“Jehovah-Rophi”

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 11, 1882,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I am the Lord who heals you." Exodus 15:26.

WE shall consider this passage in its context, for I have no doubt that
the miracle at Marah was intended to be a very instructive illustration
of the glorious title which is here claimed by the Covenant God of
Israel– "I am Jehovah-Rophi, the Lord that heals you." The
illustration introduces the sermon of which this verse is the text. The
healing of the bitter waters is the parable of which the line before us
is the lesson. How different is the Lord to His foes and to His
friends! His Presence is light to Israel and darkness to Egypt. Egypt
only knew Jehovah as the Lord that plagues and destroys those who
refuse to obey Him. Is not this the Lord's memorial in Egypt, that He
cut Rahab and wounded the dragon? He overthrew their armies at the Red
Sea and drowned their hosts beneath the waves! But to His own people,
in themselves but very little superior to the Egyptians, God is not the
terrible Avenger consuming His adversaries, but, "Jehovah that heals
you."

Their mental and moral diseases were almost as great as those of the
Egyptians whom the Lord cut off from before Him, but He spared His
chosen for His Covenant's sake. He bared the sword of Justice against
rebellious Pharaoh and then He turned His tender, healing hand out to
His own people, to exercise towards them the heavenly surgery of His
Grace. Israel knew Him as the Lord that heals and Egypt knew Him as the
Lord that smites! Let us adore the Grace which makes so wide a
difference–the Sovereign Grace which brings salvation unto Israel–and
let us confess our own personal obligations to the mercy which has not
dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our
iniquities!

Again, how differently does God deal with His own people from what we
should have expected. He is a God of surprises! He does things which we
looked not for. God deals with us not according to our conception of
His ways, but according to His own wisdom and prudence, for as the
heavens are high above the earth, so high are His thoughts above our
thoughts. You would not have supposed that a people for whom God had
given Egypt as a ransom would have been led into the wilderness of
Shur–neither would you have guessed that a people so near to Him that
He cleft the sea and made them walk between two glassy walls dry
shod–would have been left for three days without water!

You naturally expect to see the chosen tribes brought right speedily
into a condition of comfort, or, if there must be a journey before they
reach the land that flows with milk and honey, you look at once for the
smitten rock and the flowing stream, the manna and the quails and all
the other things which they can desire. How singular it seems that
after having done such a great marvel for them, the Lord should cause
them to thirst beneath a burning sky and, that, too, when they were
quite unprepared for it, being quite new to desert privations, having
lived so long by the river of Egypt where they drank of sweet water
without stint.

We read at other times, "You, Lord, did send a plenteous rain, whereby
You did refresh Your inheritance when it was weary." But here we meet
with no showers! No brooks gushed forth below and no rain dropped from
above. Three days without water is a severe trial when the burning sand
is below and the blazing sky is above! Yet the Lord's people, in some
way or other, are sure to be tried–theirs is no holiday parade–but a
stern march by a way which flesh and blood would never have chosen. The
Egyptians found enough water and even too much of it, for they were
drowned in the sea, but the well-beloved Israelites had no water at
all! So is it with the wicked man–he often has enough of wealth and
too much of it–till he is drowned in sensual delights and perishes in
floods of prosperity. He has his portion in this life and in that
portion he is lost, like Pharaoh, in the proud waters.

Full often the Lord's people are made to know the pinch of poverty.
Their lives are made wretched by sore bondage and they faint for a
morsel of bread–they drink from a bitter fountain which fills their
inward parts with gall and wormwood. They are afflicted many times,
almost to the breaking of their hearts. One of them said, "All the day
long

have I been plagued and chastened every morning." They lie at the rich
man's gate full of sores, while the ungodly man is clothed in scarlet
and fares sumptuously every day. This is God's strange way of dealing
with His own people. He Himself has said, "As many as I love I rebuke
and chasten." "He scourges every son whom He receives." Thus He made
His people know that the wilderness was not their rest, nor their
home–for they could not even find such a common necessity as water
with which to quench their thirst!

