Cure for Grumbling: The Bread That Grants Eternal Life

[0:00] Heavenly Father, you say in Psalm 19 that your word is sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. We pray this morning that you would refresh us with that sweet word.

[0:18] Renew us that we might appreciate, partake in your word in faith as we ought to. And we pray that you would also lead us by your spirit to believe in and to take hold of Jesus, the bread of life, that we might live with you forever.

[0:42] In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please stand for the reading of God's word from Exodus 16, 1 to 21. They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people 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.

[1:08] And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full?

[1:25] For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

[1:46] On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, at evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

[2:02] And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you grumble against us?

[2:14] And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him.

[2:25] What are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.

[2:39] And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.

[2:54] Say to them, at twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God. In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp.

[3:09] And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it?

[3:21] For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat.

[3:34] You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent. And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more, some less, but when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.

[3:52] Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, let no one leave any of it over till the morning. But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank.

[4:06] And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning, they gathered it, each as much as he could eat. But when the sun grew hot, it melted. This is God's holy and authoritative word.

[4:18] You may be seated. Some of us know what it's like to live from paycheck to paycheck. Your paycheck is just enough to pay for what you need.

[4:30] So you literally spend all of it before receiving your next paycheck. Probably only a few of us, if any, know what it's like to live from hand to mouth.

[4:42] You have no money to spare, and all of it goes to your bare necessities, like food. You work with your hands in order to literally put food in your mouth. And that's your daily existence.

[4:54] That kind of dire situation is something that we usually try to avoid. Because we don't do well with uncertainty. It makes us anxious.

[5:06] We want to know ahead of time where our next meal is coming from. Or more accurately, we want to know where our next 300 meals are coming from, don't we?

[5:19] Since the standard financial advice given in the US is that we should have three to six months worth of expenses in an emergency savings account. We idealize and admire independent people, self-sufficient people.

[5:35] However, whether we live hand to mouth or have million dollar investments, God calls every Christian to live with a sense of dependence on God.

[5:46] that's what we learn in this passage that rather than grumbling against the Lord, we should depend on His daily provision of the bread of life. So first, we're going to see the grumbling of the people in verses 1 to 12 and then the testing of the Lord in verses 13 to 21.

[6:04] Let's first talk about the people's grumbling. In Exodus 15, 22 to 17, 7, there are three passages about grumbling. We saw one last week. We're going to see another one next week.

[6:16] And so this is kind of the middle, central passage that Moses is really emphasizing. So we have here a mini-series about, topical series about grumbling, three-week series in the middle of our expository series in the book of Exodus.

[6:29] It says in verse 1, they set out from Elim and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, or Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.

[6:42] So they've passed the wilderness of Shur and they passed the oasis of Elim and they have now come to the wilderness of Sin. Sin is just a transliteration of the Hebrew word that sounds like sin.

[6:54] It's probably related to Sinai, or as we say in English, Sinai. So it has nothing to do with the English word sin, even though Israelites do a lot of sinning here in the wilderness of Sin.

[7:08] And so it's, verse 1 tells us that they are in to the 15th day of the second month after they have departed from the land of Egypt. So it's been over a month, nearly two months, since Israel's exodus from Egypt.

[7:22] So it's, foreseeable, it's possible that they're actually running out of food. They still have some livestock, but they need those to, you know, for the sacrifices later or to carry some of their luggages even.

[7:34] but they're exhausting their food supply and there's no place in the middle of the wilderness to replenish their supply. And so it says in verses 2 to 3, and the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

[7:49] And they said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

[8:03] It's similar to the way they've grown to God in Exodus 14, 11 to 12 with the Egyptians pursuing them behind them and the Red Sea before them and they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[8:18] And at that point the Israelites said, well, it would be better if we had been slaves in Egypt if you never brought us out. But the situation they're complaining now is escalating. Instead of just saying, I wish we had been slaves back in Egypt, now they say, we wish that we would rather have died in Egypt rather than died a slow death of starvation here in the wilderness.

