To speak good. To speak good. Normally we think of a benediction
as being at the end of the service. But in 1 Timothy chapter 1, Paul
breaks into a benediction right there in the opening chapter
of his letter. When he says, now unto the King,
the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,
be all honor. And that word has to do with
value. How valuable is the Lord Jesus
Christ to you? Is he the pearl of great price?
and glory. That has to do with estimation.
How high do you estimate him to be? Unto the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God be all honor and glory forever
and ever. Now that's speaking good. And
that verse concludes with That's a truth. Faithful saying,
Amen. Burt's going to come lead us
in hymn in your hardbacked hymnal number 34. Number 34, let's stand
together. For our scripture reading this
morning, would you turn to the book of Micah? The book of Micah,
chapter 7. I'm hoping the Lord this morning
would give us the ability to believe this passage. The hymn
we're going to sing afterwards reflects verse 18 to 20. We're going to start in verse
7. Micah 7, verse 7. Therefore,
in light of what the Lord has said from verse 1 to 6, that
when He looked down into this earth and that there was no good,
no righteous, in light of that, I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my
salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice
not against me, O my enemy, when I fall. I shall arise when I
sit in darkness. The Lord shall be a light unto
me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord. Why? Because I have sinned against
him. until he plead my cause and execute
judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the
light and I shall behold his righteousness." It's all about
him, Brother Greg. Then, verse 10, she that is mine
enemy shall see it. Oh, and shame shall cover her
which said unto me, Where is the Lord thy God? Where is this
one that ruleth up in heaven, that sovereign that you claim? My eyes shall behold her, now
shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets. Skip
to verse 14. Lord, feed thy people with thy
rod, the flock of thy heritage, which dwell solitarily. Lord, ye have given us a oneness,
a one eye, We rest in thee, in the wood, in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old. According to the days of thy
coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him marvelous
things." We come into this world born in Egypt and He calls us
out and He has shown us marvelous things and He will continue to
do so. The nation shall see and be confounded of all their might,
they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall
be deaf, they shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall
move out of their holes like worms of the earth, they shall
be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee."
And here it is verse 18, One day we're going to be singing
this song in person as the Lord parades His bride before the
whole world. Right now we're going to do it
in faith, but we're going to say, Lord, who is a God like unto Thee,
that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of His heritage? He retaineth not his anger for
ever, because he delighteth in mercy. Lord, that ye would forgive
me of my sins. A holy thrice God would take
this vile worm and forgive me of my sins. Verse 19, I'm praying
that this is what he'll do when the gospel is proclaimed here
in a moment. Lord, will you turn us again? Would you have compassion
upon us? Will you subdue our iniquities
and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea? Lord, we know
you're going to do it because verse 20, thou wilt perform the
truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou has sworn
unto our fathers from the days of old eternities past. I pray
the Lord would give us the ability to believe that now. Would you
pray with me? Lord, the truth is, if you are not merciful to us,
Lord, we would not be able to confess. Who is a God like unto
thee that pardoneth iniquity? Lord, that's our desire this
morning, that we would be able to just be translated up in eternity,
these next few moments, and be able to worship you, to bow before
you, and to give you all the glory. Lord, would you turn us again
this morning? Would you, Lord, save us and
subdue this corrupting flesh of unbelief, iniquities, Lord,
that we still carry. Lord, we desire just to hear
and to see you this morning. Pray, Lord, you would be pleased
to do that. Lord, we have your word. We have your covenant promises. Lord, would you make that come
to life this morning, not only in the hearts of your
people, but to those who are outside your commonwealth, Lord,
that you would draw them this morning. Lord, be with our pastor and
all the pastors faithful to proclaim what you have declared in eternity
this morning. Give them freedom, Lord. Give
them power. Give us ears to hear, Lord. Oh,
Lord, may we leave here this morning. Like our brother John,
behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us,
that we should be called the sons of God. For we ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. Would you turn to your... The words of these hymns are
not infallible, as is the Word of God. If you'll take that hymnal
you just had and open to verse, to number one just sang, number
19. The third stanza down where it
says, but in his love he formed a plan. Scratch out the word
formed a plan and write in the words purposed grace. I never want anybody to have
the idea that God had to have a new thought. that God did one thing and then
he considered what he did and had to come up with a plan B. That's never the case. Never