He made them understand that the promised brooks that flowed with milk
and honey were not in the wilderness, but must be found on the other
side of Jordan, in the land which God had given to their fathers–and
they must journey there with weary feet. "This is not your rest," was
the lesson of their parched lips in the three-day march. You know what
teaching there is in all this, for your experience answers to it. Do
not marvel, Beloved, if with all your joy over your vanquished sin,
which shall be seen by you no more, you yet have to lament your present
grievous needs. The children of Israel cried, "What shall we drink?"
This was a wretched sequel to, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has
triumphed gloriously." Have you never made the same descent? If you are
in poverty you are, no doubt, tempted to put that trinity of questions,
"What shall we eat? What shall we drink? And with what shall we be
clothed?"

You are not the first to whom this temptation has happened. Do not
marvel at all if up from the triumph of the Red Sea, with a song in
your mouth and a timbrel in your hand, you ascend into the great and
terrible wilderness and enter upon the land of drought! This way lies
Canaan and this way you must go. Through much tribulation we must enter
the Kingdom of God and, therefore, let us set our minds to it. By this
grievous test the Lord was proving His people and causing them to see
what was in their hearts. They would have known no wilderness outside
if there had not been a wilderness within–neither had there been a
drought of water for their mouths if the Lord had not seen a drought of
Grace in their souls. We are fine birds till our feathers are
ruffled–and then what a poor figure we cut! We are a mass of diseases
and a bundle of disorders and, unless Grace prevents, we are the sure
prey of death. O Lord, we pray to be proven, but we little know what it
means!

Let this suffice for an introduction and then let our text come in with
comfort to our hearts, "I am the Lord that heals you." It was to
illustrate this great name of God that the tribes were brought into so
painful a condition! And, indeed, all the experience of a Believer is
meant to glorify God, that the Believer, himself, may see more of God
and that the world outside may also behold the Glory of the Lord.
Therefore the Lord leads His people up and down in the wilderness and,
therefore, He makes them cry out because there is no water–all to make
them behold His power, His goodness and His wisdom. Our lives are the
canvas upon which the Lord paints His own Character.

We shall try, this morning, to set forth before you, by the help of the
Divine Spirit, this grand Character of God, that He is the God that
heals us. First, we shall notice the healing of our circumstances,
dwelling upon that in order the better to set forth the greater fact,
"I am the Lord that heals you." Secondly, we shall remember the healing
of our bodies which is here promised to obedient Israel and we shall
set forth that Truth of God, in order to bring out our third point,
which is the healing of our souls. "I am the Lord that heals you"–not
your circumstances, only, nor your bodily diseases, only, but yourself,
your soul, your truest self–for there is the worst bitterness, there
is the sorest disease and there shall the grandest power of God be
shown to you and to all who know you.

I. THE GLORIOUS JEHOVAH SHOWS HIS HEALING POWER UPON OUR CIRCUMSTANCES.
The fainting Israelites thought that when they came to Marah they
should slake their thirst. Often enough the mirage had mocked them as
it does all thirsty travelers–they thought that they saw before them
flowing rivers and palm trees–but as they rushed forward, they found
nothing but sand, for the mirage was deluding them. At last, however,
the waters of Marah were fairly within sight and they were not a
delusion! Here was real water and they were sure of it. No doubt they
rushed forward, helter-skelter, each man eager to drink–and what must
have been their disappointment when they found that they could not
endure it!

A thirsty man will drink almost anything, but this water was so bitter
that it was impossible for them to receive it. I do not read that they
had murmured all the three days of their thirsty march, but this
disappointment was too much for them. The relief which seemed so near
was snatched away! The cup was dashed from their lips and they began to
murmur against Moses and so, in truth, against God. Here was the proof
of their imperfection–they were impatient and unbelieving. Have we
not, too often, fallen into the same sin? Brethren, let your conscience
answer! When you have felt a

sharp affliction and it has continued a long time and you have been
wearied out with it, you have, at last, seen a prospect of escape, but
that prospect has completely failed you. What woe is this!

When the friend you so surely relied upon tells you that he can do
nothing. When the physician upon whom you put such reliance informs you
that his medicine has not touched the malady. When the last expedient
that you could adopt to save yourself from bankruptcy–the last arrow
in your quiver has missed the mark–how your spirit has sunk within you
in dire despair! Then your heart has begun to wound itself, like the
scorpion, with its own sting. You have felt as if you were utterly
spent and ready for the grave. The last trial was too much for you! You
could bear up no longer. Happy have you been if under such conditions
you have not been left to give way to murmuring against God.

