If you have a Bible, would you
please open it to the book of Exodus, chapter 15. Good to see each one of you out this morning. Trust we've come with open and
receptive hearts and minds. The Spirit of the Lord has brought
us here to give us a word today. I want to read beginning with
verse 22. I want to read down through verse 25. Verse 22 through
25. 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 Marah. 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
it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made
for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them. I hope this morning that the
Lord will give us a message that will be one that will be remembered
by all of us. None of us know how short our
days are. We just know they're short. Isn't
that right? The Lord teaches to number our days that we may
apply our hearts unto wisdom. Now the children of Israel after
the flesh were a typical people. The dealings of God with them
were typical and figurative of his dealings with the spiritual
Israel, which is the church of the living God. When we see this,
we can read the Old Testament scriptures, I think, with an
enlightened eye. We have a little more light in
our souls when we understand that the children of Israel is
a people that were typical to us. They were figurative. God's dealings with them were
figurative and typical of his dealings with us as his people. We can see in them our own features
and read in the dealings of God with them the dealings of God
with our own soul. The way the Lord dealt with the
ancient people of Israel is the way He deals with our own souls. The Lord dealt with them outwardly.
He deals with His spiritual Israel inwardly. Let me explain that
if I can. Take their state in Egypt, the
state of the Israelites in Egypt. You know God gloriously and wondrously,
powerfully brought out the children of Israel out of Egypt. But if
you look at their state in Egypt, it typifies the death and the
darkness of the people of God before they are quickened or
made alive by the Holy Spirit. before they're regenerated. It's
a picture of how we were dead in sin, how we were in bondage
to Satan, how that we had no life and how we had no liberty
until the Lord brought and quickened our hearts and brought us out
of the death of sin into the light and glorious life of the
gospel. Now the Lamb, which they partook
of in Exodus chapter 12, and the blood sprinkled, you remember,
upon the lentil and upon the side post it showed forth the
redemption of Christ. It showed forth the redeeming
work of the Son of God and the application of his precious blood
to the souls of his people. You remember that it was said
in that chapter that this is the Lord's Passover. And it is
also said that he shall see the blood, and he said, when I see
the blood, I will pass over you. And then in 1 Corinthians 5 verse
7, it is said, it is told us by Paul the Apostle, that Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us. And so it's a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ dying in our place, shedding his blood
and his precious blood being applied to our souls. And the
passing through the Red Sea signifies the baptism wherewith they are
baptized, wherewith the children of Israel were baptized, because
they went through the waters. The waters stood up, you remember,
they went through on dry land, but the water was on both sides,
and it also signifies seeing their enemies dead upon the seashore,
and the rejoicing of the child of God at finding that his sins
have been buried, that they've been cast into the depths of
the sea. Now you cannot help but see that
here in type and picture in this chapter. Notice first of all
in verse 4 it says in this 15th chapter of Exodus, Pharaoh's
chariots and his hope has to cast into the sea. His chosen
captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. Here is the enemies
of God's people and we see that his chariots, his captains are
both drowned in the sea and that's what happened notice in verse
5 the depths have covered them they sank into the bottom as
a stone and beloved that's what is pictured in baptism that we
have died and that we've been buried and we've been resurrected
in the Lord Jesus Christ and that our sins which plagued us,
our sins which followed us, our sins which would have damned
our souls to eternal hell. They're pictured in baptism as
having sunk to the bottom as a stone. The Lord has cast them
into the depths of the sea. Now then, I want us to look just
a little bit further here at a couple other verses. Thou didst
blow with thy wind in verse 10, the sea covered them, they sank
as lead in the mighty waters. Think of your sins this morning
as have not only been forgiven and atoned for, but they have
been made to sink into the depths of the sea, covered, sinking
down as a stone. And then there's a couple other
verses here I'd like for you to see. In verse 18, it says,
The Lord shall reign forever and ever. For the horse of Pharaoh
went in with his chariots, and with his horsemen into the sea,
and 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. And so you see where the waters
were brought on the enemy. of the Lord's people, and our
enemy, not only Satan, but our own sin, as we said, which would
have damned us to eternal hell. And so there's rejoicing here
by the people of God, and they sang a song. They sang a song
in verse 21, and Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord. For
he hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. And so we rejoice, and we sing
unto the Lord, because he has dealt with our sin, and because
they have been cast behind his back, as far as the east is from
the west, never to be remembered against us anymore, and they've
sank into the depth of the sea. But now we come to the text and
to the message. We've tried to show you that
the children of Israel were a typical people and the type and figure
of how God deals with us. And so we come now to the text
and to the message. We see here that in verse 22
that Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out
into the wilderness of Shur and they went three days into the
wilderness and they found no water. Now, the people of Israel
were not expecting that so heavy a trial would come immediately
upon the back of their astonishing deliverance from the Red Sea.
