Safe in the shelter's fold. When
you think of a little lamb tonight, the shepherd, the kind shepherd
has brought him into the fold and no one is going to get to
that lamb unless he comes through the shepherd. And that's the
way we are. As God's children, as his sheep,
in his hand and in the Father's hand, No one or nothing is going
to harm or hurt any of his people unless it comes through Christ. Amen? What a beautiful picture. Look with me tonight, if you
will, in Exodus chapter 15. Exodus chapter 15, and let's
begin reading in verse 22. So Moses brought Israel from
the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur,
and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters
of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was
called 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
into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made for
them a stature and an ordinance, and there he proved them and
said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord
thy God, and will do that which is right in his sight, and will
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. Last Sunday evening, I know many
of you were here, you remember we looked at the first The first
of eight names that we find of God in the Old Testament, names
which are compounded with his name Jehovah. An appellative
word or a descriptive word compounded with the name Jehovah. And we
saw the first was Jehovah-Jireh, which means, of course, the Lord
will see and seen he will provide. The Lord provided a substitute,
a ram, to be sacrificed in the place of Isaac. Abraham was commanded
to take Isaac up on the mountain to offer him as a burnt offering. And before he could execute that
command, God showed him a ram that was caught in the thicket,
and he was offered in the stead. And there that name was revealed,
the name of God, Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord will see to it. The Lord will see and provide. And what a wonderful picture
we have there of the fact that God Almighty saw your need and
He saw my need of a sacrifice, of a burnt offering. that would
appease him, that would be a propitiation unto God. And he saw and he provided
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Tonight,
we're looking at the second of these eight names, and we see
that it too was revealed, the historical setting, rather, when
this name was revealed was a time of need. time of need, just as
that first name, Jehovah-Jireh, was revealed in a time of need. When Abraham was right at the
point of sacrificing his son Isaac, God showed him that ram
and God revealed that name. So tonight we say this name,
Jehovah-Rapha, Jehovah-Rapha. That word is spelled R-O-P-H-E,
Jehovah-Rafi. The first 21 verses in this chapter,
we didn't read all of them, but these verses are filled with
praise, the first 21 verses. They're filled with praise, they're
filled with thanksgiving on the part of the Israelites, having
seen God's mighty works in delivering them from the armies of Pharaoh. How that the Lord opened up the
Red Sea, and they passed through unharmed, and when Pharaoh and
his armies assayed to do the same, God brought the waters
over them. And they're just rejoicing. They're
on the side, and not one enemy was left. Not one Israelite didn't go through
the sea and not one of their enemies was left. Every Israelite passed over and
every one of the armies of Pharaoh were drowned in the sea. And
they have a wonderful time of rejoicing and praising God. If you notice in verse one here
in chapter 15, Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this
song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the
Lord. Look down to verses 18 and 19.
The Lord is exalted. 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 Miriam, the sister of Moses,
she led the women out in dances and songs with the timbrel. And,
you know, people wonder about dancing, praising the Lord in
dance. But now remember in the Old Testament
that the nation of Israel, this was like a parade. When David
danced before the ark, when they were moving the ark of the Lord
to Jerusalem, it was like a parade they were having that day. And
the same is here too. People say, why don't you have
praise dancing in your services? Well, and they try to justify
doing that by verses of scripture which speak about praising the
Lord in the dance. But at those occasions, on those
occasions, we should think of those as a national day, the
nation of Israel, as thanking the Lord and praising the Lord.
But when we come together here in our worship service, it's
a time of reverence. It's a time of worship. It's
not a time when we show out in the flesh like goes on in so
many places that they call worship. I told someone the other day,
a friend of ours who used to be a member here, he no longer
lives in Houston, but he told me one time that one of his brothers
had moved off to Dallas and got into one of those churches where
they have all that carrying on going on. And he said he just
insisted that I go attend a service with him, and he said, you know,
preacher, he said, while they were doing all that, he said,
I just did my calisthenics. I just did my exercise, and nobody
paid any attention. You know, they were going through
their times of jubilation, I guess
you'd say. He said, no one paid any attention
to me. I just, in the hall there, did my Went through my exercise. No, when we read here that Miriam
led the women of Israel in dances, we're not to think that this
is a time of worship like we have and like Israel had. Listen,
when God came down on that mountain in smoke and fire and the sound
of a trumpet, I guarantee you there was no one dancing. There
was no one dancing there. Because our God is a God that
we must reverence in our worship. And we do that here, don't we?