the case. Everything that our God does,
he does in eternity. He is the King, eternal, immutable,
invisible. He's the only wise God. I'll tell Don we did that. Three weeks from now, the Lord
tarries, and He allows it to be. We have planned to have a
weekend conference on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of February, Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday. I think the times and the preachers
are listed in your bulletin. Please be in prayer for that
meeting. Pray the Lord will speak to us,
and it's an opportunity. Sometimes people will come to
a special meeting. when they won't come to a regular
Sunday service. So hopefully it'll be an opportunity
for you to invite your lost friends to come and hear the gospel. Would you turn with me in your
Bibles to Exodus chapter 16. Exodus chapter 16. And I've titled this message,
Bread in the wilderness of sin. Bread in the wilderness of sin. Now the Lord makes it clear in
John chapter 6 that he is this bread of life that cometh down
from heaven. He tells the Pharisees, Moses
didn't give you that bread. My father gave you the bread. I am the bread of life. And unless
you eat of this flesh, you have no life in you. He's the sustenance
of all life, spiritual and physical. The Lord Jesus Christ is life
eternal himself. And here in the Old Testament
the Lord performs a miracle. For 40 years he performs this
miracle. Six out of seven days the children
of Israel get up and they go out of their tents and they find
lying on the ground in abundance a substance that they called
manna. They gathered it up and at the
end of chapter 16 it tells us that they ate this manna every
day for 40 years. Now let me say something about
miracles. Lots of miracles in the Bible.
Miracles in the Old Testament. God suspends the natural law
that he created whenever he wills. I mean there was a time when
God stopped the rotation of the earth and reversed it three hours. He can raise a man from the dead. He can cause a 90-year-old woman
to give birth to a child. He can reign manna from heaven.
He created the laws of physics as we know them and He can suspend
them anytime He wants. And he has, and he does. He can
divide the Red Sea so that the water is walled up on one side
or the other and allow his children to walk across on dry land and
collapse that wall when the Egyptians are there and drown every one
of them. Oh, he can make the axe head
float. There's nothing he can't do.
Is there anything too hard for our God? No. No. Why don't we see that sort of
demonstration of the power of God today? Those miracles that were performed
in the Old Testament and those miracles that the Lord Jesus
Christ performed and in the first few years of the gospel were
performed were illustrative. They illustrated the greatest
miracle of all. And that miracle is still being
performed. Greater works than these you
shall do, is what the Lord told the disciples. When you go out
and preach the gospel, I'm going to perform the miracle of the
new birth. I'm going to take God-hating,
dead, lifeless sinners, and I'm gonna cause them to love me and
to live. Someone made a comment recently
about Sarah having a child and giving,
and I said, I don't have any trouble at all with that. The
reason I don't have any trouble with that is because I know that
if God can save me, He can do anything. Anything. If He can save me. Do you believe
that about yourself? The greatest miracles of all,
of all time, are being performed right now. When God opens the
ears of the deaf, opens the eyes of the blind, takes out the heart
of stone and puts in a heart of flesh and causes dead sinners
to be made alive and come to faith in Christ. There's no miracle
like that miracle. And to accomplish that, God did more. than he ever did. He did infinitely more to accomplish
the salvation of sinners. How hard was it for God to stop
the earth in its rotation, cause the sundial to go backwards?
How hard was it for him to say to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth!
How hard was it? It wasn't. God's little finger can move
the universe. What did it take God to save
you? To save me? It took the death of His Son. That's
what it took. It took the sacrifice. There is no miracle. We're not
looking for signs and wonders. A wicked and perverse generation
seeketh after a sign. We're looking for the miracle
of the new birth. Oh Lord, would you be pleased
to save me? Right now. It looks like I've
been saved. You know, if that's the way you're
looking at it, then I fear that perhaps you haven't heard the
truth of the gospel yet. God's people never get beyond
needing to be saved. Lord, I need to be saved. I need
you to save me right now. Save me from myself. Lord, have
mercy on me. Have mercy on my children. Have
mercy on my loved ones. Have mercy on this world. Lord,
save us. There's no greater miracle and
there's no greater demonstration of God's power than that. God rains bread from heaven for
his people and he did it in the wilderness of sin. That's what
the scripture says. Bread in the wilderness of sin. If the Lord is going to open
the windows of heaven and reign bread from heaven into your soul
and into my soul by revealing to us the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ and causing us to trust him, to believe on
him. Where is he going to accomplish
that miracle? The same place he accomplished
it for the Israelites in Exodus chapter 16. Look at the last verse of chapter
15, and they came to Elam. Now, they've been delivered from
Egypt, which is a picture of our regeneration. We've come
out of the camp of the taskmasters of the law. We've been delivered
from the Egyptians, and we've been baptized in the Red Sea.
