Turn with me, please, to Exodus
15 again. Exodus chapter 15. After God had so graciously delivered
the children of Israel across the Red Sea, miraculously opening
a path for them in the sea, and miraculously drowning Pharaoh
in the armies of Egypt in the depths of the sea, He brought
Israel into the wilderness of Shur, where for three days they
wandered without water. The scorching sun was above them,
beating down upon their heads. The scalding sand burned their
feet. The tongues of their cattle began
to swell. Their children's tongues swelled
and their lips were parched. They cried for lack of water.
At last, after three days, they came to a place where there was
an abundance of water. Oh, can you imagine the hope,
the expectation? As they saw the waters of Mara,
they could almost taste the water in their mouths. They could almost
feel the cool refreshing, and they made their way to the waters.
But when they got there, they knelt down to take a drink of
water, and the waters of Mara were bitter. So bitter that they,
though they were thirsty, though they were perishing of thirst,
they could not drink the waters. And so the children of Israel,
these men and women, in their frustration, in their disappointment,
in their heartache, immediately they turned upon Moses, the servant
of God. They began to murmur and complain.
Actually, they turned upon the Lord God, who had brought them
to this place. And though the Lord had led them
by the fiery and cloudy pillar, Though he was with them all the
way, though he had miraculously and graciously delivered them
from the bondage of Egypt, though he had promised to do them good,
they couldn't see him. For the life of them, they couldn't
see him. They couldn't see his hand, they couldn't understand
his workings, they had no idea what he was doing. They couldn't
see him. because of the bitter waters
before them. They couldn't see God because
their eyes were fixed upon the bitter waters of Marah. Because
these men and women were full of thirst, because their hearts
and souls were bitter in God's providence, because they could
see nothing good in the providence of God, they despised God's providence. Do you know anyone like that? I do. I know them real well.
And if we're honest with ourselves, every one of us, I'm sure, must
see ourselves in these grumbling people of Israel. When they should
have remembered God's goodness, they thought only of their troubles.
When they should have looked to their merciful Deliverer,
they looked only to Mara's bitter waters. When they should have
prayed, they murmured. When they should have believed,
they grumbled. The psalmist David recorded, God being full of compassion
forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not for he remembered that
they were but flesh. Now remember it was God who brought
Israel tomorrow. He brought them here to teach
them. He brought them here to make himself known to them. He
did it to teach us and to make himself known to us. All these
things, Paul said, happened to them for examples, and they are
written for our learning and for our admonition. We read in
verses 25 and 26 of Exodus 15, And Moses cried unto the Lord,
and he showed him a tree. The Lord showed him a tree, a
tree which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made
sweet. There he made for them a statute
and an ordinance, and there he proved them. And he said, If
thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy
God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt
give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I
will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought
upon the Egyptians. For I am the Lord that healeth
thee. I am the Lord that healeth thee. In God's wise, adorable, and
good providence, he graciously brought Israel into the wilderness
of Shur. He made them to wander for three
days in bitter thirst. in pain, in agony. You can imagine
the pain they must have endured. He made them to wander in that
pain for three days in that bleak, barren desert, and brought them
down to Marah, where there was nothing else except something
more to aggravate their pain. Bitter water. Bitter water. He
brought them down to this place called Marah, so that He might
teach them to know Himself. so that he might make himself
known to them by this name, Jehovah Raphael." If you're spelling
it, it's spelled J-E-H-O-V-A-R-O-P-H-I. Jehovah Raphael. That's translated
in our text, I am the Lord that healeth thee. The Lord that healeth
thee. Now this is the title of my message
tonight. Jehovah Raphael. the Lord that
healeth thee. But before I preach to you the
message I believe God's given me, I want to make several observations
that I believe will be of practical benefit to us. The first one
is this. God does not deal with everyone
alike. This is certainly evident from
the picture before us. To the Egyptians, God's presence
brought nothing but darkness and destruction. To the children
of Israel, the presence of the Lord was their light and their
salvation. Jehovah brought plagues upon
Egypt, but He brought healing to Israel. God overthrew the
armies of Egypt in the Red Sea, but He brought Israel through
that same sea dry as shot. I wrote down the day He The Lord
opened a path in the sea, and that indicates to us He opened
a little narrow passage in the sea. He opened up a path wide
enough for four million people to walk across that path before
the armies of Egypt could get to them. And He immediately then
engulfed the Egyptians. The same water, the same sea.
