read together in the Word of
God from Exodus chapter 16 and we'll read from verse 1. We're talking about the children
of Israel here being led by Moses and they took their journey from
Elim to And all the congregation of the children of Israel came
into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on
the fifteenth 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. And the children of Israel said
unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord
in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when
we did eat bread to the full. for ye have brought us forth
into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.'
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. And it shall come to pass that
on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and
it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And Moses
and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then ye shall
know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt. And in the morning, then ye shall
see the glory of the Lord, for that he heareth your murmurings
against the Lord, And what are we that ye murmur against us? And Moses said, This shall be
when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat,
and in the morning bread to the fool. For that the Lord heareth
your murmurings which ye murmur against him. And what are we? Your murmurings are not against
us, but against the Lord. And Moses spake unto Aaron, Say
unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come
near before the Lord, for he hath heard your murmurings. And
it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of
the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness,
and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And
the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of
the children of Israel. Speak unto them, saying, At even
ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with
bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it
came to pass that at even the quails came up, and covered the
camp, and in the morning the Jew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was
gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a
small round thing, as small as the hoarfrost on the ground.
And when the children of Israel saw it, they say one to another, It is manna, for they wist not
what it was. And Moses said unto them, This
is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the
thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather of it every man according
to his eating. And, Omer, for every man according
to the number of your persons, take ye every man for them which
are in his tents. And the children of Israel did
so, and gathered some more, some less. And when they did meet
it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he
that gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according
to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave
of it till the morning. Notwithstanding, they hearkened
not unto Moses, but some of them left off it until the morning. And it bred worms, and stank,
and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning,
every man according to his eating. And when the sun waxed hot, it
melted. And it came to pass that on the
sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for
one man. And all the rulers of the congregation
came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is
that which the Lord hath said. Tomorrow is the rest of the holy
Sabbath unto the Lord. Bake that which ye will bake
to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe, and that which remaineth
over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid
it up until the morning, as Moses bade, and it did not stink, neither
was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that today,
for tomorrow is a Sabbath unto the Lord. Today ye shall not
find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it,
but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall
be none. And it came to pass that there
went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather,
and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses,
How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See,
for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath. Therefore he
giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Abide ye every
man in his place. Let no man go out of his place
on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh
day. And the house of Israel called
the name thereof Manna, and it was like coriander seed, white,
and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. And Moses
said, This is the thing which the Lord commanded. Fill an omer
of it to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread wherewith
I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from
the land of Egypt. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take
a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up
before the Lord to be kept for your generations. And the Lord
commanded Moses, as the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid
it up before the testimony to be kept. And the children of
Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited. They did eat manna until they
came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. Now an omar is
the tenth part of an ephah. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. As we follow the journeyings
of the children of Israel, we find that they rested in the
previous chapter at this place where there were palm trees and
wells, the place called Elam. And Elam was a place for the
children of Israel to pause But they had a journey to make and
a promised land to possess. And soon, once again, they were
on the move. And they went in and followed
Moses into the wilderness. It's only a month since the people
left Egypt. And in that time, they have seen
some wonderful evidences of God's goodness. They've seen the waters
made sweet at Mara when they had nothing to drink. They've
seen the destruction of their enemies at the Red Sea. They've seen their deliverance
through that miraculous holding back of the waters and the people
walking on dry land. But here we see that once again,
the people of Israel evidence that they have very short memories. And this is an immediate lesson
for us, I think, in this passage today. God's mercy and God's
faithfulness are easily forgotten. As soon as the children of Israel
began to feel hungry, they began to doubt the love and the provision
of the Lord. And they began to complain, to
murmur against Moses and Aaron, and to murmur against the Lord. And the Lord heard the murmurings
of the people, and they were very ungrateful. I just want
to point out verse 3 to you once again. And I want to draw your
attention to that little phrase at the beginning of the verse.
Would to God. Would to God. That is a phrase
which is very strong. It says, I wish by God, or I
wish to God. Sometimes you hear people saying
that. I wish to God. And it does sound, they use it
for emphasis of course, but it does sound very presumptuous. I wish to God. And that's what
this little phrase means. Would to God we had died by the
hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. Can you imagine what
these people are saying here? One month out from Egypt, having
seen the deliverance of the hand of the Lord in so many wonderful
ways, they are now saying, having perhaps been a little while without
something to eat, they are now saying, we wish that we had died
in Egypt. When we sat by the flesh pots
and when we did eat bread to the full, For ye have brought
us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with
hunger. I wonder if they really had forgotten
that they were slaves in bondage in Egypt and all of the trouble
that Pharaoh caused to them and to their families. Such was the
ingratitude of the people. Let us remember these things
as lessons in our own lives. But God was gracious. God could have said that he was
going to rain down fire from heaven on them for their ingratitude. But what he said he would rain
down upon them was bread. And the bread that God would
send would be sweet bread. It would be nutritious bread.