[8:39] But this grumbling, this reveals a few things about grumbling. This grumbling betrays their Israelites' profound forgetfulness, their ungratefulness, and their faithlessness.

[8:52] They describe their slavery in Egypt at a time when they wistfully described this time. They sat by meat pots and ate bread to the full.

[9:04] It sounds like they were living like kings in a palace, but we know that wasn't what was happening in the Exodus story. If you look at chapter 1, verses 13 to 14, the Egyptians, it says, ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service.

[9:22] And it says in chapter 223 that the people of Israel for that reason groaned because of their slavery and cried out for rescue from slavery. They were told by Pharaoh and his minions to produce bricks without straw needed to make it.

[9:37] Their life in Egypt was miserable, and yet in their hunger in the wilderness, their memory is very selective and distorted. They say, oh, we sat by meat pots and ate bread to the full.

[9:53] Remember those good old days when we were slaves in Egypt. This betrays their profound forgetfulness.

[10:06] People who tend to reminisce dreamily about the good old days likely don't remember accurately all the bad things about those good old days. If you are mired in discontentment and grumbling this morning, remember that the grass always seems greener on the other side, but it often isn't.

[10:30] Surely the Israelites' bitter slavery in Egypt was not better than the time of wilderness in sin, but they were forgetful. Their memory was selective and distorted.

[10:41] The Lord remembers much farther than we do, and the Lord sees things farther, much farther ahead than we do. And if our gracious Lord has seen fit to keep us in our present lot, then our grumbling is misguided.

[10:56] Israel's grumbling also betrays their profound ungratefulness. They say, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. This is ironic because we have seen over and over again that the Lord delivered Israel by His strong hand, it says.

[11:12] Right? The Lord said in chapter 7, verse 5, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. And Moses said in chapter 13, verse 3, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.

[11:32] Having been delivered by the hand of the Lord in their newfound freedom, the Israelites have the shameless audacity not to wish that they had instead died by that very hand of the Lord.

[11:45] Instead of saving us, we wish the Lord had killed us instead. That's what they're saying. This betrays the depth of Israel's ungratefulness. They think that a quick death at the hand of the Lord that Passover night is preferable to a slow death by starvation in the wilderness.

[12:04] In saying this, they ironically point out that death is precisely what they deserved that night of the Passover and what they deserve still because they are sinners and rebels before God and that it is only by the grace and mercy of God that they still are breathing and have breath left to grumble.

[12:20] Third, Israel's grumbling also exposes their utter faithlessness. Having witnessed, think about this, having witnessed the Lord turn water into blood, unleash frogs and gnats and flies and pestilence and boils and locusts and darkness upon the land of Egypt, having witnessed the Lord kill the firstborn sons of Egypt in retribution for the murder of Israel's sons and for enslaving Israel and God's firstborn son, and having witnessed the Lord split the Red Sea and make them walk through it on dry ground and having witnessed the Lord turn the bitter waters of Mara into sweet water for them to drink, they still do not seem to think that maybe, just maybe, that the Lord can and will do something about them needing bread.

[13:09] their grumbling betrays their failure to remember what God has already done on their behalf, their failure to remember what God has promised for the future.

[13:24] Their grumbling is essentially atheistic. God is not in the picture. He is conspicuously absent from the Israelites' perspective. Instead, they fixate on Moses and Aaron and blame them for their problems.

[13:39] They say to Moses and Aaron in verse 3, for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill the whole assembly with hunger. But it was not Moses and Aaron who brought Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness.

[13:53] It was the Lord. So Moses points out their error in verses 6 to 8. At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

[14:04] And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you grumble against us? And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full because the Lord has heard your grumbling and that you grumble against him.

[14:21] What are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord. Israelites directed their grumbling against Moses and Aaron because they were easier, more reachable targets.

