Exodus 15:22-27
22 Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. 24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 25 And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there He tested them, 26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” 27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more dramatic book in the Old Testament than Exodus.
It begins hundreds of years after the Israelites were first taken into Egypt by Joseph and his brothers, and for the whole nation, things had changed radically.
Now they were slaves, and the story we read in Exodus takes us on a rollercoaster ride from the call of Moses, to the judgment of the plagues, the trauma and the victory (depending on whose side you were on) of the Passover, the escape from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the wandering in the desert where we see the amazing provision of God, the establishment of the Covenant and the beginnings of orderly worship.
It’s a breathtaking story, all set against the backdrop of the disobedience of human beings and the mercy and grace of God.
And in many of the Exodus events and miracles, we can see Jesus Christ.
The word Exodus itself means “the way out” and the book tells the story of redemption by blood and by power.
Chapter 15 opens with a psalm of praise to God for what He did by setting the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt. The people were rejoicing over their miraculous crossing through the Red Sea, but the celebratory mood soon changed.
It’s a story we know well, but just picture the scene for a moment, and try to imagine what it must have been like:
The cries of exhausted toddlers as they begged their parents to carry them. The father staggering under the load of a few possessions, in the harsh desert sun. The mother trying to ignore her own discomfort to attend to the needs of the crying children. And what about Moses? How do you think he must have felt?
Just a matter of days before he spoke boldly to Pharaoh and to the people about a God who is going to deliver them. And now everything seems to be going wrong. Maybe this whole sorry saga is going to fall woefully short. Maybe they will die in this awful place after all.
Verse 22 says, “They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.”
Chapter 15 begins in such triumph, but now they are trapped again, this time in a waterless desert. Why would God deliver them through parted waters only to allow them to suffer lack of water in the desert?
Exodus 12 tells us there were 600 000 men, excluding women and children that escaped Egypt, so if we do the simple maths there was anything between 4 and 6 million people in total.
Can you imagine these millions of people wandering in the desert for three days with absolutely no water?
But it was even worse than that. Verse 23 is gives a rather dull description of what happened next: “When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter.”
These people had not had a drink in three days, so imagine how they felt when they finally saw water, only to find it was bitter and undrinkable.
Why did God do that? Why would He allow such terrible disappointment? The answer is hidden away in a little phrase in the last part of verse 25. “There He tested them.”
This is a silly question I know, but have you ever been in a “NOW what am I going to do?” moment in your life? The Bible says that God sometimes tests us.
He puts us in difficult or perplexing situations that we simply cannot understand and which we often think are totally unreasonable.
Why does He do that? Well, we don’t have the definitive answer to that question for the simple reason that He is God and we are not.
But what we do know is that one of His purposes is to see if we’ve learned anything from past experiences.
God wants to develop and mature us, to see what we’re made of spiritually and to develop and grow our faith.
1 Chronicles 29:17 says “I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.”
Simply put, it’s all about character building. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:18 “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory.”
Bitter waters teach us more about ourselves than anything else in life.
At the time the experience might taste bitter, and just like the Israelites all those years ago, we often fail the test. Instead of trusting God, we grumble against Him.
Moses though, was a remarkable man. He walked alongside these hurting, thirsting Israelites and He cried out to God for them and on behalf of them. We can learn so much from his example. It is one of the joys of being part of the family of God that we have opportunities each day to walk alongside those who are thirsty, and tasting the bitterness of life.
Verse 25 says “He cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.”
Why a piece of wood? Why a tree?
Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary in India for nearly 60 years. She said in answer to this question, “We all know what the tree means. Nothing less than the powers of Calvary can turn our bitter waters into sweet waters.”
This is no coincidence because all of our problems began at a tree in a beautiful Garden.
At the first tree sin entered the story, but we can thank God that is not the only tree in the Bible.
We find the second tree in our text today in the wilderness as a prophecy of things to come and how the sin problem will be taken care of on a tree.
We find this tree on a hill called Calvary. The tree at Calvary doesn’t just deal with our physical thirst, but a far deeper need. It brings healing to our souls.
You can drink 10 litres of water today, but tomorrow you will be thirsty.
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:13, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
That’s the promise we have from Jesus.
Make no mistake – this life can be bitter, and there is bitterness to come, but in Christ we have hope.
We have to cast the Tree into the bitter waters of our lives, and trust that Jesus will make those waters sweet.
Times of struggle and sadness are a reality in everybody’s life.
Whether they love God or hate God, there is no difference - those times come to all people.
But in Christ there is a fundamental difference.
The world has tried to fill the voids of bitterness with just about everything money can buy, but it has failed every single time.
It is only Jesus who is willing and able to turn our moments of bitterness into sweetness.
The last verse of our reading today says “Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.”
Just as there are the Marahs of life, there are also the Elims of life.
The opening 3 verses of Isaiah 61 are a clear prophecy of Jesus and the ministry He brings into the lives of His people, and in fact He quotes these words in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour.”
Verse 4 of Psalm 42 says, “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.” When life is bitter, and you feel that your joy has been taken away, look to Christ as your source of hope and joy.
Remember that it is the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that transforms, that redeems, that turns us from a bitter life to a sweet one.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 says “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.”
