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Exodus
16:1-36 “And
they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of
Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai,
on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out of the land
of Egypt. 2 And
the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and
Aaron in the wilderness: 3 and
the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of
the LORD
in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat
bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill
this whole assembly with hunger. 4
Then said the LORD
unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall
go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they
will walk in my law, or no. 5 And
it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that
which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. 6
And Moses and Aaron said unto all the
children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that the LORD
hath brought you out from the land of Egypt: 7
and in the morning, then ye shall see
the glory of the LORD;
for that he heareth your murmurings against the LORD:
and what are we, that ye murmur against us? 8
And Moses said, This shall be,
when the LORD
shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the
full; for that the LORD
heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are
not against us, but against the LORD.
9 And
Moses spake unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of
Israel, Come near before the LORD: for he hath heard your murmurings.
10 And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto
the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the
wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD
appeared in the cloud. 11 And
the LORD
spake unto Moses, saying, 12 I
have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat
flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that
I am the LORD
your God. 13 And
it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about
the host. 14 And
when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there
lay a small round thing, as small as hoar frost on the ground. 15
And when the children of Israel saw it,
they said one to another, It is manna:
for they wist not what it was.
And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD
hath given you to eat. 16 This
is the thing which the LORD
hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for
every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man
for them which are in his tents. 17
And the children of Israel did so, and
gathered, some more, some less. 18
And when they did mete it with an
omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had
no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. 19
And Moses said, Let no man leave of it
till the morning. 20 Notwithstanding
they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning,
and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses
was wroth with them. 21 And
they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. 22
And it came to pass, that on the
sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation
came and told Moses. 23 And
he said unto them, This is that which the LORD
hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day,
and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to
be kept until the morning. 24 And
they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any
worm therein. 25 And
Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field. 26
Six days ye shall gather it; but on the
seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. 27
And it came to pass, that there
went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they
found none. 28 And
the LORD
said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? 29
See, for that the LORD
hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread
of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on
the seventh day. 30 So
the people rested on the seventh day. 31
And the house of Israel called the name thereof
Manna: and it was like coriander
seed white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. 32
And Moses said, This is the thing
which the LORD
commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may
see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you
forth from the land of Egypt. 33 And
Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and
lay it up before the LORD,
to be kept for your generations. 34
As the LORD
commanded, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. 35
And the children of Israel did eat manna
forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until
they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. 36
Now an omer is the tenth part
of an ephah.” Introduction [Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED554] “Exodus
chapter 16, we have journeyed with the children of Israel, out of Egypt,
through the Red Sea, and we have journeyed with them to Marah, journeying such
a short distance out of Egypt from the Red Sea, from the incredible night and
miraculous things, indescribable that took place. Looking at the remainder of the Egyptian army
washing in the waves on the shore, and in no time as we go to Marah, and
there’s no water, and the water they find is bitter, immediately murmuring
becomes a favorite part of the description of their pilgrimage, murmuring. Moses there throws a tree branch into the
water, it is sweetened, and hopefully they learn some lesson there, that there
are bitter experiences in our pilgrimage.
They go from there to Elim, and in Elim it says that there are 12
springs and 70 palm trees, there they are camped for awhile, as long as the
Pillar of fire at night and Pillar of cloud by day, when that parks they park,
and they are there for a good while, a number of weeks it seems, Elim where
they are refreshed. We wish that God
would always park there. Don’t we, at
Elim? In following the Lord, because I’m
a no-hassle kind of guy, I wish I were just able to pull up to some Elim and
just drop me off here, and leave everybody else on their journey, I’ll stay by
the 70 palm trees and the 12 springs, that’s fine with me. But it isn’t the way the journey goes
though. And in this chapter this
evening, chapter 16, they take their journey. Israel’s
Murmurings It
says “And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the
children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between
Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure
out of the land of Egypt.” (verse 1) Now
when you hear that, it’s not the “sin” that you think of, it’s an abbreviation
of Sinai, we’re not sure of the exact form of it. Of course I guess, coincidence is not a
kosher word. But they come into the
wilderness of Sin, “which is between Elim” between the place of
refreshing, “and Sinai,” the presence of God, “on the fifteenth day
of the second month after their departure out of the land of Egypt.” one
month out of Egypt after their departing out of the land of Egypt, so a month
has gone by. On your own sometime if you
want to look at Numbers chapter 33, you don’t have to turn there now, it gives
us their journey, ‘they departed from before Pihahiroth, they passed
through the sea in the wilderness, they went three days journey in the
wilderness of Etham, and they pitched at Marah.
