"What Shall We Drink?"

Well this morning we will complete chapter 15 as we continue on in this exodus out of Egypt and of course as we come to the completion of chapter 15 and Chapter 16 and chapter 17.

We're going to see this repetitive theme of Israel grumbling, so we're going from praise to complaint, from worship to murmur, and this will carry us through the next several chapters, though I won't hit you with three or four sermons on complaining or murmuring.

We'll try to find some other things to focus on and learn from as well. But that of course is the narrative refrain.

God has delivered his people in a miraculous way and though praise comes as a response, that praise is short -lived.

It quickly turns to murmuring in the wilderness. We considered the praise of God last week.

We considered the Song of Moses. We talked about praise being a response first and foremost to who

God is and then a reflection upon what God has done and a sort of remembrance and recalling of what

God has promised that he will do. So praise is who God is, what he's done, and what he will do.

Now this grumbling that replaces praise is going to be found not only in Exodus 15 through 17, but in the same retelling of the narrative in Numbers 14, 16, and 17.

I'm not going to spend too much time with the parallel in Numbers, but Numbers goes into a little more detail on this event.

It's striking that the word for complaining, often translated as murmuring or grumbling, is only found, with the exception of two other places, it's only found here in Exodus 15 through 17 or in the counterpart in Numbers.

So this is a very specific moment of grumbling, a very specific display of Israel's response to God's deliverance, and it's very instructive to us as we'll have opportunity to see in a few weeks from 1st

Corinthians 10. These things happen to them as an example for us upon whom the end of the ages has come.

Israel's grumbling is true to our own experience. Now is the winter of their discontent, for some of my

Bard fans. As they're being led through the wilderness, Israel needs to learn what it means to be the people of God.

As we walk through the wilderness of this fallen world, we, following and learning from their example, and also not following their example in many respects, also need to learn what it means for us to be the people of God, a people who know

Him and trust Him, are contented in Him as they follow in faith the way

He set before them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, We too pass through the Red Sea, through the desert, across the

Jordan, into the promised land. With Israel we fall into doubt and unbelief, and through chastisement and repentance, we experience once more

God's help and His faithfulness. All of this is not mere reverie, but holy, godly reality.

We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on the earth.

That's what we're looking at in Exodus 15. This morning, we focus primarily on God as provider.

God as provider. We've seen different ways that God is displaying Himself in Exodus. Remember, we saw the presence of God as a leading presence, and then we considered

God's presence as a protecting presence, and now we consider God's presence as provider,

His providing presence. And that brings us, first of all, to the problem. The problem that must be met with provision.

The problem in verses 22 through 24. We read there,

Exodus 15, beginning in verse 22. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea.

Then they went out in the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.

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

Marah. It means bitter in Hebrew. And the people complained against Moses, saying,

What shall we drink? God's people have been delivered through the

Red Sea, the walls of water crashing in upon their pursuing enemy, and you might have thought after that great triumph, now that they'd be straight toward the promised land, straight on the path to Canaan.

And that is not the case at all. Rarely do we go from grace to glory. Rarely do we go from triumph on to greater triumph, into promised rest.

But rather we go from grace through trial to glory, from triumph through tribulation to rest.

In God's wisdom, the promised land can only be reached through the testing of the wilderness. And this is emblematic of how he leads his people through the course of their lives.

The promised land is only reached through the tribulation that is to come. We who follow after Christ must experience trouble in this life.

We must faithfully, like the Israelites of forehand, we must walk through trials in the deserts of life.

It's one thing to praise the songs of deliverance. It's another thing to live out the faith that's contained in those songs.

And so the testing, the wilderness, gives us the opportunity to put into practice the very content of our praise.

If we praise that God is mighty to save, we prove it by enduring in faith in the time of tribulation.

And that's what Israel is called to do here. Take the content of their praise and put it into practice in the testing of the desert.

And so it is for the Christian. We take the content of our worship, the content of our confession, and we put it into practice against all the troubles we face in our lives.

We face them in faith. According to tradition, they've come to a desert plain now called

El -Ati by the Arabs, a long stretch of sand dunes and rocky hilltops that rolls out toward the coast.

They've traveled, we read, for three days in the wilderness without water. The canteens are now pouring out sand like, isn't that a scene from Indiana Jones where they're pouring out sand from the canteens?

The wine skins have dried out and shriveled up. Three days in the wilderness.

Do you remember that phrase, three days in the wilderness? When Moses first went to Pharaoh and he said, let my people go a three days journey into the wilderness.

Why? So that they might worship God. Let them go three days into the wilderness that they might worship.

Well, here we are three days in the wilderness and is there worship? No, there's complaining and murmuring.

So we have the three days and we have the wilderness, but we don't have the worship. The worship was three days ago at the very beginning.

It hasn't even lasted 72 hours. The verb complain here, it's a very strong term.

The verbal root loon is much stronger than simply to grumble, which is how the the Septuagint translates it.

You're familiar, some of you children are learning about onomatopoeia, right, words that sound like what they're doing.

They sound like their action or activity. So we have that in murmur. Murmur is murmur, murmur, murmur.

You're murmuring in complaining. The Greeks, their form of murmur was gungudzo, sort of like gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung.

And here that the Hebrew isn't onomatopoeia, but it's very, very strong.

It's not mere complaining. It's not what would have happened on the first day when all the children were saying, mom, dad,

I'm really thirsty. I need some water. And then three days in now, the parents are the ones saying, we're really thirsty,

Moses. We need some water. This is not a mere muttering. This is actually a formal protest.

It's a very strong term. It would be in parliamentary terms, as one commentator said, a vote of no confidence.

No, we reject you. You are failing us. So this is not muttering out the side of the mouth.

This is a formal, abject complaint against Moses, and therefore, as we'll see in chapter 16, against God himself.

The one thing they desperately seek is the one thing they cannot find. I don't know how long it takes for the phenomenon of mirage to set in, but I wonder if any of the

Israelites were chasing after mirages in the desert. That little blur that makes it seem to the human eye like there might just be a little blip of water on the horizon.

And here they are, three days in a row, chasing after water that they cannot find.

And when they do finally come across water, how their hearts must have leapt for joy. They finally come to water, and the first Israelite to rush there and drop to his knees and throw his head right into it immediately came up with a green face and disgust in his mouth as he spit out the very thing he had so desperately sought after.

The waters are bitter. The waters are putrid. And so they call this water

Marah. The place is called Marah. And now they're back to square one. What shall we drink?

We can't drink this, and we've been three days without water. We need to drink something. The not enough is very real.

