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Church
in the Wilderness 4
Exodus 16-17
Exodus 16:3
3 The Israelites said to [Moses and
Aaron], "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we
sat round 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."
Exodus 17:3
3 But the
people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of
Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?"
We’re in a series thinking about the Church in the
Wilderness. The children of Israel
were the church of the Old Testament and their experience teaches us what
the Christian life is like. The
Israelites were saved out of slavery and saved for the promised land –
but in between they had a time of testing, humbling, hardship and
discipline. 40 years – a whole
generation – was spent in the wilderness.
And the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 says, that’s just
like us. We have been saved from
slavery to sin, saved from spiritual overlords, saved, most importantly,
from the wrath of God Himself and we are headed for glory – face to face
with Jesus in the new creation.
But in the meantime we have our own period – right now! – of
testing, humbling, hardship and discipline. And all the lessons they were taught in
the wilderness – we will need to learn for our Christian lives. So that’s why we’re looking in
particular at the books of Exodus and then of Numbers to learn lessons
from the Church in the Wilderness.
For the last couple of weeks we’ve been
looking at how the LORD brought the Israelites out. Two weeks ago we thought about Passover
– the LORD struck the land of Egypt with the ultimate plague. The Egyptians would not let the
Israelites go after centuries of slavery and ethnic cleansing. So the LORD says ‘I will pass through
the land and will kill the firstborn son of every house.’ Unless – they sacrificed a lamb. If they sacrificed a lamb and put it’s
blood on the doorframes, then the LORD would see and Pass Over that
house. If that happened then it
was clear that the lamb had died in their place. And we thought about how Jesus Christ
is our Passover Lamb. He died in
our place so that judgement would pass over us. We are spared judgement not because
we’re good or clever or religious but only because the blood of the LORD
Jesus was shed for us to shelter us from judgement.
Last week we thought about crossing the Red
Sea. Because not only were the
Israelites SHELTERED from judgement they were also BROUGHT OUT of
slavery. With a mighty hand the
LORD led them through the Red Sea with the Egyptians pursuing. The
Egyptian army was drowned. And
through incredible divine power, the Israelites escaped through that
judgement and out into freedom.
And we thought about how the Christian can
say the same thing. We have been
saved once and for all from the old life.
Saved from slavery to sin.
Saved from a kingdom of darkness.
And saved with incredible power.
Just as the Israelites had with them the LORD who split the sea so
we too have the power to save us with us.
The power that raised Jesus from the dead, the Holy Spirit, is
given to us to lead this new life.
So here we are on the other side of the Red Sea, as it were. We are no longer in Egypt. We are done with slavery, we are
finished with the kingdom of darkness.
But we are not yet in the promised land – so to speak. We are here in the wilderness.
Maybe you don’t feel like you’re in a howling
wasteland but if you’re a Christian, one way to think about your identity
is as a pilgrim traveller in the wilderness. You’re not in the old life – you’ve
been brought out of that once and for all. But you’re not in the promised land yet
either – that is to come. You’re
in the middle.
And how is the LORD leading you through?
Well this would have been the direct route to
Canaan.
But instead the LORD leads them a trickier
route. He gains glory for Himself
by saving His people through hardship.
He leads them to the Red Sea, He stirs up Pharaoh’s army to chase
them, and then He leads them through with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm. That’s the kind
of way the LORD is always leading His people – THROUGH hardship. Because their testimony to the LORD’s
love will be that much greater for it.
The Israelites were to travel down to Mount Sinai,
receive the law – the 10 commandments and so on – and then travel up to
the Desert of Paran. From there 12
spies would be sent out to spy out the land of Canaan (you can read about
this in Numbers 13 and 14). They
come back – ten say let’s not bother, the Canaanites look a bit too big
for us, two say, let’s go – the LORD is with us. Unfortunately the Israelites listen to
the ten and not the two and decide they don’t want to go into the land
the LORD has been promising them for 500 years. The LORD says, fine – you don’t want
the promised land, you don’t get the promised land. And He makes them wander in the
wilderness for 40 years until everyone who didn’t want the promised land
died out. Only the two good spies
survived from that generation. And
then they got to go up to the promised land.
But that’s the way the LORD leads. He doesn’t take what we think is the
obvious route. If we listen to Him
we could take a more straightforward route. But because of our disobedience, we end
up doing this nonsense.
Well this week we’re going to think about the
Provision of the LORD. Because
here we are in Exodus 16 and 17.
We’ve crossed the Red Sea but now we are in the desert and the only
resource is the LORD Himself. The
big question is - Is the LORD enough even in a howling wasteland?
Because the Israelites had been brought to a
place where the LORD was ALL they had.
