Turn to Exodus. Turn to Exodus chapter 15. Again, it is a privilege to be in the house of the Lord this morning. And this is the last Sunday before 2020. Amen. Can you believe that? I'm telling you. Seems like just yesterday we were talking, me and my wife were talking this week. Seems like just yesterday that everybody was worried about Y2K. Now some of you in here don't know what I'm talking about. Amen. But worried about it turning 2,000, how all the computers were gonna shut down and everything mess up. And God had it all in control. He always has and always will. Just kept right on rolling on. Here we are 20 years down the road from that. That's hard to believe, isn't it? Amen. But it's good to be saved this morning. And I promise you one thing, we're closer now to the coming of the Lord than we've ever been. And for the child of God, that ought to excite us. And for those that are not saved, it ought to concern you. And it ought to convict you and challenge you to make sure that you know the Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior. We don't know the day or the hour that He's going to return, but we do know that He is going to return. And our responsibility is to be ready, ready to meet Him when He comes. I'm glad I made those preparations some 29 years ago when the Lord saved me. I'm thankful for that this morning. Exodus chapter 15, a very familiar scripture I want to draw your attention to this morning. And I've been thinking about end of the year, going into the new year, and thinking about some things the Lord has put on my heart concerning that. And I want to take this familiar passage, if the Lord would help us this morning, and kind of deal with that. I want to begin our reading in verse number 22. If you're able, let's stand together as we honor the Word of God this morning. We'll begin in Exodus 15, verse 22, and we'll read down through the end of the chapter down to verse number 27. Bible said in verse number 22, So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them. and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. And they came to Elam, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees, and they had camped there. by the waters. Let's go to the Lord in prayer this morning. Father, thank you again for this opportunity, Lord, to be in your house this morning. Lord, for this opportunity to be able to complete another year, Lord, that you've blessed us with and you've allowed us to live and to serve you. Thank you for these that have gathered here today. Lord, help me just for a little while to be a blessing to your people today. Preach the word of God you've laid on our heart. And Lord, if there's one among us this morning that's not saved, I pray you deal with those hearts. Convict them, Lord, of their lost condition as you did all of us that are saved and bring them to that place of repentance where they'll trust you by faith and be born again. Lord, as we go into this new year, help us to have a desire and a heart to serve you. Help us to have a vision to go forward and to accomplish what you'd have us to accomplish. Lord, we know that if we'll trust you and believe you by faith, you'll see that to pass. We love you. We thank you for first loving us. Lord, we ask you these things this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Again, a real familiar text to most of you this morning. We've heard a lot of preaching on the waters of Marah. What we find here in our text, if you're not familiar with this, the nation of Israel has just been delivered from bondage of being in Egypt for 400 years. It's a great time in their life. And if you go back, and when you get time you can go back and read it from the account of the Passover in chapter 12, you find really it's a new beginning for them. In chapter 12, when the Passover was established, the Scripture tells us that God told them to let that be the beginning of months for them. And this completely reset not only their life as a nation of Israel, but the way that they looked at the calendar, the way they dealt with things. So I think it'd be safe to say this morning that as they came out of Egypt, as they came across the Red Sea into this new life that God had for them, it was a new year for them. If you study the scripture, you find out that Passover lamb was taken and kept up to the 14th day of the month. And then where we're at in our text this morning, they've been a three days journey from escaping the bondage of Pharaoh, the nation of Egypt. So they're about 17 days into this new month when they come to the waters of Marah. God has been great to them. God has been merciful to them. He's parted the Red Seas, allowed them to walk across on dry land, and in that same place, he destroyed Pharaoh's army that were very much trying to destroy them and come after them. Now, I want you to notice this morning as they come up to the waters of Marah, there's a setback that takes place here and there's something unexpected that happens here. The Bible said they find in verse number 22, after this three-day journey in the wilderness, there's no water. Now, down in verse number 24, the Bible lets us know that the people began to murmur against Moses because there was no water. I want you to understand this morning the great magnitude of this story. There's probably, no doubt, somewhere two to three million individuals in this great number that's come across out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and is now in the wilderness. It's a great vast number, not just all the Israelites, but all the mixed multitude and everyone that was with them. So this is a major undertaking. For them to come to the place of Marah and find no water, it is a major thing. This is not just something simple, it's not something they can run down to a convenience store and buy a bottle of water, but this is a very great multitude that is without water. You and I understand this morning, if you don't have water, you're not going to last very long, maybe three days or so at the most. Now, I want to take my thought from verse number 24 this morning. As they approach the waters of Marah, as they find out that these waters are bitter waters, the Bible said in verse 24, and the people murmured against Moses, saying, I want you to notice what they said. What shall we drink? And the picture here this morning is they come up to this place, and they're standing at the bitter waters of Marah, and they know they must have water to go on. They know there's a great multitude here that's going to have to have a whole lot of