in the book of Exodus with me
this morning. We'll go to Exodus chapter 16. And just for your information,
this evening we'll go to Exodus 17. I want to spend a little
bit of time in the book of Exodus. This morning we'll be talking
about bread from Heaven. And this evening we'll be discussing
or I'll be preaching to you. Actually, there'll be no discussion.
Every once in a while a word comes out and I say, I want to
reel that one back in. But this evening I'll be preaching
on the water from a rock. Water from a rock. But this morning,
bread from heaven from Exodus. Exodus chapter 16. Now Israel
has been They've been released from their bondage. They've gone
through the Red Sea. And God has begun to lead them
through the wilderness. They got to a place called Mara,
which means better waters. Mara. They couldn't drink the
water. It was no good. Brackish water is what it was. And God showed Moses a tree. And he cut down the tree, cast
the tree in the brackish water, and the water was made sweet. And they drank. And then they
moved a little bit further and they came, verse, actually the
last verse of chapter 15, they came to Elam. It was like an
oasis for them. Had a dozen wells of water, a
well for every tribe of Israel. They had then a bunch of palm
trees, 70 of them. under which they could gather
and kind of relax. And I think the
thing that strikes me from this passage of Scripture is that
our condition as pilgrims, as we go through this world, these
conditions, our own circumstances, They can change very quickly. We can go from bitter water to
water that's been sweetened. And we go back out in the desert
for a bit and then God brings us to an oasis. Don't you find
that that's the way your life is as a child of God? It's just
you face a crisis and you get through it, and then you have
an oasis, you enjoy the oasis, and you say, I wish I could stay
here all the time in Elam. But then the Lord says, no, you
can't camp here because you're just a pilgrim passing through. And so you have to keep up your
journey toward the land of promise. Our outward condition is indeed
very changeable, from better to worse, from worse to better. But our standing with God is
unchangeable. And that's what we hang on to. That's where we rejoice. We stand
in the beauties of the Lord Jesus. That love that God has for us
is never going to change. He may lead us down this road,
He may lead us down this road. We might come to the bitter waters
of Marah. And things may not be tasteful
to this old flesh. But God will always, He always
has reserved for His people an oasis. And the oasis is the gospel. The oasis is that place where
we find rest. And in that sense, I think this
is like an oasis when we meet together. Because out there is
the wilderness. And you're in the wilderness
throughout the week. The wilderness has nothing good
for the people of God. The wilderness is desert. The
wilderness is barren. The wilderness has no water.
And then we enter into these doors, and God sets before us
the very good news of our Lord Jesus and His substitutionary
death. And we learn of the grace of
God, we learn of the rule of God, of the government of God,
that it's the Lord who's guiding us, it's the Lord who's directing
us, as we just sang in the previous song. Guide me, O thou great
Jehovah. And He is the one who's guiding
us. And there are times when He guides
us in this direction, and we say in our own flesh, we say,
well, I wish we could be in this kind of circumstance all the
time. And then the Lord just, He sends
us in another direction, and it isn't so pleasant to the flesh. But all along we know this, it's
God who's directing our path. The children of Israel going
through the wilderness. They're on their way to the land
that God has promised to Abraham. And this is all because of a
covenant that God made with that man, typical of, in a picture
of, the covenant of grace. And He said to Abraham, I will
give you this land. The people who are your heritage,
they will be in that land flowing with milk and honey. But the journey there often times,
isn't going to be very pleasant. You're going to be beset with
enemies. There are going to be difficulties. There will be obstacles
in your way, but the Lord says, I will go with you. In fact,
God said, I will have myself, I'll send my angel before you. That's what he said, and the
angel of the Lord is Christ himself. He's going before you and indeed
that pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night,
that's the presence of the Lord. And I say to you who are the
Lord's people, you're going to come to some bitter waters in
life. But remember this, the Lord said,
I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you. And we find
our joy, we find our oasis in Christ Himself. And oh, what
a delightful Savior He is! How soothing to our souls! When you become weary in this
old world, and you become weary of this old world, just remember,
Remember the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. And remember
the angel of the Lord, he goes ahead of you. He is the shepherd
who leads his people. And David, as he said there in
Psalm 23, he said, not only does the Lord, the shepherd lead us,
but he has following us these wonderful twins. Goodness and
mercy shall follow us. And I speak to the Lord's people
who sometimes, some of you perhaps even now are being maybe quite
severely tried in your flesh, in your emotions, physically. The people of God have different
kind of issues, but I remind you of this. The Lord is leading. And He will take us through some
unusual circumstances, but He will take us through to the end.