These poor Israelites were in a very pitiable condition. There was the
water before them, but its horrible flavor made them shrink from a
second taste. Have you not experienced the same? You have obtained that
which you thought would deliver you, but it has not helped you. You
looked for light and beheld darkness; for refreshment and beheld an
aggravated grief. The springs of earth are brackish until Jehovah heals
them–they increase the thirst of the man who too eagerly drinks of
them. "Cursed is he that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm." Now,
dear Friends, in answer to prayer, God has often healed your bitter
waters and made them sweet. I am about to appeal to your personal
experience, you that are truly pilgrims under the guidance of your
heavenly Lord.

Has it not been so with you? I should have no difficulty in refreshing
your memories about Marah, for very likely its bitterness is in your
mouth, even now, and you cannot forget your sorrow. But just now I wish
to refresh your memories about what came of that sorrow. Did not God
deliver you? Did He not, when you cried to Him, come to your rescue? I
appeal to facts which may be stubborn things, but they are also rich
encouragements. Has not the Lord oftentimes made our bitter waters
sweet by changing our circumstances altogether? When the poor in heart
have been oppressed, God has taken away the oppressor, or else taken
the heart away from the oppression. When you have been in great straits
and could not see which way to steer, has not the Lord Jesus seemed to
open before you a wider channel, or Himself to steer your vessel
through all the intricacies of the narrow river and bring you where you
would come?

Have you not noticed in your lives that most remarkable changes have
taken place at times when anguish took hold upon you? I can bear my
witness, if you cannot, that the Lord has great healing power in the
matter of our trials and griefs. He has changed my circumstances in
Providence and in many ways altered the whole aspect of affairs. On
other occasions the Lord has not removed the circumstances and yet He
has turned sorrow into joy, for He has put into them a new ingredient
which has acted as an antidote to the acrid flavor of your affliction.
You were not allowed to leave the shop, but there came a fresh manager
who shielded you from persecution! You were not permitted to quit your
business, but there came a wonderful improvement in your trade and this
reconciled you to the long hours! You were not made to be perfectly
healthy, but you were helped to a medicine which much lessened the
sharpness of the pain–thus has your Marah been sweetened. Have you not
found it so?

The weight of your affliction was exceedingly great, but the Lord found
a counterbalance and, by placing a weight of holy joy in the other
scale, He lifted up your load and its weight was virtually taken away!
You have been at Marah, but even there you have been able to drink, for
a something has been put into the waters of afflictive Providence which
has made them endurable. And where this has not been done, the Lord
has, by a heavenly art, made your bitter waters sweet by giving you
more satisfaction with the Divine will, more submission, more
acquiescence in what the Lord has ordained. After all, this is the most
effectual remedy. If I cannot bring my circumstances to my mind, yet if
God helps me to bring my mind to my circumstances, the matter is made
right.

There is a degree of sweetness about pain, poverty and shame when once
you feel, "The loving Lord ordained all this for me–my tribulation is
of His appointing." Then the soul, feeling that the affliction comes
from a Father's hand, accepts it and kicks against the pricks no
longer. Surely, then, the bitterness of life or of death will be past
when the mind is subdued to the Eternal will! These people said, "What
shall we drink?" and they would have concluded that Moses was mocking
them if he had answered, "You shall drink the bitter water." They would
have said, "We cannot bear it! We remember the sweet water of the Nile
and we cannot endure this nauseous stuff." But Moses would have said,
"Yes, you will drink this and nothing else but this and it will become
to you all that you need." Even so, Beloved, you may have quarreled
with your circumstances and said, "I must have a change! I can no
longer bear this trial."

Has not the Lord of His Grace changed your mind and so influenced your
will that you have really found comfort in that which was uncomfortable
and content in that which made you discontented? Have you never said,
when under tribulation, "I could not have believed it. I am perfectly
happy under my trial and yet when I looked ahead to it, I dreaded it
beyond measure. I said it would be the death of me, but now I find that
by these things men live and in all this is the life of my spirit." We
exclaim with Jacob, "All these things are against me," but the Lord
gives us more Grace and we see that all things work together for
good–and we bless the Lord for His afflicting hand! So you see the
Lord Jehovah heals our bitter waters and makes our circumstances
endurable to our sanctified minds.