I'm sure that this was quite a shock to them as they were
let out into the wilderness by Moses beginning their journey
across the wilderness and suddenly here comes a very, very heavy
trial. Now these are the delivered people
of God These are the people who have seen the strong hand of
the Lord, the mighty power of God come down and give them a
great deliverance. But here they are now in the
wilderness. Here they are on their pilgrimage
through the wilderness and here is this awful trial that comes
upon them. And what was the trial? Well,
verse 22 tells us they found no water after three days journey. No water in this humid climate. We can scarcely conceive what
a privation this must have been to be without water for three
days. What an awful privation. No water
to wash with, no water to drink. A vast multitude amounting to
about two million people wandering in a barren desert with a scorching
sun above, sand beneath, men, women, and children, cattle and
all but dying of thirst. for three days. What a heavy,
heavy trial. But then there was water that
was discovered. Well, what joy must have filled
the camp? We found water. Oh, we're so
thirsty. We're so thirsty. Our children
are thirsty. Our cattle are thirsty. We need
water. And so they discovered water.
And I'm sure there was a great deal of joy. But my friend, the
Bible here tells us that they could not drink of the waters
because they were bitter and breakish. They absolutely could
not drink of this water. What a terrible, terrible disappointment. Well, what will they do? What did they do? What you and
I no doubt would have done. In verse 24 it says, And the
people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? Well, what did they do? They
murmured against Moses for bringing them out here out of Egypt with
this beautiful Nile River, you know, into this wilderness and
all of its privations. They murmured against Moses. Well, what did Moses do? Did
he encourage their murmuring? No. Did he take part in their
rebellion? No, absolutely not. He did what
every child of God must sooner or later do. He cried unto the
Lord. And we'll all come to that if
we be the living children of God, if we be of the living family. We'll all come to that sooner
or later in our trials, in our tests, in our disappointments.
We'll come to the place where we'll cry unto the Lord. Well, did he cry in vain? No, he did not cry in vain. Was
the Lord God afar off and not at hand? Was his hand shortened
that he could not save? Was his ear heavy that he could
not hear? No, no, God heard him. The same almighty arm that had
brought them through the Red Sea found a way of escape, made
a way for them in the wilderness that they might be spared, that
their lives would be spared, that the lives of their offsprings
would be spared. The Lord, in verse 25, showed
Moses a tree which he then cast into the waters, and the waters
were made sweet. Now, beloved, I'll come now to
bring you four things that I see this morning in this text that
I want to talk a little bit to you about. First of all, the
bitter waters of Merah. Secondly, the murmurings of the
people. And thirdly, the cry of Moses unto God. And fourthly,
the healing of the waters. Now in looking at these waters
of Mary, it seems that we have to consider two things about
these waters. First of all, what these waters
spiritually and technically represent. Secondly, what is meant by the
bitterness of these waters. Now first, these waters, to my
mind at least, seem to denote things in general themselves
which are perfectly suitable and adapted to our natural constitution
and yet they are embittered by sin. By the bitterness that is
in the waters, my understanding is sin or the fallout, if you
please, from the fall, the effects of the fall upon the lives of
God's people, and its necessary consequence and never failing
attendant, which is sorrow and disappointment and discouragement. And so it's the fallout from
the fall. That's what this bitter water
represents. Now note, when God created the
world, He pronounced it to be very good. He said it was very
good. The waters then were sweet, beloved. They were sweet. Man in his primitive
innocence was adapted to the world in its original purity. But sin entered into the world,
and death by sin. Satan was allowed to cast bitterness
into these waters, and ever since then, sorrow has embittered all
of the circumstances of life. Don't forget it. Let me illustrate
this. First of all, you look at the
world. It's a fair world, even in its ruins, isn't it? Very,
very fair, even in its ruins. There's a natural beauty in it,
though it has been shattered by the fall, but though outwardly
lovely, sin has indeed marred all of God's beloved universe. If you will, think of a city
sitting in a beautiful valley. Beauty is here, but if we penetrate
beneath the surface, of this external beauty, it is but a
den of drunkenness and sin of every kind. Deep sorrow is there,
my friend. It's a cesspool of iniquity. I remember hearing testimony
of a charismatic brethren who was in an airplane flying over
Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is the headquarters of the satanic
worship in America. And I heard his testimony. He
said that as they were flying around, kind of in a waiting
pattern to land, that the Lord gave him a vision of what was
below. And he said what he saw was that
he saw these various places where satanic worshipers were meeting,
holding meeting, and when they were worshiping, and what they
were pledging themselves to do. They were pledging themselves
to bring down every gospel preacher and destroy every New Testament
church that was in that city. And he saw that in the vision.
Now if you were to look down the natural eye to all those
beautiful buildings and all the beautiful parks and the boulevards
and the thoroughfares around Minneapolis, Minnesota, it is
indeed a lovely place. Well, the architect stands out,
but my friend, if you had an eye to see it, if you could just
see through and pierce through all of this external veneer,
you would see the truth and the reality of what is really there. There is not a country, there
is not a town, there is not a village, there is not a family, there
is not a bosom in which sin is not, and which sin has not embittered."
You remember it. You remember it. Secondly, there
is your lawful occupation in your job, your business, your
farm, your calling, the way in which you earn your daily bread. Now, beloved, these are streams
of water that's necessary to our actual existence. And yet
sin and sorrow embitters all. Disappointments, vexation, temptation
flow out of and mingle with everything that you set your hand to in
this world. Whatever job it is, wherever
it is, whatever you may think of it, Beloved, it is plagued
with the various sins and the various fallout of sin coming
in to the Garden of Eden. So if you would slake your thirst
at these streams, they are the waters of Merah which you cannot
drink. Now you may say, well I hope
to be satisfied, I hope to get me a good job and I hope to be
satisfied, I hope finally to have this farm and I hope to
do well and I hope to be satisfied. Sure, I got this business and
I hope eventually that the business will do well and that I'll just
profit in this world and I'll make progress. and I hope to
be satisfied with it. But my friend, if you're a child
of God and you try to slake your thirst at that stream, even though
it be a lawful calling, then my friend, you will find intermingled
with it some way or another heartache, disappointment, discouragement,
and you will find that sin has marred that situation. Now, I
do not believe, according to my experience, that you can carry
on any lawful calling without this being the case, without
intermingling with it, some way or another, these things that
embitter those situations. Now, I do not mean open and allowed
sin, maybe, but sin will interfere, but the effects of the fall will
interfere, will intrude, will creep in, and will work havoc
in our hearts. We shall live with sorrow and
disappointment and with bitterness. There will be sorrow and disappointment,
sin because peace and smooth sailing are incompatible with
sin. I'll tell you where sin is. Peace
and smooth sailing will not be found because it's incompatible
with sin. I tell you, if we're going to
have peace, we'll have it only in the Lord. We shall not find
it in the streams of this earth. If there be nothing in conscience,
your conscience or mine, against you in carrying on your daily
business and concerns, yet there will be losses, there'll be crosses,
there'll be bad debts, disappointments, vexations from others, and thus
when you drink from this cup, this cup, is full of bitterness. Look at the relations of life,
if you please. Consider a young couple getting
married. How happy! Oh, they're so happy. And never dream. They never dream
of trouble. They don't dream of sorrow. All
is quite rosy. But then let them live a few
years. Let them have children. Let them
get to middle life. Let them get in debt. Let them
begin to feel the pressures of this world and the pressures
of this life and the cares of a family when they come upon
them. Well, my friend, listen, many
dark clouds will come over those domestic scenes from which they
once thought to drink so much happiness. Oh, we're going to
drink in just so much happiness. We're just getting married as
Anna has, as Aaron and Anna has. And so when we think of this,
we think, oh, nothing ever can happen. Everything is well. But the institution of marriage
has fallen on hard times in the past 30 or 40 years in America. We're told that over 50% of marriages end in divorce. And
if we knew the truth, we would know that 30% to 40% of those
remaining that they would be in divorce
if it was not for children, if it was not for financial reasons,
or if it was not for religious convictions. And so that don't
leave you very many marriages in America where there's peace
and tranquility and where people can drink at these fountains
and these streams. Now I'm just being honest with
you. I'm not painting any rosy picture. You people, every one
