God forgive my sin, in Jesus' name. I've been born again, in Jesus' name. And in Jesus' name I come to you to share His love that He told me to. Free thee, free thee, you have received. Free thee, free thee, give. Go in my name and because you believe, Father, you know that I live. Offer His gift, in Jesus' name, In earth and heav'n, in Jesus' name. And in Jesus' name I come to you, To share His power, as He told me to, He said, Freely, freely, you have received. Freely, freely, give. Go in my name, and because you believe, others will know that I live. Call in my name and because you believe, others will know that I live. Amen. Praise God. Dr. Sedman, we're glad to have you here. Thank you. It's great to be here tonight. I trust that you've each had a wonderful day, and looking forward to sharing God's Word tonight. Let's take our Bibles and turn to Exodus chapter 15. I know that we were all here last night, but I still want to real quickly review where we were last evening. The children of Israel had come out of the land of bondage, God had brought them out with a strong hand. We refer to it even today, as the Jews did, as the Passover. The deaf angel came over and those who had the blood applied to the door were spared. Those that didn't, the firstborn died. So it was a mighty act of God bringing the children of Israel out. He brought them very quickly to a place we saw last night where God told them to camp by the sea. Now last night we saw how there was the sea ahead of them, the mountains on the side, and behind them came the troops of Egyptians. And of course you know the story how God destroyed the Egyptians and delivered the Israelites. So last night we saw that God wants us to go forward in impossible situations. Now, tonight we're looking at chapter 15, and this is, I believe, a very important text, and I've entitled this, Going Forward to the Place of Healing. You know, after we cross the Red Sea, and the Red Sea, of course, pictures their ultimate deliverance, after we've experienced salvation, one of the first things that we all need is healing. cleansing from sin. We need that ongoing healing of the Lord in our lives when we fall into difficulty. And that's what is happening here with the Israelites tonight as we go forward to the place of healing. So let's begin reading in chapter 15. We're going to read verses 22 through 27 and set the context for this story. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, that's where they were last night, 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 is 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 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 of his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians. For I am the Lord that, and here's the phrase, 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 encamped there by the waters." So let's pray tonight as we open this wonderful text of Scripture. We talk about going forward to the place of Helam. Father, I pray that by your Spirit tonight you would teach us your Word. Father, we claim the promise of your Word that it will not return void, but it will accomplish the purpose for which you have flock tonight, I think of what you said to your church, fear not little flock, it's your Father's pleasure to give you the kingdom. And so Father, we claim that tonight, that you will give us every good thing as our King tonight that you want us to have. And Lord, we will thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. The problem here in our text tonight with the children of Israel is the problem of coming to bitter waters. So let me ask you the question, have you ever come to bitter waters? Have you ever had a circumstance in your life that has produced bitterness in your heart? Now, we all understand what bitterness is. We know it when we taste it in food. it in our lives when we become bitter over something. So let me ask you a question. We'll do a little give and take here tonight. What is the core issue that causes people to become bitter? We're talking about families this week especially and sometimes people and families can become bitter over things. What's the issue that causes people most commonly to become bitter? Any ideas? Hurt. Hurt, okay. That would certainly fit the category of the phrase that I'm going to give you that summarizes, I think, all of those issues, so hurt would be one. I'm not talking about hitting your thumb with a hammer, that would hurt, but when people hurt you, that would be certainly a source of bitterness. What else? Disappointment, yes, when we're disappointed with something, that can produce bitterness. You know, you wanted the, you know, you're out looking for the pot of gold with your metal detector and you wanted to find the Queen's crown jewels and you didn't find them, you're disappointed, that could produce bitterness. What else? Anything else that can produce bitterness? Hurt or disappointment, anything else? getting angry, that's certainly a symptom of bitterness, okay. I would give this phrase which encompasses all of that, that is, bitterness is produced in our lives by unfulfilled expectations. We all have expectations, you know, but when we're young we expect to get married and we expect to have a wonderful perfect marriage, we expect all of our all the bills paid on time, we expect to live in a lovely home, we expect the dog and the cat to be healthy and never get run over, and we have all of these expectations about life, and then life throws a curveball at us, and those expectations are unfulfilled. And