Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We come this week to our text right in the
middle of Exodus sixteen, and here we looked on last
week at this process of God shaping Israel in the desert,
of God forming them as his people in the desert,
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and of him using this process. We also pointed to
the importance of our understanding these things in light of
progressive revelation, in light of the way that God reveals
himself progressively through the scriptures, and we saw that in
doing so, we don't fall into the trap of seeing
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ourselves as completely divorced from things like Exodus sixteen, into
the trap of believing that somehow passages like Exodus sixteen
are irrelevant to us. We saw in last week how
Jesus himself used image directly from Exodus chapter sixteen in
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order to teach about his relationship to the believer, as
this bread from Heaven, this bread of life. We saw
earlier when we paused and looked at the Lord's Supper
in light of the passover, how Jesus is that passover lamb,
And how when we gather before the Lord's Supper we
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are remembering and also following through with the perpetual reminder
of God's provision in and through the Exodus, that he
gives a perpetual reminder for Israel and says that this
is to be a forever thing, and that through the
Lord's Supper we are keeping this forever thing. But now
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we see him not only in the Lord's Supper, but
we also see him as this bread from heaven. We
see him as the fulfilled of this type of God's
provision for his people. In the midst of the desert,
we also saw his presence with his people in the cloud.
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Today we look at the bread more carefully, and we
look at the way that Israel interacts with God through
the bread, and the way that God interacts with and
shapes Israel through the giving of the bread. This would
become important as later on Israel will be tempted to
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forget God as their provider. They would forget that God
is the one who gives us this day our daily bread.
How are they going to forget that? Well, They're going
to come into a land and not be wandering in
the desert anymore, and so they will forget this daily dependence.
They will have agriculture, and through their agriculture, they will
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have cycles that are dependable, so that they know when
the rainy seasons come, when it's time to plant, and
when it's time to harvest, and they can plan their meals.
They don't have to be dependent on God providing this
food for them, permanent homes, not having to wander around aimlessly,
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the temple, not having to wait for this sign of
the presence of God in the cloud, an army not
having to be defended by a pillar of cloud and
a pillar of fire, not having depend on God's supernatural deliverance,
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but depending on themselves and ultimately a king, a human
being to whom they can look. And with all of
these temptations, it's going to be important that they continue
to remember the God who took care of them in
the desert. And when they don't remember God, or when
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they remember God wrongly, they are tempted towards sin. And
in fact they're worship for example, of bail and asheroth.
This is about the God of the rains, the God
who brings the crops, the God who brings agriculture. And
part of their thinking was this, we serve this sort
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of desert nomadic god, and he can get us water
out of rocks, and he can give us bread from
heaven and provide us quail to eat. However, now that
we've come into this land of the plains, this land
of agriculture, there is another god, a pair of gods,
the Bale and the Asherah, upon whom you depend when
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you're in this land. So in order to hedge our bets,
we'll worship the God of Israel who got us out
of Egypt. But we will also erect statues and monuments
and idols to Bail and to Asherah, so that they
can smile upon us and bring the reins and we
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can have what we need to eat. So again, their
idolatry is rooted and grounded in this idea of forgetting
that it is God who gives us this day our
daily bread. But that was then, that's the simplistic thinking
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of Israel in the desert. That's the simplistic thinking of
Israel when they come out of the desert and go
into the plains and into the mountains, that certainly we
don't do this. Certainly, there aren't things that have brought
us away from having an attitude toward God that says,
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give us this day our daily bread. Really five year plan,
your ten year plan, retirement plan, Ira, your four oh
one ks, your stocks, your bonds, your mutual funds, your
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real estate investments, the equity in your home, your rental properties,
your social security that's coming. All of these things tend
to put us in a position where we forget that
it is God who gives us this day our daily bread.
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Which is why when any of the things on the
aforementioned list go south, we immediately get this sort of
sky is falling mentality, because we, just like Israel, tend
to forget that we are utterly dependent upon God, day
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in day out, and so we do need this reminder.
We do need to see ourselves here in chapter sixteen,
look with me, beginning at verse thirteen, we'll look at
thirteen through twenty one. In the evening, Quayo came up
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and covered the camp, and in the morning they lay
around the camp, and when the dew had gone up,
I'm sorry, do lay around the camp. Let me start
that again. In the evening quail came up and covered
the camp, and in the morning de lay around the camp,
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and when the dew had gone up, there was on
the face of the wilderness a fine flakelike thing, fine
as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel
saw it, they said to one another, what is it?
For they did not know what it was. And Moses
said to them, it is the bread that the Lord
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has given you to eat. This is what the Lord
has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you as
much as he can eat. You shall each take one
omer according to the number of the persons, that is
in each that each of you has in his tent.
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And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more,
some less. But when they measured it with an omer,
whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered
little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much
as he could eat. And Moses said to them, let
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no one leave any of it over till the morning.
But they did not listen to Moses. See a second,
We heard that phrase before. Haven't we get used to it,
because you're going to hear it again and again and again.
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They did not listen to Moses. Some left part of
it till morning, and it bred worms and stank. Moses
was angry with them morning by morning. By the way,
that's another phrase you need to get used to. Moses
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was angry with them. We just kind of fill in
the blanks. The rest of the way through, they did
not listen to Moses. Something happened, and Moses was angry
with them. Morning by morning they gathered it as much
as each as much as he could, But when the
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sun grew hot, it melted. What do we learn from this?
What do we see in Israel and in ourselves as
a result of this experience with the manna? Three things
I want you to see. First, I want you to
see that God provides for his people supernaturally. God provides
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for his people supernaturally Verses thirteen to fifteen. Make this
clear that in the evening quail came up and covered
the camp, and in morning dew lay around the camp.
And when the dew had gone up, there was this
on the face of the wilderness, a fine flakelike thing,
finest frost on the ground. People of Israel saw it,
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they said to one another, what is it? It's part
of where its name comes from, by the way, for
they did not know what it was. And Moses said
to them, it is the bread that the Lord has
given you to eat. There are two types of provision here.
One I'd call providential provision. This is just God and
his providence bringing them to a place and bringing about
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circumstances that provide for them, bringing about this abundance in
this for example, with the quail. Listen to this from
John Walton and Victor Matthews. Small plump migratory quail often
come through the Sinai on their way north from the
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Sudan to Europe, generally in the morning or in the
months of March and April. They generally fly with the
wind and are driven to ground or water if caught
in a crosswind. In their exhaustion, it is not unusual
for them to fly so low that they can be
easily caught. Quail looking for a place to land and
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rest have been known to sink small boats, and in
the Sinai they have been noted to cover the ground
so densely that some land on the tops of others.
Quail just pile up on top of each other. So
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it's not that, you know, God sort of makes these
quails appear ex nihilo. He doesn't invent quail out of nothing.
But this is a migration, a normal migration of quail.
But the problem is that the normal migration of quail
is only during a certain period of time. And not
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nearly enough to feed well over a million people. So God,
in his providence has brought them to a place where
there is a food source, but providentially during this time,
he provides it in such abundance that they can eat
and eat regular early off of this food source. So again,
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it's not that it's unknown for quail to be in
this area. It's known for quail to be in this area.
It's not that it's unknown for the quail to cover
the ground. It's known for quail to cover the ground,
but in this magnitude it's unheard of, and with this consistency,
it's unheard of. So God provides for them providentially. And
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we know that that's the way that God provides for
all of us providentially. In his providence, everything that we
have is provided for us. I don't care what it
is that you have, what it is that you do,
Everything that you have is a result of God's providential
care for you. Yes, but I did this and I
did that. Of course you did, but you didn't invent
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whatever you did it with, and you didn't give yourself
the strength to do it. You didn't decide where you
would be born. You didn't decide what technologies you would
have at your disposal. Well, during this particular period in history.