It's very biting. What seemed to be promising has proven to be illusory. And by the way, three days in the wilderness, three days in the desert heat, is pretty much pressing the human limit of endurance without water.

Human beings can endure without food for an amazing length of time, but not without water.

Water is that necessity so vital to life, and yet God is in control.

Moses is leading them insofar as he's following God. In the

Hebrew, we have a hyphil, which is a causative stem, and so Moses is causing the people, or Moses is caused to lead the people, and so we have

God implicitly leading the people to bitter waters. Please note that.

God led the people through the Red Sea. God led the people to deliverance, and then he leads the people to bitter waters.

God leads them to the blessedness of triumph, and God leads them to the misery of deprivation.

God is leading in both cases according to his wisdom, his purpose, which again is to build in them a holy dependence, and a trust upon him, and a display of his glorious grace, and his glory in providing for them in a miraculous supernatural way.

As is often the case, we don't trust God as we should until we see our utter weakness relying upon him.

So the Israelites are brought to this place where they know their own weakness, they see their inability, and now they're utterly made dependent upon God to act, and God is often maneuvering his people to be in this very situation, utterly helpless of their own avail, utterly dependent upon God to act for them.

God loves to put his people at the bitter waters for this very reason, and with that we see the provision.

Verses 25 through 27. The people cry out to Moses, and what does Moses do?

Does he shout back at them? Does he cry out against them? Does he cry with them? No, he cries out to the

Lord. He prays to the Lord. We read, the Lord showed him a tree, and when he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.

And there God 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 you 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've brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.

It's interesting to see this contrast between Israel and Egypt. Egypt, of course, as we've said, is the watery abode, the land of watery death, as it were.

It's entered through the death of the Nile, and it's brought out through the death of the Red Sea. It's the watery grave, if we could put it that way.

And the Egyptian army perishes for an abundance of water, right? Too much water.

All that water crashing in upon them and crushing, but here the Israelites might perish for a complete lack of water.

So we have this sharp contrast. Notice that Moses doesn't join the murmurers, but he joins the prayerful.

Very instructive. When the Lord leads you, brother or sister, to bitter waters in your life, will you join the murmurers, or will you join the prayerful?

Moses is an example to us in this, that he doesn't murmur. He's just as thirsty as they are.

But he doesn't murmur. He mediates. He cries out to the Lord on behalf of the people.

This is our proper response when God leads us to trial or tribulation. Others might complain, but we are called to pray.

To pray with faith, to pray with trust, to pray with peace and contentment. There are many

Maras in our life, many places of bitterness in our life, and the danger of these bitter waters is that we become bitter because we experience them.

And so we're brought to face a bitter trial, and through that trial we become bitter. Bitter to God, bitter to others in our lives.

That's almost always the case when we don't meet trial with prayer. When we don't meet our thirst with a

Godward dependence, but rather we meet bitterness with bitterness. We become hardened and indifferent and stubborn, and we become even bitter against God because the trial has been so bitter to us.

But in prayer, the opposite takes place. In prayer, that bitterness is made sweet because in prayer we're recalling and we're confessing that God is the one who's in control.

That's the first thing you do when you pray. You confess that God is in control. You're the one who's brought me here,

Lord. You're the one that has ordained these waters to be this bitter for me to be this thirsty and to go this long without finding nourishment.

You are in control. That's the first thing that prayer does, is it situates us rightly before God.

It orients us to His sovereign control, His wise providence. And then in prayer, not only do we confess that God is sovereign, but we recall

His good purposes. When's the last time, Lord, you used a surprising, maybe discouraging twist of providence to actually bring blessing in due time?

When's the last time, Lord, you brought me to face a bitter trial so that I would not stray from you, but that I would depend upon you and draw near to you?

So in prayer, we recall the goodness and faithfulness of God, that He's testing and proving our growth in His grace.

And so we confess, Lord, give me faith to stand the trial.

Let me see. It's your hand that has made the waters bitter. It'll be your hand that makes the water sweet.

And so our response, brothers and sisters, it must be prayer. It must be prayer. Only prayer can make the most difficult circumstance in your life a blessing.

Only prayer can make even the prospect of death a means by which life comes to you abundantly.

Prayer is the response to the bitter waters of life. And when

Moses prayed, the Lord answered. The Lord, we read, showed him a tree. That verb show is really important.

The verbal route there is to teach or to instruct. It's related to Torah, the law.

That's very important as we approach Exodus 19 and 20. The instruction, the law.

And so here we have the Lord instructing by showing Moses a tree. And Umberto Casuto, in his excellent commentary on Exodus, he says, this term weighs significantly as an emblem of Israel's need to depend upon divine instruction.

Now that they have been freed from Egypt. So even here, even before we reach the foot of Sinai, God is showing his people, and especially showing

Moses, the need for divine instruction. You must receive from me my will, my commandments, my statutes, if you would live and if you would flourish.

And so we have that embedded within the Lord showing Moses. And this is setting up a pattern.

The Lord must always reveal, must always show, must always instruct Moses and through Moses, his people.

The Lord shows him something specific, a tree. Ancient commentators, and I'm partial to their interest in this, ancient commentators can't help but see the cross enigmatically in this tree.

The cross that makes the bitter water sweet. The cross that makes something that was fatal, something toxic into something nourishing and life -giving.

And again, I'm partial. I think this means is ordained by God to such an effect. Without being too elaborate,

I think there's something there. The Lord showed him a tree. We see again the significance of the

Lord. It's almost like the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. And the

Lord is providing. We're seeing this greater picture of the Lord providing. And what does he provide?

He provides a tree that turns the fatal, toxic, putrid water into something sweet and refreshing and life -giving.

Certainly, ultimately speaking, there is a tree that has that effect, and it is the tree upon which our

Savior was crucified. And so, again, I'm partial to that interpretation. But I want to underscore the need to diligently heed the voice of the

Lord, right? These waters remain toxic if Moses disobeys. He must follow not only

God's instruction, but the means that God ordains. And so here, it's interesting that the whole

English translation is framed as though Israel as a plurality is being addressed.

Right there, he made a statute in an ordinance for them. There, he tested them. But actually, in the

Hebrew, that's a singular pronoun. It could be, and I think the English translators are saying,

Israel is being reckoned as a, like unto a man, a corporate entity. And so it's singular.

And that very well could be. Or it could be that this, specifically here in chapter 15, is a reference to Moses.

Just as God said this of Abraham, that he must obey diligently and keep all of the statutes and ordinance that he had commanded him, that it would go well with his posterity.

There, he made a statute and an ordinance for him. There, he tested him 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've brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.

Now, in chapter 16, the plural is used, and definitely Israel is in view. And almost for the sake of that contrast, perhaps

Moses is the one being addressed here specifically, as representative of Israel.