And He said, I'll never leave you. I'll never leave you. In fact, that passage of scripture
in Hebrews chapter 13, it's kind of like a double negative. I
will never, no, never leave you, nor forsake you. So let us then learn that though
our circumstances, they may change and they do change, our God is,
he's changeless. And our standing before God is
changeless. We were accepted in the beloved
before he made this old world, and we are right now accepted
in the beloved. And when this world shall not
exist as it does anymore, we shall still then be accepted
in the beloved. And this journey through this
wilderness, it will one day end with our arrival into the very
kingdom of God. So Israel is on the move, and
every day brought a new crisis, just like it does with you. No
two days are alike. Every day with them brought a
new crisis. And it's always true of the journey
of the people of God, those who journey with the Lord in this
wilderness. God does find places of refreshment
for his people while we're in the world. And again, I would
relate that to our gathering together. No wonder the scripture
says, not forsake the assembling of yourselves as the manner of
some is. You're going through a desert.
You need to come in here to Elam. You need to come into the oasis.
That's another reason for being here. You know, there are multiple
reasons for being in the place of God. First of all, to worship
God. To worship God in spirit and in truth. Secondly, you're
an encouragement to one another. You're an encouragement to me.
But you need to be here for your sake. Because you need an oasis. You need to be under the circumstances
in the environment of worship. You need to be where the Lord
Jesus is magnified and glorified, where you'll hear about the grace
of God, where every message is saturated with grace, and saturated
with blood redemption, and saturated with the fact that God has saved
us, He has chosen us, He has redeemed us, He has called us,
He will keep us, He has justified us, and He will glorify us, and
every message is saturated with those things, and so this is
an oasis. An oasis. And as we get to chapter
16 of Exodus, we read in verse one, and they took their journey
from Elam. And all the congregation of Israel,
they came into the wilderness of, interesting choice of words
here, by the Spirit of God into the wilderness of sin. which
is between Elam and Sinai. If you'll look up in Strong's
Concordance, that word, S-I-N, sin, in this place, it means
thorns, a wilderness of thorns. And it also, a secondary meaning
is dirt, dirt. That's what this world is to
us. It's a very thorny place. And it's just dirt. It's no foundation for you. You
see, the foundation for us, the foundation for salvation, The
foundation for everlasting life is Christ Jesus, who is the solid
rock. Indeed, our Lord, in His great
Sermon on the Mount, He taught of the foolish man who built
his house on the sand, on the dirt, on the wilderness. Anything but Christ Jesus is
dirt. And it's not going to last. But
He said the wise man built his house on the rock. And no matter
what opposed it, Even the last judgment, the rock stands. And my advice to you this morning
is build all of your hopes for everlasting salvation upon Christ
Jesus the Lord, not upon anything in this world, not even yourself. It's just dirt. That's all it
is. It's dirt. It's nothing stable. There's no stability. You've
got to dig down in the Word of God and find out Christ is the
only sure foundation. Other foundation can no man lay,
Paul said, but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus,
our Lord. It's a wilderness of dirt. And
the first meaning of sin here is thorns. It's a wilderness
of thorns. Thorns don't feel good, especially
when you get pricked by them. Nancy's mother and dad had a
farm and lots of wild blackberries. I bet there's some of you, I'm
sure many of you have gone blackberry picking. Maybe they're past,
now I'm not sure what the season is here, but we'd go blackberry
picking. Now we didn't have those kind
of blackberries like Tim James got. He got those tame blackberries. They didn't have any thorns.
They didn't have sweetness either. They didn't have flavor either.
Don't you love blackberry cobbler and things like that with vanilla
ice cream and a cup of coffee? I'm sorry, I got off track there.
