Exodus chapter 16. Exodus chapter
16. My subject this evening, the
title of my message, is Between Elam and Sinai. Or if you want
a longer title, Two Gifts of Grace in the Wilderness of Sin. Let's back up to verse 27 of
chapter 15. Here we find the children of
Israel. They've come to Elam after the bitter waters of Marah.
And here at Elam, there were 12 wells of water and three score
and 10 palm trees. Water for everybody, an abundance
of water. palm trees representing victory
and triumph and peace and serenity. Elam clearly portrays for us
the all sufficient grace of our God in Jesus Christ the Lord. And it portrays more. It portrays
for us that blessedness that awaits us when we reach heaven's
eternal shores. Oh, the bounty and the blessing
of heaven's glory in that kingdom prepared for us by our father
before the world began. Elam represents all of that that
awaits us with our inheritance as the saints of God, heirs of
God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Everything our souls
need and can enjoy forever is ours in him. And it is that which
is designed specifically for God's elect. There were 12 wells
of water in Egypt or in Elam. That is water for every one of
the tribes of the children of Israel and 70 palm trees. palm trees to give shelter to
every one of the elders of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.
And of course, that nation was but typical of God's elect, the
Israel of God, represented by the hundred and forty four thousand
in Revelation chapter seven. Now, read on. They encamped there
by the waters. There they rested and they enjoyed
their leisure. Chapter 16, verse 1. And they
took their journey from Elam. And all the congregation of the
children of Israel came unto the wilderness of sin. The particular word translated
sin here is briars or thorns. They came to the wilderness of
sin, the wilderness of thorns, which is between Elam and Sinai. Elam, representing grace and
bounty, God's free sovereign grace in Christ, the bounty of
his mercy, heavenly glory with Christ. Sinai, representing cursedness,
blackness and darkness. Nothing at Sinai except clouds
of darkness, rolling, roaring peals of thunder, scaring the
people of Israel so that they dare not come near that quaking
mountain. Moses gives the law at Sinai,
and in that law, there's nothing but curse, nothing but death,
nothing but judgment. But between Elim and Sinai is
this wilderness. Between everlasting blessedness
and everlasting curse is this wilderness called the wilderness
of sin where we now live. Here Israel spent 40 years and
you and I will spend all the days of our lives in this wilderness
of thorns. well-named, because every pleasant
berry you enjoy in this wilderness is surrounded with thorns, and
if you eat the berry, you're going to feel the pain of the
thorn. You can just bank on it. There
sits Larry and Carol Brown, enjoying the blessedness of being married
to one another, a man with a wife who loves him, a woman with a
husband who loves her. But soon, you got to experience
the pain. One will get sick or the other.
One will die or the other. And that's true of every sweet
berry in this sin-cursed world. You can't enjoy the berry without
the prick of the thorn. That's because of sin. That's
what sin has done to this world. But in the midst of this cursed
land, in the midst of this place of the thorn, in the midst of
this place of great pain and difficulty, The Lord God graciously
provides for his own, revealing his glory and that which he provides. And here in this chapter, we
have read of two specific things the Lord gave to his people Israel
in a typical manner. And these two things that he
gave to Israel, typically he has given to all his elect, all
the Israel of God spiritually in Jesus Christ. He gave them
manna. Bread to meet their daily need
for 40 years. And he gave them a Sabbath in
which to rest. This is the place, the first
place where we have mention of the manna, and this is the first
place where we have mention of the Sabbath. Both are gifts of
our God to a people who still deserve in themselves his wrath. Here's the first thing in our
text. God's people. God's people. Though delivered
from Egyptian bondage, Though saved by His grace, though redeemed
by the precious blood of Christ, God's people in this world are
a sinful people still. Look at verse 2, chapter 3, or
chapter 16. The whole congregation of the
children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. Now, most every commentary I
read on this passage said the whole refers to the great majority. And I suppose that may be so,
but God said the whole congregation for a reason. And the reason
is, Darthen, because we are all the whole congregation of God. murmuring sinners in this world,
in this wilderness of sin. Now remember who we're talking
about. They have only been out of Egypt for one month. Less than a month prior to this,
less than a month, they saw the Lord God pass through the land
of Egypt slaying the firstborn of every child or of every household
in Egypt, sparing the firstborn in their houses because of blood
sprinkled on the doorpost, blood of an innocent lamb slain by
God's command, the Paschal Lamb, Christ Jesus the Lord. They'd
seen that less than a month earlier. They spoiled the Egyptians. They
came out of Egypt by the high hand of God, spoiling the Egyptians. They came out with everything
of value that belonged to the Egyptians. They carried it out
with them. They took the gold and the silver. They took the jewelry. They took
the needing troughs. They took everything of value
out of Egypt with them. And they came to the Red Sea.