But surely here, Moses is needing, first and foremost, to learn how to follow and obey every jot and tittle that comes from the mouth of God.

If he is going to lead the people, if he will be the mediator between God and man, in this instance, he must diligently heed the voice of the

Lord, his God. God explicitly states that obedience to his commands brings two things held together, preventative blessing and restorative healing.

Preventative blessing and restorative healing. If you heed my voice, if you do what is right in my sight, if you give ear to my commandments, if you keep all of my statutes, first, preventative blessing.

I will not put the diseases on you, which I put on the Egyptians. You will be blessed in such a way that I prevent diseases.

I prevent plague. So it's a preventative blessing, but also a restorative healing. I am the

Lord who heals you. Well, you can't be healed of something you don't have. Right.

So either the diseases and plagues are being prevented or on the event of disobedience through repentance, the

Lord is the healer, the physician. So either preventative blessing or restorative healing upon repentance and faith in him.

This is what God ordains to test his people. So he holds out a promise within the condition.

This is who I will be to you. If you will be this way to me, listen to my voice, do what is right, give ear to my word, keep what

I command in this way, I will give you every blessing that will prevent you from any plague or disease and I will restore you insofar as you lapse or fall ill.

This is how God will test his people. We'll continue to test them as we'll see next week in Chapter 16 and in Chapter 17 at Meribah and in Chapter 20 at Sinai and in Numbers 11 and 13 at Taborah, elsewhere, as he says in Deuteronomy 8 -2,

God is testing them in order to know what is in their hearts, not that he's aloof, the omniscient

God knows all things, but in such a way to make it plain, even unto themselves, what is in their hearts.

Here, the reference to commandments and statutes is what we would call, literally, proleptic, it's prolepsis, in other words, it's anticipating something yet to come, and here, commandments and statutes is anticipating

Mount Sinai, so here, even before we get to Sinai, God is very concerned about the obedience of his people, he's very concerned that they are bound by his commandments, and that they walk according to them, and this is proleptic of what

God will actually do by way of covenant at Mount Sinai. So you shall serve the

Lord your God, and he shall bless your bread and your water, and take away sickness from the midst of you, that's

Exodus 23 -25. Here we have the provision of bread and water combined with sickness and disease, so perhaps what

God is saying here in chapter 15 is that in this provision of good water, that blessed water,

God has actually turned back the plague, or turned back diseases that would have come if they were forced to drink the bitter waters, and God is essentially saying, this is how

I will prevent diseases and plagues from coming upon you. I will bless your bread and your water, so long as you obey my voice.

So you shall serve the Lord your God, he will bless your bread and your water.

The bitter waters of Merah are a sharp contrast to the first plague. Here, the sweet water of the

Nile was made putrid, right? All the fish dead, all that corruption and decay, and then all the things that grew out of that mass of rotted flesh in the

Nile, what had been sweet and glorious and strong waters of the ancient world became something putrid.

But now, here at Merah, it's the opposite. What was putrid and undrinkable has become sweet and refreshing, and this is

God again showing his power to both bring and remove plague. He does to Israel the opposite of what he did to Egypt, and he promises to do that.

He promises to do that if they obey. Verse 27, Then they came to Elam, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees.

I don't know what Israelite was assigned to count the palm trees, but Moses records these details because they carry some importance.

We read they camped there by the waters. Now, before we get to the numbers, it's according to tradition to where Merah, we don't know exactly where Merah is, there's a few likely candidates, but according to the traditional site,

Elam is about seven miles south. That's not that far away, relatively speaking.

In the ancient world, even in difficult terrain like rocky hills and sand dunes with little ones and cattle, in the ancient world, seven miles wasn't that long of a walk.

We consider there's historians who recount the typical lengths that merchants would travel, and seven miles is like an afternoon breeze.

That's nothing for an ancient. Seven miles away is incredibly close, and isn't it amazing that utter deprivation and despair was only seven miles away from oasis and provision?

Isn't that amazing? That trial was almost shoulder to shoulder with blessing.

Isn't that amazing that God led them three days in what appeared to be a no man's land where they would perish, and yet right out of the corner of their eye, just beyond that last hilltop, was a paradise beyond their imagination?

And here we can understand something of how God leads. He leads from deprivation to oasis, from bitterness to sweetness, and often the two are not far removed from one another.

And I say that as an encouragement to you, if you're a believer and you're at Merah this morning, and you're at the bitter waters and you think, here

I am in a thousand square miles of Serengeti and I'm going to die, and I'm saying to you, just beyond the hilltop, but seven miles away, is the

Lord's blessing and refreshment. So persevere in your faith. In the rainy season, if this is the site we think it is, there's a torrent of water that descends from the

Red Sea, and throughout the dry season it sustains life. And so the grass there is thick and high, and there's tamarisk trees and acacia trees and palm trees throughout this whole region.

A well -watered valley, like unto Genesis 13. The details, of course, are significant.

First of all, numerically, the number 12 is a perfect number in Hebrew. It's a number of completion, as is the number 70.

It's a number that is whole, that is complete, that is perfect. So certainly the shade, the pasture, the fresh water given in these numbers of 12 and 70 are meant to show the complete provision of God, the perfect provision of God.

But it's even more specific than that. In Exodus chapter 1, when

Israel entered into Egypt, Israel being Jacob and his sons, there were 12 tribes that entered into Egypt, and there were 70 descendants in all.

That's Exodus 1 .5. This was the name of the children of Israel who came to Egypt.

All who were descendants of Jacob were 70 persons. So you have 12 tribes comprised of 70 people as the

Israel of God, and they're brought into Egypt. And here, that same 12 and 70, now 12 springs of water for each tribe, 70 palm springs for each head, as it were.

And so you have the perfect provision of God for Israel. Not one spring too short, not one palm tree too short.

Everything that Israel needs is provided for here at Elam. God is demonstrating that by faith they could understand the finely tuned provision of God.

Down to the tribe, down to the allotment. Finely tuned provision of God.

And if by faith they could see at Elam this was ordained by God, designed by God, look, the exact number of our need has been met.

If it was finely tuned there at Elam, was God's trial not finely tuned at Merah? It's not like His trials are random and chaotic and out of His control, but then

His blessings are finely tuned and wisely ordained. No. Even His trials, even the bitter waters, are proportioned according to His perfect wisdom, so that we do not face what we cannot bear up by His grace, which is all sufficient for us in a time of trial.

The saddest thing about this seven mile gap is the people had already erupted in complaint against God.

When if they had just been patient, they would have soon enough found respite and refreshment.

