's going on. And he said, and this
was on a Friday study, he's heading into the Friday study. He says,
Pastor, what should I do? I asked the question, did you
pray? He said, I didn't think about that. I went on into the study. He
stayed outside in front of the building and paused and said,
dummy, the horizontal dilemma. See, prayer is not the expostulation
of words. It's the integrity of the heart.
based upon the reality of the situation, your limited capacity
and your need to recognize that God is sovereign, able to make
a way where there's no way. But see, prayer is rooted in
true faith. So you can do all of this other perfunctory prayer
type stuff, or you won't. You and I know God doesn't hear
that stuff. That's why people try to work out their own situation
before they call on God. The horizontal dilemma. Have
you been there? the horizontal dilemma. This is where the people
of God are in our present situation. And God knows that for Him to
leave them there, they would actually become bitter. But they're
at a place, ladies and gentlemen, and I want you to get this, where
God wants them to be, because here in this bitter place, God's
gonna show them His glory. He's gonna show them His glory. The text tells us in verse 24,
and the people what? Murmured. Do you see it? They murmur. This is how you
know, listen, this is how you know you are operating in that
bitter concept of a horizontal dilemma, because you are murmuring.
You are complaining. You are agitated. The Hebrew
word means to, it means to sound like a pagan meditator. Moo,
moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo,
moo, moo, moo, moo, moo. And it's this ongoing internal
angst in your soul where you are in a constant state of opining. You know what I mean? Here's
the problem. You're not complaining to God
because God says, bring all your complaints to me. You're complaining
about God's providence. You're complaining about God's
preparation. You're complaining about God's
resources. You're complaining about the
situation that God brought you to as if God is not a good God. Oh, am I telling the truth? You're
complaining about the God who delivered you out of Egypt, brought
you to the place where you were as if God brought you there to
destroy you. And let me just say this as a
caveat before I move on. You would do well to learn how
to complain to your God. Now I say that because I wanna
give license to some of us who by nature are absolute professional
PhD complainers. See, some of us have three PhDs
and complaining and we're ready to write books about how to complain. Level one, level two, level three. It's in your DNA. It's in your
makeup. You naturally complain. So we know for our brothers and
sisters who don't know how to live outside of that natural
propensity to complain, that it just comes out of you naturally.
Like when you open your mouth, you can be having a great day,
but you still complain. That there are some of you that
were like that. So what I'm saying is this, when
God knows that you have been made that way, he tells you quit
laying heavy burdens upon people who can't fix your problem. Bring
your complaints to me. Now I see some of my brothers clapping. And you know what I'm thinking?
I hope my wife is listening to this. I can hear them. They clapping. Hallelujah. Honey, take your
complaints to the Lord. I'm hearing it. I'm hearing it.
I'm hearing it. You guys can't be so overtly
happy, OK? You keep that to yourself. It
doesn't go well at the end of the day for us. But the bitter place is the place
where God has to humble you. Are you guys with me for a moment?
And so what God does is he gives us patterns of tests in the scripture
to demonstrate this, and I'll just give you one. Remember Sister
Naomi? She had married a man named Elimelech,
and they were both Judahites from the tribe of Judah, from
the house of Bethlehem, the house of bread. And her husband was
smarter than he thought. He was wise in his own conceit,
And because the house of God was going through a little time
of famine, and you know the church goes through famine times. This
here is going to be another piece of wisdom for you. Some folk
like to jump ship when the church is going through a famine time
and go over into the land of Moab because in the land of Moab
there appears to be plenty. Rather than waiting on the God
that gave them the grace to come to Bethlehem, knowing that Bethlehem
has its seasons too. We have to go through seasons.
Not everybody left Bethlehem, but some did. And Naomi and her
husband and her two boys left Bethlehem only talking about
camping on the outside of Moab and not going in because they
knew the Deuteronomy 23 curse. Don't you go to Moab because
Moab didn't come to you when you were in the wilderness with
bread and water. They didn't bring the gospel to you when
you were in the wilderness. They were your enemies. Don't
go to Moab. Moab represents the prosperous world, the prosperous
church, the place where methods and techniques appear to work.