22 Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. 24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 25 And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there He tested them, 26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” 27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more dramatic book in the Old Testament than Exodus.
It begins hundreds of years after the Israelites were first taken into Egypt by Joseph and his brothers, and for the whole nation, things had changed radically.
Now they were slaves, and the story we read in Exodus takes us on a rollercoaster ride from the call of Moses, to the judgment of the plagues, the trauma and the victory (depending on whose side you were on) of the Passover, the escape from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the wandering in the desert where we see the amazing provision of God, the establishment of the Covenant and the beginnings of orderly worship.
It’s a breathtaking story, all set against the backdrop of the disobedience of human beings and the mercy and grace of God.
And in many of the Exodus events and miracles, we can see Jesus Christ.
The word Exodus itself means “the way out” and the book tells the story of redemption by blood and by power.
Chapter 15 opens with a psalm of praise to God for what He did by setting the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt. The people were rejoicing over their miraculous crossing through the Red Sea, but the celebratory mood soon changed.
It’s a story we know well, but just picture the scene for a moment, and try to imagine what it must have been like:
The cries of exhausted toddlers as they begged their parents to carry them. The father staggering under the load of a few possessions, in the harsh desert sun. The mother trying to ignore her own discomfort to attend to the needs of the crying children. And what about Moses? How do you think he must have felt?
Just a matter of days before he spoke boldly to Pharaoh and to the people about a God who is going to deliver them. And now everything seems to be going wrong. Maybe this whole sorry saga is going to fall woefully short. Maybe they will die in this awful place after all.
Verse 22 says, “They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.”
Chapter 15 begins in such triumph, but now they are trapped again, this time in a waterless desert. Why would God deliver them through parted waters only to allow them to suffer lack of water in the desert?
Exodus 12 tells us there were 600 000 men, excluding women and children that escaped Egypt, so if we do the simple maths there was anything between 4 and 6 million people in total.
Can you imagine these millions of people wandering in the desert for three days with absolutely no water?
But it was even worse than that. Verse 23 is gives a rather dull description of what happened next: “When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter.”
These people had not had a drink in three days, so imagine how they felt when they finally saw water, only to find it was bitter and undrinkable.
Why did God do that? Why would He allow such terrible disappointment? The answer is hidden away in a little phrase in the last part of verse 25. “There He tested them.”
This is a silly question I know, but have you ever been in a “NOW what am I going to do?” moment in your life? The Bible says that God sometimes tests us.
He puts us in difficult or perplexing situations that we simply cannot understand and which we often think are totally unreasonable.
Why does He do that? Well, we don’t have the definitive answer to that question for the simple reason that He is God and we are not.
But what we do know is that one of His purposes is to see if we’ve learned anything from past experiences.
God wants to develop and mature us, to see what we’re made of spiritually and to develop and grow our faith.
1 Chronicles 29:17 says “I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.”
Simply put, it’s all about character building. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:18 “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory.”
Bitter waters teach us more about ourselves than anything else in life.
At the time the experience might taste bitter, and just like the Israelites all those years ago, we often fail the test. Instead of trusting God, we grumble against Him.
Moses though, was a remarkable man. He walked alongside these hurting, thirsting Israelites and He cried out to God for them and on behalf of them. We can learn so much from his example. It is one of the joys of being part of the family of God that we have opportunities each day to walk alongside those who are thirsty, and tasting the bitterness of life.
Verse 25 says “He cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.”
Why a piece of wood? Why a tree?
Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary in India for nearly 60 years. She said in answer to this question, “We all know what the tree means. Nothing less than the powers of Calvary can turn our bitter waters into sweet waters.”
This is no coincidence because all of our problems began at a tree in a beautiful Garden.
At the first tree sin entered the story, but we can thank God that is not the only tree in the Bible.
We find the second tree in our text today in the wilderness as a prophecy of things to come and how the sin problem will be taken care of on a tree.
We find this tree on a hill called Calvary. The tree at Calvary doesn’t just deal with our physical thirst, but a far deeper need. It brings healing to our souls.
You can drink 10 litres of water today, but tomorrow you will be thirsty.
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:13, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
That’s the promise we have from Jesus.
Make no mistake – this life can be bitter, and there is bitterness to come, but in Christ we have hope.
We have to cast the Tree into the bitter waters of our lives, and trust that Jesus will make those waters sweet.
Times of struggle and sadness are a reality in everybody’s life.
Whether they love God or hate God, there is no difference - those times come to all people.
But in Christ there is a fundamental difference.
The world has tried to fill the voids of bitterness with just about everything money can buy, but it has failed every single time.
It is only Jesus who is willing and able to turn our moments of bitterness into sweetness.
The last verse of our reading today says “Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.”
Just as there are the Marahs of life, there are also the Elims of life.
The opening 3 verses of Isaiah 61 are a clear prophecy of Jesus and the ministry He brings into the lives of His people, and in fact He quotes these words in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour.”
Verse 4 of Psalm 42 says, “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.” When life is bitter, and you feel that your joy has been taken away, look to Christ as your source of hope and joy.
Remember that it is the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that transforms, that redeems, that turns us from a bitter life to a sweet one.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 says “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.”