Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We're talking about the names of God, and we're talking about today Jehovah Rophe, the healer. Jehovah Rophe, the healer. We're going to talk about what that means. This will certainly not be a fully adequate presentation of what it means that God is the healer, but I hope to give you some stimulation to read and to study and to think this thing through. We'll just see what we can glean from the passage here.

Once through the Red Sea, once all the people of Israel, all the children of Israel, came through the Red Sea, you would have thought that you could have seen the Promised Land. If I had been one of the people that Moses had persuaded to leave my home, even though it wasn't a very nice home and even though I was a slave to the Egyptians, and take a risk, take a chance, take a chance of being killed by the Egyptians who were chasing after me or going to chase after me, take a risk of trusting this man Moses that had disappeared for 40 years and come out of the desert who knows from where, and they weren't quite sure of who he was, and follow this man, take their family and their goods and chattels and their sheep and their cows, then I would have thought once I had got through the Red Sea, which was the big miracle of course, that on the other edge of the Red Sea, the Promised Land would be waiting for me.

That would have been a reasonable assumption. Moses wasn't sure where the Promised Land was. He had no idea. Maybe he was thinking, "Once I get them through the Red Sea, then that's my work done and I can go back to keeping my father-in-law's sheep and see my wife again." I don't know. But I tell you, once they were through the Red Sea, they were not in the Promised Land.

This was a big shock, a huge shock to the people. The redemption experience had been incredible. You remember that Jehovah Jireh had said that He would provide Himself a lamb. He had further painted the picture for the people of Israel by getting them to provide a lamb and sacrifice it and put the blood on the doorposts of their house the night before they left to go into the Promised Land, the night before their redemption, the night before the calling out away from slavery when Jehovah was going to redeem them from the bondage that they'd been living in.

You remember the graphic story that's told in the Bible, how the Angel of Death came and when he saw the blood, he passed over. Again, speaking of the lamb that God would provide. Remember as we talked about Jehovah Jireh, the name Jireh means "it shall be seen" or "the Lord will provide in the place it shall be seen." It was a future thing, and on Mount Moriah where that boy had been offered up, God had provided a substitute for him. On Mount Moriah years hence, God was going to provide the Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world.

Here again, the people were getting pictures, pictures, pictures, helping them to understand types and illustrations. So the Angel of Death had spared those that had put the blood on the doorposts and they had come out, all of them. They'd spoiled the Egyptians. They'd gone into their homes. They'd picked up what they'd wanted. They'd taken clothes and jewelry and gold and precious things. They'd rounded up their sheep and their cattle and their children and they'd followed Moses.

No sooner had they been out of the town that the Egyptian Pharaoh had repented of his folly in letting this nation of slaves go and he'd sent his army after them. You remember they came hurrying through the desert. If you've ever run through sand, you know what that must have been like. They get to the edge of the Red Sea, and God has moved behind them. The cloud that stands between them and the Egyptians all night is dark to the Egyptians and light to the people of God.

Then in the morning, Moses raises his rod and the great sea, the Red Sea, stands up. Huge walls of water on each side, and they go through on dry ground. The Egyptians come after them and their chariot wheels get bogged down. When all the last child, the last hoof, the last animal, the last little lamb has trotted through safely, the waters come back and they're drowned. What a joy. No wonder there are songs. Exodus 15 begins the Song of Moses and the Israelites, and Miriam has a little verse in here at the end of this chapter.

Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: "I'll sing to the Lord, He's highly exalted, the horse and the rider He's hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, He has become my salvation. He is my God, I will praise Him, my father's God, my father's Elohim, and I will exalt Him. Jehovah is a warrior, Jehovah is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army He's hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea. Your right hand, oh Jehovah, was majestic in power, your right hand, oh Jehovah."

Do you see how he begins singing his song to Jehovah? He mentions Elohim, but when he starts and talks about redemption, it's Jehovah that brought them out with power. Look at verse 13: "In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. The nations will hear and tremble." Verse 18: "Jehovah will reign forever and ever." Then Miriam comes in, verse 21, with her little verse: "Sing to the Lord for He's highly exalted, the horse and the rider He's hurled into the sea."

So here you have them, the other side of redemption. There's a little tiny town there. It's nothing much even today. A little bit of water, a little brackish in taste, a little bitter, but they can drink it. It's a place to regroup. The first day is wonderful, as you can imagine. They've got all this stuff to think about that's enough to think about for a whole lifetime. Then the second day, Moses says, "Well, we'd better get on and get settled in the Promised Land, wherever it is, but God's told me to go this way. Ready, steady, go."