It's contrary to a gospel church where we trust Christ and live
humbly and don't have all of the external amenities that all
of these big flashy systems have, where men and women just simply
trust God and we weather it out till God shows up. When you go
to Moab, you can look at the list of things that they have,
and it never seems to go bad in Moab. But what happened was,
Naomi, her husband, and her two boys went to Moab, and they started
a business, and it got good, and then they decided to move
into Moab. See? A little Lebanon. Lebanon's
the whole lot. And they only thought to be there
for about a year or two, and they were going to pull out and
go on back to Bethlehem, but they were there for 10 years.
And in that 10-year period, her husband died, And both of her
boys died. And one of her daughter-in-laws
went back. And only Ruth went with her back to her homeland.
And when she walked into her village, all the sisters were
saying, look at Naomi, look at Naomi. And Naomi said, don't
call me Naomi. Call me Mara. Because the Lord
had dealt bitterly with me. She lost everything because she
depended upon the flesh, right along with her husband. and went
the route of human reasoning and human rationale rather than
trusting God. Am I making some sense? That's
the bitter, bitter place when the horizontal dilemma has trapped
you. See, now she's in a place of
humility, isn't she? Now she's in a place where she
has to really trust God because she doesn't have a husband. She
doesn't have resources. All she can do now is wait on
God. And here I'm here to tell you when God puts you in that
place, where you've got to wait on God. Now God can be glorified
in your life. Now God can be glorified in your
life. And so the bitter place is designed to humble you in
order to authenticate your faith. As I told you, our Lord Jesus
Christ had to go through that 40 day wilderness fast. He was
hungry and the devil came and tempted him in the midst of his
human weakness. But he sustained, didn't he? The Hebrew writer
put it like this. He learned obedience through
the things which he what? Now that's what we're talking
about because we love to avoid suffering Thinking that if we
avoid suffering we are smart But the problem is is while you
and I are not experiencing the ordained suffering that God calls
for we're not growing in our faith and to the degree that
our faith is not growing to that degree God is not glorified in
our life because we've learned how to dance around God's providence
and I'm making some sense, Emma. So let me go on to the next point.
We must learn in this wilderness sojourn to see God's works. You guys got that? We must learn
in this wilderness sojourn, and in my outline, I have C-S-E-E
in all capital letters. Is that yours? Good, I did that
on purpose. We must learn to see God's works. Turn with me in your Bible to
Deuteronomy chapter eight, Moses is going to explain why God took
them through this 40 year wilderness sojourn so that they could learn
what we are talking about. We must learn to see God's work. What if God is doing things all
around you by which he is manifesting his glory, demonstrating the
power of his providence, opening doors, protecting you, highly
favoring you, but you are so blind in your horizontal dilemma,
you don't see it. To the extent, I said this to
one of our guys this morning, I said to the extent that you
and I do not see God's glory in everything that we do, to
that extent we fail to give God glory. You cannot give God glory
until you see the glory of God in the thing that's taking place.
We are all happy. very happy and satisfied that
these two young men who in their maniacal agenda sought to destabilize
Boston and kill of all kinds of people, one died, the other
one is caught. We are all happy that that thing
got resolved in a matter of a few days, aren't we? We are all thankful
for that. But as one of my friends remarked,
he said, when you look on the news, you saw how all the people
clapped for the law enforcement department because of the technology
and their skill set in catching these men. Now listen, there's
nothing wrong with clapping for them. The problem is they should
have been clapping to God first. Because they failed to realize
that technology and success comes from God. And so to the degree
that you and I are not operating out of a vertical plane, where
we realize that from God, all blessing flow, wisdom, knowledge,
technology, skill sets, advancements that allow us to solve all the
problems that we are incurring because of our sin. If we see
success, we must first give glory to the God that allowed us to
succeed. And they're happy about how the
Boston Police Department solved this problem. And I told my brother,
if the Lord had not opened the door for them to be able to see
and go and be in the right place at the right time under the right
circumstances to catch this young man, they would have been looking
forever. It took years almost to find, not Bin Laden, but Saddam
Hussein in a little hole in the ground. With all the technology
that the military had, it took a long time for them to find
this man. And you know, God can show you
where your enemies are in five minutes. He can show you. My point is, you can be surrounded
by the providence of God. You can be in the midst of God's
favor in your life. You can be in the midst of God
working things out in your life and fail to see it. And to the
degree you fail to see it, you won't say, thank you, Lord. You
get the job and you start thinking about he must have gave me that
job because of the suit I wore. You know, I had a fabulous haircut
that weekend. So maybe it was my haircut that
opened the door. No, God opens doors and God closes
doors. And you give the God of glory
the glory for all doors opening. And even when the door is shut,
what if God is shutting the door to keep you out of trouble? We must be able to see God's
works. And here's how Moses put it. I'm going to read verses
one through eight. All the commandments which I
command thee this day shall you observe to do, that you may live.
Multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore
unto you. And you shall remember all the ways which the Lord your
God led you 40 years in the wilderness. You shall remember all the way. You shall remember all the way.
See, we're on the brink of the promised land in the book of
Deuteronomy. 40 years is over. We are rehearsing
history now. You shall remember all the way
in which the Lord your God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness.
And he led you this way to do what? To humble you. And to do
what? To prove you. To do what? To know what was in your heart.
Whether you would keep his commandments or not. Do you see it? Watch
it now. And he humbled you and suffered you to hunger. And did
he what? Fed you with manna. And you did
not know it. Neither did your fathers know.
That he might, watch this, make thee to know that man does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the
mouth of God. Do you guys see what I'm talking about? God brings
you to a point where you stop worshipping secondary causes.
Verse 6, verse 4, Your raiment waxed not old upon you, neither
did your feet swell these forty years. You shall also consider
in your heart that as a man chastened his son, so the Lord God what? there it is therefore you shall
keep the commandments of the lord your god to walk in his
ways and to reverence him for the lord your god brings you
into a good land a land of brooks water fountains depths that spring
out of the valleys and the hills a land of wheat barley vineyards
fig trees pomegranates land of olive trees And honey, a land
where you will eat bread without scarceness. You shall not lack
anything in it. A land whose stones are iron
and out of whose hills you may dig brass. When you have eaten
and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the
good land wherein he has given you. Verse 11, beware that you
forget not the Lord your God. Now, a horizontal dilemma. where you are stuck on the horizontal
means you have forgotten God. That's Psalm 78 around verse
8 or so. God says, to whom was I grieved
these 40 years? Was it not with these people
whom I had shown all my works and all my marvels and all my
wonders, and yet they forgot the Lord their God? Now, come
on, saints. Don't we easily forget God? That's what I'm getting at here.
When I'm stuck in a horizontal dilemma, I have failed to realize
that God is sovereign. He's on his throne. He's in control.
He loves me with an everlasting love. He has an agenda. He has
a plan. He's going to work it out. Why should I fret? The people
were murmuring and they murmured and they complained against Moses. They argued towards Moses and
said, is there any water to drink? Going back to our text, because
I want to move to my next couple of points. We must learn to see
God's works. And saints, what I mean by seeing
God's works is assessing God's works, valuing God's works, esteeming
God's works, highly regarding God's work, even treasuring them
to set our hope in God by a knowledge of his revealed glory, which
God is doing all the time if we would ask him to show us.
Lord, show me your glory. God is not a dormant God way
off in the distance of the universe, not operating meticulously in
all the affairs of life. We know that. If we wanted to
every day, if God wanted to show us every day, we would see something
of the glory of God in the aspects of our everyday life for which
we could give him thanks. And even if we couldn't see them,
we could give him thanks every day. because he saved us by his
grace and delivered us out of hell and set our feet upon a
solid rock and clothed us in the righteousness of Jesus Christ
and set us up for glory with an everlasting salvation which
will never be revoked. We can give God glory for what
he did in the past just to cover today. We can give God glory
forever and ever because of what he done for us in Jesus Christ.
See, but a horizontal dilemma does not allow you to do that.
However, God brought them to the place of the bitter waters
of morrow To show them his glory And here is the manifestation
of his glory in process verse 24 and 25 and the people murmured
against moses saying what shall we drink? And he cried unto the
lord who cried unto the lord moses hallelujah first time moses
comes to discover these people about to start really getting
on my nerves. There's some lessons here to
learn, though, however. And it's this. As I told you earlier,
these are people who have now come out of Egyptian slavery,
Egyptian bondage. And in Egypt, I want you to get
this now, when you live in Egypt, when you live in the world, when
you're part of the Babylonian system, complaining is what we
do. Unfortunately, Christians do the same thing. But in the
Egyptian system, when you're at your job, you know what you're
doing? You're complaining about the job. You're complaining about
the conditions of the work. You're complaining to your employees.