It is God and his providence who has done this
for you. God cares for his people providentially. But not
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only is there this providential provision, but there's also the
miraculous provision. That's where you get into the manna. The
manna is not something seen there before or seen their sins.
There are many who've tried to argue that the mana
is one of a number of normal sort of occurrences
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in the desert. However, all of those things fail to satisfy.
John Calvin notes that there are eight factors that exclude
a natural explanation and demand that we see this as
no less than a miracle in the desert. And by
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the way, it's important to note the difference between these
two things. It's important to note the difference between God's
providence and God's miraculous activity. We use that word miracle
far too often, and by definition, if something happens all
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the time and it's part of the normal course of things,
it is not miraculous. The example that I've used dozens
of times from this very spot is childbirth. I love
children as much as the next person, probably more. But
childbirth is not a miracle. We know how it happens,
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and it happens all day every day. It is not
a miracle. There has only been one birth that was miraculous,
and that was the birth of Jesus Christ. Amen. Every
other birth has been providential. Okay, it's been providential, not miraculous. Miracle.
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You know, missing a car on your way here, that
wasn't miraculous. That was providential. When something is miraculous, it's
not part of the normal course of things. Eight things,
as Calvin knows, points to the man of being miraculous.
Number one, it didn't appear before. Now you ever thought
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about that. It didn't appear before. Now. They've been in
the desert for a while, but up to this point
there hadn't been any mana So it wasn't Moses didn't say, hey,
God wants you to know something. You know, this stuff
that's been on the ground every day, You can actually
eat that. See, that would have been providential. Amen. We've
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been walking around as funny thing, guys, I didn't even
know this, but we've been walking around and there's this
stuff on the ground and it melts when it gets hot. Right,
here's what God wanted me to tell you. You can eat
that stuff. The way it happened, it didn't appear before now.
Number Two, it was not affected by weather or season.
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It's not affected by weather or season. This is not
something that just appeared seasonally. This is something that wasn't
affected by weather or season. Number Three, it was sufficient
for the people. It was sufficient for the people, perhaps
millions of people, And there was enough to do on
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the ground forming manna for these people to eat. Four.
It was doubled for the sabbath. It was doubled for
the sabbath. This is a natural occurrence. Number one. If
it's a natural occurrence, doesn't make sense that it only
happened six days out of the week. If it's just
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a natural occurrence, right, that makes no sense whatsoever. This
was just a natural occurrence. People, Really, what natural occurres?
Do you know? It only takes place six days out
of the week and always doesn't take place on the
same one day out of the week every week. That's
not a natural occurrence. That's a supernatural occurrence. Five. If
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they preserved it overnight, it putrefied. Six, It followed them
wherever they went, it followed them wherever they went. Seven,
as soon as they entered a fruitful country, the manna ceased.
Once they didn't need it anymore. It was gone. Once
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they came into the land that God promised them, it
was gone. It's not there. It's not there today. For
people who go wandering in the desert of the Sini,
there's no manna for them. It was gone. And eight,
the Sabbath portion did not decay. This is miraculous. Every morning,
go collect it. Go collect all you can eat, but
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eat all you collect. Don't try to keep it until
the next day. And they tried to keep it until
the next day, but it's spoiled and went rotten, and
there was worms. But what we're going to see next
week is that on the Sabbath, God provides beforehand for
the Sabbath, there's a double portion. There's miracle number one
that there's a double portion, and that they're able to
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go get a double portion. Here's miracle number two. Any
other day you keep it overnight, it goes rotten, but
you keep it for the Sabbath, and it's good for
the next day. This is miraculous provision. This is not
just God's providential care. This is God's miraculous care for
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his people. This reminds both Israel and us that God
is not bound by the circumstances that limit us. Amen,
God is not bound by the circumstances that limit us.
This is what they have to remember, This is what
they have to be taught, because remember their entire lives.
For all of these people, they've been in slavery and Egypt,
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and their thought had to be that God either was
not listening to their prayers or that he was not
as powerful as the gods of Egypt and therefore couldn't
deliver him to deliver them. So what does he do
through those ten plagues? He demonstrates that he's more powerful
than the gods of Egypt. He could have done it
in one plague, but he does it in ten in
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order to disabuse them of the notion that somehow the
gods of Egypt are real and have any kind of
real power. And then secondly, he takes them through the desert.
He could have just brought them immediately into the land
of Promise, but he doesn't. He brings them into the
desert and they stay there for forty years, and God
provides for them for forty years so that this generation
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and the next generation and every generation after it will
know that God sovereignly and supernaturally cares for He is people.
This is not normal. They are not normal. There is
a difference between what God does for others and what
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God does for them. He is their children, We are
his children. God's care for us is not like his
care for others. And it's not because Israel was special,
and it's not because we're special. It is because God
has set his love on us as his people in
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order to display his glory. That's the only reason and
explanation for it. This is what drives us to prayer
and worship. This is what separates Christianity from other religions.
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You see, it's not it's not that we are appeasing
God or controlling God. It is that God is sovereign,
that he created the world, and that He sustains the
world and everything in it, and we are thereby dependent
upon God because of it. This is what drives us
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to prayer. This is what drives us to worship. What
drives you away from prayer and worship self reliance. Self reliance,
you know, one of the things that I like to
do and go out to eat, and sometimes I remember,
sometimes I don't, but our server comes. I just like
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to sort of break the ice for spiritual conversation and
just ask, you know, we're about to pray for our food.
Is there any way in particular that we could be
praying for you? You know? The most common answer that
I get to that question. There are some people who
stop and they say, yes, you can be praying about this, this,
and this. I can't. Yeah, I can't remember, you know,
I can't tell you how many times God has just
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shown in his providence the blessing of this so many times. Hey,
we're about to eat, we're going to pray for our food.
Anyway in particularly we can be praying for you? Yes,
I just got a call earlier that dot dot dot
please pray for me. Yes. After work today, I'm going
to be driving to go see my mother. She's sick
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and we don't know what's gonna be just at moments
like that. But that's not the normal answer. The normal
answer to we're about to pray for our food, is
there any way we can pray for you? Is Nope,
everything's okay. In other words, we only need prayer when
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things are not okay. When things are okay, I got this,
I got this, I am in control, everything is all right.
I'm managing it all. And I don't need God right now. However,
if the wheels fall off and I run into anything
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that's too big for me, then I'll let you know
and we can call on God. Folks, hear me in this,
hear me in this. This is why regular family worship
in your home is so important. This is why regular
prayer in your home is so important. This is why
calling our families together and going before God day by
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day is so important. Because if we're not doing that,
then here's what we're communicating to our children. We don't
need God. And all of a sudden, we're not engaging
in family worship, we're not praying regularly, we're not calling
upon God, and suddenly difficulty comes. We get a phone
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call and somebody sick, We get a phone call and
somebody's died. We get a phone call and there's some
tragedy in the family, and all of a sudden, we
want to gather the family together and say, let's pray.
What if you just communicated prayer is for when we
need something. Prayer is for when things go badly. Prayer
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is for when we don't have this under control. That's
what we communicate. But what does regular family worship communicate
to our children? Regular daily family worship, daily devotions communicate
to our children. We need God every day. I need
THEE every hour. That's what it communicates to our children.
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Then the phone call comes and we pray, and it's
not foreign to us. It's just who we are. And
why is it who we are? It's who we are
because we recognize that we are dependent upon God for
our daily bread. May I ask you a question, sir,
Are you leading regular family devotions in your home or
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are you communicating to your wife and to your children
that you don't need God right now? Are you in
prayer on a regular basis or are you showing your
family by your actions that it's just not that important.