Two million people set off for Marah. Now, they didn't know they were going to Marah, but they just set off. Whenever you think of Moses, think about the responsibility that he had. It was quite something. 33 miles on foot with all the cattle and little tiny children, the babies, all the things that they carried with them, pushed carts, donkeys laden, maybe a couple of camels thrown in.

The first day out the other side of redemption was alright. The second day out the other side of redemption, they'd only been able to carry as much water from the wells the other side of the Red Sea that they could get in the pans and the pots and the chattels that were hanging all over the donkeys. I'm sure they'd taken a little extra and they set off. By the third day, the water is gone. But on the horizon, they see those palm trees and they see that wonderful sight of a little mini oasis in the desert.

Can you imagine two million people quickening up? All the ones behind wouldn't be able to see, but all the ones at the front because of the dust they were kicking up behind would be able to see because there was no dust in front of them and they would just take off. I can just see, if Hollywood could only capture this, just this stream, this whole city of people without a house, just with their houses with them, running towards that oasis. Verse 22: "Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter."

Now then, can you imagine their feelings? What would you have felt like? This wasn't finding a Coke. This wasn't having a little drink because you're hot. You cannot live without water. We know nothing of this because we live in the West, but when you live in the East and the whole of your economy and life is based around water, then perhaps it would be a little bit more forceful, the picture here. No wonder Marah means bitterness.

On the other side of redemption, we have a big problem. Immediately, the people grumbled against Moses saying, "What are we to drink?" If you've ever felt inadequate, think about Moses and don't feel so sorry for yourself. If you were Moses and you had two million people saying, "What are we to drink?" what would you have felt like? "What are we to drink?" Then Moses cried out to Jehovah. Better believe he did.

What does the word Jehovah mean? The Lord will provide. "I will be all that you need as the occasion arises." Jehovah showed him a piece of wood. He threw it in the water and the water became sweet. The devil tempts us, God tests us, and there's a difference. As situations in our lives arise, the devil attacks them one way and God uses them another. Both seek to take advantage of them. God seeks to turn them to our advantage and to His. The devil seeks to turn them to his advantage and not to yours and not to God's.

God tested them. He used this situation to see what they were made of. A test is to find out what something's made of. There He tested them. He said, "If you'll listen carefully to the voice of Jehovah your Elohim and do what's right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am Jehovah who heals you." The word here is Jehovah Rophe. "I am Jehovah Rophe." The word Rophe means the healer, the great physician.

It was at this point that God leaned out of heaven and said, "I've told you who I am here and I've told you who I am here, and this situation helped you to know me in this aspect and this situation helped you to know me in this aspect. It's here you're going to learn something about me that you've never learned before." Up to this point, perhaps the people that knew God did not know that God was the source of all health, that He was the great physician. This is the part of our Bible that tells us this. Then they came to Elim, where there were 12 springs and 70 palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

On the other side of redemption, they have a problem. What was it? They began to grumble. That was the problem. Whenever Israel faced a crisis, they reacted in this way. They began to grumble, they began to complain. That was really a symptom of something very serious indeed: a lack of trust in God. Whenever we grumble and whenever we complain, even though we're grumbling about somebody, somebody else, and we don't think we're grumbling against God, the Bible teaches us that we're really grumbling against God.

Look at 16:6. Here they go again. Moses and Aaron said to the Israelites, "In the evening you'll know it was Jehovah who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you'll see the glory of Jehovah because He's heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we that you should grumble against us?" Moses also said, "You'll know that it was Jehovah when He gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning because He's heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? You're not grumbling against us, but against the Lord."

This was quite a challenge to me this week. Every time I was tempted to grumble about somebody, I thought, "Hey, I'm really going to grumble about the Lord in a minute, so I better not." You know, it really stops you doing it. It really does. You say, "No, I'm not. I'm not grumbling against the Lord. I'm grumbling about so-and-so." Well, look at this passage of Scripture. Is it a lack of trust? What are we grumbling about?

Over and over again in 16:2, in 17:3, in Numbers 14:2, in Numbers 16, we find the people grumbling as a reaction, immediately a lack of trust. It's so near the joy they just experienced. It's the other side of redemption, which was one of the problems. They are through the Red Sea, they have been brought out, and they are on the way to blessing in the Promised Land. Yet we find them grumbling. 1 Corinthians 10:10 says this: "Don't grumble as some of the people in the Old Testament did and they were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us."