It's really good. Love the sweetness of the blackberries,
but to get those sweet, succulent blackberries that we love, you
gotta put up with the thorns. And you know, you come away from
picking a bunch of blackberries, you get a whole pail full, and
you come back and say, man, look at my hands. And I tell you, there's a sweetness
in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even in this wilderness
of thorns, but boy, all along the way, you're gonna get lots
of pricks and lots of splinters. It's a thorny world. It causes
you much grief and causes you much pain. And I thought about
this when the Holy Spirit named this the wilderness of sin. That's
a good name for this world, isn't it? It's the wilderness of sin. Well, they're on their way. And
we get to the second verse, and the whole congregation of the
children of Israel They murmured against Moses and Aaron in the
wilderness. I tell you, we can become dissatisfied
quite quickly, can't we? It doesn't take long for us to
get dissatisfied. One moment we can be saying,
the Lord is so good. His mercies are so wonderful. And then, just about like that,
something can happen and we can go to pieces. Now let me tell
you something, that's the way we do so often, but it's not
right. It isn't right. Because the same
God who brought us out of Egypt by the blood of redemption, the
same God who opened up a path through the Red Sea under safety,
the same God who provided leadership and direction and protection,
the same God who sweetened the waters with the cross of Calvary,
the same God who provides an oasis for us, He's the one who
directs our path through the wilderness. And listen, children of God,
we have got to trust Him. Oh, the most difficult, difficult
thing for any of us to do is just simply believe God. It's the most difficult thing
to do. To walk by faith. Oh God, God of grace and God
of mercy, give to each of us the gift of faith. to just believe
Him because without faith it is impossible to please God. Oh, that the Lord would enable
us to embrace Him by faith and let come what may. Whether they're
thorns or enemies or fleshly difficulties, to say, it is the
Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good
in his sight. But, after only being delivered from
Egyptian bondage for one month, that's all that's passed here.
One month has passed. It says the whole congregation,
they murmured, against those who were divinely chosen of God
to be the leadership. Moses and Aaron. Even though we know human nature
to a degree, we're shocked that a people so recently redeemed
by price and by power. A people who had
seen so many miracles from God. A people who came to some water
and they tasted it and said, boo, this is so... they spit
it out. We can't drink that. And Moses
throws a tree in the water, which is typical of the cross of Calvary.
It's typical of the message of redeeming grace and the water
is sweet. A people who had seen all of these miracles who see
that cloud by day that covers them, they're not sunburned. Man alive, anybody else out in
the wilderness, they don't get sunburned. Not the Israelites. In fact, the Bible says during
their wilderness journeys, their shoes didn't even wear out. and
back behind them the Lord is protecting them, and at night
He illuminates all the camp with fire. But notwithstanding, all
of those mercies of God that are evident every single day."
They murmured. And at first look, we're shocked
that anybody would do that. Until we look in the mirror. And I'll tell you oftentimes,
we're a shock to ourselves. I can't believe myself. Look
at all God's done for me. Look at how He found me. He sought
me. He bought me. I didn't even know
anything about Him. I wasn't even born. And He's
looking after me. He had thoughts of love toward
me and He made a visitation of grace to this earth and He redeemed
me, He saved me by the blood of His own dear Son. And then
He sent me somebody to tell me the truth. To preach to me of
salvation and a crucified Savior. And all of a sudden, I found
myself miraculously believing, and I felt the sweet peace in
my soul. All is right between me and God,
and I have been resting in the Lord Jesus, and God has done
so many wonderful things to me, and then a difficulty happens
in life, and just like that, I'm murmuring. That's shame on
us. It's just the way we are. That's
sad, isn't it? That's still our sinful nature. Another amazing thing, it's the
whole congregation. It's not just a few. Oh, we got
a little group over here. They're kind of fussing, you
know. Here's this little crowd over here. Moses, you need to
deal with them because the rest of us, we're walking by faith.
