Lessons From the Manna

Lessons From the Manna

(No. 2332)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, OCTOBER 29, 1893.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 12, 1889.

"Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from Heaven
for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every
day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My Law, or no."
Exodus 16:4.

IT seems to us that it must have been a very difficult thing to supply
food for the hundreds of thousands, I shall not be incorrect if I say
the millions who were in the wilderness. But, difficult as that was,
the commissariat was not so difficult as the education. To train that
mob of slaves into a nation under discipline–to lift up those who had
been in bondage and make them fit to enjoy national privileges–this
was the Herculean task that Moses had to perform. And their God, who
loved the children of Israel and chose them–and determined to make
them a peculiar people unto Himself, undertook to teach them–and He
used their food as part of the means of their education. Animals are
often taught through their food. When they cannot be reached in any
other way, they have been instructed by their hunger, by their thirst
and by their feeding. And the Lord, who knew of what a coarse nature
Israel was composed, and how the people had degenerated from the old
stock during their long bondage, took care to teach them by every
means, not only by the higher and the more spiritual, by the typical
and symbolical, but He also taught them by their hunger and by their
thirst, by the supply of water from the Rock and by the manna which He
rained from Heaven.

We will try to see, tonight, what the Lord taught them, but we will do
more than that–we will try to learn what they learned and somewhat
more. May the Holy Spirit, Himself, be our Teacher and as He has often
taught us the most Divine lessons by the bread and wine, preaching to
our very hearts by what seemed the lowly ministry of food and drink, so
may He, tonight, teach us by that angels' bread which with Israel was
fed in the wilderness long years ago!

First, I invite you to consider how the Lord taught these people by His
gift. And next, how He taught them by making this gift a test to them.
Thirdly, I shall have to show how He teaches its lessons as to temporal
things. And lastly, how He instructs us as to our spiritual food.

I. First, then, dear Friends, let us Consider HOW THE LORD TAUGHT THESE
PEOPLE BY HIS GIFT.

He wanted them to know Him. His great desire was that they should know
Jehovah, their God. If they knew God, they would know all else, for,
after all, "the proper study of mankind" is God. And when man knows his
God, he knows himself. But if he thinks that he knows himself while he
knows not his God, he is greatly mistaken.

God desired, then, to teach them, Himself, by the gift of the manna.
And He taught them, first, His care over them, that He was their God,
and that they were His people and that He would lay Himself out to
provide for them. Think of the care that God had over them, over each
one of them, for each man had his own omer of manna. No woman, no child
was forgotten. Every morning there was sufficient quantity for every
man, according to his needs for that day. There was no more and there
was never any less, so carefully did God watch over each individual.
The individuality of the Divine Love is a great part of the sweetness
of it. God thinks of every separate child of His as much as if He had
only that one. The multiplicity of His elect does not divide the loaf
of His affection. He has an infinite affection for each one and He will
take care of the details of each chosen life. He will see your omer
filled, precisely, to the ounce! He will give you all you can possibly
need, but He will give you nothing that you can lay by to minister to
your pride.

And this care was shown every day. The Lord taught them the continuity
of His remembrance by its coming every day. If He had sent one great
rain of liberalities to refresh His inheritance and had told them
gather up the vast store and

carry it with them in all their journeying, they could not so well have
learned His care as when He sent it fresh every morning. Besides, they
would have had the burden of carrying it and they were free from that,
for the heavenly supplies were always close at hand, exactly at the
spot where they pitched their tents and tarried. Every morning, there
was the manna precisely where they needed it, and that without any
man's shoulder being made raw by carrying his food in his
kneading-trough. The Lord teaches you and me in the same way, that He
not only cares for each one, but cares for each one each day and each
moment, tracking our footsteps and meting out the full supply of the
hour according as the peculiar necessity arises. "He is always
thoughtful, always thoughtful of me," you may say of your Lord–"always
thoughtful of all the brotherhood, of the whole company of the
redeemed, but none the less thoughtful of each one because there are so
many myriads to be cared for every moment of every day." Was not that a
sweet lesson for the children of Israel to learn as they gathered their
daily bread?

