Exodus 16

Hey, hey, good morning. Good morning, friends. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. This year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus. So glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's word.
Let's pray. Father, you are a great, wonderful, and generous God. You have been to us a savior, a refuge, and our hope. Lord, we pray that you would please help us today as we read your word, that we would understand it. and that you would apply it to our hearts and to our lives in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. Here we go. Let's go ahead and open up our Bibles. We are still in the book of Exodus chapter 16. This is an amazing miracle that the Lord does here.
And they journeyed from Elim and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai. on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. When we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate the bread to the full, for you have brought us out of out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in. And it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel. At evening, you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord.
For he hears your complaints. Next page. For he hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we that you complain against us? Also Moses said, this shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and in the morning bread to the fool. For the Lord hears your complaints which you make against him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us, but against the Lord.
Then Moses spoke to Aaron. say to all the congregation of the children of israel come near before the lord for he has urged your complaints now it came to pass as aaron spoke to 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 spoke to moses saying I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the Lord.
So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp. And in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, this is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded.
Let every man gather it according to each one's need. One Omer for each person, according to the number of persons. Let every man take for those who are in his tent. Then the children of Israel did so and gathered some more, some less. So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack. Every man gathered according to each one's need.
And Moses said, let no one leave any of it till the morning. Notwithstanding, they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. So they gathered it every morning, each man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted. And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. Then he said to them, this is what Jehovah has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.
Bake what you will bake today and boil what you will boil. And lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until the morning. So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded. And it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.
Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it. But on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none. Now it happened that some of the people went out on the Sabbath or on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See. But the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, he gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain 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 its name manna. And it was like white coriander seed. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
Then Moses said, This is a thing which the Lord has commanded you. fill an omer with it to be kept for your generations that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, take a pot and put an omer of manna in it 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 ate manna 40 years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is one tenth of an ephah.
Well, it's a long passage, but it's a very beautiful passage of God's love. So we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? These are like your humans. The Israelites are real people. They have needs. And they're in the wilderness, they're in there for two months now, right? That's what it said. That it was the 15th day of the second month, so it's been two and a half months. They've been out in the wilderness, they come and they complain against Moses and Aaron, right?
Man, we had meat, we were slaves, at least we had meat. And we had bread. In Egypt, you brought us into the wilderness to die. And there's only so many days that you can live without water. And only so many days beyond that, that you can live without food. And they're in the desert, right between Sinai and Elim. There's nothing there. There's no way for them to farm. There's no way for them to forage.
They need something. And they complain and the Lord hears it. Not happy about it, but he hears it. Moses and Aaron are distressed because what can they do about it? Right? They're also humans. They can't just ex in yellow create food. Boom, just speak it into existence. And so they're, they're struggling with how are they even going to answer this?
And so the Lord says to them in verse four, something amazing behold, I will rain red from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day. that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. There's two things that the Lord is testing them here. Number one, he's testing them on whether or not they're going to actually trust him that he's giving them the bread of life. Number two, he's testing them whether or not they're going to keep the Sabbath.
He hasn't given them the law yet. That's that's going to come in another four chapters. We haven't heard anything about specific laws, but here they get a preview. They actually get to see that every single day of the week, their substance is going to come from the Lord. They're going to wake up in the morning. And the dew is going to drop and it's going to leave little little round coriander seed looking stuff, a sweetness with a little bit of honey. And they're not going to have to work for it. All they have to do is go out and get it. You can't save it till the next day, but yet some people do. And God says on the sixth day, you need to go out and you need to gather twice as much because on the sixth day, God's going to give you a double portion. The next day is the Sabbath, and he's going to provide even for that day. He's going to make sure that you're cared for. He's going to make sure that you're protected. He's going to make sure that you are loved.
And sure enough, there's. There's enough. And unlike the other days when they had tried to save the bread and it becomes moldy and has worms in it, talk about yuck, right? Somehow on the 7th. It doesn't have mold and it doesn't it doesn't have worms But people still go look People still go and they look and the Lord's angry All right.
This is this is what he says. He had been testing them and he says in verse 28 How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? He had brought them quail that they could eat meat and he's brought the manna. Manna literally means what? What is this stuff, right? They don't know what it is.
But the whole point of it is one to show that he loves them. He's going to care for them. He's going to provide for them. But number two, as their God, as their provider, as their redeemer. Well, they listen to and follow him. Well they have hearts to trust in Him and to walk in His ways.
What we're gonna find is no, no they won't. The rest of the story of this is this corporate elected body, the Israelites, they're not very good at doing this. To be honest, neither am I, and neither are you. And this is where God is going to bring about one Israelite who will. One Israelite who will not just be this bread, but who will be the bread of heaven himself.
And will teach them, will teach us, what it means to walk before God. What it means to love Him and follow His commandments. What it means to trust Him and to walk in His ways. Who would redeem His people at the price of His own blood. Who would become our eternal Sabbath. Our rest is in Jesus Christ. Our hope is in Him.
What's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I think verse four gets to the heart of it. And also, I think that verse 12 gets to it as well, especially the last part. At twilight you shall eat meat, in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know that I am Jehovah your God. But I would probably also be tempted to underline, well I'm not tempted, I do have it double underlined, verse 28, the last part. How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?
Well, I pray that you see that God cares for you. He provides for you. And then when he even gives us laws and commandments now, even laws in Christ, when he tells us like in the book of Ephesians, don't steal. Are you who steal, steal no longer that you might have to give the labor with your hands that you might have to give to those who are in need? The Lord will bring about work.
Just trust him. You don't have to steal. There's all sorts of applications for this where we trust him. Jesus himself says, don't worry about what you're going to eat or what you're going to drink or what you're going to wear. Your father in heaven knows that you need all these things. And so trust in him. Walk in his ways and he'll provide for you. He'll care for you. He's not saying be a lazy bum, but they still had to go and gather the manna. He's given us the bread of life. The true bread of heaven, Jesus Christ himself. And if he has given us his own son, how shall he not with him also give us all things?
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you have given us everything we need. We thank you for the love of Jesus Christ. And we pray, Father, that you would please help us. Help us to love you. Help us to walk in your ways. Help us to trust in you. Thank you. For giving us the bread of life Jesus Christ Himself. In His name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.