Go back with me to the book of
Exodus. The book of Exodus chapter 16. The book of Exodus chapter 16. I want to begin tonight to speak
to you about the manna. The manna from heaven. I suspect
it's going to take me, I'm going to say, at least three messages
to somewhat touch on all the things that I want to bring to
you. Chapter 16 of Exodus. Let me
just read a couple of verses here to refresh your memories. I read several verses out of
this chapter to you last Wednesday evening. Exodus 16. And they, the Israelites, about
a month since the Passover, 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, on
the 15th day of the second month after their departing out of
the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of
the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the
wilderness. I wonder if you are amazed at
the murmuring spirit of the Israelites. I wonder if you stand amazed
at the witnesses of the mercies of God that they were very much aware of. The mercies
of God and the judgments of God. The mercies of God in delivering
them from Egyptian bondage. And the judgment of God in bringing
all the plagues that God brought against the Egyptians. And then
He drowned the greatest army in the world in the Red Sea and
delivered the Israelites. And I wonder if you aren't amazed
at how quickly these people fell into murmuring. As you know,
being delivered through the Red Sea, the path opened up very
wide, very dry, and all the Israelites went through and then the waves
came back upon the Egyptians and they were drowned. And they're
rejoicing. Chapter 15, we looked at it,
the song of Moses, the song of redemption. And then they get
to the bitter waters of Marah. Maybe that amazes you. God healed
the bitter waters, made the waters sweet. Moses cast in a tree,
which is a picture of the gospel of the substitutionary death
of our Lord Jesus Christ that sweetens the bitterness that
we feel in our own souls due to sin. And the sacrifice of
our Savior sweetens the bitter troubles and trials of life. And then God sends them to Elam,
just a few miles away from Marah, About eight miles. And they enjoyed
the palm trees. They enjoyed the twelve wells. And then they took their journey. And the whole congregation murmured
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And again, I say,
does this amaze you? It doesn't amaze me. Because you
see, this is... an accurate realization of man's
depravity, of man's sinfulness. You see, 10,000 mercies can be
forgotten with one troublesome event. Isn't that something? Do you know anybody who would
do the same thing? Do you know anybody who, though
they have been blessed with infinite mercies, with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, do you know anybody who believes
that, who would dare murmur against the providence of God when He
sends a trouble or a trial or an ache or a pain or a sickness? And really, we all have to say,
yeah, that's me. That's me. This is an accurate reflection
on all mankind because we're all sinners. And sadly, too often,
this is an accurate reflection of even the people of God. And aren't you thankful that
when we are murmuring, God still sends mercies? When we are grumbling, God's
grace is always sufficient. And when we speak ill of the
things that He brings to pass in our lives, how thankful we
are that we have a Savior who redeemed us, who bought us. who has imputed his impeccable
righteousness to us, and though we murmur and moan and complain,
God never holds any of those things against us. Oh, how great
are his mercies to us. The Lord has delivered them by
the Passover lamb He has led them out of Egypt. They have crossed the Red Sea
successfully. They've sung the song of Moses. They knew firsthand, personally,
about redemption by the blood of the Passover lamb, and we
know Most of us, I hope all of us, and I hope all who are watching,
I hope we all know personally that redemption that is in the
bloody death of our Savior. May God teach us. May God teach me contentment. Does he not lead, does the shepherd
not lead his sheep? Well, we know he does. Lord, teach us to be satisfied
and thankful, even thankful, for the things that he brings
to pass in our lives. Nancy asked me a question We
were out on the porch drinking a cup of coffee. One of our favorite
things to do is drink coffee on the back porch, talk. She
said, do you ever regret, and she mentioned a couple of places,
do you ever regret going there? And I said no. But you could have asked me back
then And I might have said, yeah. But as I look back, and I think
you will attest to this in your own life, the difficulties that
God has brought to pass for you in your life as a child of God,
those difficulties They were God's way of further molding
you and making you to be who you are today. And I told her,
I said, no, I don't have any regrets of the decisions that
I've made. Because I know this, and you
know this too, Our God, though, let me back
up, though we make decisions about everything, and we do every
day, but ultimately our God is guiding us in the way that he
would have us to go. And everything that happens to
us happens for a purpose. And as we know, Romans 8, 28,
Paul says, and we know, that's what he says, and we know, we're
confident, we have God's word for this, we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to those who are
thee called according to his purpose. All things work together. You cannot isolate one thing
in your life and say, well, I don't know how that could be good. But all things together, what
we would call the good things and the bad things. They all
work together by God, God who is sovereign, God who has the
authority over all things. He is working all things together
in your life as a child of God for your good. Now, it may not be for your physical
good, but they are working together
for your spiritual good. of the one who's working them
together, he is good. He is good. And he will never
put you through a needless, hurtful experience without using that
hurtful experience to further make out of you what he wills
you to be. The Israelites went through some
real difficulties. There's no question about it.