To the Israelites was deliverance. To the children of Egypt, it
was destruction. Why did God treat the two nations
differently? Why did He make a distinction
between them? The Jews certainly were not better people than the
Egyptians. On the whole, the Israelites were just as wicked,
just as corrupt, just as vile, just as abominable as the Egyptians.
So the difference was not in themselves. God protected, God
delivered, God healed Israel only for one reason. He made
a covenant with Abraham a long time before these Israelites
were ever born. A long time before they ever
went down into Egypt. God made a covenant with Abraham
and he promised Abraham that his children would endure bondage
in Egypt for 400 years. And at the end of 400 years,
he would bring them out with a high and a mighty hand. And
so in respect of that covenant made on their behalf with another,
God Almighty delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. And that's exactly
what he does for us. He puts a distinction between
His elect in this world and the rest of men, not because of any
goodness in us, not because of any superiority in us, but simply
because God, of His own good pleasure before the world began,
made a covenant on our behalf with a representative, Jesus
Christ the Lord. And while He determined in that
covenant that we should for a time fall and be in bondage with the
rest of Adam's fallen race. He determined at the appointed
time He would deliver us with a high and mighty hand, and deliver
us He has. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? And if
you did receive it, why do you glory as if you had not received
it? Oh, let us ever adore the grace
of God, the sovereign, distinguishing grace of God that brings salvation
to His elect. Thanks be unto God. He has not
dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to
our iniquities. And we gladly acknowledge by
the grace of God we are what we are. Secondly, it's obvious
from our text that God does not deal with His elect as we might
expect Him to do. We expect God to do things a
whole lot differently than what He does them. Even though we
know better, we just expect God to do things differently. God
seldom does what we expect Him to. He does not deal with us
according to our wishes, but according to His infinite wisdom.
He does not deal with us according to our pleasure, but according
to His purpose. And His ways are not our ways.
Our Lord declares that his thoughts are not our thoughts, and his
ways are not our ways. As high as the heaven is above
the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, and my ways
above your ways. Whoever imagined that God, who
had given Egypt for the ransom of his people. Now try to get
a picture. You would ever imagine, hear
the sound of the armies of Egypt and the horses they rode and
their chariots stuck in the muck and the mire of the sea. The
sound of the drowning of Pharaoh is still in their ears. The sound
of Miriam's timbrel and her dancing and her shouting and the praises
of God are still echoing in the air. And God brings these people,
for whom He gave Egypt, down to the bitter waters of Marah
after three long days of horrible thirst. Who would ever imagine
such a thing? Who would have thought that God,
who divided the Red Sea, would send His chosen ones to a place
where there was no water? They looked for a promised land
of milk and honey, but they found Mara. We might have expected
that the Almighty God would cause water to gush out of the barren
ground of the desert, as well as He caused it to gush out of
the rock later. We might have expected God might
be pleased to cause some great storm to rise in the sky and
rain to fall down upon them, even in the desert land, because
these were His beloved children. But no. God in mercy and love,
grace and goodness toward His people, determined to prove them. And to prove them, they must
be tried. He was determined to make Himself
known as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. But in order
for Him to be known as the Lord who heals, His people must be
made to need His healing. That's the reason He brought
them down, so that they might know Him as Jehovah Rapha. I hope you see the parallel.
We are not in a dress parade in this world. We're pilgrims
marching through this bleak and barren wilderness to our land
of promised rest. And ours is a stern march over
rough ground, over horrible experiences. Experiences and ground which
flesh and blood would never choose. All along the way, the Lord God
is proving us. He's teaching us and He's preparing
us for the promised rest. The Egyptians had plenty of water.
They had so much water, they drowned in it. As much as the Israelites murmured
because they had no water, I'll guarantee you they didn't want
the water of the Egyptians. The Egyptians had an abundance
of water. While God's children walk for
three days in thirst with nothing to drink. And that's exactly
what happens in this world today. If these Israelites were to drink,
they would have to drink from the hand of God. They would have
to call upon God in prayer. They'd have to look to Him in
faith. Otherwise, they would have nothing to drink, nothing
to quench their thirst for the day. The Lord is teaching us
by example Concerning the wicked in this world they seem to possess
an abundance of the goods the comforts and the pleasures of
this world While God's elect seek their daily bread by faith
and prayer at the hands of their fathers are at the hands of their
father these Egyptians Had all the waters of a full cup rung
out to them, but the ringing out of those waters destroyed
Don't envy the prosperity of the wicked Don't do it. The Lord
God has set them in slippery places. Their foot shall slide
in due season. The Lord God provides the wicked
with an abundance of things in this world because He is determined
by those things in which they have their security to destroy
them. You read Psalm 92 verse 7. David said he looked at the wicked
and he saw that God was preparing them by the fatness of their
souls for that day of slaughter when He would destroy them in
judgment. Don't be envious of the wicked. Don't be envious
of what the wicked have. Is it not enough for you, children
of God, day by day, to seek your daily bread? Is it not enough,
day by day, to live upon the hand of God? Can't you trust
Him from one day to the next? Can't you trust Him from one
hour to the next? Call upon Him. He'll answer you.