Brothers and Sisters, all this which you have experienced should be to
you a proof of God's power to make everything that is bitter, sweet.
The depravity of your nature will yet yield to the operations of His
Grace! The corruptions that are within you will yet be subdued and you
shall enter into the fullest communion with God in Christ Jesus! I know
you shall, because the Lord is unchangeable in power and what He has
done in one direction He can and will do in another. Your circumstances
were so terrible and yet God helped you–and now your sins, your inbred
sins, which are so dreadful–He will help you against them and give you
power over them. You shall overcome the power of evil! By His Grace you
shall be sanctified and you shall manifest the sweetness of holiness
instead of the bitterness of self! Can you believe it? Does not God's
power exhibited in Providence around you prove that He has power enough
to do great things within you by His Grace?

Moreover, should not this healing of your circumstances be to you a
pledge that God will heal you as to your inner spirit? He that brought
you through the sea and drowned your enemies will, also, drown your
sins, till you shall sing, "The depths have covered them! There is not
one of them left." He that turned your Marah into sweetness will yet
turn all your sense of sin into a sense of pardon! All the bitterness
of your regret and the sharpness of your repentance shall yet be turned
into the joy of faith and you shall be full of delight in the perfect
reconciliation which comes by the precious blood of Christ! Sustaining
Providences are to the saints sure pledges of Divine Grace! The
sweetened water is a picture of a sweetened nature–I almost said it is
a type of it! God binds Himself by the gracious deliverances of His
Providence to give you equal deliverances of Grace. It is joyous to
say, "He is the Lord that healed my circumstances," but how much better
to sing of His name as "The Lord that heals you"?

Do not be contented till you reach to that! But do be confident that He
who healed Marah will heal you–He that has helped you to rejoice in
Him in all your times of trouble will sustain you in all your struggles
with sin till you shall more sweetly and more loudly praise His blessed
name!

II. Let us now proceed a step further. As we have spoken of God's
healing our circumstances, so now we have to think of THE LORD'S
HEALING OUR BODIES. Why are diseases and pains left in the bodies of
God's people? Our bodies are redeemed, for Christ has redeemed our
entire manhood, but if Christ is in us, the body is still dead because
of sin, even though the spirit is alive because of righteousness. It is
not till the Resurrection that we shall enjoy the full result of the
redemption of the body. Resurrection will accomplish for our bodies
what regeneration has done for our souls. We were born again. Yes, but
that Divine work was exercised only upon our spiritual nature–our
bodies were not born again–therefore they still abide under the
liability of disease, decay and death, though even these evils have
been turned into blessings.

This frail, sensitive and earthly frame, which Paul calls, "this vile
body," grows weary and worn and, by-and-by, it will fade away and die
unless the Lord shall come. And even if He should come, this feeble
fabric must be totally changed, for flesh and blood, as they now are,
cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Neither can corruption dwell with
incorrup-tion. Even to this day the body is under death because of sin
and is left so on purpose to remind us of the effects of sin– that we
may feel within ourselves what sin has done–and may the better guess
at what sin would have done if we had remained under it, for the pains
of Hell would have been ours forever. These griefs of body are meant, I
say, to make us remember what we owe to the redemption of our Lord
Jesus, and so to keep us humble and grateful.

Aches and pains are also sent to keep us on the wing for Heaven, even
as thorns in the nest drive the bird from its sloth. They make us long
for the land where the inhabitant shall no more say, "I am sick." Yet
the Lord does heal our bodies. First He heals them by preventing
sickness. A prevention is better than cure. The text says, "If you will
diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord, your God, and will do that
which is right in His sight, and will give ear to His com-

mandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases
upon you, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord
that heals you."

It is concerning this same healing Lord that we read, "You shall not be
afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flies by day;
nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction
that wastes at noonday. A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten
thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with
your eyes shall you behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because
you have made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, your
habitation; there shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague
come near your dwelling." Do we sufficiently praise God for guarding us
from disease? I am afraid that His preserving care is often forgotten.

Men will go 30 or 40 years, almost, without an illness, and forget the
Lord, in consequence. That which should secure gratitude creates
indifference! When we have been ill, we come up to the House of the
Lord and desire to return thanks because of our recovery. Ought we not
to give thanks when we are not ill and do not need to be recovered?
Should it not be to you healthy folks a daily cause of gratitude to God
that He keeps away those pains which would keep you awake all night and
wards off those sicknesses which would cause your beauty to consume
away like the moth? But we see this healing hand of the Lord more
conspicuously when, like Hezekiah, we have been sick and have been
restored.

