Bitter Made Sweet - Jehovah Rafa
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. —I Corinthians 10: 1-5
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. —I Corinthians 10:6
Le’ts pick up the story
The Hebrews had just been brought out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery with miraculous signs and wonders. They just experienced the amazing deliverance at the Red Sea and had been singing, dancing and rejoicing.
They probably thought it was
So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
Anyone get so hungry they get angry? Hangry? For some of us the hanger is real.
3 days without water in the dessert.
They were thirty. How long can you go without water? —Exodus 15:22
HALT - Hunger Angry Lonley Tired
Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called [d]Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” —Exodus 15:23-34
1. You will encounter Bitter Waters
a. Bitter Waters = Trials, Tribulations, Problems, Hardships, Bummers, Disappointments, Challenges, Offences…..
2. Don’t drink the Bitter Water
Someone had to drink it to find out it was bitter, probably several.
This bitterness infected the whole camp. “for they were bitter”
Complaining, murmuring, and turning against Moses. Thinking the worst case scenario.
3. Cry unto the Lord
Ask, seek, knock, press in. What do I do Lord?
So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. —Exodus 15:25
Do what God says, even when we don’t fully understand
God wants to mend our
Use the tree, which speaks of the
4. Turning Bitterness into Healing requires Faith
There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
> Jehovah Rafa – I am the Lord who heals you —Exodus 15: 25-26
5. Obedience brings the fullness of healing
Just as the Israelites had to obey God to receive healing, we too must obey His Commands to experience the fullness of His healing in our lives
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.
—Exodus 15:27