The story in Exodus, chapter 16 has.
Has great meaning for me.
I wonder, did you.
Did you pick up that Whenever the manna.
Whenever came the heat of the day, the manna would just melt away.
Like.
Like it was just snow and melting like water.
It's important to me because I asked Pamela to marry me based on
an argument.
It's not the most romantic way.
Well, I thought it was, but turned out it wasn't.
I had tried three times to ask her to marry me.
It wasn't that she said no, it's just her diary was too full.
And so there was one Saturday we were supposed to be speaking at
a mission conference in Ballymena and it was cancelled because
of the big snow in 2010.
Do you remember the big snow of 2010?
And so we were in East Belfast at the time.
We went out for lunch.
We started an argument.
Does snow lie on sand?
I said yes.
Pamela said no.
And I said, aha, let's go and prove this.
Of course, in my mind, bringing us to our favorite beach
where we used to go for walks.
I would get down on one knee and ask her to marry me.
And so off we went, debating in the car whether snow would indeed
lie on sand.
And do you know what?
It did?
And so I was proved right.
And I said, pamela, you now know that moving forward, I will
always be right.
Well, that soon ended.
And so down on one knee, I got on the sand covered with snow.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Almost 15 years later.
Now, I tell you that because I wanted you to laugh, because, you
know, sometimes it does me a bit of good, my ego, a bit of good
that I am actually funny.
But, you know, other times not.
But what we see in the melting, what we see in this manna
disappearing is something wonderful about God and truly amazing
about his ways.
We've seen him already go against the created order whenever
the people crossed the Red Sea, remember what he did in creation?
He caused the rivers to flow.
Well, now he was holding back the waters.
He was stopping what was natural so that his people could
walk through on dry ground.
And now he was doing something that wasn't expected.
But whenever people saw it, they thought it should have been
there the whole time, but yet it melted away because God was again
doing something that the people had to learn was his way and
not theirs.
So let's go back to the start of this passage to verse one of chapter
16, because we return this week to the second of the moments
of grumbling of God's people in the Period between leaving Egypt
and their encampment at Sinai.
And last week we saw them grumble over a lack of drinkable
water.
And the Lord miraculously, truly, miraculously provided for
them at Marah, the place of bitterness, and then abundantly at
the place of Elim, because it wasn't just water, it was palm trees
as well.
And those palm trees were strong, which demonstrated a great
result source of water below the surface.
But as we read the word grumbling last week and this week
and again in weeks to come, we shouldn't just think that it is about
complaining, because we all grumble.
We grumble about the weather, we grumble, it was too much rain.
And I'm sure there'll be some grumbling in these days, it's too
warm.
We grumble.
And we think it means complaining.
But here the word grumbling has a much deeper root and it's best
understood as straight out rebellion.
And actually, when you go through the story of Exodus thus
far, it is one story of rebellion, rebellion initially by
Egypt and Pharaoh against God, and now rebellion by his people.
And again, we see this rebellion in verse one of chapter
16, that they're only a month out of Egypt.
They've only been rescued a month and a matter of weeks just
through miraculously crossing the Red Sea.
And now they grumble.
And ultimately they grumble because they quickly forget how amazing
the work of God is.
And whenever we grumble, we have a short memory.
When we grumble about the rain, we forget that we do get sunshine
and heat as well.
And when we grumble about the heat, well, then we've forgotten
about the colder days that we complained about.
See, it turns out grumbling still today, whether it's complaining
or whether it's rebellion is about having a short memory.
And so as they leave Elim, they come to the desert of sin.
And the first thing I want to say about this desert of sin, the
word sin here is not how we understand it in English.
It is simply a Hebrew word that is pronounced sin, but is not
the word for Hebrew used to describe that rebel.
So please don't equate the two with the one that that's not how
this works.
It is simply known as the desert of sin, with no indication
that the word sin is the same or even has the same meaning as what
we know as out and out rebellion against God.
But look at what we read in verses two to three.
In the desert, the whole community grumbled against Moses
and Aaron.
The Israelites said to them, if only we had died by The Lord's
hand in Egypt.
