Bitter to Sweet
Opening Song:
Messenger Dox
Call to Worship:
Pastor Zack McGuire
Matthew 4.1-11
Historical Reading:
Pastor Michel Champoux
Apostles Creed
Song:
Satisfied
Confession & Pardon:
Pastor Brett Eckel
Song:
Doxology
Song:
Something Greater
Sermon:
Dr. Alex Loginow
"Bitter to Sweet"
Exod 15.22-27
Introduction
If you’ve ever been to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta you know they have an exhibit where you can sample pop, soda, from all over the world. EPCOT Center has the same thing called Club Cool. Among the choices there’s a soft drink from Italy called Beverly. Has anyone ever tried it? It is the nastiest, most bitter beverage you will ever try.
There’s literally nothing thirst-quenching about Beverly at all. Like, people drink it as a challenge; it’s called the Beverly challenge. It’s like the anti-Christ to the McDonalds Diet Coke. Israel may not have gone to the World of Coca-Cola or Epcot Center, but they do find a bitter beverage in Exodus 15.22-27.
Our Scripture passage tells the story of God transforming the bitter undrinkable waters at Marah to sweet thirst quenching water. And from the outset we know this much for sure – like every pericope in the Bible, this text is guiding us to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our sermon summary this morning is this: God transforms the bitterness of death to the sweetness of life through the tree of the covenant-keeper who passed God’s test. We will divide this sentence in two and we will see what the Holy Spirit has to say from the Word of God for Christ Community Church
God transforms the Bitterness of Death to the Sweetness of Life through the Tree
First – a note on the literary structure of Exodus 15.22-27. Like Moses’ song immediately preceding, the pericope before us has a chiastic structure; it’s like a pyramid that builds on both sides to the point in the center. Verse 22 chronicles the beginning of Israel’s journey and it is paralleled with the culmination of this three-day journey in verse 27. In verse 23 the people find bitter water and in verse 27 they are surrounded by water. In verse 24 the people complain and in verses 25b-26 YHWH tells the people how they should act. And the center of the passage is in verse 25a where YHWH miraculously transforms the bitter water into sweet water. The center of this text is the miracle of God transforming bitter into sweet.
We pick up where we left off last week after Israel’s song of praise to God for salvation at the Red Sea. Now Moses leads God’s people on a three-day journey into the wilderness. Remember in Exodus 5.3 when Moses first confronted Pharaoh, Moses asked Pharaoh to let Israel take a three-day journey into the wilderness to worship YHWH. Well Israel takes the three-day trip here but they don’t worship, they grumble.
At first glance Israel’s complaining feels warranted. They go three days unable to find water and when they finally do find water, it is too bitter to drink (the Hebrew word Marah means, “bitter”). Without water to drink they will die. This bitter water is useless because it yields death. Like dying of thirst adrift at sea, the bitter water of Marah taunts them. At first glance you can understand their gripe
But that first glace is our excusing of the inexcusable. The NET Bible (New English Translation) has a helpful footnote on what grumbling means here in Hebrew. It is the Hebrew word לוּן and it used “almost exclusively of Israel in the wilderness wandering to describe the rebellion of the Israelites against God…they were questioning God’s abilities and motives. The action is something like a parliamentary vote of no confidence.”
This is a healthy recalibration for us because grumbling and complaining can be treated like acceptable sins in many churches. But that’s not how God sees it. Complaining is not a trivial sin in the eyes of the Lord. Complaining is questioning God’s ability and motives. Complaining is a vote of no confidence for God.
The Holy Spirit reveals this elsewhere is Scripture as well. One example is in Philippians 2.14-18:
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
Scripture commands us to do all things without grumbling or disputing. The word for grumbling in Philippians 2.14 is γογγυσμός. It’s the same root of the word used in the LXX for Exodus 15.23. Paul is commanding us not to be like Israel in the wilderness. Complaining is not a minor sin. Complaining is cosmic rebellion against God and it deserves eternal conscious punishment in hell.