But Jehovah taught them, next, His greatness. He had taught them that
in Egypt by His mighty plagues and, at the Red Sea, when He branded the
breast of the waters with His mighty rod. But now He gently taught them
His greatness, His exceeding greatness, first, by the quantity of the
manna. There was enough for them all. How much it required, I leave
arithmeticians to calculate–I cannot go into that question tonight.
And remember, that quantity fell every morning for 40 years! What a
great God is He who could feed the canvas city of His chosen people for
40 years at a stretch and yet without His stores being ever drained!
His greatness was also seen by the mode in which He fed these myriads.
Usually our bread springs up from the soil, but these people were in a
waste land–a howling wilderness! Wonder of wonders, their bread came
down from the sky! Shall men live on air? Will you sustain a population
on mist, cloud and dew? Yet out of a seeming vacuum came a constant
plenty! Every morning the earth was covered with the heaped-up food of
all that multitude and they had nothing to do but to go out and gather
it. What a God is this whose marching through the wilderness were so
marvelous! Jehovah, Your paths drop fatness! Wherever You place your
feet, the wilderness and the solitary place are glad! If You lead Your
people through a desert, it is no desert to them! The heavens supply
what the earth denies. Behold, the greatness of your God, you who are
fed by His care!

And, next, they learned His liberality combined with His greatness, for
everyday they were fed, but not fed as Joseph supplied the people in
Egypt, when he took from them all their stores to buy the corn and, at
last, took themselves to be bondsmen unto Pharaoh–and their lands to
be Pharaoh's freehold that they might live. No, there was never a
pretense of paying for that daily bread. The richest man had his omer
filled, but he paid not a penny for it. And the poorest man had his
omer just as full at the same price! There was "nothing to pay"–no
manna-tax was ever exacted of the Israelite's hand. Oh, the liberality
of God! His cry is, "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and
he that has no money; come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk."
Do you notice how Jehovah's invitation grows? He says at first, "Come
to the waters," but He corrects Himself before He gets through with it,
and says, "Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."
The Lord is infinitely good, essentially. He is growingly good,
experimentally. The more we trust Him, the more we discover of His
liberality! He "gives liberally and upbraids not." He scarcely
upbraided Israel despite their frequent murmuring and the manna fell
continually–and the abundance of it must always have struck the
people. God's liberality never stinted them. Oh, yes, I have no doubt
that it is quite right to weigh out the bread and to weigh out the
meat–so much bone and so much fat to be allowed to every prisoner in
the jail–and possibly to every pauper in the poor house! But that is
not God's way of going to work. Though we deserve to be in prison and
though we are, all of us, pensioners on His bounty, yet He gives each
one his omer full. If a man has a large appetite, he may eat as much as
he likes and the manna seems to grow while he is eating. And if he has
a small appetite, though he may have gathered much, yet he will still
have nothing left over. God supplied the manna bountifully, yet exactly
according to the capacity of the receiver.

This brings me to say that the children of Israel also learned God's
Immutability, for they had been fed with manna all through the
wilderness. Some old man may have said, "I remember going out the first
time to gather my omerful. I was astonished at it! And my neighbors
kept calling out, 'Man-hu? Man-hu? Man-hu?' They were all wonderstruck!
They did not know what to call it, so they asked, 'What is it?' They
called it, 'Manhu?' And now," he said, "I have been out all these
years. Thank God, I have never had a swollen foot so that I could not
go out to gather it! It has always been just as white and just as round
and just as plentiful and just as near my tent as at the first! I used
to live over on the left side of the camp and I moved to the right, but
I always found that the manna was equally plentiful in every direction
wherever I

went. And it is so now," the old man would say, "it is so now and it is
just as sweet, and just as plentiful, and just as freely to be had for
nothing by every man who chooses to go out and gather it. Blessed be
God, He changes not and, therefore, we sons of Jacob are not consumed!
If He had changed, the manna would have failed us and we would have
been consumed with hunger."