They removed from Marah, and came to Elim, and in Elim were twelve
fountains of water and 70 palm trees and they pitched there. And they removed from Elim and they encamped
by the Red Sea, it doesn’t give us a specific place, and they removed from the
Red Sea and encamped in the wilderness of Sin.
And they took their journey from the wilderness of Sin and they encamped
at Dophkah, and they departed from Dophkah and they encamped in Alush. And they removed from Alush, and they
encamped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.’
(Numbers 33:7-14) So we are in
our journey here somewhere between the Red Sea, Dophkah and Alush. I’m just telling you in case you’re
wondering, because we don’t have the information back here in Exodus, I don’t
want any of you lost as we journey through here. So between the Red Sea, Dophkah and Alush is
where we are. And look at verse 2,
“And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses
and Aaron in the wilderness:” now the whole congregation of 2 million
people, I don’t know what that many people sounds like murmuring, it must have
a resonance that’s very low and vibrates the ground a little. The whole congregation is murmuring against
Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, “and the children of Israel said unto
them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD
in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat
bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill
this whole assembly with hunger.” (verse 3)
‘We wish on the Passover night when the angel of the LORD
went through, he had just killed us there, we could have died with full bellies
instead of dying out here hungry, we’d rather die in Egypt full than dying in
the wilderness empty.’ ‘Ah, good old
Egypt.’ “for ye have brought us forth into
this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Man oh man, they
are not happy campers. And here’s Moses,
imagine a congregation of 2 million grumblers.
Some people you know murmuring is their favourite indoor sport, and just
imagine 2 million people murmuring. You know, what kind of congregation is this? ‘What kind of leader are you? I wish to God I’d have died in Egypt, you
brought us out here to kill us, oh the fleshpots in Egypt, they were wonderful,
and there were leeks and onions there, oh we ate bread to the full, ya, we had
taskmasters, ya they threw our baby boys in the river, ya they were beating us
senseless, ya they were killing us, but he had the fleshpots, the leeks and the
garlics.’ And we have such selective
memory, when there’s any pressure we look for the loophole, for the easiest way
to bail out. And here’s the children of
Israel, their memory is so selective, and we’re just going to follow this, here
they are murmuring and complaining again, ‘because God’s brought us out here
to kill us.’ Moses and Aaron must be
saying ‘What do you mean I brought you out here? See that Pillar, that’s not a tornado, that’s
a Pillar, you see that thing, I’m not leading, I’m not steering, my hand’s not
on the steering wheel, I’m following the Pillar, when the Pillar parks we park,
when the Pillar moves we move, why are you yelling at me?’ And Moses is going to say that exact
thing to them. And I think, how far,
this is a month, how often have you and I got one month out of an incredible
blessing, one month out of some demonstration of God that so blew our mind that
we danced with our timbrels and said ‘I will sing unto the Lord, he has
triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea,’ and that
was a month before this, now ‘God brought us here to kill us in the
wilderness.’ Isn’t it amazing how
human beings are? One day they’re crying
‘Hosanna, blessed is he comes in the name of the LORD,’
and five days later they’re screaming ‘Crucify
him! crucify him!’…we’re new creations in Christ, old things are passed
away, all things have become new, except cellphones, and I’m glad. “Then said the LORD
unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall
go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they
will walk in my law, or no.” (verse 4) Now here’s the difference between us and the
LORD, if I was the LORD
I’d have been raining something else from heaven on those 2 million
grumblers. Now the LORD
knows what the people are going to do, he’s not proving them to himself, but
proving them to them. Look, he took a
year with all of the judgments and so forth in Egypt. Once they left Egypt, it took them a night,
it took them a day to deliver Israel from Egypt, it’s going to take 40 years to
get Egypt out of Israel. Because every
time they’re in a jam they’re going to say ‘Would to God we were back in
Egypt.’ And God now is going to take
them through a process. And the same
thing happens to you and I, we get saved, we come out of Egypt, we go through
the Passover night, the blood of the Lamb, we’re set free, and then all of a
sudden we’re in this new experience, there’s a new way to walk, there’s new
rules, new ways that we’re sustained, there’s these new things. And we do the same thing, somebody smacks you
on one cheek, we turn them the other cheek, and we’re thinking ‘This wasn’t
the way it was in Egypt, then after they smack the other cheek can I hit them
then after they smack the other cheek?
