And I invite you this evening
to take your Bibles and turn with me to Exodus chapter 16.
I have a few more things I want
to say about the manna before we move on to the next chapter. Exodus chapter 16 beginning with
verse 33. 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. 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 omer is a tenth part
of an ephah. Now, I'm not going to bore you
with a lot of facts except to say what I found out about this
measurement. I know you're going to keep asking
yourself all the way through the message, how much is that?
How much is an omer? And so on, you're going to keep
wondering about it. I always like to go over and read Dr.
Gill because he's very good at giving you the historian's facts
and all of these type of things, and he said basically that this
was three quarts. So what you're talking about
is three quarts per person of flour or something like flour,
So that's a lot of bread. When you process that and make
that into bread, you're talking about a lot of bread for one
man. Each man had that quota. One over. And last week, we talked about
that manna as it was provided by the Lord. We talked about
where it was found. It was found in a certain place.
It didn't just fall all over the wilderness. It fell right
around that assembly. Right around the assembly of
God is where He put that manna. He put it there because that's
who it was meant for. He put it there so they could
find it. And he told them where it would be. Told them when it
would be. And so we looked at that last
week. It was found in a certain time, only good for a season. Must be prepared. They had to
take it. You can find that over Numbers
11, I think, verse 8, where they prepared it. They would put it
in their meals and grind it, you know, like you do coffee
beans or whatever and process it that way or they could take
this little thing and beat it up into what they call a mortar
and then put it in the pans and put it in the oven and then they
had bread. You couldn't just go out there and get a handful
of flour and eat it. You wouldn't think about doing
that at home. And they didn't do it out there. It was to be
prepared. And then it must be eaten. Didn't
do you any good in the basket, you had to eat it. for it to
do you any good. And then why did God do all this?
He did it to prove their faith. That's why He did it. And what
I want us to look at tonight is manna which God put in a pot. What a strange thing. Take this
manna, a full measure of a man, one omer, and put it in a pot
and put it before the Lord. Now, this manna in the pot, nobody
was to eat that. You didn't eat that manna. No
one could even taste this manna. This manna was put in a pot and
preserved. This manna was sent before the
Lord and preserved for a testimony. And this manna was included in
their worship. It went inside later on. I'll
show you where they took that pot and put it inside the Ark
of the Covenant. There was three things in there.
There was the tables of the law, there was Aaron's rod that budded,
and this golden pot full of manna. And it was included in their
worship. And it was under the mercy seat, under the blood,
where this Ark was. And long after this manna was
included in their worship, it was preserved in the Ark of the
Covenant until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was
kept. And long after they ceased to
gather up the manna, this manna will still be present and good
and fresh as it was when they put it in the pot. Because it
was put there as God's testimony. Now Hebrews chapter 9 verse 4
tells us that it was a golden pot, if you're wondering how
I knew that. It tells you over there it was a golden pot. And
that it was placed in the Ark of the Covenant with the tables
of the law and Aaron's rod. We're also told that the high
priest gathered this manna and put it in the pot. The people
didn't gather it. The high priest had charge of
this. He gathered it. He put it in the pot. And he
put the pot before the Lord. And then we're told that exactly
one omer was put in it. And as I said before, one omer
is the full measure of a man. That's what God provided for
a man for a day. The full measure of a man. All that was provided for him
to have on any given day was an omer. And this manna put into
this golden vessel was not just for them, but it was for all
their generations. When the people went out and
gathered the manna which God strode on the ground, caused
the rain down from heaven on the ground. They picked up each
day exactly what they needed. But in this golden vessel, God
vested the full measure of a man and put it there and preserved
it for all their generations. It was for their children and
their children's children. Now what all this means in typical
language is that Christ, He is being set forth here in all His
fullness. for us. That's what that's talking
about. All the fullness, the full measure
of the redemption of a man. The full measure of what it takes
to sustain life in a man. The fullness of his person. The
fullness of his accomplishments. The fullness of his appointments.
All of these things was to stand for a testimony for all generations. Christ is the bread of God. He's
the bread of God. And this vessel with the full
measure of manna for men was to be laid up before the Lord.
