Passage: Exodus 15:19-27

The Big Idea

A week ago Israel was enslaved. Now they’re free, and God leads them straight into the wilderness: training week. After three days without water they find Marah, and it’s bitter. The people grumble against Moses; Moses cries out to the Lord, and God shows him a tree that makes the water sweet. Nothing in this world can satisfy a soul that has tasted new life, and nothing turns life’s bitterness sweet except the cross of Jesus. After the test comes Elim: twelve springs and seventy palms.

Miriam’s Song (Exodus 15:19-21)

When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters back over them, but the Israelites walked through on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them, “Sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!”

The heartfelt worship we saw in Moses’ song spread through the whole nation.
Isn’t it amazing how the Lord brings the people we love along with us when our own hearts are transformed by Jesus? That’s one reason discipling men matters so much: when a husband and father is changed, his whole household feels it.

Training Week (Exodus 15:22)

Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea into the Wilderness of Shur.

Remember training week at a new job, where you learn to do things the right way? This is Israel’s training week.

Think about their week:

They were slaves.
The blood of the lamb saved them.
They left Egypt.
They were trapped at the Red Sea.
They crossed by faith.
God destroyed their enemies. Their former masters were gone. They were truly free.

Now what? Do whatever they want? Why were they set free? Remember, God called them out of Egypt to serve Him.

So they went directly into the wilderness.

The wilderness is where faith is tested. Faith always will be.
Here’s a big lesson: being saved doesn’t mean our flesh is gone. It can’t rule us anymore (Romans 6:14), but it can still cause plenty of trouble.
The trials of the wilderness teach us to walk in victory over the flesh.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1).

In our flesh there is nothing good (Romans 7:18).
Every bit of goodness in us has to come from outside ourselves, by grace, the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. We learn that in the desert.
Actually, we get to learn it in the desert.
Why the desert? Because that’s where we discover how weak we are, how much we’ve lived by the flesh’s resources, how addicted we are to self, how much we really trust ourselves. As much as we hate it, we need it.
Where did Jesus go right after His baptism? Into the wilderness (Matthew 4:1).

God knows all our weakness will come out in the desert. But He isn’t disappointed in you. He has nothing but loving affection for you, and He walks with you through every failure. These lessons let us see our Father’s perfect love.

So the desert does two things:

It reveals our problems.
It’s where God shows His ongoing power and love.

Once you’re identified with Jesus by faith, receiving His death for your sins and His new life, you’ll find yourself in the desert. This world will start to feel strange and foreign. Your eyes are opened, and this isn’t your home anymore. We become strangers and pilgrims (1 Peter 2:11). We wonder how the stuff of this world ever satisfied us.

No Water (Exodus 15:22)

They traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water.

Lesson 1: Nothing in this wilderness can sustain your new life.

David wrote Psalm 63 in the wilderness of Judah: “O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Nothing in this world can nourish the new life you’ve received in Christ.
The pleasures and pursuits of the world don’t work anymore. They don’t give life.
In fact, they only make us thirstier for the real life we’ve tasted.
If you’re walking with God, nothing in this world will quench your soul’s thirst.

“You sound obsessed with this relationship.” Yes. It sounds crazy. But nobody thinks it’s crazy when someone dying of thirst jumps into a river. It’s the only thing that matters, because it’s the source of life. For us, our relationship with God is our life, like oxygen to a drowning man.

Jesus stood up on the last day of the feast and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37).

Bitter Water (Exodus 15:23)

When they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink the water, because it was bitter. That’s why it’s called Marah (“bitter”).

This happens all the time. A believer realizes he’s thirsty in a dry wilderness, so he drinks from the first spring he finds, and it’s bitter.

“It’s been a long week. Someone invites me to that party. Everyone’s having a great time, just like I used to. So I let go and indulge the flesh. And when I get home, I can’t stand it. I’m not refreshed. I’m not happy. I’m completely unsatisfied.” After you’ve known Jesus, the world’s water turns bitter.