Sometimes we lie helpless and hopeless like dust ready to return to its
fellow dust. We are incapable of exertion and ready to be dissolved.
Then if the Lord renews our youth and takes away our sickness, we
praise His name–and so we ought! It is not the doctor; it is not the
medicine–these are but the outward means–it is the Lord who is the
true Physician and unto Jehovah-Rophi be the praise! "I am the Lord
that heals you." Let those of us that have been laid aside and have
been again allowed to walk abroad, lift up our hearts and our voices in
thanksgiving to the Lord who forgives all our iniquities, who heals all
our diseases!

According to the analogy of the healing of Marah, the Lord does this by
means, for He cast a tree into the water. Those who will use no
medicine, whatever, certainly have no Scriptural warrant for their
conduct. Even where cures are given to faith, yet the Apostle says, "Is
any sick? Let him send for the elders of the Church, and let them pray
over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." The
anointing with oil was the proper medicine of the day and, possibly, a
great deal better medicine than some of the drugs which are used
nowadays. To the use of this anointing the promise is given, "and the
prayer of faith shall raise the sick." Hezekiah was miraculously
healed, but the Lord said, "Take a lump of figs and lay it upon the
sore."

God could have spoken a word and turned Marah sweet, but He did not
choose to do so! He would exercise the faith and obedience of His
people by bidding them cast a tree into the waters. The use of means is
not to hinder faith, but to try it. Still, it is the Lord who works the
cure and this is the point which is so often forgotten. Oh, come, let
us sing unto Jehovah who has said–"I am the Lord that heals you"! Do
not attribute to secondary means that which ought to be ascribed to
God! His fresh air, warm sun, or bracing wind and refreshing showers do
more for our healing than we dream of, or if medicine is used, it is He
who gives virtue to the drugs and so, by His own Almighty hands, works
out our cure. As one who has felt His restoring hand, I will personally
sing unto Him who is the health of my countenance and my

God.

Note this, that in every healing of which we are the subjects, we have
a pledge of the Resurrection. Every time a man who is near the gates of
death rises up, again, he enjoys a kind of rehearsal of that grand
rising when from beds of dust and silent clay the perfect saints shall
rise at the sound of the trumpet of the archangel and the voice of God!
We ought to gather from our restorations from serious and perilous
sickness a proof that the God who brings us back from the gates of the
grave can also bring us back from the grave, itself, whenever it shall
be His time to do so! This should also be a further proof to us that if
He can heal our bodies, the Lord can heal our souls! If this poor
worm's meat, which so readily decays, can be revived, so can the soul
which is united to Christ and quickened with His life! And if the
Almighty Lord can cast out evils from this poor dust and ashes which
must ultimately be dissolved, much more can He cast out all manner of
evils from that immaterial spirit which is yet to shine in the
brightness of the Glory of God!

Therefore, both from His healing your souls and from His healing your
bodies, gather power to believe in the fact that He will heal your
mental, moral and spiritual diseases! Lift up your hearts with joy as
you sing of Jehovah-Rophi, "The Lord that heals YOU."–

"Sinners of old, You did receive,

With comfortable words and kind,

Their sorrows cheer, their needs relieve,

Heal the diseased and cure the blind.

And are You not the Savior still,

In everyplace and age the same?

Have You forgot Your gracious skill,

Or lost the virtue of Your name?

Faith in Your changeless name I have;

The good, the kind Physician, You

Are able now our souls to sa ve,

Are willing to restore them now.

Though eighteen hundred years are past

Since You did in the flesh appear,

Your tender mercies ever last;

And still Your healing power is here! Would You the body's health
restore,

And not regard the sin-sick soul?

The sin-sick soul You love much more,

And surely You shall make it whole." The healing of Marah and the
healing of the body are placed before the text and they shed a light
upon it. They place this name of the Lord in a golden frame and cause
us to look upon it with the greater interest.