water. Not just a little bit, but a whole lot of water. And they begin to get nervous. They begin to get upset. They begin to get... weary and they look at Moses as people do. People always look to a leader, I'll promise you that. They look at Moses and they cry out, what shall we drink? And really basically this morning, this is what they're saying. Now, what are we going to do? I don't know if you've ever been to a place like that in your life before. I don't know if you've ever been through something or been through a series of things just to come to another hard place in your life and say, now what are we going to do? You know, I believe this morning as God began to deal with me about this message this week, there are some folks here this morning that this past year while God has blessed you and He's helped you and you're here you're prepared to go into the new year, you would be honest to look back on this past year and say, boy, there's been some trials. There's been some hard places. There's been some discouragements. There's been a few losses along the way this year. And then we find other troubles sometimes in our life and we get to the place where they were at and we say, what are we going to do? What next? Where do we go from here? I want to preach on that thought just for a little while this morning. On now, what are we going to do? Now, what are we going to do? We're facing a new year. We're just a few days away from the year 2020. Hard to believe. I mean, we're facing another opportunity to serve the Lord and to go forward or we can allow this new year to set us back and cause us to quit and cause us to throw in the towel. When I thought about this and was studying it this week, I thought about some people this year that I know personally that did not finish well this year. There's some people I know that have thrown me into the towel. There's some people that used to sit on these church pews that I don't know where they're at this morning. When they left, they went to a good church, but I don't know that this morning. I hope they're going on. I hope they're going forward for the cause of Christ, but I don't know that this morning. There are many just in this past year, no doubt, that the year 2019 is a year of defeat for them. The year 2019 is a year of where they used to be or what they used to be. I don't know about you this morning, but I don't want to be a has-been. I don't want to be washed up in these days. I want to go forward. I want to be strong in the Lord. I want to be courageous and walk in His power and in His might. and I want to finish well no matter how many years the Lord allows me to stay down here. And we're going to have to do that year by year. I want to face this new year going forward for the glory of God. We find this great multitude there in a predicament, but we're going to look at our text this morning and see what do you do next when you find yourself in a place like the nation of Israel is. When you ask yourself this question, there might be somebody here this morning, And you're asking yourself this question. You have recently, what am I going to do now? Maybe some bad things have come up in your life this year. Maybe some trying things has hit your family this year. Maybe there's some issues right now personally in your life, and maybe you didn't say it outwardly, but inwardly you've breathed this question, what am I going to do now? Where am I going to go from here? Well, let's look at our text this morning and see what God did for his people in this story of the waters of Marah. Now, quickly in verse 22, let's look at the past just for a moment. I know we have to be careful about that, but we can learn a lot from the past. In verse number 22, I find a couple of things here that tell us about the past of the people of Israel. Their experiences, no doubt, are mentioned here. Notice he said, so Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea. And when I think about that, I think about all that goes along with them coming across the Red Sea. I think about their past of being in captivity for 400 years. I think about how they were in captivity, and the Bible tells us early in the book of Exodus, there arose a Pharaoh which knew not Joseph. Life began to get hard on the Israelites in Egypt. We find all the trials and the turmoil and even in the days of Moses how those Israelite babies were being killed and Moses had to be hid in the ark and placed in the bulrushes and how God miraculously brought Moses underneath the radar of Pharaoh by his own daughter and brought him into the house and raised him up, let him go to the backside of Midian for 40 years and now has established him as a great deliverer of the nation of Israel. No doubt they look back on a past year, years past, and they had a lot of trials. They were in captivity. And no doubt, not only were they in captivity, but think about the events of the ten plagues that hit them just shortly, just not long since they'd come out of Egypt. Think about how that Pharaoh and all of his people were rebellious to the Lord, wouldn't let God's people go. And we know that God protected the Israelites. We know they lived in a place called Goshen and it was like God had a little hedge of protection around his people. but all those ten plagues were around them. All the suffering, the frogs, the lice, the darkness, all the things that came with that was all around them. They'd had a very trying year, not only their captivity, but just the plagues that had come upon them. Then I thought about the Passover night. You and I, we think back about the Passover and we look at it with joy. I believe they did too once they came through it. But to begin with, there had to be some fear. There had to be a little anxiety when the Lord came by and told them, said, listen, you're going to have to take that lamb and you're going to have to slay that lamb for a household. and you're going to have to put that blood on the lintel and on the doorpost. And he said, when the death angel comes, he'll pass over you. But if you don't do that, that firstborn will be killed. I'm sure there was a little anxiety there. I'm sure there was a little bit of fear, even though they did trust the Lord and they did believe him. But they had been through a very trying year. They'd had a past that they could look back on and say, wow, this has been some tough places along the way. I'll promise you something. Now young people, you may not understand this this morning, but you will before you get out of this world. You're not going to leave this