Jehovah still lives, O child of God! You have just buried one very dear
to you, but the Lord still lives–He never fails. It may be that your
income is getting shorter–the Brook Cherith is drying up and the
ravens have not been with the bread and meat lately. Jehovah still
lives–and there is a widow over at Zarephath who will have her
commission to take care of the Lord's servant. Jehovah lives! His eyes
are not dim, His ears are not heavy, His arms are not short! Therefore
trust in the unchanging God and be not afraid! The manna shall fall
from Heaven till you shall eat the old corn in Canaan!

Do you not think, Beloved, that from this gift the children of Israel
also learned God's wisdom? If they were not sensible enough to know it,
He had given them the best food that He could give them. In that hot
climate, if they had eaten meat continually, they would often have been
ill. When the Lord did allow them quail in answer to their cravings,
while the meat was yet in their months they were taken with deadly
sickness. It was unwholesome for them to have meat–this manna from on
high was the best thing for people living in tents, journeying from
place to place, over a burning sand, beneath a scorching sky. The Lord
had adapted the food to the people, yet they said, "Our soul loathes
this light bread." The very name they gave to it showed that it was
just the right sort of food for them, easy of digestion. God had
adapted their food to their position in the wilderness–no doctor could
have drawn up a dietary table that was equal in wisdom to the one
prepared by God for His people while they were in that condition!

And He showed His wisdom, too, in the quantity provided–it was always
the right measure. "He that gathered much had nothing over." The manna
seemed to shrink to the right quantity. "He that gathered little had no
lack." The manna seemed to swell and increase so that there was exactly
enough to an ounce for all those multitudes. Oh, the infinite wisdom of
God! How I have often admired His promptness to a moment, His exactness
to a drachma, for with Him there are no more small mistakes than great
ones! He never errs in any sense or way, but He hits the mark precisely
in all that He does!

And then, once more, the Israelites must have learned His goodness
because He had not supplied them with tasteless food. According to the
Apocrypha, which is not to be received as Scripture, but still is often
valuable in some respects, each man tasted the manna according to his
own liking. There was something about it that enabled the mouth to give
its own flavor to it. And their marching through the wilderness, their
weariness, would often add a sauce to it that made it exceedingly sweet
to them. It was like wafers made with honey, not at all unpalatable. It
was, as I have already told you, like fresh oil, by no means
disagreeable to an Eastern. God did not give them beggar's food, spare
scraps and broken victuals. He had said, "I will rain bread from Heaven
for you," and He kept His Word. The least bit of Heaven's bread must be
delicious to the taste. "Man did eat angels' food," said the Psalmist,
and that cannot be bad food which falls from the table of cherubim and
seraphim, such food as spirits might partake of if they might partake
of any–light, and pure, and ethereal, and spiritual–as far removed
from the grosser forms of materialism as food well could be! It was a
godlike food for a godlike race if they had but been worthy of their
destiny and had been willing to learn what God was so ready to teach
them.

II. Notice, dear Friends, in the second place, HOW THE LORD TAUGHT
THESE PEOPLE BY MAKING THIS MANNA A TEST TO THEM.

Their position was, in many respects, a very pleasant one. They had not
to work for daily bread–they had only to go out and gather it. There
it was, but here is the point for us to observe. It was given every
day–they never had any store. A man who gathered manna for 20 years
might say, in language that I have often heard, "I ain't a bit
forwarder. I am just where I was 20 years ago," as if it were not
getting forwarder to be 20 years older and to have had 20 years of
mercy! Yet there was no store of manna–all up and down the wilderness
there was not a single bank in which people could put their money!
There was no such thing as a dividend to be received by anybody and
nobody could be laying up anything. Each Israelite had what he needed
for the day–he kept on having just so much and no more–and this was a
test. Could he endure that test?