And they saw God open up that sea. This was just yesterday. This
wasn't 20 years ago. This was yesterday morning. This
was just less than a month ago. They saw God open up the sea.
And that whole congregation, millions of them, went straight
across the Red Sea, five abreast like soldiers, harnessed together,
marching in a dress parade. They went right across that Red
Sea on dry ground. When they got to the other side,
they heard a noise. A greater noise than they had
heard when God sent his wind and caused the waters to stand
up like congealed jello on one side to protect them. Suddenly,
the water fell upon the Egyptians and destroyed the whole army
of Egypt. Pharaoh and his armies, the horse
and the chariot, he drowned in the Red Sea. Every enemy they
had in the sea. Every enemy they had in the sea. Imagine that. Satan and sin and
all the thorns and cares and troubles that would destroy your
soul in the sea. Drown, covered up in the mud
on the bottom of the Red Sea. And they sang to the Lord. Oh,
he has become my God, my strength and my salvation. Jehovah, the
triune God, he is God indeed. And they sang his praise joyously
as they watched the carcasses of their enemies dumped in the
sea. And now they've come through
Mara and they've seen God take that tree, that bitter tree and
cast it into the waters. The cross of the Lord Jesus typified,
making the bitter thing sweet. And the Lord revealed himself
to them as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. Now,
now. What can we expect from them? I'll tell you what to expect
from them. Murmuring against God. And I'll tell you what to expect
from you. Murmuring against God. And I'll
tell you what, I have just recently, with great pain, learned to expect
from me anew. murmuring against God. Oh, Moses Aaron, you brought
us out here in this wilderness to destroy this whole congregation
at one time to murder us in the wilderness. Would to God you
had left us by the flesh parts of Egypt. where we gorged ourselves
every day for 400 years. Isn't it amazing that they should
talk like that? These people, the Egyptians,
were starving to death. They may have smelled the Egyptians'
flesh pots, but they didn't go dip in and give them any flesh.
They were being starved to death among the Egyptians, but they
remembered the smell of the flesh pots in Egypt. and they murmured
because now they come out into this wilderness and they're hungry. First day out here and we got
nothing to eat. We got nothing to eat and they
murmur. You see, the fact is, as long
as we live in this world, you and I will continually war against
our own flesh, which is nothing but sin, murmuring against God. All the time. All the time. Don't you find it shocking, amazing, difficult to bear, that when
you see your brother or your sister Going through some trial,
some thorn has pricked their fingers. Some thorn has pricked
their hearts. You can muster lots of encouragement
and strength and, well, remember, brother, all things work together
for good. And that's fine. There's nothing
wrong with that. We know our Heavenly Father does all things
well. We recognize God's providence
in everything. We understand that God rules,
the heavens do rule, and we rejoice to declare such. But when you
prick your heart or your finger, You hear one who means well,
who intends well, speak those very same words to you, and you
think, well, he just doesn't know what I'm going through. You just don't have any idea.
You've never been here. You see, the fact is, the things that
are written here are written to give us an example not only
of God's goodness to us, but an example of our unfitness in
ourselves of his goodness. The fact is, Claus Peterson,
you and Ruth are just exactly like these Israelites, and so
was Don and Shelby. We're just like them. Nothing but sin. And if we are not kept by God's
hand from doing so, we will murmur against God every time we reach
into that bush, pull off that blackberry, prick our finger.
God, why'd you put that thorn there? We'll murmur against him
and complain against him because as long as we live here, We live
in this body of flesh called sin. And we are in constant need of
God's grace and God's care and God's mercy. Now, here's the
second thing. God's grace and God's mercy and
God's care are always there. Mm. What does the Lord do with these
murmuring people? The Lord who has just revealed
himself as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals you. What does
he do with these people? Moses, get out of my way. I've had enough of them. No,
no. Moses, I'll tell you what I'm
going to do. I'm going to give you some things to give to my
people by which I shall prove them to see whether they will
keep my commandments. Not so that I'll know. So you'll
know. And they'll know. And I'm going
to prove every day for 40 years they won't do it. I'm going to prove it. Every
day for 40 years they will not keep my commandments. They won't
do it. I'm going to give them flesh
in the evenings. I'm going to flood the land with
quails. And then every morning from now
on, every morning they get up, the earth is going to be covered
with bread for them to gather up. And then on the sixth day,
they can gather twice as much as they gather any other day
because I'm giving them something else. I'm giving them a day in
which to rest every week for 40 years. And I'm going to prove
they won't keep my commandments. It's not within the realm of
possibility that you shall. People say, tell me all the time,
you ought not tell people that, it just encourages sin. No, you've
got enough encouragement to sin without me helping you. I'm just
telling you the truth. Bobby Estes, you won't keep his
commandments. It won't happen. Flesh is nothing
but flesh and flesh will not keep God's commandments. That
which is born of the flesh is flesh and it can do nothing but
sin. It is that which is of your father,
the devil. It can do nothing else. Only
that new man in you, Christ Jesus the Lord, walks before God by
faith and confidence, rejoicing in Him, obedient to Him. And
the two are constantly at war. The Lord God comes to these people
