Alright, so lesson six is entitled to Journey to Mount Sinai, and this is a big change. It's a big shift in the narrative here. Now that Egypt is behind them, Pharaoh is conquered and drowned, very ironically, and the waters of the Red Sea just as he killed the Hebrew boys. Now he is drowned as well, so that's really poetic justice there for him.
But now they're moving on in the desert, moving towards the purpose for their deliverance, which is Mount Sinai, right? Remember this theme, freedom from and freedom for. They're free from Pharaoh in Egypt and slavery to be free for a proper relationship and a covenant with God. So that's kind of where we are right now.
We're shifting towards the freedom for part of this journey here. And so there are various literary and theological themes we want to introduce this lesson off with. And the first is, this great quote actually will teed us off nicely from your commentary, the Captain of the Old Testament. It says this, this next section here describes Israel's journey in the desert on the way to Sinai, chapter 16 through 18, which is what we're going to study in this lesson.
And it has strong literary parallels with the wilderness wanderings of the second generation. Thus accounts of Israel's travels in the wilderness characterized by God's gracious provision. Despite Israel's ungrateful complaining, bracket the narrative of God's grant of a covenant to lead Israel at Sinai that stands at the center of the Pentateuch. That's a little long winded here, but basically what it's saying is, you know, the center of the Pentateuch is this incredible covenant ceremony where God gives himself to his people at Mount Sinai and before this great center narrative of the Sinai covenant, you have Israel wandering in the wilderness complaining that God provides for them.
And after Sinai, you've got the second generation of Israel complaining in the wilderness despite God's provision for them. So that's kind of what's going on here as we move into this next section is God always giving himself towards his people and unending patience, forgiving them, taking care of them, and yet they're constantly whining, complaining, murmuring, and fighting against Moses and God. So that's kind of what's going on here. So what the purpose of taking them through the wilderness, not just here, but in the second generation after Mount Sinai here, is to teach them a whole bunch of very important things.
And by extension, I should say, teach us as well, because as you continue to follow the typology, the spiritual applications and the moral applications here is that remember, we are Israel, right? We are Israel individually as the soul, right? We can see in the story of Israel the kind of spiritual battles that we must fight and not fall into the temptations that they fell into, but also as a church as a whole, we don't want to fall into these issues and these temptations and sins. So we are Israel.
So when we study all of this, you know, we are in the desert wanderings of life, we have passed through the, um, the typological Red Sea of baptism. So now we are wandering before you get to the promise line of heaven. We don't want to act and behave as these knuckleheads did. Okay.
We want to trust God. We want to throw ourselves in his merciful love and just trust that he's going to take care of us. So these really are the lessons that are meant to teach Israel and by extension teach us that in fact, that's what Paul will say in 1 Corinthians chapter six, or chapter 10 verse 6 and following we'll get there here pretty soon. So number one, the first lesson, they have to realize they're completely dependent upon God for everything, all the basic necessities, whether you're hungry, whether you're thirsty, whether you're cold, whether, you know, you have enemies attacking you.
So you got to trust God. So number one, you're completely dependent upon God. The number two, you must trust in him. So you realize that you're dependent upon God for everything and that God does love you.
He will take care of you. He will protect you. You just need to trust and throw yourself in his merciful love. So this is what really Moses will say to the second generation in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy is really Moses last will and testament. He is not going to go into the promise land. He's giving a second law to the Israelites before they go into the promise line under the leadership of Joshua. And he says something really, really beautiful in Deuteronomy chapter eight.
He says, you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that a man does not live by bread alone, that man lives by everything that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out upon you. Your foot did not swell these 40 years.
Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. That is, that is an awesome explanation that Moses gives to Israel. You're in Deuteronomy. Your God is your father, right?
And a good father disciplines his son to train his son in righteousness and virtue and maturity. That's what God was doing with Israel in the wilderness, letting them go hungry, letting them thirst to see what was in their heart. They can humble them and to make them realize they can't do anything without God. And not only that, but there's more to life than just filling your belly with bread, right?
This classic line here that Jesus even quotes when he's fighting Satan in the wilderness temptations, man does not live by bread alone, but everywhere that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. So these are the great lessons that Israel must learn here in this three chapters that we're going to be talking about. But then of course during the 40 years that they wander in the wilderness after they leave Mount Sinai, the numbers chapter 10. So I really, really like Deuteronomy 8.