world without some scuffs and scratches on you spiritually. You're not going to leave this world without some battles and some valleys and some hard places and some weeping places. You're not going to leave this world without finding yourself a time or two on your face crying out to God because you don't know what to do next, and you don't know what's around the corner, and you don't know how to get through what you're going through. That is part of life. And if we don't learn how to handle that and learn how to turn to God, then we're never going to be able to go forward and be what God would have us to be. So you find they had a pretty interesting past if you study it out in the previous 13 or 14 chapters of the book of Exodus. You'll see it in detail. And not only did their experiences, but then their escape, thankfully they had escaped from the bondage of Egypt. What a miraculous thing God had done by drying up that Red Sea, rolling those waters back, and allowing them, the Bible said, to cross on dry. They crossed to the other side in the nighttime, by the way. They crossed on the other side, and as soon as they crossed the other side, that same Red Sea that was their salvation was destruction to Pharaoh and his army. And as they came in after them to pursue them, God closed those waters up and took them down to a watery grave. Boy, they could rejoice about that escape. You know, it doesn't matter how long I've been saved, I can rejoice over my escape. I can think back some 29 years ago when the Lord saved me, and it still is good now. Matter of fact, it feels better to me now than it did before. Amen. It's still real. It's still true. It's still binding. I'm thankful for the day that God allowed me to escape the clutches of sin and an eternity in hell. I'm thankful for that this morning. I don't want to ever get over the fact that God let me out. Amen. I don't want to ever get over the fact or the joy in my soul that I've escaped the very flames of hell and the judgment of the wrath of God. Don't ever let that go this morning. They've escaped and what a glorious thing it is that they escaped, but now they're headed into uncharted territory. They've never been here before. They're headed into the wilderness of Shur. You know the story this morning. You know that if they had obeyed God later on, they would have marched right on into Canaan land. But of course, they didn't. There was a number of spies, ten of those spies that brought the evil report. Because of that, they spent 40 years in the wilderness. But at this point, they didn't know that. They were following the Lord, they were trusting the Lord, but they were going into uncharted territory. Would you agree with me this morning that every new year that God allows us to live, it is uncharted territory? If somebody had come to you this time last year and said, hey, this and this is going to happen in 2019 and this is going to take place, You'd say, I just can't believe that. I just don't think that had happened to me. I don't think I'd have to go through that. See, God knows the end from the beginning. We don't know what we're going to face. I don't know what I'm going to face today, much less tomorrow. We're not promised another day. We don't have that guarantee of everything being smooth and rosy until we get to heaven. Matter of fact, chances are extremely high it's not going to be, amen? There's going to be trouble. Job said it, man is born of a woman, few days and full of trouble. That's what life is about a lot of times, is dealing with the troubles in life. And I'm not trying to discourage you this morning. I'm just trying to get our eyes where they need to be for the new year to come. You see, their past is part of the story. And you may look back this past year and you may say this morning, Preacher, I had a tough past year. I had a tough past decade, maybe. I had a tough past time. You may have had some tough times this year and it's got you down, it's got you discouraged. Now notice secondly here, not only their past is something to think about, but let's think about their problem just for a moment. They came across the dry ground of the Red Sea. I can imagine, I know what I would have thought. As they crossed that dry ground and they get on the other side and Pharaoh's armies drown in that water, I would have thought, Yes, it's over with now. No more troubles, no more trials, no more heartaches. Anybody else think that when you first got saved? You think, boy, I've got it made now, man, I won't have a problem in my life. And then you realize God did save you and thank God for salvation, but that didn't exempt you from having problems. Amen. I like what one preacher said. He said it didn't exempt us from the rain falling on us. It rains on the just and the unjust. But thank God we got somebody to hold our umbrella. Amen. And I praise the Lord this morning. Being saved is worth it all, but that does not exempt us from having problems. I can imagine this great group of people as they come across the Red Sea and they think, boy, all our problems are behind us. Matter of fact, they sing that song there, the song of Moses in chapter 15, the rejoicing of that song. I'm sure they're having a big time. Man, they're having a worship service. I mean, Pharaoh's behind them. He's done with, he's dealt with. They don't have to look over their shoulder anymore. They don't have to listen for the approaching hoofbeats and the rolling of chariot wheels. and they go just a little farther down the road. Three days' journey, the Bible said, and here they've come to a problem in their life. Boy, I'm telling you, that's what life's about. It's problems. That's why there's a place called heaven. That's why we're getting out of here one of these days. It's not going to get better and better and better down here for some utopia to come to pass. No, it's going to get worse, but thank God we've got a better place to go if you're saved by the grace of God. But here, let's look at their problem just a few minutes this morning. We have to face reality this morning. I would love to be able to stand up here and tell you that God has spoke to me, and the year 2020 is going to have no problems. But I wouldn't lie to you like that. Number one, God don't speak to us that way. He speaks to us out of His Word. And He's never told us in His Word we're not going to have any problems. But He has told us that He'd never leave us nor forsake us this morning. Notice this. Notice our text. Look at verse 23. Let's look at their problem. Look at the journey the Bible speaks of in verse 23. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. Now here they come out of this great trial of being in the bondage grasp of Egypt. They come across the Red Sea. They came through all that that took place there. And they come up to this place, and no doubt as they're coming up to this place, this great multitude, they see that waters of Mara. They don't know it's bitter waters yet. And they come up, maybe the lead group comes up to this place, and says, yes, we have water, we can drink, we can fill our vessels, everything's good, and somebody bends down and takes up a lap of that water and spits it out and said, no, no, no, that water's bitter, don't taste that water. Boy begins to file back through the ranks, you can imagine that, amen? He begins to go through the ranks, said, the water's bitter, the water's bitter, the water's bitter. By the time it gets to the end of that great multitude, you've got a mad group of people on your hands. an upset group of people that they've come out of that place and now seemingly God has forgot them. I don't know if you've ever been there before. I hope you haven't, but you probably will be. I don't know if you've ever been in a place before where in your heart, by faith, you knew God would never leave you, but in your mind, in the fleshly recesses of your mind, you thought, God, have you left me? God, have you forgotten me? God, why is this going on in my life? You've probably been there. I know I've been there. And if you haven't been there, you probably will be before this thing's over. There'll be times when you question the Lord. That is not a sin, by the way, to question the Lord. It's a sin to be irreverent to the Lord. It's a sin to falsely accuse the Lord. But to question the Lord is not a sin. I can show you characters in the Bible, great men of faith, that question the Lord. And if you've lived any length of time, you've questioned the Lord. You've been to the bitter waters of Marah place and you've said, Lord, you know, I don't understand. We just came out of this hard time. We just came out of this captivity. And now here we are with another problem in our life. You know, when they got to this place of Marah, they could have done one or two things. They could have quit on God. They could have thrown in a towel. I'm sure many of them felt like marching back into Egypt. I believe many of them felt like, thank God he closed up the Red Sea. Amen. They couldn't get back, praise the Lord. I look at that, eternal security. I thank God for that this morning. Amen. I've never wanted to go back, but thank God I couldn't go back if I wanted to this morning. But I can imagine how they must have failed and the problem was in this journey. They come to this Waters of Mar. They're on their journey forward. They're in the new year. They're in the new direction. They're going to another place in their life, in their existence as a nation. And on this journey, it is a beginning of months for them. This is going to totally re-establish the calendar system of the nation of Israel. This coincides with our April, that's the beginning of their new year. And here it is, everything's new for them, and this problem arrives in their life. You see, they're on this journey, and I'll promise you on this journey, there's going to be problems, there's going to be issues, there's going to be trials, there's going to be things that are unforeseen that we're going to have to face. And then in verse 24, notice this, not only they're on the journey, but now they're in jeopardy. We've already mentioned it this morning. They come to the place of Marah and the water's bitter. They come to the place of nourishment and sustenance and what they need to go on and as they taste that water, it's bitter. Now I want you to understand something this morning. If you know your Bible, you already know this. God did not bring the nation of Israel to the waters of Marah to destroy them. He brought them to the waters of Marah to develop them. And remember this morning, God does not allow us to come to those places in our life to destroy us, but to develop us. He does not want to take us down. He wants to raise us up. You say, Preacher, I don't understand. How can I get through bitter things in my life and it make me better? How can I come up on places like this problem that they had in my life and issues in my life? How can I get any good out of that? Well, that's the working of the Lord this morning. That's how He does things. That's how the potter works on the wheel. We don't understand Him. We can't figure it out. Matter of fact, if we had a say-so in it, we'd bypass it. If they had a say-so, they would have bypassed the waters of Marah. But God said, no, I'm going to bring you to these waters of Marah, and I'm going to teach you something right here that you're not going to soon forget. You may be there this morning, you may be facing a new year right now with a problem in front of you. You may be right now this morning thinking in your mind, I don't know how I'm going to make it through this that I'm about to have to deal with. I don't know how I'm going to go through what I'm about to go through. Alright, so you see the two things, their past and their problem. Now, let's spend some time this morning in the meat of the message here. Let's look at their pathway. Beginning in the next verse, God begins to work a work in the midst of his people. I'm glad the Lord didn't leave them at the bitter waters of Marah. I'm glad the Lord didn't look down and reprimand them and say, you ungrateful bunch of people, I just brought you out and just delivered you from Pharaoh, and now here you are murmuring. I'm glad God didn't cast them away and throw them away. Well, I'm glad He doesn't cast me away, throw me away every time I murmur, every time I complain. God didn't do that, but the mighty hand of a sovereign God, began to orchestrate things here around these bitter waters that they would have never seen had they not come to the bitter waters. And I know none of us like the bitter waters, none of us like the problems, none of us like the hard places. If we had our say-so, we'd get saved and we'd coast all the way to heaven. If we had our say-so, we'd make sure when we got saved that every day was sunshine and 70 degrees. But it doesn't work that way. God knows what we need. God knows what we need to go through, where we need to be tried, where we need to be tested. And that's what He's doing for the nation of Israel. And he's brought them to that place here. And now he's going