Oh, no, no, no. It's a whole congregation. Anywhere
between one million to two million people. And they go to their
elders who represent them, the 70 elders, and they said, who
in the world do these men think they are leading us out here
in this dry, barren desert? And there's nothing to eat out
here. Murmur. And look at verse three. Verse three. The children of
Israel said unto them, would the God of Abel take an oath? Hmm. We can go from bad to worse,
can't we? Even take an oath. Now they bring
God into it. Would to God we had died by the
hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. And then watch this,
and undoubtedly these are lies. It's amazing how we can exaggerate
things. And we imagine events of the
past that weren't so delightful, they weren't pleasant then, but
now we imagine them to be, well, it wasn't so bad after all. Watch
it. When we sat by the flesh pots. Do you think they sat by the
flesh pots? The Egyptians gave them flesh
to eat, just everybody sitting around a big old pot and here's
this meat in there cooking. Boy, I can't wait until supper's
ready. The Egyptians weren't a merciful
people to them. And said, when we did eat bread
to the full, man, we eat all we want. We had a buffet. Man,
we used to go to the Golden Corral there in Egypt. It was just so
wonderful. Just a buffet, all we wanted
to eat. But you men, you brought us forth
into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly. with hunger. And of course we know it wasn't
Moses and Aaron who brought them into the wilderness. It was Jehovah
is the one who brought them out of Egypt. This is the Lord leading
them in this path. Well, what then was God's word
to Moses? Verse four. The Lord said to
Moses, now the people of the congregation, they spoke to Moses
and Aaron, but you know who always hears everything that's said? And he hears whether we speak
things verbally or whether we just say them in our minds. So the Lord says to Moses, behold. Whenever you see the word behold
in the Bible, it's the Holy Spirit's exclamation point. It's like,
behold, listen up. I will rain, and you would almost expect to hear
fire and brimstone from heaven. I'll rain my wrath upon this
murmuring people. Now, remember that covenant he
made with Abraham. Talked about that last week. I will rain bread from heaven
for you. And the people shall go out and
gather a certain rate. And if you read further, about seven pints a day, three and
a half quarts. of this bread every day. And God says that I might prove
them. I'm gonna put them to the test. Whether they will do what I tell
them to do or not. Here's a bunch of people murmuring. Here's sinners. In their dissatisfaction,
and their discontentment. The whole of the assembly of
Israel murmurs against the Lord. The sin is great, but the mercy is greater. And as we read in Romans 5, where
sin did abound, Grace did much more abound. It is amazing, and
you can read all of this chapter when you get home today if you
have time, or maybe this evening. But as we read about their murmuring,
every time they murmured, there's a mercy that followed. Murmuring. did not equal judgment,
though they deserved it. All of the murmuring just magnified
the greatness of God's mercy to them, the undeserved favor
they received from the Lord. Well, I'll read just a few verses
to you here. Look at verse 7. Moses was talking to them. He
said, in the morning then you shall see the glory of the Lord,
for that He heareth your murmur. You know what the glory of the
Lord is? That's Christ Jesus. And just for a... you might want
to make a note of this, this is the very first time in the
Old Testament the glory of the Lord is mentioned. Here's that
great Shekinah glory. And our Lord Jesus is said to
be in the book of Hebrews chapter 1, the brightness of God's glory. In the morning you shall see
the glory of the Lord. You have murmured against the
Lord and I'll tell you, tomorrow morning, you're going to see
the glory of the Lord. And you see here, I think about
our own sinfulness. Do you know whose salvation is
for? Now listen up. If you have any
desire of salvation, if you have any desire of everlasting life,
you need to listen to me. Though we have sinned, the mercy
of God is great. And the Lord has not rewarded
us according to our iniquities. Though they murmured, Moses said,
this is what's going to happen tomorrow, you're going to see
God's glory. What? What kind of dealings with
us is that? Because we have murmured against
God, this shows the grace of God. We need to understand our
Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners. People who murmur,
people who fuss, people who complain, people who are not satisfied,
people who are discontented, people who have raised up their
hands in rebellion against God. That's the kind of folks Christ
came to save. The Scripture says, for this
is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. This should bring you some great
consolation here and see there's hope for you. In the morning you'll see the
glory of the Lord. Yes, you've murmured. There's
no denying of that. You've sinned against God. There's
