Today we are going to look at the children of Israel after they sang the Song of Moses. They went three days in the wilderness and they found themselves at the place called Marah which we looked at last.I want to paint a picture for you of the place that we often find ourselves in. "Marah" means "bitterness." We saw how the children of Israel had gone three days into the wilderness and they had no water. Water is the most important thing that you can think of as you are going through the wilderness. You have to have food and water.
So they came to a place that they had no water, and the water that was before them was bitter. It was undrinkable. The spiritual application of that is the though that if you drank of the bitter waters, it would cause you to be bitter and to die in the physical. It pictures situations in our own personal life that we approach and of which we cannot drink in their states.As a teacher and pastor, I have been in that place for around 10 years and people say, "I can't take this any more. I'm going to die." t's just impossible, in our opinion, for us to take. What has happened to the children of Israel pictures such a situation.
What do you do in such a state?
They did not drink of bitter waters, but instead they changed them with the Tree. So, the Tree, of course, is a type of the Cross. It is significant to us, and so important that the very first situation the children of Israel had to encounter was a lesson about changing bitter situations or changing bitter waters in your life. That's going to be the Christians' mode of operation all the way through.
We do not live in an island secluded from any problems. We have the same temptations as the world, but the difference is we have a revelation of putting the Cross and it's finished work into our lives, whatever that situation may be. After the account of where they learned that lesson, we come to the last verse in chapter 15 of Exodus.
27Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.After they learned how to put the Cross into the bitter times in their life. They come next to twelve wells of water. I want to talk to you about that today. I want to explain what we mean when we say those twelve wells picture the finished work of Christ -- the twelve distinct points of the finished work of Christ. That's where the Christian draws his life. That's where the Christian actually grows up.There are twelve. The Bible is a book about Jesus and His work, and it's a book about how Jesus and His work changes us -- what tyhat work means to us.
Then we find this picture all the way through Scripture in dozens upon dozens of ways. The whole book is about Jesus. The whole book is about the three days and three nights of His finished work. And the whole book is about how it changes a people. And so we find the work of the cross explained in the terms of wells. We can find it explained in Moses' Tabernacle in the terms of loaves of bread. We can find it in the book of Revelation in terms of the stars on the sun-clothed woman crowned.
So, we're going to look at it in terms of wells today. It is not insignificant that there was twelve. Twelve is the governmental number in Scripture. We need to realize that Father's work in Christ's death, burial and resurrection and ascension, is the way He intends you to be governed by Him. It's a governmental number, but we are going to be governed by a finished work -- not just governed by someone who just rules us without our changing or yielding to that rule.
It is not natural that man yield to such a government that is coming. But what will cause you to change to yield to His government, the Kingdom of God, is that you've been transformed by those twelve points of the redemptive work of Christ. That's what governmental number means.
Let's just do a little study here before we get to what those twelve wells are.
In Genesis 22 we can look at a principle that is predominant in the promised son Isaac. You remember that Abraham was promised a son. And he would have a son who would reproduce himself and cause Abraham's seed to be as the stars in the heavens and as the sands of the sea. And that promised son's name was Isaac.
We know that Abraham had a son prior to that -- a son of the flesh called Ishmael. We talked about that in the message on "saving your neck". Here is the point. In Genesis 22, we can find that Isaac typifies the death, the burial, and the resurrection and the ascension. That's when Abraham took Isaac up into Mt. Moriah and that's where Abraham was asked by Isaac, "Where is the sacrifice?" Abraham said, "God will provide Himself a lamb."
That's prophetic. God will provide Himself a lamb. In other words, the ultimate sacrifice that this pictures is the sacrifice of the Lamb provide by Father which was Jesus. And you will see that in the chapter.
After the death, burial and ascension of Isaac that is seen in Genesis 22, we don't hear about Isaac anymore until Genesis 24. So lets look at Genesis 24:62.
Isaac is a type of sonship. God our Father is producing an "Isaac" nature in us. After Isaac goes through the death, burial and resurrection and ascension, where do we then find him?