of you know what I'm talking about. And you know that I'm
not lying to you. I'm telling you the truth. I'm
telling you the truth about the matter. And I'm telling you that
if you drink only of this dream, you think you're going to be
happy forever and ever. My friend, you're going to have
to find that there's something that has to be cast into these
waters in order for the bitterness to be taken away. And if you
just think those streams naturally are going to provide you with
all of the comfort and all of the blessing that you're looking
for, you're going to be disappointed. And then often children grow
up to be their parents' disappointment and misery. How many parents
have sat and grieved? How many parents have sat and
prayed, Oh God, I would that you would take my child out of
the world, then that you should allow him or her to continue
to live as they are, bringing shame upon the name of the family
and bringing themselves down into utter ruin. Wives and husbands, instead of
being mutual sources of happiness and comfort, proved to be mutual
plagues. Friends who once seemed so true
turned into enemies. Relatives from whom we should
expect every kindness grow cold and hostile and hinder us on
our journey and pilgrimage through this world. So all the domestic
relations in various and the sin in men and women's
hearts. We cannot drink the waters. They're
embittered. They are mara. And so with the
human body, God made Adam healthy, did he not? As he made the soul
pure. But when sin entered into the
soul, sickness came into the body. How many of God's dear
people have their lives embittered through ill health and all their
prospects disappointed and broken, crushed and thrown down by a
load of illness and bodily infirmities. How many dear children of God
do you know who are on beds of affliction, who carry about in
them diseases which are bringing them to the grave? Now here,
my friend, are the waters of Mary sorrow, vexation, bitterness,
disappointments, murmuring, everything, so that we cannot drink of the
otherwise sweet streams of life. And might I say at this point
that it is a mercy that we cannot. It is a mercy that we cannot.
Could we drink of them? We would never want other waters,
would we? No, we wouldn't. If we get all the satisfaction
in this world, all satisfaction from our relationships, human
relationships, if all satisfaction came to us through our jobs and
through the various circumstances of life, then we would never
desire, we would never want otherwise. We never would. Beloved, if we
could take our feel of earthly comfort and worldly happiness,
we would never want the consolations of the blessed Holy Spirit, or
to drink out of the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ. No,
we wouldn't. We would never want that. But
this is very disappointing to have bitterness in everything,
isn't it? Very disappointing. You say, I haven't lived that
long, preacher. Well, you might. That may be true. But you stay
around. You just hang around, and you
remember what this preacher told you the last day of September
in 2001. Well, this is very disappointing,
I'm sure, to those that have lived a number of years in this
world, especially in those things from which we would just love
to derive pleasure. Our hearts were set on it, and
we wanted to find pleasure in this world. Folks, we're looking
for some worldly happiness, as the children of Israel were looking
for water. Yet no sooner do we come to that
scene of anticipated pleasure, and behold, some disappointment,
some sorrow, some vexation, some sin. Sin mars it all. Is this pleasing? No. Does it
go down easy? No. It doesn't swallow very easy. And that brings me to the second
thing, and that is the murmuring of the rebellious flesh against
these disappointments and these dispensations. I have found when
the Lord is not present to bless and smile upon the soul, it is
very hard to handle the trials of life without murmuring about
it. Now is that true? That's a true
statement. My friend, it's very difficult
to handle the trials of life without the presence of God being
with you, without the Lord's blessing in your heart. You're
going to murmur every time. You're going to end up murmuring
against God when it seems that God will not let you have your
own way. That God will not even give you
a gourd to rejoice in. That you cannot sit down and
say, now I'm going to have what I want. And now I'm going to
have a little rest. Now I'm going to have a little
peace. Now things are going to be right for me. It is not, is
it, is it not very vexing? Is it not very disappointing? Very contrary to every feeling
of our natural heart? That the Lord will never let
us take comfort in anything but himself. Isn't that very vexing? Now if you think that we're just
kidding around here about this this morning, you got another
thing coming. I'm telling you that God is purposely set out
to bring you to the place where you would be comfortable with
nothing else but Himself. Where you would have peace and
rest only in Him. Now that's what's happening.