Israel’s grumbling is so heinous precociously because God knows what He’s doing. The bitter water at Marah was not a surprise to YHWH. And God performs this miracle to reveal what he’s ultimately doing in redemptive history. The bitter water is a picture of our sin – it leads to death. YHWH commands Moses to throw a log into the bitter water and the water became sweet. The word log in the ESV is the Hebrew word עֵץ (etz), which literally means, tree. YHWH literally commands Moses to throw a tree in the bitter water.
We ought to take note of this hermeneutical thread. Whenever we see a tree mentioned in Scripture, we’re being clued in on something specific. Scripture begins in the Garden of Eden with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2.9). Revelation 22.2 tells us that the tree of life will be in the new creation when Jesus Christ returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. Scripture begins with a tree, it ends with a tree, and the center of the story is about a tree.
The tree in Exodus 15 that turns the bitter water to sweet serves to point us foreword to when God would ultimately turn the bitter to sweet on the tree of his Son. You see hundreds of years later Jesus Christ would take the bitterness of our sin to the cross. Quoting Deuteronomy 21, Galatians 3.13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Jesus took the curse that we deserve because of our sin on himself when he died on the cross. Christ endured God’s wrath for our sin to the point that he laid down his life.
Jesus clues us in on what’s happening on the cross as he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane beforehand. Matthew 26.36-39:
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
On the cross Jesus was going to drink the bitter cup of God’s wrath for the sins of his people. Jesus drank every drop of the just punishment that the elect deserved for their sin. It’s all gone. There’s nothing left! Just as Israel didn’t have to drink the bitter waters because of the tree of God’s mediator, so we don’t have to drink the bitter cup of God’s wrath because of the tree of God’s true and final mediator – Jesus Christ.
And three days later Jesus rose from the dead, death no longer has dominion over him (Rom 6.9). Did you notice in verse 23 that once again Scripture is foreshadowing Holy Week for us noting that Israel went three days into the wilderness? We must train our minds to think of Jesus’ resurrection on the third day whenever we see “three days” in the Bible. Jesus transforms the bitter to sweet by his three-day journey through hell, death, burial and resurrection.
God takes the bitterness of sin, guilt, shame, and death and transforms them to the sweetness of forgiveness, holiness, and resurrection through the tree of Jesus Christ. This is accomplished through what theologians call the great exchange. 2nd Corinthians 5.21 says, For our sake [the Father] made [Jesus Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus never sinned but on the cross he took our sin so that by repentance and faith we might receive his righteousness. And that brings us to the second part of our sermon summary.
Of the Covenant-Keeper Who Passed God’s Test
God transforms the bitterness of death to the sweetness of life through the tree of the covenant keeper who passed God’s test. In the second half of verse 25 God tells the people that instead of grumbling they should listen to the voice of YHWH their God and do that which is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statues. And if they will do that he will not curse them as he cursed the Egyptians. These verses are a little preview of the relationship dynamic God will have with his people through the old covenant.
God is not saying that under the Mosaic covenant his people were saved by works. Some dispensational theologians have wrongly taught that Israel was saved by keeping that law. No Abraham was justified by faith hundreds of years before the Law was formally given. Keeping the law wasn’t salvific but whether or not one kept the law determined covenantal blessing and cursing.
And it’s interesting Moses tells us in verse 25 that YHWH tested Israel. We see in verse 27 that Marah wasn’t that far from the oasis where the Hebrews end up. God was using the Marah incident to test his people. Like father Abraham before them who was tested when YHWH commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Israel’s trust in the Lord is put to the test through the bitter water. But God testing his people goes back even further than Abraham.
There is a redemptive theme here that is woven throughout the tapestry of Scripture’s narrative. In a sense Israel is recapitulating Adam. When God created Adam God gave Adam the covenant of works. He told Adam to be fruitful and multiply and not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If Adam obeyed God’s command he and his posterity would live forever in sinless relationship with their creator. If Adam sinned he would surely die. I don’t think that this was an indefinite time of testing for Adam. During this period of testing Adam was sinless but had the ability to sin. It’s not as if all of humanity would have stayed in that state if Adam didn’t eat.
No it was a short time of testing. If Adam passed he would have received glorification – Adam and all of humanity would have entered a state of sinlessness without the ability to sin, as we will be in the resurrection. But Adam failed. Adam, and humanity with him, fell because of the sin with the tree. We are sinners because we are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.