III. Now we come to THE HEALING OF OUR SOULS. The Lord our God will
heal our spirits and He will do it in somewhat the same manner as that
in which He healed Marah. How was that? First, He made the people know
how bitter Marah was. There was no healing for that water till they had
tasted it and discovered that it was too brackish to be endured! But
after they knew its bitterness, then the Lord made it sweet for them.
So is it with your sin, my Brothers and Sisters! It must become more
and more bitter to you. You will have to cry out, "O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me?" You will have to feel that you cannot live
upon anything that is within yourself. The creature must be made
distasteful to you and all trusts that come of it, for God's way is
first to kill and then to make alive–first to wound and then to heal.
He begins by making Marah to be Marah and afterwards He makes it sweet!

What next? The next thing was there was prayer offered. I do not know
whether any of the people possessed faith in God, but if so, they had a
prayerless faith, and God does not work in answer to prayerless faith.
"Oh," says one, "I am perfectly sanctified." How do you know? "Because
I believe I am." That will never do! Is a man rich because he believes
he is? Will sickness vanish if I believe myself to be well? Some even
think it useless to pray because they feel sure of having the blessing.
That putting aside of prayer is a dangerous piece of business! If there
is not the cry to God for the blessing, yes–and the daily cry for
keeping and for sanctification–the mercy will not come. Again, I say,
healing comes not to a prayerless faith. You may believe what you like,
but God will only hear you when you pray. Faith must pour itself out in
prayer before the blessing will be poured into the soul. Moses cried
and he obtained the blessing–the people did not cry and they would
have been in an evil case had it not been for Moses. We must come to
crying and praying before we shall receive sanctification, which is the
making whole of our spirits.

Marah became sweet through the introduction of something outside of
itself–a tree. I know not of what kind. The rabbis say that it was a
bitter tree and naturally would tend to make the water more bitter,
still. However that may be, I cannot imagine any tree in all the world,
bitter or sweet, which could have power to sweeten such a quantity of
water as must have been at Marah! The transaction was miraculous and
the tree was used merely as the instrument and no further. But I do
know a tree which, if put into the soul, will sweeten all its thoughts
and desires–Jesus knew that tree, that tree whereon He died and shed
His blood as a victim for our sin!

If the merit of the Cross is imputed to us and the spirit of the Cross
is introduced into our nature. If we trust the Lord Jesus and rest upon
Him. Yes, if we become Cross-bearers and our soul is crucified to the
world–then we shall find a marvelous change of our entire nature!
Whereas we were full of vice, the Crucified One will make us full of
virtue! And

whereas we were bitter towards God, we shall be sweet to Him and even
Christ will be refreshed as He drinks of our love; as He drinks of our
trust; as He drinks of our joy in Him! Where all was acrid, sharp and
poisonous, everything shall become pure, delicious and refreshing! But
we must first experience a sense of bitterness–then cry out to the
Lord in prayer and then yield an obedient faith which puts the unlikely
tree into the stream–then the Divine power shall be put forth upon us
by Him who says, "I am the Lord that heals you." The inner healing is
set forth as in a picture in the sweetening of the bitter pools of
Marah. I know I am right in saying so, because we are told of Moses,
"There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved
them."

Again, the task of turning Marah sweet was a very difficult one. No
human power could have achieved it and, even so, the task of changing
our nature is not only difficult, but impossible to us. We must be born
again, not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, but of God. There was no turning Marah sweet by any means within
the reach of Moses or the myriads that came up with him out of Egypt.
This wonder must come from Jehovah's hands. So is the change of our
nature a thing beyond all human might. Who can make his own heart
clean? God must work this marvel! We must be born again from above, or
else we shall remain in the gall of bitterness even unto the end.

But yet the work was very easy for God. How simple a thing it was just
to take a tree and cast it into the bitter water and find it sweet at
once! Even so it is an easy thing for God to make us a new heart and a
right spirit and so to incline us to everything that is right and good.
What a blessing is this! If I had to make myself holy, I must despair!
And if I had to make myself perfect, and keep myself so, it would never
be done! But the Lord Jehovah can do it and has already begun to do it!
Things which I once hated I now love–all things have become new.
Simple faith in Jesus Christ and the putting of the Cross into the
stream does it all, and does it at once, too! And does it so
effectually that there is no return of the bitterness, but the heart
remains sweet and pure before the living God.