You say, I just can't understand all this. Well, my friend, that's
what's happening. The Lord is emptying you out.
The Lord is bringing you to the place where you see clearly that
the only way, and you might as well, you just keep coming back.
keep coming back to them streams and bend it over there and keep
trying to lap up some sweet water out of those streams and we're
disappointed every time but we need to realize that God has
shut the door in order that we'll come to the end of ourselves
and that we'll find true joy, true peace, the true riches in
the Lord Jesus Christ, that we'll find them in Him. Now then When
we stretch forth our arm to embrace an earthly joy, it suddenly we
discover snatched from our arms. So we murmur when things go wrong. We murmur when things go wrong
in our business. When ill health comes upon us
and our families, we murmur. Or that continual cross which
God has called us to bear. Well, Are we going to leave the
living souls of God right there in that state of misery? Are
we going to leave the living family there? No, no, no, no. We're not going to do that. Well,
the next point is, what's a living soul sooner or later to do? Seeing
that this is the case, seeing that we've come to this, seeing
that this is the way it is in the world, take off all of the
veneer, scratch, I mean, scratch through the surface. And this
is the purpose, this is the reason, this is what's going on. Well,
you're like Moses. Moses cried unto the Lord, cried
unto the Lord, disappointed as he was. Here I am doing the Lord's
bidding. Here am I doing what God had
me to do. I've got these two million people out here who are
going to have a drop of water. They expect to drink for it.
What's he going to do? Well, he calls unto the Lord. Now we do this when we do not
have anyone else to go to. Oh, you say, no, no, no, no,
no, I pray. It's my duty to pray and I pray
all the time. Well, good, good, good. But I
want to tell you this. There ain't too many people that
really cry unto God. I wonder if you had been there
when Moses was crying unto God. I wonder if you hadn't learned
something from old Moses crying unto God. Do you think his heart
was in it? I think his heart was in it.
Here he was. Like we said, two million people.
Here, he's responsible for it. I think you would have learned
something about prayer if you'd have been there. Moses cried
unto the Lord. Cried unto God. Called unto the
Lord. It ought not be so that we only
cry unto God when we have no place else to go, but I'm afraid
it is so. It is so. You be your own judge
of the matter. When we come to the waters of
Marah and disappointment, there's first, I think, a struggle. There's
murmuring and there's rebellion. Have you ever been there? I'm
sure you have. I'm sure you have. God knows.
Does he not really know? Is his eye not upon us all? Does
he not know about our murmuring and our rebellion? But in tender
mercy, The Lord is pleased to raise up a sigh and a cry in
the soul. I say that it's the tender mercy
of the Lord that raises up a sigh and cry in the soul. The grace
of God enables us to do this. Enables us to cry unto God. Trials themselves, hear me, will
not raise up prayer in the soul. They crush it. They crush it. You ever notice that? When you
get in a trial, a hard trial, you don't know which way to turn,
and you say, well, it looks like I'd be praying now, but you don't
feel like praying. You're just crushed. You're just
so disappointed. So vexed. You just don't know
what to do. And all you can do is murmur
and just go on and carry around and just be sulking all around. But listen to me. If we were
in the belly of hell, we would have no other prayer except what
God puts in our souls. Now you just remember that. Wherever
you was at, don't make any difference. The only prayer you're ever going
to have in your soul is what God puts there. That's it. And
Old Spurgeon said, when a man prays and cries to God, it's
only the breath of God in a man returning from which it came.