I read an article the other day about the choruses that are being
sung in so many places today, and the hymn. Now, we sing choruses
from time to time. We just sang one, which I like
a lot. But we're not going to give up
the hymns And the point of this article was these hymns were
written, and there's good theology in many of these hymns. And we
learn about God. We learn about worship through
singing the hymns. But so many of these courses
that now are being sung in so-called worship services, you wouldn't
learn anything of the truth about God from those courses. And I
thought about that hymn, great is thy faithfulness, O God, my
Savior. We learn about his faithfulness,
don't we? And so many of the hymns, how
great thou art. How great he is, right? How great
thou art. It is well with my soul. I mean,
there's so many of these hymns that teach us and enable us to
worship him. But I just point that out to
us that Miriam did at this time. The first part of this chapter,
21 verses, it's a time of praise, of worship, of dancing, but now
we read something changes. Three days later, and doesn't
this show us the fickleness of man? Three days later, After
that day of praise and worship and all of that, three days later,
they were murmuring against Moses. Notice that in verse 24. The people murmured against Moses. The first day they traveled,
I'm sure they had water in their vessels of some kind that they
carried with them, and well, okay, we didn't come across any
water today, but tomorrow, tomorrow surely we're gonna find some
water. And then the second day, they
travel on and they don't find any water. Well, by the third
day, no doubt their throats was getting parched And they still
found no water. And they began to murmur. Murmur,
the scripture here says they murmured against Moses, but in
the next chapter, we won't turn there, but we find that when
they murmured against Moses, they were murmuring against the
Lord. That's what God told Moses there.
Murmur against Moses, yes, but in doing that, they were murmuring
against the Lord. Now, it wasn't the Lord who was
proved here. It wasn't the Lord who was proved.
He wasn't proved. Could He supply their needs?
Could He supply every need? Forty years we know. They didn't
know that at this time, of course, but 40 years we know that God
supplied their food and their drink. It wasn't the Lord who
was being proved here at Mara. It was the people. The people,
the scripture says, he proved them there. Could they trust
him? Could they trust God? They had sung and praised him
as though he could not be defeated, as though he was all powerful. But now, when they find no water,
they began to murmur and complain. He proved them. Would they trust
him? It's named Jehovah Rapha, and
it means I am the Lord that healeth thee. That's what the name means,
Jehovah Rapha. I am the Lord that healeth thee.
Just like we saw that name last week, Jehovah-Jireh, now this
name speaks to us of God. That Hebrew word rafi is found
over 60 times in the Old Testament, and it's translated into these
English words. Sometimes it's translated restore,
most often to heal, to cure, and sometimes as a physician. But all of these words have to
do with healing. I am the Lord that healeth thee. What a wonderful name that God
has revealed unto us, that he is our God, the Lord that healeth
thee. Now I have three lessons I want
to bring out to us this evening. First of all, Israel's Marah. Israel's Marah. is a lesson for all of God's
children. They met with bitter waters.
That's what the word means, mara, bitter. They met with bitter
waters. And Israel's mara experience
is a lesson for you and for me and for all of God's children. As long as we are in this world,
As long as we're in this world, and they were in a wilderness,
and that is what this world is to a child of God. It is a wilderness. And as long as we are in this
world, we are subject to meet with providences and experiences
which are bitter. Which are bitter. And I know
I don't need to emphasize that. Many of you have experienced
this. Bitter things that you've met
with. in this wilderness as you go through this world. Well,
what was it that sweetened the waters? What was it that sweetened
these waters of Marah? It was a tree. It was a tree,
and this tree may be a type of the tree upon which the Lord
Jesus Christ was crucified. But better still, it may be a
type of the Lord Jesus himself, this tree. In Revelation 22,
in verse two, when the apostle John had his vision of heaven,
this is part of that verse, in heaven he saw the tree of life. The tree of life, who is that?
It's Christ, right? He saw the tree of life, which
bared 12 manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month.