There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted.
But you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire
assembly to death.
And here, right in front of us, we see not only their bad memories,
but their selective memories of how things really were for them
in Egypt.
They choose to remember what they had to eat rather than their
cry for rescue from the slavery that they were in.
Remember, it was their cries that went out to God to rescue them.
And now here they're wanting to go back because they're thinking
off their stomachs.
What they're saying is they would now rather die and have died
with the Egyptians than to face no food in the desert of sin.
And so they grumble against Moses and they grumble against iron,
and they see them as the very reason for why they're not sitting
around their pots eating meat.
But there's something beautiful with these accounts for
us, these grumbling accounts, because in them, we continue to see
the gracious response of the Lord to this grumbling and rebellious
people.
What should God have done?
Well, here they're comparing themselves to the Egyptians and dying
with the Egyptians.
Why did the Egyptians die?
Because it was God's punishment against their rebellion.
So instead of being gracious to them, God should have rained hail
on them in judgment, as he did in Egypt.
That's what they wanted.
But rather than that, he will reign a day's worth of bread from
heaven for them to gather each day.
So even though this is a rebellious people, God is a God of
steadfast love.
He's slow to anger, and he's abounding in that love.
And in giving them this bread, he will test them to see whether
they will obey him as their covenant king.
And it won't be until verses 22 to 26 that we will hear of what
this test is.
But verse five gives us a clue when it tells us that the sixth day
they are to collect different amounts as from the other days of
the week.
Now God's word is told to the people.
But notice how strong Moses is in his language.
He challenges their grumbling by saying that it is the Lord who
has heard it, not just Moses and Aaron.
But the Lord has heard their grumbling.
And Moses asks the question in verse seven, who are we that you
should grumble against us?
Moses is saying, aaron and I are nobodies.
And although you're grumbling against us, you're ultimately grumbling
against the Lord.
And that's what Moses goes on to tell him.
But in verse eight, he says, you will know that it was the Lord
when He gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread
you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling
against him.
Who are we?
You're not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.
So not only does he challenge their grumbling again, but he points
them to the Lord's faithfulness in the midst of their
ribbon rebellion.
God will remain true to his covenant promises.
He will rescue them from their calamity in the desert, so that they
will be his people and to prove his presence with them, as
Aaron now speaking to them.
We're told in verse 10, while Aaron was speaking to the whole community,
they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord
appearing in the cloud.
God makes his presence known to them by appearing in the cloud.
And if other appearances of the Lord's glory are anything to
go by, the Israelites would have seen the cloud light up with
flashes of lightning and divine fire, so that it was abundantly
clear that the King of glory was now in their Midst.
And verse 12 would indicate that Moses approaches the cloud and
that the Lord goes on to state that he will provide meat and bread
in such a way that the Israelites will know that he is not
simply the Lord, but He is their Lord.
And that's key for these people to understand that he's not
just one deity amongst a whole plethora of the worlds around them,
that he is their Lord.
He is for them and not against them.
And everything that he says is for their benefit and for his glory.
And sure enough, verse 13 confirms that quail came and covered
the camp.
And this is the first in a few moments or of a few moments in this
account that echo the language of the plagues against the Egyptians.
Because the same words used here for cover and come up are the
same words used for frogs and locusts and those plagues that came
against the Egyptians and covered the land.
And so the same words are used here for the quail, it would come
up and cover the land, a striking reminder to the people of
how the Lord defeated Egypt and how the children of Israel were
not being punished now for their grumbling, but were actually
being blessed.
But they also receive the thin flakes with which they will make
bread.
And this is something that they have never seen before.
So they call it manna.
And manna basically means, what is it?
So they're basically calling it the question that they ask.
And that's in verse 15.
So not only do they not know what it is, but they don't know what
to do with it.
So Moses explains, and as he does, he tells the people the two
sets of instruction the Lord gives for collecting the manna.
And it is these instructions that will test the people to make
sure that they're trusting in the Lord and obeying him in what
he says.
And so the first thing Moses tells the people is to only gather
what they need.
And he says that each person needs about an omer.