no denying of that. But look at the wording. In the
morning, then 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? This is what God is going to
do in spite of your murmurings. He's gonna show you his glory. And I'll just read on, Moses
said, this shall be verse eight, when the Lord shall give you
in the evening flesh to eat and in the morning bread to the full,
for that the Lord heareth your murmurings, which ye murmur against
him, and what are we? Your murmurings are not against
us, but against the Lord, but he's gonna show you grace. And
I'm gonna tell you, notwithstanding our sinfulness, God shows us
grace because of that covenant He made with Christ Jesus on
our behalf before He ever made the world. Keep reading, verse nine. Moses
spake unto Aaron, saying to all the congregation of the children
of Israel, come near before the Lord again, for He's heard your
murmurings. He knows your sinfulness. And
it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of
the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness,
and behold, exclamation point, look out there, the glory of
the Lord, the glory of Jehovah, God our Savior, appeared in the
cloud. And verse 11, the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, I've heard the murmurings of the children
of Israel. Speaking of them, saying, at
evening you'll eat the flesh, in the morning you'll be filled
with bread. Notwithstanding your murmuring,
and notwithstanding our sinfulness, the Lord shows mercy. I think
of that song, come every soul by sin oppressed, there's mercy
with the Lord and he will surely give you rest by trusting in
his word. Well, the Lord's gonna rain bread
from heaven. The idea of rain indicates it's
gonna be a bountiful supply. And every detail of The God-giving
man to Israel speaks very loudly to us if we only have ears to
hear of our Lord Jesus of whom we read in John chapter 6. He
said, I am that bread of life. We're not in doubt as to what
this is all about. You see, though we rebelled against
God in Adam, and though we've We've treated God miserably,
yet he sent bread down from heaven. He sent his son to save the vilest. I'll give you several things
very briefly, because every detail of the manna speaks to us of
Christ Jesus. The manna came from above. Verse
four says that God said, I'll rain bread from heaven. Where'd
Christ come from? Well, he didn't come from earth,
he came from heaven. For God sent His Son into the
world. God so loved the world that He
sent His only begotten Son. He's heavenly in origin. This
is like manna. It was a product which man had
no hand to produce. Christ coming into this world,
we had nothing to do with it. We didn't even ask for it. We
didn't ask for God to send a Savior. We had no idea how we could be
reconciled to God. In fact, man from the very beginning
has believed in salvation by works and salvation by man's
will, salvation by man's worth. We had no idea that the way of
salvation would be through a substitute. and His satisfaction of the strictest
of God's justice. We had no idea of that. Where
Christ came from? Just like the manna came from
above. Secondly, the manna fell in the
darkness, and you can write this reference down if you want to.
Numbers 11 verse 9, it says, when the dew fell upon the camp
in the night, the manna fell upon it. It was in the night
when this soft shower of manna fell upon the earth, so it was
when Christ came. The world was in spiritual darkness.
The world by wisdom knew not God. And when our Lord comes
to us, he comes to us in our spiritual darkness, even as he
died in darkness. Tell you something else, a third
of this was miraculously given. Look at verse 14. When the dew that lay was gone
up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness, a wilderness
that couldn't provide anything for them but thorns. Guess what
came to that thorny area? There lay a small little round
thing. In fact, it was as small as the
whore frost on the ground. All of a sudden, it appeared.
Unasked for, certainly not desired. Our Lord Jesus. He was unasked
for. He was not desired. And yet He came. Born of a virgin. Just insignificant babe. Like this, it says, There it
lay, just a little bitty round thing. Just like hoarfrost on
the ground. Miraculously given in the fullness
of time, God sent forth His Son into this world, made of a woman,
made under the law to redeem them that were under the law.
And you know, manna was mysterious. Look at the next verse, verse
15. When the children of Israel saw it, They said one to another,
it's manna. For they wist not what it was.
And Moses said unto them, I'll tell you what this is, this is
bread. They didn't even know. What is this? In fact, look over
in your margin, it's the way it is in my Bible, there in verse
15, if I look over in the margin, it says where they made the statement,
it is manna, for they wist not what it was. Or, what is this? That's what, you know what manna
means? What is this? What is this on the ground? Well, I'll tell you what it is,
bread. Bread. And our Lord Jesus came into
this world and people looked at him and they said, who is
this? Well, I'll tell you who he is.