All those are illustrations, aren't they? of the gospel, the
spiritual truth of what God accomplished when he saves his people. And
now in verse 15 Moses sings a glorious song to God's glory for what
he's done and Miriam joins him with him and sings a praise to
God's glory and they find themselves in a place called Elam. And Elam,
the scripture says right here in verse 27, was a place of twelve
wells of water. Twelve wells. Sufficient water
for the children of Israel just to camp right there. I mean,
they suffered, they leave this place and they go out into the
wilderness where there is no water. Why don't they just stay
right here in this oasis? Twelve tribes of Israel, each
of them had their own well. I mean, this is a beautiful oasis.
And three score and ten palm trees, you see that in that verse?
Seventy palm trees. Scripture compares believers
to palm trees, and seventy is the number for our life here
in this world. The last verse of chapter 15
is a picture of heaven. That's what it is. It's a picture
of heaven, Elam, with 12 wells of water and 70 palm trees and
everything necessary for the sufficiency of his children,
right there. But God doesn't leave them there.
He gives them a picture. He gives them a glimpse of glory
after he saves them from Egypt and he allows them to see what
the land flowing with milk and honey is going to be like. But
then they take their journey from there. You see that in verse
1 of the next chapter? And they took their journey from
Elam and all the congregation of the children of Israel came
unto the wilderness of sin. the wilderness of sin. The wilderness
of sin is between Elam and Sinai. Now eventually the Lord's going
to take the children of Israel to Sinai and he takes them there because
there is a large number of the Israelites who say in Numbers
chapter 21 or 22 I think We loathe this light bread. We despise
this manna. We're eating manna every day. We want something more. In short, the majority of the
Israelites in this wilderness were unbelievers. They didn't
know Christ. They didn't know Christ. and
they loathed the light bread and God in order to keep them
together as a nation and to make them somewhat civil in order
that he would bring in the Messiah through them gave them the law. You see that? Look in verse 1. And they took their journey from
Elam, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came
into the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai. The Bible says that the law is
for the lawless. The law is necessary. It's necessary
for the unbeliever. to restrain their outward behavior. The problem is that those that
are under the law, though they may be restrained by the threats
of the law, are only incited in their self-righteousness against
God. And so the law is the strength
of sin, And the law at Sinai now is given to Israel in order
to restrain their behavior one against the other and bring the
Messiah in. So here's, they're between Elam and Sinai.
I want you to know that Sinai was not for the believer. Sinai
was for those Israelites who said, we loathe this light bread. And God had to put them under
a law. They knew nothing of the law of grace. They knew nothing
of the power of God in their hearts. And so God put them under
the law. If you eat of the bread of life,
you're not under the law, you're under grace. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. You
don't need the law. You've got Christ. If the Lord is going to feed
you, If he's going to feed me, if he's going to perform the
miracle of salvation in our hearts, if he's going to open the windows
of heaven and rain bread down to our souls, it'll happen between
Elam and Sinai in the wilderness of sin. Only sinners, only sinners come
to Christ. Only those who find themselves
in the wilderness of sin eat the manna to the salvation of
their souls. Only those that God has made
to be sinners. The Lord said, I did not come
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The whole need
not a physician but they that are sick. If you're a sinner, God's made
you to be a sinner, then you know in your heart of hearts
that your sin is getting worse. And where sin abounds, grace
does much more abound. You're not going to get more
bread until you have more sin. Preacher, are you advocating
going out and living a lawless life? You know I'm not. You know
I'm not. That's what they accused the
Apostle Paul of. Well, should we just sin all the more? God
forbid such a thought. The problem is that sin is not
just a behavioral problem. That's just the overflow of it. Are you in the wilderness of
sin? I tell you what, to be placed in the wilderness of sin is a
very painful and uncomfortable place to be. For God to expose your self-righteousness? For Him to expose to you your
selfishness? For Him to expose to you the
depths of your unbelief? It's a hard place to be. For
the Lord to show the vanity and the pride of your heart For God
to sit you down in the dunghill of your own sin, it's revolting,
it's stinking, it's a shameful, shameful place to be. But it's
where God feeds his children with the bread of heaven. They were in the wilderness of
sin. Are you in the wilderness of sin? I got a text recently from a
brother, far away state, and he asked me to pray for his rebellious
teenager. And typically when parents have
problems with their rebellious teenagers. They say things like,
I don't know why they're doing the things they're doing. We've
treated them. We've given them everything. We've tried to provide
for them. We've loved them. And they're
just going off, and it doesn't... That's typically what... He said,
please pray for my... He told me. And then he added
this statement, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And I thought, there's a sinner. There's a sinner. There's a man
God showed something to about his own depravity. My children
are acting just like me. I'm not throwing my hands up
in despair. I'm not blaming them for... No,
they're just right off of me. Sinners are always publicans.