That is, I think, the tragedy of always our murmuring. If I had just been patient,

God would have met my need. But now I have stained His worship with my complaints and my bitterness, when

I should have been contented and patient and trusting upon Him. What a different biography we would read of George Mueller if he was a murmurer and a complainer.

Out of milk again? I can't believe it. Well, we're ruined. All right, kids, you're going to have to go beg on the streets.

I just don't think it's going to work this time. I don't know why God would allow this to happen. We would read a very different biography of George Mueller if he was a murmurer instead of a man of prayer, instead of a patient man that trusted in God and trusted in His provision.

The point of this unfolding journey is that the people of God needed to learn patience. The amazing thing within this story is that God was incredibly patient to them.

Both here and in the next chapter and, frankly, all the way up to Sinai, God does not respond to their complaints with punishment or chastisement.

Like a father that sees his young toddler whining and losing control but recognizes the hardship and recognizes how young they are, there's patience for a time, but that patience has limits.

There's times that even the toddler Israel must be chastised under the heavy hand of God. And while we see the tenderness of God and the patience of God, the long -suffering of God here, the time comes in the corporate life of Israel where murmuring and complaint is met with judgment.

And let me say this as a sober warning to us as believers here this morning. It's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.

We've all directly and continue to directly experience His patience, His forbearance,

His long -suffering toward our murmuring and our disobedience. But in every one of our lives, the time will come where instead of patience, we are met with chastisement.

And woe be upon us if we haven't let the goodness and the patience of God lead us to contentment.

If we've rather taken advantage of that and only whined and complained more, only murmured and aggravated one another more.

Woe be upon us when that chastisement comes. What shall we drink?

That's the main question here. What shall we drink? And that's what I want to drive home application with this morning.

What shall we drink? The utmost concern for the Israelites was not how to please

God, their great Deliverer and Savior, but what are we going to drink? They're serving the

God of their belly in chapter 15 and 16 rather than the God of their salvation. What am

I going to eat? What am I going to drink? I'm tired of manna. I want meat. Weren't the leeks and the cucumbers better?

They're serving the God of their stomach, the God of their immediate need, the God of their deprivation and therefore the desire and idolatrous desire of their heart rather than serving the

God who actually saved them and is leading them and is providing for them patiently. According to Jesus in Matthew 6, such questions reveal an anxious heart.

Don't say, what am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? What shall I drink? Don't say that.

God is testing His people. As we said, God is revealing the thoughts and intents of their hearts, but He's also showing

Israel that He can be trusted as their provider. So He doesn't chastise them,

He just provides for them. And in chapter 16, He won't chastise them, He'll just provide for them. And so often in your life,

He has not chastised you, He's just provided for you. And He's met your complaints with provision.

So we're meant to learn from this example. John Urquhart says, when God's goodness has rebuked our unbelief,

He means for us to listen to the assurance of His love so that our walk will be renewed. That's what

God is seeking to do with Israel, if Israel will have it. He's seeking to assure them of His love.

I didn't bring you out of Egypt and out of death and bondage to let you die of thirst.

I didn't save you from the clutch of Pharaoh, that serpentine tyrant who held sway over your soul, just to let you die along the way.

You can trust Me. I will provide for you. I know all that is necessary for you to make it to the

Promised Land. And in this wilderness, I am preparing you and enabling you to better receive that inheritance yet to come.

You're not strong enough. You're not wise enough. You're not careful enough. You're not thoughtful enough to receive it now.

You need to be tested. You need to be proved. You need to be grown. You need to be matured. And that's what the wilderness is ordained to accomplish, to make you better fit to receive the promised inheritance.

In this way, God is God who provides. So three points on that.

God who provides. First and most obvious, God provides for our continual physical needs.

God provides for our continual physical needs. He upholds us. He upholds every molecule of our existence.

In Him we move and have our being. The God who upholds us is the

God who provides for us. He provides for a sparrow. How many of you just this morning, I don't know if there's too many songbirds left, but I heard a little bit of tweeting, how many of you readily walk past a bird in a tree without any thought that God is actively providing the meal plan for that bird for the rest of the day?

We're so focused on what we have to do and what we're going to do, we don't even think that every creature you look around is providentially provided for by the hand of God.

And you are of much more worth than a sparrow. God provides for our continual physical needs.

What shall we drink? The bitter life of Egypt for the Israelites gives way to a whole new existence.

They're now free and their immediate concern is, my master used to at least give me water and now

I don't have water. What am I going to drink? They need to learn that their freedom is partly flowing out of a new relationship to a new master, a new provider.

No longer are they servants to the taskmasters in Egypt, but now they're servants of Yahweh, the provider and sustainer of the heavens and the earth.

This new existence comes with great need and God is aware of all those needs. Water is basic to life and as we said,

Egypt contained water in spades. But now here is Israel in the desert and they're lacking it and they feel the pinch of their need and they're convinced that they're going to die.

Empires were built out of water. I was reading just a chapter out of a book by Stephen Mithen called

Thirst, Water and Power in the Ancient World, and he connects through several civilizations the need and influence of water and how water in part made the power of that particular civilization.

The geographical resourcement of water and then the management and utilization of water that made empires great, tremendous.

God was the one that had ordained Egypt to be well -watered and to be powerful at this point in history. God was the one who had ordained

Israel to be in the wilderness, thirsting. God oversees us all according to his wisdom.

Does Israel recognize that God is the one who had provided for them? Do we recognize that God is the one who provides for us?

One of the ways of answering that question is, do you have gratitude for all that you've received? Or do you, like an

Israelite, scoop up a handful of water and then three hours later you're back at complaining and wondering, how in the world am

I going to get this need met? How in the world is this going to come through? I don't know how we're going to get by. Do you recognize that God is your provider?

One of the ways you'll know that you recognize God as your provider is you have gratitude for abundance. And as you've heard many times, we live in a land of abundance and there's no one in this congregation who is not filthy rich compared to the majority of the third world.

Filthy rich. Do we give gratitude to God as our provider? Or do we complain as much, if not more, than those with genuine need in other parts of the world?

Do we fixate on our lack? Fixating on your lack is a way of rejecting the provision of God.

Do you purge your memory from God's goodness? Inadvertently. But there's no place for you to recall and remember

God's goodness because you're fixating on your need. You've got the hunger pains and the thirst pains and the stress and the weight of the bills.

You don't know how you're going to make ends meet. And so you're fixated on that lack and out of your mind and heart goes any thought or gratitude toward God's provision.

Lord, you have been faithful, you always will be faithful. You will be faithful. You say, test me in this.