He's the bread come down from heaven. He's God's own son. He's the savior of sinners. Who
is this? When he made his triumphant entry
into Jerusalem, they said, who is this? He's the savior. He's the savior. He was unrecognized when he came,
just like that bread from heaven was unrecognized. This man was
small and round. Small. Can this insignificant little
thing really be from God? He lays in a manger. Can he be
from God? Can he be God? Well, he looks
just like every other baby. He's so insignificant. That's the way pride looks upon
him and says, well, he can't be the savior. There are no signs
of royalty about him. No signs of divinity about him. You see, our Lord came in the
lowly guise of nature. He appeared as the lowliest of
men. And the manna was round without
beginning and without end. That's our Savior. He's the everlasting
God. And I'll tell you something else
about this manna. It was sweet. It was sweet. Look at verse 31. The house of
Israel called the name thereof manna. It was like a coriander
seed. White. That's His purity. The taste of it was like wafers
made with honey. No wonder the psalmist said in
Psalm 34, oh, taste of the Lord and see, He's sweet. Do you know
the sweetness of Christ Jesus? Well, taste and see. Taste and
see. Do you know the sweetness of
forgiveness? The sweetness of righteousness?
The sweetness of God's salvation. It's in Christ Jesus. Take of
the bread. Christ Jesus said, those that
eat the bread live forever. He said, the bread that I will
give is my flesh. What does he mean by that? He's
talking about, we take of him, we eat of him by faith. We receive
him. It's what the scripture says. And this is the way that the
bread was, did them some good. Listen up. This is the way the
bread from heaven will do you good. First of all, you bend
over to get it. That's how they got the bread.
Every man, over here in verse 16, it says, this is that which
the Lord hath commanded, gather of it every man. You gotta do
this yourself. You're not gonna gather with
somebody else. I'm not, I got a bit of a headache today, Joe,
would you gather some for me? No, you better go out and get
it for yourself. I'm going to get mine, you better
go get yours. I'm telling you something, this
thing about salvation, knowing God through Christ Jesus, is
an individual thing. And you're gonna have to stoop
over, go home with yourself. You got to forget your pride,
forget your arrogance, forget all thoughts of your goodness.
You don't have any. You better get down on the ground
before the Lord of Glory, because that's where the bread is. There's
no bread anywhere else. Well, I tell you what, if you
bring it up here before me and put it in a nice plate, I'd sure
be glad to eat that manna. No, you're not going to get it
that way. You're going to have to get down low, just like all
the rest of us. Everybody comes to God, comes
to God the same way. You bow down before Christ Jesus,
and you eat the bread. Eat the bread. Receive Him by
faith. And I'll tell you, this manner
was sufficient. You know how long it lasted for
them? Look at verse 35. The children
of Israel did eat manna 40 years. 40 years until they came to a
land inhabited. They did eat manna until they
came into the borders of the land of Canaan. How long we gonna
feast on Christ Jesus? All the way through the wilderness.
You got sweet food. There are thorns along the way,
no question about that. But the food's good. The food's
the very best. It's the gospel of Christ Jesus. One last thing. Did the manna satisfy the people?
It was a wonderful provision, but it was a test. Go back to
verse 4. And I'll wrap this up very quickly.
Then said the Lord unto Moses, verse four, behold, I will rain
bread from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather
a certain rate every day because I'm gonna test them. This is a test. Whether they
will walk according to what I tell them to do or not. And you know, A little bit later,
the manna got old to them. Now, not the manna itself, but
they just got tired of eating the same thing. Manna again today? 10 years later, manna again this
morning? 20 years later, manna again? Yeah. Listen to me. We eat the same
bread every single day. Does it satisfy you? This is
a test. God's going to prove you. You
start off saying, I love this gospel. Well, what about a steady diet
of it? What about on the menu, on the
spiritual menu, that's all there is. You get tired of it. The tastes grow old to you. It
doesn't to me. It just sweetens it ever. In
fact, it's sweeter. It's sweeter. This gospel of
our Lord Jesus. He's the bread who came down
from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread, Christ
said, he'll live forever. And if you eat today, You'll live forever. What a buffet
God puts before us. A spiritual feast. Christ, who
is the bread of life. Tonight we'll look at Christ,
the water of life. Water from a rock.