[14:34] But Moses reminds them that ultimately their grumbling is against the Lord. You think I brought those plagues upon Egypt? You think I split the Red Sea? You think I brought you out into the wilderness?

[14:48] Not a chance. What are we? This is what Moses and Aaron are saying. What are we? We're nobodies. We're just God's instruments and tools.

[14:58] Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord. Of course there are people who sin against us and don't do right by us. I'm not denying that those things happen but if bitterness has taken root in your heart, if there is unforgiveness, if there is grumbling in your heart, then your grumbling is ultimately against the sovereign Lord who is in charge of your life.

[15:25] Remember what I said last week about the difference between groaning and grumbling. Both the Old and the New Testaments consistently make a distinction between groaning and grumbling.

[15:37] Groaning is when we pour out our complaints to God in lament and prayer, when we moan in pain before God as Job does and as the psalmists do over and over again.

[15:50] It's what the Holy Spirit does when he intercedes for us with groanings to deeper words. It's what Jesus does in some passages in the Gospels. To groan is to cry out to God.

[16:02] The grumble is to complain about him. We groan before God but grumble against him. A person who is groaning flings himself into the arms of God grasping onto him asking him for help crying out in pain.

[16:22] A person who is grumbling is pointing his finger at God whispering in sedition opposed to God's rule. Grumbling stems from a fundamental misunderstanding and suspicion of God's character.

[16:43] This is why the Lord answers Israel's grumbling the way he does in verse 12. I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel say to them at twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall be filled with bread and get this then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

[17:06] Knowing the Lord is a major theme throughout the book of Exodus. Remember how Pharaoh responded to Moses' demand to let the Israelites go out of slavery to serve the Lord. He said who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

[17:20] I do not know the Lord. Moreover, I will not let Israel go. After Pharaoh's arrogant and ignorant response, the Lord reveals himself layer after layer more and more with each successive strike on Egypt and demonstrates his lordship over all the gods of Egypt and his explicit purpose in those signs over and over again is this, that the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.

[17:47] And the Lord was not revealing himself only to the Egyptians, he was also revealing himself to his own people. He said in Exodus 6, 6 to 7, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

[18:04] I will take you to be my people and I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

[18:18] I am the Lord. Lord. This entire Exodus ordeal is so that the Israelites might know that the Lord is, the Yahweh is the Lord their God, that they might know him.

[18:32] But tragically, after all that has happened so far, the Israelites still do not know the Lord as they should. They do not know that Yahweh is the unchanging one who has promised to be with them yesterday today and forever.

[18:51] They do not know Yahweh's steadfast love and faithfulness. They do not know the Lord is mighty to provide for them and to preserve them. And in their forgetfulness and ignorance, they grumble against God thinking that they can rule the universe better than he can.

[19:07] Thinking that they know better than God does what is best for them. This is why the Lord must reveal his glory to them once again. Twice we see the phrase the glory of the Lord in this passage.

[19:19] It says in verse 10, they look toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The word glory is the Hebrew word that is often translated honor.

[19:33] And it literally means the heaviness or the weight of something. The Israelites' fundamental problem is that they do not give proper weight to the Lord.

[19:45] They treat him lightly. in their grumbling, there is little if any acknowledgement of the Lord's faithfulness. There is little if any acknowledgement of the Lord's power.

[19:57] But the Lord is not someone to be taken lightly. He's not someone to be trifled with. He is not an inconsequential being. He is the supreme being of utmost importance.

[20:10] He is weighty. He is considerable. He is honorable. Glorious. And so it is that the Lord must reveal His glory to the Israelites.

[20:22] The Lord is not content to be a wallflower in your life. A forgotten and overlooked deity. The Lord cannot be relegated to the footnotes of your lives.

[20:38] The Lord must be the heading, the title, the thesis, He must sit on the throne of your life. In your daily lives, brothers and sisters, do you give little consideration to God or much consideration to Him?

[20:57] How much weight do you give Him in your scheduling, in your decision making, in your relationship building? Perhaps your grumbling is a warning sign that you are not giving due weight to the Lord.

