MUSINGS

“AND THE WATERS BECAME SWEET” Israel joined in Moses’ song of victory in Exodus 15. Jehovah had brought them through the Red Sea and scattered the Egyptians. Then they face their first wilderness test. They come to Marah and could not drink the waters because they were bitter. They murmur against Moses. He cried to Jehovah “and Jehovah shewed him wood, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters became sweet”. The wood speaks of the manhood of Jesus and the perfection of His submission to the Father’s will. In Gethsemane He faced the bitterness of all that lay before Him, His being made sin, being forsaken, bearing the wrath of God against sin, and entering into death. What it meant to Him in His essential holiness! But He bows to the Father’s will—“My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt”, Matthew 26: 39. Luke records His words, “but then, not my will, but thine be done”. This answers to the wood shown to Moses.

We face our Marahs. It may be something which is divinely allowed to come upon us, which we would naturally shrink from. It may be a situation in which we have a choice between what pleases ourselves and what we know would be the will of God for us. In these deep exercises the Holy Spirit would bring Jesus before us, reminding us of His obedience and His preparedness to enter into what was so bitter to Him if the Father’s will required it. Then, as our own wills are set aside, we shall experience the blessedness and the sweetness of the will of God, His grace to go through the experience with Him, and His confirmation in having sacrificed our own wills to make way for some fresh experience of His “good and acceptable and perfect” will. Thus Marah’s waters will become sweet.

FCM

Published by F. C. Mutton, 22 Christchurch Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 4QY, England Printed by Crystal Stationery, 24 High Street, Billericay, Essex, CM12 9BQ, (T) (02774) 50661