They're complaining to you. It's a complaint fest. Am I telling
the truth? And here you are as Christians
among them, stuck on that horizontal level, complaining as if there's
no God. And we're used to that in our
unsafe state because we didn't know God. But in our saved state,
we don't have any excuse. But those old Egyptian carnal,
sensual, self-righteous principles still operate, don't they? And
God has to help you and I to learn really what it means, really
what it means to trust in the Lord with all your heart and
not lean on your own understanding, but to acknowledge the Lord in
all your ways. Israel's not there yet. They're
getting ready to learn that so they complain to Moses which
drives Moses to whom to the Lord At least somebody's going to
the Lord But that's for us to learn a real clear and necessary
gospel truth We must see the works of God and we must understand
how God works particularly when God is going to respond to with
regards to our circumstance. And so we are told in verse 25,
he cried unto the Lord and the Lord, watch this, and the Lord
showed him a tree. See, God already knew where they
were coming to. He already knew they were going
to be complaining. He already knew that they were going to
start to blame the leader because that's just, that's human nature.
You blame your bosses. That's what Solomon said in the
book of Solomon. Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes,
he said to the kings, he says, when you hear your servants curse
you, you know, it's just the buzz around the office. He said,
when you hear your servants curse you, don't take it to heart. It's not a personal thing. That's
just what people do. He says, and remember when you
were a servant, you cursed the king too. Telling you the truth. We always curse authority when
we don't acknowledge the supreme authority. So it drove Moses
to go to God for God to begin to manifest his glory to his
people. As we are learning in biblical
theology, follow this ladies and gentlemen, When our actions
merit the wrath of God, when our actions merit God judging
us, the wages of sin is what? When our actions merit God's
judgment, but God acts otherwise, but God acts otherwise, God responds
to our needs and our wants as opposed to our sins. When our
actions merit God's judgment and God acts otherwise in his
redemptive mercies, it's because he's not looking at you, he's
looking at Christ and dealing with you for Christ's sake in
order to show you his glory. Am I making some sense? Moses
says, Lord, these people, and the Lord says, look over there.
Now, Moses would have never saw this tree had God not shown it
to him. Now, Moses in the Bible largely,
but not exclusively, is a type of the law of God. And what Jesus
told the rulers in his day is, Moses spoke of me. You say you believe Moses, but
we know you don't believe Moses. For had you believed Moses, you
would have believed me because everything Moses said pointed
to me. Now would you notice then how
that God is taking the human mediator between him and the
people and showing the human mediator exactly what the people
need? The human mediator being Moses
now implies that Moses does not have the capacity in himself
to solve the people's problems. But Moses does know a God that
can solve their problem. And here's the goodness of God.
He reveals to Moses a tree. Now let me tell you the answer
to the test that we're going to be dealing with for 12 weeks.
The answer to the test is always the same answer to every test
that we go through, and that answer is Christ. Christ is the
answer to the test every time. Am I making some sense? Christ
is the answer to the test. Christ is God's answer to every
test that we ever go through at any time. Only what God's
gonna do is reveal a particular and distinct aspect of Christ
relative to the event or the circumstance that we go through
because Christ is all of these things for us to the glory of
God. Are you thirsty? Christ is the
water of life. Are you hungry? Christ is the
bread of life. Are you naked? Christ is the
righteousness of God. Are you weak? Christ is the strength
of God. Are you ignorant? Christ is the
wisdom of God. Are you blind? Christ is the
revelation of God. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
This is the truth. This is the truth. So learning
to walk by faith is learning to walk in the resources of God's
grace in Christ as they are revealed to you, as they are revealed
to you. So we have a wonderful, wonderful
picture of redemptive truth here. The remedy for our needs will
be the same. It's Christ. The Hebrew writer
says it's a tree. Now, Christ for us is the tree
of life. And he's the tree whose leaves
heal every nation. Now notice how they put it. I'm
almost done here. They cried unto the Lord. The Lord showed
Moses a tree which when he had cast into the waters. See that
act of casting? That takes us to the humility
of Christ again. Remember, we're dealing with
these, what we call the gospel compass. We either see Christ
in His pre-incarnate glory before the world began, or we see Christ
in His exaltation, or we see Him in His humility, or we see
Christ in His post-incarnate glory, the eschaton. Here we
see Christ in God's condescending mercy to take this tree and cast
it into the waters. It's taking Christ and Christing
Him crucified, bringing Him down, making Him suffer, casting Him
into the midst of the bitter waters. Hallelujah. Watch this. Those bitter waters
which run through the scripture all the way up into the book
of Revelation, and he caused a star to fall from heaven called
Wormwood. And it made a third part of the
waters bitter so that the men could not drink. Those bitter
waters is the agitation and the anger and the hostility and the
rage in the souls of men presently today that don't know God. See,
our society is bitter today. It's bitter all around the world.