Look to Him. He'll feed you. He feeds the
sparrows. He clothes the lily. Surely He'll
feed me and clothe me all the days of my life. No need for
me to fret. The Lord was teaching Israel
to trust Him. He was teaching them to long for and to earnestly
seek after the land of promise. And that's what He's doing for
us. With every trial, With every heartache, with every tribulation,
this is what God's saying to you. He's saying, this is not
your place of resting. Seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections
on things above, not on things on the earth, for you're dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God. The only way to the city
beautiful is through the slough of despond and up the hill difficulty. This is the way to Canaan. This
is the way you must go. We must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of God. This is God's way, not ours,
but God's way is best, and the sooner we learn it, the better.
Here's a third thing to be learned from the text. There is a need
for every trial, a necessity for every heartache, a reason
for every affliction. There always is. God has a reason
for doing things the way He does them. And His reason is always
gracious, loving, wise, and good. By this gracious trial, the Lord
caused Israel to see something of the corruption, the unbelief,
and the violent gratitude that was in their hearts. If there
had been no wilderness within them, they would not have experienced
the wilderness of sure. If there had been no drought
within them, they would not have known the drought that they experienced
in that bleak desert. If there had not been something
within them that needed correcting, something within them that caused
some bitterness within, they would not have experienced and
tasted the bitter waters of Marah. The Lord God He intends by our
trials to show us our corruption. He intends to teach us that we
must trust Him, to correct His erring children. This is God's
purpose. There's always a needs be. There's
always a necessity for the things you suffer. When you begin to
experience things that cause your heart pain, They cause your
soul to be heavy. Remember, children of God, that
your Father, your Heavenly Father, has a good, wise purpose. There's a reason for it. There's
a reason for it. Ask Him to show you. Our Father's
hand will never cause His child a needless fear. Never has. Never has. I love my daughter. And believe
me, I have caused her many a tear. I have inflicted much pain upon
her. I have deliberately, knowingly,
purposefully caused the girl to hurt and to weep and to sorrow,
but never, Wes, needlessly, never without a reason. Never without
a good cause. Never without the intention of
causing her to prosper by it. Never without love and grace
and kindness toward her. That's our Father. The Lord God
causes His children to weep. He causes His children to endure
pain and trial and tribulation and heartache. But He always
has a good reason. Oh, God teaches us. Teach us
to know that your purpose is wise, gracious, and good. Not only did God intend to show
His people what was in them, He brought them to Marah because
He was determined to show them what was in Him. God brought
Israel down to Marah so that he might reveal himself to them
under this name, Jehovah Raphael, the Lord that he let thee. They
never knew him like this before. This is God's purpose in the
experiences of his children. This is why God has put you where
you are. This is why God's putting you
through the wringer. This is why God, in His providence,
causes your heart to weep. This is why God, in His good
providence, in His wise, gracious purpose, brings you down to Mara
in bitterness so that you might know Him in a way that you could
not know Him otherwise. That's His purpose. That's His
purpose. The Lord God, in all of our experiences
upon this earth, is determined that we might know more and more
of him. He leads his people into the
wilderness of affliction and pain and sorrow. He causes us
to thirst and cry after him, that he might make us to know
his wisdom, power, goodness, and love in Christ Jesus. Spurgeon
said, our lives are the canvas upon which the Lord paints his
own character. Isn't that good? Your life, a
piece of canvas. upon which God paints His character,
so that you'll know Him, so that you'll know Him. Whatever your trial is, when
it's over, if you belong to God, you'll say with David, it's good
for me that I've been afflicted. There's a needs be for it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have
it. There's a necessity for every
affliction. Otherwise, you wouldn't be required
to endure them. Now, I want this evening, by
the grace of God, to show you three things from this name of
our God, Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that he is. Now, I'll move along
as quickly as I possibly can. I believe I've got something
that'll help you. God, give me your attention. Number one, Jehovah
Rapha. is the healer of all our troubles. He's the healer of all our troubles. Who among you hasn't learned
by bitter experience that though your days on earth are few, they're
days full of trouble? Some of you are going through
trials of great trouble. Perhaps right now, God has brought
you into some horrible thing to teach you so that you might
know Him as Jehovah Raphael, the Lord that He lived in. Let
me tell you what I've experienced. I'll give it to you in Scripture.