Now listen, and the leaves, were for the healing of the nations,
for the healing of the nations, the healing of the people. Now,
as I looked at this this past week, three things stood out
to me as we read this. Let's look at this again in verse
25. And Moses cried unto the Lord,
and the Lord showed him a tree. which when he had cast into the
waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made for them
a stature and an ordinance, and there he proved them. Three things
that stood out to me, stand out to me by this bitter experience. Number one, the Lord showed him
the tree. Now the tree was there, but he
couldn't see it, or didn't see it. The Lord showed him the tree. When you and I meet with some
bitter experience in this life, and you may be going through
one right now, and if you're not, you may have one soon. Same is true of me, because as
long as we're in this world, we are going to have bitter experiences,
just like the children of Israel. When we meet with that bitter
thing, whatever it is, we should ask the Lord to show us, just
like God showed Moses this tree, we should ask the Lord to show
us, show us what? Show us his sufferings. Show us the sufferings of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know, this morning before
Sunday school, People that play the instruments, they were playing
that hymn, Lead Me to Calvary. And I told Sally, I believe it
was, or Ivan won, I said, that's such a beautiful hymn. Lest I
forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary. God showed him
this tree. And we should ask the Lord, when
we meet with bitter experiences in this world, we should ask
the Lord to show us his sufferings, what it cost him to redeem us,
lest we forget. You say, well, a believer would
never forget. Well, didn't he give us the Lord's
table for that very reason? So we want to remind us a memorial
of his death, the bread and the cup, his death. We should pray
and ask the Lord, show me, Lord, show me, remind me, bring to
my attention what it cost my blessed Lord to redeem me, how
he suffered, how he met with bitterness in this world. The
second thing that appeared to me was the tree was obviously
near. Moses showed him the tree, but
the tree was obviously near. Even when we are in that which
we would call bitter, we need to be reminded we're not alone. Our God is not way off somewhere,
somewhere else. He's not like Elijah said to
those false prophets of Baal, maybe your God's on a visit.
Maybe he's taking a journey somewhere. Maybe he's asleep. No, no. Even when we meet with that which
is bitter in this world, let us know that we're not alone. He's promised that he would never
leave us nor forsake us. That tree was near. It was near. You know, sometimes when you
are going through some trial or some difficulty, something
bitter, just someone coming and Some friend or brother or sister
in Christ, just someone coming and telling you, I'm praying
for you. I'm thinking about you. It's
a great encouragement, isn't it? You know, that's what the
word that's translated comforter, when it speaks of God the Holy
Spirit. Our Lord said, I will pray the
Father and he shall send thee another comforter. And that word
means one who comes alongside. One who comes alongside. And
I know I've had experiences like that when I was pretty much depressed
and just down in the mouth. And a friend, a friend just come
and speak with me. And what an encouragement. What
an encouragement that is. The Lord is always near. He's
always at our side. The third thing that stood out
to me is, The Lord brought good out of this bitter. You say,
what good did he bring out of this bitter? He revealed this
name. He revealed his name, Jehovah
Rapha. He revealed this name. And we
always know that what we call evil, and I'm not talking about
moral evil, but that's true also. But what we call evil in the
sense of heartache and problems and sicknesses and difficulties,
they all work together for good to those who love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose. Some way, we
may not always understand it, probably don't, but we know that's
true. We know that's true. God brought
good out of this bitter experience. So that's the first lesson. Let's
not be surprised when we meet with bitterness in this wilderness,
this world that we live in. The second point I want to make
is man's need of physical healing is an obvious truth. Disease
and sickness are no respecter of person. You know, among the
very rich as well as among the poor. Disease, sickness comes. How many times have I read back
over the years of some wealthy man, I mean some sheik or some
magnate or prince or something like that have millions of dollars
from the Middle East come to the Texas Medical Center renowned
center, right, for healing, for medicine, for the best of doctors. And they come here, and money's
not, whatever, whatever it costs. But they don't get any better,
not all of them, some of them do. Some people take the same
medicine, and some get well, and some don't. Same doctor,
same medicine, You say, well, why is that? Because healing,
all healing comes from the Lord. That's why. All healing comes
from the Lord. But sickness, as I said, it's
no respecter of persons. It makes its way into cottages
as well as palaces. You know, when you read in history,
there have been plagues that have decimated just taking a
whole city away. When Charles Spurgeon, I remember
reading in his life when he first went to London as a young man,
Collower, Collower was a plague that had come into London and
people were dying everywhere every day that the court, the
court would come by the houses and, and pick up the dead bodies
and take them out of town. That was one of the major cities
in the world, still is, London. Sickness, need of healing is
just an obvious truth, or it should be to everyone. Physical
sickness is common to Adam's race, and we know that it's sin. We know that sin brought sickness
into this world. Had there been no sin, there
would be no sickness. We know that. Men are constantly
engaged in searching for cures, aren't they? They're looking
for cures for all kind of diseases and sicknesses. Remember seeing
here a while back going down into the rainforest in South
America and finding trees and plants and doing experiments