[21:12] As we see in verses 13 to 14, the Lord sends quail to Israel's camp in the evening so that they might eat meat. He rains manna on them in the morning so that they might eat bread.

[21:26] Migrating quails have been observed in the Sinai region that they would, as they're flying in their migration, they get exhausted and they would descend upon the wilderness of Sinai and then they would cover the desert area.

[21:40] But the focus of the passage here is on the manna and not on the quail because the quail is only temporary provision. Only here, toward the beginning of Israel's journey in the wilderness and toward the end of Israel's journey in the wilderness, Numbers 11, does God provide quail for the Israelites.

[21:59] And in that second instance, God only provides quail because they complain, they grumble again about having only manna to eat. But manna is special. It becomes the Israelites' regular diet.

[22:12] It's their staple. It's described here as bread from heaven, suggesting God's direct and supernatural intervention. Psalm 78, recalling God's provision of manna in the wilderness, calls it the grain of heaven, the bread of the angels.

[22:28] It is a token of heavenly provision intended to sustain the Israelites through their long journey in the wilderness. I just finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy again recently and it's like Lembus or the way bread of the elves that sustains the hobbits through their journey in the wilderness to Mordor.

[22:47] Verses 14 to 15 tells us more about this mysterious bread from heaven. It says, When the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.

[22:59] When the people 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, It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. Later, verse 31 adds that manna was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

[23:17] So we have a little bit of a picture here of what manna was like. It was white, perhaps the size of a coriander seed, and it had a fine, you know, crystal-like texture, like frost on the ground. And when consumed raw, it tasted like wafers with honey.

[23:30] And as Numbers 11a tells us, if you ground it in a handmaid and beat it, and then you cooked it, it tasted like cakes baked with oil. Isn't that kind of the Lord?

[23:42] He could have just given them really stuffy, stale bread to eat, and they would have had no choice. But he gives them wafer that tastes like honey. Sometimes, when I'm parenting, and the kids are grumbling a lot, they're like, I really don't want to give them what they're asking for.

[24:04] It's like, ask me in your normal voice. They're grumbling again and again and again, and it says, again and again and again, the Lord heard their grumbling.

[24:19] How kind of the Lord. He doesn't need to listen to them. He owes them nothing. Everything they have is from Him. And yet, they are complaining to Him and that He is kind to hear their grumbling, to answer them with wafers like honey.

[24:43] The Israelites have no idea what it is. They've never had manna before. And it ceases when they are at, right about to enter the land of Canaan. So it was God's provision for that time in the wilderness. And so they ask each other, what is it?

[24:55] And that's the meaning in Hebrew of the name manna. What is it? They literally named it. What's my call it? God's so kind.

[25:08] And God, because they have no idea what it is, when God provides it, He provides a little manual for how to use it. He says in verses 16 to 19, this is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you as much as he can eat, you shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.

[25:26] And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more, some less, but when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat, and Moses said to them, let no one leave any of it over till the morning.

[25:42] So this, reconstructing what exactly happened here could be a little bit confusing, and there's some disagreement among people in the interpretation. The best way I can make sense of it is this, each person was commanded to gather as much as he or she could eat.

[25:57] So the way you determine how much to collect is how much can you eat, how hungry are you, how much do you think you eat, collect that much. And then they bring all of it in seams to a communal pot, and then they use a measuring unit called an omer to distribute it.

[26:10] And each person, no matter how much they brought in, whether they gather much or little, they get an omer. Per person in the household. And when they do that, it seems that, so an omer is, you know, like a, it's a tenth of an ephah, it says, in verse 36.

[26:27] An ephah is 22 liters, this is probably 2.2 liters or so, or half a gallon. So imagine half a gallon, half of a milk gallon jug, they're filling that with manna, and giving it to each person in the household.

[26:39] And what was amazing is that even though they distributed it like that, so that even the people who gather little were able to take an omer home, it said, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.

