We're looking at the experience of God, leading his people out
of Egyptian, bondage through the Wilderness and into the promised
land. These are the stories that are
found the narratives that are found in the books of Exodus
Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy in the Old
Testament, the books of the law of Moses.
We're in chapter 15. The people have just crossed the
Red Sea. They just engaged in a great
worship service and praise and Thanksgiving to God with the
song of Moses. And now there are as listed in
your bulletin three episodes. We're just going to look at two
of them from chapters 15 and 16 here.
Now, the word of the Lord, 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
when they came to Morrow. They could not drink the water
Morrow, because it was bitter. Therefore, it was named
tomorrow. And the people grumbled against
Moses saying, what shall we drink?
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.
They're the Lord made for them a statute and a rule and there.
He tested them saying, if you will diligently, listen to the
voice of the Lord, your God in 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 then they came to elim, Where there
were twelve Springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they encamped
there by the water. They set out from elim and all
the congregation of the people of Israel came to the Wilderness
of Zin, which is between elim and Sinai on the 15th day of the
second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.
And the whole Congregation of the people of Israel grumbled
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and the people of
Israel said to them would that we had died by the hand of the
Lord in the land of Egypt. When we set by the meat pots and
we ate bread to the full For you, have brought us out into
the Wilderness to kill this, whole assembly with Hunger.
Then the Lord said to Moses behold, I'm about to rain bread
from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a
day's portion, every day, that I may test them whether they will
walk in my law or not, the word of the Lord, you may be seated.
two episodes in the life of Israel quite early in their
Journey, actually the trip from the Red Sea over to the plains
of Moab and the east side of the Jordan, Shouldn't have taken,
but a few days. It wasn't that much of a
distance. It took them 40 years.
And the reason it took them 40 years.
The Bible tells us in the New Testament is because that they
did not believe and trust their God.
They did not pursue their goal and they're calling by faith.
and the overall upshot is that that whole generation who are
adults and heads of households when they left Egypt, Never
entered the promised land. In fact, it was only those who
were about 20 years old and younger Who then grew up in the
wilderness and the desert in made it into their 30s and about
40 or so that generation made it into the promised land under the
leadership of Joshua. That's the overall sketch of
what. Transpired the Wilderness story
is told in the Book of Numbers. In fact, more of this material
is given to us in the book of numbers and then there's an
analysis of it, by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy.
These things were truly written for our example.
What was God doing with this people that he had rescued and
saved by Mighty hand out of Egypt?
And now he's bringing them into the promised land, but before
they get to the promised land, they spend this time in the
wilderness, and they would not have needed to spend that time
in the wilderness, if it had not been for their spiritual
condition I don't know if I was a preacher.
I'd probably stop here a little bit and talk about how most of
our Wilderness experiences come because we are the way we are.
It's for our Rebellion, it's for our lack of faith.
It's our sinful Condition. It's our refusal to know.
The word of God. It is our own choices that put
us into our predicaments. And that keep us from that,
great blessing, that land of milk and honey that the Lord has
prepared for us. We really have no one to blame,
but ourselves. So, guess what we do?
We blame somebody else. And that's exactly what the
people did here. It says in the text that they
grumbled and there are other instances, in fact, it gets
worse down the road. We want to anticipate too much
but down the road they go beyond grumbling and complaining and
quarreling they go to full out armed Rebellion against God and
against his ordained leadership, that is Moses and Aaron so it
gets worse. If I was a preacher, I would
suggest to you that the longer you stay in the wilderness that
is in your backslidden condition.
The worse, it's going to be for you sins.
Going to always hold you longer than you want to be held.
It's going to take you further than you want to go, and it's
going to cost you more than you want to pay.
That's what sin does in our lives.
And so the recount here over and over is how the people were in a
spiritual condition. That's why the Lord from the
very beginning, does wonderful miracles for them saves and
rescues them to be sure, sustains them in every way.
And yet, they still complain. Notice that in both of these
stories, the people Grumble and complain.
And they realize that it's the Lord, that's going to be the one
that's in charge of their Destiny.
It's the Lord that's going to determine whether they live or
die. They just complain in, like, it
would have been better if the Lord of left us back there in
Egypt where we could sit by the meat pots and enjoy a good meal,
that another place they talked about the onions and the in the
cloves And all of the spices of Egypt that spiced up their food,
that is when they were finally eating nothing but Manna and
quail for year after year, after year, it have been better back
then to just gone ahead and let us stay in slavery.