They get here between Elam and Sinai, and they're hungry. They're hungry. It says in verse
three, And the children of Israel said unto them, to Moses and
Aaron, would to God, would to God we had died by the hand of
the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,
and when we did eat bread to the full, For you have brought
us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with
hunger." What a ridiculous amount of reasoning this is.
This is foolish reasoning. That God would deliver them, Moses by the pillar of cloud
by day and the pillar of fire by night. Moses leading the children
of Israel. Moses and Aaron. It's absolutely
ridiculous that God would leave them out in the wilderness to
kill them. Had he not promised to Abraham
in a covenant transaction with that great patriarch, that your
seed will be in bondage and after 430 years they will be released,
they'll go free and they will enter into a very special land
that I am giving to you. Didn't God enter into a covenant
with Abraham for that? how forgetful they were and how
forgetful we are of the Word of God. And so, when they're hungry,
and they said, have you brought us out here to kill this whole
assembly with hunger? Verse four, and the Lord Jehovah That's Christ, the Son of God,
said unto Moses, Behold, I will rain not fire and brimstone
from heaven upon you, but 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." And we're aware of this, and
you can read a little further in the chapter here. The bread
that God gave them, here's what they said, what is this? That
was its name. What is this? That's what manna
means. What is this? It's manna. Bread from heaven. Now this manna
was necessary for their very lives, for their nourishment,
for their health, for their vitamins. Everything they needed was in
this manna. And this manna has a two-fold
application or two things it's a picture of. Two-fold picture,
I'll say. Number one, and I'm gonna deal
with this tonight, this manna picture's that word of God. The word of God, the word of
the gospel. And secondly, we know this bread
that came, this manna from heaven, is a picture of our Lord Jesus.
And of course, we're very sure of that based upon John chapter
six. But this evening I want to show
you that this man has pictured the written word of God that
is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, of course, there
will have to be some overlapping. When I talk about the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, there will have to be some overlapping
in speaking of our Savior, who is the bread come down from heaven. And the first thing I notice
about this manna is it was a supernatural gift. This is the first great
lesson that manna is designed to teach us. The manna was not
a product of the earth. It was not manufactured by man. It was not something that Israel
brought forth out of Egypt. They brought silver, they brought
gold, they brought other precious metals, the women brought with
them various kinds of jewelry, but they didn't bring bread. Instead, it came down from heaven.
It's a gift from God. And men have attempted to explain
away the Word of God, the Word of the Gospel. But I'll tell
you where the Word of the Gospel came from. It came from the same
place the manna came from. The Gospel came from heaven.
It's called the Gospel of God. The Apostle Paul says in Romans
1, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, the gospel
of God. It's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone which believeth, and I'll just say this, to everyone
who eats of it. Because the gospel, the word
of the Lord is pictured here in this manner. The amazing thing about this
manna, it was provided for them all
through their wilderness journey. And the word of the gospel, the
word of God, David said, thy word if I hid
in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Thy word is
a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. And Peter tells us in
1 Peter toward the end, he talks about the Word of God and in
the same breath he talks about the Gospel of God. It's the good
news sent from heaven. You see, the Word of God, it
is filled with an abundance of good news for poor sinners. When Moses was instructed by
the Lord to tell the people, go out every morning, except
Saturday morning, not on the Sabbath, but go out every morning
and you'll find bread on the dew. Now, the wilderness, a lot of
sand, a lot of rocks, weeds, I don't know, never been out
there. But I do know this, the Lord said the manna would be
on the dew, not touching the earth. You see, man didn't have anything
to do with the Word that came from heaven. That's God's Word. You say, yeah, but wait a minute.