And then, again, as there was no store for the whole of them, and they
did not get any richer, so there was no opportunity for greed, for it
was given to every man. He who thrust out his two hands to rake up the
manna, when he returned to his tent, had an omerful for himself, his
wife and his eight children, but he had not any more. He thought the
next day, perhaps, that he would sweep away by the half-hour together
if he could, as long as the dew was remaining, and get an extra
quantity–but when he examined it, he had exactly as much as he and his
family could eat and no more! The rest was all gone, evaporated, and
nothing was left over and above what he needed. And his poor palsied
neighbor, who could only get a little together in his basin with his
one good hand, found that, somehow, he had enough, for God made it to
grow in the basin! And when he looked at it, there was just enough for
the day's supply.

"Oh," says one, "I would like that." Well, I agree with you. I would
like that, too. But how long would you like it? I dare say about as
long as these Israelites did and you would begin grumbling, just as
they did. Here was God's test of them–every day and no store–every
man and no greed! It is so with Grace–God gives us as much Grace as we
need, but there is nobody here who has any Grace laid up. Oh, yes, I
heard one person say that she had so much Divine Grace that she had not
sinned for months. Ugh! I thought I smelt something! I did not say
anything, but I remembered what manna does when it is kept and there I
left the subject. I hope none of you think that you have more Grace
than you need, because you have not! You may, possibly, have as much
Grace as will last you through today, but you will need as much as that
tomorrow morning, if not more. Oh, yes, I know that you have an iron
safe and you go and rattle your keys and you say, "Look here! I have
Grace enough locked up for the next six weeks."

Go again and you will be glad to run away from the stench, for you will
find that you have locked up so much pride, and nothing else! We do not
need dying Grace till we come to die! Be satisfied to have living Grace
while you live! You do not need Grace to preach, tonight, dear
Friends–you need Grace to sit and listen. That may, perhaps, require
as much Grace as I need for preaching, but do not ask for my Grace, as
I will not ask for yours. Eat your own manna! Eat it–do not lay it
up–it is not meant to be stored up, it must be eaten. This gift of the
manna, everyday for every man, was a test by which the Lord taught the
children of Israel.

So was that Friday storing, when they said to themselves, "We get into
the habit of gathering our food every morning, but here comes this
Friday, when we have to gather twice as much." I do like consistency,
always doing the same thing, but here is a command to do twice as much,
once a week–here is a law that shifts a bit. I like systematic
theology, but here is a sliding seat. Here is a double supply for
Friday and I have to store half of it up. So one man did not store it
up when he was told to do so and another man tried to store it up when
he was told not to do so. Thus the Lord tested and tried them. It is a
wonderful thing, that testing to which God puts us! Sometimes, when we
think that we have such a surplus of faith in Him, He just tests us and
we find that we have not any! The most grand life is a life of
dependence upon God, for that is true independence! If you wholly
depend upon God, then you have risen to independence. He who has
nothing but what God gives him, day by day, has a competence. He is the
man who has saved most who has least, for he is saved from the worry of
taking care of it! If he is still dependent upon God's Providence and
faith can keep her hold, he is the best off man after all!

You said that you envied the Israelites. Ah, well, you may, but you
need faith, or else what might be a theme of envy becomes a subject of
discontent. So I leave that point.

III. My time has pretty well gone, so I will only hint at what I would
have said had there been time. Observe, HOW THE LORD TEACHES US BY THIS
MANNA AS TO TEMPORAL THINGS.

First, He teaches us that our supplies depend upon Him. Where did all
the manna come from? It all came from God. Child of God, all your
supplies must come from God! Learn that. Whatever the second causes,
whatever the intermediary sources, all you are to have will come when
all you have had has come, namely, from God.