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Is it something that you've started and then you ran
out of steam because it became too much of a
routine for you. Because if that's the case, may I
ask you why you still brush your teeth? That's a routine. Yeah. Well,
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if I don't do that, my breast starts to think,
just to think. But what do you think happens to
you spiritually when you're disconnecting from God like that, when
you're acting as though it's not something that you need
on a regular and ongoing basis. I am not calling
upon you to do this because I believe that there's
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going to be a quid pro quote. I'm calling upon
you to do this because I believe that God is
worthy of it, and because I believe that your soul
needs it, that your family needs it. I'm calling you
to this because this is who we are. His mercies
are new every morning, and we ought to thank Him
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for them every day. If we're not doing it, then
what are we saying about what our family is based on.
What are we saying about what's central to us and
what essentral to us? What are we saying about the
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desperate need of our souls to feed on Christ and
to be reminded of the Gospel day after day after
day day. I'm not reminding you of this so that
you can go home and be good. I'm reminding you
of this because you're not good, and you need to
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be reminded how not good you are. You need the
good news every day. Your family needs the good news.
Every day. This is our daily bread. Are we reading
the scriptures and feeding upon them? Again, I'm not telling
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you you need to do this so that you can
be good. I'm telling you that you need to do
this because you're not. Because you're not, and you need
to be reminded of it. Your family needs to be
reminded of it. Secondly, not only does God supernaturally, but
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he provides sufficiently sufficiently. Look at verse sixteen. This is
what the Lord God has commanded. Gather of it, each
one of you as much as he can eat. You
shall each take an omer according to the number of
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the persons that each of you has in his tent.
And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more,
some less. But when they measured it with an omer,
whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered
little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much
as he could eat. Folks, don't miss this. They weren't
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just sustained. They were satisfied. Amen, They were satisfied. Gather
as much as you can eat. God is not stingy, Amen,
God is not stingy. This is one of the major
fallacies of those outside of Christianity. See, we believe that
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outside of Christianity, there is this life of plenty, there
is this life of abundance, There is this life of
overflowing joy, provision, substance, everything else. But when you walk
into Christianity, you walk into it with your head hung low,
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and you walk into it with a dour face, because
everybody knows that when you become a Christian, it's the
end of joy, it's the end of satisfaction, it's the
end of overflowing abundance. And in Christianity, you're not really
a Christian unless you're miserable. That's the great myth. That's
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not the God whom we serve. The God whom we
serve gives to us in abundance. He is not stingy.
He gives sufficiently. Notice some of these phrases, each one
of you as much as he can eat. It says,
some gathered more, some gathered less. Whoever gathered much had
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nothing left over. Whoever gathered little had no lack. In
other words, compared to an Omer, he gives him this
idea of an Omer, it's a daily ration of bread.
You go out and gather an omer, you go out
and gather it, and then when they measured it against
the omer, what they found was that the people who
had gathered a little more they didn't have too much,
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and the people who had gathered a little less they
didn't have any lack. In other words, each person could
gather what they needed, and there was enough for everyone
to have whatever it was that they needed to be satisfied.
This is how God provides for his people. And don't
miss the significance of this. The desert is a foreboding
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place of scarcity and want. It has challenges in terms
of food and water. This is why you don't go
through the desert. You go through the desert, amen. And
when you go through the desert, you want to make
sure that you have enough supplies to go through the desert.
And one of the difficulties in going through the desert
is having enough livestock to carry the stuff you need,
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but not too much so that you then lose your supplies.
So it's this balancing act. We gotta have enough water,
but we can't overburden our animals and our people with
carrying all the water. So how far can we get?
Where's the next place that we can get water? Where's
the next place that we can get food. This is
how you go through a desert, folks. And yet God
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has his people in the desert, and they are satisfied
every day. The desert is a challenge in terms of
its harsh elements, and yet again they have clothing, and
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their clothing is sufficient. They're not burned and chapped by
the sun because God cares for them in the desert,
and his care is sufficient. Hence, God's providence shines all
the more. When they go into the Land of Promise.
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It is as though God has given them this forty
year history in order to say, really, you're worried. Now,
you're worried in the land flowing with milk and honey,
that the God who sustains you in the desert can't
sustain you here. Again, saints, don't get arrogant with this,
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because this is you and this is me. God saves us,
and then we worry about whether or not He can
sustain us, and we worry about whether or not he
can keep us. God saves us, and something happens, and
all of a sudden, the God who could take you
from death to life can't be depended upon to get
you the rest of the way. This is our natural tendency,
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and this is why we need the desert and the
remembrance of the desert. This is why we need to
remember God's sufficient provision and supernatural provision in the person
and work of Christ, that he provided Christ for us.
That Christ is our bread, and Christ is most assuredly enough.
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He is the God man. He is God who wrapped
himself in flesh. He is God who not only took
flesh upon himself, but took upon himself, who took the
penalty for sin upon himself, who died and rose again
on the third day. He is God who has paid
for the sins of his people. He is God who
has rescued us from ourselves. How much more can he
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be dependent upon for sufficiency in our everyday lives. This
is the measure message of the desert. God provides for
his people supernaturally. God provides for his people sufficiently. There
is nothing you need that God cannot supply. And the
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Christian walk is not about you wandering aimlessly in want
all the time. Come to me, are you labor and
they're heavy laden? And I will give you rest. This
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is what He provides. Thirdly, and only does God supply
for his people supernaturally and sufficiently. But God supplies for
his people and provides for his people daily daily. He's
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not far from us. Look at the next part of this.
Moses said to them, let no one leave any of
it over till morning. But they did not listen to Moses.
Some left part of it till the morning. Again, leave
it in your house, Not leave it on the ground.
You only take from the ground what you need. And
if you leave it on the ground, the sun comes
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up and it melts. Nothing to worry about, He's saying.
Don't leave it in your house. Don't hoard it. Don't
hoard it. Look at my barns. My barns are filled
to overflow. It's awesome. I'm good. Now you remember that
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parable What does Jesus say, you fool tonight? Your soul
is going to be required of you. What goods all
that stuff that you stored in your barns? Don't store
it over, he says. But they did not listen to Moses.
There's that phrase. Some left part of it until morning,
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and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry
with them. Morning by morning, they gathered it each as
much as he could eat, but when the sun grew hot,
it melted. This taught Israel a number of things that
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it also teaches us. There are a number of things
that it teaches us on the positive and appropriate side,
and if we don't think about it rightly, there are
a number of things that it teaches us on the
other side. Let me start with the first. On the
positive side, this taught Israel discipline. They had to go
gather the provisions every day. This taught them discipline. And
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interestingly enough, this is one of the things that we
tend to forget in our relationship with God, that it
does involve discipline, that it does involve us committing to
some things regularly. You know, there's such an emphasis on
this idea of you know, Christianity's not a religion, it's
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a relationship. And so we just sit back and we
relax and we go with the flow, and it's just
all about the you know, the moment and the here
and the now and da da da da dah. And
because of that, we move away from the idea of
disciplining ourselves. The apostle Paul makes it clear in his
Epistle to Timothy and elsewhere that he disciplined himself, and
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that we are to discipline ourselves. This was a way
that God was teaching his people discipline, that daily they
would go and gather. Secondly, it taught them humility. It
taught them humility. How so well taught them humility because
they had to go and gather what God provided, and
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whatever God provided was what they ate. In addition to
humility and discipline, it taught them dependence. It taught them dependence.
They had to depend on God. Go gather your food,
only gather your food for today. Whoa what if? Here's
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the question, Here's why you store it over until tomorrow?
What if God forgets us? And how many of us
live like that? As though God would give his only
begotten son to die for our sins, to redeem us
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and to save us, only to later lose track of us,
to forget us. That is not our God. It teaches dependence.
And the only reason you keep it over is just
in case God for you. Maybe he won't forget us altogether,
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but maybe tomorrow it won't be enough, so I need
to make sure that we have enough. And it also
tested their faith in all of this. It tested their faith. However,
with your hard hearts. With my hard heart, it can
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teach us other lessons. To the hard heart, you don't
learn discipline, you learn to be discontent. Manna again you
go from We get to live another day because in
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the midst of the desert God provided bread again to
manna again. The heart also becomes resentful. Instead of humility
and dependence upon God. We learn resentment because we don't
want to be humble and we don't want to be
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dependent upon God. We want to be independent and proud
and arrogant, which is why the heart then yearns for
independence from God. But what is the difference. The difference
in this list and this second list is a question
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of perspective. Do I see myself as a person in
desperate need of a deliverer or do I see myself
as a person who can do just fine on my own?