They’d been decimated by the Egyptians, their whole lives they had
only known brick making and brick laying for their slave masters. They’d lost their skills, their
education, their national identity, they were out in the desert, 2-3
million of them. No food, no
water. Really all they had was the LORD.
Was He enough? Could they
trust Him?
Who was this Person called the LORD? Well turn back to Exodus 3 for an
introduction. We’re on Mount Sinai
(otherwise known as Horeb). Verse
2 – The Angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in flames of fire from within
a bush. The Angel of the LORD is
in the bush. Remember I’ve said
before – Angel just means ‘One who is Sent’, or ‘Messenger’. The One who is Sent is in the
bush. What’s another name for
Him? Verse 6: He says “I am the
God of your father Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. The Angel of the LORD is God. And He has another name too, which
might be familiar to you from the Gospels. Moses asks the Angel – What’s your
name? Verse 14, the Angel
answers: I AM WHO I AM. This Person is called I AM. And what’s He going to do? Verse 12 He says: “I will be with you. And this will be the sign that it is I
who have sent you: When you have
brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this
mountain.” Do you see what the
Angel is saying? I will be with
you and I will save the people out of Egypt in order to worship God on this
mountain. The Angel – THE Sent One
of the LORD will bring the people to God.
That’s the story of Exodus.
And it’s the story of your salvation too.
Jesus is the Angel of the LORD. He is the Sent One from God. And He has saved you and me to bring us
to God. Jesus is the LORD who
saves and who accompanies His people as they are brought to God. He has always been doing this
work. He was the saving Sent LORD
in the Old Testament and He is the saving Sent LORD in the New
Testament. As Paul says in 1
Corinthians 10:4 – it’s Christ who was accompanying the people in the
wilderness. Whenever you read of
the LORD being face to face in the Old Testament, or being very hands on,
or wrestling Jacob or appearing to the Old Testament believers – it was
always Christ who was the LORD spoken of.
And He was with the Israelites, leading the way in a pillar of
cloud by day to give them shade, and a pillar of fire by night to give
them light. Sometimes He’s called
LORD, sometimes He’s called the Angel of the LORD, sometimes (like in
chapter 16) He’s called the Glory of the LORD. But it’s all the same Person. The Israelites had Christ. They had Christ.
And they had His own word of promise. Look at chapter 6:6-8:
6
"Therefore, say to the Israelites:`I am the LORD, and I will
bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free
you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an
outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will
take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will
know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke
of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore
with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will
give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'"
Christ and His promise. Is that enough? Is that enough in the wilderness? Is Christ and His promise enough when
you have NOTHING else?
Well read 16:3 and 17:3 again:
3 The Israelites said to [Moses and
Aaron], "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we
sat round 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."
3 But the
people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of
Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?"
Was Christ enough for the Israelites? No, they respond the way our own sinful
hearts respond. We get hungry, we
get thirsty, we suffer the lack of some good thing – and that becomes the
ultimate reality. And we
effectively say – Christ and His promise can go to hell – I’m
starving.
We blaspheme the LORD’s own character. We might dress it up as a bit of
harmless moaning, but the LORD hears it.
We’re told that again and again in chapter 16. In v7, v8, v9, v11 it says the LORD
heard the Israelites grumbling.
They were grumbling to one another, and they were blaming
Moses. But the LORD took offence. Isn’t that stunning?
How much of our own grumbling is actually
offending the LORD? We might say
we’re just having a moan about our boss, or our lecturer or some
politician. But at what point are
we actually telling Christ – You’ve made a big mistake? You should not be leading me through
this. You must really hate me if
you’re making me go through this.
How much of my grumbling, how much of yours is really blaspheming
God?
This grumbling that we see in these chapters
essentially does two things – it blasphemes God and it twists the facts.
It blasphemes God by saying – ‘You are cruel, you only want to kill
me.’ The Israelites actually get
to the point of saying “The LORD hates us, that’s why He brought us out
of Egypt to... destroy us.” (Deut 1:27)
When trouble comes your way – this is exactly the way you are tempted
to think: you are tempted to think He saved you but He hates you, and He
really wants to harm you. You
blaspheme God and you twist reality.
You start to see things backwards.
The Israelites conveniently misremember Egypt. While they were in Egypt all they did
was cry out to the LORD for deliverance from their cruel masters. Now that they’re free, what do they say
about it? Verse 3: “We sat around
pots of meat and ate all we wanted.”
Does your mind ever play tricks on you when trouble comes? You think – in my non-Christian past,
everything was utterly amazing.
And all my non-Christian friends are millionaires. They are blissfully happy, and never
struggle. But the LORD has it in
for me.
That’s how we grumble when trouble comes – we
blaspheme the LORD and we twist reality.
What does the LORD do?
It’s astonishing really. The LORD showers grace on these
grumblers. He’s going to flood
these ingrates with mercy.
