Now here's the most amazing thing about this thing. If they had not come to bitter waters, they would never have discovered God's power to heal. It was only in a crisis, that they actually had an insight and a revelation of what God is like. It's only when you're in a fix, and you're in a tight place, and you start to cry to God, that you get revelation about what God is really like; and that revelation will change you - said: he cried unto the Lord. Number one, he cried out. Number two, he heard God speak to him. God showed him something. Here's the thing he had to do; he had to take this bush, and he had to throw this bush into the water; and the tree, when it got in the water, then changed the water.
Now here's the application: think about this. You can cry out to God, and God can speak to you, but you have to act on what God shows you. Now notice what he had to do. He had to take the tree, he had to go to the solution, and he had to bring the tree to the water. What that pictures, or means, for you is this: when you're facing a tough spot, when there are setbacks in your life, come to the Lord, and begin to cry out to Him. Ask Him for insight what to do, wisdom what to do. As He begins to show you, you then have to apply that to the situation. You have to act on what God shows you. If you fail to act, you can know all about the tree that heals, but if you don't actually take the tree, and put it into the situation - what does that mean for you?
Well if you've faced a very painful difficult situation, been betrayed in a relationship, you can choose to be angry and bitter and complain; or you can come to the cross and say: God, you have forgiven me. Now I bring this whole situation. and I bring your forgiveness into this difficult situation. and I'll turn it from being sour to being sweet. Here's the amazing thing, God has got a lot of ways to change our situations. He's not limited. Sometimes He does something totally different to what you expect, and the situation changes. Sometimes He just does something out of the ordinary.
When Paul and Silas had been beaten up for preaching the gospel, they'd done something good, they were thrown in prison - interesting, they're right down, and their feet are in the stocks. They're in the lowest part of the prison. It's late at night, and instead of complaining and whinging they begin to praise God, and honour God; and suddenly there's an earthquake, the doors open, the chains break off. They can run away if they want to - now that is just unusual. That is incredibly unusual. God can do something unusual to change your circumstance, and the result of it was that a whole jailer and his family got saved.
So here's the thing, they had this problem of being whipped and put in jail; but the consequence was they met a jailer, and his whole family got saved. So it wasn't the inconvenience and the pain. That was just a little thing compared to a whole family getting reached for Christ, and this is how God works. He can sometimes use your situation, and change it dramatically as in the doors open, the chains fell off; or He can use it to bring about something you never expected, for example the family got saved.
Another one - Lazarus was sick and was dying. They called for Jesus to come, and Jesus deliberately delayed coming. Now don't you hate that, when God deliberately delays, and you need Him now! And He deliberately delays, and then what is a sick situation becomes a deadly situation, becomes very, very bad. He said: if you can believe you'll see the glory of God; so what He said is: don't be overwhelmed with grief and disappointment. Keep trusting me. I haven't finished yet - and they saw, instead of a sick man getting healing, they saw a dead man raised! So would you be happy with a little miracle, or the bigger one? Well any miracle would do [Laughter] but you see, the Bible abounds... So in some ways God solves the situation because He changes it in a way you don't expect. Sometimes He introduces something into it that you never thought of, and the whole thing changes; and sometimes He just teaches you, you have to live through that situation and trust Him. So God's got a lot of ways.