What kind of rules are these?’
And we go through this whole learning experience where God is taking us
on this pilgrimage, he’s taken us out of Egypt, and he’s using experiences and
circumstances to conform us into the image and likeness of his Son. Because our ultimate destination is not just
a place, it’s an image, it’s an image.
Our journey, our difficulties, our struggles, our bitter experiences,
our marriages, we always have 40 to 60 marriages on the books for
weddings. And I look at a couple getting
married on their wedding day and I think ‘They have no idea, this is a
really terrible thing we’re doing to them,’ in one sense, you know. Because we’re saying ‘Better or worse,
richer or poorer,’ and we’re not saying between these lines ‘I really
mean it, as the years go by you’re going to know why we say it,’ and they
think marriage is going to be about them being happy. And it is.
But it’s more than that, it’s another arena where God the Father will
conform you into the image of his Son, you’re going to lay down your life for a
person to a degree that you have not, and when the kids come, just forget
it. But I didn’t say it wasn’t
wonderful, I mean in case you’re [Kathy] listening to the tape, I’m not
complaining. There’s so many reflections
here of our journey, our pilgrimage. The
LORD says ‘I’m going
to rain bread from heaven,’ God’s grace, they’re grumbling and
complaining, he’s going to take care of their hunger. Not fire, he’s not even going to rain toast
down, I would have challenged them a little bit or something. He’s going to rain bread down from heaven, verse
5, “And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that
which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And Moses and Aaron said unto all the
children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that the LORD
hath brought you out from the land of Egypt:”
remember who brought you out of Egypt they’re saying, “and in the morning,
then ye shall see the glory of the LORD;
for that he heareth your murmurings against the LORD:
and what are we, that ye murmur against us?” (verses 5-7) Moses and Aaron are saying ‘who do you
think me and Aaron are? what are we that you murmur against us? we’re just
following the Pillar.’ “And Moses
said, This shall be, when the LORD
shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the
full; for that the LORD
heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are
not against us, but against the LORD. And Moses spake unto Aaron, Say unto all the
congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the LORD: for he hath heard your murmurings.” (verses
8-9) ‘I want you all to get close to God,
because he’s listening to you murmur.’ “And it came to pass, as Aaron
spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked
toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD
appeared in the cloud.” (verse 10) [for an
excellent sermon on murmuring and the spiritual dangers of it, see: https://www.unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/Murmuring.htm]
Now the Pillar had been there, as
they’re all gathered together, God, remember when he peeked out the back of the
Cloud and freaked out the Egyptians? now somehow all these murmurers, having a
big murmuring convention, and the glory of the LORD’s
there in the Pillar, and somehow he manifests that, so they’re reminded, so
they see, they’re reminded that that’s his presence there. Israel
Given Manna, Bread From Heaven The
Spiritual Meaning Of Manna “And
the LORD
spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of
Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even
ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye
shall know that I am the LORD
your God.” (verses 11-12) I wish it were that easy, don’t you. How many of you ate flesh tonight, you’re
gonna eat toast tomorrow morning, English muffins and you’re still trying to
get convinced of it. “And it came to
pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about
the host.” (verse 13) Now, God is
using a natural phenomenon when the migrating patterns of some of these quail
are coming across the Red Sea, some of them will come into the area of Saudi
Arabia and crash on the ground. And God
probably made this group fly around the ocean to get extra tired, and his hand
is on it, they come in, here’s dinner flying in, imagine looking out your
window in the evening and chickens and turkeys are crashing in your yard. They look out, here they come in, ‘There’s
nothing to eat, can the LORD
set a table in the wilderness?’ is what the
children of Israel complained and say to Moses, ‘Can he set a table in the
wilderness?’ Well here comes dinner,
crashing on in, in the evening, and in the morning dew lay about the host. “And when the dew that lay was gone up,
behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as
small as hoar frost on the ground.” (verse 14) in another place it says about the size of a
coriander seed, between 3 millimeters and 6 millimeters, these little things
laying all over on the ground. “And
when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is
manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the
bread which the LORD
hath given you to eat.” (verse 15) Now notice the sentence, the structure, “for