Don't ever test the Lord your God unless he says, test me in this, you cannot give me. Am I not the

Lord your provider? This passage here in Exodus 15, it's a really stark reminder of just how fickle our gratitude can become.

The women were just resting their tambourines 72 hours prior. And now they're murmuring, now the chorus of praise has become a chorus of complaints.

And they all murmur together and they basically accuse God of failure to lead them rightly, of failure to provide for their needs.

Fickle gratitude. The people who had been delivered from oppression, brought out of death, saved from the chariot wheels and the spears and swords, now are the ones that are accusing

God of no leadership and no provision at all. And that's how fickle our ingratitude is.

And sadly now Egypt is becoming attractive to them again. At least we had food and water there.

Not only do they malign the provision of God, they now begin to, in delusion, think that Egypt was somehow for their good.

That their slavery and bondage in that place where they cried unto death was actually a blessing unto them.

And that's what deprivation can do. That's what need can do. And that's why need must be met by faith, by trust in the

Lord God. We can be just like them. You know, Naomi in Ruth chapter 1, she gives herself a new name.

She says, call me Marah, because God has been bitter to me. And does that name persist at the end of Ruth?

No. We always want to name ourselves Marah in the moment of our need, in the hour of our trial.

But look at the end. The end is sweet. The end is

God showing forth his hand of wisdom and power and mercy. The end is sweet.

And so we turn to God. We recognize his provision for all of our daily continual needs.

This is meant to instill in us a certain trust and dependence upon him. I suspect that given our lavish lifestyle in the

West, here in the United States of America, a leading economy in the world, at least for a little while longer, I suspect that we've rarely experienced

God's direct provision in this way. I suspect that we look upon our tables and look in our cupboards content that this is what we have amounted for ourselves.

This is what my work has wrought. This is what my skill and my labor has produced, and I will be glad in it.

And we rarely have occasion, like the farmers in Haiti, to say, thank you,

God, beansprouts this year. Thank you, God, that the drought has ended.

Thank you, God, that the bags of UN rice have come, and we actually have, you know, at least 100 pounds to get us through the month.

We don't see the direct provision in a way that excludes our dependence upon God.

And so for this very reason, we don't naturally look to God as our daily provider. When the

Lord teaches us to pray, Lord, give us this day our daily bread, there's people in the world who actually pray that with meaning.

I think we pray it just by familiarity. Give us this day our daily bread, because,

Lord, there's nothing I can do to provide for myself. You are my provider. You are my provider.

So God provides for our physical needs, most obvious. Secondly, God provides for our spiritual needs.

God provides for our spiritual needs. And here, when we speak of God's provision spiritually, we begin to see his great wisdom.

Perhaps even more so than his physical provision and his spiritual provision, God ordains not only what he provides, but what he withholds.

God leads to both Merah and Elam in the soul of a believer. There's a difference,

I think, between someone who's living in Elam versus someone who's just left

Merah and all but their tear ducts are caked up with dryness and they've come now to Elam for the first time.

There's a big difference. For the person that's grown up near Elam, they take all of that for granted.

These palm trees have always been here. We've always had green grass. We've never been with a need. For the person who's been brought down to their very last drop and is now thirsting, panting after the presence of God, when they come to Elam, it is paradise untold.

And God often maneuvers in this way in our lives, providentially leading us from Merah to Elam and back to Merah again, so that we're always being sated along the way, yet never enough that our thirst isn't ultimately for the

Elam everlasting, for a new heavens and a new earth where God's presence is enjoyed without sin, without loss, without separation.

So perhaps you're in Merah this morning. And you're tempted to complain and murmur like the

Israelites. What am I going to drink? I've been journeying in the wilderness for so long.

My walk is so dry. I'm half dead. What am I going to drink?

And you're tempted to not see God as your provider even here. But as we said,

Elam is only seven miles away. And when

God, leading you through repentance and faith to Himself, when

God brings you to that place of Elam, it will be more impactful in your life because He had led you through Merah than if He had never led you to the bitter waters at all.

This is part of an understanding of faith. Think of a child.

I'm sure all of our children would love this. Think of a child who every Thursday gets a big birthday cake on the kitchen table.

Every week, every Thursday rolls around, it's birthday cake time. And they eat that slice all the way to the next

Thursday. And then there it is again. Maybe even some variation, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, my favorite, caramel ice cream cake.

Next May, remember that. Caramel ice cream cake, the best. For the first few weeks, that would be amazing to a child, right?

That would be like, this is the best. Thank you, Mom and Dad, that have no teeth. Thank you, Mom and Dad, that be jittery.

You're the best parents ever. What would happen a month in, two months in, three months in? Do you think they'd ever want to eat cake again?

The sight of cake would make them nauseous. They'd say, I'm sick of it. Get it away from me.

What makes birthday cake so special to a child is it's a rare privilege. It's a rare treat.

It's something they don't have that often, unless they or someone in their family has a birthday. And then it's something that they can truly enjoy.

And almost every morsel of it is enjoyed because of its scarcity. And so it is in a

Christian's life, brother and sister. Proverbs 27 .7 says the same thing. A satisfied soul, right?

A well -nourished soul loathes the honeycomb. All right?

When you feasted at Lutherpalooza, and you look a little bit like Luther, and the dessert table's there, and your eyes were bigger than your stomach, and you wanted to get all those award -winning desserts, now you've got this big plate, and you're loathing it.

You're so full, how in the world are you going to eat that? But the proverb says, to a hungry soul, even a bitter thing is sweet.

To a hungry soul, even a bitter thing is sweet. Consider how

God provides for us in this very way. Not just what he provides, but what he withholds.

He knows cake every week is not in your best interest. He knows making you full so that you loathe honeycomb is not wise.

He knows, rather, that when you're starving, and that first flake of honeycomb touches your tongue, it will be near miraculous to you.

And for that reason, it will impact your life and walk toward him in ways that would never have otherwise happened.

Consider this. In God's provision for you spiritually, he gives you a promise that what he provides is a way of escape in times of temptation.

He says he provides that way of escape with the temptation. It's his provision.

So he may lead you to the tempting place, the bitter waters, but with that temptation, he provides a way out, a way of escape, elim, right next door, if you're but patient by faith.

So often in trials, we're brought to a place where we say, all is lost, I am ruined, I am undone.

This is impossible. God's given me more than I can bear. And we lose sight of the fact that he has provided for all of our spiritual needs.

So if you're in this place this morning where you feel overwhelmed by temptation in your life, you haven't had victory over sin, which is a necessity for a believer.

Sin shall not have dominion over you if you are a believer in Christ. And maybe you're brought to this place of despair and you say, it's impossible.