Look at 16:4 – I will rain down... what - fire from heaven? Righteous anger? I will rain down thunderbolts on their
camp? No – I will rain down bread
not baked with human hands.
Manna.
Manna just means ‘what’s that?’ in Hebrew. It’s a bit like the story of why
Kangaroos are called Kangaroos.
I’m sure this story is made up, but the story goes that when white
men asked the local aborigines what that hoppy creature over there was,
the aborigine in question said ‘Kangaroo.’ The white man, writes it down in his
book, says thanks awfully and moves on, not realizing that ‘Kangaroo’ is
the local way of saying ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking
about.’
-
What’s that?
-
Kangaroo??
-
Kangaroo,
spiffing, toodle pip.
Well manna has the same kind of meaning – It
means ‘you what?’ It means ‘what’s
that?’ But it’s forever known by
the people of God as ‘what’s that?’.
40 years they eat the stuff and they’re always saying ‘What’s
that?’ Because it’s always this
new thing, this surprising, unexpected bolt from the blue. It’s never something that’s part of
this world as we know it, it’s always bread from heaven.
And v31 says it tastes of honey. Now that’s interesting because the
place they’re headed is known as a land flowing with milk and honey. Their future is a future of honey. And how does the LORD sustain them in
the meantime – little tokens of the promised land. Little pledges of the life to
come. Day by day they are fed with
the bread of heaven, this ever-new provision of God, this foretaste of
the future. This is the grace that
rains down on the Israelites in the wilderness.
And what’s it meant to teach them. Well the last sentence of verse 4 says
this:
In this way I will
test them and see whether they will follow walk in my instructions Torah.
Another way you could translate that would
be:
In this way I will
test them and see whether they will walk in my Torah.
Torah is the word for law. And the Israelites haven’t even
received the law – the Torah – yet.
But the LORD says – if you understand the lessons of the manna,
then you’ve understood the whole of the Torah – the whole of the Old
Testament law. Because essentially
the lesson to be learnt was to trust in Christ alone.
That’s what the Israelites had to learn. They had to learn to trust Christ alone
and not their circumstances.
There was nothing in their environment that would
sustain them – only the LORD. They
had no natural resources to fall back on, only supernatural resources.
They had to trust Christ alone and not their
efforts. There was nothing the
Israelites could do to generate bread or water themselves. It wasn’t a matter of trying
harder - it either came from the
LORD or they died. It wasn’t about
their own efforts.
Third, they had to trust Christ and so be
content for the day. That’s a
repeated lesson here. In verse 4 –
the first thing the LORD says about manna is that the Israelites are to
gather ‘enough for the day.’ The
LORD gives ample bread for THAT day – verse 8 describes it as “all you
want.” You can have all the
bread you want for today. But
v19:
19 Then Moses
said to them, "No-one is
to keep any of it until morning." 20 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.
The LORD gives all they want, all they need
for the day. And if they want
bread tomorrow – they can wait on the LORD again tomorrow. But if they horde their stuff for
tomorrow, it rots. What a lesson!
And it’s a big lesson for us – Christ wants
us to pray it into our hearts and minds every day. That’s why in the LORD’s prayer we ask
“Father, give us today our daily bread.”
It doesn’t say – ‘Give us today our bread for the year, or for the
month or even for the week.’ It
says “Give us today our daily bread.”
I’m going to be hungry again tomorrow,
yes. But I know something even
deeper – I have a gracious God tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s needs will be supplied by my LORD tomorrow. He takes care of my future – I
don’t. I’m not getting ahead of
myself. Today, I ask for today’s
needs. And in the very same
chapter where Jesus teaches us the Lord’s prayer, He goes on in Matthew
chapter 6 to say “Don’t worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about
itself. Each day has got enough trouble
of its own.” (Matt 6:34) So ask
today for today’s daily bread. If
we actually trusted Christ on this – imagine the freedom from fear. But this is what the Israelites were
being taught, day in, day out for 40 years. Trust Christ and so
be content for the day.
And then,
trust Christ and so REST. Sabbath
comes up here in the bible, really for the first time since God rested on
the seventh day of creation. Read
with me from v23:
23 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.'" 24 So
they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or
get maggots in it. 25 "Eat it today," Moses
said, "because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any
of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it,
but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any." 27
Nevertheless, some of the
people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none.
28 Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my
instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the LORD has given
you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two
days.
Are you able
to rest? Are you able to really
take a day off? Or would you have
been in the crowd in v27 – just making sure, it’d be a crying shame if
there was manna going to waste somewhere.
Would that be you? The LORD
has to get really tough on His people – REST! I want you to rest. If you don’t rest, you’re not trusting
the LORD.
Can you imagine being on this discipleship
programme? Would you go out and
gather more than a day’s worth?