They were to go up wherever it was that worship was fixed in
the camp. Now we've not yet got to the
building of the tabernacle and the covenant and all of those
things yet. So this pot was one of the first
things. This hadn't even given the tables
of the law yet. The very first thing that was
given was the bread. Then came the law, and then came
the rod. But God would fix this symbol
of His presence in Israel in the Ark of the Covenant, and
in the Tabernacle of Worship, and in the Holy of Holies. And
there'd be no worship in Israel where this manna was not known.
They knew that manna was in that Holy of Holies. And it was included
in their worship. They couldn't see it. They couldn't
see that manna with their eyes. It was beyond the second veil. It was in the Holy of Holies,
in that Ark of the Testament. And when they come to worship
God, they knew where that bread was. They knew where it was. And it's the same when we worship
Him. Nobody's seen Him. Nobody for
2,000 years has seen Him. And those who did see Him, didn't
see Him. This is the Son of God. Only
believers see Him. Now there are six things that
I want to give you tonight concerning this manna set apart by God in
this golden pot. First and foremost is that Christ
is the object of the symbol. He is to be seen both in the
manna and also in the vessel. Christ is being set forth here
not only as the bread but as the golden pot that held the
bread. This is talking about Him. We
look last week at Christ the Bread. Turn with me to John chapter
6. I made mention of this last week, but I didn't take you over
there. And I showed you last week in
Numbers 11.8 how the manna was to be prepared, that it must
be beaten, ground in a mill, put into the fire, and made into
bread. And this tells us a couple of
things. It tells us that about the suffering and death of Christ,
that beating and grinding of this thing, in our understanding
of faith. I was talking to Brother John
about that this morning, this understanding of faith that we
have. What you hear, what you read
in the Bible has to be processed. That process is done by the Holy
Spirit of God in you. He processes what I preach and
what I read to you out of the Word of God and what you read
from the Word of God. He processes that into gospel
truth. He gives us an understanding
that we might know Him. You see, that's the process.
There's no bread until the Word of God is prepared and processed. And we see in these things, we
see that. You see how He typifies those
things? They took that manna and beat
it. Beat it. It talks about the sufferings
of Christ. Putting it in that fire and that
bread begin to rise up and it's showing you of His resurrection
and so on. So it talks about the suffering,
death, and resurrection of Christ. And then secondly, it tells us
of the believers gathering and processing of the manna. There's
things that had to be done. Now listen to the Lord here in
John 6, verse 31. This is the Pharisees. These
are the false religionists. Those who thought they were believers
but weren't. And here's what they told him.
Our fathers did eat manna in the desert. As it's written,
he gave them bread from heaven. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth
life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord,
evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. You see what He's doing here? He's giving them
an understanding of what this type is. He's telling them exactly
what this bread was that fell and making the application to
Himself. That's what I'm doing to you tonight. We're reading
about this manna over there. We're reading about Israel out
in the wilderness. And I'm telling you that this
manna stands for the body Christ. Christ is our bread. He's the
bread. Now look down in this same chapter
here in John chapter 6 at verse 57. As the living Father hath sent
me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna,
and are dead, he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."
This is the bread processed. You see what I've been trying
to teach? This is that bread processed, discerned, understood. John said, and we know that the
Son of God hath come and given us an understanding that we may
know Him that's true. And that we're in Him that's
true. And this is the true God in eternal life. This is the
process. And he tells them down in verse 63, which is the key
to John chapter 6, and the key to faith, it is the spirit that
quickeneth the flesh, profiteth nothing. These disciples thought
he was talking about actually eating his flesh. And even at
that, they were asking him this, if you can give us bread like
Moses, like they said Moses gave them, if you can cause your father
to rain down bread, evermore give us this bread. He said,
that bread ain't going to do you any good. I can cause a man
to fall and you can process his knees and it ain't going to do
you any good. I'm the bread. That's what he's telling them.
I'm the bread. And they looked at him like he was preaching
cannibalism because they couldn't get the spiritual application. They couldn't process that spiritual
manner. It's the spirit that quickeneth
the flesh, profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. The physical body of Christ is
the golden pot. That's the vessel. That sinless
vessel into which God's heavenly manna is sealed for all generations. Now there was a time when that
manna was displayed. It was put out and revealed to
men. And when He walked upon this
earth and when He suffered on that cross and when He stood
before those men and suffered our shame and all of those sufferings
and His humiliation and His death and His resurrection, there was
a time when He was put out just like the manna. Just like the
manna. But now God seals that fullness,
that full measure of a man. He seals it up in him and takes
him up into glory. Takes him up into glory. And
he's sealed there for all generations. And the value of it, the value
of the man. After they got into Canaan, they
didn't have any need for manna to fall down anymore on the ground.