But the Lord tests. He tries.
He puts things before us. He leads us in rough patches.
By his good and Provident hand to do something to us knowing
that that kind of test. Authenticate.
It's the fiery trial of the Furnace that purges the dross
and produces the pure metal of silver and gold, and God starts
working with his people from the very beginning.
And that's what we see here in these two episodes, they're very
similar. And they occurred just a few
days apart. The first one was, they ran out
of water. You can't carry a whole lot of
water with you wherever you go. You Need a water source of water
supply, so the canteens were empty.
The barrels were empty and they were beginning with they and
their livestock were beginning to thirst and to thirst.
Rather seriously and so they complain to Moses.
And when they got to a water source, the water was bitter.
Actually, the water was poisonous.
It was an unhealthy water. It was a German
bacteria-infested water supply. and that's why the Lord promised
him that he was not going to let them have any of the diseases
that they had had back in Egypt and that the Egyptians had been
Afflicted with Lord is beginning here to lay the groundwork for
the health Law's and he's going to give them many of them having
to do with nothing more basic than good hydration and good
hygiene. He's going to teach his people
what they need to know, but they got to this first water supply
and it was bitter. It was ruined, it was spoiled.
There was death in these cisterns.
And the interesting thing is, the lord gave Moses a remedy.
The Lord's going to teach Moses, how to do all kinds of the he's
already worked with him on the staff and the snake and, you
know, all the things that happened back there in the
wilderness when the Lord first called him.
And then when he went down into Egypt, before Pharaoh crossing
the Red Sea, with the, with the, the staff of the Lord, the
Lord's teaching him, some things is going to be necessary for
their actual survival. He's going to have to take a
water supply, which is death. And turn it into the water of
life. And I can't help it.
But I studied a little bit how to interpret the Bible in
seminary and they didn't teach me this.
And I'm not trying to say this is how you interpret that but I
like some of the old fathers of the church where they saw, what
the Lord did was he showed Moses a tree, And it was a tree that
made the difference. It was a tree, put into the
cisterns, the broken cisterns of death, and brought them to life
and made them Sweet Water. Good water, pure water, clean
water, drinkable water, Living Water.
And this of course is a picture of Christ and what the Lord did
was to establish his law word. Listen to what the Lord himself
says and the Lord their the Lord made for them a statute and a
rule here God establishes a principle by doing this miracle
and bringing them the Water of Life there.
He tested them saying if if you will diligently.
Into the voice of the Lord, your God.
Listen to me the Lord says and the Lord never quit.
Saying that with the disciples surrounding Jesus on the Mount
of transfiguration. The Lord.
God said, this is my beloved Son.
Hear him. We have to listen to the voice
of the Lord. If there is to be any life in
his spiritual life in us. And this is the rule.
That was established that day. If you will diligently, listen
to the voice of the Lord. Your God do that, which is right
in his eyes. The words there's action.
You've got to do something. You've got to do something
that's right. You got to do something.
That's right in the sight of the Lord.
It's too straight to do that, which is right in your own eyes.
The sad condition of Israel in a few hundred years would be that
every man did what was right in his own eyes.
And there was no rule, no statute, No Authority, no king
in Israel, in those days. God Rules by his law word, and
we are to pay attention to it. And we have slipped so far in so
many of our churches, by preaching a gospel of free
Grace, which is a good gospel, because the gospel is absolutely
a truth of the free grace of God.
Given by the father by the sun, coming most willingly, and most
enthusiastically poured out in our Solar.
Souls by the Holy Spirit, the whole Triune God saving us.
Free gospel. Good gospel.
True gospel. A faithful, God, rescuing and
saving and redeeming calling to himself an Unfaithful people.
That's the way God's always work.
I said, well, he's had to work. That's the way he worked in the
days of old, that's how he works today.
He's a faithful, God, and he has to work.
Always with an Unfaithful people, but he's laying down the
principal here. Listen to the voice of the Lord.
Your God do that, which is right in his eyes.
Not in our own eyes, not in the eyes of society.
But in the eyes of the Lord, give ear to his Commandments.
And keep all his statutes and the Lord promises.
The end that kind of obedience that kind of diligence in trying
to please the Lord and walking with the Lord and following his
ways does not save us but it puts us in the place of bliss in
the place of health and prosperity.
None of the disease has come upon us.
If you keep the law of God, you stay away from the filth of sin.