In that passage of Scripture in Corinthians, Paul is talking about all these events that happened just between the Red Sea and Canaan. Every time something happened, a crisis arose, and they were big crises, no food, no water, you've got to live, you've got to eat, starve to death otherwise, or raiding bands would come so they grumble about the sword and the fighting they had to do, all these things. Every single time they grumbled. We're told not to grumble as some of them did because they were killed by the destroying angel.

I thought about that and thought, "Wow, there wouldn't be any of us left if that's what happened today." If every time one of us grumbled, the destroying angel just zapped us, what would happen? As I looked at it, I found all the things that God had been testing them about, the idolatry, the sexual impurity, the pagan revelry, and grumbling were all in the same sentence. Somehow I don't think grumbling belongs there in my mind. Those are big things: idolatry, pagan revelry, sexual immorality, and grumbling.

But you see, we have such a little scale of our sin that we need to get God's idea, like pride to Him is the worst sin whereas murder probably would be if I took a little pop quiz now, "What do you think's the worst sin?" Maybe we'd say murder. Maybe God would say, "No, anger because it's the root from which the fruit comes from." Grumbling, complaining about what God is doing for you, is the root of a lack of trust, which is the root of independence, which is the essence of sin.

God looks at sin in different ways and grumbling to Him, apparently, is one of the worst. He lets these little tests come into their lives and He lets these little tests come into our lives to see if we'll grumble, to see if we'll trust or if we'll grumble and grouse instead. Grumbling, unthankful, independent spirits, a lack of faith. We have to recognize it, we have to repent of it, and we have to realize that Jehovah Rophe will help us because He is the God who heals.

Yes, He's the great physician. We'll see that. Yes, He's the great psychotherapist. Yes, He's the great psychiatrist. But He's the great provider and He provides healing where it's necessary. This was the biggest thought I had from this whole passage today and it might not be very big to you, but it was very big to me, and it was this: Wouldn't you have thought that the first time God tells us He is the great physician, it would have been in connection with our bodies?

It wasn't. It was in connection with our attitudes and our spirits, our souls, our lack of faith, our relationship with Him, our bitter, disappointed spirits. At the point of our dashed dreams, hampered hopes, desperate desires that led to rebellion and a bad attitude, He came and healed. That's when He said, "I want to tell the world I'm the great physician." It wasn't when they were in the middle of a plague that attacked their bodies, but when they were in a plague that had attacked their trust.

I really struggle with trust. I don't have too much trouble with obedience. I think I've told you this before. That's the sort of personality I am. People like me with my type of personality don't usually have too much trouble with obedience; they have a lot of trouble with trust. People that are very outgoing and full of extrovert-type people have a lot of ease with faith and trust and have trouble with discipline and obedience, generally speaking.

Trust is very hard for me. I always have some reason why I shouldn't or I always wonder if God is going to come through. I just find it very hard. This has been a huge blessing to me as I've looked at this passage of Scripture and realized that God wants to heal my lack of trust. He wants to do a healing in my faith life, in my attitudes, in my feeling that I've lost control and God isn't going to come through for me.

You know there's one thing women don't like doing and that's to lose control. We don't like to lose control of our children, we don't like to lose control of anything, basically speaking. I don't. When we do lose control and God lifts us into a situation like He lifted these people where they were out of control, there was nothing they could do to produce water in a desert, then God wants to see if we'll trust Him.

When we can't do it, makes you feel very helpless and He's testing us to see if we will trust Him. That's what the Scripture says here. I think that this says the most important sickness is the spiritual malady, the sin nature that causes us to turn against God at the slightest cause. Over and over again in the Scriptures, God says, "I will heal their bodies?" No, "their backslidings." "I will heal their backslidings, I will heal their backsliding, I will heal their backsliding." Backsliding is back holding, holding back trust from God.

"When I complained my spirit was overwhelmed," said the psalmist. That's what'll happen: your spirit will be overwhelmed when you complain. These people's lifestyles had been limited, the food and water was in short supply, their needs were not being met, their freedom was curtailed. They questioned their leadership, they were in big trouble, and they grumbled about it all. Problem with grumbling is it's catching.

