Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The First Statute

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The First Statute

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 049

Dictation Name: RR171AA49

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou who dost dwell in all eternity, dost dwell also with all who of a humble and contrite spirit. Oh Lord, our God, bless us in thy service. Grant that the ends of the earth know thee to be the Lord, that they serve thee with all their heart, mind, and being. That the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Make us joyful in thy service, and bless us as we worship thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 15:23-27. Our subject: The First Statute. Exodus 15:23-27. “And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah [which means bitterness]. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed 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. And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.”

God has a sense of humor as He educates us. After a great miracle in the waters of the Red Sea, He gives Israel a shortage of water. After seeing walls of water on both sides of them, now they see no water, no water at all for three days. God was testing them. With God’s miraculous care of them be remembered, or would the present problem alone concern them?

Existentialism is a very logical philosophical statement for fallen man. It is radically present-oriented, or more accurately, moment-oriented. Existentialism derives its meaning for the world and life from the moment, and it denies any meaning to anything outside of man. It is also hostile to personal and historical memory, because it wants nothing to influence man except the biology of his being. Dr. Sigmar von Fersen said of existential philosophy in defining it, that it and I quote, “determines the worth of knowledge, not in relation to truth but according to its biological value contained in the pure data of consciousness when unaffected by emotions, volitions, and social prejudice.” In other words, in existentialist thinking, nothing outside of this world, certainly not God, nothing in the past, nothing in society, nothing in your education is to influence you, only the biology of your being and your will. Modern thinkers exclude this supernatural because of their naturalistic bias. Anything supernatural is held to be mythical. However, the anti-historical mentality does not stop there. Since for the modern mind, which is whether self-consciously so or not, existential reality means the autonomous mind of man, and since for Hegel, and all of our time having been influenced by Hegel, the rational is the real. All history is seen as unimportant because it is not rational. To have a historical memory is then to be unreal and irrelevant in an existential world.

Because of this, the Israelites in those days, having a similar mindset, forgot the power of God to delivery, and the only reality for them was their present need and their present demand. As a result, they murmured against Moses we are told, or grumbled against him. This murmuring against Moses is still with us by both Jews and Christians, who resent God’s law, and want love without responsibilities. Sigmund Freud wrote Moses and Monotheism to prove, supposedly, that Moses was not a Jew, and most churches try to leave Moses and the law to the Jews, and insist it is not applicable to them. They don’t want to be bound. We have, however, the beginning of God’s law-giving through Moses in this particular incident.

Waters of Marah were not drinkable. Twentieth century Americans have little experience thus far with this kind of problem. A century ago, pioneers moving westward often had shortages of water, and also undrinkable waters on their way. Certainly, when the pioneers hit the Carson Sink in Nevada and saw all that water, it was a bitter disappointment when they tasted it.

Well, after three days and no fresh streams for fresh water, the Israelites came to Marah and to undrinkable water. God, in answer to Moses’ prayer, showed him a tree which purified Marah. According to Cate{?}, modern Arabs say there are such trees here and there in the Arabian Desert. Clement wrote, and I quote, “From the religious point of view, this period spent in the wilderness serves to illustrate two fundamental truths. Man’s innate tendency to unbelief and God’s ability to provide. If need be miraculously, sufficient for man’s need.”

Well, Israel in the wilderness did have a major problem in that it was a very large and numerous group, about two million people and many animals. Arabia in those days, was not the arid area which it now is, nor was north Africa, for that matter. We know, from some of the wall inscriptions that have been uncovered in the sands of north Africa, that they once had their crocodiles, antelope, and all kinds of animals that indicated lush and fertile soil, and much water. Both areas, northern Africa and Arabia, suffered from two things. First, the weather shifted northward and it left these regions much dryer than in the years before Abraham, and second, men have destroyed the forests and watersheds in both areas. Turkish rule was particularly destructive. North Africa was still a bread basket for Rome, up to the days of its fall. Turks were, among other things, taxed trees, so that non-fruit bearing trees were too costly to maintain on one’s land, and the result was fearful.

But Israel had another problem. They were now nomads, but they were not camel nomads but donkey nomads with {?}. A camel nomad can strike out into areas with no water, but the donkey nomad has a more restricted course. We have here, as I said earlier, the beginning of God’s law-giving in this incident at the waters of Marah. We are told that there, God approved, or tested, Israel, and an ordinance, according to verse 25. Kasuto, one of the great scholars on Exodus, called it a preliminary introduction to His statutes and ordinances, and Hertz said of this, and I quote, “The moral and social basis of the Hebrew law is here taught the people in connection with the sweetening of the bitter waters. God sets before them the fundamental principle of implicit faith in His providence, to be shown by wiling obedience to His will. The healing of the bitter waters was a symbol of the divine deliverance from all evils. Man is tried by the gifts of God and also the lack of them.”

Calvin said of these same verses, and I quote, “The sum of it is that if the Israelites were tractable and obedient to God, He on the other hand would be kind and bountiful to them.” God proved, He tried, He tested Israel. This could be called a trial by water. He gave them a law which can be called a preliminary to what was given at Sinai and is basic to any understanding of God’s law. As verse 26 says, “If thou wilt diligently harken unto the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and will 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.”