to show them the pathway of how to get through this. I'm going to give you about six things this morning on that thought of what do we do now? Where do we go from here? When you're in a place like this, what's next? I'm going to tell you what most people do in this generation. Sad to say, most people quit. Most people throw in the towel. We're living in the biggest bunch of quitters I've ever seen in my life. Amen? I'm telling you, I've never wanted to quit things in my life completely. I know I've had low places like you had, and we've all wanted maybe just to throw in the towel somewhere, but I've never enjoyed the thoughts of being a quitter this morning. I never did. I didn't like being a quitter when I was in sports in school. Didn't like being a quitter in the military. I just don't like to quit. Amen. I want to try to persevere and press through and get help from God. And I'm telling you this morning, we need to determine we're going to follow God. It may be a tough year. This may be the worst year you've ever been through. It may be the best. I don't know. But we need a purpose in our heart this morning that if we come to the places like Israel did to the bitter waters of Marah, that we're not going to quit. We're not going to follow suit from what the multitude would want to do. But we're just going to follow God and let Him make something better out of a bitter place in our life. Now let's look at this. I'll give you about six things here and we'll be done this morning. Their pathway begins to develop here in verse number 25. Let's look at it. First thing I notice here is a pathway of prayer. Notice what the Bible said in verse 25. Immediately, I like what Moses did. He did the right thing. I'll tell you what Moses didn't do. He didn't get up there and try to make some great sweet smelling speech of something, did he? He didn't try to sugarcoat it. He didn't get up on a pulpit and say, now listen, these waters are not as bad as you think they are. No, they were bad. They were bitter. They were poison water, probably sulfur water, more than likely. Poison, I mean, if they had drunk it, it would have tore them inside out. They couldn't drink it. So Moses didn't do that, but what he did do, the Bible said he cried unto the Lord. And I want to tell you something this morning, when you and I come to these places in our life, if in this new year God has Samarra places for us, we need to learn how to cry unto the Lord. Don't wait to cry unto the Lord until you get to the bitter water. That's what we do a lot of times. A lot of times when the sun's shining, we're on the mountaintop, everything's going good, we don't cry unto the Lord. We don't pray like we ought to. We don't have fellowship with Him through the vehicle of prayer. We don't talk to Him. I've been studying the tabernacle, and I was thinking about that altar of incense which is inside the holy place by the veil right before you go into the Holy of Holies. And do you know out of all that furniture outside of the Ark of the Covenant, out of all that furniture from the brazen altar coming through the main gate all the way to that altar of incense, that altar of incense was the closest piece of furniture to the presence of God outside of the Ark itself. And I'm going to tell you this morning, the closest you can get to your Savior is when you get on your knees in prayer. The closest you can get some help from is when you get in prayer to God. Moses cried unto the Lord. He said, Lord, we need you. Lord, we've got to have you. Lord, we can't go any farther. When you get to that place where you don't know what's next and you don't know what to do and you don't know where to go from there, then cry unto the Lord. I like what the Bible says about Daniel. When Daniel was faced with the great problem of being cast into the den of lions, what did Daniel do? He went to his prayer place as he did aforetime, the scripture said. Oh, I'm telling you this morning, I cannot stress, all of us this morning, me included, how much we need to work on our prayer life. How much we need to establish our prayer life. Young people, you need to have an established prayer life. You need to have communion with God. Or when you get to the waters of Marah, you are not going to know what to do. There are going to be some things in your life that you think you can handle until you get there. I remember 30 years ago, I thought I could handle anything. Amen? I thought that was nothing too big for me. But I found out, I'm almost 50 now, and I'm finding out now there's a lot of things There's a lot of things I can't handle. Most things I can't handle, just to be honest with you. I'm realizing just how much I need the Lord to intervene in my life. Moses did the right thing. He didn't quit. He didn't get complaining. He didn't tell everybody else to leave, but he cried out unto the Lord. If you are going to make it from your waters of Marah to victory, if you're going to make it through the tough places in life, you're going to have to learn how to pray. Amen? Learn how to pray. You say, preacher, can you learn how to pray? Well, that's what the disciples asked Jesus. They said, Lord, teach us how to pray. Amen. We need to learn how to pray. We need to learn to turn to pray. Amen. If you study our military, our special forces, you'll find out the reason why they're so good in their operational skills is because they practice time and time and time and time again. I mean, it's just boom, boom, boom. Have you ever been in the military? You know what I'm talking about, man. Close order drill till it's running out your ears, amen? I mean, just things, one thing right after another. They do that because they want to build muscle memory in you so that when the bad times come and the bullets start flying, guess what? You don't have to think about it. You don't have to read a book about it. You're on it. You're doing it. And that's where our prayer life needs to be. Not that we have to stop and say, Oh Lord, I hadn't prayed in six months or three days or whatever. We need to have that prayer life continually exercised that when we come to these waters of Marah, we will immediately revert to prayer. Thank God for prayer. It can't be stressed too much this morning. You find their pathway of prayer. Secondly, notice this. I find their perception. Now, I'm going to give you what the Lord gave me here. You may not agree with me this morning. If you don't, I won't fall out with you. You know as well as I do, as we study the scripture sometimes, we'll see things from a little bit