That's what it is. The breath of God in a man. So
if you were down in the belly of hell, you'd have no prayer
except what God works into your soul. Afflictions without the
grace of God only stupefy. They only harden. They only deaden
the heart and the soul. But oh, how blessed to find a
little submission. God help us. How blessed to find
a little submission, a little prayer, a little sighing, a looking,
a longing, a hungering, a thirsting, a waiting upon the Lord. Now
my friend, when that happens, there's going to be relief. There
will be relief. The Bible says, he that seeks
shall find, he that asks shall receive, to him that knocketh
it shall be opened unto him. There will be relief. It is not
only a mercy to have God to go to, but to have a heart to go
to Him is a mercy. Don't forget it. Now you can
talk about duty all you want to, and I'm not against duty,
but I'm going to tell you this. Wonderful! You know, we know
that there's a God upon the throne and that he's bid us to come
boldly to that throne to make our requests known. But most
of us, you know, three or four days a week, we don't have no
request. We got everything we need. We're getting along all
right. And it may be that we just don't need to pray. We say, well, we don't need all
that. We don't need all that. Well, but I say to you that for
the living family, for the true people of God, it's not only
a mercy to have a God to go to, but to have a heart to go to
Him is a mercy indeed. It is an inestimable favor not
only to have a throne of grace, but to have grace to go to the
throne. Do you have grace to go to the throne of God? See,
I'm a praying person. I believe all God's living family
is praying. I believe there are praying people,
but I think most of them's in trouble right up to their neck
too. I think most of them, God is pressured to cry to God and
to pray unto the Lord. It's not only a blessing that
there's a mercy seat, but that there is a mercy reaching the
heart to bring me there. That's the blessing. a praying
soul will in due time be a praising soul. They in due time begin
to praise the Lord. The healing waters. In verse
25 it says, And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him
a tree, which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were
made sweet. And there he made for them a
statute and ordinance, and there he proved them. the tree. Well, I like to think that this
is the tree of life. That's what I like to think it
is, and I believe it is. In the Song of Solomon in chapter
3, or chapter 2, in verse 3, it says, As the apple tree among
the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. I
sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit
was sweet. to my taste, as the apple tree
among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons
of men." I think this is the tree of life that is represented,
typified here, and you know it's the tree, we can think of the
tree that our Lord Jesus Christ suffered upon, and you know the
Bible says He bare our sins in His own body on the what? On
the tree! He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. The cross I'm talking about of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That old wooden cross that our
Lord was crucified on. This is the tree. For cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a what? On a tree. So this is a type
of Calvary's tree. Salvation through blood, pardon
through the atonement. This was a tree shown to Moses. Now let me point out something.
It was there before, but Moses did not know it. and he did not
know its value. It needed to be revealed to his
eyes. The tree was standing there before Moses saw it, and so it
was with us. Before we ever knew Christ to
be an all-sufficient Savior, Christ was there. Before we ever
knew that he would meet the need of our soul, he was there. Before
we ever knew that he would lift up our hearts and make them sing,
that he would set our feet on a rock, and give us a song in
the middle of the night before we ever knew all of that. He
was there. The Lord Jesus was there and
that tree was standing right there. Moses didn't know that
there was anything in that tree that could solve their problem
and so the cross of Christ is the same whether hidden from
our eyes or not. If we're God's children We are even now reconciled
unto God, pardoned, accepted, saved. Our salvation is already
accomplished. The work is finished. Everlasting
righteousness has been brought in. We've been delivered from
the wrath to come, because He has saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. But what we want, beloved, is
a discovery of this tree to our souls. it does not say that God
just then created the tree but that he showed it to Moses he
took the veil off Moses eye and heart showed him the tree showed
him the tree I think this is typified very well in Genesis
chapter 21 and let me read just a couple of verses here this
has to do with an Hagar and when she had been run out of Abraham's
home and took Ishmael and she went out into the wilderness
and she sent Ishmael down a bow shot from her because she didn't
want to see the child die. They had used up all the water.