And our natural tendency is the latter and not the former.
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My natural tendency is to see myself as a person
who can do just fine on my own, and not
as a person who's dependent upon God, not as a
person who recognizes that I need God to give me
this day my daily bread. But my natural tendency is
to say I got this God, And if I run
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into anything I can't handle, then I'll call you. That's
my natural tendency, and it's your natural tendency. And because
that's our natural tendency, when we run up against this
truth and this reality that we are dependent upon God,
then it doesn't make us humble, it makes us resentful.
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What does that look like, I'll tell you what it
looks like. You're going through your Christian life. And as
you go through your Christian life, you experience a difficulty.
And when you experience that difficulty, the disappointment, whatever it is,
you go to your doctor and you get bad news.
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You overcome an area of sin in your life, and
then you fall back into it. You have a relationship
that becomes disappointing to you. Whatever it is, whatever it is,
you go through it, and all of a sudden, the
wheels fall off. Everything's bad. But God and his grace
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and his and in his kindness brings you through that situation.
And the case of the physical ailment is a physical ailment.
And all of a sudden you're in despair, You're despondent
everything else, but God brings you through that, and all
of a sudden, it's praise God. Here's my testimony. God
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brought me through. Or if it's something that has been
holding you down, some kind of addiction, and then you
fall and then all of a sudden, God gets you
back up again and you gain victory again, and it's
praise God, Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. It's good. Or
if it's some kind of relational issue, there's a relationship
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that's harmful or hurting you or disappointing, disappointing you and
God delivers you from that, or God heals that relationship
all of a sudden, it's Amen, hallelujah, Praise the Lord.
God is good. You're stronger for it. A year later,
two years later, you're sick again, and all of a sudden,
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instead of saying, I know God, I'm dependent upon God
every day. I was here before, I'll probably be here again.
God took me by the hand and walked me through
it before. God's going to take me by the hand
and walk me through it again. Instead of that attitude,
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our attitude becomes one of resentment. I thought we'd settled this, God,
I thought we were done with this. I thought this
was over. I thought we were finished with this. I
went through the sickness or whatever it was, and I
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learned something, and I got closer to you. And now
all of a sudden, after teaching me my lesson and
me getting closer to you, it happens again. What's wrong?
Why don't you love me? See, this is the natural tendency.
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They hurt me again. I can't believe you let him
hurt me again. I can't believe you let him disappoint
me again. This is the natural tendency, and it is
all rooted and grounded in self reliance. It is all
rooted and grounded in the perspective that does not understand
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that when God said, when Jesus said to us, when
you pray, say our Father, who are in heaven, holl
loowd be your name, your kingdom. Come here will be
done on earth that is in heaven. Give us this
day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread,
he meant that. What he meant was that our prayer
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life was to be rooted and grounded in dependence. That
we are constantly to remind ourselves that we are dependent
upon God. You don't have it figured out, and you
won't have it figured out because the Christian life is
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not something you figure out. It is something you walk
through and are shaped by, and are formed by and
conformed to the image of Christ by. Christianity is not
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something we use, something we become. Difficulty is life amen,
and becoming a Christian doesn't mean that life becomes something
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other than difficulty. Becoming a Christian means that your difficulty
becomes something that is less significant than the reality to
which you now hold. That's what becoming a Christian means.
Becoming a Christian doesn't mean I don't get sick anymore.
Becoming a Christian means that when I get sick, like
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everybody else gets sick, I don't become afraid like those
who have no hope, because I recognize that my life
is hidden with Christ. Becoming a Christian doesn't mean that
I never battle again with besetting sins. It means that
besetting sins remind me of my dependence upon God and
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that my sanctification is not complete yet. Being a Christian
doesn't mean that people don't hurt you or disappoint you anymore.
But being a Christian means that you no longer put
your hope in those people who hurt you and disappoint you.
But your hope is in Christ, who has redeemed you,
and who is a friend that is closer than a brother,
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who will never disappoint you. And He's the only one
who won't disappoint you. And it means remembering that you
disappoint God more than any individual has ever disappointed you.
And yet by his grace, it is covered in his blood.
So remember that when your fellow man disappoints you and
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falls short. All of this, all of this we learn
from bread provided in the desert. Because this bread is
not just bread. It is God's supernatural, sufficient daily provision
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for his people. And whether you're talking about the Old
Covenant or the New Covenant, this is our relationship with God.
And again these are not my words. These are Jesus'
words when he says that he is the bread of life.
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He is the true bread that comes from God, the
true bread that comes from Heaven. So that Christ is
my supernatural, sufficient daily provision from God. I need Jesus.
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You need Jesus just like your body needs food to eat.
Every day. You need Jesus. This is why we gather
week after week. This is why we set before these
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ordinary means of grace again and again and again, because
this weekly reminder is symbolic of the daily reminder that
we need God. You're not okay, saints. You're not good enough.
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You're not strong enough, you're not smart enough, you're not
righteous enough, You're not anything enough. But the good news
is Christ is more than enough. Oh sinner, have you
come into this room today depending on anything other than
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Christ as your daily bread? Have you dared to walk
into this room depending on yourself to be good enough,
depending on yourself to be righteous enough, depending on yourself
to be wise enough, depending on yourself to get you
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from this day to tomorrow. Please please let that go.
You can't get yourself out of this room on your
own intelligence and your own righteousness apart from the mercy
of God. Throw yourself upon his mercy. Cling to his
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mercy in the person of Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin,
turn from it, run to Jesus, beg for God's forgiveness,
and don't let him go until you have it, because
that is indeed your only hope. You need Christ every day,
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every hour, every moment, and there will never be a
moment when you don't need Christ. He is our bread.
He said from heaven. Let's pray, Oh God, it is
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so easy for us to look at Israel in the
desert and not see ourselves. It is so easy to
look at Israel in the desert and point a wagging
finger of condemnation because they failed again, because they didn't believe, again,
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because they didn't obey again, because they have to be
rebuked again, because they have to be reminded again. But,
oh God, would you help us see ourselves in this?
Would you help us see that we too have been delivered,
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that we two have been provided for, and that we
too have become self reliant, that we too have become arrogant,
that we too are disobedient, that we two act as
though we have no desperate need of you. And in
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your reminding, would you also remind us that there is
good news? And the good news is that though we
are faithless, he remains faithful. News is, though we've dropped
the ball yet again, you are not depending upon us
to carry it. The good news is that though we
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have become lazy and laxadaisical, that you do not slumber,
and you do not sleep. The good news is that
when you reprove and you rebuke your children. It is
to conform us to the image of Christ. Grant by
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your grace, that we might receive it as precisely that,
and that we might cling all the more diligently to
the Cross. Grant by your grace, that those who have
entered this room trusting in anything other than Christ, would
flee to him, would cling to him, would trust in him,
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would hope in him, and in nothing and no one else.
Gret This we pray, so that Christ might indeed have
the fullness of the reward for which he died. This
we ask in his name and for his sake. Amen.