we get this idea that God has failed us because He hasn't met the expectations that we establish. Now sometimes, especially when we're young Christians, we have really dumb expectations. I remember, I told you a little bit of my testimony last night. I was not raised in a Christian home. I was saved at the age of 10, came up through church, and when I was 15, the Lord called me to preach. I got it in my mind. I told somebody, you know, when I become a preacher someday, I want to have a church of 2,000. You know, that never happened. Now, there may have been 2,000 that I could be chasing, but they never all showed up at one time. So, you know, that was an expectation that I established because it's something I wanted, but it never happened. And so sometimes, in very serious areas relating to our family, our marriage, you know, sometimes girls marry a guy that they think is Prince Charming, and they find out that he's Dudley Do-Right. Do you know who that is? I don't know. Okay, it's Canadian. But anyway, you know, you find out that he's not Prince Charming. Or the guy is marrying this beautiful, wonderful lady that he thinks is absolutely perfect, and then one day he finds out she's not perfect. And it's easy to have unfulfilled expectations. That is exactly what was happening with the children of Israel. And we're going to see how this develops in just a moment. They had been in Egypt. They had been in bondage. and their life was hard, and Moses and Aaron came and told them that God was the God of deliverance, and He wanted to deliver them from Egypt and give them great liberty and blessing. And He did all of that. They spoiled the Egyptians. They had wealth that they took with them, and they came out of Egypt, and now they've been through the Red Sea, and God has done great things. and they go three days and they run out of water. Now folks, that was not supposed to happen. That was not in the game plan. Israel did not think that they were going to end up in the wilderness without water. It was an unfulfilled expectation of everything being meant for them, that God would take care of every need, and now they don't have water. and so they become very, very bitter against God. You know, isn't it interesting? It's only been three days since they crossed the Red Sea and they stood up and they sang the Lord's praises and they rejoiced in God's goodness and now three days later they're bitter and angry at God because God didn't give them what they thought they should have. You know what that tells me about each of us? We can be really fickle, can't we? We can very quickly turn from faith and praise to God to discouragement and bitterness. It can happen in our families. So we want to see tonight the problem. I want you to see three Ps tonight. I like alliteration, everything beginning with the same. Now, you don't want to force it, but when it works out, it works out really nice. It helps us to remember. We're going to see the problem. What was the problem? We're going to see the poison that came out of their bitterness, what that looked like, and then we're going to see the purging of the bitter waters at Marah and how God healed those waters and really brought healing to the people. So first of all the problem, this is verses 22 and 23. 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. Now why did they have a shortage of water? Think about it for a moment. There was lots of water in the Red Sea that they had crossed, but there was a problem with that water. What would that have been? Salt water. It was salt water. It's part of the ocean. And so they couldn't drink the water in the Red Sea. They had had water with them. Where had they brought the water from? They had brought it out of Egypt. You remember the stories of how they borrowed things from the Egyptians? The scripture is clear that they had wagons in the wilderness wanderings. They would have had kegs of water. I mean, this was a caravan of three million people. They had a lot of supplies. They had sheep. They had oxen. They had barrels of water. But now they've gone three days in the wilderness and all the water has run out and they haven't found any water. So let's learn from this problem just a couple of lessons. Number one, we often forget that God allows those whom he loves to go through testings and to have unfulfilled expectations. This doesn't mean that God didn't love them, bringing them to the waters of Mar. Henry van Dyck, in speaking about this in his commentary, said this. Listen carefully. No doubt a world in which matter never got out of place and became dirt, in which iron had no flaws and wood had no cracks, in which gardens had no weeds and food grew already cooked. That would be nice, wouldn't it? In which clothes never wore out and washing was as easy as the advertisements described it. In which the rules had no exceptions and things never went wrong. That would be a much easier place to live. But for purposes of training and development, a world like that would be worth nothing at all. It is the resistance, the trial, that puts us on our metal. It is the conquest of the reluctant stuff that educates the worker. And then he said, I wish you enough difficulties to keep you well and to make you strong and skillful. In other words, God brings trials into our lives to produce in us the character, the Christ-likeness that He desires for us. So He brings testings and unfulfilled expectations. Peter said it this way, think about strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happening to you. Some