When Bitter Waters Are Made Sweet Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the pyramid. Once Israel left Egypt, the real troubles began. The long trek starts and the desert sand takes its toll.

Inevitably, life has its disappointments. Today, strategies to win over them. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, many of us might not be happy to know that God can and does lead his people into the wilderness rather than into a land of plenty.

Dave, that's really true and I can't emphasize that enough for those who are listening today. The fact is that there are those who are in the desert and they probably think that they are out of God's will. But God leads people into the desert. As a matter of fact, as we'll discover, he leads people to bitter waters. But in the midst of that, there is hope. I've written a book entitled Getting Closer to God.

It's actually based on these messages, Lessons from the Life of Moses. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Here's what you do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now, I'm going to be giving you that contact info at the end of this message. For now, I want you to just listen carefully as God leads the children of Israel into a very tight place, a place of disappointment and bitterness. But even there, he is with them. I think it's true to say, isn't it, that the word disappointment is a word that is in all of our vocabularies. In fact, the greater our dreams, the greater our visions, the greater the possibility of deep and unrelenting bitterness and disappointment. Sometimes it's disappointment because of people. We expected better. When we married for better and for worse, or for worse, we thought that there was going to be much better than there was worse. So disappointment comes in those relationships.

Sometimes there's also disappointment in circumstances. I like to tell the story that is familiar to me because when I was a teacher at Moody Bible Institute many years ago, there was a young secretary, her name was Debbie, 21 years old, bright girl, bright young woman, and very helpful and cheerful. But she had cancer and we were praying that the cancer would disappear. And she went into some very special treatments that was experimental at the time and she recovered and she came back to work and we were just rejoicing. We were so happy.

We were celebrating because Debbie was back. And yet a few months later, the cancer returned and she died at the age of 22. And I often thought to myself, why all that expectation? Why were we thinking to ourselves that this young woman would be healed?

Why did God allow us to think that maybe this cancer would disappear? Because all that those expectations did in her return to work, all that they did was heighten our hopes and make the disappointment even deeper. And then sometimes we're disappointed with God.

I know a man whose wife gave birth to a stillborn child and he was so angry he said, God is worth no more than a plugged nickel to me. He was angry with God, the bitterness of disappointment. The children of Israel experienced bitterness and heartache and disappointment. They were going across the wilderness. They had crossed the Red Sea. God had done a miracle. They sang a wonderful song of redemption of hope and help and anticipation and their faith in God was high.

But how long does it take you to lose your faith in God? Well, they were wandering in the desert and the Bible says they were very thirsty and they were three days without water. I'll tell you, that's a long time to be without water in a desert. As a matter of fact, if they hadn't had some water with them, most assuredly, they wouldn't have lived for three days.

So we can imagine the pressure. We can imagine how angry they were and how frustrated they were. And then they come to an oasis. This is in the 15th chapter of the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 15, if you have your Bibles, turn with me because we are going to take three snapshots of Israel in the desert, three quick pictures of what they experienced in their bitter disappointment.

First of all, we do discuss their bitter disappointment. Chapter 15, verse 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. When they came to Merah, they could not drink the water of Merah because it was bitter.

Therefore, it was named Merah. And the people grumbled against Moses saying, what shall we drink? You can imagine it, the mothers and fathers saying to their thirsty children, just a little while, just a little further.

They didn't have the mild measurement in those days, but we would say just two more miles and we're there and we'll be able to drink. And they get to the water and it is so bitter. You say, oh, but no matter how thirsty, no matter how bitter it is, you're so thirsty, you'll drink it.

No, you can't drink it. In fact, the very place where they came to is still known today. You can read about it in archeological books and they will tell you that even there at that particular place, the water is so brackish, it is so bitter that you can't drink it. And so the children of Israel began to grumble at Moses and they began to complain. Why is it that you led us here? We might as well have stayed in Egypt and they begin to think to themselves, is God with us or isn't he? Now, let me ask you, why does God lead them to the place of bitterness? The word Merah in Hebrew means bitter.

That's why it was called Merah because of the bitterness. Why does God lead them there? Why all this anticipation and this deep disappointment? You'll notice that the text says in verse 25 that there the Lord tested them.