We come this week to our text right in the
middle of Exodus sixteen, and here we looked on last
week at this process of God shaping Israel in the desert,
of God forming them as his people in the desert,
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and of him using this process. We also pointed to
the importance of our understanding these things in light of
progressive revelation, in light of the way that God reveals
himself progressively through the scriptures, and we saw that in
doing so, we don't fall into the trap of seeing
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ourselves as completely divorced from things like Exodus sixteen, into
the trap of believing that somehow passages like Exodus sixteen
are irrelevant to us. We saw in last week how
Jesus himself used image directly from Exodus chapter sixteen in
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order to teach about his relationship to the believer, as
this bread from Heaven, this bread of life. We saw
earlier when we paused and looked at the Lord's Supper
in light of the passover, how Jesus is that passover lamb,
And how when we gather before the Lord's Supper we
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are remembering and also following through with the perpetual reminder
of God's provision in and through the Exodus, that he
gives a perpetual reminder for Israel and says that this
is to be a forever thing, and that through the
Lord's Supper we are keeping this forever thing. But now
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we see him not only in the Lord's Supper, but
we also see him as this bread from heaven. We
see him as the fulfilled of this type of God's
provision for his people. In the midst of the desert,
we also saw his presence with his people in the cloud.
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Today we look at the bread more carefully, and we
look at the way that Israel interacts with God through
the bread, and the way that God interacts with and
shapes Israel through the giving of the bread. This would
become important as later on Israel will be tempted to
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forget God as their provider. They would forget that God
is the one who gives us this day our daily bread.
How are they going to forget that? Well, They're going
to come into a land and not be wandering in
the desert anymore, and so they will forget this daily dependence.
They will have agriculture, and through their agriculture, they will
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have cycles that are dependable, so that they know when
the rainy seasons come, when it's time to plant, and
when it's time to harvest, and they can plan their meals.
They don't have to be dependent on God providing this
food for them, permanent homes, not having to wander around aimlessly,
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the temple, not having to wait for this sign of
the presence of God in the cloud, an army not
having to be defended by a pillar of cloud and
a pillar of fire, not having depend on God's supernatural deliverance,
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but depending on themselves and ultimately a king, a human
being to whom they can look. And with all of
these temptations, it's going to be important that they continue
to remember the God who took care of them in
the desert. And when they don't remember God, or when
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they remember God wrongly, they are tempted towards sin. And
in fact they're worship for example, of bail and asheroth.
This is about the God of the rains, the God
who brings the crops, the God who brings agriculture. And
part of their thinking was this, we serve this sort
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of desert nomadic god, and he can get us water
out of rocks, and he can give us bread from
heaven and provide us quail to eat. However, now that
we've come into this land of the plains, this land
of agriculture, there is another god, a pair of gods,
the Bale and the Asherah, upon whom you depend when
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you're in this land. So in order to hedge our bets,
we'll worship the God of Israel who got us out
of Egypt. But we will also erect statues and monuments
and idols to Bail and to Asherah, so that they
can smile upon us and bring the reins and we
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can have what we need to eat. So again, their
idolatry is rooted and grounded in this idea of forgetting
that it is God who gives us this day our
daily bread. But that was then, that's the simplistic thinking
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of Israel in the desert. That's the simplistic thinking of
Israel when they come out of the desert and go
into the plains and into the mountains, that certainly we
don't do this. Certainly, there aren't things that have brought
us away from having an attitude toward God that says,
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give us this day our daily bread. Really five year plan,
your ten year plan, retirement plan, Ira, your four oh
one ks, your stocks, your bonds, your mutual funds, your
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real estate investments, the equity in your home, your rental properties,
your social security that's coming. All of these things tend
to put us in a position where we forget that
it is God who gives us this day our daily bread.
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Which is why when any of the things on the
aforementioned list go south, we immediately get this sort of
sky is falling mentality, because we, just like Israel, tend
to forget that we are utterly dependent upon God, day
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in day out, and so we do need this reminder.
We do need to see ourselves here in chapter sixteen,
look with me, beginning at verse thirteen, we'll look at
thirteen through twenty one. In the evening, Quayo came up
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and covered the camp, and in the morning they lay
around the camp, and when the dew had gone up,
I'm sorry, do lay around the camp. Let me start
that again. In the evening quail came up and covered
the camp, and in the morning de lay around the camp,
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and when the dew had gone up, there was on
the face of the wilderness a fine flakelike thing, fine
as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel
saw it, they said to one another, what is it?
For they did not know what it was. And Moses
said to them, it is the bread that the Lord
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has given you to eat. This is what the Lord
has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you as
much as he can eat. You shall each take one
omer according to the number of the persons, that is
in each that each of you has in his tent.
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And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more,
some less. But when they measured it with an omer,
whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered
little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much
as he could eat. And Moses said to them, let
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no one leave any of it over till the morning.
But they did not listen to Moses. See a second,
We heard that phrase before. Haven't we get used to it,
because you're going to hear it again and again and again.
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They did not listen to Moses. Some left part of
it till morning, and it bred worms and stank. Moses
was angry with them morning by morning. By the way,
that's another phrase you need to get used to. Moses
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was angry with them. We just kind of fill in
the blanks. The rest of the way through, they did
not listen to Moses. Something happened, and Moses was angry
with them. Morning by morning they gathered it as much
as each as much as he could, But when the
(10:01):
sun grew hot, it melted. What do we learn from this?
What do we see in Israel and in ourselves as
a result of this experience with the manna? Three things
I want you to see. First, I want you to
see that God provides for his people supernaturally. God provides
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for his people supernaturally Verses thirteen to fifteen. Make this
clear that in the evening quail came up and covered
the camp, and in morning dew lay around the camp.
And when the dew had gone up, there was this
on the face of the wilderness, a fine flakelike thing,
finest frost on the ground. People of Israel saw it,
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they said to one another, what is it? It's part
of where its name comes from, by the way, for
they did not know what it was. And Moses said
to them, it is the bread that the Lord has
given you to eat. There are two types of provision here.
One I'd call providential provision. This is just God and
his providence bringing them to a place and bringing about
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circumstances that provide for them, bringing about this abundance in
this for example, with the quail. Listen to this from
John Walton and Victor Matthews. Small plump migratory quail often
come through the Sinai on their way north from the
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Sudan to Europe, generally in the morning or in the
months of March and April. They generally fly with the
wind and are driven to ground or water if caught
in a crosswind. In their exhaustion, it is not unusual
for them to fly so low that they can be
easily caught. Quail looking for a place to land and
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rest have been known to sink small boats, and in
the Sinai they have been noted to cover the ground
so densely that some land on the tops of others.
Quail just pile up on top of each other. So
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it's not that, you know, God sort of makes these
quails appear ex nihilo. He doesn't invent quail out of nothing.
But this is a migration, a normal migration of quail.
But the problem is that the normal migration of quail
is only during a certain period of time. And not
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nearly enough to feed well over a million people. So God,
in his providence has brought them to a place where
there is a food source, but providentially during this time,
he provides it in such abundance that they can eat
and eat regular early off of this food source. So again,
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it's not that it's unknown for quail to be in
this area. It's known for quail to be in this area.
It's not that it's unknown for the quail to cover
the ground. It's known for quail to cover the ground,
but in this magnitude it's unheard of, and with this consistency,
it's unheard of. So God provides for them providentially. And
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we know that that's the way that God provides for
all of us providentially. In his providence, everything that we
have is provided for us. I don't care what it
is that you have, what it is that you do,
Everything that you have is a result of God's providential
care for you. Yes, but I did this and I
did that. Of course you did, but you didn't invent
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whatever you did it with, and you didn't give yourself
the strength to do it. You didn't decide where you
would be born. You didn't decide what technologies you would
have at your disposal. Well, during this particular period in history.
It is God and his providence who has done this
for you. God cares for his people providentially. But not
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only is there this providential provision, but there's also the
miraculous provision. That's where you get into the manna. The
manna is not something seen there before or seen their sins.
There are many who've tried to argue that the mana
is one of a number of normal sort of occurrences
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in the desert. However, all of those things fail to satisfy.
