In Exodus chapter 16, let's begin
reading here in verse 3. This is where the Lord was bringing
the children of Israel through the wilderness. They had just
gone out into the wilderness. Let's begin in verse 3. Exodus
16. The children of Israel said unto
them, Moses and Aaron, Would to God we had died by the hand
of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,
when we did eat bread to the full, for you have brought us
forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with
hunger. Then said the Lord unto Moses,
Behold, I will wring 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 not. 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 as they
gathered daily." That was the Sabbath day. And Moses and Aaron
said unto the children of Israel, At evening you shall know that
the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt. And 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? 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 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. And Moses spake unto Aaron, and
said, 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 towards the wilderness,
and, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the clouds.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings
of the children of Israel, speaking to them, saying, At evening you
shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread,
and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came
to pass that at evening the quail came up and covered the camp,
and in the morning the dew 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 said one to another, It is manna. For they knew 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 Omar three courts 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 and some less. And when they did
meet, measure it with the 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 until the morning. Notwithstanding, they hearkened
not unto Moses. But some of them left of it until
the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was wrought
with them. And they gathered of 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 homers for
one man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told
Moses. And Moses 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 shall bake
today, and seeth or boil that which ye shall boil, and that
which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the
morning, as Moses bid them, and it did not stink, neither was
there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that today,
for today is a Sabbath unto the Lord. Today you shall not find
it in the field. Six days you shall gather it,
but on the seventh day, that is the Sabbath, there shall not
be none. And it came to pass that there
went out some of the people on the seventh day for together,
and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses,
How long refuse you 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 horremder 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 almer of it to be kept
for your generations, that they may see the bread thereof, I
have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from
the land of Egypt.' Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put
an almirah full of manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord,
to be kept for your generation. And the Lord commanded Moses,
as the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron did. He 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 into the borders of the
land of Canaan. Our study tonight is on the manna,
the manna from heaven. When the Lord delivered the children
of Israel, and he led them and provided for them from Egypt
all the way to Canaan, Their going and God providing
for them is just an illustration. It illustrates how the Lord,
He delivers us and leads us and provides for us now in this day,
the New Testament day. And most of God's dealings with
the children of Israel were physical. We see that. The Red Sea, you
know, that was something that happened physically. The manna
that come down from heaven, it was something they could gather
and physically take into their bodies the water that came out
of the flint of the rock. These things were all physical.
And in this physical realm, you and I see miracles. These things
were miracles which God did. The parting of the Red Sea, can
you imagine what a miracle that was? As they looked across that
sea and here it began to part and they went across on dry land.
Are this manna coming down from heaven? What a miracle that was. And Moses smiting a rock, a flint
rock, and it split and water come gushing out like rivers
of water. Those were miracles that could
be seen that pertain to the natural man, the flesh. And this is to
teach you and I that even though You and I live in the time of
when God's leading us in a spiritual sense. We're born into a heavenly
kingdom. We're born again from above.
But in this spiritual realm, in the kingdom of God, it is
just as miraculous in the spiritual realm as it was back there in
the natural realm. I wrote this down, and see if
this ain't so. Probably the way the Lord leads us, the way he
has delivered us, the way he nourishes us spiritually is probably
a greater miracle than the physical miracles that he provided the
children of Israel for. I think the children of Israel
could have easier swam the Red Sea and escaped Pharaoh's army
than a poor sinner could deliver himself from the power of darkness.
and translate himself into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Don't
you? We see a greater miracle in that.
Or I think the Israelites could have found food and water to
sustain them in this barren wilderness easier than you and I could find
spiritual food and spiritual water to sustain us in the wilderness
of this sin-cursed world. It's not to be found, is it?
And I think also this, that the children of Israel could have
gotten through that desert of deadly scorpions and flying serpents
and slime pits easier than you and I can get through this world
of devils and sins and temptations. Those were miracles. From the
time he brought them out of the house of bondage, took them through
the Red Sea, fed them for forty years in the wilderness and brought
them into the land of Canaan. What miracles this were! But,
brothers and sisters, it's no less miracles. It's much more
of a miracle for anything for the Lord to take you and I from
the kingdom of darkness and out of spiritual bondage and bring
us into a heavenly kingdom and to the realm of glory and to
heaven at last. Now, that's a miracle, isn't
it? That's a miracle. And I think that's what he's
teaching us by these physical miracles in the Old Testament.
