Sweetening the Bitter Things

What a fine series of life lessons for the Christian is presented by the journeyings of the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land! Almost every scene illustrates some practical truth or spiritual experience. For example, the Israelites, soon after leaving the Red Sea, and after a weary march over torrid sands, came upon a fountain in the desert. They rush forward eagerly for a refreshing draught. But, alas! the first taste is a taste of disappointment; for the waters are so bitter that neither man nor beast can drink them! At once the murmuring multitude give to the unpalatable waters the name of “Marah,” which signifies the waters of bitterness. There is a still more terrible bitterness of disappointment in their hearts. They forget all 83 about their deliverance from the land of bondage and the waves of the Red Sea, and think only of their present troubles. With a mixture of ingratitude and despair, they crowd about their leader and cry out: “What shall we drink?”

Now, this exciting scene beside the fountain of Marah finds a parallel in many a chapter of our life experience; and we read of such in the lives of others. Abraham Lincoln was keenly disappointed because he did not win a certain office under President Taylor, and afterward that he was not elected to the United States Senate; but then he might have missed the most exalted station that any American has won in this century. Young Frederick W. Robinson was disappointed because he did not get a commission in the British army; but God had a better place for him in the army of Jesus Christ as the most brilliant preacher in the Church of England. In our own humble experience we have had some tastes of the waters of Marah. We had set our hearts on some favorite plan or project. »4

Perhaps we were going on a long-coveted tour, and had made all our arrangements. But the day appointed for our departure finds us on a bed of severe sickness, and the medicines we swallow are not as bitter as the disappointment. Selfishness murmurs and chafes under the trial. But presently we begin to discover that the sick-bed lay right on the direct road toward Canaan. We begin to talk with our hearts, and to think over our past lives. We make a fresh covenant with God that if he will restore us to health we will use it for him, and be more fruitful Christians. We take up one precious promise after another and drop it into the fountain of trial, and lo! the bitter waters begin to taste sweeter to us! Prayer becomes sweeter, and Christ’s presence sweeter, and something whispers to us; “After all, is not this better for me than the journey to Europe, or to California? Is it not good for me that I have been shut in here with my Saviour?”

Now, this was just what happened to disappointed and murmuring Israel. The Lord 8S showed to Moses a certain tree, which, when he had cast it into the fountain, the waters were made sweet, and the whole multitude drank of them with delight. We do not read that God created the tree by a miracle; he simply ‘’showed” it to Moses. So our heavenly Father does not create a Bible, or an atonement, or a mercy-seat, or the promises, or supplies of grace, expressly for us. His Spirit opens our eyes to see them, and our hearts to enjoy them. He reveals to us the tree of healing which turns a draught of bitterness into a draught of holy joy. And so it is that

“Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new life to prayer;
Bring us to the Savior’s feet,
Lay us low, and keep us there.”

I do not pretend to be a superior scholar in the school of providence, but many of the best lessons in life have been taught me by disappointment. One lesson we have all learned is that this world was not made and is not managed only for us. If it were, then the sun would shine just when we wanted a 86 fair day, and the rain would fall when our garden needed to be watered. But we have found that God goes right on and orders things as pleaseth him, without consulting us. And when our plans were thwarted, and a little Marah began to bubble up in our hearts, that stern schoolmaster, Disappointment, said to us: “Don’t be selfish. This world was not made for you alone. Your loss is another’s gain. The rain that spoiled your new mown hay made your neighbor’s corn grow; the fall in grain or in dry goods will help yonder poor widow to feed and clothe her children more easily.” Wherefore we were reconciled to our losses, and the little Marah began to taste sweeter. Another lesson taught us by that fountain in the desert is that when we get discontented and rebellious we need a bitter draught to cure us of the wicked habit of murmuring. We learn then to prize the mercies that we had regarded with indifference, and perhaps with ingratitude. Health becomes virtually new mercy to us after a long spell of severe sickness. Even ordi- 87 nary preaching has a rich flavor to us when we have been shut away from the house of God for many weeks. Spurgeon says that, after a long and wearisome tramp over the Great Aletsch Glacier, in Switzerland, he and his companions became desperately hungry. A peasant went off to obtain some food at a chalet, and came back, bringing some milk that was too sour to drink, and bread that was too black and hard for them to eat. When, after a long pull, they reached their mountain inn, the most ordinary food was inexpressibly delicious. Our thankless hearts often need a Marah of disappointment or privation in order to make us appreciate the good gifts of God for which we cared too little before.

There is not a single person who reads these lines who has not had some bitter cups pressed to his lips. No journey to the heavenly Canaan is trodden without some Marahs on the road. The power and the glory of Christ’s grace are in sweetening the draught. I have often sat down beside a child of God who had in her hand a bitter 88 cup of trial, but the sweet breath of Jesus has turned the bitterness into such a blessing that she tastes the love of Jesus in every drop. Grand Old Richard Baxter, after a life of constant suffering, exclaimed: *’0, my God, I thank thee for a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years!” That noble and consecrated layman, Harlan Page, of New York, during his last illness uttered these triumphant words: ‘’A bed of pain is a precious place when we have the presence of Christ. God does not send one unnecessary affliction. Lord, I thank thee for suffering. I deserve it; let me not complain or dictate. I commit myself to thee, O Saviour, and to thy infinite love. I stop my mouth and lie low beside thee.” So did victorious grace build up that blood redeemed soul faster than disease was pulling down the frail tenement in which it dwelt. And through the rents which coming death was making heaven’s glory shone in with a rapturous radiance! These were splendid testimonies. I earnestly hope that in many chambers of sickness, or houses of sorrow, they may be 89 like the boughs from that tree which Moses plucked and cast into Marah, making the waters of bitterness sweet to the thirsty drinkers, God knows best.

“All the lessons he shall send

Are the sweetest;
And his training in the end
Is completest.”