John Calvin notes that there are eight factors that exclude
a natural explanation and demand that we see this as
no less than a miracle in the desert. And by
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the way, it's important to note the difference between these
two things. It's important to note the difference between God's
providence and God's miraculous activity. We use that word miracle
far too often, and by definition, if something happens all
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the time and it's part of the normal course of things,
it is not miraculous. The example that I've used dozens
of times from this very spot is childbirth. I love
children as much as the next person, probably more. But
childbirth is not a miracle. We know how it happens,
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and it happens all day every day. It is not
a miracle. There has only been one birth that was miraculous,
and that was the birth of Jesus Christ. Amen. Every
other birth has been providential. Okay, it's been providential, not miraculous. Miracle.
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You know, missing a car on your way here, that
wasn't miraculous. That was providential. When something is miraculous, it's
not part of the normal course of things. Eight things,
as Calvin knows, points to the man of being miraculous.
Number one, it didn't appear before. Now you ever thought
(16:25):
about that. It didn't appear before. Now. They've been in
the desert for a while, but up to this point
there hadn't been any mana So it wasn't Moses didn't say, hey,
God wants you to know something. You know, this stuff
that's been on the ground every day, You can actually
eat that. See, that would have been providential. Amen. We've
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been walking around as funny thing, guys, I didn't even
know this, but we've been walking around and there's this
stuff on the ground and it melts when it gets hot. Right,
here's what God wanted me to tell you. You can eat
that stuff. The way it happened, it didn't appear before now.
Number Two, it was not affected by weather or season.
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It's not affected by weather or season. This is not
something that just appeared seasonally. This is something that wasn't
affected by weather or season. Number Three, it was sufficient
for the people. It was sufficient for the people, perhaps
millions of people, And there was enough to do on
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the ground forming manna for these people to eat. Four.
It was doubled for the sabbath. It was doubled for
the sabbath. This is a natural occurrence. Number one. If
it's a natural occurrence, doesn't make sense that it only
happened six days out of the week. If it's just
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a natural occurrence, right, that makes no sense whatsoever. This
was just a natural occurrence. People, Really, what natural occurres?
Do you know? It only takes place six days out
of the week and always doesn't take place on the
same one day out of the week every week. That's
not a natural occurrence. That's a supernatural occurrence. Five. If
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they preserved it overnight, it putrefied. Six, It followed them
wherever they went, it followed them wherever they went. Seven,
as soon as they entered a fruitful country, the manna ceased.
Once they didn't need it anymore. It was gone. Once
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they came into the land that God promised them, it
was gone. It's not there. It's not there today. For
people who go wandering in the desert of the Sini,
there's no manna for them. It was gone. And eight,
the Sabbath portion did not decay. This is miraculous. Every morning,
go collect it. Go collect all you can eat, but
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eat all you collect. Don't try to keep it until
the next day. And they tried to keep it until
the next day, but it's spoiled and went rotten, and
there was worms. But what we're going to see next
week is that on the Sabbath, God provides beforehand for
the Sabbath, there's a double portion. There's miracle number one
that there's a double portion, and that they're able to
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go get a double portion. Here's miracle number two. Any
other day you keep it overnight, it goes rotten, but
you keep it for the Sabbath, and it's good for
the next day. This is miraculous provision. This is not
just God's providential care. This is God's miraculous care for
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his people. This reminds both Israel and us that God
is not bound by the circumstances that limit us. Amen,
God is not bound by the circumstances that limit us.
This is what they have to remember, This is what
they have to be taught, because remember their entire lives.
For all of these people, they've been in slavery and Egypt,
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and their thought had to be that God either was
not listening to their prayers or that he was not
as powerful as the gods of Egypt and therefore couldn't
deliver him to deliver them. So what does he do
through those ten plagues? He demonstrates that he's more powerful
than the gods of Egypt. He could have done it
in one plague, but he does it in ten in
(20:26):
order to disabuse them of the notion that somehow the
gods of Egypt are real and have any kind of
real power. And then secondly, he takes them through the desert.
He could have just brought them immediately into the land
of Promise, but he doesn't. He brings them into the
desert and they stay there for forty years, and God
provides for them for forty years so that this generation
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and the next generation and every generation after it will
know that God sovereignly and supernaturally cares for He is people.
This is not normal. They are not normal. There is
a difference between what God does for others and what
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God does for them. He is their children, We are
his children. God's care for us is not like his
care for others. And it's not because Israel was special,
and it's not because we're special. It is because God
has set his love on us as his people in
(21:36):
order to display his glory. That's the only reason and
explanation for it. This is what drives us to prayer
and worship. This is what separates Christianity from other religions.
(21:58):
You see, it's not it's not that we are appeasing
God or controlling God. It is that God is sovereign,
that he created the world, and that He sustains the
world and everything in it, and we are thereby dependent
upon God because of it. This is what drives us
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to prayer. This is what drives us to worship. What
drives you away from prayer and worship self reliance. Self reliance,
you know, one of the things that I like to
do and go out to eat, and sometimes I remember,
sometimes I don't, but our server comes. I just like
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to sort of break the ice for spiritual conversation and
just ask, you know, we're about to pray for our food.
Is there any way in particular that we could be
praying for you? You know? The most common answer that
I get to that question. There are some people who
stop and they say, yes, you can be praying about this, this,
and this. I can't. Yeah, I can't remember, you know,
I can't tell you how many times God has just
(23:06):
shown in his providence the blessing of this so many times. Hey,
we're about to eat, we're going to pray for our food.
Anyway in particularly we can be praying for you? Yes,
I just got a call earlier that dot dot dot
please pray for me. Yes. After work today, I'm going
to be driving to go see my mother. She's sick
(23:28):
and we don't know what's gonna be just at moments
like that. But that's not the normal answer. The normal
answer to we're about to pray for our food, is
there any way we can pray for you? Is Nope,
everything's okay. In other words, we only need prayer when
(23:49):
things are not okay. When things are okay, I got this,
I got this, I am in control, everything is all right.
I'm managing it all. And I don't need God right now. However,
if the wheels fall off and I run into anything
(24:10):
that's too big for me, then I'll let you know
and we can call on God. Folks, hear me in this,
hear me in this. This is why regular family worship
in your home is so important. This is why regular
prayer in your home is so important. This is why
calling our families together and going before God day by
(24:34):
day is so important. Because if we're not doing that,
then here's what we're communicating to our children. We don't
need God. And all of a sudden, we're not engaging
in family worship, we're not praying regularly, we're not calling
upon God, and suddenly difficulty comes. We get a phone
(24:54):
call and somebody sick, We get a phone call and
somebody's died. We get a phone call and there's some
tragedy in the family, and all of a sudden, we
want to gather the family together and say, let's pray.
What if you just communicated prayer is for when we
need something. Prayer is for when things go badly. Prayer
(25:18):
is for when we don't have this under control. That's
what we communicate. But what does regular family worship communicate
to our children? Regular daily family worship, daily devotions communicate
to our children. We need God every day. I need
THEE every hour. That's what it communicates to our children.
(25:43):
Then the phone call comes and we pray, and it's
not foreign to us. It's just who we are. And
why is it who we are? It's who we are
because we recognize that we are dependent upon God for
our daily bread. May I ask you a question, sir,
Are you leading regular family devotions in your home or
(26:03):
are you communicating to your wife and to your children
that you don't need God right now? Are you in
prayer on a regular basis or are you showing your
family by your actions that it's just not that important.
(26:25):
Is it something that you've started and then you ran
out of steam because it became too much of a
routine for you. Because if that's the case, may I
ask you why you still brush your teeth? That's a routine. Yeah. Well,
(26:45):
if I don't do that, my breast starts to think,
just to think. But what do you think happens to
you spiritually when you're disconnecting from God like that, when
you're acting as though it's not something that you need
on a regular and ongoing basis. I am not calling
upon you to do this because I believe that there's
(27:09):
going to be a quid pro quote. I'm calling upon
you to do this because I believe that God is
worthy of it, and because I believe that your soul
needs it, that your family needs it. I'm calling you
to this because this is who we are. His mercies
are new every morning, and we ought to thank Him
(27:31):
for them every day. If we're not doing it, then
what are we saying about what our family is based on.