[26:53] This is God's miraculous provision. Each household found that what they had been apportioned according to the measuring unit that God has chosen was sufficient for every person in their household.

[27:05] So then, no one could be gluttonous, and no one could go hungry. There was neither left over nor lack for any of the Israelites. God's provision was sufficient for all.

[27:20] There's an exhortation here for us about sharing and being generous with fellow Christians in need. In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul prepares the Corinthian church for the offering, the collection he will make when he visits them, so that the funds can be used to relieve the poor saints in the church in Jerusalem, because they were not doing well, affected by famine.

[27:42] And at the end of the passage, Paul cites this verse, Exodus 16, 18. He says to the Corinthians, your abundance at the present time should supply their need so that their abundance may supply your need that there may be fairness.

[27:59] As it is written, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. So in the wilderness, as the Israelites gathered as much as they could eat, some more, some less, and yet each person was allotted an omer of manna, no more, no less, and in God's economy, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.

[28:20] So this is what Paul is saying. Some of you in the church, in the Corinthian church, you have gathered much, while others, in other churches, the church in Jerusalem, they have gathered little. Some of you are rich, while other believers are poor.

[28:35] And it's God's intention that the saints who have abundance should supply the saints who have need so that there is no lack among God's people. And when fortunes turn, and one day it is you who have need, these other saints will then have your back and supply your need.

[28:54] We often fail to give because we are worried that there won't be enough left for us, don't we? Well, if I give to that Christian brother or sister now, will I have enough money for the future?

[29:06] Inflation is pinching my budget, and who knows, I might lose my job in the near future or remain jobless for the foreseeable future. But this is the scarcity mindset of a spiritual orphan who fears for tomorrow, not knowing that she has a heavenly father who cares for her.

[29:24] And this is also the mindset of independence. Each man for himself. I fend for myself, I provide myself, you provide for yourself. But God calls us as God's people not to independence, but to interdependence.

[29:40] We are to live as a community of mutual trust and provision, which is described in Acts 4, 34 to 35. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

[30:03] You guys have historically done this really, really well. I know people who have paid thousands of dollars of debt for other church members, people who have paid for oral surgery that they couldn't do, people who paid for who were jobless during COVID times.

[30:20] We are to give without reservation because we know that our brothers and sisters in Christ will have our backs and will rise to the occasion to supply what we need in the future.

[30:35] We are to give without fear because we know that our Heavenly Father is our ultimate provider. And this applies not only to giving within the local church, but also to giving between local churches.

[30:47] For example, Paul in 2 Corinthians 8 applies this principle in Exodus 16, 18 to the Corinthian church giving to the Jerusalem church, to another church in a different part of the Roman Empire.

[30:59] We do this as a church in part by giving a portion of our money to our denomination, Sovereign Grace Churches, each month. Most of the money that we give to our denomination gets funneled to our region's missions budget, and recently, our region used some of that funds to give $7,500 toward our denomination's Ukrainian Relief Fund, which is supporting a church that is connected with our denomination in Dnipro, Ukraine.

[31:26] Here's an excerpt from an email that we received, some of the pastors received from this pastor in the Ukrainian church. I cut out the details about the rockets and different things, but he says, Friends, every time we receive money, I get very excited, and every time I cry because of God's care for us.

[31:43] The more dangerous the situation in our city becomes, the more people come to our services. We distribute 300 food parcels every week to refugees and displaced people from bombed-out cities.

[31:57] We are looking for every opportunity to pray for these people and share the gospel with them. We thank the Lord for your generosity and faithfulness to the gospel, all for the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

[32:09] Christ. We as a church in Cambridge have abundance now, but here is another church in a different part of the world that has need now, and God is using us to provide for the church in a small way so that whoever gathers much has nothing left over, and whoever gathers little has no lack.

[32:32] The gracious provision of manna also brings a test of God with it. The Lord said to Moses early in verses 45, Behold, I'm about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.

