Title: Grace of Marah (Ex 15:22-27)
Contents Today's text is from Exodus 15:22-27, and I would like to share the message with the title of Marah's grace.
The Israelites, who were enslaved in Egypt, succeeded in escaping from Egypt through Moses through God's unconditional grace and His power. They will cross the Red Sea and experience God's great work of salvation. However, in the text, after crossing the Red Sea, they walked for three days, but they did not find water, so they forget the thrill of salvation.
When they reached Marah, they found water and ran with joy, but the water was bitter and undrinkable, and their suffering was unspeakable.
Everyone! Why did God bring them to Marah in the first place? Here is the deep truth. The movement of the people of Israel here today is the movement, pain, and test of me and you today. A lot of people say this. i wish i was saved Now, all you have to do is receive the blessing. Many people crossed the Red Sea by God's grace, but they did not want to talk about God's hidden providence that they reached Mara before the excitement disappeared. The devil is hiding it. tell me not to say
We are talking about a heaven without refinement, a heaven without certainty, and a heaven without bitter water. Therefore, when difficult suffering comes, they lose the sense of salvation. We would like to share grace while pondering what God is saying through Mara, the inevitable process that they must go through until they reach Elim, where there are twelve springs of water and seventy palms.
First, God made the Israelites understand Marah. The Mara they met is not a Mara that happened by chance, but an inevitable process that God gave the Israelites who escaped from Egypt. The text describes their suffering as follows. They walked for three days, but found no water. The fact that they did not find water for three days in the desert indicates that they were on the verge of death. Did they come out with drinks or fruit like they do now? As they sang salvation songs and praised God while crossing the Red Sea, they went to a place where there was no water for three days, and they remembered the abundant water and food in Egypt. Rather than freedom of spirit, they reached their physical limit and could not overcome the wall of reality even with the great work of God who crossed the Red Sea. However, God was making them realize that they cannot live without drinking water that silently changed their thoughts and lifestyles in Egypt.
When they came to Marah, they found water, but it was bitter. Why did God lead these people to a place where there was bitter water? After they escaped from Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, they traveled three days and confessed about the water they found just before they died. He called that pain Mara.￢(Ex 15:23) Believers in Jesus, being baptized, and going to heaven, the saints in this wilderness must experience the change of taste in their new life. What used to be sweet should now feel bitter.
If our lives still feel sweet to the worldly things and envy the things of the world, we will still be those who have not changed as true saints. The world used to be so good, but now heaven is good and we love heaven, so being here on this earth was thought to be the best, but there must be a change in taste so that the Lord can become the best. Mara ￢ That place can be a church. came to Mara. This is our field where we have been led to the church. Here we should be able to confess that the world is bitter.
Second, God renews his loved ones through Mara. Marah was a process that the Israelites had to go through inevitably in God's providence.
Here, God made them realize that their way of living is different so that they can experience a taste different from the world. We had to live with manna that came down from heaven, we had to drink the living water that God gave us, and we had to wear clothes that the Lord gave us.
This Mara was obviously bitter, but through this bitter water God renewed them. For them, it is a place of frustration and severe pain in the flesh, but in order to endure the next 40 years of life in the wilderness as God's people, it is a place of grace and renewal that God has given to those who love him. Here they also resent. It makes you feel the limits of your body by facing a gruesome death. It is here that they realize that they are nothing and incompetent beings.
In the book of Ruth, a woman named Naomi left Bethlehem and went down to Moab, but lost her husband and two sons and returned to her hometown. When the people of Bethlehem asked, “Who is this or not Naomi?” Naomi said:
Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara. Just as he found his hometown again through Mara's suffering and became the father of Jesus Christ, he must understand suffering and suffering as a gift of grace from God to those he loves and must overcome it through the Word.
Through the third cross, this Mara is changed. When the resentment and frustration of the Israelites reached their peak, Moses called out to God. Then God directed a tree, and he threw it into the water, and the water was sweetened. What kind of tree is this tree Many biblical scholars say that this tree means the cross. I threw it into the water and it became sweet. That's right. Those who come under this cross even in the place of suffering, suffering, and grueling death will be in that terrible situation. Remember a tree by the bitter waters.
The Lord stands closer and closer to our bitter suffering. The Lord is standing next to Peter, who has been fishing all night but couldn't catch, next to Jacob, who gives everything to the ferry on the Jabbok River and calls out to him alone, next to you who are completely defeated and frustrated. Cast this cross as soon as Mara comes to my troubled heart, to my business, to my family, to my children, and to my health. That will make it sweet. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest in the bosom of the Lord. May you come to Elim, where there are twelve springs of water and seventy palms.
Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD directed a tree, and he threw it into the water, and it was sweetened. This is the word of the living God. -Amen-