It's impossible. I thought I was a Christian, I believe

I'm a Christian, I believe in Christ, but you don't understand, this is impossible. And now you're doubting, you're complaining, you're rejecting what

God has provided. With the temptation, he has provided a way of escape.

Now Paul doesn't spell out what that way may be. I think it will be different depending on the person and the circumstance.

I think if we could speak normatively, that way of escape is going to be confession and accountability with a brother or a sister.

That way of escape is going to be regular discipleship, God rarely will deliver anyone from sin by going off to the

Vermont cabin for a few weeks and just straightening things out. It doesn't happen. Some say it's impossible.

How many of you, this is meaningful to me, I can boast in this, how many of you this summer when the heat, we had a lot of rain to cool things down, but when the heat was really intense,

July, August, and you had the ACs blaring, and you go outside and you say, it's impossible.

It's impossible. I need the fan, I need the AC. This was the first summer in a long time that I waited until the end of June, and I was like, all right, we're going to go the distance, no

AC. At first you're thinking, this is impossible, and there's a few days where you're melting, and you're like, this is impossible.

But then by the end of it, you've acclimated. You go to people's house, and you're putting on a sweater, and it's August, and you're like, this is ridiculous.

And your body's acclimated to it. You realize it's not impossible, you just had to persevere. I'm not shaming anyone that had an

AC, by the way. I love the ACs here. This is to say, spiritually speaking, we often cave in too soon.

We think it's impossible, there's no way of escape, because we've never actually persevered in faith. We've actually never followed through to the fruits of repentance.

There we find not only the way of escape, but we find God's promised strength. God's promised sustenance,

His provision. He gives us a spirit to dominate. Any reigning sin in our life.

The most vital question in all of this is do you have a thirst that causes you to look to God as your provider?

That's the vital question. If God is the provider of both physical and spiritual needs, spiritual needs having more weight and more urgency than physical, the most vital question is this.

Do you have a thirst that causes you to look to God as your provider?

He has led you to the place of testing. He will lead you to Elam. He will bring both blessing and trial.

Do you have a thirst for Him? When He gives blessing, are you thirsty for more of Him? Not for the blessing, but for Him.

When He leads you to the trial and you're brought even lower, does that increase your pain and your hunger for Him?

Is your life centered on Him? Do you press forward in a way that, as Paul says in Philippians, you might know

Him more? That's what soul thirst looks like.

Pressing on, whether through blessing or trial, that I might know Him more. The thirst is ultimately for Him.

And this is the key to a Christian's life. This is what Christian life is. It's cultivating and being led by a constant and continual thirsting after the presence of God.

One of the reasons that people don't understand this, and they don't experience God's sovereignty in surprising or powerful ways in their life, is that their hunger and thirst is too small.

They're fed by lesser things. Who goes to Texas Roadhouse and unshelves a bunch of peanuts and says, that'll be it for me?

You know, when the ribeye's on the way. What do you do when your toddler's there and they're stuffing themselves like geese with dinner rolls?

You say, save your appetite. Something better is coming. And we're like little toddlers, and we get the bread rolls of this world and we stuff ourselves full.

And God says, I have so much more for you if you had but kept your hunger and thirst after me.

And if you will seek after peanuts and bread scraps, then you will have peanuts and bread scraps. But if you have a hunger and a thirst for my presence, you will find my presence.

A. W. Tozer, a man who understood soul thirst, said,

Orthodox Christianity has fallen to its present lowest state from a lack of spiritual desire.

Among many who profess Christian faith, scarcely one in a thousand reveal any thirst for God.

Now that's Tozer's estimation about half a century ago. Within Orthodox Christianity, within sound, faithful,

Gospel -trusting Christianity, Tozer says, not one out of a thousand reveals a thirst, a genuine thirst for God.

What kind of thirst do you have this morning? There's a few different ways that we become thirsty, spiritually speaking.

Perhaps first and most normatively experienced is a thirst that comes about by fatigue.

By weariness. Some of the conversations

I've had with your elders have been on this very thing. Just a sense of weariness in the church of God.

A sense of fatigue that is confronting and disrupting many. Now, that weariness can come and you can be like an

Israelite. You can say, what am I going to drink? I'm so thirsty. And you can become bitter.

And you can murmur. And you can complain. You're tired from the burden of life.

You're disappointed from things that didn't come to pass. That you thought were going to be there, especially this year.

You thought it was all going to come together. And so you're discouraged and you're weary and you're worn down.

And there's this thirst that's come about. You're burnt out. You're weighed down. And so you're thirsty.

What are you going to drink? Then there's a thirst that comes by conviction.

That's a desirable thirst to have. It's that Psalm 51 thirst. It's that thirst that's gone to the cistern but the cistern's broken.

And you come up empty. But you need more. And you're convicted because of your guilt and your failure.

And you see it, but you're so weak because you're so thirsty. And you're saying, Lord, I want to spring up.

I want to jump up. I want to get things in order. I want to do more. I want to be more right before You, but I'm weak.

I'm thirsty. I can barely roll over. You're thirsty.

What are you going to do with that thirst? John Owen in Mortification of Sin says, don't you know the

Lord can make a dry, parched ground become a pool? Don't you know

He can take a thirsty, barren heart and make it a spring of water? Don't you know

He can take your heart so full of abominable lust to be a place of fruitfulness for Himself?

From that place of thirst, you're not looking within the dry, broken cisterns of your own life.

You're looking to Him who provides. And then perhaps lastly, and the most desirable of all, is a thirst that comes about by a lack of communion with God.

I think we generally go across a succession, don't we? We begin with this sort of thirst of weariness and fatigue.

And if we're following through on that rightly and we're looking to God as a provider, He will lead us to see our own guilt, our own role, our responsibility in that thirst, in that dryness, in that need.

And that will produce even a greater thirst. Lord, refresh me, revive me, restore me.

And what we're doing in that prayer, in that conviction thirst, is we're actually longing for and trying to receive that communion.

So conviction thirst leads to communion thirst. Lord, give me Yourself. Give me Your presence.

Give me Your nearness. Give me Your embrace. I want to spend time with You. Now we're in Psalm 42.

Now we're a deer that's panting after streams of water. Psalm 51 leads to Psalm 42, if I could put it that way.

The conviction thirst leads to communion thirst. Because you begin to recognize the deepest thirst of your life is for God Himself.

Weariness, fatigue, all the things that crumbled in your hands and didn't come to pass. They made you thirsty.

They discouraged you. You wanted them. They promised to give you satisfaction. They promised to fill you and hold you over.

But they didn't come to pass. What did we see in Haggai 2? You sought after much. It came to very little. Why? I blew it away.