Turn over to Psalm 34. Psalm 34. This is what I've experienced. And it's not an experience I've
had once or twice. It's an experience I've had Very
frequently, many of you have as well. Psalm 34, verse 6. This poor man, here I am, this
poor man, helpless, defenseless, needy, hurting, in pain, in trouble,
in heartache, this poor man, desolate, empty, helpless, hopeless,
this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, now look at it,
and saved him out of all his troubles. He has. I've experienced it. When the
children of Israel came to Marah, they found themselves in great
trouble. The waters were bitter. They
were dying of thirst and they had nothing to drink. They seemed
to be mocked. Here God has put before them
water. Water that they might bathe in.
Water that they might wash their cattle in. Water they might wash
their clothes in. But not a drop of water to drink.
It's as though God was mocking them rather than helping them.
It better not even see the water than see so much water and not
be able to taste it. The waters of Mara were bitter. God brought them into this bitter
experience because he was determined to show them his great mercy
in healing the bitter waters. God has many ways of taking our
bitter troubles and making them sweet. Just as he made the waters
of Mara to be sweet waters instead of bitter, the Lord God graciously
makes a way by which to turn our bitter troubles into sweetness.
Sometimes the Lord simply changes our circumstances. How often
you've been sorely oppressed, tried, really put to it, and
you don't know what to do. What do I do? Where do I go? What direction do I move in?
And then God graciously changes everything. You don't even have
a decision to make. You just, you just are there,
waiting, calling upon God, seeking His mercy and His grace. And
suddenly, a broad way is open before you. The Lord comes and
He takes you by the hand and He says, come on, this is the
way, walk ye in it. And you just know this is the
way to walk. Well, God's giving you directions.
He changes the circumstances. That's one way He heals us. One
way He heals our troubles. I'll tell you a story. Some of
you know this and some of you don't. Eight years ago, I had gone through nine years of
great difficulty pastoring at Lookout. God had some precious
people there, and I loved them, still do. And I had some bitter,
implacable enemies there, men who did what they could both
to do me harm and to ruin what ministry God was pleased to give
me with their slander and their reproach from the very beginning.
And after nine years of just constantly fighting, constantly
going through struggle, constantly having to face people who despise
the message of grace, I determined I was going to leave that place.
I determined that I wasn't, I don't fight at home and ain't going
to God's house to fight. Just not my way of life. If you
want to fight, you can stay here and fight. I'm going somewhere
else. And so I made up my mind to resign, to leave. The day
that God made that thing so clear and certain to me. I had no idea
where I was going, what I was going to do, had no idea how
to sustain my family or where I'd preach. I just knew this
was the, this was the purpose of God. Struggle. And I had friends
there that I'm leaving, friends that I love, people whom I cherish
as God's children. But the very day that I determined
to resign, Bob Poncer, you and Buddy and Lindsey came up to
visit me at Lookout. And that day, God opened the
door, he said, this is the way. Walk in it. And I've never questioned
God's purpose in it. Not one time. He makes the way
open to his own and he directs his people in the way he would
have them to go. At other times, the Lord turns
our sorrow into joy and makes our bitter water sweet by interjecting
something altogether unexpected that changes everything. He showed
Moses a tree. And he said, now Moses, go over
there and cut down that tree and throw it in the water. Well,
that's a strange way to take care of these waters. God said,
cut down the tree and throw it in the water, and he did. And
when the tree was interjected into the bitter waters, they
became sweet waters instead of bitter waters, sweetened because
of the tree. That tree, of course, refers
to the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Psalm 1
and verse 3, he is like a tree planted by the rivers of living
water. In Psalm 2 and verse 3, he is an apple tree. As an apple
tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons
of men. We read in Revelation 22 in verse
2 that Jesus Christ is the tree of life with fruit, yielding
its fruit in the seasons, and the leaves of this tree of life
are for the healing of the nation. Our Lord then is compared to
a tree. No doubt this tree had always been at Moriah. Probably
been there for hundreds of years. May have been there since the
creation of the world, I don't know. But that tree was there.
