Scarcely had died away the rapturous notes of Israel's joy and exultation, because of their deliverance from all the power and malice of Egypt, before they are made to feel the barrenness and dearth of the wilderness. With what high and elated thoughts of God's goodness and power did they step out into the wilderness! Surely they were little prepared for this, their first march in it! To go three days and find no water, and when they reached some, to find it " bitter! " What a contrast to the high tone and brilliant expectations they had just celebrated in song! How differently had they expected of God! How natural it was for them, as knowing and rejoicing in the great work of deliverance which He had accomplished for them, to reckon on His providing a scene of unbroken happiness for them. Thus is it often with believers now, after having in like manner, as it were, crossed the Red Sea. They have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; and they rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. They have the exulting experience of Rom. 5:2, but can they say, " and not only so, but we glory in, tribulations also." Do they as a rule, even expect tribulation here, much less glory in it? They are in all the exuberance of delight, because of peace with God, and hope of the glory of God. But what of this world-this wilderness? Have not many of us expected, and even toiled to find all easy and agreeable here? Have we not sought to make ourselves happy here? Have we not been disappointed, depressed, almost inconsolable, when we have found no water here, and of what there is, only bitter? We have entered the wilderness, without understanding what it is. We have expected that the God who had blessed our souls with such peace and exultation over the enemy and over death, should preserve and screen us from sorrow. In the spirit of our minds, we have not been one whit better than Israel. We have murmured and complained, toiled and fretted, to find easy and agreeable circumstances here. But it cannot be. The wilderness illustrates what the world is to the saint; and the first stage of the journey gives a character of the whole. It is all drought. There was nothing in it for Christ. He has been rejected out of it. There is nothing in it for God or for His people. The world has condemned itself in its inability to value Christ. If the best cannot be valued, how could anything inferior? If the world has nothing for, God in it; if it has rejected the best thing God could send into it, how can I expect Him to make it easy and agreeable to me? On the contrary, if true to Him, and estimating the world as He does, I glory in tribulation; for tribulation worketh endurance; endurance, experience (or trying); and trying, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which He hath given us.
I ought to start in the wilderness expecting nothing but dearth; and in not doing so, is where many of us have failed. Our expectations have been like Israel; and our disappointment and disheartenment at not finding them realized, like theirs also. We have had in fact, to go back, and begin anew-to start aright. Most of our failings in the wilderness march are attributed to our having started with a wrong idea of what the wilderness is. Ease or rest we cannot find in it; and the more we expect it, the more shall we chafe under the disappointment. The first stage in our journey must proclaim to us, as to Israel, what the true nature of the journey is. It is Marah.
What then is to be done-the water is bitter? God can make it sweet. He shows Moses a tree which, when cast into the water, makes it sweet. This is Christ crucified. This is what the world rejected; and the only good thing which God has to give His people in passing through it. Nay more; the bitterness of the circumstances which I am passing through, is only an opportunity for Christ to come in, and so make the bitter sweet. If you have no Marah here, you know not the power of Christ to convert it into sweetness. Paul in prison at Rome, and John at Patmos, were in very bitter circumstances; but would they have changed them for any other, seeing that those circumstances were the opportunity for the revelation of Christ? God cannot let me find both sweetness here, and sweetness in Christ. If I wit/ have the sweetness of circumstances, I shall not have the sweetness of Christ in the bitter circumstances, for it is He who brightens up the dark circumstances. Let me once be brought to see that without the bitter circumstances I could not have such knowledge of Christ, and I shall murmur at them no more. I accept them; nay, I glory in tribulation. It is not only that I am quiet and resigned, braving my circumstances in the strength of natural character. No, I know they are bitter; but I don't occupy myself with the bitterness, because God has given me to know more of Christ in it; so much so, that I should be sorry that they should be altered, lest I should lose what I have learned of Christ in them, making them sweet. I am thus prepared for tribulation, but I am also assured of finding in Christ a greater and jailer delight; so that the tribulation is hailed as another opportunity for disclosing to my heart, as a sufferer here, the excellency and virtue of Christ. I am neither vexed nor disappointed; I am in the happiness of God. I joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the reconciliation. Amen.