That just as it took miracles to get those people out of Egypt
into the land of promise, it takes miracles. It's a miraculous
thing for God to save a sinner and lead him through this world
and bring him to heaven. We just don't see it, do we?
We eat manna now. But Revelation 2.17 says it's
hidden manna. It's spiritual manna. I will
give you to eat of the hidden manna. We drink water now, don't
we? There's a fountain open for our
souls. Jesus Christ is the water of
life. So these types and these shadows
here in the Scriptures, they picture to us the Lord Jesus
Christ. Everything we see in the Old
Testament, it pictures the Lord Jesus Christ. This manna, This
bread is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to John
chapter 6 and verse 31. Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert. That's what the Jews said. As
it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. And then
Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses did not
give you that bread. They said Moses gave them the
bread from heaven. Moses didn't give them this manna,
did he? He had no power to do that. And then the Lord Jesus
said, But my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For
the bread of God is he which comes down from heaven and gives
life unto the world. I am the bread of life. Christ is that manna from heaven. He that comes to me shall never
hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst. I am
the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever." Now you can find all of that
in the sixth chapter of the book of John. He is indeed what this
manna only pictured. He is the bread from heaven. Now that is what we want to look
at just for a few minutes. just see three or four things
that Moses recorded here in the 16th chapter. And the first way
we see this manna is a beautiful type or picture of the Lord Jesus.
Look in verse 14 and verse 15. 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 said one to another,
What is it? It's manna. And they tell us
the Hebrew literally reads, What is it? And that's probably what
the center reference of your Bible says. What is it? What
does this tell us? This manna was a strange and
mysterious thing. to the children of Israel. What
is it? The way it came down? It came
down with a dew? Did you ever see the dew falling?
Sometimes you can feel it just a little bit, but it's there
on the ground, isn't it? It came so secretly. You couldn't
see the manna coming down. It came down in the dew. And
when the dew was lifted, lo and behold, there it was up on the
ground. The nature of it, the way it
came from heaven, the nature of it was a mystery. The taste
of it was a mystery. They said, what is this? They
had never seen anything like this before. What is this? Isn't that the same way with
the Lord Jesus Christ? Someone said nothing is more
mysterious and wonderful than the incarnation of the Son of
God. God the Son. barn of a woman. What a mystery that is. Listen
to I Timothy 3.16. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. I John chapter 1 verse 1 and
2 and 14. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was
made flesh. He was in the world, in our humanity,
and the world was made by Him. He that made the woman to begin
with is now made of a woman. Isn't that mysterious? Isn't
that wonderful? The ancient of days became a
babe in time. How mysteriously wonderful that
is. It's just as mysterious and just
as wonderful as this manna was that came down from heaven so
secretly. there upon the desert floor. These Israelites did not have
to plow to get it. They did not have to sow to get
it. They did not have to go out and harvest after they did all
of this. But it came down mysteriously
in a mysterious way. They had nothing to do with it
coming down. It came down from heaven sent
of God. And even so, the Son of God was
mysteriously conceived in the womb of a virgin, without any
aid of man, without any help from man, without any means. It was told her, the Holy Ghost
shall come upon you, and the power of the highest shall overshadow
you, and that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be
called the Son of God." Brothers and sisters, do you know a greater
miracle? than the incarnation of the Son of God. And how mysterious
it was, how wonderful it was, what took place out of sight
when the Son of God came down from heaven and was left here
in this woman's world. What a mystery, what a mystery.
And Jesus Christ was as mysterious in His nature as this manna was
to the children of Israel. what a mystery Jesus Christ was
to this sinful world. They had never seen anybody like
Him before. They had never been around anybody like Him before.
They had never heard anybody like Him before. He was a wonder
and a mystery to those who were around Him and listened to Him
and saw Him. He said to the Pharisees, which
of you convinces me of sin? None of them. Why? Because he
had no sin, did he? Oh, what kind of man is this?
He has no sin. He did no sin, and no God was
found in his mouth. Never man spake like this man,
they said. And never man did like this man. And finally, they said, they
just threw up their hands and said, what manner of man is this? He's not like us. That's what
they were saying. He's so mysterious. He's so eternally
different from us. What manner of man is this? Well,
you know what the difference in Him and everybody else was?