[32:52] The test is to see whether the Israelites will walk in God's law or not, and what is God's law here? One of them was this. Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.

[33:04] God had promised in verse 4 to provide for everyone a day's portion every day. He was not going to provide for them a week's portion of food or a month's portion of food.

[33:18] He was only going to provide a day's portion so that they have to learn to trust God for their daily provision. But, it says in verse 20, they did not listen to Moses.

[33:33] Some left part of it till the morning, and it breathed worms and stank, and Moses was angry with them. I'm very compassionate toward these frugal Israelites because I would be one of those people, I think.

[33:54] These are the kind of people who are always saved and prepared for the future. You guys know exactly who you are. Despite the fact that they were given just enough to eat, they choose to eat a little less so they could save it for tomorrow.

[34:16] You know, if God were not in the picture, that would be a very shrewd thing to do. But in light of God's promise that He would provide manna for them daily, it betrays a grievous lack of trust in God.

[34:30] You could imagine the conversation at the dinner table. The father rations out only half of the manna that they got for the day. And then you could imagine the kids complaining, grumbling, saying, Dad, I'm still hungry.

[34:46] Can I have some more of that manna? He's like, hey, watch it. That's for tomorrow. Dad, but didn't Mr. Moses tell us that God's going to give us new manna tomorrow?

[35:00] Kid, I know better than you. Yeah, he said he's going to give it tomorrow, but how do you know? How do you know? What if God is not there tomorrow?

[35:12] What if He goes on vacation? What if He decides He doesn't want us to be His people anymore one day and we don't have food to eat? Then you'll be glad I saved some of this for tomorrow.

[35:27] Think about that from our Heavenly Father's perspective. I would be heartbroken if my daughters started hoarding food at the dinner table.

[35:40] If I found out that they were intentionally not eating and putting away half their dinner every night because they were worried that they might go hungry.

[35:50] I would ask them, do you not know that I am your Father? Do you not know that I love you?

[36:03] Do you not know that I would go hungry myself to make sure I put food on your table? Do you not know that I would work night and day to make sure you have food on your table?

[36:17] Do you not know that you're my beloved daughter? Do you not know that I am your Father? this was exactly what the Israelites were doing to the Lord.

[36:32] There's a heartbreaking mistrust of their Heavenly Father and God would have none of it. People try to save the manna overnight and it breathes warms and stinks.

[36:48] It's incredible food, this manna. it's like it's been engineered precisely to cultivate trust in God's provision.

[37:01] So they have to depend on it morning by morning it says in verse 21. Brothers and sisters, children of God, do you know also that the Lord provides for your needs daily morning by morning?

[37:16] this is why Jesus taught us to pray to our Heavenly Father, give us each day our daily bread, not our weeks worth of bread.

[37:29] There's a reason why Jesus taught us, therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble. God sustains us on a daily basis, so if you're worried that you don't have what you need for tomorrow, well that's because God hasn't provided for you yet, but he will.

[37:52] Whether you are a millionaire, or whether you live from hand to mouth, God calls every Christian to trust in him daily for his provision. With the stock market crash, all your investments can be wiped out in a day.

[38:11] With the hurricane, your house can be destroyed in a day. With an accident, your car can be totaled in a day. With the recession, you can lose your job in a day. With the war, you can lose your very life in a day.

[38:28] Your money is uncertain. Your property is uncertain. Your life, your tomorrow is uncertain, but the Lord who loves you and the Lord who provides for you every single day is a certainty.

[38:42] eternity. This is why the Christians all over the world have a habit of praying before their meals.

[38:53] It's not because it's a law that we have to observe, but because we're trying to remind ourselves that we can't even take this meal for granted. It's from the hand of the Lord. Are you worried about the economy or climate change or about wars?

[39:14] Don't eat the bread of anxious toil by worrying about tomorrow. Receive with thankfulness God's provision of bread for today and entrust tomorrow to Him as well.

[39:27] Lamentations 3, 22-23 says this, The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.