But he goes on to say that the people should only gather what they
need for that day.
The gathering of their daily bread should be enough to satisfy,
and none of it is to be kept until the morning.
And it seems that most of the people did this and followed the
instructions, but some didn't, as verse 20 tells us.
However, some of them paid no attention to Moses.
They kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots
and began to smell.
So Moses was angry with them.
Verse 20 tells us that the people didn't trust God.
They didn't think he would bountifully provide again for them.
So they kept some over just in case.
And it's spoiled.
And we might think that Moses reaction here is a bit over the top.
But he is exasperated with these grumbling people.
They grumble against the Lord, and when he does provide for them,
they don't take him at his word.
It's like what many people in the world do today.
They hear the Gospel message and they respond to it, but they
don't think that it is enough for salvation.
So they add to their salvation and justify their salvation by doing
good works, thinking that their effort will make sure that
they will be saved.
But this is not what the Lord tells us.
And that's what Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8:9.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this
not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not from by works, so that no one can
boast the Lord is demonstrating his grace to the children
of Israel and they don't trust in His Word and so take matters into
their own hands.
And we can easily do the same.
If I was to do a test with you all on the way out through the door
and ask you what the Gospel is, I would be 99.9% sure that all
of you would tell me.
And you would be correct.
You would tell me that Jesus died for our sins and he rose again
to prove his authority over death and the grave.
So that one day we too will rise to be with him in heaven.
That's what you tell me the Gospel is, and you know that.
And that is the very word of God.
The question is, do you believe it?
Because there's one thing knowing it and there's another thing
believing it.
And so we hear of God's salvation through the gospel.
Perhaps we even believe in the person of Jesus, but so does the
devil.
But maybe we don't trust or believe in the work of Jesus.
And so if that's our position, then we start to create our own salvation
apart from Jesus, thinking that what we do and how we justify
ourselves will save us.
Well, no good effort on any of our parts, mine included, can save
us.
Salvation only comes through faith, and we dare not attempt any
other way.
And this is exactly what these people were doing.
They were trying to save themselves by another way.
And what they were doing in their true grumbling was rebelling
against God and going against his word, thinking that they knew
better.
And ultimately, isn't that what rebellion of God is?
We think we know better.
This is why Moses is angry with the people, because the people
are rejecting God through their actions.
And we perhaps continue to reject God by thinking we know better
and we can make a salvation of our own creation that is no salvation
at all.
But you see, there's another test.
And this test is to do with the Sabbath.
Now, the root of the word Sabbath means rest.
And this is the first time we hear the word used in Scripture.
But we know that it'll come, what it will become in the fourth
commandment given by God at Sinai.
Let me read verses 22 and 23 again.
On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much, two omers
for each person.
And the leaders of the community came and reported this
to Moses.
He said to them, this is what the Lord commanded.
Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.
So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil.
Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.
Amazingly, the manna left over for the Sabbath didn't spoil, nor
did it rot.
And this was a true test for the people, especially when they
saw it rot during the week, if they kept it over for the next day.
But will they continue to believe in the Lord?
Will they continue to believe what he tells them, that he goes
against?
What is the very nature of creation, where something spoils
one day and doesn't spoil the next.
But it is by his divine ordinance that it does this.
So what Will the people do?
And verse 27 tells us sadly that the people did not again trust
the word of the Lord.
Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day
to gather it, but they found none.
The people don't change.
And some go out on the Sabbath to look for manna and find none.
Perhaps they didn't gather enough on the sixth day.
Or maybe they wanted to test the Lord and see if it was if he
was true to his word.
Either way, their rebellion against his word brought a response
from God which is recorded for us in verse 28.
Then the Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep
my commands and my instructions?
This is a dire warning.
The Israelites are treading the same rebellious ground as Pharaoh.
The Lord's command are a test to see whether they will honor him
as the God worthy of their obedience.
And this is the second time some of them have failed the test,
just like Pharaoh did.
This is not a promising start to their freedom and to their place
of salvation before the Lord.
But we do see a response in verse 30.
And the people take the Lord's words to heart.
And we're told that they even rested on the seventh day.