In the early church, a great deal of the preaching when we go back and read the literature, was simply a stress on two ways: The way of life and the way of death. Take your choice. And this was the kind of preaching that, among the very earliest documents of the church that we have found, confronted Rome. The Christians were saying, “You’re on the way to death, choose the way of life.” But in the modern church, antinomianism has dulled that emphasis.

God here, in this verse 26, first of all requires faithfulness, obedience. We are to hear Him, we are to obey Him. This means giving ear to His commandments and keeping all His statutes. To do this means second, health, because to be in harmony with God and His law is to be in harmony with life. This does not mean that if we are sick, we are in sin. But it does mean that if we are faithful in obedience, our health will be better. We will have a better, a richer life. We are just beginning to understand the religious roots of health, and the importance of our faithfulness to God and to His word as far as our physical and spiritual existence is concerned.

Then, third in this verse, God concludes by saying, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” It is an error to look to God only for salvation in terms of heaven. He is our guide and protector, our healer and our strength. Unless we see God’s hand in all things, we end up seeing Him in nothing. Now, God does not promise us that merely because we are faithful, we can choose the blessing we want. We may choose wealth or health, and He may give it in other ways, and deprive us of wealth or health, but he will bless us, and He, we are told will choose our inheritance for us. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee that thy testing of us is altogether righteous and holy, and its purpose is altogether good. Keep us from complaining in the time of trial. Keep us from grumbling and murmuring as the children of Israel did. Make us ever mindful of the purpose of all these things, that thy purpose for us is altogether righteous, holy, and good. Teach us to rejoice in thy ways. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Is there any record in the Old Testament of the Israelites thanking God?

[Rushdoony] [laughs] Outside of the psalms which were written by a handful of men, and used in worship, we are given very few instances where they thanked Him, and in most of their history they complained, and that unhappily has been true both in the Old Testament and New Testament eras. People forget the blessings of yesterday. There is a story that I think, a joke, that sums it up very well, about the man who went to his friend and he said, “Sam, I’m in deep trouble, I’m going to go under unless you can loan me ten thousand dollars.”

And this friend said, “Sorry, can’t do it.”

And he said, “But you have the money.”

“Yes, but I don’t think you’re a safe risk.”

And he said, “Look, who was it helped you when your place burned down and you had no insurance? Didn’t I lend you the money to start over again?”

“Oh yes, you did.”

“And when your wife went to the hospital, who was it who provided the money for the surgery?”

“Well, you did.”

“And when your son got himself into trouble who was it who {?} wires for you to get him out of trouble?”

“Well, you did.”

“Well, why don’t you help me?”

“Well, what have you done for me lately?”

I think that, too often, was the attitude of Israel and I’m afraid is the attitude of all of us at one time or another. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Seems like many of the great men of faith underwent persecution or had sustained infirmities. Was that because God was using them and He needed to try them in some drastic way?

[Rushdoony] Yes, we are told in Hebrews 12 that if we are of the sons of God, then we receive His chastening, His disciplining, and if we don’t, then we are not sons but bastards. So, God’s people very often undergo very severe trials in all kinds of things, in a variety of ways. Not only for their preparation for work here but for eternity. So, we have to recognize that, very often, the Christian is going to be put through a number of things that others will not experience, but His is the way of life in spite of that and then, of course, it also means that the stronger we are in faith, the greater the hostility of the world. Yes?

[Audience] One of the worst things about having difficulties is the fact that people reproach you for having them.

[Rushdoony] Job’s comforters, yes. Yes. It had to be Job’s fault. The minute you’re down, your friends are sure you deserved it, and they didn’t have anything like that happen to them because they were so good. Yes?

[Audience] Have verses like Psalm 91:9, if you make the most high your dwelling, verse 10, then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. {?} has the experience of the Christian martyrs.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Is it that we just don’t have the proper understanding of what the good is?

[Rushdoony] That psalm applied primarily to Christ and to us in Christ, but it does have an application to us also. It means that when we are engaged in the Lord’s work we have the Lord’s protecting hand, when we are in the process of doing what He wants to do. There was a statement I once encountered, and I wish there was some way of checking on it. One group of soldiers in World War 1, American troops, memorized this psalm, and made it their psalm, and suffered no casualties in the engagement which ensued. Now I don’t say that necessarily always follows, but I did read a little note about that years ago. Yes?

[Audience] One of our problems is that we don’t know what’s good or bad for us until it’s too late to do anything about it.

[Rushdoony] [laughs] Yes. But we have the consolation that the Lord makes all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them who are the called according to His purpose.

[Audience] Including our martyrdom. Including possible martyrdom.

[Rushdoony] Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] In reference to the early sermons of life, choosing life or death…

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Would those {?} in a collective way or an individual way?

[Rushdoony] In what?

[Audience] In a collective way or an individual way?

[Rushdoony] It was intended both ways. Of course, Psalm 1 is the great statement of that, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,” and so on. But beginning with the Shepherd of Hermas in the early church, this was applied to people individually and collectively. It applies to nations as well as to churches, as well as to believers, personally. Well, if there are no further questions or comments, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee that thou hast called us to be the people of thy word, of thy kingdom, members of the body of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Make us ever mindful that we have been called to service and to victory, that we are in an evil world where there are indeed struggles and problems, disasters, sickness, oppositions. That all these things in thy sovereign providence are made to work together for our eternal good. Our God we thank thee. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.