They had no water. And she sat over against him,
lift up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the
lad, and the angel of God called Ahagar out of heaven and said
to her, What aileth thee, Ahagar? Fear not, for God hath heard
the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and
hold him in thine hand, for I will make him a great nation. And
God, in verse 19, opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water,
and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad
the drink. So we see here where God opened
her eyes, and there's a well, there's a well, so that she could
see it, so she could get water. And what is this but a revelation
to the soul of the cross of Christ, seeing Him by the eye of faith
as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, a viewing
of Him by the eye of faith, suspended as it were between heaven and
earth, accomplishing our salvation by the shedding of His own precious
blood. Now in all our murmurings, our
rebellions and fretfulness, we do not see the sanctifying work
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life and soul of His people. It is hidden from us. It is hidden
from our eyes and we have no communion with our suffering
Lord. We have no fellowship with Him.
If we could see Jesus, it would thaw the icicles out in our hearts
and it would melt our hearts into contrition and brokenness
and love toward Him. But all we can see is our trials.
All we can see, our minds are all wrapped up in the darkness
and we grope for the wall like a blind man. We don't know, we
don't see anything except our trouble and our trials. Why is
God so unkind, my heart says. Why does He deal with us so hard? Why? Has He forgotten to be gracious
unto us? Ah, we need the blessed spirit
of God to take the things of Christ and reveal them to our
souls. Next, it is not enough that there
should be a tree, nor enough to show it to Moses. It had to
be cast into the waters. Now nothing but this can heal
the waters. A Christ received, a Christ trusted,
a Christ known, a Christ fellowshiped, will sweeten the waters of life.
It will. You say, is that the only answer
you got? That's the answer of God to a poor, troubled, sin-afflicted,
storm-tossed soul. Jesus Christ, my friend, will
satisfy. He will sweeten the waters of
life. Christ's presence in the heart
will sanctify the worst job you can find in this world. I'm telling
you, Christ's presence in the heart You say, I got a tough
job. I just got a tough job. And I
really just like to just throw up my hands and quit and hunt
something else. Well, maybe you would. You say,
I'm afflicted and I'm troubled with my problems. I got this
business and I'm in real trouble. Or I got this farm and the drought
and all of this trouble and trouble, trouble, trouble. And I just
don't know what to do. But I'm telling you, that the
presence of the Lord in your situation make a world of difference
and it'll sanctify the worst job that you can get your hands
on. Christ's favor and presence and fellowship and a sense of
his love will make you rather have sanctified illness than
unsanctified health. Do you believe that's a true
statement? Well, it is a true statement. It is a true statement. Now if you felt Jesus to be your
brother, God to be your father, Would you not be so swallowed
up in this spiritual relation that you could say, as to my
worldly relatives, my earthly ties, what are they compared
to all of this? What are they compared to this? Jesus is more precious than all
worldly things. Yes, he is. How can I breathe
thee, the poet said, since I cannot part with thee? Whoever else
dies, God is not going to die. How can I bereave thee since
I cannot part with thee? Now if sin has marred everything
in your life, make you wretched, give you a daily cross, troubles
your mind, subjects you to fits of despondency, your spirit is
plagued day and night, what then will sweeten those bitter waters
but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? pardoning love, atoning
blood, the sight of Christ and embracing of Him as our all in
all is a casting of the tree of life into the bitter waters,
my friend. That's the way we get this tree in the waters,
is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the healing of
the waters. But there is one cup to come, which its bitterness
excels all other, and that's the bitter cup of death which
is to come to every one of us. How is that bitter water to be
sweetened? the bitter water of death. Die you must. How soon
you must die, only God knows. We know nothing of the circumstances
of our death. What long illness or what pain
or suffering may attend our death? Or what our state of mind will
be when death draws near? What are we going to be thinking
about? How are we going to handle it? Are we going to die the death
of the righteous? Or will we die like a wicked
man? Will we die like the lost man? Will we die like the man
who has no hope? How will we die? How will it
be when death draws near? Death is a bitter cup. How shall
it be sweetened for us? How will it be sweetened? By
looking back to a well-spent life? No. No, that won't do it. By thinking of the religious
duties that you have performed throughout your days? No. No,
that's not going to do it. Thinking of your church membership?