Poor old Moses and Aaron, I mean you can get a feeling of their helplessness in this situation as they were struggling with this. Over in Numbers, you get a sense of their more than frustration that's a place where Moses just blows his cool altogether and says to God, starts complaining to God, starts grumbling to God. That really struck me that if you complain enough about your leaders, it'll be catching and to your leaders because they'll start complaining to God. It's like measles; grumbling is very, very catching.

We don't want to discourage our leaders like that, but it happens so often. Complaining is contagious. So the other side of redemption, the Promised Land seems to be a long way off. Marah stands in between. What were you promised by the people who lived in Canaan before you ever got to the other side of redemption? Let me take all those words from Scripture and put them in basic words: Before you became a Christian, were you promised anything?

Moses had been saying to the people, "You follow me, let's get out of Egypt, I'll lead you out of bondage and I'll lead you into the Promised Land." Now, some of you were not brought to Christ by another person, one person. Some of you have been brought up in homes where you gradually came to faith and to put your faith in Christ for yourself at some point, and it wasn't quite like that. There wasn't one person that led you to Christ.

Some of you were. But even if you were brought up in Christian homes or Christianized homes or whatever, I'm sure there came a point where you committed yourself to fully becoming the Christian that you had been told you were to become. What were you promised? When you got into this Christian life, were you disappointed? Were you bitterly disappointed?

I can remember grumbling the other side of redemption as a young Christian about these sort of things. The girl that led me to Christ had given me the impression that perhaps I would never sin again once I became a Christian. I'm sure she hadn't meant to give me that impression, but I had perceived that. Surely if I became a Christian, I would never sin again because what was the point of becoming a Christian if God wasn't big enough and powerful enough to help me never to sin again?

It wasn't but two days the other side of redemption into the desert when I was swearing like a trooper again, which was one of my problems, and I became very bitter and I began to grumble and I began to ask God why didn't He do something about this. Why had the promises that had been made to me not come through? I was a little bit like my son Peter who at some point in his career had he wanted drums and I got him a clarinet instead.

That's what mothers do; couldn't face the drums. Well, of course, he was less than delighted with the clarinet when he'd wanted drums and so the inevitable happened, he never touched the thing. But about a year later, still trotting along to band reluctantly with his clarinet instead of his drums, he was whizzing out the door and Pete doesn't bear grudges. I love little boys don't bear grudges. Little girls sometimes do, I find, but little boys they don't, you know, they're really lovely to live with and he'd forgotten the grudge against mother not getting him the drums.

He was running out the door with his clarinet and he says, "Hey mom, I've got band, they're going to try out for a big concert and he said will you pray for me today?" He said, "I want first chair clarinet." Well, that's like Peter too, he always wants first chair clarinet. So I said, "Pete, I can't pray for you." And he said, "Why not?" I said, "You haven't touched the thing for three months." He said, "Mother, I wouldn't need you to pray if I'd practiced."

Yes, maybe some of us pray like Peter and he was a little boy. I mean, what do we need God for? That was my mistake the other side of redemption. I should have been grumbling about myself, not the person that led me to Christ, not my leader because I wasn't trying, I wasn't doing my homework, I wasn't doing my bit and I was expecting God to deliver me. I wasn't being responsible, I wasn't being obedient, and I was expecting God to, I don't know, do it for me.

We mustn't expect God to do for us what He's told us to do for ourselves, which is be obedient and quit swearing. As I became obedient, then I noticed that the power was there to be obedient. That's what He promises to do. But I have to be obedient. I have to shut my mouth. What were you promised the other side of redemption? That your relationships would be better? Did they get worse? Mine did.

I lost all my friends. Had problems with my family as I sought very badly to share my faith with them. I'm sure it was a lot of my fault, but I began to grumble. "God, this isn't the bit like I thought it would be." I was very much in danger, as these people were, of saying it was better in Egypt. It was better in Egypt. It was better before I became a Christian. I had good friends, I had harmony with my family, my relationships were good. Now they stink. Nobody likes me, I've lost my friends, my family think I need a psychiatrist and I've gone off my head.

Lord, it was better than Egypt. Never get sick? Isn't He the great healer? Well, I began a series of spells in hospital as soon as I became a Christian that went on quite a long time and I felt like saying, "God, whose side are you on?" and I grumbled at the person that led me to Christ because it was so unexpected. I really had expected to be healthy, wealthy, wise, and happy, and particularly healthy.