So the people are learning.
They're beginning to understand who God is.
But as we will soon find out in the next chapters, that is short
lived.
But for now we take hope that they are a people who can learn the
word of the Lord and obey it.
Now verse 31 goes on to tell us a little bit more about manna.
The people of Israel called the bread manna.
It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made
with honey.
Why is this in here?
Why do we need to know this?
Because even though the people are changing heart, they're beginning
to listen and to obey, to follow what God says.
And trusting his word, we've got this little narrative bit put
in so that we can just see how good God is.
Manna was the size of a peppercorn and it was flavorful and
sweet.
And verse 35 confirms that it was provided for the people for their
40 years in the wilderness.
Until they came into the promised land.
God didn't give them gruel.
He didn't give them food that was hideous to eat and that they,
they responded to in a negative way.
God gave them good food to eat.
And this is a stark contrast for us with the wilderness that they're
now into, the promised land that God will sustain them towards
for 40 years.
Because during these years in the wilderness, the Lord will bountifully
provide for their daily needs.
He will give them what they need and it will taste good.
But once in Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, he will
provide from its produce to feed them.
And this tells us that it was foolish for some of the people not
to take God at His word, because he would provide abundantly
for them all that each person needed for the day.
And so, as we come to the end of this chapter, we need to understand
that it is still foolish to go against the word of God.
Scripture is given to us in the form that we have it as the full
counsel of God.
Nothing is to be added to it, and nothing is to be taken away.
He has told us how to know his salvation and how to live by his
standard.
And everything is here in front of us.
But like the children of Israel, we have to take God at His
word and we have to trust Him.
And like the children of Israel, we can at times be found
to grumble against God.
And remember, this grumbling is rebellion against him, the very
rebellion that saw the Egyptians punished for their rejection
of his ways.
And rebellion against God comes because we forget or we ignore
his actions in the past.
We accuse God for causing the suffering in the world, or even suffering
in our lives.
And yet we forget that he made a perfect world and was humanity
that brought suffering in through its sin because it didn't
trust in the word of God, it believed the lies of the serpent.
We ignore the common grace God gives us each day.
And so we think that we are the ones who are the key to our survival
through our work and our efforts.
Yet we forget it is God who gives us the health, the ability
and the intelligence to complete the tasks each day that
we need to complete.
And when it comes to salvation, well, perhaps we think
that a short prayer that we made when we were 6 or 8 or 10 is
enough to save us for today.
Yet we haven't lived for Christ in all the years since.
And we expect him to simply accept us because we rely on an action
on our part.
All the while we have ignored him and have lived life just like
the world around us.
God is faithful to a prayer prayed in our youth.
But that trust in Christ has to be lived out day by day, week
by week and year by year to demonstrate a true turning away from
sin and a true coming to new life in Him.
Of course, we're not perfect.
Nobody is.
But we grow in faith.
And it is that growth in faith that demonstrates a genuine conversion,
at whatever age, young or old, that may be you see, it turns out
before we judge the people of God too quickly and before we make
much more of ourselves, there's a little bit of a rebellious
streak in us all.
And sometimes the world applauds us for a rebellious streak
whenever we stand up against the oppressor.
But God's not the oppressor.
God has demonstrated his love to us that as he has kept you through
some of the hardest moments in life in the past, he will keep you
whatever you face.
Don't forget that he's the God who has sustained you and kept you
and will keep you.
He is the God who has heard your cry for help.
Don't forget that.
And as you cry to him for help again, he will hear, don't forget
who he is and who he has been to you so that you can trust him
in the days that are ahead.
Now, we may not interpret our actions as grumbling, but that is
what they are.
And they portray our lack of trust and obedience to the very Word
of God.
Verses 32 to 34 tell us that God wanted to remind the people of
their need to trust him in the wilderness by ensuring that a pot
of manna was before them as they moved and would be placed in
the tabernacle when it would come and then in the temple when
it was built.
Not only would it be as a witness to God's faithfulness, but
a constant challenge to the people to trust and obey.
See, the question for us all today is, will we trust and obey
by taking the Lord at His word as revealed to us in Christ?