of the songs we've been singing this week from the Majesty Hymnal were written by a man named Ron Hamilton who lost an eye to cancer. And when he went into the hospital and he lost his eye to cancer, he was trusting God, it was a horrible thing to lose your eye to cancer. But out of that he became Patch the Pirate. And folks, God has used Patch the Pirate and his music and is still using that today. You know, Ron Hamilton is 68, 69 years old, and I have a two-year-old grandson who absolutely loves Patch the Pirate. As a matter of fact, this last week, he found a little stick from a graduation party. It had a mortarboard, a graduation mortarboard on it. And he went around and he held it up to his eye and he said, look, mommy, I'm Pat's the pirate. Folks, a trial that became a horrible, horrible thing, losing an eye to cancer, became the greatest ministry opportunity that Ron Hamilton ever had. That's why he could write the psalm, God never moves without purpose or plan when trying a servant or molding a man. And then the chorus is, give thanks to the Lord, though your testing seems long, in darkness he giveth a song. And that's what these people did not learn. They had bitterness because they forgot that even though God loved them, he lets us have trials. And sometimes we forget that in our families. You know, we have a family problem, our spouse disappoints us, our children disappoint us, you know, we don't have the finances we need, and we get angry at God when in fact that's an opportunity for us to trust God and to believe God and to see God do great things. So we often forget that God allows those whom he loves to go through testings, unfulfilled expectations. Number two, we often forget that we are inadequate to meet our own needs. They had no water. Where did the water come from? It was from Egypt, and Egypt represents the world. Egypt represents man's efforts. They brought their own water. They could do it. But folks, we can't do it. We're insufficient. And if we ever forget that we are unable to do the work of God and the will of God in our own strength, we will fail. You know, don't we live in a world where people refuse to assume personal responsibility? There's a popular phrase in the United States, and I'm sure it's probably true here in Scotland, it's not my fault. And aren't we that way in our families sometimes when there are problems? It's not my fault as if somehow, you know, we could make, if I was in control, everything would be perfect, but it's not my fault because I'm not in control. Well, the fact is none of us are ever in control. You know, folks, we are frail creatures and we have no water. So we need to look to the Lord and trust Him. So here was the problem, the bitterness. They forgot that God was allowing them and His love to go through trials and they forgot that they were inadequate for the meeting of their needs. You know, the reality is that unfulfilled expectations come from wrong thinking about why God has put us on this planet. Folks, God has not put us here to have perfect families. God has put us here to have Christian families, and they're not perfect, at least in this life. God has not put us here to have all of our needs met. God has not even put us here to live a long life and all die of health and good and old age. How do we know that? Because the Lord Jesus gave His life for us at 33, and He told us to take up our cross and follow Him. So we have these expectations about what we believe is perfect in life, so what's the key? We need to surrender our expectations to God. You know, I thought as a teenager I wanted to have a church of 2,000. And when my wife and I were first married and our first ministry as a senior pastor, we planted a church and it was just like here. We had to go in and we had to set up the chairs, we had to sing the specials, we had to clean the bathroom. We had to do all of those things, and we were doing pretty well after two years in a church plant. And then we had a coalfield recession in southwest Virginia, and we lost half of our people in six weeks to job transfers. And I had to get a full-time job. I had a little bit of support on the side. I had to sell cemetery property to keep food on the table. Now, why did I end up with a church of just a handful of people selling cemetery property when I wanted to have a church of 2,000? I had unfulfilled expectations because I had not given my expectations to God. It was what I wanted and not what God wanted. So we have to surrender our expectations to God. That's the problem. Give your expectations to God. Give your family expectations to God. Give your personal expectations to God. And if you surrender them to the Lord and you truly give it to them, you'll never have a basis for bitterness. You'll never be disappointed. God will give you what his will is for you. So that's the problem, these unfulfilled expectations that produce bitterness. But then notice the poison that flows out of this. That's in verse 24. There are two concepts here. And the people murmured against Moses. There's the first poison. saying, what shall we drink? That's the second poison. When we become bitter against God, when we have unfulfilled expectations about life, then we start murmuring against God. We start complaining. That's the first issue. So let me ask you a question. Do you ever find yourself complaining? You know, we manifest our fleshliness, we say things like this, maybe you never say it around your house, it's too hot today, or it's too cold today, or that food doesn't taste good, or I