“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 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” (Ex. xv. 25, 26).
T would seem as if the bitter waters of Marah represented the acrid fountains of disease and pain. The healing branch which Moses cast into these acrid waters may well represent the Lord’s healing touch. The covenant which He made with His people at Marah and the ordinance which He appointed, especially for their physical healing and keeping affords a deep and strong foundation for the doctrine of physical redemption through Jesus Christ.
This was the very first covenant that God made with His people. It is older than Sinai. Like a gentle, considerate mother, He first provided for their bodies and then He put them to school under the law and later led them forth into the larger and more active experiences of the conquest of Canaan. So Christ began His earthly ministry by healing the sick and then He led them on to deeper teaching.
This ancient ordinance has never been recalled. This ancient covenant has never been revoked. Still it is true
“There is a healing branch that grows
Where every bitter Marah flows;
There is an old appointed way
For those who hearken and obey;
There is an ordinance that has stood
Since Israel crossed the parted flood;
There is a great Physician still
Whose hand has all its ancient skill;
This is our health-renewing tree:
‘I am the Lord that healeth thee.”
Beloved, have you found your way to the well of healing? You will find that, like Horeb’s smitten rock, its fountains follow all along your desert way. There is but one condition: that you hearken and obey. An attitude of rightness with God seems to be essential to our receiving His life in our bodies. The children of Israel, as long as they obeyed Him were kept all through that dreadful wilderness and Caleb could say, at the end of that journey of nearly forty years, “The Lord hath kept me all these years because I wholly followed the Lord, my God.” The Lord Jesus taught the people to trust Him for their bodies as well as their souls and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
The apostles left it as their last prescription for suffering saints, “The prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord will raise him up and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven.” Have we come to the fountain of health? Have we learned not only to take the Lord for healing but for life? Have we proved that wondrous promise “He that eateth Me even he shall live by Me”? Are we singing as we journey along the way:
But that secret my Lord hath revealed
In fountain that flows from His side,
In the stripes by whose blood we are healed,
In Himself as He comes to abide.”
Texts for the Month
1. “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exod. xv. 26).
2. “And the Lord will take away from them all sickness” (Deut. vii. 15).
3. “He healeth all thy diseases” (Ps. ciii. 3).
4. “I will restore health unto thee, I will heal thee of thy wounds” (Jer. xxx. 17).
5. “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses” (Isa. liii. 4).
6. “I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me” (Josh. xiv. 11).
7. “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses” (Matt. viii. 17).
8. “He hath sent Me to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke iv. 18).
9. “With His stripes we are healed” (lsa. liii. 5).
10. “I have seen his ways and will heal him” (lsa. lvii. 18).
11. “Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings” (Mal. iv. 2).
12. “I will come and heal him” (Matt. viii. 7).
13. “He stretched it out and his hand was restored whole as the other” (Mark iii. 5).
14. “Ought not this woman whom Satan hath bound be loosed from this bond?” (Luke xiii. 16).
15. “Oh, woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt” (Matt. xv. 28).
16. “As many as touched Him were made whole” (Mark vi. 56).
17. “He touched her hand and the fever left her” (Matt. viii. 15).
18. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick” (James v. 14).
19. “Who delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver” (II Cor. i 10).
20. “We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (II Cor. iv. 11).
21. “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (II Cor. iv. 16).
22. “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body by His Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom viii. 11).
23. “The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (I Cor. vi. 13).
24. “We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones” (Eph. v. 30).
25. “He that eateth Me even he shall live by Me” (John vi. 57).
26. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. xiii. 8).
27. “Thy life shall be for a prey unto thee” (Jer. xxxix. 18).
28. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. xl. 31).
29. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” (I Cor. vi. 19).
30. “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? (I Cor. vi. 15).
31. “I pray that thou mayest be in health and prosper” (III John 2).