And the Lord God had planted that tree there for a purpose.
But Moses couldn't see it for the life of him. He couldn't
see any connection between the bitter waters of Marah and that
tree until God showed it to him. And when God showed it to him,
and God caused him to put the tree in the waters, then Moses
saw the connection. But only then. That's the way
it is with the Lord Jesus Christ. In all of your troubles, in all
of your heartaches, in all of your trials, the Lord's at hand. Oh, I wish I could see him all
the time. If I could see him, I wouldn't
grumble. If I could see him, I wouldn't gripe. If I could
see him, I wouldn't murmur, I wouldn't complain, I wouldn't disbelieve.
But when God's pleased to show me his hand in my trouble, When
God's pleased to show me His constant companionship in the
midst of my trial, when God's pleased as I'm passing through
the fire to show me Christ walking before me, pushing the flames
aside. If He's pleased as I go through the deep waters to hold
me by the hand and lead me all the way through, then the waters
and the fire cause me no trouble, but only as God's pleased to
make me see His hand in the whole affair. And then also the Lord
graciously, by His hand of providence, makes changes by interjecting
certain things within. Some of you have had experiences
where you thought, boy, I've made a bad mistake. Made a bad
mistake. Changed careers, changed jobs.
It looks like you're headed for certain financial ruin. And you're
just despairing. You come into need. And you've
expended every effort you know to try to make things work and
it just won't work. It just won't work. You keep
plugging away and nothing works. It seems like everything's leaking
out the bottom of the ship. You keep trying to plug the ship
and the plugs you put in keep leaking out with everything else.
Just nothing works. And then, in your utter despair,
In your utter despair, you turn. Lord God, won't you help me? Just like that. Everything turns
around. Doors open up and things begin
to prosper. God causes things to just fall
in place. Isn't it amazing how much better
He can do it than you can? Isn't it amazing how much better
He fits all the pieces together than you do? I wonder why we
can't learn Before we start trying to plug the holes, ask God to
stick His finger in the hole. Before we start trying to make
things go our way, ask God to make things go His way. Maybe you've had some bodily
disease, bodily pain, and God didn't remove the pain. He didn't
remove the pain. He just gave you something to
make it bearable. I talked to Brother Paul Wamsley the other
night. He's doing research as an anesthesiologist over at UK.
He's working on something, boy, I just thought it'd be great.
Be great. He's working on a means by which
he can inject certain things into the spine and control the
nervous system that causes so much pain when someone's dying
and they're They're going through so much agony and normally they
have to just be doped up where they're where they're not conscious
and they're just Everything's they're just lying there. He
said we're just right on the edge We're gonna develop the
means whereby we can through anesthesiology Fix it. So the person is fully awake
But feeling no pain. Oh, they'd make it bearable and
be alright. That's what God does for his
children He doesn't always remove the trouble, but by His grace
and His goodness, He makes the trouble bearable. That's what
He did with Job. Job had lost his son. He had
lost his family. He had lost his health. He had
lost his wealth. But God put His hand on Job,
and Job saw the hand of God, and his trouble was bearable
because his God was there. That's what He said. We receive
good at the hand of the Lord. The Lord's given and the Lord's
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Frequently, the Lord makes your
bitter waters of trouble sweet waters by simply giving you satisfaction
with his will. Nothing removes trouble from
our hearts like submission to the will of God in the trouble
he brings. Acquiescence in the will of God
brings peace to the troubled heart quicker and more effectually
than anything else. How often we cry out with Jacob,
all these things are against me. How many times have you cried
like that? I shudder to think how many times
I've spoken to God like that. Oh, you don't ever hear it. You
don't ever hear it. I wouldn't dare speak like that
in front of you. And I wouldn't utter the words before God, but
that's what I'm feeling in my heart, and he hears it just as
though I'd spoken plainly. All these things are against
me. And then the Lord takes old Jacob down into the land of plenty
and shows him Joseph sitting on his throne. Man, how could
I say such a thing against God? How could I speak like that about
my God? All these things are for me. All these things are
for me. How could I, how could I doubt
him? How could I murmur against him? What shame. Then we begin
to sing like old brother Ed, Hail, oh how merciful, how merciful. Blessed Lord, how merciful thou
art to me. Lord God, give me satisfaction
with your will. Contentment with your will. Make
your will my will. and all will be well with my
heart at the end. The Lord Jesus gives us the example.