don't like what happened to me today. And we are so easy to fall into the trap because we have unfulfilled expectations of complaining, and it may be complaining about our family member, it may be complaining about a job, it may be complaining about money, but we complain, but it is always ultimately complaining against God. They murmured. You know, as a matter of fact, Moses was not a perfect man, but he was following God. Does anybody know how we know Moses was following God? God gave the Israelites something to guide them every day in their wilderness wanderings There was, in the daytime, it was a cloud. Remember that? And at nighttime, it was fire. There was, over the tabernacle, there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And as they went into this wilderness wandering that they're going to end up doing for 40 years, originally it wasn't going to be that long, but they rebelled against God at Kadesh Barnea, and that's yet to come. And so this pillar, when the pillar moved, the fire at night or the cloud by day, they simply followed that pillar. Moses was following the pillar of cloud and fire and it led them right to Marah. But they were complaining against Moses, they were complaining against God. So number one, the poison of destructive criticism or complaining, murmuring. Number two, the poison of doubtful cynicism. Now that's a big word, but you find it in this statement, and the people murmured, verse 24, against Moses saying, what shall we drink? Now that's a pretty dumb question, isn't it? You know, they don't have any water, so they're saying, what shall we drink? I mean, they don't have many options here, okay? They might be able to go out and milk a cow or a sheep, but they don't have any options. But really, behind the question was the question of doubting God. They're really in this cynicism. They're saying, God, you've let us down because we don't have the water that we expected. And so they're asking the question, what shall we drink? It's a question of unbelief. God never answers the question of unbelief. He is delighting to answer the right question, the question of faith. And sometimes there's a very fine line. You know, I didn't share my testimony last night, but 25 years ago this fall, I came down with a bout of cancer. It was in my thyroid, it migrated down into my thymus, and I had to go in and have a couple of surgeries, and I had to have radiation treatments and all these things, and it was quite an interesting experience to go through. And so there were things out of that that I had questions about. So I could ask a question of unbelief, God, why did you do this to me? That would be a question of unbelief. That would be a question of bitterness. That would be a question of blaming God. Or I could say, God, what do you want me to learn out of this experience so that I can serve you better? That's a question of faith. And folks, when we come to the trials, when we come to the difficulties in our families, in our lives, If we ask the question of bitterness, we will be criticizing God and we'll be cynical of what God is doing. But if we ask the question of faith, we can learn and we can go forward to the place of healing. Okay? So the poison of cynicism. So what was the problem? It was bitterness. What was the poison? It was murmuring and being cynical about God. They were angry at God. But we come to the main point of the blessing of this passage, and that is the purging in verses 25 and 26. And so Moses, verse 25, cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. Now this is interesting. They've got bitter waters, and the people are saying, what shall we drink? And God says, Moses, the answer is a tree. And the LORD showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. Then he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them 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 these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee." Now folks, we need to be very careful when we study our Bibles that we don't make everything in the Bible, in the Old Testament, to be a picture. You know that, well, you know that rock that they saw when they were crossing the Red Sea, that's a picture of something. Or that mountain over there, that was a picture of something. And we make the Old Testament everything to be symbolic. We're not to do that. But in the New Testament, there are things that are revealed to us that the Old Testament does represent. Okay? For example, there was a rock in this that Moses struck, and then the second time he was supposed to speak to it, and the New Testament says that rock was Christ. That was a symbol of Christ. It was a picture. Christ is our rock, the big rock, okay? So we can make that a symbol because the Bible does. Did you know that throughout the Old Testament, a tree consistently represents judgment? It represents death? The scripture says, cursed is everyone that is hanged on a plot tree. As a matter of fact, remember the Old Testament with Joab, when Joab rebelled against David, and he went out to fight against David, Joab was right, excuse me, not Joab, Absalom, Joab is in the story, Absalom rebelled against David and wanted to overthrow him, and he was out riding his mule, and he rode his mule underneath what? tree and his head got caught in the tree and he was hanging there and Joab thrust him through. Why did God kill Joab in a tree? It was a symbol of judgment. You can find it throughout the Old Testament. Now in the New Testament we know that there is a tree and what tree is that? That's