different angle. But I saw this this week that God began to put on my heart. I preached out this text many times, and I know you other preachers have. But I want to give you what the Lord gave me here in verse number 25 about this perception. Notice the Bible said, he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. Now, if you study the Bible and you've heard this preached, we all know this. The tree is a picture of the cross. It's a type of the cross. And we know this this morning, that the cross fixes things in our life. When we have problems, we turn to the cross. When we have problems, we turn to what Jesus did on Calvary for us, our relationship with God. And that's true. I believe that 100%. Verse number 25, he said, the Lord showed him a tree. And I got to thinking about that. And maybe I'm wrong on this, but I'm going to give you what the Lord gave me. I thought, Lord, why did you have to show it to him? You would think that as they were standing there at the bitter waters of Marah, you would think that tree would be up and very visible. Moses would see that. And I know he didn't know until the Lord told him to cast it into the water. Moses didn't know that was going to be the remedy for the hour. But I got to thinking about this, and this is just a maybe. I'm just going to throw it out there. What if that tree was not standing? What if that tree had been previously cut down? What if that tree had been previously placed there, no doubt, God knowing, we believe in a sovereign God this morning. By the way, you don't have to be a Calvinist to believe in the sovereignty of God, amen? So don't let that choke you up. But God, He just knows in from the beginning. He knows what you need tomorrow before you ever get there, okay? And I don't have a problem believing that this morning. But here he was. What if this tree had already been cut down? What if this tree was laying there and they came to the waters of Mar and they didn't know what to do and they're looking around and the Bible said God showed him a tree. God pointed out a tree to Moses and said, Moses, that's your remedy. You need to cast that into the water. What if it was laying down? If it was this morning, and I'm not 100% sure it was, I'm just giving you what the Lord put on my heart. If it was down already, would it be safe to say this morning the environment of the bitter waters of Marah had covered the remedy that they needed? Do you know what happens a lot of times in our life? I'm talking to Christians this morning. A lot of times in our life we've been saved, we've been walking with God, we know the Lord, and we face a trial like these bitter waters of Marah. We come to something in our life that just punches us below the belt. I mean, something that just hits us so hard, knocks the wind out of us. We don't know what to do, and we can't see the remedy for the environment of our problem. We can't see what we need to do. I've seen this past year and before. I've seen people with things come into their life, and they do right the opposite of what they knew to do. They do things that you're trying to tell them, don't do that, don't go that way, don't quit church, don't quit your marriage, don't throw in the towel here. And they're just looking at you. I'm talking about people that have been saved now. People that have sung in the choir, people that have testified, people that know God. And they say, well, preacher, I just feel like this is the right thing to do. No, I'm telling you, a lot of times those bitter problems, those waters of morrow, that environment covers the remedy that we need. And I'm glad the Bible said that God showed Moses a tree. He pointed that tree out. That may have been standing, and I wouldn't fall out with you if you believe it was. I don't know. It's just a thought there. But either way, God showed Moses that tree. Moses didn't see it, no doubt, or perceive it to begin with. But then God changed his perception at the bitter waters of Marah. And there'll be times when we get to these places in our life, maybe in this new year, that we're going to have to quit looking through our perception and look through the eyes of the Lord. And where do you look through the eyes of the Lord? You look through His Word. That's where you get the eyes of the Lord. If you want to know what God thinks about a situation, you find it in the book. If you want to know what God would have us to do in a situation, you find it in the book. We've got to have a prayer life, but we've got to have a life in the Word of God, understanding the book, digesting the book, getting God's perception on the matter. See, nowadays in the church, most people take a worldly view of things, they take a worldly perception. And they act on the way the world would act. That's why a lot of church people act just like worldly people, because that's their mentality. That's the way they operate. But we've got to get back to operating according to the Word of God. We've got to get back to thinking what thus saith God's Word, and acting through the eyes of faith of the Word of God. He saw that tree and God showed him that. It was a remedy. Look at the practice in verse number 25. Look at the practice of their pathway. Which when he had cast into the waters. Do you know the Lord showed Moses that tree? God could have pointed it out as he did to Moses somehow. He pointed it out, no doubt. And God showed him that tree and Moses could have said, yes, Lord. He could have acknowledged that. He could have said, yes, Lord, I see that tree. Yes, Lord, you told me if I put it in the water, it'll take care of this bitter water. And then Moses could have just sat there, and sat there, and sat there, and that water would have never changed. Their situation would have never changed. Nothing would have ever happened. They would have sat there until they died of dehydration if he hadn't of got up and cast that tree into water. You know, a lot of times in our life we know what to do, but for some reason or another, we just won't do it. It's probably somebody sitting here this morning, and there's some area in your life you're not right with God, or there's some place in your life you need to get straightened up, and God has told you time and time again, this is what you need to do, that's what you need to do. You've even acknowledged it in your heart, yep, God, you're right. That's what I need to do. You're right. But yet you're sitting in the same place you were before. You've not made a move. It's not become practical in your life. Do you know there are multitudes of