they wist not what it was” they said this was manna because they
didn’t know what it was. So it doesn’t
seem to make sense. Only the Hebrew word
“manna” means “what is it?” So they were
still full of quail from the night before, they get up in the morning and they
walk out and they see this stuff all over, and they say ‘It is, ah, what is
it?’ That’s what this sentence says,
it says “It is manna: for they
wist not what it was.” “And Moses said unto them, This is the
bread which the LORD
hath given you to eat. This is
the thing which the LORD
hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for
every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man
for them which are in his tents.” (verse 15b-16) Write that down
in your mind, each of you get an omer. “And
the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an
omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had
no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.” (verses 17-18) Now, this is the manna, we’re going to be
introduced to here. It’s going to tell
us in the end of the chapter they did eat manna for 40 years. Now the scholars try to help us out here, the
scholars try to tell us that this is the sap from the tamarisk trees, and it
produces this little sap, and the ants love it, so that’s why by the time the
sun came up it was all carried away and it was gone, and that’s why if they
kept it in the tent it had bugs the next day.
Because the sap, this little sweet sap from the tamarisk tree, only
problem is, rough estimate, the entire area of Saudi Arabia and the Sinai
Peninsula, it only produces about 700 lbs for an entire year of sap, from
tamarisk trees. It says here that every
man gathered an omer, that’s six pints, if you have 2 million people, it says
they gathered it for every individual, that’s 12 million pints, that’s 9
million pounds, that’s 4,500 tons a day.
[Who said scholars were smart?]
4,500 tons a day is 10 trains, with 30 cars on each train, with 15,000 lbs
in each car, per day, 4,500 tons a day, over a million tons per year for 40
years, and on Friday (in preparation for Saturday) twice as much fell for that
day, 9,000 tons for every Saturday, those tamarisk trees are smart, aren’t
they? They spit out twice as much every
Friday, it was sap, that’s what the scholars tell us. For me this was something Divine that God had
provided from heaven. This is Manna, it
tells us in Psalm 78, it says ‘Though he had commanded the
clouds from above and opened the doors of heaven, and had rained down manna
upon them,’ opened the doors of the clouds, the doors of heaven, and
rained it, that’s not from the tamarisk tree, ‘he opened the doors of
heaven, rained down manna upon them to eat, and given them the grain of heaven,
man did eat angel’s food, and he sent it to their full,’ angel’s food
cake is what manna is. They didn’t make
that, it’s just a thing they never saw before [baklava]. Look at verse 19, “And Moses said, Let no
man leave of it till the morning.” “Notwithstanding”
you know after Moses tells them to do something, the next word’s going to
be “but.” “Notwithstanding they
hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it
bred worms, and stank: and Moses was
wroth with them.” (verse 20) I love
the King James, “bred worms, and stank:
and Moses was wroth with them.” and so were their wives, imagine in
your tent the next morning, it stinks and there’s worms all over…you can just
imagine the next day. There’s a lesson
in this, please, as we journey through here.
In the manna, we have a picture, Jesus says this to us in John’s Gospel,
he says ‘Verily, verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven, for the bread
of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness
and they are dead. This is the bread
that cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die.’ Speaking of himself, Jesus takes this
picture of manna and says that it is a picture of himself, the true Bread of
heaven. So, as we look at this lesson,
Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 10:1-6 tells us this, it
says ‘Moreover brethren, I would not have you to be ignorant how that all
our fathers were under the cloud, all of them passed through the sea, they were
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, they did all eat the same
spiritual meat, they did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of
that spiritual Rock that followed them, that Rock was Christ. They did all eat of the same spiritual
food. Now all these things happened unto
them for examples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends
of the age have come.’ Paul says
in 1st Corinthians chapter 10 that all of these things, historical
yes, but they contain instruction and a picture for us, particularly on us upon
whom the ends of the age are come. And
if you turn on the news lately, you know that’s just where we are [especially
now in 2024, with a war raging in Ukraine, Russia warring against Ukraine, and
the Israeli-Gaza war raging in the Middle East, and China arming itself the way
Japan did just before WWII]. Manna is a
picture twofold of the Living Word, ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth, who tabernacles among us.’