the tree of Calvary, it's Christ. Christ was hung upon a tree for us and a tree is a symbol of judgment and judgment is horrible and yet the judgment of Jesus Christ for our sins on the cross has produced healing for us and forgiveness and so here in the Old Testament God is showing Moses a tree. And what did Moses have to do to the tree? He had to cut the tree down and he had to cast it into the waters in verse 25. Jesus had to be cut off for us. and we have to appropriate Him to know His healing in our lives. So Bible scholars are agreed that this tree, that when the tree is put in the water, it turns the water from being bitter to being sweet, and that tree represents the Lord Jesus and His death for us. You know, I was very bitter as a child. I hesitate to say this because we have some children here, but you won't hold this against me, okay? You know, I was a really wicked little kid before I got saved when I was 10 years old. I went down to the store one day and I stole some wax lips. Now, that was something that was very popular in our school, and you put them on and you looked really silly, but then you chewed them, they were flavored, and I stole wax lips because I didn't have any. I was a sinner. You say, well, that's not really. I mean, that's a wax lip. I remember when I was seven years old, we'd just moved to a new house where we were living. And I don't remember what was going on, but my mom and dad wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do. And I went into my bedroom, and in great anger, I cried out. And I said, God, if you're real, will you kill my parents so I can do what I want to do? You know what I was? I was a really rotten kid. But then one day, at the age of 10, I heard the gospel. And I received Christ as my Savior. And you know, all of that bitterness, all of that anger went away and the waters became sweet. It happened to me. You know, it happened to my grandfather. My grandfather was my hero when I was a little kid. He was unsaved. My grandfather was a drunkard until he was 65 years of age. And one day he quit drinking. He was a very bitter man. He had lost his wife and was left with seven small children and no wife, and he became bitter against God. When I was saved at the age of 10, I was called to preach at the age of 15. My grandfather was my hero. He was unsafe. He was an agnostic. He was bitter against God. He wanted nothing to do with God. I went over and told my grandfather that God had called me through the Bible to preach. And my grandfather said to me, I would rather see you go to prison than to be a preacher. He hated God. He was very bitter. But I remember the day, many years later, when my mother called me and said, it was her dad, she said, my dad has gotten saved. He was 97 years old. My niece, his great-granddaughter, who was a believer, she was like a teenager at that time, she went over, many of us had witnessed to him, she went over and shared the gospel with him, and he believed the gospel that day at the age of 97. My mother called me and told me that Granddaddy had gotten saved. I thought, you know, poor old guy, he's got dementia, he doesn't know what he's doing, and so I went to see him. And my grandfather, who told me he wanted me to go to the penitentiary instead of being a preacher, he said to me, Bud, will you read the Bible to me? Will you pray with me? Can we sing hymns together? And we sang hymns, and we talked about it, and he lived for three years after that, and he was a sweet, wonderful, changed Christian man for three years after living 97 years as a man who was bitter against God. What am I saying? When the tree is cast in, the waters become sweet. So, let's make the application to our lives. You know, if we have, even as believers, unfulfilled expectations, things that we really think God's given us a bum deal, a bad deal, and we are angry at God, what do we need to do? We need to go back to Calvary. We need to go back to the place of healing. We need to go back to the place of forgiveness. We need to go to God and we need to surrender afresh our will to God's will. We need to give our expectations to God. The same thing that's true for unsaved people, the bitter waters being made sweet by the cross, happens to us as Christians. we go back to Calvary and we're made sweet again. 1 John 1 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now notice what God said about them here. There are three things very interesting that he says in this passage and they're the three things that are the key once we have had sweetness in our soul, once we've gotten right with the Lord, they're the three things to keys to staying right for. Notice what he says, number one, they were to hear his voice. Look at verse 26, if thou will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God and will do that which is right in his sight. He's talking here about hearing God's voice. Now let me ask you a question, where do we hear God's voice? in the Bible by His Holy Spirit. So Moses was saying, once you cast the tree in and the waters become sweet, how do you keep the sweetness? By listening to the voice of God. Folks, if I did not get up every day and read my Bible and spend time with God, I would eventually become bitter again. So I've got to stay in the Word. I've got to walk with God so that my heart can stay sweet. I've got to reappropriate every day that grace that God gives. I've got to hear His voice. So stay in the Word of God. Number two, it says at verse 26, "...if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in