people in hell this morning that they heard a very clear-cut presentation of the gospel? They were convicted by the Holy Ghost. They came to that threshold of salvation. God dealt with their heart. They knew they were lost. They knew that they needed to be saved. They knew it was simply by faith, and yet they never believed. They never trusted, and they died lost and went to hell, right at the very threshold of salvation. There's many of God's people this morning, the very threshold of victory, but we don't go there because we've not put it into practice in our life. You know what I'm finding out as I'm studying my Bible? I'm finding out something as I'm getting older. I'm finding out that I don't really need to know anything new. I mean, there's so much in the Bible, we'll never exhaust it. But my biggest problem is putting into practice what I already know. My biggest problem this morning is just trying to get right what God has already revealed in my life that needs to be taken care of. Amen? And that's what Moses did. Thank God he practiced it. He did cast that tree into the water. If we're going to move forward and go on in this new year, we've got to have prayer, we've got to have the right perception, and we've got to put the right things into practice. You've heard this said before. I'll throw this in right here. Somebody said this one time. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Listen, I'll give you some great wisdom this morning. What did not work for you in 2019 ain't going to work for you in 2020 either. I promise you that. What was wrong in 2019 is going to be wrong in 2020 if we don't put some practice to it. Notice Forkley this morning. We see their pathway approved. Look also in verse 25. When he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. And there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them. See, that's what this bitter experience was all about. That's what this trial was all about. Again, God didn't want to destroy them. He wanted to develop them. He knew. See, the bitter waters of Morrah were nothing compared to some things they were going to face down the road. The bitter waters of Morrah were just a drop in the bucket, so to speak, compared to what they were going to face in days to come. And that's what happens a lot of times in our life. God takes us to some hard places to prepare us for another hard place. It's just like climbing a flight of steps. You don't go from the bottom floor to the tenth floor in one step. You go up step by step. You go up flight by flight. And that's how it is in your Christian life. And if we don't handle those first things right, we'll never get to the second things and the third things. And if we don't grow a little and learn a little by the trials in our life, then we'll never get to that place of victory God wants us to be. You notice here this morning that it was a proof. The Bible said in verse 25, He made it for them a statute, an ordinance. And there He proved them. He wanted them to pin it down. He wanted them to write it down. Of course, we have it in the Word of God, in the book of Exodus, one of the five books that Moses wrote. We have it in God's Word. It's pinned down. A statute and an ordinance. What He wanted them to do was to learn from the bitter waters of Moriah. What he wanted them to do was to remember how God brought them through it, so that when they faced a trial again, they could go back in their mind and say, hey, do you remember when we were at the water of Zamora? Do you remember when we thought we were going to die? Do you remember when we didn't know where we were going to get our next drink from? And God showed Moses a tree, and Moses put the tree in the water, and those waters went from bitter to sweet. God can do it again. That's what he wanted them to understand. He wanted to put some proof in their life. I know none of us like to be proved, but that's life, okay? That's what it's about. That's what being a Christian is about, is getting proved, getting tried, getting tested, getting developed, getting built, getting trained, if you will, to be a better Christian in the year to come. Whatever's happened to you in 2019, it may have been very rough. I don't doubt that. Some of you here this morning, there's some people I know today in this church that have went through some great trials and are still going through some great trials that have been going on, not just from 2019, some from years that they've been going through. And you've heard this said before, and I don't want to just say it to be said, but I think it's true. I think we can let our problems make us better or make us bitter. I think it's a very true thing. I don't want my problems to make me bitter. I don't want my problems to cause me to be weaker. I don't want my problems to cause me to back up. I don't want my problems to cause me to quit preaching and pastoring and fulfilling the call that God put in my life. I want my problems to make me better. I want to come out the other side stronger and closer to the Lord and having greater faith that my God is able to deliver me. Look at this and we'll be done this morning. You see a proof. You see the pathway of promise in verse 26. and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. You know what the Lord is saying to them here? The Lord is saying to them, listen, If you'll learn from this, if you'll have faith from this, if you'll draw from this, the Lord is saying, I'm promising you I'll keep you in the days to come. There's some things we go through that we don't like to go through. Boy, I know many of you have had that virus that's went through the church the past couple of weeks, went through that thing the other night, and I've had several viruses in my life, but why does everyone that comes new seem like the worst? Maybe it's because we're getting older. Maybe that's what it is. But you know in your mind this thing ain't going to last forever. But for a few moments there, you're thinking, Lord, I'm ready to come on home and be with you. To Bart would be better for me, like the Apostle Paul. We feel that way sometimes. We're going through trials. Some of you have had accidents and tragedies and great pain. Some of you have come out of surgeries where the pain hit when you come out of that surgery and you thought, oh Lord, I think I'd rather die. I talked to a preacher just a month or two ago, had a liver transplant years ago, and this is what he told me. He said, if I have to do that again, he said, I'd just rather go on and be with the Lord. He said, that's