It says in the last part of verse 25, there 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 and do what is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments and keep all of his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord God your healer. God says I'm testing you to see what is in your heart. There's nothing that reveals our heart more clearly than a bitter experience, a deep disappointment. And so the children of Israel, they were concluding that God had abandoned them and their temptation was to pin all of their hopes on water, to pin all of their hopes on the fulfillment of their thirst and they just thought about it and of course they needed it if they were going to live and they got there and the disappointment was very keen and very, very deep because they could not drink the water and God says I'm finding out what's in your heart. So what is in your heart? What is in my heart when we go through a bitter experience?

How do we handle disappointment? Do we see God or do we not? Interestingly what the Lord would say to us is that God and your relationship to him is even more important than water. God says God says your relationship to me is more important than the immediate need that is so pressing that if you don't have water you'll die but I am even more important to you than that. At the right hand of God there are blessings forevermore so the children of Israel experience their deep, deep bitterness at Merah.

There's a second snapshot that we should take of them and that is the unexpected surprise, the unexpected surprise. You'll notice that the Lord does not leave them. Moses cries onto the Lord, verse 25. You'll notice that expression that occurs so often in the Old Testament particularly. In fact there's a book been written to show that crying onto the Lord is even different than praying. When we pray we are so formal, we ask God for certain requests, we say certain things about God, we give him glory and that is certainly proper and right but when you cry onto the Lord then you're desperate. You're saying God if you don't intervene here we're in trouble. I mean you think of Moses, two million people who are thirsty, all of them blaming him for the heat of the desert and so Moses cries up to God. Earlier we noticed that when he crossed the Red Sea he cried up to the Lord, God intervened. It's a sign of desperation and God loves desperate people. You see only desperate people pray.

One of the reasons that we find that so few people attend a prayer meeting is because they are desperate or maybe they think to themselves even if I prayed, prayer wouldn't change anything. So it's either lack of desperation or unbelief but Moses cries to the Lord in faith and the Lord shows him something. The Lord opened his eyes and showed him a log or a piece of wood. Some translations say a tree and he threw it into the water and the bitter water became sweet. Now after he threw the log into the water he probably invited Israel to drink and you can imagine all the skeptics saying it's just as bitter as it ever was. How can a log being thrown into the water change anything? So those of you who have a scientific bent I need to ask you, what is the connection between throwing that log into the water and the bitter water turning sweet?

The answer is there's no scientific connection. Sometimes people have thought well you know this log had certain properties and it neutralized the poison. We can't even begin to go there because there's no way that you could take this particular oasis that is so bitter and make it sweet.

One log couldn't do it even if it had these nutrients. God did a miracle and God says Moses you obey me and you trust me and the circumstances of life will become more favorable and I will meet your needs. So there God met the needs of the people and everyone had water to drink.

You can imagine what this did to the large crowd. The spirits of everyone were revived. They began to believe in Moses again. They began to trust in God again. They began to remember the faithfulness of God in the past and they they realized that God is a big God. He's a God of miracles. He can take the bitter experiences of life and he can make them sweet and sometimes what he does is he changes the circumstances and sometimes he changes our hearts in such a way to accept those circumstances so that even if the circumstances don't change our hearts change and we realize that there is blessing in the place of bitterness.

It happens often particularly to those who trust him and cry out to him. One day there was a teenage girl unmarried who bore a child. Bitter experience.

Bitter experience for her, bitter experience for the family. You go through all that is involved in having a child under those circumstances and God enabled her to take care of the child and nurture him and eventually he became part of a family and today he's a spiritual leader. I happen to know who I'm talking about who's who's well known who's preaching the gospel and sharing the good news to multitudes. Isn't that good of God? I mean he can take the bitter experiences of life and from that bitterness he can indeed bring blessing. God does that. You may be here today with a different kind of a bitter experience maybe a marriage gone bad.

Sometimes difficult to see sweetness in that. Though I've noticed that that to those who are faithful and those who cry to God and those who receive it as a test from his hand even the mirror of a bad or even failed marriage is not fatal because God is there taking the bitterness and mixing it with sweetness and blessing. Don't ever estimate God's ability to take the bitter experiences and make them a blessing. God's in the business of doing that all the time. He's taking people like all the rest of us with all of our sins and failures and and he's using us and he's blessing us in spite of ourselves.

That's the grace of God. There's a third experience that the Israelites had and that was of course the lessons the unforgettable lessons. The unforgettable lessons that God intended and I've already hinted at the major lesson. It is God's intention that these experiences not make us bitter but make us better. Through it all God leads us, God directs us, God guides us, and in the end we come out being especially blessed and better. One day a man by the name of Job had a terrible, terrible experience.