And it would fall from the sky in the early morning dew to be
collected by the people and to be eaten. Indeed we discover
later on in our passage that it would bless the people for
many years and it would be an ongoing testimony to God's goodness
to the children of Israel. The Lord gave some rules, however,
which were to test the people of God, the children of Israel,
to see whether or not they would be obedient to his commandments.
The commandments had not yet been given, but he was testing
them to see whether or not they would be obedient when these
commandments were given a little bit later in their journey. These were the commands of the
instructions that were given with respect to this manna. Only
the amount necessary for the day's need was to be collected. It was to be collected every
day except for the seventh day because the seventh day was a
day of rest. A double portion would be provided
to be collected on the sixth day. Each person was to have
the same amount and nothing was to be held over until the next
day except for on the sixth day when the seventh was the day
of rest. And we discover that the Lord also provided meat for
the children of Israel to eat and in the evening quails were
found in the camp and each morning this manna formed new on the
earth. However, what we discover very
quickly is that some of the people did not follow God's instructions,
and they kept some of the manna until the next day. But when
they went back to it the following morning, they discovered that
it had gone bad. It was smelly, it stank, and
there were worms in it. On the sixth day, something strange
happened. double the amount of manna fell,
so that when the people had gathered, each person had double the portion
that they thought they had. And this was God's provision
for the Sabbath, or the seventh day, when no manna would fall
and no collections should be made. And the seventh day's portion
would remain fresh overnight. So it didn't stink and there
were no worms came into it. And yet again, nevertheless,
despite what the Lord had said, we find that some folk headed
out on the seventh day to try and gather up more of this manna. just to see whether what God
said was true and what Moses told them was right. How presumptuous
and indeed ultimately disobedient we see these people were in their
hearts. With these people Moses became
very angry and it seems that the Lord did too. And then the
Lord tells at the end of the chapter, the Lord tells Moses
that they've to keep a little pot of this and it is to be set
up as a memorial. Which is interesting because
the memorial didn't stink and the memorial didn't go bad and
so it shows that it was only a direct result of disobedience
that caused the manor that had been kept too long to go bad. Let's take a couple of lessons
from this little passage and see if the Lord will encourage
your hearts in them. The first thing I wanted to point
out to you was the importance of trusting the Lord. The children
of Israel were always quick to doubt the Lord, even when they
had lots of evidence of his care and his protection. And that
murmuring is a picture of sin in our hearts, which ultimately
leads to unbelief and a lack of faith. At Elam, where the
palm trees and the wells were, the children of Israel rested
contentedly. But as soon as there was any
discomfort, as soon as there were any concerns, they murmured
against God. Now in this life, whether we
are younger or whether we are older, in this life there are
times of peace, like at Elam, and there are times of trial,
like in the wilderness. But it is wrong for us to imagine
that the Lord has left us. We can't stay at Elam. That's
merely a resting place on our journey. We are going to heaven. We are going to that city that
has foundations. We are going to be with the Lord
and our life's journey is the journey that God leads us in
order ultimately to take us home to glory as we trust in Him. And in that journey, there's
a wilderness experience to be had as well as times of rest. And it's in those experiences
that the Lord tests us and that we prove the Lord to be faithful. The Lord will show us his provision
in times of need and we will enjoy the evidence of his continuing
love as we are in times of need and face challenges. So it is
good for us to trust the Lord's in times of prosperity and in
times of hardship. He doesn't change. He is faithful
and he is worthy of our complete trust all the time. And the second
thing I want to point out is to do with the providence of
God. Now, the providence of God is
a phrase that you will hear me using and other people using
as well, probably quite a lot. And actually, the word providence
is not of itself a word that is used very often in the Bible
at all. In fact, I think it's only used
once. but the meaning of the word is
throughout the whole Bible. It literally means foresight
or to see what is ahead. So that when we're talking about
the providence of God, we're talking about the fact that the
God, that the Lord prepares in his foresight In his knowing
what is going to be encountered by us, he prepares his help for
us before the event. It means that God knows and God
provides for his people's needs and he supplies what we require
at the time that it is needed. And so it has to do with God's
care over his people, the providence of God. And it has also a sense
of God's upholding and preserving and governing all things by the
means of second causes. Now, remember that, because we're
going to come back to that in a minute. God upholds and preserves
and governs by a means of second causes. You might be thinking,
what's a second cause? Well, let me get to that. All things work together. in
God's purpose for the good of his people. So that the circumstances
of this world all work according to God's will and purpose. So we can see that the providence
of God has a very broad, a very wide meaning. And God providing
manna and quails for the people to eat is an example of his providence. But here's the important lesson
for us all. We should always look beyond
the second cause of God's provision and remember the first cause. Here's what that means. There's
a little story for you from something that I encountered recently. I was having a meal with a family. And before the meal started,
before we started eating, I said, will we give thanks? And quick
as a flash, one of the little ones at the table looked at his
mother and said, thank you, mummy. Now that was very appropriate.