Bitter, bitter, bitter everywhere. Bitter in the nation, bitter
in the world, bitter in the family. People are bitter everywhere
and we will remain bitter until we are made better by the crucified
Christ who enters into our plight. nullifies the curse of sin so
that you and I can drink the sweetness of the water of life
that flows from the side of the crucified Christ. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
The remedy to my bitterness is the bitter cross of the crucified
Christ who was cursed for me that I might be blessed by him.
Do you guys see that? This is the oxymoronic nature
of the gospel. This is the foolishness of preaching.
How can a cursed man on a cursed tree deliver a cursed man by
his curse? Because he's the righteousness
of God. Because he is the God-man Jesus Christ, able to endure
my curse while I experience his blessing. And I'm here to tell
you that is the remedy all across the board. Now again, the beauty
of the text is this. Moses, as a type of the law,
teaches us three things. Immediately Moses ran and cried. You know what that means? You
and I cannot be delivered from our plight by the law of God.
Romans chapter 8 around verse 3 says this, For what the law
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, Christ
did. by taking on the likeness of
sinful flesh, that he might condemn sin in the flesh, that we might
be the righteousness of God in him. Did you get that? Moses
quickly runs to God and said, God, I'm too weak for them. God
then says, Moses, look over here. I want you to see the very answer
to my people's needs in this tree. And so Romans 3 verse 25
puts it like this, but now the righteousness of God is revealed. apart from the law and the prophets,
yet being confirmed by both, even the righteousness of God,
which is in Jesus Christ. So while the law can't save you,
the law becomes a mean by which we do find salvation, so long
as the gospel of God's glory is revealed in it. Moses is going
to be the mediator that walks with these people all the way
through the wilderness. And every time they get in trouble,
God's going to use Moses to show them his glory through some aspect
of the offices and work of Christ. Are you guys following me? Which
lesson means this. See, God could have showed the
whole nation the tree without using Moses. But he chose to
use Moses because God uses means. Am I telling the truth? He did
not set Moses aside because of Moses weakness and his incapacity. He used Moses as a secondary
vehicle by which the people would be blessed so that not only will
they honor God, but they will honor Moses because God uses
means. If the glory of God is going
to be experienced in our life, it's going to be through the
preaching of the gospel. If you and I are going to know
something about God, we've got to be taught of God. If you and
I are going to experience the power of God in the work of Jesus
Christ, it's going to be through the teaching ministry of the
Word. Am I making some sense? God does not set His means aside. And so week in and week out as
you and I sit under biblical teaching, He is using that mechanism
by which He is revealing His glory to us so that you and I
might know how to walk through this wilderness. Walk through
this wilderness. And here's what God is doing.
This is very simple. This is very simple. The God
that delivered you out of Egypt He will get you into the land
of Canaan because he can't lie, change or fail. I say it all
the time, but we don't always act like we believe it. There
is no reason for God to have saved you and not deliver you
out your problems. No reason. No reason, but here's
what you and I better know We better know that the same method
by which God brought us out of Egypt He gonna feed us every
day and take us through every encampment and then bring us
into the promised land It's by faith through grace and Christ
alone apart from works It is the power of the gospel of the
glory of God by which you and I are brought at last at last
into the presence of God Almighty at last and we don't want to
ever abandon the means and We don't ever want to set aside
the means, for God will not do it. The other thing I want you
to get out of this as I close, God will bring us to that place
where we find ourselves weak and complaining. Then he will
show up as the covenant God that he is and reveal to us an aspect
of his glory in the person of Christ to show us that Christ
is all sufficient, right? And then right after he delivers
us from his plight, he'll say, take a few steps down the road,
turn the corner. I want to show you something.