What are we saying about what's central to us and
what essentral to us? What are we saying about the
(27:52):
desperate need of our souls to feed on Christ and
to be reminded of the Gospel day after day after
day day. I'm not reminding you of this so that
you can go home and be good. I'm reminding you
of this because you're not good, and you need to
(28:12):
be reminded how not good you are. You need the
good news every day. Your family needs the good news.
Every day. This is our daily bread. Are we reading
the scriptures and feeding upon them? Again, I'm not telling
(28:33):
you you need to do this so that you can
be good. I'm telling you that you need to do
this because you're not. Because you're not, and you need
to be reminded of it. Your family needs to be
reminded of it. Secondly, not only does God supernaturally, but
(29:01):
he provides sufficiently sufficiently. Look at verse sixteen. This is
what the Lord God has commanded. Gather of it, each
one of you as much as he can eat. You
shall each take an omer according to the number of
(29:24):
the persons that each of you has in his tent.
And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more,
some less. But when they measured it with an omer,
whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered
little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much
as he could eat. Folks, don't miss this. They weren't
(29:46):
just sustained. They were satisfied. Amen, They were satisfied. Gather
as much as you can eat. God is not stingy, Amen,
God is not stingy. This is one of the major
fallacies of those outside of Christianity. See, we believe that
(30:09):
outside of Christianity, there is this life of plenty, there
is this life of abundance, There is this life of
overflowing joy, provision, substance, everything else. But when you walk
into Christianity, you walk into it with your head hung low,
(30:34):
and you walk into it with a dour face, because
everybody knows that when you become a Christian, it's the
end of joy, it's the end of satisfaction, it's the
end of overflowing abundance. And in Christianity, you're not really
a Christian unless you're miserable. That's the great myth. That's
(30:59):
not the God whom we serve. The God whom we
serve gives to us in abundance. He is not stingy.
He gives sufficiently. Notice some of these phrases, each one
of you as much as he can eat. It says,
some gathered more, some gathered less. Whoever gathered much had
(31:21):
nothing left over. Whoever gathered little had no lack. In
other words, compared to an Omer, he gives him this
idea of an Omer, it's a daily ration of bread.
You go out and gather an omer, you go out
and gather it, and then when they measured it against
the omer, what they found was that the people who
had gathered a little more they didn't have too much,
(31:45):
and the people who had gathered a little less they
didn't have any lack. In other words, each person could
gather what they needed, and there was enough for everyone
to have whatever it was that they needed to be satisfied.
This is how God provides for his people. And don't
miss the significance of this. The desert is a foreboding
(32:08):
place of scarcity and want. It has challenges in terms
of food and water. This is why you don't go
through the desert. You go through the desert, amen. And
when you go through the desert, you want to make
sure that you have enough supplies to go through the desert.
And one of the difficulties in going through the desert
is having enough livestock to carry the stuff you need,
(32:31):
but not too much so that you then lose your supplies.
So it's this balancing act. We gotta have enough water,
but we can't overburden our animals and our people with
carrying all the water. So how far can we get?
Where's the next place that we can get water? Where's
the next place that we can get food. This is
how you go through a desert, folks. And yet God
(32:52):
has his people in the desert, and they are satisfied
every day. The desert is a challenge in terms of
its harsh elements, and yet again they have clothing, and
(33:14):
their clothing is sufficient. They're not burned and chapped by
the sun because God cares for them in the desert,
and his care is sufficient. Hence, God's providence shines all
the more. When they go into the Land of Promise.
(33:35):
It is as though God has given them this forty
year history in order to say, really, you're worried. Now,
you're worried in the land flowing with milk and honey,
that the God who sustains you in the desert can't
sustain you here. Again, saints, don't get arrogant with this,
(34:02):
because this is you and this is me. God saves us,
and then we worry about whether or not He can
sustain us, and we worry about whether or not he
can keep us. God saves us, and something happens, and
all of a sudden, the God who could take you
from death to life can't be depended upon to get
you the rest of the way. This is our natural tendency,
(34:29):
and this is why we need the desert and the
remembrance of the desert. This is why we need to
remember God's sufficient provision and supernatural provision in the person
and work of Christ, that he provided Christ for us.
That Christ is our bread, and Christ is most assuredly enough.
(34:52):
He is the God man. He is God who wrapped
himself in flesh. He is God who not only took
flesh upon himself, but took upon himself, who took the
penalty for sin upon himself, who died and rose again
on the third day. He is God who has paid
for the sins of his people. He is God who
has rescued us from ourselves. How much more can he
(35:17):
be dependent upon for sufficiency in our everyday lives. This
is the measure message of the desert. God provides for
his people supernaturally. God provides for his people sufficiently. There
is nothing you need that God cannot supply. And the
(35:42):
Christian walk is not about you wandering aimlessly in want
all the time. Come to me, are you labor and
they're heavy laden? And I will give you rest. This
(36:02):
is what He provides. Thirdly, and only does God supply
for his people supernaturally and sufficiently. But God supplies for
his people and provides for his people daily daily. He's
(36:29):
not far from us. Look at the next part of this.
Moses said to them, let no one leave any of
it over till morning. But they did not listen to Moses.
Some left part of it till the morning. Again, leave
it in your house, Not leave it on the ground.
You only take from the ground what you need. And
if you leave it on the ground, the sun comes
(36:50):
up and it melts. Nothing to worry about, He's saying.
Don't leave it in your house. Don't hoard it. Don't
hoard it. Look at my barns. My barns are filled
to overflow. It's awesome. I'm good. Now you remember that
(37:11):
parable What does Jesus say, you fool tonight? Your soul
is going to be required of you. What goods all
that stuff that you stored in your barns? Don't store
it over, he says. But they did not listen to Moses.
There's that phrase. Some left part of it until morning,
(37:32):
and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry
with them. Morning by morning, they gathered it each as
much as he could eat, but when the sun grew hot,
it melted. This taught Israel a number of things that
(37:54):
it also teaches us. There are a number of things
that it teaches us on the positive and appropriate side,
and if we don't think about it rightly, there are
a number of things that it teaches us on the
other side. Let me start with the first. On the
positive side, this taught Israel discipline. They had to go
gather the provisions every day. This taught them discipline. And
(38:20):
interestingly enough, this is one of the things that we
tend to forget in our relationship with God, that it
does involve discipline, that it does involve us committing to
some things regularly. You know, there's such an emphasis on
this idea of you know, Christianity's not a religion, it's
(38:42):
a relationship. And so we just sit back and we
relax and we go with the flow, and it's just
all about the you know, the moment and the here
and the now and da da da da dah. And
because of that, we move away from the idea of
disciplining ourselves. The apostle Paul makes it clear in his
Epistle to Timothy and elsewhere that he disciplined himself, and
(39:05):
that we are to discipline ourselves. This was a way
that God was teaching his people discipline, that daily they
would go and gather. Secondly, it taught them humility. It
taught them humility. How so well taught them humility because
they had to go and gather what God provided, and
(39:27):
whatever God provided was what they ate. In addition to
humility and discipline, it taught them dependence. It taught them dependence.
They had to depend on God. Go gather your food,
only gather your food for today. Whoa what if? Here's
(39:51):
the question, Here's why you store it over until tomorrow?
What if God forgets us? And how many of us
live like that? As though God would give his only
begotten son to die for our sins, to redeem us
(40:14):
and to save us, only to later lose track of us,
to forget us. That is not our God. It teaches dependence.