for the little one to say, thank you, mummy. It's good to thank
those who prepare our food and who set our food before us on
the table. But what I was meaning was that
we should thank God for providing the food that we were about to
eat. And these mothers and fathers
in the camp of Israel, they prepared the manna for their children
to eat. They were the second cause, but
it was God who was the first cause because it was God who
sent the manna from heaven to feed the people in the wilderness
for these 40 years. Let us always remember to say
thank you to the Lord first, and then say thank you to those
whom the Lord uses to bless us in accordance with his will.
God is always the first cause of all good and perfect gifts,
And then the way in which we enjoy those gifts is the second
cause, the means whereby God's goodness comes to us personally
and individually in the circumstances of our life. And while it is
good to say thanks to those who do us good, let us remember that
they are but second causes and the first cause is always God. Sometimes, when our service finishes,
at the end of the service, one or two people will say thank
you to the preacher for the sermon. That's always appreciated. That's
a good thing to do as well. If you've been helped and enjoyed
by the message, then we should be ready to say thank you. But I'm only ever the second
cause. because it is the Lord who blesses
our hearts and our souls with the preaching of the gospel and
it is his will and his work and his goodness that speaks spiritually
to the hearts of his people. There are many spiritual lessons
that could be drawn from this little passage and I want just
to take one of them that is actually taught by the Lord Jesus himself
in John chapter 6. There the Lord describes himself
as the true and living bread that came down from heaven. And
it is that true bread that I want us to see typified in this manna
that came from heaven. The manna that we see in the
Old Testament, the manna that we read about, the manna that
came down from heaven, or came down out of the sky in the Old
Testament, was given to feed and to nourish and to preserve
the bodies of the children of Israel. and it's typical. Now we know the word typical,
we know that word, it means that it's a picture of something that
is deeper and more significant and more important and more profound. And so while the manna was important
to the children of Israel in order to feed their bodies, it
is typical of something more important. It is a picture of
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to feed and nourish our
souls. And spiritual Israel, that is
the church of Jesus Christ, have by faith always seen the Lord
Jesus Christ to be that living bread that feeds our souls. The Lord Jesus Christ came down
from heaven to be God's provision for our spiritual life, to nourish
and to sustain us so that when the Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am the bread of life, he wasn't talking about manna, he wasn't
talking about bread. ordinary bread. He was talking
about himself as being that which sustains and nourishes and feeds
our souls and supplies all our spiritual needs. So we have physical
needs that we need to eat food for and we have spiritual needs
that the Lord Jesus Christ supplies to us. And there's lots of similarities
between Christ who is the living bread and the manna that was
given in the Old Testament. The manna came down from the
sky. It was there in the morning in
the Jew. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, he came from heaven. The manna was a daily provision. And you and I should go to the
Lord every day in our prayers, in our thinking, in our thoughts. We don't just think about the
Lord on a Sunday when we come to the fellowship, but we're
thinking about the Lord every day and we're taking our prayers
to the Lord every day for spiritual help and for the spiritual food
that we need. We learn that the people could
not store up manna. and we cannot store up God's
grace. There's enough grace from God
in Christ to serve the needs of the day and no more. And yet God gave double portions
on the sixth day so that the seventh was a day of rest. and
we rest in the Lord Jesus Christ from all our works knowing that
there is a sufficiency of righteousness in him for peace with God. Let us thank God for our daily
bread when we sit together at a table. We thank God for the
bread that nourishes our bodies And let us thank the Lord for
the living bread that feeds our souls with everlasting life and
eternal blessings. And let us remember that God
is the first cause of all our blessings in this world. And
it is God's providence that leads us into a knowledge of the truth
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.