with the bark and the leaves and all of that. And I believe
I'm correct in saying this tonight, that one-eighth of the economy
of the United States of America has to do with the health industry. One-eighth of the economy of
this country. And can you imagine the billions
of dollars that make up the economy of this country? Well, no one
disputes the fact the need of men to physical healing, but
man's spiritual healing is much greater. His need of spiritual
healing is much greater than physical healing. Look with me
in Isaiah chapter one. God has sometimes used physical
diseases and sicknesses to express spiritual sickness. In Isaiah
chapter one, verses five and six, and I know that God is here
through the prophet speaking of the nation of Israel, the
situation, the condition in the nation of Israel, but it's a
picture also individually. Why, verse five, why should you
be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick. and the
whole heart faint. That's the man's problem, it's
his heart. Out of the heart, the Lord Jesus
Christ said, proceed these things. The whole head is sick, the whole
heart is faint. We have a heart, we come into
this world with a heart that is desperately wicked, Jeremiah
tells us, desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. You say, do you believe that
preacher? Absolutely, absolutely. Man by nature is evil, is wicked. No, I don't feel that way. Well,
that's too bad that you don't. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
came to save wicked people, evil people, sinful people. He didn't
come to call the righteous to repentance. No, but those who
are sinners. The righteous, he said, they
don't have any need of a physician. The whole, those who are whole,
most of you here tonight, you're not going to go to the doctor
tomorrow because you don't feel sick tonight, but if you get
up in the morning sick, you may be calling the doctor. And men
come to Christ and only come to Christ when they feel their
sinful condition, their need. Heart, God said, is sick, is
faint. From the sole of the foot, that's
pretty much the bottom, isn't it? From the sole of the foot,
even under the head, there's no soundness in it, but wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores, they have not been closed, now
they're bound up, now they're mollified with ointment. That's
a picture, that was a picture of Israel at that time, but it
is also a picture of man, lost man. He needs to be healed, needs
to be healed. Jehovah Rapha, I am the Lord
that healeth thee. And that's my third point, the
Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah Rapha, come in the flesh. You know, he began his public
ministry after he was baptized by John the Baptist, he returned.
Well, first he was in the wilderness, tempted or tested by Satan. Then
he returned to Nazareth where he had grown up as a young man,
as a boy and a young man. And he entered into the synagogue
and found that place in Isaiah where it was written. And listen
to what he read, the prophecy concerning himself. The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor, unless he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. In our Lord's life in this world,
from the day that he read those scriptures until the day he was
crucified is described like this. He went about teaching in their
synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing
all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. All of his healing miracles bore
witness to what? Well, they bore witness to the
fact that the father had sent him. That's what he said. They
bore witness. There was never a sickness that
he did not heal when the people came to him for healing. And
many, you know, we read and I've preached many times, I love to
preach that story about that woman who said, if I can but
touch the hem of his garment. But you know, you read the scripture,
she wasn't the only one healed that way. I mean, he came and
just touching his garment. Now the garment had no healing
power in it. The virtue, the scripture is
very clear, the virtue of healing came from him. He is Jehovah
Rapha come in the flesh. When John the Baptist, you know,
he was in prison for preaching the gospel. And maybe he began
to question and doubt. Be easy to do. You say, well,
I'd never do that. Maybe not. Maybe so. Maybe not. Think about this. If you're put
into a prison and you know, you know, you know your Lord could
deliver you from that prison. He could. Just with a thought. Just with a thought. He could
deliver John, but he didn't do it. He didn't do it. He left him in prison. And he
sent some of his disciples to the Lord and asked this question,
are you the one who should come? Are thou he which should come,
or do we look for another? He said, how could he do that? There's only been one perfect
man in this world. Art thou he which should come,
or do we look for another? And what did our Lord say? He
said, Go, told John's disciples. Go and show John again those
things which you do hear and see. And what was he to tell
John? That they had heard and saw.
The blind received their sight. Jehovah Rapha, I am the Lord
that healeth thee. The blind received their sight.
The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed. You know, you never read of a
leper, I don't believe, being healed. But they were cleansed,
and there's a purpose, there's a reason for that, isn't there?
We would call that healing. But leprosy was a type of sin
in the scripture. And you didn't go to the physician
when you had leprosy, you went to the priest. Only God could cleanse a leper.
You go tell John the blind received their sight, the lame walked,
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are
raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them.
He healed all manner of disease, and he, we know, is the physician,
the great physician who heals the lost. He heals sin sick souls
and how does he heal sinners? The scripture says by his stripes
we are healed. By his stripes, by his suffering,
by his sacrifice, by his stripes we are healed. That is by his
suffering and his death in the place and in the stead of the
guilty. I pray the Lord would bless this
word to each of us here tonight. Jehovah Rapha, I am the Lord
that healeth thee.