Marah dispensations will be succeeded by Elim comforts. How happy Paul felt himself under both. Philippians 4:12. Are these wells, which were twelve in number, typical of the tribes of Israel, and the apostles of the Lord Jesus? Revelation 21:12. Is not this also a type of the church? Zechariah 3:10
REFLECTIONS
Reader! In the contemplation of this deliverance to Israel, shall not you and I, while we consider it as a type of a far greater deliverance from sill and everlasting death, call upon our souls to join in the celebration of God's mercies? I would say to the drowsy faculties of my heart, Awake, awake, utter a song. Did the Lord bring his people out of Egyptian bondage, and did Israel sing his mercies at the Red sea, and shall not I, whom he hath brought out of nature's darkness, and out of the bondage of sin and Satan, shout alike the Salvation of the Lord! Oh! thou blessed and only Potentate, King of Kings, and Lord of Lord's: thou infinite and eternal Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: fain would my awakened soul look up to thee, under each and all of those glorious distinctions of person, and power, and praise thee with unfeigned lips. Thou hast indeed, as thou didst to Israel of old, brought me out of the iron furnace, out of the horrible pit, the mire, and the clay, and hast set my feet upon a rock and established my goings: hast put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: so that many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.
But blessed Lord! Oh grant me faith, and grace, in full exercise, that in all the after stages of a wilderness dispensation, whether in the sweet enjoyment of Palm trees at Elim, or the bitter waters of affliction at Marah, I may still by living upon thee and thy fulness, be never cast down in unbelief, and repining in the emptiness, or unsatisfying nature, of all creature enjoyments. Oh! lead me on to Canaan: and till the happy hour shall come when I shall have done with all things here below, enable me by faith, amidst all changing providences, to live upon an unchangeable God. Let faith give me a present enjoyment of the good things to come. Let me see Jesus in everything; and his wisdom, and love, and faithfulness, mingled with every dispensation. And let my experience resemble his of old, who thus expressed himself: For this cause we faint not: while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.