He told the people one day. He said, You are from beneath. I'm from above. That's the difference. You're of this world, and I'm
not of this world. And that's the difference, isn't
it? You and I came out of our mother's womb. We never existed
before. Where did the Son of God come
from? He came down from heaven. That's the difference. He's the
eternal Son of God. That's the difference. The Holy
Lamb of God. And you and I need spiritual
food to give us life. We need food to sustain us. And
this food has been prepared for us of the Father. That's what
he said. He said to the Father, he said,
you don't want sacrifices and offerings of these animals, but
a body have you prepared me. The Father prepared him a body,
he prepared him a soul, and then he made his body and he made
his soul sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. The food then we need to give
us life, the food that we need to sustain us, the bread of life,
God has prepared it for us. He's prepared it for us. It came
down from heaven in such a mysterious way in the person of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Christ Himself is this bread. And look here in the last part
of verse 15. Something else about this bread.
And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath
given you to eat. It's a gift. It's a gift. The Lord hath given you to eat. The Son of God is a gift to us. We don't deserve Him. There was
nothing I could have done to deserve God's own Son. He's a
gift from the heart of God, from His love, from His goodness to
poor sinners that we are. God so loved the world that He
gave He gave His only begotten Son. The Lord Jesus told that
woman there at the well that day, He said, Woman, if you knew
Me, and if you knew anything about the gift of God, you would
ask of Me, and I would have given you living water. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the gift of God. All these Israelites had to do
was to go out and gather this manna. It was there. They didn't
have to work to get it. They just went out and gathered
it up. They weren't worthy of it. They didn't marry it. They
didn't work to get it. They just went out and gathered it up.
I love what the old prophet said. He said, Why do you spend your
money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfies not? Hearken unto me, and eat you
that which is good, and let your souls delight itself in fatness. All we do is come to Christ.
He's provided us, for us, by a gift of our Heavenly Father.
And he that comes to me, ain't that all we do? He that comes
to me shall never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. A gift food has been provided
for us, and it's a gift. Who eats it? Who was this food
provided for? I tell you, sometimes we say,
for the hungry. It even went further than that.
They said, we're starving to death. Isn't that what they said?
That's what they said there in verse 3. This whole assembly
is starving to death. We're dying of hunger. Who's
this bread for? It's for the hungry. Listen to
Nehemiah chapter 9 and verse 15. He gave them bread from heaven
for their hunger. and brought forth water out of
the rock for their thirst. He gave them bread from heaven
for their hunger." If God had not have brought these people
into the wilderness and caused them to hunger with nothing else
to eat, you know where they would have been? They would have been
sitting down there in Egypt by their flesh pots eating their
onions and garlics and leaks. That's what it'll be in. God
has to bring us into the wilderness, don't He? He has to cut us off
from the food and the pleasures and being satisfied with this
world. He brings us out into the wilderness where it's barren,
where there's no food but what He provides. And if you're here
tonight and you've got a hungering for Jesus Christ, You've got
a hunger for Him to give you life and to sustain the life
that He gives. You want to live upon Him? Then
thank God. Because it's God that's put that
hunger in you. That's not natural, is it? You'd
have still been out in the world being fed on some religion or
fed on the lust of the flesh or something else. But I'm telling
you tonight, if you've got a hunger for the Son of God, God has put
that there. And thank Him for it. Thank Him
for it. This is the bread which cometh
down from heaven that a man may eat. And I tell you, if you're
hungry, you may eat of this bread. I don't care if you're male or
female. I don't care if you're a child.
I don't care if you're old. I don't care if you're rich or
poor, uneducated or illiterate. It doesn't make any difference.
Here, here is the only thing. Here's the only qualifications
that a man needs. Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Are you hungry for Christ? Are
you hungry for that bread that endeareth to life everlasting?
Then you may eat. You may eat. This is the bread
that comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and never
die. And here's something else about
it right quickly. He says this over here in verse
31. The taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Now, I eat honey all the time.
And just about anything you put honey on, it's going to make
it sweet. And if you like honey, you can
put it on just about anything and it's good. It adds to the
flavor. This was like a wafer made with
honey. I don't know, but I'd say it's
very sweet to the taste, wouldn't you? And I don't know exactly
what it tastes like, but I know what Jesus Christ tastes like.