“Then why not just stay away from Jesus so the world can make me happy again?” Because once your eyes have been opened to His love and grace, you’ve been made alive in a way that sees these shallow things for the frauds they are. You can go back to the make-believe world where you only thought you were alive. But once you’ve truly been made alive by Jesus, nothing compares.

Young believers who expect an easy road after they’re saved are in for a surprise. He has a lot of work to do in you. It’s worth it, but it’s hard.

Grumbling (Exodus 15:24)

The people grumbled against Moses: “What are we supposed to drink?”

Arthur Pink pointed out that their grumbling against Moses was really grumbling against the Lord, and so is ours. Every complaint about our circumstances, the weather, how people treat us or daily trials is really aimed at the One who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

We’re just like Israel. Our flesh is rebellious.
It needs to be broken, and victory won by the Spirit.
We only see that in the desert, with its dryness and bitter springs.

It took them three days to forget who was leading them.

Was it Moses? Their eyes dropped to what they could see.
Instead of looking up to the cloud, they blamed Moses. Get used to that pattern; we’ll see it again and again. And we do it all the time.
God had just destroyed the greatest army in the world! But they forgot Him because they couldn’t see Him.
He was training them, and us, to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
It’s so easy to blame someone we can see instead of trusting a God we can’t. “She made me. He hurt me. It’s my spouse, my parents, my church, my pastor, my friends, my enemies.” But God is in control, and He asks for my trust. Refusing to trust His hand is rebellion.

The Tree (Exodus 15:25)

Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

Moses did what we should do: he prayed.
Many of God’s children today are so focused on getting the blessing that they forget to pursue the Blesser first. If we were abiding with Him all along, we’d face these moments with confidence that He’ll provide.
Over and over, Israel would face a challenge and cry out to God only after things went wrong. Why not abide with Him all along? He saved them to walk with Him continually, not just to be their problem-fixer.
But His love never fails. He never meant to leave them thirsty. When we’re faithless, He remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13).

“The LORD showed him a tree.”

Moses didn’t see the tree until he prayed, until he humbled himself and asked.
We’re often blind to the help God has already provided until we seek Him.
That tree had been growing there for years, planted in advance for this moment. God has a way of escape prepared for every trial (1 Corinthians 10:13). But we often only see it when we pray in humility and faith.
Think of Hagar, who didn’t see the well until God opened her eyes (Genesis 21:19), or Elisha’s servant, who didn’t see the armies of heaven until Elisha prayed (2 Kings 6:17).
And what did God show Moses? A tree. What does that picture? The cross, the person and work of Jesus (1 Peter 2:24).

Lesson 2: Nothing will change the bitterness of this world except sweet fellowship with Jesus and His cross.

It’s the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:10).
Our trials grow sweet as we realize they draw us closer to Jesus.
The cross doesn’t remove the pain, but it transforms bitterness into sweetness.
In Philippi, Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into prison (Acts 16:22-25). A bitter trial. But they “threw the tree into the water.” They remembered their Savior, and at midnight sweet praise came out of their mouths.
When the cross is in your heart, sweetness flows from the well of your soul. Every bitterness can be made sweet.

“I Am the LORD Who Heals You” (Exodus 15:25-26)

There the Lord gave them a decree and a law, and there He tested them. He said, “If you listen carefully to the LORD your God, do what is right in His eyes, pay attention to His commands and keep His decrees, I won’t bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD who heals you.”

The whole episode was a test: Will you stop thinking you know best? Will you trust and follow Me?
“I’ll be very kind to you. I’m not here to destroy you, only to test you and teach you to follow Me.”
Through the test, they learned something new about God’s character: Yahweh Rapha, the Lord who heals.
That’s what happens when we’re tested too. We come to know Him better.

Elim (Exodus 15:27)

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water.

After the testing comes a time of refreshing.
God always provides a way through.
Marah wasn’t the end of the story. Elim was just a short walk away.

Grace Takeaway

God led His newly freed people straight into the desert, not to punish them but to train them. The wilderness exposes our thirst, our grumbling and our blindness. But when we cry out, He shows us the tree He planted long before we needed it: the cross of Jesus. Throw it into your bitter water. He is the Lord who heals you, and Elim is closer than you think.

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The Test of Bitter Water