God used men to write it. They were inspired of God. And
the word inspired means God-breathed. Do you realize, and none of us
realizes to the fullest extent that we should, but do you realize
what we have in our hands right now was all God-breathed? This is the breath of God here. The breath of God. And it's everything
you need right here. I'm thankful for the other books
that we can read and gain knowledge from them and some explanations
perhaps of some passages of Scripture, but there is no substitute for
this book. This is the Word of God. This
is the Word that came down from heaven. And you have in your
hands the full revelation of God. You know the manna was round? It was a perfect symmetry to
it. And you get to reading the Word
of God, there is a perfect, beautiful symmetry to it. It will tell
you about God, tell you who God is, You don't have to guess who
God is and what God's like. These 40 different men that God
used to write the Scriptures over a period of 1,500 years,
and most of them weren't contemporaries of each other, they all tell
the same story. They tell who God is. They leave
us in awe of God. I'm sure that when they went
to pick up the manna, they had to kneel down. It's down on the
ground. And if you would be fed from
the Word of God, humble yourself before God, because this book
will tell you who He is. We don't have to guess. Don't
have to pick a theology book, a doctrine book. Find out who
God is. God tells you who He is. And
furthermore, and here's the perfect symmetry here, He tells you what
you are. And He doesn't paint a pretty
picture of us. Nowhere in this book are we flattered. The Bible says God looked down
from heaven to see if there were any that
did understand and seek Him. And when God looks, listen, He
sees everybody and everything about everybody. In fact, He
doesn't have to look. That's just written for our,
because we can't comprehend any other way of how somebody can
see everybody at the same time. And I'll tell you what God's
estimation is of me. Not good. You're not good. James Ferguson Byrd, you're not
good. And that's his conclusion. That's how he grades everybody. We're all guilty. We've all flunked. We're all failures. Because you see, there's none
righteous but one, and that's God. And the Word of God declares
our guilt, universal guilt. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. God is set forth in all of His
wonderful attributes and characteristics. And then we're set forth in all
of our horrible attributes and characteristics. And the Bible, in its perfect,
beautiful symmetry, sets forth the remedy for our disease of
sin. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ
and his work of redemption. So it tells us who he is. He's
God. He's man. He's the God-man, not half God,
half man. He's the God-man. He is deity
joined to humanity and there will never be a divorce of that. He's not two, He's one. He's one. You say, Jim, that's
too profound for me. You and me both. And all the
rest of mankind. You can't comprehend that. But
I know that God sent his son into this world to save sinners. And he was the one who stood
up to Satan. And he's the one who bore our
sins to the cross. And by enduring the wrath of
God, he bore them away into a land of forgetfulness. Oh, the perfect symmetry of the
word of God. And it tells us that salvation
is all of God and all of grace. And your works don't have anything
to do with it. Not a thing. Well, don't
you think that, you know, we seek to honor God with our lives
after conversion? Well, there's no question about
that. But when it comes to salvation, That's God's work. That's God's
work. Who delivered Israel out of Egyptian
bondage? Did they deliver themselves?
No. Who brought them through dry
ground through the Red Sea? Did they somehow another dry
up a big portion of the Red Sea so they could all go through?