No. No, that's not going to do it
either. Nothing but the casting into these waters of the tree
of life, the cross of Christ, can sweeten the waters, the bitter
waters of death. I'm telling you, hope in the
Lord Jesus Christ. All saints, and I may say in
the degree, in their degree, in some degree, have found these
bitter waters as they've died sweetened. And though they shrink
back from the cup, yet when it touched their lips, it went down
like honey. It was sweetened by the manifestation
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding abroad in their
hearts and soul of his dying merciful love for them. So let
me ask you this question in closing this morning. What sort of Christian
would you be if you had your own way? Everything went well,
smooth, and you had your own well. You had your own well to
drink from and You have to enjoy what your nature cleaves to.
Well, what would that, what would you be? What would you be? You
know, there's one of the greatest curses that
God could give to any man, and you hear what I'm saying, is
to give you your portion here. That's a curse. As a person,
you say, oh, I think that's wonderful. I think, I think just smooth
sailing, I mean, plenty of wind to drive my little bark every
day by my little boat. I mean, just, just everything
going smooth. That's the worst plague you could have in your
life. But I want to tell you it's a mercy and a blessing when
God brings you into troubled waters and any, any trouble that
drives you to the Lord and drives you to cast this tree of the
Lord Jesus Christ into your bitter waters is an absolute mercy. Wherever it leaves you, whatever
be your situation afterwards. Now, certainly you would have
no experience either of mercy or grace in your life if you
were left to yourself. If God just left you and left
you blind to be groping out here in the world to find what you
want. There would be no sighing or crying. You could never point
back to a time when you sought the Lord with all of your heart,
when you cried to God, when you had to find a place to pray,
when you just had to seek the Lord. You'd never be able to
look back and say, I went out one time and I was gone for several
hours just pouring out my heart to God. I was broken, so broken,
so miserable, so unhappy, so disappointed. I just went out
and found me a place to pray. Ain't nobody knows how I poured
out my heart to God. If you die without ever having
that kind of experience, God have mercy on you. God have mercy
on you. And anything it'll bring you
to that place where you'll be able to pray, where you'll be
able to worship God, bow before Him with submission. What a wonderful
thing. And then no praise, no blessing
of God. Say, I don't have anything to
praise God about. Well, maybe that's because you're
spoiled. Maybe it's because you haven't
seen this thing like it really is. No blessing of God coming
from me. Well, you'll live to regret that
throughout eternity. You will. I'm telling you, God's
going to be praised. The glory of God's going to fill
the earth. And I'm going to be one of them going to be shouting
his praises. And if we can't shout his praises right down
here in this little old troubled mess we're in, then we got a
real problem. I'm going to tell you that if
we know the Lord, we'll be shouting his praises. You would live and
die without God, that's what you'd do if the Lord didn't shut
you up, hem you in, build a fence around you, and TORCE you into
everlasting life. Oh, the Lord is able to make
his people willing in the day of his power. And oh, you would
live and die without God unless he would do it. Nobody would
be saved apart from the grace of God, is that right? Apart
from God taking the initiative. No man is before God in the matter
of salvation. God is first and He moves men
unto Himself. Salvation is by grace. Now, you may try a thousand ways
to go out of this place this morning to heal these bitter
waters, but there's just one way really. Just one way. The
tree of life cast into the waters. That's the only way these waters
are going to be healed. Oh, Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray,
Father, that you'd own this message. And I pray that even these younger
folks here might immediately seize that tree and cast it into
the waters of their life. I pray that there shall not be
a soul go out of this place and go back to them streams that
have been so disappointing, so disappointing, but that they
will immediately cast in Take with them the presence of the
Lord and walk with Him throughout their life's journey. Oh, Father,
give Thy blessing. Give Thy blessing. Come with
power and give a blessing to some poor soul here this morning.
We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.