It explains a bit of the rationale, the divine rationale of why God lets them go hungry. And again, the applications for us are incredible. Why does God allow in his permissive will bad things to happen to us on the whole spectrum, from small annoyances and inconveniences to serious illness or loss of loved one or loss of job or financial problems or whatever it is, he wants us to realize that we depend completely on him, but that he is a good father and that he wants to help us grow and mature and we must trust in him and trust in his care and provision and protection. Okay, so great life applications over and over again.
Oh, really quickly before I move on, I think it's pretty cool too. And not only did Israel have the miracles of the manna and the rock and all this stuff we're going to talk about, but it's also cool that they're clothing and never wore out, right? You know, they're wandering and walking around for 40 years and their clothes are always, you know, they're fine. They're not wearing out their feet.
Didn't swell all of these cool little side miracles that you would think about. And you go, you know, walking 20 miles, you know, you're starting to be feet spread a little bit. So God took care of all the details. I think that's awesome.
Okay, so those are just sort of the literary and theological themes as we move into this new block and section in chapter, so to speak of their journey towards Mount Sinai, which again is the purpose of everything. So we left off last lesson with this beautiful song of Moses in Miriam in chapter 15, praising God for destroying Pharaoh. You know, he's great in all the gods. He's redeemed his people all this beautiful language here in the song and we've left off in verse 22.
So let's read that here and then we'll get back to explaining it. So chapter 15 verse 22 says, When they came to Morah, they could not drink the water of Morah because it was bitter, therefore, it was called Morah. And the people murmured against Moses saying what shall we drink? And he cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a tree and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet.
They are the Lord made for them a statute and an ordinance. And then he tested them, saying, If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord, your God, and do that which is right in his eyes and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes. I will put none of the plagues, the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord your healer. All right, we'll stop there.
So they're just just getting off on their journey here and they get to this place called Morah where they have water, the waters are bitter. So bitter is Mar in Hebrew and so it's very creative, right? It's really simplistic actually. It's like, Hey, these waters are bitter.
What's going into place? Well, let's name it bitter, right? So they do this all the time, like they're just very not creative in their place names. So Morah means bitter because the waters were too bitter.
So they're very intelligent and the people begin to murder a murmurmur, not murder, although later they do want to murder Moses, but they begin to murmur three times in our story today. We're going to see how three times they murmur against him and really they're murmuring against God. So when we do the roadblock and obstacle, they begin to complain and rebel against God. What's the life application?
Do we do that? When things get difficult, when there's a challenge, when there's a roadblock and an obstacle, do we begin to complain against God? Do we begin to test him? I'll talk what is that?
What does it mean to test God? I'll talk about that later here with the water from the rock. But are we rebellious against him or not? Because these Israelites are rebellious.
And so God warns the people in verse 26, if you will obey me, if you will listen to my voice, then you will have none of the diseases and plagues that I sit upon Egypt. And that's going to be really important later on when we look at the stories of Deuteronomy because every covenant has blessings and curses attached to it. And so the plagues and the diseases, they're all curses for disobedience, but they're remedial. They're supposed to make Israel come back to God, kind of wake them up, right?
Sober them up and shake them and say, what are you doing? You're turning away from God. That's what those diseases are meant and those plagues are meant to accomplish there. And so God says, look, I am the God.
I am your healer. That's a beautiful concept, right? I am your healer. I am your redeemer.
I am your father. All these images that we're seeing here in the Exodus account, I wish you well. I wish you good. So don't murmur.
Don't complain. Don't rebel. I'm going to take care of you. The truth is, take a tree.
Throw it into the water and then the water will become sweet. It will become potable, right? They can drink it. Now there's a lot of typology with this very, very simple story that the Church Fathers have always pointed out.
There's a number of things here. Number one, the bitter waters represent the bitterness of life's sufferings because in this life, in this wilderness, wanderings of our life, there is sufferings. You can run, but you can't hide from suffering, whether it's physical or mental or spiritual or emotional suffering, it comes and it goes, but that's part of this broken world that we live in. There are suffering that's involved.
And so it is bitter and it is difficult, right? It's not potable at all. You don't... You can...
But when Moses throws the tree into the water, it becomes sweet. And the church father say, that represents the cross. The cross is the tree of life. All the fathers talk about how the cross is the tree of life.
And so when you put the cross into the bitterness of our sufferings, what happens? It becomes sweet because suffering has meaning with Christ. It's still difficult, right? It still teaches us that we need to have self-mastery and penance for our sins and mortification for our uncontrolled desires and urges.