Some news came from different parts of the land and all of the news was bad. He lost his cattle, he lost 10 children in a windstorm and his wife, God bless Mrs. Job, let's not be critical of her but she did say curse God and die she said to her husband. Maybe she said that to him because she couldn't endure his bitterness. Just imagine 10 fresh graves on a hillside all in one day and so he's going through this and he's crying up to God and he's wrestling with it but Job didn't turn out bitter. It was a bitter experience but he turned out better and he said the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

You read the rest of the book of Job with all of those speeches that are going on and all of the trouble that Job was experiencing and his friends who didn't encourage him but condemned him but you read the end of the book and Job was blessed. Don't ever accept bitterness just as bitterness. I didn't intend to tell this story so I'm going to do it from memory and see if it comes out right, all right, that's the agreement. If it comes out wrong you'll know I shouldn't have started to tell it but it's coming to mind.

You know the neurons don't fire quite as quickly as they used to. There was a Chinese man who owned a horse and a son and one day the boy was riding the horse and the horse threw the boy off and the boy broke his leg so all of the man's friends gathered together and they said we want to comfort you regarding the evil that has befallen you and the man said how do you know that this is evil and then later on some soldiers came through the countryside and they were looking for young men to go to war and they looked at his son and realized that he wasn't fit for battle and so they allowed him to stay at home. All of the men's friends gathered and they said we want to comfort you regarding the good that has happened to you and he said how do you know that this is good.

Well the story goes on and on like that. The point is this that we as Christians don't evaluate things simply on the basis of the immediate because we believe in a God who works all things together for good to those who love him. Even the bitter experiences can be used for blessing and to make us better.

Job learned that and we have to learn it as well. God always remains sweet. In thy presence there is fullness of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore and Jesus invites us to the living water that sustains us as we go through the difficult experiences of life. Well my friend this is Pastor Luther and the story that I began to tell but obviously didn't remember had to do with the fact that later on it turned out that his son staying home appeared to be good but then it turned out differently and on and on the story goes but let's not miss the point.

We don't evaluate things superficially do we? You may be at your merit today bitter water and right there God can make it sweet he can make it bearable. You know the Apostle Paul had that experience of the thorn in the flesh and God says I'm not taking it away but my grace is sufficient for you and I think that what we learn from the life of Moses is that despite the ups and downs of life God is there with us and that's my encouragement to you today. I've written a book entitled getting closer to God lessons from the life of Moses.

It contains the content of these messages. For a gift of any amount it can be yours and then you can have the book you can underline it you can share it with your friends. We make these resources available for you to help you in your spiritual growth. Here's what you can do go to rtwoffer.com of course rtwoffer is all one word rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now perhaps I said that too quickly hope that you are able to get a pencil because I'm going to give you that contact info again.

You can go to rtwoffer.com or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the book entitled getting closer to God lessons from the life of Moses. Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Many wonder if the sun will ever shine again in their lives. One anonymous listener wrote asking this, at what point does the shame of our past go away so we can be the person that we want to be? How and when can that happen? Do we know when it happens?

Well my friend you've asked a number of questions and I want to respond to them very briefly just to encourage you. Remember this when Jesus died on the cross he shamed shame. As we read in the book of Hebrews he himself bore our shame. You don't have to be a victim of shame. You know shame means that we fear exposure.

Well you are exposed to God and he accepts you and he loves you as his child. So in light of the fact that you are loved by God you don't need to think that somehow you need to wallow in shame. Shame is something that may be brought about because of something we do but in my experience it is often brought about because of what parents do to children.

It's not all our fault. Shame oftentimes is imposed by parents who shame their children or the child is brought up in an environment where there has to be complete silence about addiction and abuse. God wants you to move beyond that. You asked the question do you know when it happens?

Well I think it happens incrementally. I don't think that there is just one big transition from a life of shame to non-shame but there is growth. There is a recognition that shame does not have to debilitate us. Has shame humiliated you? It humiliated Jesus. Has shame been a kind of scorn that you feel people have had toward you? Jesus experienced it.

Come to the cross, deal with your shame but move on beyond it to a life of hope and encouragement and if the shame returns you return to the cross where you affirm that Jesus bore it for you. A word of wise counsel from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Thank you Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. A test of focus and a test of faith. Today Dr. Erwin Lutzer brought part 1 of Winning Over Disappointment, the seventh in a series of 12 messages about the life and times of Moses, a man getting closer to God. Next time more on Bitter Waters Becoming Sweet. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.