Learn, next, that our supplies are sure to faith. If the manna did not
fail for 40 years, neither will the Lord fail to supply your needs.
Your God will give you your livery if you are His servant. He will give
you your daily rations, also, if you serve Him. "Seek first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto
you." He who carves for himself will cut his fingers and get an empty
plate. But he who waits for the great Host of all the chosen family to
carve for him shall have enough and that of the best. "My God shall
supply all your needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ
Jesus."

But learn from the children of Israel that our supplies will have to be
gathered and prepared by ourselves. God sent the manna from Heaven, but
the people had to go out every morning and get it–and when they had
gathered it–we read that they used to beat it in mortars, or grind it
in mills, bake it in pans and make it into cakes. God is not the patron
of idleness. He will have His people work and His rule is, "If any man
will not work, neither shall he eat," a rule He often carries out with
those who are idlers. But, Beloved, we thank God for opportunities for
diligence. Though labor came at first as a curse, God has turned it
into a blessing.

And, once more, our supplies ought to content us, for the children of
Israel had enough for all their needs. They had no superfluities, but
they had all-sufficiency. They had no luxuries, but yet, if they chose
to think so, their daily mercies became luxuries to them. Oh, that God
might teach us to trust Him as to temporals!

IV. Now for my last point and I beg your patience for a few minutes
only. HOW THE LORD TEACHES US BY THIS MANNA AS TO OUR SPIRITUAL FOOD.
Here, also, I will only give you hints.

Every day you and I ought to go forth and find food for our spiritual
life. Ah, but have you all received spiritual life? Some of you, it may
be, are dead while you live–without God and without Christ. May the
Lord quicken you by His life-giving Spirit!

But if you have spiritual life, you must feed it, and God will give you
manna from Heaven, that is, Christ, Himself, with which to feed your
soul! He is that Bread of Life which came down from Heaven and you must
feed on Him. Take care that you go diligently to work to get this
spiritual food. The Israelites were up to gather the manna which fell
morning by morning. Be not idlers with the Word of God–search it. Got
up early in the morning to read your Bible if you cannot do it at other
times. Steal from your sleep a happy hour to read the Scriptures.
Diligently and earnestly seek the Lord, for He has said, "They that
seek Me early shall find Me."

Then, as I hinted in the reading, the manna was always encased in dew.
They took care to gather this, for then it became sweet dew to them.
May the Word of the Lord always have a dew upon it to you! The critic
takes God's Word and he treats it as the sun did the manna–he pours a
dry heat upon it–and it evaporates, and it is gone. Oh, those critics!
What a mass of manna they have altogether evaporated! But the child of
God takes care that he loses nothing of what God has revealed. Every
Word is precious to him, yes, every jot and tittle and, under the
bedewing influences of the Holy Spirit, he constantly gathers Christ
fresh, always new, and he finds His flesh to be meat, indeed, and His
blood to be drink, indeed!

Again, the manna was to be continually sought. So must your spiritual
food. Do not try to live on last year's manna. Stale experiences are
poor food. I know no dish that is worse than cold experience–you need
to have a daily realization of the things of God. Hourly feed on
Christ, for the food of years past will be of small account to you.
Continually go about the meadows and feed, sheep of the Lord! Go again
and again to the still waters, drink and be satisfied.

In the case of this manna, the gatherers were pleased with little. It
was a small, round thing, like coriander seed, or like the hoarfrost.
So be very thankful to get a little bit out of God's Word. If you only
find one new thought, one fresh idea, pick it up and put it in the
omer. A great many of these precious little things will make rare food
for a hungry spirit. Get the food for your soul, little by little. You
can imagine how they probably had to gather it. I suppose that they
went down on their knees to get it, for it was always down low, just on
the hoarfrost that lay on the desert sand. Look at them all stooping
down to gather it up! And the bulk of them, I think, were on their
knees gathering it. That is the way to get the heavenly food–gather it
on your knees! Stoop low with humility! Bond to the very ground in
prayerfulness and so gather up the coriander seed–no, I mean the
heavenly manna–and go your way rejoicing!