It’s a picture of the Living Word, Christ, and it is a picture of the
written Word, give us this day our daily bread, Jesus told us to pray, there is
in that a picture of the Word of God that we’re to partake of daily. It says here, the instruction that they were
to gather it every morning. Don’t try to
gather more than you need for the day.
Because that’s the way we are.
You see, if you and I were out there gathering manna, hey I’m picking up
these little things the size of coriander seeds, and we would figure ‘I’m
going to work hard today and I’m going to get three or four days worth, and I’m
gonna just chill for the next three or four days and eat this in my tent,’ all
of us are like that. But because it was
a picture of something else, it said if you tried to keep it to the next day,
it bred worms and it stank. If
Christians try to say ‘I spent enough time with Jesus today, I don’t have to
spend any time with him for the next five days,’ it stinks, and you do too,
for each day you get further away from him.
If you think ‘Well I read the Word, normally I read it 15 minutes
every morning, I read it an hour and a half today, so I’m covered for six days,
I don’t have to read the Bible.’ How
many of us have a relationship, I can imagine saying to my wife ‘Honey,
look, why don’t we just talk for three hours this morning, and you can leave me
alone for the rest of the week.’ What
kind of a relationship is that? How many
of you would do that with your kids? How
many of you would do that with your refrigerator, let’s just open it up, let’s
eat enough right now so we don’t have to go in there for the rest of the
week? That’s ridiculous. And God gives us a picture here, he says
they’re to gather it every day according to their persons. And Moses said let no man leave it until
morning, and it says when they did it bred worms and it stank. Notice, “And they gathered it every
morning, every man according to his eating:
and when the sun waxed hot, it melted.” (verse 21) Interesting picture. I know you’re not all morning people. Some of you are night people. It says ‘Those who seek me early, and seek
me with all their heart shall find me.’ I
find this, it’s way more natural for me to be a night person than a morning
person. It’s way easier for me to stay
up late than to get up early, because I’m dragging this bag of bones around. But I do find this, if I pray in the morning
and spend time with the Lord in the morning, the time that I have to talk with
the Lord before I go to bed is much different.
But if I start with the Lord, when I start with his Word, I got way less
to talk about at the end of the day, than if I just let it all go to the end of
the day, ‘Oh Lord I’m sorry for this, oh Lord I didn’t think about
this.’ I just know starting out, you
know, Charles Spurgeon said “Let us not see the face of man today until we
have seen the face of Jesus Christ every morning.” Because it says when the day got hot it
melted away. How often God gives you
something from his Word, something from his presence, and then the busyness of
the day, the pace of the day seems to melt it away as the day goes on. He says gather it in the morning, get it to
yourself early. God
Reveals The Sabbath-Day To Israel By A Weekly Miracle “And
it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much
bread, two omers for one man: and
all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that
which the LORD
hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day,
and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to
be kept until the morning.” (verses 22-23) Now you might want to underline “sabbath” in
your Bible, it’s the first time in the Bible “sabbath” is used. And it will be elaborated on as we head into
the Law. “And they laid it up till
the morning, as Moses bade: and it did
not stink, neither was there any worm therein.
