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"looking back". Her treasures were there. Paul, when pressing on with the prize in view,
said:--
"Forgetting the things which are behind . . . . . I pursue" (Phil. 3: 13, 14).
Egypt with its fish and its onions and its garlick stands for the world and its
seductions. Let us, who have been redeemed from the present evil age, seek to cultivate a
sanctified forgetfulness, lest the things that have been left behind become a snare.
Forgetfulness led to impatience:--
"They waited not for His counsel" (Psa. 106: 13).
Surely if we keep in mind the way in which the Lord has saved us, doubt cannot arise.
Unbelief grows only when we forget God. Remembering the Passover, the Red Sea, and
the destruction of the enemy Israel would have "waited" instead of "murmured". The
argument is expressed for us in the words of Rom. 8: 32:--
"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not
with Him also freely give us all things?"
We shall most assuredly come to the waters of Marah before we cross the waters of
Jordan and stand triumphant in the land of promise, and when we do, what shall we say?
shall we murmur? Yes, we shall if we forget the works of the Lord. If, however, we
remember His mercy, we shall, in the midst of the sore trial (for bitter water at the end of
a three days' wilderness journey is a sore trial) realized that He is still faithful, and that a
lesson for our higher good is to be learned. The Lord would have His children to
understand that there is but one sweetener for the bitterness of the wilderness journey,
and that is the cross of Christ:--
"And the Lord shewed 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" (Exod. 15: 25).
"There He proved them."--Deut. 8: 2, 3 reveals the fact that the whole of the forty
years in the wilderness with its many trials and calls for patience and trust, its privations
and its sufferings, were all a part of the Lord's leading ("Thy God led thee"), and were
"to prove" the people in order to make them know that man does not live by bread alone.
The lesson is the same for all who tread the pilgrim way. It is there in Hebrews for every
partaker of the heavenly calling. It is there in Philippians for all who would, with the
apostle, count all things loss, and press on for the prize. Before Abraham received the
promise with an oath he was "proved", as we see in Gen. 22: and Heb. 6:
The sweetening of the bitter waters by the tree is found to be a symbol of the healing
of the nation.
"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" (Exod. 15: 26).