Would you go out on the Sabbath?
Would you be forever worrying about tomorrow?
I think we all would. We see how stupid our controlling,
anxious, busy attitudes are. But
seeing how stupid they are doesn’t stop us acting stupid does it? And these commands and instructions
from the LORD – we see how right they are don’t we? We see how very sensible they are? We can imagine how great it would be if
we actually obeyed the LORD in all of this. But the truth is we don’t. And even 40 years of this intense
discipleship programme will not teach the human heart contentment. Our hearts SHOULD respond to the LORD’s
command – ‘Do not worry.’ But our
hearts don’t. God’s law is like
that – it commands things that are completely right and good and
fair. But it can’t change your
heart. It’s a bit like someone
saying to you “I command you to love me.”
Well even if you wanted to obey their command, your heart wouldn’t
be changed. If you’re going to
love, you need to be swept off your feet.
And if we’re going to trust the LORD’s provision – if we’re going
to say even in our own wilderness CHRIST IS ENOUGH – He’s going to have
to sweep us off our feet.
The good news is – He has.
In John chapter 6 – Christ has been going out
of His way to recreate Exodus 16.
He is the LORD of Exodus 16 now comes as an Israelite – and to
live out the life of God’s people and to do it RIGHT.
In John chapter 6, Jesus has just gone to a
desert place in order to miraculously feed a whole multitude of people
with bread. There He is – the same LORD, doing the same miracle again for
His people – but this time, doing it as one of them.
And true to form the Israelites start to
grumble. It says it a number of
times in John 6 – they grumble.
And they ask Jesus
30 So they asked Him, "What
miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?
What will you do? 31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert;
as it is written:`He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
32 Jesus said
to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you
the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread
from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the
world." 34 "Sir," they said, "from now on
give us this bread." 35 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.
Incredible words, an incredible offer – Here
is bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty – and it’s Jesus
Himself. What grace. But this grace is met yet again by
grumbling:
41 At this the
Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread
that came down from heaven.
But Jesus persists. In v48 He says:
48 I am the
bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the
desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes
down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the
living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he
will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world."
Manna kept you going for a day. Jesus is the Living Bread who feeds you
spiritually and gives you eternal life.
And how do we benefit from this living Bread? Jesus says He gives Himself to the
world like He’s just given bread to the multitude. How did He give bread to the multitude
– He broke it, He tore it to pieces and pressed it into the hands of His
followers. And that’s what would
happen to Jesus Himself. He would
be broken on the cross. He would
be torn apart for the life of the world.
Talk about grumbling being met by grace. Jesus says to spiritually beggars who
have done nothing but grumble – I will die for you, I will be broken
apart for you to give you the spiritual life you do not have, cannot earn
and do not deserve. But I give it
to you.
And as Jesus hung on that cross John records
something else that happened. When He died a soldier thrust a spear up
into His ribcage to pierce His heart. And John says it brought a sudden
flow of blood AND WATER. Doctors
will tell you that’s a water-like fluid that forms when your heart has
ruptured. But if you had Exodus 17
open you’d come to a much more profound explanation.
Do you remember what happened to the thirsty
grumblers in Exodus 17? Perhaps
you think the LORD should have said to Moses, take up your staff and
strike the Israelites. Use your
rod to strike the troublemakers.
But that’s not what happens.
Instead, the LORD stands on a Rock. And throughout the Bible the LORD calls
Himself THE Rock. So He’s
associating Himself very strongly with this rock – and then He says to
Moses – don’t strike them, strike the rock. And water comes out and their thirst is
slaked.
Again – it’s incredible grace towards the
grumbling.
Is the LORD sweeping you off your feet a
little right now? Is He capturing
your heart with something of His infinite graciousness?
We are spiritual beggars, we have nothing to
contribute. When we think we can we insult the LORD. And we are not only beggars, we are
grumblers – moaning, blasphemous, ingrates. And the LORD says – come and eat. Come though it cost me my life, come
and eat. Come though I had to
spill my blood, come and drink.
Though I had to be torn apart, though I had to be struck, though I
had to be strung up on the cross – I LOVE YOU. I AM FOR YOU. I AM ON YOUR SIDE. I’D RATHER DIE FOR YOU THAN LIVE
WITHOUT YOU. Will you just trust
me?
Romans 8:32 puts it this way:
If God is for us, who
can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but
gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously
give us all things?
If God gave you HIS SON – do you really think
He’ll withhold from you ANYTHING that is good for you. God doesn’t hold back ANYTHING from
you. He gives you JESUS – He hands
Him over to you as Bread and Water for your famished and thirsty souls. And though it cost Him His life, He
holds out His arms to you. Can you
trust Him today?
That’s all you’re called to do. Trust Him today for whatever you need –
because the cross proves He’s a good provider.
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