And now Israel recapitulates Adam as God puts them to the test and God culminates the test by a miracle with a tree. Like Adam Israel failed as well. This past Monday in our church Scripture reading plan we read Numbers 13 when Moses sent the 12 spies to spy out the land.10 of the spies reject YHWH’s command to conquer the land. Only Caleb and Joshua obey. YHWH then curses that generation and bars them from the Promised Land just like their father Adam was barred from the Garden of Eden.
Israel failed just like Adam but both are antitypes for the one who passed the test – Jesus Christ. Pastor Zack led us in our call to worship from Matthew 4 when Jesus fulfills the testing of both Adam and Israel. Just as Israel went through the waters of the Red Sea and into the wilderness for 40 years so Jesus went through the waters of baptism and into the wilderness for 40 days to fast and be tempted by Satan. When Adam was tempted he could eat anything but the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Jesus was tempted he hadn’t eaten for over a month.
Like Adam was tested for a short definite period of time so was Jesus. But where Adam and Israel failed Jesus succeeded. He did not give in to the voice of the devil. He did not sin like Adam and Israel. And in this way he is the last Adam; the true Israel. Just as all humanity fell in Adam’s sin now all who repent and believe the gospel can be saved.
Pastor Mike led us earlier in the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. This is why it is imperative that we confess that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. It is because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit that in his humanity Jesus did not inherit original sin. Jesus never sinned (2nd Cor 5.21; Heb 4.15; 1 Pet 2.22). He obeyed God’s law in thought, word, and deed. Jesus never broke covenant with God.
Jesus is truly God and truly man. He is the creator and the last Adam. The Rock may be Black Adam but Jesus is the last Adam. Jesus is both YHWH and true Israel. Jesus is the true and final mediator between God and man because he is truly God and truly man (1 Tim 2.5).
It was Jesus’ life that qualified him to be the spotless lamb, the acceptable sacrifice. It is because Jesus was righteous, sinless, thoroughly law-abiding and covenant keeping that he could endure God’s wrath and still come out the other side. Jesus did what Adam was supposed to do. Jesus did what Israel was supposed to do. He kept covenant with God and because he did, he could stand condemned in our place. And three days later he would stand victorious in our place. God transforms the bitterness of death to the sweetness of life through the tree of the covenant-keeper who passed God’s test.
How should we respond to this good news? First, if you’re not a Christian you must repent and believe the gospel. Repentance happens after the Holy Spirit works regeneration in your heart, causing you to turn from your sin and to place your faith in Christ. To place your faith in Jesus means you know who Jesus is and what Jesus did, you ascent to the validity of this knowledge, and then you transfer your trust to Christ alone. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved…For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10.9-10, 13).
If you are a Christian then this passage instructs us in how we should face temptation, trials, and testing. First and foremost we must look to Jesus who imputes his righteousness to us. We must not start with the imperative but with the indicative. We are righteous because of faith in Jesus alone. Our obedience to God is futile to save us. There is nothing we can ever do to deserve eternal life. Grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone. Look to Jesus.
When we look to Jesus, the Father makes us more like Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. He sanctifies us through the means of grace in the local church. We need the church all the time and that most assuredly includes when we face temptation, trials, and testing. Our inclination is to run and hide like Adam in the garden; our inclination is to grumble like Israel in the wilderness; but godliness is found in following in the footsteps of Jesus who trusted his Father and when he was tempted by Satan fought temptation with Scripture. God gives us the preaching of the Word, the sacraments, prayer, singing, giving of tithes and offerings, love and fellowship so that we can be more like Jesus. If you don’t want to be like Jesus then don’t come to church every week because this is how the Father makes us more like Jesus.
Conclusion
God transforms the bitterness of death to the sweetness of life through the tree of the covenant-keeper who passed God’s test. Are you dead in unbelief? Look to the cross of Jesus. Are you struggling with sin? Look to the cross of Jesus. Are you suffering? Look to the cross of Jesus. Jesus alone is where we find the sweetness of forgiven sin and eternal life.