And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the
LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the
seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.” (verses
24-26)
Now look, what God is doing here is he’s reminding them on a weekly
basis of something miraculous. Every
day, six days a week they gathered enough for the day. If you tried to gather enough for the next
day, it stunk the next day and it had worms in it. Except on Friday, the sixth day, they would
gather twice as much, and then on the Sabbath, on Saturday, what was left over
did not stink, did not breed worms, when they went out in the field there was
none on the 7th day. So there
was a miracle, weekly, in regards to the gathering of manna in their
lives. God would then extend that to the
Sabbatical year, they’d sow their fields for six years, and the 7th
year they would let the land rest, and what would happen is every 6th
year, the yield would be so great it would cover for the 6th year,
it would cover for the 7th year and cover them going into the 8th
year planting again. And there was a
miracle in the field. So God has
established this, there are weekly reminders, every 7 years they were reminded of
his provision, and of his care, and everything he could supply. And the Sabbath, which is not Sunday the 8th
day, the Sabbath is always the 7th day, they rested. [There is an ongoing debate as to whether the
Sabbath command, the 4th Commandment, has been abrogated for
Christians. We can see here God was
requiring Sabbath observance before the giving of the Law. This age-old question is looked at in this article: https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm] Clear instruction. Look at verse 27, “And it came to pass, that
there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and
they found none.” So there were
those that were lazy, had only gathered enough on the 6th day for
that day, didn’t gather the extra, they went out on the Sabbath to look for it,
and they found none. “And the LORD
said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?”
(verse 28)
This is quite a crew. “See,
for that the LORD
hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread
of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on
the seventh day.” (verse 29) He’s giving you a gift, the Sabbath was made
for man, not man for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was a gift for them, on the 7th
day they could rest in their tents, they were protected by God, they were fed
by God, they were cared for by God. And
it was a reminder of the day to sit in his presence and to fellowship with
him. “So the people rested on the
seventh day. And the house of Israel
called the name thereof Manna: and it was
like coriander seed white; and the taste of it was like wafers made
with honey.” (verses 30-31) I like
that [Baklava]. You know, God’s given us
tastebuds, the neurological complexity of that is staggering. Why cinnamon?
Why garlic? Why vanilla? The cows just eat grass. Dogs and cats just eat that poison stuff
that’s spread all over the country. Why
is it for us, taste? Sweetness? Salt?
Heat, not five-alarm, but heat.
It was sweet. God didn’t have to
do that. It tells us this in Romans
chapter 11, it says ‘And the people went out and gathered it, and
ground it in mills,’ they’d been doing this for awhile now, ‘they
beat it into a morter, they baked it in pans, they made cakes of it, and the
taste of it was like the taste of fresh oil,’ it says there. So, like the taste of fresh oil, like the
taste of honey. Josephus says that the
Oral Tradition says it satisfied every craving that people had for food. Now they’d been eating it for 40 years, so
I’m glad that it does that. Couldn’t you
go for just a wrack of lamb tonight?
That’s just a plate of manna.
Couldn’t you go for a T-bone?
Nah, give me manna. But what
happens is, we’re going to find there’s a mixt multitude of people that start
to grumble, and they get tired of God’s provision. 4,500 tons of manna everyday. You know the kids didn’t get tired of
it. Every Sunday after 3rd
service I got a little tribe of kids now, that follow me into my office, I got
ring-pops in there, when I first started to do this I didn’t realize the
longevity of this whole thing. Now that
I’m marrying babies that I dedicated, in fact now I got a baby coming of the
baby I dedicated, I’m looking forward to that.
You know, I realized, if I get into their lives when they’re two and
three years old, then when they do something stupid at 16 I can yell at them,
because I got years of ring-pops invested in them. So, I imagine the kids didn’t complain. He could have made it taste like spinach,
then you would have heard all of the little children of Israel murmuring. He made it sweet like honey. But that says something, see it’s a
picture. It was like fresh oil. What is it saying to us? Some of the people were complaining, ‘Manna,
all we have is manna, manna in the morning, manna in the evening, manna at
suppertime, one ton of manna, that’s all we have. B-manna bread, b-manna cakes, manna pancakes,
manicotti, man-alive, I’m tired of all this.’
