Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro: Learning valuable lessons can be a bitter experience.

While this is true, it is also true that experience is the best teacher.

You can tell a child that a stove eye is hot, but it never seems to click until they have touched it for themselves.

When they do, they understand immediately what hot means.

It is a lesson they will never forget as long as they live, but it was a bitter lesson to have to learn.

Unfortunately, we all seem to possess this same characteristic.

We have to be burned before we can learn!

In this passage, Israel is fresh from a great spiritual victory.

They have been delivered from slavery, they have been given a new life and they have witnessed God destroying their enemies in the depths of the Red Sea.

Now, three days later, they are faced with a trial.

After three days with no water, they come to a place called Marah.

While they are there, they are taught some valuable lessons.

I’d like to share those lessons with you today.

It may be that someone is going through a time of trial.

If so He gives a lesson or two to teach you, if you will allow Him to.

If everything in your life is sailing along smoothly, praise the Lord.

But, look out!

One day soon, you will come to your own Marah.

When this happens, you may need the lessons we can learn right here.

I would like for us to step back in time and join Israel at Marah, and consider the lessons revealed here as I try to preach on Lessons Learned At Life’s Bitter Pools.

I. LESSONS ABOUT LIFE

A. Life Is A Mixture—Israel had just experienced the blessing, but they must face the bitter as well.

Then, as soon as this bitter time was past, they enjoyed a time of blessing, v. 22–23, 27.

I suppose, like a lot of people in our day, they assumed that once you sign up to follow the Lord, everything is going to be perfect and that there will be no bumps in the road.

Unfortunately, this is just faulty thinking!

According to God’s Word, life is a mixture of good and bad—Job 14:1; Job 5:7; Eccl.

2:17, 23.

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night.

This is also vanity.

There will be glorious days, The birth of a child, falling in love, getting married, enjoying the good things of life, etc., and there will be bad days .

Times of sickness, death, hardship, discouragement, and depression.

We need to be prepared for whatever kind of day the Lord wills for us to have!

B. Life Has A Master—When Israel arrived at Marah, they seemed to forget all the wonderful things God had done for them.

They forgot about the plagues God sent upon Egypt.

They forgot their deliverance and the miracle at the Red Sea.

They forgot that the Lord had been in absolute control.

They forgot that God is the Master of life.

Both of the good times and the bad.

Psa.

37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

Sounds a lot like us doesn’t it?

We will cruise through life enjoying the Lord’s blessings and take those blessings for granted!

Then, let a difficulty come and we wring our hands, hang our heads in defeat and worry about what to do!

We forget that the same God who was in control in the good days is still on the throne in the bad days!

He is in charge of all of life—Rom.

8:28!

The Disciples on the boat, John 6:1–21.

They rejoiced at His miracles, but when the storm came, they forgot what they had just seen Him do.

Sounds just like us, doesn’t it?

We need to learn the lesson that He is the Master of our sea!

C. Life Is A Ministry—God used all of the times Israel faced, both good and bad, to minister to the Israelites.

What they learned about God in both of these times of life, shaped their perception of who God was and what He could do for them.

The same is true for us.

Every situation in life serves as ministry of the Lord to us.

He uses all the times of life to shape us in His image.

Just as a child is the product of his/her environment, so the Christian is a product of the situations he faces in his life.

Everything we face in life is designed to teach us more about God.

There are lessons in both the good times and the bad times that can be learned at no other times and in no other ways!

In all of life, God is simply trying to make us more like Him—Eph.

4:13.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Rom.

8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

is the reason for Rom.

8:28!

II.

LESSONS ABOUT THEMSELVES

Life is like a laboratory.

Every experience, whether good or bad, x-rays our heart and reveals us exactly as we are.

This bitter time at Marah revealed certain characteristics about the Israelites that they probably would rather have not known.

I am afraid that we are in the same shape as they were.

The fact is, we can learn a lot about ourselves when the bottom falls out of our lives!

They learned:

A. They Were Living For Self—They were only concerned with bodily satisfaction.

They had forgotten the great things God had just recently done in their lives.

Instead of being caught up in His wonder, glory and worship, they were totally consumed with their personal needs!

When we get into a tight spot, we seem to forget the greatness of God and our world suddenly gets very small.

We tighten the boundaries of our lives until we are the centerpiece and the focus of every thought and motive.

We must remember that God doesn’t want us living for self and our selfish needs.

He wants us to live for Him!

When we do, He has promised to take care of life’s trials—Matt.

6:33!

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

B. They Were Walking By Sight—Israel was guilty of looking for satisfaction in the world around them, instead of the God who bought them.

When their expectations failed them, they became disappointed with God.

How many times have we been guilty of the same thing?

We expect something, some job, someone, something to come along to make us happy and all the time, we never look for joy in the one place where it will always be found—even in the bitter times of life!

Neh.

8:10 Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

Luke 10:20 Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

Phil.

4:4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.

Our duty as believers is to learn to depend on the Lord, completely and totally, for every situation in life.

We are to be a people of faith, Rom.

1:17.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Rom.

1:17.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

When we step outside of faith and walk by sight, we have left God’s best and have entered sin—Rom.

14:23.

And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

C.

They Were Never Satisfied—Just 3 days before, they had seen the Lord destroy the greatest army in the world!

They had seen God part a great sea and deliver them.

Then they had seen Him take that same sea and use it to defeat their enemies.

When these things happened, they opened their mouths and praised the Lord in song.

Now they are standing by a pool of bitter water, complaining because the Lord didn’t do it their way, in their time!