And it was always for immediate consumption. Whenever you get a Divine
promise, go and pray over it and use it at once. Whenever you see a
duty, do it. Do not leave one single part of God's Word to lie void. If
anything in the Word of God is impressed upon your mind, let it get
into your very soul and let it be carried out in your practice. Eat the
manna as soon as you get it and use, to God's glory, the strength
derived from it.

Lastly, like the Israelites, sometimes you will get double supplies.
There is a difference between us and the children of Israel, for we
generally get a double supply on the Sabbath. Oh, how we ought to thank
God for our Sabbaths, when the Lord is with us, or when He makes the
manna to lie on the dew and we come up to His House, and go away with
our omers full! Happy Sabbaths! They become the marked days of the week
and we go from Sunday to Monday, and Monday

to Thursday, and Thursday to Sunday, again, thanking God that the
heavenly bread still comes down to meet our rising prayers and
thanksgivings!

God bless you, dear Friends! May He make His Word sweeter to us every
day we live! May we have good appetites to feed on it! As for you who
have never known the flavor of the heavenly food, I say again, as I
said a few minutes ago, may the Lord quicken you by His own life-giving
Spirit, for Jesus' sake! Amen!

EXPOSITIONS BY C. H. SPURGEON: EXODUS 16:1-5,11-36; NUMBERS11:1-10.

Exodus 16:1, 2. And they took their journey from Elim, and all the
congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin,
which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second
month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. And the whole
congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron
in the wilderness. They have been only about six weeks in the
wilderness and already they are up in arms against their leaders.
Remember that we have the same kind of people to deal with as Moses and
Aaron had. The children of Israel were no better than any other nation
and I do not think they were any worse. We may take them as a fair
average of human nature, which is a discontented, rebellious thing in
the best of circumstances.

3. And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died
by the hands of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the
fleshpots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for you have brought
us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
They forgot all about the brick-making, the whips and the iron bondage.
They remembered nothing but the fleshpots of Egypt. Ah, me, how soon,
when we escape from a great trial, we forget it! The present much
smaller one seems far heavier than that which is past.

4. Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from Heaven
for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every
day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My Law, or no.
See God's answer to man's murmuring? They send up their complaint and
He promises to rain bread down from above! It is a blessed story on
God's part all along–a rain of mercy for a smoke of complaining.

5. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare
that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather
daily. Now let us read at the 11th verse.

11, 12. And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, I have heard the
murmurings of the children of Israel. "I have heard them." God always
hears. Oh, His wonderful patience! If He took no notice of the
murmurers, or punished them for their wickedness, we would have no
cause for wonder, but He is long-suffering, even to those who do not
deserve His pity.

12. Speak unto them, saying, At even you shall eat flesh, and in the
morning you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am
the LORD your God. "There shall be no mistake about who I am. I will
work this miracle in such a Godlike style and on such a Divine scale,
that you shall know that I am Jehovah your God."

13-16. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and
covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.
And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the
wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoarfrost on
the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said, one to
another, It is manna: for they knew not what it was. And Moses said
unto them, This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat. This
is the thing which the LORD has commanded, gather of it every man
according to his eating, an omer for every man. About two pints and a
half, I think. But according to some calculations, two quarts, or
thereabouts. There would be more sustenance in it than in a
half-quartern loaf of bread per diem–"An omer for every man."

16-18. According to the number of your persons; take you every man for
them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and
gathered, some more, some less. And when they did measure it with an
omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered
little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.
God meant it to be so. Not every man according to his avarice, that he
might save any of it, but "every man according to his eating." God took
care that neither should feebleness be stinted, nor should greed have
any excess.

19-22. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning.
Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of
it until the morning and it bred worms and stank: and Moses was angry
with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to
his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass,
that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for
one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told

Moses. He had told them that it would be so, but they evidently did not
accept the message that he had delivered to them as the very Word of
Jehovah, their God, so that, when it was fulfilled, it struck them with
wonder–and they "came and told Moses."