And isn't that the beautiful thing that God did for us?
He took the meaning of word, which we know is for language and
expression.
And in our English, we slap a capital W on it because it becomes
a person.
And that's what John tells us.
The Word became flesh, the Word being the Lord Jesus.
And so we see the abundant grace of God continuing for us today
that we will not only take the written Word as we have it in Scripture,
as to trust and obey, but we will take the very Word of God, the
living Word, in the person of Jesus.
He forgives our sins and he sets us free from the punishment
we deserve.
But Christ also calls us to follow his ways.
And this means for us, remembering his faithfulness in the
past so that we can trust him for the present and the future.
No matter how many the enemies are against us, no matter how heavy
the burden of sin and regret and grief and sorrow and mourning
and sickness are, he is the God who is with us.
And as he was with us in the past, so he is with us in the present
and will be in the future.
That's why, as I've been going through the Book of Revelation, those
words in Revelation Chapter one have stuck with me.
The God who was and is and is to come, the God who has been with
us and will be with us, he is the One we're to look to because
he will keep us in the hardest moments of life, as well in the moments
of joy.
And he ultimately will keep us in his salvation through Christ.
And whenever we know his presence with us, it means we walk
close with him so that we can learn what it means to be people
of faith and people of hope.
To trust and obey demonstrates that we are truly Christ's and that
we are his forever.
Let's remind ourselves of what Jesus said in John 6.
Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in
me will never be thirsty.
But as I told you, you have seen Me and still you do not believe.
All that the Father gives me will come to Me.
And whoever comes to Me, I will never drive away.
Scripture speaks from Genesis to Revelation in this one verse,
because it pulls this bread of life, this bread that truly was life
for the people of Israel.
They grumbled about the lack of it, and they grumbled about the
lack of water.
And yet what does Jesus say?
In me you find completeness.
In me you will find a risen Savior who on that day will return
and bring his own home.
This is who Jesus is.
And it is not too late to turn to him, whoever we are, to trust
in him.
That indeed we will know forgiveness of sins, but that we
will trust in him for this very moment.
That he is greater than the sum of all of our fears, the sum
of all of our sins, the sum of all of our regrets.
He is more and greater.
And it is to Jesus that we are to turn to, because he truly is the
bread of life, in whom we will never grow hungry and in whom we
will never thirst, for he is the living water.
And what do these beautiful words tell us?
That whoever comes to him, he will never, ever drive away.
Sometimes we feel in life it's more important to be right than it
is to do what is right.
I may have only one one argument in my relationship with
Pamela that snow indeed does lie on sand.
But whether that argument was won or lost is nothing.
Because how I need to be right day and daily, by the way, is to
turn to Christ and no one else, regardless if my arguments
are wrong or not, it must only be Christ to whom I am right, because
then I will know salvation.
So I said to you, O weary soul, because I have a great sense
in these recent months that indeed our souls are weary and heavy
and tired.
It is Jesus who's the one who invites us to trust him and obey
him.
Because in him we find life, living water, the bread of life.
We don't grumble against him, rather we run to him because he is
the One who is truly right.
And in him we will be truly found and never lost.
So come to the Savior, because whoever comes to him, he will never
drive away.
Let's pray.
Our Father God, as we reflect on this Word and respond to it.
It's a passage that we've known about food, and we all look
forward to our food.
We enjoy whatever we eat and whatever comes our way because it
sustains us and keeps us, and it's part of your goodness to us.
But Father, Christ points us to an even greater sense of what
we need, and it is Himself.
And this is a message for us all.
Because we all need Christ more today than we did yesterday.
We will need him more tomorrow than we do today.
So may we not be like the children of Israel who rebel and
grumble against his goodness towards us, choosing to ignore his
word that we know, but rather may we believe it to be true, so
that indeed we will have eternal rest and eternal peace and
eternal hope in him alone.
So Father, speak to us and may we wrestle with this.
May we not leave this place thinking we're okay, but come before
you knowing that we have no hope but in a Savior who is Christ
the Lord.
So may we respond well to this, Your Word in Jesus name, amen.