They're always finding themselves not able to look up and smiting
themselves upon the breast and saying, Oh God, have mercy upon
me, the sinner. Are you in the wilderness of
sin? Has God made you to be a sinner? I mean, a bona fide sinner. It's the place. You see that,
don't you? Right there. The whole congregation
of Israel came to the wilderness of sin. God put you in the wilderness
of sin. As difficult as that is, it's the place of blessing. Because in truth, in fact, sinners
are the only people that come to Christ. It is not men's bad behavior
that keeps them from Christ. Most folks, once they get a little
aged to themselves and they realize that, you know, that these things
really don't produce the satisfaction that they thought they were going
to produce, they get sick and tired of being sick and tired
and they want to change. And so there's support groups
all over town for people to go and get their lives straightened
out. It's not that people don't want to get rid of bad habits
that the reason they don't come to Christ. It's not. No. It's
men's righteousness that keeps them from Christ. And if you've got one shred of
fig leaf still attached to your naked body, then you've not been
made a sinner. When God makes you to be a sinner,
He strips you naked before Himself. He exposes all the wickedness
of your heart. And then and only then do you
cry for mercy. Bread comes in the wilderness
of sin. It's the only place it comes.
There's no bread anywhere else. There's no salvation anywhere
else. This is a faithful saying. This saying is worthy of all
acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to do what? To save sinners. He only saves sinners. And he saves every one of them.
Every one of them. What is the evidence that we
are in the wilderness of sin? I don't think the air conditioner
ever got turned on this morning. Could somebody please make sure
that it gets turned on? Right here. Somebody that knows
how to turn it on? Thank you, Jeff. It's getting
warm in here. What is the evidence that we
are in the wilderness of sin? Look at our text, verse 2. Turn it down low enough for it
to stay on, please. Thank you. Verse 2, and the whole
congregation The whole congregation of the
children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation? Are you a murmurer? Someone says, no, I'm a positive
person. I always look on the bright side
of everything. Let me ask you a question. If
you possessed omnipotence, I mean, you really did. You were all
powerful, all powerful. Your word changed everything. You could look at something and
speak and it was changed. If you possessed omnipotence,
what would you change in your life, in the life of your spouse,
in the life of your children, in the life of this world, in
your circumstances, in your possessions? What would you change? What would
you change? If you could change anything
at your will, you would change pretty much everything. Everything, wouldn't you? What
does that say about your satisfaction with the way things are? Does
that not expose your murmuring? If you had the power of God,
you'd change pretty much everything. If you had the wisdom of God,
you would change nothing. Nothing. you would believe that everything
is exactly like it's supposed to be. What is the evidence that we're
in the wilderness of sin? I'll tell you the evidence is
we're not satisfied. We are discontent. We are murmurers. Every single one of us. We don't believe God. We're not
satisfied with the way things are. We want everything to be
different than it is. We're just murmurers. The whole
congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. And Moses steps up and said,
Hey, your problem's not with me. You complained against your spouse
for something that they do or don't do? You complain against
your children? The throat is an open sepulcher. Romans chapter 3. In other words,
you look down the throat of man and you look into his heart and
you see that it's filled with dead man's bones. And the evidence
of that is, how much does it take for those bones to come
out of your mouth? Doesn't take much, does it? Somebody
cut you off on the interstate. Man, I can spit those bones out
really fast. Somebody says something to me
and I listen to it, I hear it one way, I can spit those bones
out real fast. Something's not right or something's
not comfortable. We're just murmurers. That's the evidence that we are
in the wilderness of sin. We're not satisfied with anything
God's given us. We're discontent, complaining,
murmuring people all the time. And the children of Israel said
unto them, Would to God that we had died by the hand of the
Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh pots. What's the evidence that we're
in the wilderness of sin? Oh, we like sitting down at the
flesh pots, don't we? How much of Esau is there in
you? What did Rebecca say? There's
two nations within me. Why am I thus? Why do I have
these two children in me that are fighting against one another?