He's in the garden and he says, now in my soul exceeding sorrowful,
troubled even unto death. Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but
thy will be done. Father, glorify thy name. Now that's the way to get easy
in your trouble. That's the way to find ease. Brother Russell Warner called
today. We talked for a good while. Boy, I weep with you. But He and Charlotte
making plans. Making plans. Making plans for
her home going. That's what they're doing. Making
plans. Now it hurts. Oh, it hurts. Got to watch somebody you love
wither away. Time to die. But this is God's will. And we're
reconciled to that. That's just what he said. This
is God's will, and we're reconciled to that. That's the way out of
trouble. That's the way out of trouble.
All that we've experienced should teach us that our God is able
to make the most bitter things sweet. Past grace is the pledge
of future grace. The name of our Savior is Jehovah
Raphael, the Lord that he that In the midst of all our troubles,
let us worship Him and trust Him. Secondly, Jehovah Raphael
is the healer of all our diseases. Certainly sickness and disease
are included in the promise of our text. They're specifically
named. He says in verse 26, these plagues,
these diseases, I'll keep from you, I'll keep from you. He promised
them those things. Now, they are specifically named,
and so the Lord's speaking about sickness and disease. We are
not one with the charismatics, those foolish, ignorant people
who pretend to have apostolic gifts of healing. No man today
possesses those gifts of the apostolic age. But let no one
misunderstand. The promise of God is plain.
Let no one diminish its fullness. The name of God, our Savior,
is Jehovah Raphael. He is the Lord that healeth thee. Do you believe in divine healing?
Well, I believe in God. Yes, sir, I believe in divine
healing. Yes, sir, I do. I don't believe in divine healers.
I believe in the divinely healing God. And there's a big difference.
I'll give you an illustration. I had another call late last
night. I came home from Lexington. I
have a friend in Western Salem. I used to date his daughter.
Her husband called me last night. This fellow had been suffering
with lung cancer for better than a year. Doctors gave him no hope
more than a year ago. He went to the doctor yesterday.
He had the same kind of checkup as Charlotte had. After all the
treatments, after all the chemotherapy and all the cobalt, he went to
the doctor and the doctor said, I can't understand it. Is there
not a trace of cancer in you? Not a trace of cancer in you.
The scar's there where it was. Thank God the scar's there, you
won't forget it. But not a trace of cancer. Not a trace of cancer.
How'd that work? He was further gone than the
fellow next door. His cancer was worse than the other man's.
He wasn't as strong as the other man. took the same medicine,
same hospital, from the same doctor, administered at the same
time, what's the difference? Jehovah's Rock. That's the difference. That's the difference. Do you
understand what I'm saying? The Apostle James gives us specific
instruction about this matter of divine healing. He says if
you're sick, call for the elders of the church and let them pray
for you, anointing you with oil, And the prayer of faith shall
save the sick from death. What is sick? What is sick? Our
text tells us several things about sickness and healing in
the will of God. I'm going to be brief, but let
me just make three or four statements. First of all, this text certainly
assures us that all sickness and all disease is the result
of sin. Read verse 26. The Lord said,
if you'll perfectly obey me, you won't get sick. That's just
what he said, isn't it, Merle? He said, you walk after my statutes,
obey my words, keep my commandments, none of these plagues will touch
you. Now that's clearly telling us that all sickness, all disease,
all death is the result of sin. If we weren't sinners, our noses
wouldn't run, we wouldn't have allergies, we wouldn't have colds,
we wouldn't get cancer, we wouldn't have heart attacks, we wouldn't
even have these headaches that thob every day. If we weren't
sinners, if we were perfectly righteous, no sickness would
be upon us. Now that's clearly taught in
the text. But secondly, the Lord our God, Jehovah Raphael, does
heal his people from bodily sickness and disease. I stand before you as one who
cannot question that fact. Cannot question that fact. I
do not pretend that the Lord always is pleased to give us
restored health if we call upon Him. Sometimes He's pleased to
do better than that. He's pleased to take us out of
this world. But the Lord God heals His people according to
His sovereign will. The Lord Jesus is so much concerned
about His tried and afflicted saints that the psalmist says
he makes our bed in all our sicknesses. He took on himself our infirmities
and bare our sicknesses, and he plainly tells us how to seek
his healing power. Often he heals sickness and disease
by graciously preventing it. I'm afraid we do not often think
of it, but God's prevention of disease ought to be as much a
matter of praise as his restoration from bodily disease. Some of you have never been sick
a day in your life, never had any real serious sickness. Some
of you never had any kind of sickness at all, possibly. Remember,
God's the one who preserves you in hell. God's the one who does
that. I have a friend, I won't call
his name, who years ago had a complete
nervous breakdown before he was converted. Doctors told his wife,
go home and forget him, he'll never know you're alive. Just
go home and forget him. God was pleased to save him. And restored his mind to him,
just like he did Nebuchadnezzar. I've never been in that man's
presence overnight, but what, the next morning at breakfast?