whom He brought out of Egypt and shows himself faithful and
gracious and long-suffering. And oh, how faithful and gracious
and long-suffering he has been and is to you and me. In the midst of our murmuring
and our complaining, in the midst of our denying Him, in the midst
of our rebellions against him, he will not deny himself. A merciful and gracious still. Now let's look at these two things
just briefly. The manna. We won't turn and read it again
tonight. I urge you read the latter part of John's Gospel,
Chapter 6. Our Lord describes himself as that bread which came
down from heaven, the true bread. This whole thing is all about
him. It displays for one thing, the
oneness of all God's elect in Christ. We're told in 1 Corinthians
10, verse 3, that they did all eat of that same spiritual meat. All the children of Israel for
40 years lived on the same bread. And that bread was Christ. And
you and I and all God's elect in this world all live upon this
same spiritual bread Jesus Christ represented in the manna. Now
there's several things about the manna that show it clearly
to be a picture of our Redeemer. I'll try to maybe come back to
this in a few weeks, but the Lord Jesus, like the manna, came
down from heaven. He who is God Almighty came down
from heaven in human flesh to redeem and save his people. Like
the manna that came from heaven, he is the gift of God. All thanks
be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Like the manna that came
from heaven was described as a round thing. A round thing
without beginning and without end, a round thing that has no starting point and no ending
point. That's our Savior. He's the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the eternal Son
of God, our everlasting Redeemer, our covenant surety from old
eternity, the manna that fell from heaven. fell early in the
morning. When the people got up and looked
out of the tents, there it was. There it was. It fell early in
the morning. And our Lord Jesus is that manna
of God's providing before the world began, in the beginning,
before ever the earth was. And when we are brought to life
and awakened, we look and there he is and we feed upon him. This manna that fell from heaven
was white. like the whore frost and it covered
the earth. Oh, that's our Savior. In his
purity, in his perfection, in his righteousness, covering all
the evil that's in us and all the evil produced by us and all
the evil committed by us, washing away our sins in his blood and
robing us in his perfect righteousness. This manna was manna in which God, the triune
God, revealed his glory to his people and made them to know
him. He said, Moses, now tomorrow
when you get up, I'm going to show my glory in the cloud in
the manna. And Christ Jesus is that one
In whom alone all the glory of the triune God is revealed. In whom alone all the fullness
of grace and glory are. In whom alone is all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. This manna that fell from heaven
was a standing constant miracle in the camp of Israel for 40
years. Every day, I get up and there's
manna. Every day. Every day. A standing
constant miracle. They were fed on manna every
day for 40 years and never went hungry. Not one time. Oh, it
happens to be that now it's been a little more than 40 years.
since I began this journey through this wilderness of sin with my
Redeemer. And I have found him a standing miracle every day. Every day to feed and sustain
my soul, every day giving grace sufficient. You'll notice it
was told over and over as we read this chapter that each man
was to gather an omer of manna according to his eating. and
the eating of those within his tent. That is, every man would
go out in the morning and gather up all the manna that was needed
for him and his family every morning. And the man who gathered
much had none over. And the man who had a smaller
family and gathered little lacked nothing. But each man gathered
the manna according to his ability to consume the manna. And I'll tell you what God does
for you. I'll tell you what he does for me. He feeds us with
the bread of heaven as we are able to eat it, as he gives us
ability to consume it in our day by day experience. And those
to whom he gives much have no excess, and those whose appetites
for now seem a little small lack nothing. Each one feeds upon
Christ and finds in Christ grace sufficient for himself every
day. Just the grace you need. Just
the grace you need. Well, I sure wish I had the grace
I saw you exhibit when you were going through your trial. Well,
maybe if I had the trial. Sure wish I had the grace I saw
you exhibit when your neighbor was going through so much trouble.
Well, maybe if my neighbor goes through that kind of trouble.
But God gives us grace in Jesus Christ as it is needed and fills
us with his grace as it is needed. This manner, God commanded Moses
to give to the children of Israel. He said, now, when you taste
it, tell you what it's going to taste like. It's going to
taste like a It's going to taste like graham crackers with cinnamon
sprinkled all over them. It's going to taste like a wafer
made with honey. Y'all like honey? Man, I like
honey. Mix a little butter with it,
put it on a biscuit. That's good stuff. That's what Christ tastes
like to the heaven born soul. That which was once bitter, once
you taste and see that the Lord is gracious, is honey to your
soul. And the Lord told Moses, he said,
now you tell Aaron to go out and gather up this manna and
put some in a pot. And when I give you instructions
to the building of the tabernacle, making the tabernacle in the
ark of the covenant and the mercy seat, you take that pot of manna
and put it in the ark as a memorial so that my people will never
forget how I fed them these 40 years in the wilderness. And
he's given us the same memorial. This past Sunday night, once
again, we broke the bread and drank the wine. Sweet memorial
of the bread of life, the manna of heaven by which we live before
God day by day. But don't gather more than you
use. You've got to gather this manna
every day. There's a lot to be said there.