And the only reason you keep it over is just
in case God for you. Maybe he won't forget us altogether,
(40:36):
but maybe tomorrow it won't be enough, so I need
to make sure that we have enough. And it also
tested their faith in all of this. It tested their faith. However,
with your hard hearts. With my hard heart, it can
(40:59):
teach us other lessons. To the hard heart, you don't
learn discipline, you learn to be discontent. Manna again you
go from We get to live another day because in
(41:20):
the midst of the desert God provided bread again to
manna again. The heart also becomes resentful. Instead of humility
and dependence upon God. We learn resentment because we don't
want to be humble and we don't want to be
(41:41):
dependent upon God. We want to be independent and proud
and arrogant, which is why the heart then yearns for
independence from God. But what is the difference. The difference
in this list and this second list is a question
(42:03):
of perspective. Do I see myself as a person in
desperate need of a deliverer or do I see myself
as a person who can do just fine on my own?
And our natural tendency is the latter and not the former.
(42:24):
My natural tendency is to see myself as a person
who can do just fine on my own, and not
as a person who's dependent upon God, not as a
person who recognizes that I need God to give me
this day my daily bread. But my natural tendency is
to say I got this God, And if I run
(42:44):
into anything I can't handle, then I'll call you. That's
my natural tendency, and it's your natural tendency. And because
that's our natural tendency, when we run up against this
truth and this reality that we are dependent upon God,
then it doesn't make us humble, it makes us resentful.
(43:14):
What does that look like, I'll tell you what it
looks like. You're going through your Christian life. And as
you go through your Christian life, you experience a difficulty.
And when you experience that difficulty, the disappointment, whatever it is,
you go to your doctor and you get bad news.
(43:38):
You overcome an area of sin in your life, and
then you fall back into it. You have a relationship
that becomes disappointing to you. Whatever it is, whatever it is,
you go through it, and all of a sudden, the
wheels fall off. Everything's bad. But God and his grace
(43:59):
and his and in his kindness brings you through that situation.
And the case of the physical ailment is a physical ailment.
And all of a sudden you're in despair, You're despondent
everything else, but God brings you through that, and all
of a sudden, it's praise God. Here's my testimony. God
(44:20):
brought me through. Or if it's something that has been
holding you down, some kind of addiction, and then you
fall and then all of a sudden, God gets you
back up again and you gain victory again, and it's
praise God, Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. It's good. Or
if it's some kind of relational issue, there's a relationship
(44:43):
that's harmful or hurting you or disappointing, disappointing you and
God delivers you from that, or God heals that relationship
all of a sudden, it's Amen, hallelujah, Praise the Lord.
God is good. You're stronger for it. A year later,
two years later, you're sick again, and all of a sudden,
(45:14):
instead of saying, I know God, I'm dependent upon God
every day. I was here before, I'll probably be here again.
God took me by the hand and walked me through
it before. God's going to take me by the hand
and walk me through it again. Instead of that attitude,
(45:36):
our attitude becomes one of resentment. I thought we'd settled this, God,
I thought we were done with this. I thought this
was over. I thought we were finished with this. I
went through the sickness or whatever it was, and I
(45:59):
learned something, and I got closer to you. And now
all of a sudden, after teaching me my lesson and
me getting closer to you, it happens again. What's wrong?
Why don't you love me? See, this is the natural tendency.
(46:19):
They hurt me again. I can't believe you let him
hurt me again. I can't believe you let him disappoint
me again. This is the natural tendency, and it is
all rooted and grounded in self reliance. It is all
rooted and grounded in the perspective that does not understand
(46:45):
that when God said, when Jesus said to us, when
you pray, say our Father, who are in heaven, holl
loowd be your name, your kingdom. Come here will be
done on earth that is in heaven. Give us this
day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread,
he meant that. What he meant was that our prayer
(47:05):
life was to be rooted and grounded in dependence. That
we are constantly to remind ourselves that we are dependent
upon God. You don't have it figured out, and you
won't have it figured out because the Christian life is
(47:28):
not something you figure out. It is something you walk
through and are shaped by, and are formed by and
conformed to the image of Christ by. Christianity is not
(47:51):
something we use, something we become. Difficulty is life amen,
and becoming a Christian doesn't mean that life becomes something
(48:12):
other than difficulty. Becoming a Christian means that your difficulty
becomes something that is less significant than the reality to
which you now hold. That's what becoming a Christian means.
Becoming a Christian doesn't mean I don't get sick anymore.
Becoming a Christian means that when I get sick, like
(48:33):
everybody else gets sick, I don't become afraid like those
who have no hope, because I recognize that my life
is hidden with Christ. Becoming a Christian doesn't mean that
I never battle again with besetting sins. It means that
besetting sins remind me of my dependence upon God and
(48:56):
that my sanctification is not complete yet. Being a Christian
doesn't mean that people don't hurt you or disappoint you anymore.
But being a Christian means that you no longer put
your hope in those people who hurt you and disappoint you.
But your hope is in Christ, who has redeemed you,
and who is a friend that is closer than a brother,
(49:18):
who will never disappoint you. And He's the only one
who won't disappoint you. And it means remembering that you
disappoint God more than any individual has ever disappointed you.
And yet by his grace, it is covered in his blood.
So remember that when your fellow man disappoints you and
(49:41):
falls short. All of this, all of this we learn
from bread provided in the desert. Because this bread is
not just bread. It is God's supernatural, sufficient daily provision
(50:06):
for his people. And whether you're talking about the Old
Covenant or the New Covenant, this is our relationship with God.
And again these are not my words. These are Jesus'
words when he says that he is the bread of life.
(50:26):
He is the true bread that comes from God, the
true bread that comes from Heaven. So that Christ is
my supernatural, sufficient daily provision from God. I need Jesus.
(50:53):
You need Jesus just like your body needs food to eat.
Every day. You need Jesus. This is why we gather
week after week. This is why we set before these
(51:14):
ordinary means of grace again and again and again, because
this weekly reminder is symbolic of the daily reminder that
we need God. You're not okay, saints. You're not good enough.
(51:34):
You're not strong enough, you're not smart enough, you're not
righteous enough, You're not anything enough. But the good news
is Christ is more than enough. Oh sinner, have you
come into this room today depending on anything other than
(51:58):
Christ as your daily bread? Have you dared to walk
into this room depending on yourself to be good enough,
depending on yourself to be righteous enough, depending on yourself
to be wise enough, depending on yourself to get you
(52:20):
from this day to tomorrow. Please please let that go.
You can't get yourself out of this room on your
own intelligence and your own righteousness apart from the mercy
of God. Throw yourself upon his mercy. Cling to his
(52:42):
mercy in the person of Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin,
turn from it, run to Jesus, beg for God's forgiveness,
and don't let him go until you have it, because
that is indeed your only hope. You need Christ every day,
(53:03):
every hour, every moment, and there will never be a
moment when you don't need Christ. He is our bread.
He said from heaven. Let's pray, Oh God, it is
(53:34):
so easy for us to look at Israel in the
desert and not see ourselves. It is so easy to
look at Israel in the desert and point a wagging
finger of condemnation because they failed again, because they didn't believe, again,
(54:00):
because they didn't obey again, because they have to be
rebuked again, because they have to be reminded again. But,
oh God, would you help us see ourselves in this?
Would you help us see that we too have been delivered,
(54:21):
that we two have been provided for, and that we
too have become self reliant, that we too have become arrogant,
that we too are disobedient, that we two act as
though we have no desperate need of you. And in
(54:46):
your reminding, would you also remind us that there is
good news? And the good news is that though we
are faithless, he remains faithful. News is, though we've dropped
the ball yet again, you are not depending upon us
to carry it. The good news is that though we
(55:10):
have become lazy and laxadaisical, that you do not slumber,
and you do not sleep. The good news is that
when you reprove and you rebuke your children. It is
to conform us to the image of Christ. Grant by
(55:31):
your grace, that we might receive it as precisely that,
and that we might cling all the more diligently to
the Cross. Grant by your grace, that those who have
entered this room trusting in anything other than Christ, would
flee to him, would cling to him, would trust in him,
(55:55):
would hope in him, and in nothing and no one else.
Gret This we pray, so that Christ might indeed have
the fullness of the reward for which he died. This
we ask in his name and for his sake. Amen.
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