His sight..." In other words, we find out what God says and we do it. "...and will give ear to His command, statutes. The word phrase there, to give ear to his commandments, has the idea of listening to him, seeking him, casting our eyes, our face toward him. Number six says that this The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. It's the idea of Moses saying that you read in the Bible, and then you look to the Lord, and you seek His face, and you listen to Him, and you trust Him. So it's this idea of, again, listening and seeking His face. And when that happens, we will know His grace, because look at verse 26. Verse 27. At the end of verse 26, he says, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians. Let me ask you a question. What were the diseases that the Egyptians had that the children of Israel would be delivered from if they would only follow the Lord? What were some of those diseases? What are some of the diseases that we are delivered from when we trust the Lord and we're not bitter? Can I ask the question this way? What diseases does bitterness produce? You know there are people who become very bitter and very angry and they develop something called high blood pressure. Now you can have high blood pressure as a physiological issue separately. What about anxiety? Panic attacks? Those fears that come when we don't trust the Lord? All of those diseases that were part of the Egyptians, they worshipped pagan idols. They had no peace. They had no joy. So he's talking here, I believe, about those diseases that come directly from bitterness, from not trusting God, that come to the soul. How do I know that? Because he says, Brian, the Lord that healeth thee, and then look at verse 27. And they came to Elam, where were twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters." You know what the word in Elam means in Hebrew? It means rest. And here they come to the place of rest because God is delivering them from the diseases produced by bitterness. These are all tied together. You know, when we are anxious, when we worry, when we fear, when we're angry, when we're upset with people, all of those things that affect us physically and mentally and spiritually, we don't have rest in our soul. And folks, did you know that anxiety disorder, mental illness, There are mental illnesses that are from physiological issues. But mental illness and anxiety and all those things that are caused by sin, that's the number one disease in the United States. The doctor actually told me that 70% of the physical problems that he dealt with were the results of sin and worry and fear and people not having peace in their souls. He was a Christian doctor. And so, folks, these diseases that come on us when we become bitter and we become angry and we become fearful and we become worried and we have panic in our souls because we're not trusting God, if we will simply trust God and depend upon Him, we will come to Elam to a place of rest. And none of those diseases You know, our life as a couple, as a family, has not been perfect because, as I said last night, there are no perfect couples, there are no perfect families. But it is such a joy to pillow our heads at night and to have peace and blessing, and to wake up in the morning with the joy of the Lord as our strength. You know, I thought about when we were praying earlier, we had a prayer time before you folks arrived tonight, and one of the fellows prayed for those folks who are meeting up there for the dark day. You know, there are going to be people over there tonight who've been drinking all evening, and they're going to go home tonight, and some of them will meet their wives, in drunkenness. It happens all the time. Some of them are squandering money that needs to feed their children and they're going to go home and their homes are going to be destroyed by bitterness and wrangling and this kind of a thing that produces no peace. And what do we need to do? We need to cast the tree in because the tree will produce peace, it will produce rest, it will bring healing waters to us. So in closing, our time is gone. Let me ask you a question. What expectations in your life tonight have you not given to God? I want you to think about that very seriously. What expectations tonight have you not given to God? In other words, if you had a physical problem, would you become bitter against God? If you had a breakdown in the family member's life, would you become bitter against God? What expectations do you have that you have not given to God? When we have expectations that are unsurrendered, we're setting ourselves up for bitter waters. So what do we do? We give them to God. It really is the issue of surrender. It's the issue of like our Lord saying, not my will, but thine be done. And we have victory by surrendering our expectations to God. Let's pray together. Father, we pray tonight that you would help us to continually go to the place of healing, Lord, to go back to the cross, back to the tree that was cut off and cast in for the waters for us. Lord, I pray that you would help us to be a people who know your peace, your joy. Lord, whatever circumstances you bring into our lives, whatever trials, the lack of water, Lord, help us to trust you and simply realize that you're in control. And Lord, we've given our lives to you. And so, Lord, it's okay because you are in control. Lord, help us not to forget that that will only happen as we surrender our expectations to Thee. And we will thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.