Suffering is very, very important when united to the cross. It is redemptive. Suffering becomes redemptive when united to the cross and united to Jesus. And so the saints will say this all the time, right?
Where there's a very famous quote where St. Therese is one of my favorite saints, St. Therese of the Zoo. She says at the end of her life when she's about to die from tuberculosis, she can no longer suffer because all suffering is sweet to her.
That's mind-blowing, right? That is mind-blowing. And it's the perfect quote to explain what the fathers are saying here, where you are so united to Christ in a spiritual life. And you have matured so much, and you're in the unit of way, you can't suffer anymore because you and Christ are one, right?
You're transformed into Christ. It's so incredible. Now I'm certainly not there yet. I get a headache.
I have a handful of Advil. I run away from suffering. So I'm just at the very beginning of the spiritual life, the Mount Carmel, I'm at the bottom right there. But this is the reality.
This is the beauty. The cross helps us to endure the suffering, and it will become sweet. So I really, really love that imagery and that typology there. Throw the tree, the cross, and the bitterness of your sufferings, and it will become sweet.
Now there's more typology, though, where Tertullian has said this, something beautiful, it's in your notes. He says, quote, the waters of Morah made fresh by the wood of the tree, pre-figure the waters of baptism made holy and life-giving by the cross of Christ. That is also true because whenever you see water, there's baptismal imagery, OK? It's all over the place, whether it's creation story, the flood.
We talk, of course, about the Red Sea, the Jordan River, name in the Serum, and then, of course, this story as well. There's always baptismal imagery going on here. So when the cross is thrown into the water, it's basically sanctified, right? So the waters are made life-giving by the cross.
And so that's also very, very true. And, liturgically, we see this in a number of different instances, very simply, right when the priest blesses the water to make it holy and make it a sacramental or blesses the baptismal waters. He makes the sign of the cross over it. That is echoing the story.
Also, the Paschal candle. The Paschal candle, when it's dipped into the waters at the Easter Vigil, right in preparation for the baptism of the catechumens, it's also echoing the story. So water is bitter on its own, but with a cross, it becomes life-saving and life-giving. And there's more typology there to meditate on.
It's a ponder here, OK? Now, one more thing before we move on, and that is lessons that we need to learn. So I want to take you, I mentioned this a while ago, I believe. So 1 Corinthians 10, verse 6, and following.
Saint Paul basically warns us, and first of all, first Corinthians 10, we're going to come back to multiple different times here, because it is a great chapter where he goes to the events of the Exodus, and he mentions all of these things that we've seen. We've even talked about in the last lesson. He's going to make applications for the Christian church. Well, in verse 6, he says, all these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did, and he goes into a whole bunch of warnings here.
So these are warnings for us. We, to whom much is given much is required. Jesus says very famously in Luke 1248. So we have the realities that these events and the Exodus have pointed forward to.
These are signs, these are visible powerful signs of even more powerful spiritual realities through the life of the church and the sacraments. So to whom much is given much is required. And so when God says to Israel right here, take heed and listen to my voice. And if you listen, it's going to go well.
If you don't listen, you know, you're going to have all these bad things happen to you. Again, they're remedial. They're meant to wake them up. The same thing is true for us.
OK, so we can't forget when we read these stories. We can't forget it's a warning for us. So this next little section here, this one verse, verse 27, is really proof that God provides for his people, right? So he says, I'm going to take care of you.
Don't worry about it, essentially, no, I'm paraphrasing. But then he shows them in verse 27, because they came to a place called Aleem, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they're camped by there by the water. So here they are in the desert. They just had issues about not being able to drink.
And God, you know, provides for them. It then brings them to this oasis, this beautiful oasis in the middle of the desert with water and with shade. Now, it's very symbolic here. The church fathers will say the 12 springs of water that echoes of the 12 tribes of Israel, writes, you got one spring for every tribe.
But it also points forward to the 12 apostles for the new Israel and the New Testament, the 70 palm trees that is echoing the table of nations on the one hand as well as the 70 people who came down with Jacob and Jacob's family in chapter 1, verse 5. We talked about all of that before. So it's beautiful here that there's this oasis in the desert here that God provides for his people. And it all foreshadows the provision that God will have for his church as well.
OK, the 12 apostles will be providing this water and the shade for all the 70 nations that are typified here in our back in chapter 10 of Genesis. So God is taking care of them. So they should just never complain again, right? God will take care of them.
And that's not what we see. We continue to read in chapter 16. And there's more problems here.