The task was completely accomplished. The people came and drank of
Marah just as freely as they afterwards drank of Elim or of the water
that leaped from the smitten rock. So God can and will complete in us
the change of our nature. Paul says, "I am persuaded that He that has
begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ." The
Lord has not begun to sweeten us a little with the intent of leaving us
in a half-healed condition, but He will continue the process till we
are without trace of defilement and made pure and right in His sight.
This work is one which greatly glo-rifles God. If the change of Marah's
water made the people praise God, much more will the change of nature
make us adore Him forever and ever! We are going to be exalted,
Brethren, by-and-by, to the highest place in the universe–next to God!
Man, poor, sinful man, is to be so changed as to be able to stand side
by side with Christ, who has, for that very purpose, taken upon Himself
human nature. We are to be above the angels! The highest seraphim shall
be less privileged than the heirs of salvation!

Now, the tendency to pride would be very strong upon us, only that we
shall always remember what we used to be and what power it was that has
made us what we are. This will make it safe for God to glorify His
people. There will be no fear of our sullying God's honor, or setting
ourselves up in opposition to Him, as did Lucifer of old. It shall
never be said of any spirit washed in the precious blood of Jesus, "How
are you fallen from Heaven, O son of the morning!" for the process
through which we shall pass in turning our bitterness to sweetness will
fill us with perpetual adoration and with constant reverence of the
unspeakably mighty Grace of God! Will it not be so, Brethren? Do not
your impulses even now lead you to feel that, when you gain your
promised crowns, the first thing you will joyfully do will be to cast
them at the feet of Jesus, and say, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto
Your name be Glory forever and ever"?

That sweetened Marah was all of God–our renewed nature shall be all of
God. We shall not be able to take the slightest particle of credit to
ourselves, nor shall we wish to do so. Brothers and Sisters, the Lord
will do it! He will be sure to do it because it will glorify His name.
Let us draw comfort from this fact–there will be no interfering with
the Lord by a rival claimant to honor! There will be no idolatry in us
taking away part of His praises! Therefore He will do it and change our
bitterness into perfect sweetness. Blessed be His name, He can do
it–nothing will baffle the skill of "the Lord that heals you."

Whenever I am cast down under a sense of corruption, I always like to
get a hold of this Divine name, "The Lord that heals you." "Thanks be
to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
"Faithful is He that has called you, who also will do it," says the
Apostle. He has not undertaken what He will fail to perform. Jehovah,
who made Heaven and earth, has undertaken to make us perfect and to
effectually heal us–therefore let us be confident that

it will assuredly be accomplished and we shall be presented without
spot before God! He who heals us is a God so glorious that He will
certainly perform the work. There is none like unto the Omnipotent One!
He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. His wisdom, power and
Grace can so work upon us that where sin abounded Grace shall much more
abound–

"You can o vercome this heart of mine!

You will victorious prove,

For everlasting strength is Yours

And everlasting love.

Your powerful Spirit shall subdue

Unconquerable sin;

Cleanse this foul heart, and make it new,

And write Your Law within."

He is a God who loves us so and makes us so precious in His sight that
He gave Egypt for our ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for us! A God so loving
will surely perfect that which concerns us.

Moreover, a God so fond of purity, a God who hates sin so intensely and
who loves righteousness so fervently will surely cleanse the blood of
His own children! He must and will make His own family pure! "This
people have I formed for Myself: they shall show forth My praise." The
devil cannot hinder that decree. "They shall," says God, and they
shall, too–no matter what shall stand in their way! They must and they
shall show forth God's praise.

Now, as you have believed in God for your justification and found it in
Christ, so believe in God for your sanctifica-tion, that He will work
in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure! Believe that
He will exterminate in you the very roots of sin–that He will make you
like Himself, without taint or speck, and that, as surely as you are
trusting in Christ, you shall be whiter than snow, pure as the infinite
Jehovah–and you shall stand with His First-Born, accepted in the
Beloved! My soul seems to grasp this and to hold it all the more firmly
because the Lord has turned my bitter circumstances into sweetness and
has healed the sickness of my body.

Because of these former mercies, I know that He will heal the sickness
of my spirit, and I shall be whole, that is to say, holy, without spot
or trace of sin and so shall I be forever with the Lord. "Therefore
comfort one another with these words." Brothers and Sisters, if the
Lord has taken you into His hospital and healed you, do not forget
other sick folk! Freely you have received, freely give! Give today to
the hospitals in which so many of the poor are cared for and relieved.
Do it for Jesus' sake and may the Lord accept your offerings!
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The Exceeding Riches of Grace