No. You see, if the Bible teaches anything, it's this, salvation
is of the Lord. He delivered them and he led
them all the way through the wilderness to the land of promise. And that's what he's doing with
us. And that's what the Bible teaches us. Salvation's God's
work. There's a perfect, beautiful
symmetry to this manna, to this word of God. And the manna came to them, unasked for. And God has given us his own
Word. The Word of the Gospel. And we
didn't ask for it. We didn't ask for it. We weren't
seeking. Our attitude wasn't, Lord, we
want to know the truth. Please give us your Word. No,
we're like Adam and Eve. As soon as they sinned against
the Lord, they hid from the Lord. We ran from the Lord. He's always
the seeker. He's always the provider. And He still is. The manna came to them. No long
journey. And you know what? The word of
the gospel, it's not a long journey. You
got it right there. You have it right there. And
I'll tell you something, all the spiritual nourishment and
all the spiritual vitamins that you need are in this book. Isn't it interesting that they were instructed to go and
gather the manna early in the morning? That's a good time to
go get the word of God and read it. Before your mind gets all
clouded and jam-packed with a million things during the day, when you're
fresh, your mind's not occupied with other things. You know,
doctor told me this a long time ago, and I still follow his advice.
He said, best thing you can do in the morning for yourself,
okay, drink a big tall glass of water. Okay, and I do it. I guess it's doing me good, I
don't know. Not gonna make me live any longer, but maybe I'll
die healthier anyway. But it's a good way to start
the morning. Well, I'll tell you a good way
to start the morning. Eat some manna. Take the word of God in. And you see, that is a, That
is exactly what we do. We're to take the manna in as
if we were eating bread and do it early in the morning. Let
me give you a couple of references and I won't keep you much longer.
But look at Jeremiah chapter 15. Jeremiah chapter 15. And while you're looking, by
the way, you know the color of the manna? What was it? Anybody? White. God's Word is
pure. It's pure. White in color. And it was to
be eaten. Look at Jeremiah chapter 15,
verses 15 and 16. Oh Lord, thou knowest, Jeremiah
15, 15. Remember me, and visit me, and
revenge me of my persecutors. Take me not away in thy long-suffering. Know that for thy sake I have
suffered rebuke. Thy words were found, and I did
eat them. And thy word was unto me, and
I hope this is Your testimony as well. Thy word was unto me
the joy and the rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called by
thy name, O Lord God of hosts. I eat the word of God and it
brings me joy and rejoicing. It tells me I'm one of the Lord's
children. Tells me he's loved me with an
everlasting love. Tells me he's working all things
together for my good. He tells me that no evil can
come upon me. I eat his word as it were. It's the joy and the rejoicing
of my heart. What gives your heart joy and
rejoicing? I hope it's a word of the gospel
of our Lord Jesus. Let me give you one more reference.
Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter three. Ezekiel
chapter three. Verse one, moreover he, that is the Lord,
Ezekiel three, verse one, moreover he said unto me, son of man,
eat that thou findest. Eat this roll, the scroll of
scriptures. Eat this roll and go speak unto
the house of Israel. And so I opened my mouth, and
he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man,
cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that
I give thee. Then I did eat it, and it was
in my mouth as honey, as honey for sweetness." Is that how you
feel about the Word of God? I hope it is. I hope it is. And I'll give you one more thing.
This will be the last thing. Go back to my text in chapter
16. Chapter 16 and verse 15. 1615, and when the children of Israel
saw it, when they saw the manna, little white wafers on the dew,
not touching the earth, on the dew, they said one to another,
it is manna. Or literally, what is this? For
they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, this
is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. They didn't understand what it
was. And I'll tell you this, the word of God will never be
understood unless God gives you understanding. He's got to reveal
the truth to you. Otherwise, you'll hear preaching
like this tonight and you'll say, what is that? What is that? But God's people will say, that's
manna. That's what that is. That's bread
from heaven. That's what he's talking about.
And they're right. It's bread from heaven. Well,
may the Lord bless his word. I'll ask Joe to come and lead
our last song, 62. Nancy and I are leaving early
Friday morning to drive to about 45, 50 miles north of Detroit.
And I'll be speaking up there at the Grace Fellowship in Dryden,
Michigan. Folks that I've known, well,
going on now, what, nearly going on 30 years. and I've been preaching
to them, and so we look forward to going up there. Sunday morning,
Alan Eisen will be speaking for you, and Sunday night, Ron Trabant
will be speaking. Then the Lord willing, we'll
be back Monday, late Monday afternoon. Okay, let's sing 62. That's my
favorite hymn.