Jehovah Rapha

Today we want to look at another one of the many names of our God, and that is Jehovah Rapha or the God that heals us. In Exodus chapter 15 we encounter this great revelation of the Lord our God about Himself. Israel of God after their passage from theRed Sea comes to an area where they are tested by the Lord for their loyalty to what He had just performed for them. Moses and the children of Israel had just sang a song to their God and Miriam Moses’s sister the prophetess of God had just sang another song to their God. Right after this glorious praise and worship the word says Moses now led them to the wilderness of Shur  where there were bitter waters and the people seeing the bitterness of the waters of Marah they began their complaints against the man of God. When Moses encountered this first rebellion of the people after the crossing of the Red Sea cried out to the Lord for guidance. Right then as he began to call upon the Lord the Lord showed him a tree. When Moses cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There the Bible says the Lord made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said. “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians, For I Am the Lord who heals you. There His name as we know today “Jehovah Rapha” was known to God’s people. Though the Lord led them by the fiery and cloudy pillar, though He was with them, though He miraculously and graciously delivered them from the bondage of Egypt and promised to do them good, they did not trust Him. All they could see, all they could think about were the bitter waters before them and the thirst within them. Because they saw nothing good in God’s providence, they despised it.

When they should have remembered God’s goodness, they thought only of their troubles. When they should have looked to their merciful Deliverer, they looked only upon Marah’s bitter waters. When they should have prayed, they murmured. When they should have believed, they grumbled. “But God, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not. For he remembered that they were but flesh” (Ps. 78:38-39). It was God who brought Israel to Marah. He brought them here to teach them and to make himself known to them, and to teach us and make himself known to us (I Cor. 10:11) as Jehovah-Rapha – “the Lord that healeth thee” (Ex. 15:25-26).

 Though our days on this earth are few, they are full of trouble. But our troubles have a reason. One reason why God brings trouble into the lives of His saints is that we may come to know Him as Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee” (Ps. 34:6; 3:1-8

JEHOVAH-RAPHA IS THE HEALER OF ALL OUR TROUBLES

When the children of Israel came to Marah, they found themselves in great trouble. The waters were bitter. They were dying of thirst. And they had nothing to drink. They seemed to be mocked. There was plenty of water, but not an ounce to drink. Then God intervened. He delivered them from their trouble by healing Marah’s bitter waters. The Lord our God has many ways by which he makes our bitter waters of trouble sweet. Sometimes He simply changes our circumstances. How often have you been in such great sorrow and trouble that you thought you could not endure another day of it? But, just when it looked as though you would be overcome, the Lord removed the trouble. At other times the Lord turns our sorrow to joy and makes our bitter waters sweet interjecting something unexpected, which changes everything.

He showed Moses a tree and commanded him to cast it into the waters. And “when he cast (it) into the waters, the waters were made sweet.” The waters, which Israel could not endure before, became sweet to them because of the tree. That tree, of course, refers to the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ps. 1:3; Song 2:3; Rev. 22:2). No doubt this tree had always been at Marah, but God had to show it to Moses. And our Lord Jesus Christ is always present with us in our troubles. He is the One who brings us healing and comfort. He comes to us because of His gracious work as our Mediator. Yet, until He reveals Himself, interjects Himself, we cannot see Him with us there. But once we see Christ’s hand, the hand of our Redeemer in our bitter waters, those very waters become sweet (Gen. 50:20; Job 1:20-21; I Thess. 5:16-18.

This is the greatest goodness of Him who has called us to His eternal glory.

Frequently, the Lord makes our waters of bitter trouble sweet by simply giving us satisfaction with his will. Nothing removes trouble from our hearts like submission to the will of God in the trouble he brings. Acquiescence in the will of God brings peace to the troubled heart quicker and more effectually than anything else (John 12:28). How often we cry out with Jacob, “All these things are against me.” Then, the Lord takes us down to the land of plenty and shows us our beloved Joseph upon his throne; and we are ashamed that we ever questioned his goodness. Then, with weeping eyes, amazed that we could ever doubt him, we sing, “Oh, how merciful, how merciful, Blessed Lord, how merciful Thou art to me!” All that we have experienced should teach us that our God is able to make the bitterest things sweet. Past grace is His pledge of future grace. The name of God our Savior is Jehovah-Rapha – “the Lord that healeth thee.” (John 14:1-3).

Amen?

God could have simply spoken the word and made the waters of Marah sweet. But He chose to use a specific means. Had Moses not cast in the tree, the waters would not have been healed. The use of means does not hinder faith. It proves faith. Believing God, Moses took a worthless tree and cast it into the waters. And the waters were healed. This is the first reference of healing mentioned in the Bible. And it was accomplished by the use of means. The healing was done by God. That tree had no healing virtue; but God used the tree to accomplish the healing just like the cross of Calvary where in itself had no healing virtue, but it was the Lord’s sacrifice that made it the means of healing in our lives. Another example is clothing on the prophets like Elijah or Elisha or even the rob of Jesus, they by themselves were nothing but regular garment, yet the anointing of the one wearing them did

Bring the healing.

The bitter waters of Marah were an emblem of the bitter curses of the law because of that bitter sting of sin, which makes for the bitter work of repentance. The law demands bitter plagues upon every sinner, even a bitter death in hell. It cannot give us peace. But Christ, the Tree of Life, was immersed under the curse of the law, and made a curse for us. He endured in our place the bitter wrath of God and suffered the bitter curses of the law to the full satisfaction of divine justice. Now, the law of God, once so bitter to our souls, is sweet, pleasant, lovely, and comforting because it is fully satisfied by Christ our Substitute. How is it that God heals the sin-sick soul? How does he remove the plague of our hearts? Look at Marah again, and you will see the answer. First, the Lord made the people know how bitter the water was. There was no healing for that water until they had tasted its bitterness, so it is with us. But once Israel knew how bitter the waters were by nature, the Lord miraculously made it sweet to them. That is exactly what happens in conversion. The Lord first makes sin bitter to us. He makes us see how corrupt and wretched we are by nature. He squeezes the cry from our hearts, “O wretched man that I am!” Then He heals us by His grace. This is God’s way with men. First He wounds. Then he heals. First He strips. Then He clothes. First He humbles. Then He exalts. First He kills. Then he makes alive.The waters were not healed until the tree was cast into them. That tree represents two things. It is a picture of Christ himself (Rev. 22:2) and a picture of the cross upon which our Savior put away our sins and brought in everlasting righteousness for us (I Pet. 1:24). We can only be saved, healed of our souls’ plague, when the work of Christ is imputed to us.

The tree was cast into the waters, they were completely healed. The waters of Marah, once so vile and bitter, were made to be the sweetest waters on the earth, once the tree was cast in it. And God’s elect, so vile and bitter in themselves, are made whole once they have Christ and have His work put in them.

When God heals a soul, it is healed forever and healed completely (Eccles. 3:14; Col. 1:12; 2:9-10). This is the name of God our Savior,

 JEHOVAH-RAPHA – “THE LORD THAT HEALETH THEE!”

He heals all our troubles. He heals all our sicknesses. And he heals our souls.

That is why we who are gathered here on this first Sunday of October 2011 are either already healed by Him or are going to experience this miraculous virtue of our Lord and God here in this sanctuary today.

Amen?