It says they baked it, they crushed it, they made it into cakes,
they made it into bread, they exchanged manna, you ever see those recipe books,
they had manna recipe books they exchanged through the whole camp. What
Does Manna Represent, Spiritually? But
it was sweet, it was sweet, like the Word of God, it was like fresh oil, like
the Holy Spirit, like the Living Word. “And
Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD
commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may
see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you
forth from the land of Egypt. And Moses
said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it
up before the LORD,
to be kept for your generations.” (verses 32-33) Now it didn’t breed worms, they kept it for
generations, interesting. This manna is
really smart sap, isn’t it? I just had
to take a shot at them [those idiotic “scholars”]. It tasted like honey, that’s great, it could
have been like those rice cakes that health-food people eat, you know, it’s
like eating Styrofoam, I think that stuff really is Styrofoam. It tasted like honey, “As the LORD
commanded, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.” (verse 34) Now this is written later when Moses was
looking back when he has the Ark. “And
the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land
inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of
Canaan.” (verse 35) unbelievable, 40
years until they came to the land inhabited, they did eat manna, until they
came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
And just in case you’re wondering “Now an omer is the tenth part
of an ephah.” (verse 36) to clarify all of that for those of you who are
stuck way back on verse 16. [So an omer,
6 pints, is a tenth part of an ephah (which is 6 pints x 10 = 60 pints, an
ephah is 60 pints. 1 American bushel is
equal to 74.5 pints, roughly, so an ephah 14.5 pints less than a bushel] 40 years, and when they come to the border of
the Promised Land, it stops. Because
then they would inherit a land that flows with milk and honey. Their whole pilgrimage, their whole journey
God provided. I think believers, true
believers, never tire of heaven’s menu.
We have to be so careful.
Interesting just Jack…had given me a book about William Tenant,
Whitfield, just kind of reading through that, and how William Tenant, even in
Scotland and Ireland before he came to America would preach and would say ‘Some
of you,’ and talking to priests, Presbyterian ministers, to Anglican
priests, who would say “Some of you take Communion, but you’ve never taken
Communion, you go through the actions, put bread and wine in your mouth, but
because you’re not born-again, you haven’t experienced the new birth, you have
never partaken of Jesus Christ.” and
he said “Some of you have theology nailed down and you know the Word of God,
but you don’t know the God of the Word.” And he took a lot of heat, but he was so on
fire, so honest. And I don’t think as
God’s children, we should ever tire, God’s made his Word sweet. I can do this week in and week out, week in
and week out, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, and I
never get tired of it. I sit alone with
it in the morning, and I still get tears running down my cheeks, God still
speaks to me, the Living Word and the written Word, mingled, like fresh oil,
sweet as honey. And we need to be
careful, if we’re being influenced by the mixt multitude where we have to have spice,
leeks and garlics. Finally the
children of Israel are going to say ‘We want a Reuben! We’re tired of manna,
manna, manna, this bread that falls out of heaven every day.’ But to those that were spiritual, it
remained sweet, it remained refreshing, it remained miraculous. Job would say this, ‘I
have not gone back from the commandment of his lips, I have esteemed the words
of his mouth more than my necessary food.’
Job, in the midst of his suffering was able to say that. Jeremiah said this ‘Thy
words were found, I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and the
rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by thy name O LORD
God of hosts, your word is the joy and the rejoicing of my heart.’ If
we are in a relationship with the Living Word of God, how precious his written
Word is to us, his Word to us, it should be that way, gathered daily. You know, give us today our daily bread. Not a little box of daily promises, not a
bumper sticker on our car, but a time alone, a time alone with the Living Word,
with the written Word, so sense the presence of his Holy Spirit. It is our wilderness menu, the written Word
ministered to us by the Holy Ghost through our journey. It will keep you, Wherewithal shall a
young man cleanse his life,’ David says, ‘by taking heed unto thy
Word, O LORD.’ Jesus would say ‘Sanctify them with thy
truth, thy Word is truth,’ John 17:17.
But the Word of God is alive and powerful, if you will let it, it
divides down into your being, past the bone and marrow, all the way down to
that which is soulish and that which is spiritual. The Word of God will flay us, it will open us
up, and it will say to us ‘That thing in your life is soulish, it’s carnal,
and that thing in your life is spiritual.’
