Maroth; Or, The Disappointed

The village of the bitter spring (for such is probably the meaning of the name Maroth) experienced a bitter disappointment.

The more eager and patient their careful waiting, the more distasteful the draught of evil which they were compelled to drink.

Their trust in man proved to be vain, for the Assyrian swept over them, and stopped not until he reached the gate of Jerusalem, where Hezekiah’s faith in God made the enemy pause and retreat.

Let us consider, as suggested by the text,—

I. SAD DISAPPOINTMENTS—“waited carefully for good: but evil came.”

Disappointments come frequently to the sanguine, but they also happen to those who wait, wait carefully, and expect reasonably.

1. Disappointments are often extremely painful at the time.

2. Yet could we know all the truth, we should not lament them.

3. In reference to hopes of several kinds they are certain. As for instance, when we expect more of the creature than it was ever meant to yield us, when we look for happiness in sin, when we expect fixity in earthly things, etc.

4. In many cases disappointments are highly probable. Conceited hopes, groundless expectations, speculations, etc.

5. In all cases they are possible. “There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.”

6. They should be accepted with manly patience.

7. They may prove highly instructive, teaching us—

   • Our fallibility of judgment.
   • The uncertainty of sublunary things.
   • The need of reserve in speaking of the future. James 4:14.
   • The duty of submitting all our projects to the divine will.

8. They may be greatly sanctified.

   • Sometimes they have turned the current of a life.
   • They are intended to wean us from the world.
   • They tend to make us prize more the truthfulness of our God, who fulfills the desire of them that fear him.
   • They bring us precious things which can only come of experience.
   • They save us from unknown evils which might ruin us.

II. STRANGE APPOINTMENTS.

The text tells us, “evil came down from the Lord.”

1. The expression must not be misunderstood. God is not the author of moral evil. It is the evil of sorrow, affliction, calamity that is here meant.

2. It is nevertheless universally true. No evil can happen without divine permission. “I make peace, and create evil”: Isa 45:7.

3. Some evils are distinctly from the Lord. “This evil is of the Lord”: 2 Kings 6:33.

   • For testing men, and making their true character to be known.
   • For chastening the good. 1 Chronicles 21:7.
   • For punishing the wicked. Genesis 6:5–7, 19:24, 25.

4. Hence such evils are to be endured by the godly with humble submission to their heavenly Father’s will.

5. Hence our comfort under them: since all evils are under divine control, their power to injure is gone.

6. Hence the antidote for our disappointments lies in the fact that they are God’s appointments.

III. EXPECTATIONS WHICH WILL NOT END IN DISAPPOINTMENT.

1. Hopes founded on the promises of God. Hebrews 10:23.

2. Confidence placed in the Lord Jesus. 1 Peter 2:6.

3. Desires presented in believing prayer. Matthew 21:22.

4. Harvest hopes in connection with sowing seed for the Lord. Psalm 126:5, 6.

5. Expectations in falling asleep in Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

   • Is your life embittered by disappointment?
   • Cast the cross into the bitter water, and it will become sweet.

Gatherings

During the period when lotteries were unhappily allowed to flourish in this country, a gentleman, looking into the window of a lottery-office in St. Paul’s Churchyard, discovered to his joy that his ticket had turned up a £10,000 prize. Intoxicated with this sudden accession of wealth, he walked round the churchyard, to consider calmly how he should dispose of his fortune. On again, in his circuit, passing the lottery-office, he resolved to take another glance at the charming announcement in the window, when, to his dismay, he saw that a new number had been substituted. On inquiry, he found that a wrong number had at first been posted by mistake, and that after all he was not the holder of the prize. His chagrin was now as great as his previous pleasure had been.—W. Haig Miller’s “Life’s Pleasure Garden.”

It is wise, when we are disappointed in one thing, to set over against it a hopeful expectancy of another, like the farmer who said, “If the peas don’t pay, let us hope the beans will.” Yet it would be idle to patch up one rotten expectation with another of like character, for that would only make the rent worse. It is better to turn from the fictions of the sanguine worldling to the facts of the believer in the Word of the Lord. Then, if we find no profit in our trading with earth, we shall fall back upon our heart’s treasure in Heaven. We may lose our gold, but we can never lose our God, The expectation of the righteous is from the Lord, and nothing that comes from him shall ever fail.

I knew one who had made an idol of his daughter, and when she sickened and died, he was exceedingly rebellious, and the result was that he died himself. Expectations which hang upon the frail tenure of a human life may fill our cup with wormwood if we indulge them. Could this father have owned the Lord’s hand in the removal of his child, and had he beforehand moderated his expectations concerning her, he might have lived happily with the rest of his family, and have been an example of holy patience.—C. H. S.

Who has not muttered “Marah” over some well in the desert which he strained himself to reach, and found to be bitterness? Have you found no salt waters where you thought to find sweetness and joy? Love, beauty, the world’s bright throngs, marriage, home, the things which once wooed you, and promised to slake the thirst of your soul for happiness, are they all Elims, sweet springs and palms? Oh, what fierce murmurings of “Marah” have I heard from hearts wrung with anguish, from souls withered and blasted by a too fond confidence in anything or any being but God! Believe it, no man, with a man’s heart in him, gets far on his wilderness way without some bitter soul-searching disappointment; happy he who is brave enough to push on another stage of the journey, and rest in Elim, where there are twelve springs, living springs of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees.—J. B. Brown.

Disappointments in favorite wishes are trying, and we are not always wise enough to remember that disappointments in time are often the means of preventing disappointments in eternity.—William Jay.