People who are bitter can't say thank you. They never say thank you. It's just impossible to say thank you. Why? Because bitterness won't let gratitude flourish; and so relationships, always there's a demand, that somehow you've got to provide - somehow you've got to fix this thing up, because the bitterness is rooted in injustice, and a demand that you've got to do something. So it can't be fixed. It can't be fixed. The person has to repent, and be changed, so what does God do? God takes them to the waters of Marah. Now notice what happens, two responses here at the waters of Marah. First of all the people's response - what was the first thing they did? They - what did they do? Complained. Who did they complain against? They complained against Moses. He had nothing to do with it. It was God's idea, the wilderness; and the waters of Marah - he had no control over that whatsoever; but people who are bitter, have to find somewhere to put the poison on. You just have to. You can't put it on yourself, you can't even dare to look at yourself. You've got to put it out there, so you don't look inward, and so what they did was they complained.
That word 'complain' means - it's the word from which the modern Hebrew word 'hotel' comes from, to lodge overnight. So in other words, they had a resentment and a grudge that hung around overnight. They actually got resentful. They were resentful - first of all they had their hopes up, then their hopes are dashed, now they're looking for someone to blame. The bitterness manifests: Moses! and they begin to complain, and become bitter; and they've got to find someone to be bitter against, so they're bitter against Moses. Actually they were bitter against God, because what they're saying is: God, You don't know what You're doing, You're messing up. Actually the cloud was with them all the time. You would think they'd know that God was there. There's a cloud by day, and fire by night, it's there every day and every night - the presence of God is there every day, yet they're complaining against Moses, that Moses has somehow stuffed it up.
Now what Moses did was different. See now Moses, in the midst of a pressure like that, did the thing you can do, which is to reach out to God, so he cried out to God. I want you to see three things that happened when he cried out to God: number one, he got revelation. You see when you're going through a difficulty, the one thing you need is God's perspective - God, what are You trying to do in this situation? God, what do You want me to learn in this situation? Now I find it surprising, when people are going through difficulties, how few actually become God-oriented, and ask God: what are You wanting to teach me? What do You want me to learn? How do You want me to respond? What is showing in my heart? Now that's the response of a man of God, or woman of God, but I find people look for someone to blame, or they get angry, they criticise, they fire up, go and have a drink or any kind of thing, but the one thing that's missing is just to come near to God and ask Him.
Now when you ask God for wisdom, He'll show you, give you wisdom - so notice he asked God, so God gives him three things. Three things happen: one, he gets revelation. If you're going through a trouble right now, what you need is revelation, and God can give it to you. What do you need to learn? What is the purpose of this experience? What is God wanting to teach you in it? What do you have to change in your life? What's showing up in your life? How does God want you to treat that person? Only God can show you those things. The second thing is, that God gave him revelation specifically of the cross. Notice He showed him a tree, that when the tree was put in the waters, the waters change, and the bitter becomes sweet? Now the only tree I know, that changed bitter waters to sweet, is actually this one here in the Old Testament, and the cross of Calvary in the New Testament.