Let this suffice. David, yesterday's bread won't
do you any good. You've got to feed on Christ
every day. I went to church last Sunday.
I believe I'll go fishing this Sunday. Yesterday's bread won't do you
any good. You try feeding on it and you'll find out it's full
of worms. Got to feed on Christ day by
day. Trusting Him day by day. Coming to Him day by day. And blessed be His name. Lindsey
Campbell, if you're His, if I'm His, He'll fix it, so we have
to. He'll fix it, so have to. He'll fill your manna pot full
of worms. If we're His, He'll fix it, so
you have to feed on Him every day. But the Lord gave the children
of Israel something else. In verse 23, first mention of
the Sabbath. First time it's mentioned. The
law of the Sabbath hasn't yet been given. That's not given
till we get down the road a little ways here. But the Lord still
mentions the Sabbath. He says on Saturdays or on Fridays,
you can go out and gather twice as much manna as you gather Sunday
through Thursday. Because on Friday, you're going
to gather enough manna to do your own Saturday. And don't
you go out of your house on Saturday? Don't you? Saturday is a Sabbath
day. a Sabbath day that I give for
you." Isn't that interesting, darling? He said, I give it for
you. Not command you to do it, not
command you to keep it, though he certainly does later, but
here he says, I give it for you. The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath. We have all kinds of folks today
who want to tell us where still under the law, and we have to
keep Sabbath day and so forth, keep a literal Sabbath day. Well, I don't have to tell you better
than that. You know better. That's a bunch of nonsense. But the Sabbath
they would have you to keep is misery. It's just misery. For one thing, they pretend that
Sunday's the Sabbath instead of Saturday, and it ain't. Never
has been. Several years ago, As a matter
of fact, I reminded these boys of it just when I was in England
back in March. Shelby and I were in England,
1987. I was over there preaching. And Brother Alan Jellett's boys
were all standing around, some of them tiny little fellows,
and Brother Bill Clark's daughter, Janine, lots of young people,
standing around on Sunday afternoon. And I'm sitting there with a
bunch of stuffed shirt preachers. And I mean, these kids were standing
like this. bored stiff, bored out of their
minds because it's Sunday and that means they can't swim, they
can't fish, they can't play with dolls, they can't play ball,
they can't do anything except go to church and come home. That's it. And so they're just
standing around. Finally, I looked up at one of
them and I acted like I didn't know what I was doing. I did.
You kids want to play some ball? Why, you would have thought I
spit in the face of every one of those preachers. Well, I did. I really
did and intended to. And some of them are going to
hear this. That'd be all right. I intended to. Because that's misery. That's misery. That's not what
God made for us. Oh, no. The Sabbath he made just
like he did the manna for his people in this wilderness of
sin. It was made to be for them a
picture of the very same thing the manna was. Jesus Christ the
Redeemer. And we who feed on the bread
of life walk every day in the rest of Christ the Lord, who
is our blessed Sabbath. Mmm. Rest. What do you mean, Pastor, Christ
is our Sabbath? Christ is our rest. Under the law, if you went out
on the Sabbath day and picked up sticks, they'd kill you. If you walk beyond, just a little
ways past your tent door, by God's law they were commanded
to pick up stones and stone you to death. If you defiled the Sabbath day
by doing work on the Sabbath day, providing for yourself on
the Sabbath day, cooking a meal for yourself on the Sabbath day,
lighting a fire to warm your cold hands on the Sabbath day.
If you did anything on the Sabbath day, God commanded that you be
put to death because you have denied Him. What on earth is
that talking about? Just this. Trust Christ and Christ alone. Trust Christ and Christ alone. Did you hear me? Trust Christ
and Christ alone. If you pick up a few sticks to
add to Him of your own righteousness and merit, you light a fire of
your own worth add to Him. You do something for yourself
by which you commend yourself to God. God'll kill you forever in His fury in hell. These things the Lord gave to
the children of Israel in their desperate need in the wilderness
of thorns so that in this wilderness of
thorns they could feed and be refreshed and rest until he brought
them home to Canaan. And these things he gives us. His sinful people in this wilderness
of thorns. So that in this wilderness of
thorns, where there's so much to pick our hearts and give us
pain. We can feast upon the bread of
life and live before God. and rest. Rest in His finished
work as our all-glorious, ever-gracious substitute. And in Him, behold
the glory of God. Amen.