So now you have conviction thirst. Now you want to be reoriented. God, what have

You called me to? What are Your priorities? What is Your kingdom's priority? What is the focus my life should have?

What does a God -pleasing life look like? And that conviction thirst becomes communion thirst.

You realize all those lesser things that so often disrupted me and gave me anxiety, those things could never deliver what they promised.

Only God can truly satisfy my soul. Only God can answer every desire of my heart.

So communion thirst is a thirst after God Himself. William Bridge, the Puritan, said,

Take a man, give him all the fullness of the earth. Because his soul was never made for all the fullness of the earth, therefore that man is empty.

In the midst of all of his fullness, that man is an empty man because his heart is not full of the one thing he was made to be full of, which is

Christ's presence. Now let me give a big warning here about this soul thirst for God.

Just because a man longs for something that can only be found in God doesn't mean he's actually looking for God.

Just because a man longs for something that can only be found in God doesn't mean a man's actually looking for God.

There's so many people who claim to be hungering and thirsting after God, but it's not the God of Scripture.

It's God as they want Him to be. God who bows Himself to their wills and their ambitions.

God who winks at their sins. God who vindicates them and justifies the way that they look at their life and every other relationship in it.

That's who they want God to be, and that's who they're thirsting after. Big mistake. God will never reveal

Himself. God will never shed grace upon a man or a woman thirsting after a God of their own imagination or their own idolatrous fleshly desire.

God is not here to vindicate you. God is not here to provide the way for your ambition.

God is not here to agree with you in the way you're looking at your situation and the people around you. God is here for His own glory, for the advance of His own kingdom, and you are called to have a thirst after that God.

This is where the deer pants for streams of water. The deer is panting because thirst is this physical phenomenon that it must have its way.

Thirst is a demand that must be answered or death will come. That's how high the stakes of human thirst are physically.

You must answer the demand, the call of thirst, or you will perish. And let me tell you, the stakes are even higher spiritually.

The demand of spiritual hunger, spiritual thirst after God, must be met or you will die.

You will die. The deer will perish if it does not find the stream.

The believer will perish if they don't meet communion thirst with actual communion.

If they don't meet the demand upon their soul with the answer of God's presence.

In this way, brothers and sisters, are we looking to God as our provider? Let me say one other point on God's provision spiritually.

Others need to see your soul thirst for God. Others need to see it. I can only imagine among the congregation of Israelites at Merah, that there are a few stoic souls that felt the thirst but kept a strong upper lip.

And there were others that felt it and they wouldn't say anything until someone to their left or someone to their right all of a sudden began to complain.

Boy, it would be nice if Moses had thought about water. I mean, this is ridiculous, right? You didn't think that we would need water if we're in the wilderness?

Does he even know where he's going? And pretty soon, people that were apt to be patient now begin to join the venting.

There's an influence that is shared. That thirst, that complaining thirst has now infected the whole lot, the whole congregation.

So it is in a church, brothers and sisters. What others need to see in you, above all things, is a thirsting after God.

A thirsting after God. When they're filled with peanuts and breadcrumbs, you are a powerful display for them that there is something far greater that they are forfeiting.

Far greater. When they're content to find a little droplet.

Like, have you seen pictures of these goats? In Italy, these mountain goats are incredible.

And on this almost vertical wall of a dam where salt deposits collect and they need salt for their digestive systems, these goats will sort of climb up with their specialized hooves, like 50, 60, 70 feet up this rock wall just to lick the salt.

We have, perhaps, believers in our body that are doing the equivalent, you know? Climbing 60, 70 feet to lick a little salt, you know?

To have a little drop of water. And you might be that brother and sister that's saying, why would you settle for that?

Why would you let your week go through like that? Don't you know there's a whole pool that has been opened unto you?

If you would but come, others need the influence of your thirst.

Your life can actually generate hunger. Your life can generate thirst.

It can draw people to the presence of God. And in you finding that source of water, you might be the means of conveying it to many others.

So that's what we need to be influencing upon one another, brothers and sisters. Not complaint thirst, but communion thirst.

Last point, and I know I have to be brief because of the time, but it would not be fit to leave this passage without seeing its greater fullness in the

Lord Jesus Himself. When we ask the ultimate question, what shall we drink?

The answer of the Lord's provision comes in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. What shall we drink?

What will answer the thirst of our souls? The thirst of our eternal longing? God has provided not only for our physical needs,

God has provided not only for our spiritual needs, God has provided for our greatest need. And He's provided for it in the work and the person of His own

Son, Jesus. Surrounding the first servant's song, we read that God makes the wilderness like a pool of water.

The poor and the needy seek water, but there is none. Their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, hear them, the

God of Israel. I will not forsake them. I open rivers and desolate heights and fountains in the midst of valleys.

I make the wilderness like a pool of water and the dry land like springs of water. So salvation in the servant's songs of Isaiah is being likened to Exodus 15.

Water brought out of dryness. Water attending the need for thirst.

Rain down, you heavens, Isaiah 45. Let skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open up.

Let it bring forth salvation. Let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it.

Salvation is spoken of in water imagery. Water for the desert dweller is life.

It is salvation. A well is life. And the Lord likens Himself to that life -giving well, that fountain that is opened for thirsty sinners to come and partake.

Jesus says to the woman at the well, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.

The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

And John 7, a few chapters later, during the Feast of Tabernacles, and you recall the

Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem included a water -pouring ritual. And so you have to picture

Jesus giving this discourse in John 7 during this feast as priests in a row like carpenter aunts are bringing vessels of water from the fountains of Jerusalem to pour as a libation over the offering.

And here in the midst of that scene of the waters being poured over a sacrifice unto

God, Jesus says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

In this, John says, He spoke concerning the Spirit. So we have this water imagery of salvation from Isaiah, from Ezekiel, from Zechariah, from throughout the prophets.

And it's all stemming out of Exodus. And look at what Jesus says. If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

If anyone thirsts, so it's a general call to all. Is there anyone who is thirsty? Anyone who has that discouragement, that fatigue, that weariness, that sense of collapse and absolute failure that's been led now to conviction, and only more thirsty for that,

Lord, I need You. If you're thirsty like that, Jesus says, come. Come to Me.

Come to Me and what? Come to Me and drink. Don't just come near Me. Don't just come around Me, but come to Me and drink of Me.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. I was reading this week of a

French woman, Anne -Marie Appad, who is in the Vad Yeshem memorial.

And she was arrested by Germans on suspicions of working for the French underground, which she most likely was.