They didn't need to gather. They was in the land of milk
and honey then. But that manna still was in that pot, and they
still worshiped God, and they still looked to that bread that
was sealed the same way we do today. We don't gather anything
up off the ground. What we gather, we gather spiritually
knowing where that bread is. It's in that vessel. It's in
that pot. And it's beyond the veil, and it's under the blood,
and it's accepted of the Father, and it's included in all worship.
Those who worship God feed on Christ spiritually. So Christ Himself is both manna
and the vessel in which the manna is preserved. Alright, here's the second thing
I want you to see. Is that in Him this bread cannot
be corrupted. That's why God put it in there.
To keep it from being corrupted. Now I read to you last week all
these different things that the Lord told them that the bread
would be corrupted. There was a certain place they
gathered it, a certain time when they gathered it, a certain amount
that they gathered. If you gather too much and try
to get some for tomorrow, what's it going to do? It's going to
stink and breed worms. That's what it's going to do. He told them to gather twice
as much on Friday so that Saturday, the Sabbath, they'd have bread
and they were to bake the bread on Friday, not on Saturday, and
they were just to eat bread on Saturday, on the Sabbath. What
did they do? They went out on the Sabbath
hunting for bread and there wasn't any bread. God tells us about
His bread. He tells us that this bread is
Christ. He tells us where we're going
to get it. You're going to get it where the assembly of God
is gathered. That's where you're going to get it. You're going
to get it through the preaching of the Gospel. You're going to
process it, the Holy Spirit of God in you. He's not going to
leave that up to you. The Holy Spirit of God works
in you to process that. give you that understanding,
and we process it, and we eat it, and we come again to get
more. We don't eat one time and then
that satisfies us forever. We have come back, have come
back. In Him this bread cannot be corrupted. Now this bread as it's found
in the world, that manner, it could be corrupted. And this
bread of Christ as it is preached by men can be corrupted and is
corrupted. You can go up and down the street
and listen to them. They corrupt this bread all the
time. And this is a picture to me of the preaching of the gospel
in this world and the false gospel. They were instructed, weren't
they? how to eat this bread. They were instructed when to
get it, what to do with it. God didn't leave anything for
them to make up or reason or just, y'all just do what, here
it is. You do what you want. You eat
it raw if you want to. No, God gave them instruction
what to do with it. Actually, you can find it right
here in chapter 16 if you'll read through there. I didn't
even see it last week when I was looking at that, but he's talking
about them seething that manner and doing processing that manner,
even back here in chapter 16. But this bread in Christ, what
he's put in Christ cannot be corrupted. Christ is our representative. If he was just to come down and
put that manna in you, how long would it last? Huh? Wouldn't
last very long, would it? No, it'd be corrupted. It wouldn't
be any good. But he put that manna in Christ.
He put it in Christ. He put it in that golden vessel.
And he took it up here where it can't be corrupted. Christ alone, this manna, preserved
forever, uncorruptible, fresh, fresh as it was when God put
it there. And then thirdly, Christ is the
vessel in whom God preserves His manna. It'll never be taken
away. Never be taken away. God put
it in Him. If He put it in us, According
to our own doings and stuff, He'd come take it away. He didn't
put it in us, He put it in Him. And it'll never be taken away.
What I tell you, I don't just thrill our souls to know this
heavenly bread is preserved forever in that golden pot. No matter
what Israel did, and I challenge you to go through here and read.
They did plenty. They did plenty. Ten times, ten times they provoked
the Lord Until finally, the Lord killed a lot of them. He killed
a big share of them. Caused their corpses to fall
right there in the wilderness. But all of these ten times that
they stood before the Lord and murmured and did all these things,
caused serpents to fall down, all these things. They went out
every morning, Russell, and there was manna on the ground. Manna
on the ground. And that manna in that pot stayed
good. It didn't corrupt. Didn't corrupt. No matter what
they did or said or thought, that manna was never taken away.
And even when the physical manna was no longer found, after they
journeyed into Canaan, that manna in the golden pot didn't go away.