Particularly healthy. Yet God had me at Marah to drink those bitter waters for a reason. There was absolutely no way to the Promised Land except past Marah. God had no other plans. It says God led Moses, Moses led the people to Marah. There's going to be bitter waters, there's going to be the unexpected blow, there's going to be the bitter disappointment, there's going to be the unfulfilled dreams, there's going to be the dashed hopes, there's going to be the unfulfilled expectations.

I talked to a 35-year-old Canadian woman last week up in Canada. She said, "I'm single and I've tried to be obedient and not get involved with people that don't know Christ, a man that doesn't know the Lord. I could have had relationships like that and I'm bitter. I've lived at Marah a long time," she was saying, "because now I'm almost too old to find a suitable Christian man and there don't seem to be suitable Christian men around and I'm blaming my mother because she's the one that kept saying now you mustn't get involved with somebody that isn't a Christian."

She was grumbling, she was complaining about her mother, and I told her she was complaining against the Lord, really. She was living at Marah. It's tough. I think when these things are unexpected, they're usually because we're unprepared for what we find the other side of redemption. The people were just the other side of redemption. What they needed to do was move on. If you have a bitter experience in your young Christian life that really puts you back on your heels, ask yourself, "How far in am I?"

Like the little boy that fell out of bed one night and his mother asked him why and he said, "Well, I think I stayed too close to where I got in," right? I think Christians fall out of bed sometimes because they stayed too close to where they got in. Now, I don't think you can fall out of salvation, I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is you're just the other side, the waters have just closed behind you.

Therefore, you might not handle Marah very well. Yet God allowed them to go to Marah three days after redemption. He allowed the bitter thing to happen immediately. I've observed so often that Christian people say to me, "It was as soon as I came to the Lord that the sky fell in." One girl actually said, "My fiancé dumped me, my father died of cancer, and my best friend moved to the other side of the state a week after I became a Christian."

It was better in Egypt, etc., etc. But God wants to bring us to Marah because He has something to show us there. What does He have to show us? The healing tree of God. The other side of redemption, God will reveal Himself as Jehovah Rophe, the God who heals. Let's just take a quick rundown on the whole of the concept of God as a healing God.

First of all, God can keep us healthy. He says to them, "If you obey me and if you live an obedient lifestyle, which remember involved some dietary laws, what they should eat and what they shouldn't eat, how they should live and how they shouldn't live, just clean laws, food laws." God wrote into the treaties He was going to give these people as they began to be a nation of people.

So He was teaching them health out there in the desert. "If you will keep my commandments and my laws and my decrees," and some of those things were not just the moral obediences, although those things would keep them healthy too, to stay sexually pure within their families as God had ordained it to be was going to keep them healthy and save them from sexually transmitted diseases too.

The laws were designed for their health, for their moral health yes, but for their physical health as well. It's very interesting that people lived good long lives in Israel, basically because of many of these laws. Even before Moses, before the law was given, the patriarchs lived a good long time. You have to feel it was because God blessed them and gave them some of this information ahead of the law that was written down.

God did something for His people in helping them with these things because He is the God of wholeness and health and cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness in a sense, in all senses. God can keep us healthy and He said, "I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians." Their lifestyle lent themselves to these sort of things. "And if you will obey me and keep my laws, then you will find you will have a long life. You will find you will be healthy. I am the source of the information that you need."

"I will give men the information you need to keep your health." That's why God has doctors and surgeons and hospitals. It's His idea that He will lend men His ideas to keep us healthy. God is the source of all this sort of information. In the days of Genesis, they didn't have the hospitals and they didn't have the intensive care units, but they sure had some basic healing remedies and ideas and laws and rules that the whole of our medical knowledge and structure is built on today because God is the source of this sort of information.

He can keep us healthy in body, in soul, and spirit. He can make us healthy once we fall sick because we are part of a sin-sick place. We live because of sin in the midst of sickness and we're going to be part of that. God sends His rain on the just and the unjust. But God can make us healthy in body, in soul, and spirit. He can do that slowly, what we call normally or through medical means, or He can do it instantly if He wishes.

He can raise the dead. He can do anything. He can reverse a cancer. He can do any of these things. Now, whether He will is another question. But we can honestly say this: that God can and will heal and keep our spirit healthy so we can cope with the bodily discomfort and distress if He doesn't heal the body. Do remember, folks, that everybody that Jesus healed died.

God might bless us with a healing instantly or over a period of time through medical, whatever. Every healing is a healing. Every healing of a common cold is a healing. You and I have experienced healing all our life; we just don't call it that. He keeps us healthy, that's a miracle. Anybody that knows anything about medicine knows what a miracle it is just to be healthy for one day.