62 Now Isaac came from the way of Beer (means well) Lahai Roi, for he dwelt in the South.It is not insignificant that we find Isaac at a well. What does Isaac's name mean? It means, "laughter or joy." We find Isaac here at a well, the name of which means "the name of the living God."And that is where you will find the people of God who will grow up into Jesus and enter into his death, burial and resurrection. You will find them at the well of the Living God.
Lets go over to Genesis 26. Isaac is a well-digger. You need to hear this by the Spirit, not the flesh. There is an Ishmael and an Isaac in all of us. There is a growing Isaac and a decreasing Ishmael. We want to go to the place where there is nothing but Isaac let.
Hear this! Your spirit man is a well-digger. He's looking for wells of living water, and he feeds at the well. He resides at the well. Why do you think you can't get enough of the Word? Your Spirit-man is coming alive inside of you and consuming you. If you're not in that place, then you need to let the Spirit rule your desires. If you're not hungry for the Word and fellowship with Father, then there is too much of Ishmael in you. It's the well of living water that your Spirit-man desires.
Genesis 26:17Then Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. 18And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them.What does "Philistine" mean? It means a "migratory person," but it also comes from a word that means, "rolling in the dust".Listen to this. The flesh-man wants to stop up the wells of God. And when they roll in the dust, it stops up the well of living water. Do you understand that principle? The Philistines stopped up the wells that had been dug by the father. That's where we are. The wells that were dug by the father had been stopped up.
What does Isaac do? He digs them again. What do you suppose the Philistines use to stop up God's wells? Flesh! So we have to get the flesh out of the well. We have to get the flesh out of the well so we can drink of that living water. And it will always be flesh that stops up the living water.
In past times, flesh has stopped true revivals. True moves of Father in the past times have always been stopped by flesh. So that is why we must find a decreasing Ishmael and an increasing Isaac. Notice in verse
19Also Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there.Where do you find it? In the valley. Psalm 23, "the valley of the shadow of death." Where are you going to find a well of living water? In that valley of the shadow of death. Not real death, but a shadow of death -- a picture of it. There is where your going to find this well.I hope your understanding where we're coming from. I am trying to paint a picture of how important wells are in the Scripture. Did you know that all of the Patriarchs' wives, who all picture the Bride of Christ, were seen at a well?
In 24 of Genesis,
11And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water.This is where Rebecca was found. Where's the Bride of Christ going to be found? At the time of evening, that's the closing of the age, even the time that women go out to water, that's where you will find the Bride of Christ, at a well of the closing of an age.Lets go look at Rachel. In Gen. 29 she is Jacob's wife, another type of the Bride of Christ.
6-8 So he said to them, "Is he well?" And they said, "He is well. And look, his daughter Rachel is coming with the sheep." Then he said, "Look, it is still high day; it is not time for the cattle to be gathered together. Water the sheep, and go and feed them." But they said, "We cannot until all the flocks (people) are gathered together, and they have rolled the stone from the well's mouth; then we water the sheep."Until you get the stone off the well's mouth, the sheep can't be watered! This is where Rachel was seen.The story in John 4 where Jesus meet the Samaritan woman, where? At a well. The Samaritan woman pictures the Bride of Christ. It would blow some people away to compare her to the Bride of Christ. Samaritans were half-breeds! They were part Jew and part Gentile, which pictures the Church. The Church is Jew and Gentile made into one.
And here is a woman who came and was told, "You have had five husbands and the person you are living with is not your husband." It pictures this woman was married to the five physical senses. And she is living under the law. The law is not her husband. Jesus has come. And the whole picture is how the Bride of Christ drinks from the well of living water.
He said, "Sister, if you will drink from my well, the water that I give you, there will be a well spring up within you unto eternal life!"
Can you see that? The five previous husbands speak of the five senses. The sixth man she is living with is the law, a man who is not her husband. And Jesus is picturing how the Bride of Christ gets away from the five physical senses, comes out of the law and starts drinking of the water of the well of Salvation. She comes in union with one who is the author of that well.
Look in Rev. 22
I think the good Samaritan story pictures Jesus and those of us from Jew and Gentile who do the works of Jesus and add oil and wine into the hurting world. The Priest couldn't do that, and the Levites couldn't do that, but the Samaritan does.
Rev. 22: 17And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.Where does the Bride get that water of life? It's from the wells of salvation and she has that water to offer.