You stay away from the pollution in the sickening garbage of our
sin sick perverse Society. The Lord calls his people to a
Holiness, which means separate and clean.
Those are the two key ideas of Holiness.
In this portion of scripture, God, calls his people to that.
You'll have none of these diseases and I don't think this
is in your text printed there, but I couldn't miss it.
It's one of my other best verses in the whole Bible number 27.
Then they came to elim where there were twelve Springs of
water. And seventy palm trees.
That's an oasis. Twelve Springs of water, not
just one twelve Springs of water, one for each tribe, one
for each big clan in Israel. They had them all in 70 palm
trees. It was 70 Souls.
You remember with Joseph and the brothers that went down into
Egypt to start with and now when the Lord brings them out, he
brings them to a place where they have that kind of abundance
representing the souls that now have grown into a nation in
their becoming God's people. Now, they haven't got to Mount
Sinai. You have tears, there very early
in their Journey. Let's look at the second thing
real quickly. That happened here.
And then they set out. Oh man, I thought I would have
hated to break Camp if I was at a place where they were twelve
Springs of water and all the palm trees and all of that, I
would sure hate to start pitching my tent and pulling it
down and pulling up the staves and the chords and getting ready
to move on out of there. I think I'd want to stay there
forever but that wasn't the promised land and was just a
nice place in the desert. God's moving them to the
promised land. Sometimes, I think we're just
happy with a nice place in the desert.
Give me just a little place here, where I got some comfort
where I've got some blessing. Nothing wrong with that.
The Lord leads us in Green Pastures and by Still Waters,
But he also leads us through the valley of the shadow of death.
And that's what the Lord's doing.
He's moving his people on. You can't stay just in one
place. You got to move along.
And as you move along, they set out then and they're on their
way across the desert. And the whole congregation
grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
And this is what the people said would that we have died by the
hand of the Lord, in the land of Egypt, where we set by the meet
pots and ate bread to the full for you have brought us out into
this. Wilderness to kill the whole
assembly with hunger. Notice, they're blaming God.
God's the one that's going to kill them with famine.
Then better that it just stayed back in Israel.
I'm back in Egypt and starved but now they're out there in the
wilderness and they're hungry. And they're starting to realize
that they've run out of food and they're going to die.
And so they start grumbling and complaining against Moses.
And this is what Moses does. Moses calls upon the Lord.
And this is what the Lord tells him, then Moses.
The Lord said, to Moses behold, I'm about to rain bread from
heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a day's
portion every day. Why that I may test them whether
they will walk in my law or not. Did you ever notice that in
Scripture that the giving of the Manna?
And by the way, isn't it beautiful?
How the Lord puts his here? I'm going to rain down minor
bread from Heaven. This is the precise language
that Jesus used. When he fed the 5000 out there,
starving hungry. And he said, I am the bread of
life. I am the man of the bread of
life. What come Down from heaven.
You have no salvation without Christ, there's no deliverance
from The Thirst without the cross.
And there's no deliverance from the famine without the bread of
life. The Lord takes care of his
people, he provides for them, but God had a test in it.
Listen to what they'll be told later on over here in
Deuteronomy. the Lord says, I tested the and caused the to
hunger. That thou mayest know that man
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God, did you realize that what the Lord did
giving them? Manna was testing to see if they
were going to pay attention to the words that came out of the
Lord's mouth that he wasn't just about them eating something that
enabled them. I'm to survive physically, it
was whether or not they were going to be the kind of people.
They were going to feast and feed upon the bread of life, the
word of the Lord, loving him, and keeping his Commandments
walking walking in his ways. Where are we?
In our Christian Life.
Are we receiving from the Lord? The Salvation that he is offered
by grace? In other words, have we come out
of Egypt and we sacrificed and believed in that provision, that
is The Paschal Lamb. Had we come through the Red Sea
and we see the victory, a great Mighty Victory.
Have we stood still and seen the power of the Lord in our life.
Some of you don't believe in the Lord because you've never seen
the Lord do anything for you. Your eyes are so blind.
You can't see the hand of the Lord.
It work in the land of the living. but some of you have,
And the Lord manifests himself and the eye of Faith, detects
it. And the Heart.
Delights it The Water of Life, the bread of life, the words of
life from the very life himself in him is life.
Can we commend to you today? Jesus Christ.
Can we call upon you, to forsake your sin and to turn from your
sin and to turn to him in faith? Come to him, as he is offered in
the gospel. and then with the family of God, Feast upon him in
the supper,