He's sweet to your taste, ain't He? And the Scripture says, to
whom coming? You're coming to Christ. For
you desire in the sensual milk of the Word that feeds you upon
Him, if so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Oh,
I tell you, He's sweet. He's sweet to the palate of our
souls. Something else he said here before
the last point is this, and I like this. He says up here in verse
18, And when they meted out, when
they measured out the armor, he that gathered much had no
lack. And he that gathered little had
no lack, he that gathered much did not. And Moses said, Let
no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding, they hearken
not to Moses, but some of them left of it until the morning,
and it bred worms and stank. Now what in the world can we
learn from this? You couldn't lay it up. You couldn't
store it back. And if you tried to store it
back, It began to decay and stink. Now what in the world can we
learn from that? One thing I think we can learn is this. That when
we take Christ Jesus into us, into our understanding, and we
learn of Him, don't try to store that knowledge up. You say, Bruce,
what in the world would you mean by that? I mean this. He that
gathered much shared it with those who had little. When you
learn something of the Lord Jesus Christ, Share it with somebody
else. If you try to hoard it up and
say, man, I learned something of Him then, I ain't going to
tell nobody. You know what? It may start stinking. When the
Lord saved that Gadarene, remember that? And the Gadarene said,
Lord, let me go be with You. I want to be with You. What did
the Lord tell him to do? What? Go home. Go home and hide in your heart.
Go home and tell them what great things the Lord has done for
you. He had all of this knowledge of what God had done for him.
And what did the Lord say to do? There are some guys over
there that know nothing about Me. You go tell them. You share
Me with them. We can't store Him up, brothers
and sisters. We can't store Him up. If He has taught you something,
tell others of what He has taught you. Pray the Lord will give
you an opportunity to run into somebody else. When you're in
town or when you're talking to a neighbor or a co-worker or
somebody, Lord, you've taught me something about Yourself.
Let me share it with somebody else. And ask Him to open the
door to do that. And lastly is this. In verse
21, here's why we don't have to be too careful about trying
to hoard Him up. And they gathered it every morning. They gathered it every morning. Some of them gathered a lot.
Some of them gathered little. But He was given freshly every
morning. He always got it fresh. Every
morning it fell on the ground. And they went out and gathered
it up. Brothers and sisters, there is enough merit in Jesus
Christ. There is enough worth in Him
There is enough redeeming grace and love that He can nourish
your soul every day of your life. You and me and millions of more
that wants to come and be nourished of the Son of God, there is enough
in Him to nourish all of us and never diminish. You can sup with
Him. You can partake of Him. Anytime
that your faith is able to reach out and gather Him into your
heart, you can eat of Jesus Christ. And He'll never diminish. He's
too full. He's too wonderful. He's too
glorious. And look what He said in verse
35. And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years until
they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. This is the
food that God had provided for them. And this is what sustained
them for 40 years all the time that they lived in this bedroom.
That's what they lived upon, this manor. And when they came
into the land of promise, that's the first year they eat corn
of the land. And brothers and sisters, what else has God provided
us to live upon but Jesus Christ? And He's sufficient, isn't He?
We need nothing else. He will sustain us and He will
nourish us until we leave this world into heaven. And when we
get up there, He'll be there. He'll be there. But I don't think
we'll need Him there like we need Him here. Because we'll
be like Him there. We need Him here because we're
poor sinners, don't we? We're so weak. We're so afflicted.
But there'll be nothing like that there. We won't need to
live by faith upon Him there. But we do here. And thank God,
if you live 40 more years in this world, Jesus Christ will
be sufficient for you to live with Him. He will sustain you. Here in this little poem, a faint
shadow and not the image. You got that? Look what this
says. I love this. Go worship at Emmanuel's
feet. See in His face all wonders meet. The whole creation can afford
but some faint shadow of my Lord." That's all this manna is, just
a faint shadow. He is compared to wine and bread. Dear Lord, our souls would thus
be fed. Is He a tree? Then we receive
salvation from His killing leaves. Is He a rose? Not Sharon yields
such fragrance in all their fields. Is He the vine? His heavenly
root supplies the branch with life and fruit. Is He the fountain? There I bathe and heal the plague
of sin and death. Is He a fire? He will purge my
draughts so the true gold sustains no loss. Is He a rock? How firm
He proves the rock of ages never moves. Is He the way that leads
to God? There would I walk in lines of
blood. Is He the door? I'll enter to
feed on pastors large and green. Is He the temple? I'll adore
the dwelling majesty and power. Is He the sun? His beams are
grace, His course is joy and righteousness, His beauties we
can never trace till we behold Him face to face. He's everything,
isn't He? We read these Old Testament types
and shadows, but I tell you, they're a faint, very faint image
of our Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless His Word.