And what did Esau do? He sold his birthright for a
bowl of pottage. How many times you and I have
done exactly the same thing? We like sitting next to the flesh
pots, don't we? And we would, we would, if God
didn't give us faith, we would sacrifice our souls for the pleasures
and the comforts of our flesh. The lust of the eyes, the lust
of the flesh, the pride of life, that's all our flesh ever wants,
doesn't it? While these children of Israel
were murmuring, would to God that we had just died back in
Egypt, at least back there we got to sit at our flesh pots. Are you in the wilderness of
sin? Does this describe you? Did you notice that it said all
the children of Israel? And when we did eat bread to
the full, for you have brought us forth into this wilderness
to kill this whole assembly with hunger." You know what the glorious truth
is? The only time I am content is when I'm hearing the gospel. That's the only time I can sit.
Oh, thank the Lord. Trisha and I were talking about
this last night. She said, yeah, that's the reason
we don't want to get up. We just keep feeding us. We don't want
to leave. It's a good meal. It's the only time that we're
not discontent. It's the only time we're not
caught up in the flesh pots is when we're hearing about what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done when He came down from heaven
and fed us with the bread of life. We want comfortable, don't we? We want easy. We want pleasure. just like these children of Israel.
Lord, would you perform a miracle of grace in my heart? Would you
save me? Save me from myself? Look at verse four. Then said
the Lord unto Moses, I'm gonna teach these children a lesson. They're not satisfied with me.
I'm going to punish them with a rod. If you want to find out
what hunger is really like, I'm going to starve them out. Is that what it says? 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." They haven't gotten
Sinai yet. We're not talking about the Ten
Commandments. The law of God is to trust Christ.
That's the commandment of God. What must I do to inherit eternal
life? This is life eternal that they might believe on him whom
he has sent. To believe on Christ, to rest
in Christ, to rely in him for all your righteousness and all
your justice before God. And it came to pass that on the
sixth day that they shall prepare that 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 evening then you shall know
that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt, and
in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord. For that
he heareth your murmurings against the Lord, and what are we that
you murmur against us? Now four times in this chapter,
God tells Moses to tell the children of Israel, I've heard your murmurings
and I'm going to bless you with bread. He didn't say, I hear your sin.
I hear your unbelief. And I'm going to pour my wrath
upon you until you come to believe. I'm going to cause my goodness
to pass before thee. It's the goodness of God that
leads us to repentance. I'm gonna bless you with bread. The more you murmur, the more
bread I'm gonna give you. I'm so glad it's that way. Where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound. And Moses said, This shall be,
when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat,
and in the morning bread to full. For that the Lord heareth your
murmurings, which you murmur against him. This is why he has
given it to you. He's giving it to you because
you're a sinner. Skip over to verse 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 a hoarfrost on the ground. The flesh is drawn to big. It is. We want bigger houses. We want bigger bank accounts.
We want bigger influence. We want bigger power. We want
bigger reputations. The flesh is just drawn to big,
isn't it? Bigger is better in the flesh, isn't it? God says when I reign bread from
heaven, it's going to be a small round thing. It's not going to
appeal to the flesh. It's going to be that still small
voice. I'm going to bless you with bread,
but it's not going to be in a way that appeals to your flesh. You
know, we want everything and we want it now, don't we? We
want big knowledge. We want big understanding. We
want it all. And we want it now. And God says,
here's how I'm going to feed you with bread from heaven. Precept
upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little. I'm going to grow you in my grace. And that which grows fast dies
quickly. That which grows slowly has strength to it, doesn't it? I've used this illustration before.
We've got tons of oak trees in Florida. I mean, they're everywhere.
I don't know how many I've got in my yard. They're good for
nothing but firewood. The reason why the oak in Florida
is not good for anything is because it grows too fast. You want good
English oak to make a nice piece of furniture like you're sitting
on, that's oak furniture right there. That wasn't grown in Florida,
I can guarantee you that. The conditions are too good here
for a tree. They like the warm, wet climate.