[39:40] Great is your faithfulness. This test of manna was also intended to teach the Israelites that there is something more fundamental to their survival than bread.

[39:54] Recalling God's provision of manna in the wilderness, Deuteronomy 8-3 says this, And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

[40:17] This is a very important lesson for us believers. There was something more basic to Israel's existence than bread. It was the word of God. His commands and His promises.

[40:30] The Lord has said that He would provide manna for them every morning, and it's that word that sustains the Israelites. It is short-sighted of the Israelites to try to cling to manna like their survival depends on it, when it is the Lord who supplies it morning by morning.

[40:50] Their survival does not depend on manna. Their survival depends on the Lord who supplies it. So they should cling to Him. They should cling to His word.

[41:02] The wilderness is the training ground for the Israelites before they enter the promised land Canaan that flows with milk and honey. They must learn here in the wilderness that it is the Lord who provides for them that they don't provide for themselves.

[41:17] Christian brothers and sisters, are you more concerned about bread or about the word of God? Are you more concerned about having your needs and desires met than about knowing God and believing His word?

[41:32] God, if you're right with God, everything else will be rightly ordered in your life. If you seek God's kingdom first, all the things you need, He will add those things to you as well.

[41:51] In John 6, Jesus multiplies five barley loaves and two fish to feed 5,000 men and there's so much left over that they fill 12 baskets with leftover crumbs of the barley loaves and after that miracle, a large crowd follows Him around and Jesus says to them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

[42:15] Just like the Israelites in Moses' day, these Jews are fixating on bread rather than fixing their eyes on the Lord. So Jesus tells them that they should believe in Him whom God has sent.

[42:29] He's referring to Himself. And then the skeptics ask Jesus, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness.

[42:40] As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat, and they had Moses in mind. But Jesus responds to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father from heaven who gives.

[42:56] He said, my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. At that point, the crowds think this bread is better than manna.

[43:07] They're like, we want some of that bread. Can you give us that bread instead? And then Jesus' response in John 6, 35, absolutely floors them. He says, I am the bread of life.

[43:20] whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Jesus says at the Last Supper that his body is what's broken for us.

[43:34] He's the bread broken for us to eat. He says later in that same chapter in John 6, 51, that the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Jesus is speaking of his impending death on the cross.

[43:47] He's going to give his life, his body will be torn, his blood will be shed, so that he could be the bread of life, the heavenly bread, the true heavenly bread that gives eternal life to all of his people.

[44:02] And that bread is more basic to our survival, more basic to our identity, more basic to our existence than even the bread we eat.

[44:17] Baguettes, I love bread, baguettes, croissants, pitas, tortillas, rice cakes, I love them all.

[44:30] But they only nourish us temporarily. We'll get hungry again. But Jesus, the bread of life, nourishes us unto eternity, and we will never hunger again.

[44:47] And how do you eat this bread? Jesus gave us the answer when he said, I am the bread of life. He said, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

[44:58] You eat the bread of life by coming to Jesus. You eat the bread of life by believing in Jesus. Faith is the hand and mouth of our souls, as we say sometimes in our communion liturgy.

[45:10] In Jesus, we see the Lord's provision. In Jesus, we see the Lord's faithfulness. In Jesus, we see the Lord's steadfast love. So let's quit our grumbling against God.

[45:24] Instead, find our daily sustenance in the bread of life. Let's pray together. Amen. Oh Lord, only you could have imagined such a solution to our spiritual hunger.

[45:47] Lord Jesus, the bread of life, you're so sweet to the taste. When we taste of you, we taste and see that the Lord is good.

[46:04] So much better than manna in the wilderness, so much better than the way bread of the elves and ambrosia of Greek and Roman mythologies. Lord, this is truly the bread from heaven.

[46:20] Lord Jesus, we cling to you. We believe in you. Thank you for the gift of life you have given us.

[46:33] Sustain us to the end of our days. For your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.