It’s a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, it’s a guide, it
speaks to us, it’s alive, it’s sweet, it falls to us every day, there’s no end
to the provision. Yes, God can set a
table in the wilderness, he can set a table in your wilderness, he can set a
table in my wilderness. You know, again
I just was reading something by Corey ten Boom, she said “You
never know how much you need Jesus, until he’s all you have left.” Talking about the experiences in life,
sometimes it strips everything else away, and brings perspective back again,
you never know how much you need Jesus until he’s all you have left. And I know this, because I’ve been there, when
everything else that can be shaken is shaken and falls away, the Living Word
and the written Word abides forever, they abide forever. This never changes, because the Author of
this [he’s holding his Bible] never changes.
He is faithful and he is gracious, and he is tender, and he is
longsuffering, when we murmur and complain instead of raining fire on us, he
rains bread, he rains sweetness down upon us, he feeds us and he cares for
us. If you’ve raised children, you
understand. Your kids are griping and
complaining, you don’t say ‘Pack your suitcase, change your last name, get
outa here.’ You say ‘Go to your
room! Shut the door and be quiet.’ Read ahead, next week we come, if the
Lord tarries, to Rephidim, and it is there where Moses strikes the Rock, the
water comes forth, and as soon as they are well watered, Amalek, one of the
descendants of Esau [Esau’s grandson] shows up, who would be the perpetual
enemy of Israel until destroyed, basically, by David. We have interesting pictures, coming and becoming
a nation through the Passover, the blood of the Lamb, in their journey then,
the manifestations, the incarnation, the Bread of Heaven, Jesus said “I
am that bread that came down from heaven,’ the beautiful picture of him
being smitten, and as soon as he’s smitten the water issues forth, ‘any
man that thirsts, let him come and drink.’ But as soon as you and I are filled with the
Holy Spirit, we immediately then have a nature that is in opposition to the
world, the flesh and the devil. As soon
as we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we have then a struggle with something
else moving in another direction, Amalek immediately shows up. So there’s just beautiful pictures in all of
this, and Paul says that in 1st Corinthians chapter 10, ‘These
things are written for examples unto us upon whom the ends of the age are
come.’ Let’s have the musicians
come, we’ll sing a last song together, lift our hearts again. I encourage you if you’re here tonight and
you don’t know Christ, you don’t know this God who would rather rain bread on
you than fire, in your grumbling and complaining and how wonderful you think
the world is, he would rather feed you than loose you, if you don’t know him,
not church. Look, millions and millions
and millions and hundreds of millions of people sit in church every Sunday that
are not Christians. If you sleep in the
garage you’re not a car, if you sleep in church every Sunday, it doesn’t make
you a Christian. Millions, and millions
and millions of them have one of these stuck somewhere, and have not read it,
and it hasn’t spoken to them, and there’s no life, and it doesn’t speak to them
in their journey. What a privilege we
have, what a privilege we have. If you
don’t know him, nobody wants to play church, nobody wants to play
religion. If you don’t know him,
I encourage you after the service is over, we’d love to pray with you. Jesus said ‘I am the bread of life,
unless you eat of me you have no life in you.’
You could know that this is a loaf of bread that I’m holding in
my hand, you could know everything about it, you could know it has wheat in it,
barley in it, baking soda in it, you could know everything about it, you could
die 50 foot away from it from starvation.
It will only do you good if you put it in your mouth and you partake of
it. There’s all kinds of people that
think they know all kinds of things about Jesus, but they’ve never
partaken. Your wife can’t eat it for
you, ‘Oh I grew up in a Christian family,’ try that with food, ‘I
don’t need to eat, my mom and dad ate.’ Flesh
and blood does not inherit the Kingdom of God, the Bible says, you have to
partake of it yourself, Jesus said ‘For I am that living bread that came
down from heaven, your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they are
dead. I am that bread that’s come down
from heaven, that if any man eat thereof, he shall never die.’ Man, oh man, what a program. What a program. I encourage you, if you don’t know that
Jesus, come up and pray with us, we’d love to give you some Bread, a copy of
the Scripture, love to see you come into the Kingdom, let’s stand, let’s
pray…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Exodus 16:1-36, given by
Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue,
Philadelphia, PA 19116] related
links:
There
is an ongoing debate as to whether the Sabbath command, the 4th
Commandment, has been abrogated for Christians.
We can see here God was requiring Sabbath observance before the giving
of the Law. This age-old question is
looked at in this article: https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED554 |