So, so we read over in verse 26 and 27 after God said, I'm
going to test them. He says, if you will diligently
hearken to my voice and we'll do that, which is right in my
sight and we'll give ear to my commandments and keep all my
statutes. Now watch this. I will put none of these diseases
upon you. Do you see it? which I have brought
upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that heals you. This is
Jehovah Rapha revealed as the healing of God's people in that
tree which is the bloody cross of Jesus Christ by which not
only our sins forgiven but by which he heals all of our diseases
and all of our iniquities and all of our transgressions. Christ
is the healing balm of God for his people. Are you hearing me?
Christ is the healing balm of God for his people. Now the next
time they get in trouble, God's going to manifest another aspect
of Christ's glory to them. It might be Jehovah Shema. It might be Jehovah Jireh. It might be some other aspect
of his glory as he manifested in Christ. But they will all
be the all-sufficiency of Christ for your need at that time. And
here's the great rebuke. They have went three days journey
into the wilderness, complaining to Moses as if God had abandoned
them. And had they but continued on
their journey, And this is the lesson. This is the lesson. Had they but trusted God. Watch
this now. Just 30 miles up the road. Just
30 miles up the road. Just 30 miles up the road. A million and a half people.
Now that's a day's journey. Are you hearing me? 30 because
you know, you slow with all the babies and the camel and the
cow and then you got all that gold from the chariots that you
took off of Pharaoh's because that's what they did. They stripped
all the all the gold and the silver, you know, that's how
Jewish brethren, you know, they're right. All the gold and the silver.
They stripped the whole chair. They got all this. They got this
stuff. Just follow me now. So they move in slow. Had they
just waited on God, he would have brought them to a place
where they would have had, listen now, 12 wells of water, wells
of water, wells of water, a well for each tribe and 70 palm trees
with fruit and shade and comfort and oasis was right around the
corner from the trial that they just went through. Because they
can't see the end from the beginning They can't see around the corner
that god always has a blessing for his people right around the
corner If they would but just trust him in the middle of the
trial Are you hearing me? That's why right there. He says,
okay i'm getting ready. I'm going to establish a this is a statute
between you and me That was a blessed statement. God made there. Here's
what he said israel I know That you are on a journey to a place
i'm going to take you but you still think like egyptians I
want you to know you are under new management. I want you to
trust me. I want you to rely upon me. I
want you to stop walking by sight. I want you to walk by faith in
the promises of my word. I want you to rely upon the immediacy
of my presence and the power of my grace to show up in time
of need to sustain you every day. I am going to take care
of you today. Tomorrow, the next day, I'm going
to get you there only day by day because this is a walk of
faith. I'm not showing you everything
right now because I want you to learn how to walk with me.
I want you to learn how to depend upon me. I want you to grow in
a personal relationship with me. I am your father. You are
my son. I want you to learn obedience
through the things with which you suffer so that you can learn
to trust me. Trust me. Trust me. That's what God is saying. That's
the test. That's the test. He says, I promise
you, if in the time of trouble you call upon me, I will deliver
you and you will glorify me. I promise you in the midst of
your trouble. We're getting ready to go to
another encampment right down the road. They're going to be
hollering and screaming again. Where the Lord at? And because he's a covenant God.
He's going to show up again. in the manifestation of His glory
and His power. Because He's not looking at you,
He's looking at Christ, His glorious Son. And He's using you to the
end by which Christ would be glorified. So He takes care of
us for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. Not your sake,
His own namesake. Not your actions, not your deeds,
His own glory's sake. For my name's sake, will I save
Israel? For my name's sake, will I redeem
Israel? For my glory's sake, will I bring
Israel out? And for God's glory's sake in
Christ, will he keep us? Do you believe that? All right,
we're going to go through this journey for 12 weeks. We're going
to go through it.