If he was the one called upon to pray, he said, God, I thank
you for a sound mind. You see, when a man has experienced
the bitterness, he knows something of what it is to be preserved
from the bitterness. Let us give thanks to God. He
heals our bitter troubles and our diseases by preventing them. And then sometimes the Lord heals
us when we have been brought down to sickness, sorrow,
pain and disease, the Lord graciously restores our health. You had a good doctor. Yeah,
I've got a good God. Oh, the doctors make great progress.
God has given them a mind to make good progress. Somebody asked me one time after
I got over the ordeal with cancer, said, well, I guess you're real
careful what you eat now, aren't you? what I had got a thing to
do with it. My God's on His throne. That's
all there is to it. That's all there is to it. Do
you understand what I'm saying? Well, don't you think that you
have to give some credit to folks that God uses? Well, I'll pay
them $100,000 if it happens. That's credit enough as far as
I'm concerned. Give credit to God. You credit to God. He's the healer, not the medicine.
He causes the herbs to grow. He gives men sense enough to
put them together. Even men who despise His name
for the preservation of His people. He's our healer. But our text
shows us plainly that God uses ordained means of healing for
His people as well. These are waters, and they're
bitter. God's determined to heal them. How's he going to do it? He said,
well, God can just speak and it'll turn sweet. Yeah, he could,
but he didn't. He could, but he didn't. He said,
Moses, cut down the tree, put it in the water. Well, that doesn't
make good sense. Yes, it does. God said do it.
That makes good sense. Well, there's no connection.
Oh, yes, there is. God said do it. And the waters aren't going
to turn sweet until you put the tree in. Now, what I'm saying
is this, the healing Our diseases is of God. But God's pleased
to use means. He told Isaiah, he said, Hezekiah
has prayed to me. He's confessed his sin. I'm going
to add years to his life. Now get you some figs and make
a poultice and lay it on his boils. I'm not a physician, so
I don't know whether figs have any connection with relieving
boils or not. But Isaiah was Smarter name. He simply did what God told him
to do. Went out and got some figs, tied them together, and
laid them on Hezekiah's boils, and he lived. Elisha turned the
waters of Jericho out of bitterness into sweetness by casting salt
into the waters. Because God said, cast the salt
in. The Apostle Paul told Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach's
disorders. And James told the sick to use
both prayer and the anointing of oil for the healing of the
sick. And in every healing we experience,
we have a pledge of the resurrection of our bodies. Jehovah Rapha,
who brings us up from the gates of death, will at the appointed
time bring us up from the very pit of corruption. And this great
God of ours, who heals the bitter waters of our earthly troubles
and the bodily diseases of these physical frames, can also heal
our souls. And that's the real essence of
the text. Maybe I'll come back and give you more on this, but
let me give you this before I close. The great position now is near,
the sympathizing Jesus. He speaks the drooping heart
to cheer. Oh, hear the voice of Jesus.
This is what he says. I am Jehovah Raphael, the Lord
that healeth thee. Jehovah Rafi is the healer of
our souls. I Got this from John Gill listen
to it These bitter waters of Mara are an emblem of the bitter
curses of the law For that bitter thing sin, which makes for bitter
work of repentance the law demands bitter plagues upon every sinner
even a bitter death in hell and It cannot give us peace but Christ,
the tree of life, who was immersed under the curse of the law and
made a curse for us. He endured in our place the bitter
wrath of God and suffered the bitter curses of the law to the
full satisfaction of divine justice. And now the law of God, once
so bitter to our souls, is sweet, pleasant, lovely, and comforting
because it's fully satisfied in Christ the substitute. His
name's Jehovah-Rabbi. How is it that God heals the
sin-sick soul? How does He remove the plague
of our hearts? Look at the waters of Mara again, and you'll see. First, the Lord made His people
know the bitter, bitter water of Mara. He made them understand,
first of all, how bitter the water was. Else, they would never
have seen the water healed. They had to taste the water.
