May 26, 2021

“THE POWERFUL NAMES OF GOD”

“JEHOVAH RAPHA-THE LORD WHO HEALS”

EXODUS 15:22-27

The name of God, we will look at tonight focuses specifically on His power to heal. The name is Jehovah Rapha, “the Lord who heals.” The revelation of this strong name comes on the heels of a great miracle. The backdrop is found in the book of Exodus.

Exodus 15:22 “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea..”

Exodus 15:1-3 “Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and spoke, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea! The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation, my father’s God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war, The Lord is His name.”

The Israelites were on an emotional and spiritual high, exultantly confident in God as He had just demonstrated Himself before them. But then we read the Israelites:

Exodus 15:22 “..then they went out into the wilderness of Shur”

Exodus 15:22-23 “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.”

Exodus 15:24 “And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

Three days after the great praise and worship festival, they moved from thanksgiving to grumbling.

What do we do when we’re facing a problem? Remember, God has a purpose for your pain. He had a reason for allowing the Israelites to go through this difficult scenario:

Exodus  15:25 “So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them.”

This is because tests (or trials) are designed to do two things: They demonstrate whether we’ve been paying attention to the lessons we’ve learned, and they give God opportunities to reveal something new about Himself, which develops our character and strengthens our faith.

You know you’re failing the test if you begin complaining. 

2 Corinthians 1:8 “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.”

2 Corinthians 1:9-10 “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.”

In order to take Paul deeper in faith, God put him in a situation that his resume’, abilities, and connections couldn’t change. Why? So that Paul would learn to trust God.

Exodus 15:25 “So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet…”

The Lord Who Heals:

Exodus 15:25-26 “So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

The Bible almost always ties healing to the sin that caused the problem. We see this connection in various passages.

Psalm 103:2-3 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases.”

Isaiah 1:5-6 “Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, There is no soundness in it, But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores;

They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment.”

James 5:14-15 “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

The key to your difficult circumstances, relationships, and illness is in the statutes and commandments of God. When you live in the illumination of those statutes and commandments, you’ll find  the purity you need to live abundantly.

Exodus 15:27 “Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.”

John 7:37-38 “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

You yourself will be a spring! You will not only experience health in your own mind, body, and relationships, you will also become a blessing that God uses to bring health to others.

Even in the midst of our struggles, hurts, bitterness, and pain, God has a way to sweeten the waters and heal our bodies, souls, and spirits. He can use the pain and the suffering to make us stronger.

He is Jehovah Rapha-The Lord Who Heals!