the roughest thing I've ever been through. We go through some things like that in life, and God proves us through some of those things, but when you think about the promises God has given us, And that's what he said to his children of Israel here. He said, I'll promise you, if you'll trust me, I'll take care of you down the road, the next year, the new year, the year to come, the years to come. And those that trusted him, he did. You say, now wait a minute, preacher, that generation of 20 and upwards, they went into the wilderness. They didn't believe God in Numbers 13, that generation of 20 and upwards died in the wilderness. Yeah, they did, but there's two of them that didn't. That was Joshua and Caleb. And I'm going to tell you why they didn't die in the wilderness, and I'm going to tell you why Caleb, at 85 years old, was ready to lead the charge on taking the mountain that God had given him. It's because they learned to trust God. If nobody else got it at the waters of Mar, Caleb and Joshua did. If nobody else learned through the trials of the wilderness, Caleb and Joshua did. And they trusted God. And they got the promises of God on the other side when they got to Canaan land. And I realize there's not a crowd of people trusting God in these days. I understand that. I understand it's not the majority that's believing the Lord in these days, but we can do it if we want to. If we'll put our hearts to it as they did and trust the Lord and believe His promises, He'll take us through. Then finally, look at verse 27. I'm done this morning. Look at this, a pathway of prosperity. Now where were they at? They were at the waters of Marah. Waters of Mara were bitter. I don't know about you, but when I read my Bible, I'm a visual person now. I know my mind's messed up in a lot of ways, but I'm a visual person. I start imagining things, and I can see them coming to these bitter waters of Mara, and I guess it's all the Westerns I watched growing up. My mind, I think, is some old bitter water hole in the West. desert sand around it, old dried trees there, vultures sitting in the trees getting ready to eat the first thing it drops dead. You know what I'm talking about? That's a picture I get in my mind when I read this. Now look at verse 27. Look at the opposite that happened because they trusted the Lord. In verse 27, they came to Elam. where were twelve wells of water. You know what wells of water are, that's fresh water. Twelve wells of water, three score and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters. What did God do? God brought them, I'm talking about just in a few verses, God brought them to a mighty place of prosperity. Just in a few verses they went from dead, dried up, poisoned bitter water to go to a place with 12 wells of water and 70 palm trees. You know what good those palm trees were in that desert, don't you? And you're talking about an oasis. You're talking about a shade. You get under those palm trees. If you've ever been in the desert before, you get under those palm trees and it'll cut the heat off of you. Man, it's kind of nice you get under those palm trees. God brought them because they trusted him, because they believed him, because they let him prove them. He brought them in just a few verses from Marah to the place of Elam. He brought them to a place of prosperity. And that's what I want to say to you as we close this talk this morning. If you and I will keep going on for God, when we get to those places where we say like they said, where do we go next? What do we do next? I mean, when we feel like quitting, when we feel like throwing in, I'll promise you one thing. I'll promise you one thing. If you're serving the Lord right now, there will be an hour, it may be a short one, but there will be an hour in 2020 that you're going to feel like backing up on the Lord. There will be a moment you're going to feel like maybe quitting something. Maybe not quitting altogether. Boy, I've watched this happen. I've watched people in the 15 years of pastoring, I've watched them start quitting here, and then they quit here, they quit here, and the next thing you know, they're just sliding out. If you ever start quitting on God, you're going to snowball if you're not careful and get out of the things of God. You're going to be tempted with that in this new year to come. But I want to challenge you to remember what God did for His people at the bitter waters of Marah. Because they trusted Him, because they went forward when it didn't seem like they could go forward, God healed those waters and He brought them to a great place of prosperity and He blessed them. And I believe this morning God will do the same thing for us. I believe this morning God, I don't think He loved the nation of Israel any greater than He loves His church this morning. And I think He'll bring us to those places of prosperity. It won't be easy. It won't always be fun. But let's trust the Lord this morning. Let's go into this new year of 2020 believing God. You're not going to be able to trust Him if you don't know your Bible. You're not going to have faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you don't read your Bible, you're not going to have faith. That's why a lot of God's people are falling by the wayside. We're not reading our Bibles, okay? We're not reading the book. We're not letting it sink in. And when we do read it, sometimes we don't believe it like we ought to. Believe it by faith. Let it get into your heart. Digest it. Get it into your soul. And let it change your life and give you that strength you need. Because this year we'll face some things we've never faced before. But I'm glad this morning God will take care of us. I'm glad God can keep us going. I don't know about you this morning, but I have this vision for myself and also for us as a church. I don't want to just sustain in 2020. I don't want to get to the end of 2020, wipe my brow and say, boy, we made it by the skin of our teeth. I don't want to do that. I want to get to the end of 2020 and look back and say, we gained some ground. We won some victories. We climbed some mountains. We made it through some valleys for the glory of God. We saw some people saved. We've seen some lives changed. We've seen some mission work done. That's what I want to see in 2020, and I think you do too if you're part of this church. Listen, let's don't quit on God. Let's don't throw in the towel. Don't let 2019 discourage you. Just trust the Lord this morning. He'll take us through. Amen. You have the message. Let's stand, sister, if you can.