No, those trees have to grow in harsh climates. They grow
in rocky soil. They grow where it's cold in
the wintertime. That's how the tree has to grow,
and it grows slowly and produces beautiful wood. You know, we
want to grow in Florida, don't we? We want to be, you know,
we just want, God says no. Small round thing. little by little. God says don't despise the day
of small things. I can't tell you how many times
somebody finds out about our church or especially if they're
real religious the first question they want to know is well how
many people you have? And I've had people tell me, well, we
know God's blessings upon us because we've had, I had a guy
tell me two weeks ago, over in Sarasota, that he baptized 630
people. I think he said three weeks,
something like that. Came to the services over there
and I thought, well, whoop-dee-doo. And another brother was standing
there and he said, boy, that's a lot of swimming. And that's all it is. That's
all it is. Don't despise the day of small
things. What God esteems, men despise. And what men despise, God esteems. My ways are not your ways. This
is a small thing. It's the way I work. I don't
appeal to the flesh. Look at verse 15. And when the
children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, it is manna. Now look in the margin of your
Bible. You probably have it there. That word manna means what is
it? They've never seen anything like
it before in their life. What is it? You explain to me. How the omnipotent,
omniscient, eternal God can be made flesh and dwell among us. How God can take on the likeness
of sinful flesh. Explain that to me. I can't explain it. You explain to me how God in
eternity past justified his people in a covenant of grace through
the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ before he ever died on
Calvary's cross. Explain to me how the blood that
the Lord Jesus Christ shed on Calvary's cross was placed on
the mercy seat, not made with hands, but that which was in
heaven. Explain to me how God can take
an enemy of the gospel and turn them into his friend and make
them to love the truth of the gospel. You know what I say? Manna. Manna. What is it? The gospel is a mystery. It's a mystery. It can't be explained. And we're not here to explain
it. We're here to declare it and
we call men to believe it. We don't understand anything
we believe. We're not here to understand
it. We're here to believe it. Eternal justification? Holiness? How that God could impute to
me the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that as He is,
so are we in this world? That He that sanctifieth and
they that are sanctified are all as one? And that God would
not be ashamed to call me His brother? How can that be? I don't know. But I believe it. It's manna. Manna. Must be gathered every day. Every
day it has to be gathered. Little by little. Day by day. The Lord Jesus Christ said, Lord,
give us this day our daily bread. You know, what do we want? We
want to gather up enough manna to last us a week. We want to
live off yesterday's manna. What happens to yesterday's manna?
It has worms in it the next morning and it stinks. God's going to make you dependent
upon His grace every day. Every moment of every day. This manna was a token of rest.
They weren't to take any up on the Sabbath. Why? Because they
weren't to work on the Sabbath. Why? Because Christ is our Sabbath
and He's accomplished all the work. And we rest from our labors
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 31. I'll close. Verse 31, and the house of Israel
called the name thereof manna, and it was like coriander seed. I never do this, but I'm going
to do it this morning. How many of you all love cilantro? I love it. You can't put enough
of it in any. Now, how many of you hate cilantro? Tastes like soap to you? Tastes
like soap. Research it. It's a genetic disposition. It's not your fault that you
hate cilantro. Tastes like dead bugs, tastes like soap. You either
love it or you hate it. Cilantro is coriander. It's a say and you're born. with
a genetic disposition, if you will. God has elected a people
from the foundation of the world. You're not going to change that.
Paul, this has no reflection on your salvation, brother. You just hate cilantro all you
want. But love Christ. Love Christ. He's the saver of life unto some.
and a savor of death unto others." Notice, in verse 31, it was white. Oh, the perfect righteousness
of Christ. Tastes like honey. Honey is a perfect food, isn't
it? You know, they found honey in the Egyptian pyramids that
dates back 2,500 years and it's still good. Honey doesn't spoil.
It's the only food. Only food that doesn't spoil. Oh, he is the king eternal, isn't
he? And the last thing God tells
the children of Israel, eat it. Eat it. The manna was not to
be talked about. The manna was not to be inspected. The manna was not to be debated. The manna was not to be discussed. The manna was to be eaten. Eaten. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
right now and you shall be saved. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that You would cause the
bread of life to rain on us in the wilderness of sin, and that
You would bless us with the miracle of the new birth, for we ask
it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together. Brother Burt, we're going to
sing 185 in the hardbacked hymnal.