God put it there to secure it for a testimony, and it stayed
right there. And I'll tell you this, talking
about that testimony, God's testimony in Christ, If you would know
God's manner in the sweetness of its purity, the only way you're
going to know it is to see it in Him. See it in Him. That's where it's at in its purity.
Every doctrine of the Scriptures clearly revealed in harmony with
the divine character of God in Christ. Paul tells us in him
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this
I say, Paul said, lest any man should beguile you with enticing
words. God hath made him to be unto
us wisdom, Paul said. The apostles all said, we preach
Christ. That's what we preach. Well,
does that mean we don't instruct men and women on how to conduct
themselves in this world? No. Does that mean we don't instruct
men about marriage or how to be good parents to your children?
No, that's not what that means. Does that mean we don't warn
men and women about dangers of this world? Certainly not. It
doesn't mean any of those things. But we do these things and we
teach these things in the light of Christ and in the light, you
see what I'm saying? It ain't going to do me any good
to give you a bunch of do's and don'ts and you go out here and
those Pharisees did all those do's and don'ts. That's what
they taught and they didn't know God because Christ wasn't in
their doctrine. Now we teach those things and
the Lord didn't condemn them because they kept the Sabbath. He condemned them because they
kept it for a righteousness, for self-righteousness. He didn't
condemn them because they didn't commit adultery. He condemned
them because they're not committing adultery with self-righteousness
to them. We don't do it for self-righteousness.
We don't do it for self-righteousness. But we do these things and teach
these things in the light of Christ's death and the love of
Christ constraineth us. He's our counselor. He's our
counselor. And all counsel is learned in
Him. And then, fourthly, in him this
manna will always be preserved as the testimony of God's love
and grace. The children of Israel saw and
gathered, processed, and ate the manna. And in that, God commendeth
His love and mercy to them. They were in a wilderness. They
couldn't produce anything. They had no goodness in themselves
to bargain with God. God freely gave them this manna. provided it for. And He commended
His love toward them in these things. And what He preserved
in the pot or the golden vessel would be a constant reminder
and testimony of His love and grace. And in a sense, this is
what Paul is talking about after pointing out to us in Romans
5, verse 8, the love of God. He said, God commendeth His love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. Isn't that what he said? And then listen to what he says
in verse 9. Much more than being justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
That is His resurrected life, His ascended life, His reigning
presence and glory. which is where God's testimony
of His love and grace now lives. It's now become not only a source
of food and sustenance, but the very principal part of worship
and praise. And Paul adds there in Romans
5, verse 11, and not only so, but we also joy in God. We joy in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ by whom we've now received the atonement. This is the testimony of God's
love and grace. And then the fifth thing I want
you to see in this manna preserved is its sufficiency for all generations. It never changes. It never changes. It's still manna, isn't it? It's still bread. It's the children's
bread. It's still bread. It never changes.
Now this omer of manna was put in the pot. This full measure
of a man for a day, and in God's vessel he's preserved a sufficiency
for every day, all the days until our last day. Until our last
day. There's a fullness in Christ
for all generations. It's mind-boggling to me when
I think of just my own sins. I'm not concerned with other
sins when I go before God. I'm concerned with mine. And
I begin to think, and everything that I've said, everything that
I've did, everything that I've thought is sin. And I go before
Him and begin to talk to Him about forgiveness for sins. And
then I look at these Scriptures like this and think on these
subjects like this where He's There's a sufficiency in him
for all his elect, a number that no man can number. I cannot imagine,
imagine the iniquity that he put away under his blood. It's
something out of this world. But there's a fullness in him
for all generations. That man that was eaten for 40
years, the whole of that wilderness experience, Up or down, good
or bad, that manna was gathered every morning. And our spiritual
manna is in Christ. And there is a sufficiency in
Him for all. Now, I mentioned earlier in the
message tonight that this fullness has to do with everything God
vested in Him for the chosen sinner. And the man who would
preach Christ must preach Him in that fullness. That fullness
was put into that golden vessel and preserved there for them
to look at and think on as they worship God. You see what I'm
saying? And those who would preach Christ
must preach Him in the full sufficiency of His person. All of those types,
all of those figures included in the worship of Israel all
pointed to Christ, all pointed to some part of that redemptive
work that He did. That mercy seat, as I told you,
was over top of that ark. and those cherubims over top
of the mercy seat looking down on it, and then that great veil
that separated it from the common priesthood, the holy place outside. This was the Holy of Holies.