Otherwise, they would never have known its bitterness, and they
would have never cried to God for the healing of the water.
That's exactly what God does when he saves a sinner. He makes
the sinner to know the bitterness of his own nature, the bitterness
of his heart, the bitter curse of the law, the bitter sin of
his soul, and he makes the sinner taste the bitterness of his sin. Now, that's God's way. That's
God's way. It's always His way. First, He
wounds, then He heals. First, He strips, then He clothes. First, He humbles, then He exalts. First, He kills, then He makes
alive. Did you ever notice Merle reading
the scriptures? Every time that phrase is used, it's used in
that order, he killeth and he maketh alive. Every time it's
used, he killeth and he maketh alive. It's never said that I
can recall he maketh alive and he killeth. But it says he killeth
and he maketh alive. That's the way God shows mercy.
He's going to kill you and then he'll make you alive. That's
his way. Paul said, I was alive without the law once, but then
the law came and sin revived and I died. That's how God saves
sinners. He first makes them to know the
bitterness of their sin, and then He heals them by His grace.
Secondly, before the waters were healed, prayer was made to God. Moses cried unto the Lord. The prayer of Moses didn't heal
the waters, but until he called upon the name of the Lord, the
waters weren't healed. You see, you and I will not be
healed of our sin and our hearts plagued by anything we do. We're healed by Christ Jesus
alone. But our Lord never healed a sinner yet who didn't call
for his mercy. And if God heals you, you're
going to cry out for his mercy. Bartimaeus heard of Jesus. He's coming by, Bartimaeus. Jesus is the Son of David. He
says He's the Son of God. But what does He do to prove
His claims? Oh, He heals the sick. He causes the lame to walk
and the deaf to hear. He causes the dead to rise up
out of the coffins. He breaks loaves and fishes and
feeds thousands of people with just a handful. Tell me again, what does He do?
Yeah, yeah, I've seen Him do it. Let me know when he gets
near. And he hears the rustling in
the streets and the crowds moving about him. The noise is getting
closer. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me! And just that soon, he stopped
in his way. And they said, Bartimaeus, get
up on your feet, the Master's calling for you. That woman with
the issue of blood, she'd spent everything she had on positions
of no value. And she said in her heart, I
could just touch it. I could just touch it. I'd be
made whole. But that's not enough. She had
to touch it. She had to touch it. And so when
the Lord Jesus came by, she made her way through the press. She
touched it. Just that quick, she was made
holy. Just that quick. That's how God
saves sinners. That's how God saves sinners.
Still, there's something else that was needed. The waters were
not healed until the tree was cast in. That tree got to be cast in.
That tree, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, He's the tree of
life. And that tree represents that
tree upon which he bore our sins, that he might justify us and
make atonement for sin. It represents his person and
his finished work, whereby he brought in an everlasting righteousness
and justified his people. We can only be saved, healed
of our soul's plague, when the work of Christ is imputed to
us. We can only be saved when Christ himself comes into our
hearts by the power of his spirit. Oh, I speak to you here who yet
know not our God. I tell you, the tree was felled
2,000 years ago by which your bitter soul can be healed. Trust
Him. Call upon Him. Oh, blessed Son of God, have
mercy on me. Give to me the healing virtue
of your cross. Heal my weakened soul. Set me
free from the bondage of sin and the curse of the Lord. And
I promise you, I promise you, you call on the name of the Lord
and you too shall be saved. His name is Jehovah Raphael,
the Lord that he left to him. And finally, once the tree was
cast into the waters, they were perfectly, completely healed. Those bitter waters of Mara had the tree cast in. God healed
them. Boy, I'd like to taste some water
like that. I bet it's the sweetest water the world ever produced.
Cushing up out of that fountain that once was bitterness is nothing
but sweet refreshment. And the Lord God takes such things
such bitter things as he finds in the fallen dregs of humanity,
and he makes sweetness so precious and acceptable in his sight that
they're made completely whole, acceptable in Christ Jesus. Brother
Hubert Montgomery read John 17 back in the office. The Lord Jesus said, I am glorified
Well, you get hold of that. God glorified in you and in me,
that's what he said. And he said, the glory which
thou gavest me, I have given to them. The very glory that
God has given to Christ the Mediator, he's given it to you, his people,
whom he has healed by his sovereign grace through the sacrifice of
his Son. Well then, What are we going
to do? Oh, for a thousand tongues to
sing my great redinged praise, the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his glory.