And so she was imprisoned with other French resistance fighters at Auschwitz -Birkenau. And at the

Nuremberg trials, one of her fellow prisoners testified this. One day, Anne -Marie, one of our companions, a young, beautiful woman of 30, passed near Block 25, where all the

Jewish women were kept. And she began to feel pity for these women because they were screaming from morning to evening, drink, drink, water, water, in any language they could conceive.

So here's this woman. The French were a little better off. They had better rations and supplies. They were prisoners of war rather than objects for genocide.

And this woman walks by and she takes pity upon these women that are screaming out morning and evening for water.

Maybe they get a canteen for the whole block to last a few days, and they have to parcel out a cap each.

And she takes pity on them, so she goes back to her own block to take water. And as she's passing it through the barred window, a guard sees her, took her by the neck, threw her into the block with them.

And two days later, she was on a truck to the gas chambers. And this is what was said during the trial. She gave her life to quench their thirst.

She gave her life to quench her thirst. Jesus gave his life to quench our thirst.

She did it, or attempted to do it, by passing water through the narrow opening.

Jesus quenched our thirst by becoming a fountain of life. But the amazing thing about that is he only became a fountain of life by being utterly deprived of life.

In other words, when we talk about God being our provider, the Lord our provider, the heart of the gospel is that the

Lord is our provider of our physical needs, of our spiritual needs, of our greatest eternal need.

Because the Lord who is our provider became the Lord who was deprived of everything, of life itself.

Our provision, in other words, was his deprivation. When he was on Gethsemane, he had bitter waters, and they weren't made sweet.

And he drank them to the last drop when he was stretched out on the tree. And it's not for nothing that John records when that spear was thrust through his side, water and blood flowed out.

But what did he cry prior to that scene? One of the seven sayings on the cross, he said,

I thirst. I thirst. So the one who drinks the bitter water, the toxic, fatal water, the one who cries,

I thirst, and his need is never met. They mock him. They put a sewer sponge on a spear and put it with vinegar to his lips, and he turns away.

And so he dies in abject thirst, never having a morsel of water to satisfy him. He dies utterly thirsty.

And when he dies, his side is opened up, and water flows out, and he becomes that life -giving fountain to his people who are thirsty.

The one who cries, I thirst, becomes the fountain, life everlasting, the walled garden, the

Edenic presence from the throne that is a river flowing unto the people of God, renewing creation by the

Spirit. And that's why in Revelation, John combining this marital imagery with the

Edenic imagery from the throne says, let him who hears say, come, let him who thirsts come.

The fountain that we've been waiting for ever since Genesis 3, the fountain that every human soul that would find mercy and grace from God was clinging to in their desperate pleas,

I thirst, could only be answered when Christ Himself entered into their sinful estate and said,

I thirst with them, so that His body could become a fountain to them.

And that's why he says, come to me and drink. Come to me and drink.

Bear with me just a moment longer. I want to share this. In the fictional work,

The Silver Chair, written by C .S. Lewis, there's a young girl, Jill Pohl, and she's entered into the strange wood in Narnia with her friend

Eustace Scrub. You've got to love Lewis's names. But she has poor judgment, and she finds herself all alone, separated from her friend.

And she begins to become thirsty. And so she's walking around, roaming around, looking for water. And she finds a stream, but as soon as she finds it with this delight, she's frozen in her tracks.

This is what Lewis writes. Although the sight of water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn't rush forward and drink.

She stood as still as if she'd been turned into stone, her mouth wide open. And she had a very good reason.

Just on the other side of the stream lay a lion. You know who that lion is, if you're familiar with Lewis.

The Christ figure, right, Aslan. If I run away, it'll be after me in a moment, thought

Jill. If I go on, I'll just run into its mouth. Anyway, she couldn't have moved, even if she tried.

She couldn't take her eyes off it. How long this lasted, she couldn't be sure. It seemed like hours. And the thirst became so bad, she almost felt she wouldn't mind being eaten by the lion, if only she could be sure of getting a mouthful of water first.

If you're thirsty, you may drink. For a second, she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken.

Then the voice said again, if you're thirsty, come and drink. It was deeper, wilder, stronger.

A heavy, golden voice. It didn't make her any less frightened than she had been before. It made her frightened in a different way.

Are you not thirsty? Said the lion. I'm dying of thirst, said

Jill. Then drink, said the lion. May I?

Could I? Would you mind going away while I do? The lion answered only by a look and a very low growl.

The delicious, rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come?

I make no promise, said the lion. Then I dare not come and drink, said

Jill. Then you will die of thirst, said the lion. Oh dear,

Jill said, taking another step, I suppose I will go and look for another stream then. There is no other stream, said the lion.

It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the lion. No one who had seen his stern face could do that and her mind suddenly made itself up.

It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand.

It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted and you didn't need to drink much of it. It quenched your thirst at once.

Do you see what Lewis is getting at? It is a traumatizing thing to stand before the

Lord who says, come and drink. But there is no other stream and you will die of thirst if you do not come.

There is no other stream. There is no water in the law. There is no water in all of your striving and all of your labors.

There is no water in all of your earnest motivation and ambition. There's no water in your attendance.

No water in all the means of grace you heap up. There is no other stream. There's a fountain that the

Lord God has opened up. It's from the riven side of Jesus. Come to Him and drink. Gospel tidings.

Glad tidings indeed to mourners in Zion who want to be freed from sin and Satan and Mount Sinai's flame.

Good news of salvation through Jesus the Lamb. What sweet invitations the Gospel contains to men heavy laden with bondage and chains.

It welcomes the weary to come and be blessed with ease from their burdens and Jesus to rest.

For every poor mourner who thirsts for the Lord, a fountain is opened in Jesus the

Word. Their poor, parched conscience to cool and to wash from guilt and pollution, from dead works and dross.

Won't you come? Won't you come to Jesus and drink? I heard the voice of Jesus say,

Behold, I freely give the living water, thirsty one. Stoop down and drink and live.

And this is the response from Bonner's great hymn. This is the only response. I came to Jesus and I drank of that life -giving stream.

My thirst was quenched. My soul revived. And now I live in Him.

Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank

You for Your Word. Thank You for the Gospel. Thank You for being our provider.

Let our minds not wander too far from what that provision is and what that provision costs.

And understanding that with eyes of faith, may we draw ever near. Give us the water that makes us even more thirsty,

Lord. That we would have a communion thirst that both quenches and increases our thirst until we're with You forever.

Lord, where we lack that thirst, give us conviction. I pray that this congregation here would not be an influence of complaints, but rather of praises.

Not of murmuring, but of patient trust. That we would spur one another on to better and wiser pools rather than going off each to his own way for drops and salt licks, peanut shells and bread scraps.