And so, in that respect, these things are pictures of Him, pictures
of how we relate to Him and that redemptive work in Him. And those
who would preach Christ must preach Him in the full sufficiency
of His person. That's how He's set before us,
His work, His attributes, His offices. His accomplishments.
You cannot simply preach Him as Savior and not as Lord. Or
as Lord and Savior and not as intercessor and advocate. Everything
needed to make the bread of God is in Christ Jesus, the Lord.
And that's how we have to set Him forth in all of the things,
all the aspects of salvation. Christ is all. That's what Paul
said. He's all. In Him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him. And
then the sixth thing I want you to see here is this. This golden
pot of manna was preserved in the ark until the coming of Christ.
After the coming of Christ, the manna disappeared. The ark disappeared. The temple disappeared. The tabernacle
was already long gone. The priesthood disappeared. All
of those Old Testament things begin to disappear. And most
every type of religious ceremony seen in the various churches
around our country today are nothing more than a carryover.
It's just wanting to carry back over that old ceremonialism that
was under the law of Moses. That's what it is. You see these
people in these gowns, these pastors, preachers, so-called,
that come out and they got these big flowing gowns on and all
that type of stuff. They get that from that Old Testament
priesthood. He had the linen britches and
the special dress and the mitre on his head and all of those
things that you see, especially in Catholicism, you see it, and
the Pope and all these different ones. They're just karaoke. All this special dress, and this
elaborate temples, and priesthood, and furniture, and symbols, and
labors, and incense burners, and altars, and candles, and
all of these things, they were figures. The Bible said figures
for the time then present. Shadows of good things to come.
He called them carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time
of reformation. And so long as these things stood,
the Holy Ghost, Paul said, signified that the way into the holiest
of all was not yet made manifest. That's all you can read about
that in Hebrews 9, verse 8. And even so, with the manna,
it remained in the ark, under the mercy seat, sealed, sanctified,
and preserved as a testimony until the coming of Christ, who
is our bread. And when He come, He fulfilled
that type. And as He fulfilled these things,
He took them out of the way. And in this glorious golden vessel,
the Lord has put the bread of life and preserved it forever
in His right hand. Now, I'm going to show you one
more thing before I quit. Over in 2 Corinthians chapter
4, You can turn there if you like, but you're familiar enough
with it, you'll recognize this when I begin to read it. In 2
Corinthians 4, verse 5, he said, We preach not ourselves, but
Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now watch this. But we have this treasure, this
wonderful manna, in earthen vessels. It's not in the golden pot in
me. He took that golden pot full
of treasure and put it in an earthen vessel, Glenn. That's
what he does. Puts it in an earthen vessel.
And he did it that the excellency of the power may be of God. and
not us. All of God. God takes this heavenly
bread, puts it into these earthen vessels, and I tell you, when
I think of the glory of what I'm talking to you about tonight,
and think about what kind of person it's in, and how ignorant,
and how unworthy, and all of those things concerning this
thing, you can't help but give God the glory for the power and
presence of God. and for an understanding of the
gospel, if I've given you any at all. You have to give him
all. That's what Paul's talking about here. He put this manna
in earthen vessels. And those earthen vessels, I'll
tell you what they do. They keep pointing you to where
the pot is. They keep pointing you to where
the pot is. There it is. Here's the treasure. Paul just
kept telling them, here it is. Here's the manna. Here's the
manna. Christ told them the same thing, didn't He? Paul said,
and that rock, and we're going to study that next week, that
rock that followed them, that put out that river of water that
I read to you about a while ago, and that rock, he said, was Christ.
Can you imagine what a rock this thing was? It had to be huge
to put out enough water to cause a river to go out there and water
cattle and all those people, over a million people. And it
followed them everywhere they went, was that big rock. Stayed
right there with them. And that water, he'd go out there
and smoke that rock, boy, and that water just poured out of
their river, followed them all the way through the wilderness.
Our Father, we thank You for this day. Thank You for the study
time that we've had. Pray that You'll take what I've
said tonight, apply it to our hearts for Christ's sake. Amen.