He keeps the disintegration at bay, He keeps the germs, He keeps our body functioning, the miracle organism that it is. So He keeps us healthy. If we fall sick, He can make us healthy. If He says no to the body, He can keep our spirit healthy while the body disintegrates. Paul says over and over again, "Our outward body perishes, but our inward man is renewed day by day." Paul was a man who was used to heal miraculously other people and yet he himself had a thorn in the flesh that was never healed.

Eventually, he disintegrated because that's the way it is until we get our new bodies in heaven. Spurgeon said, "It's impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord. Illness to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honor, death is his gain." Quite a thought.

God is the source of all our health. You know in the Old Testament there were two main ideas. The Bible presented two basic views concerning sickness and healing. One was that Jehovah alone was considered the source of healing and of disease, and that obedience meant you stayed healthy and that disobedience meant you got sick. The second view was that suffering is the consequence of the corrupt nature of man because of original sin.

Through Adam's fall, man became naturally susceptible to disease. Romans 5:12-21. It's this second view that Jesus in the New Testament bases His teaching on. Sin is not always punishment for man's sins, though it possibly can be. Read Romans 1: receiving in their own body the things that they were into. But it isn't always so. When Jesus saw a blind man, his disciples asked Him, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" Jesus said, "Neither of them. It's nothing to do with sin, his sin or his parents."

God works through sickness to discipline and chasten His children. You need to read Hebrews 12:6, lots of verses that talk about this. Jesus is Jehovah the healing one. After they'd been to Marah and had their bitter experience and God had healed their bitter spirits by throwing in the wood, which represents, if you like, or can represent the cross. There is healing in redemption, there is healing in the cross. With His stripes we are healed, but that definitely speaks of the greater healing of the soul, included in which are healings on the way home in measure.

Not every hurt healed bodily, but certainly healings of the spirit and healings of the soul and healings of the attitude and healings of our lack of faith and our trust and healings morally. Those are always included in redemption. At some point, God will allow the body, which is the least part of us, the least important part of us—important yes, but the least important part of us—to suffer something that is not healed.

But then it is. He leans out of heaven and says, "But I am the Lord that helps you to cope spiritually, emotionally, psychologically with what is happening as your body is disintegrating." That to me is a huge help and brings me to the sweet waters of Elim where I can live, where there were 12 springs and 70 palm trees. I don't need to live at Marah. I can move on to Elim and be refreshed and know what it is to have that living water, that oasis experience of Elim in my life.

Paul says, "This old tent is being dismantled." I love the picture. Have you lost a few tent pegs? I've lost a few tent pegs literally. My spine has lost a few pegs and it's not kept very firm anymore. My tent is being dismantled like your tent is being dismantled. Some of them are being dismantled a little bit quicker than others. He says, "I can't wait for God to get that new tent He's getting ready for me up in heaven so I can shift camp. I can move out of this tent into that tent."

God has a heavenly tent He's getting ready for me, a heavenly body, and all the tent pegs will be there. Everything will be in place and it will never die and it will never disintegrate. That's for heaven and in that sense, there is healing in redemption, final healing for our bodies. But it's not going to happen here. That's got to wait. But nothing else need wait. If you are suffering a bitter spirit, if you are angry, if you are hurt, if you are disappointed, if you are living at Marah drinking the bitter waters, then why don't you apply as Moses did the piece of wood to the waters and sweeten the bitterness?

Why don't you apply the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ to that bitterness? He will take the bitter waters and make them sweet. If you really don't know what I'm talking about or how it works, that's what we're here for. Ask questions, seek help, and God will prove Himself Jehovah Rophe to all of us. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that the other side of redemption, on the way to the Promised Land, we thank you, although it's hard to do so, that there will be bitter waters to drink. Some of us are living right there by the bitter waters of Marah. We've had disappointments and we're depressed, and the unexpected thing has happened and we were unprepared for it. We stayed too near where we got in.

We thank you, dear Lord, for the healing tree of God. We thank you that you are the source of health, all health. We come to you and we ask you whether we are sick in body or soul or spirit that you would heal us. We know that you will hear us in relation to our souls. We would like to commit ourselves to the secret counsel of God where our bodies are concerned and ask you to heal us and ask that we may be willing to receive whatever answer you give us. May we be drinking the sweet waters of Elim today. Move us on, Lord, towards the Promised Land. We ask it for Christ's sake, amen.