23. And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD has said. How
often could that answer be made to us! God hears our prayer and we run
and say, "What a wonderful thing! God has heard my prayer!" "This is
that which the Lord has said." Is it a strange thing that what Jehovah
has said is proved to be true? And is it a subject for surprise that He
should keep His promise? You dishonor God when you talk after this
fashion!

23. Tomorrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the LORD. And yet the
Sabbath had not been instituted according to the Law of God, which
proves that its foundation lay deeper and earlier than the promulgation
of the Ten Commandments! It is bound up with the essential arrangement
of time since the creation–"This is that which the Lord has said,
Tomorrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord."

23-27. Bake that which you will bake today, and churn that you will
churn, and that which remains over lay up for you to be kept until the
morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses said and it did
not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that
today for today is a Sabbath unto the LORD: today you shall not find it
in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day,
which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass,
that there went out, some of the people, on the seventh day for to
gather, and they found none. They might have expected it to be so, but
they would not believe, and as they would not believe, they must put
the Word of God to the test. But it endures the trial–it is always
true! Oh, that men would, in a believing spirit, test the Word of God,
instead of doing it after this skeptical fashion!

28-31. And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse you to keep My
Commandments and My Laws? See, for that the LORD has given you the
Sabbath, therefore He gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days;
abide you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the
seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. And the house of
Israel called the name thereof Manna. Or, "What is it?" It was
something too amazing to be understood and they kept the expression of
their wonderment as the name of their Bread from Heaven. When they
first saw it, they exclaimed, "Man-

hu?" "Manhu?" "What is it?" "What is it?" Thus it received its Hebrew
name, Manna, but God called it, "Bread from

Heaven."

31-33. And it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was
like wafers made with honey. And Moses said, This is the thing which
the LORD commands, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations;
that they may see the bread where with I have fed you in the
wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. And Moses
said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and
lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations. This
production, which would not keep a single day under ordinary
circumstances, would keep for two days to supply the needs of the
Sabbath–and it would keep for generations as a memorial of God's
goodness to His chosen people during their 40 years' wanderings through
the wilderness. We may be quite sure that Aaron would not have kept a
stinking thing laid up before the Lord.

34-36. As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the
Testimony, to be kept. And the children of Israel did eat manna forty
years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna until
they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is the
tenth part of an ephah. Now I want you to read in the Book of Numbers.
Further on in the history of the children of Israel, when the people
had long been in the wilderness–the same kind of thing happened again.

Numbers 11:1. And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD.
Interpreters cannot make out what they had to complain of. The curse of
labor had been removed. They did not earn their bread with the sweat of
their face, for it fell from Heaven every day. They were at no expense
for clothing and though they journeyed, their feet did not swell. I
suppose that they complained of the weather. It was too cold. It was
too hot. It was too wet. It was too dry. They complained when they
stood still–they were much too long in a place. They complained when
they marched–they moved too often. In fact, they were very like
ourselves! They often complained most when they had least to complain
of. Discontent is chronic to our humanity and I do not believe that the
poorest are the most discontented. It is often the very reverse. When a
man is put in a place where he has nothing to complain of, especially
if he is an Englishman, he feels quite

out of place. He must have something to grumble at, something or other
to be a grievance or else he is not happy. "When the people complained,
it displeased the Lord."

1. And the LORD heard it; and His anger was kindled; and the fire of
the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost
parts of the camp. He could hear their first murmuring, as they were
new to the wilderness– they were hungry, they were thirsty–and the
Lord pitied them. But now, when there was no reason for their
complaining, His fire in terrible judgment visited His people on
account of their rebellion and murmuring against the goodness of

God.

2-4. And the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the
LORD, the fire was quenched. And he called the name of the place
Taberah: because the fire of the LORD burnt among them. And the mixed
multitude that was among them fell a lusting. All evil seems to begin
there, among "the mixed multitude," as it does among those church
members who are unconverted, and among those people who try to hold
with the hare and run with the hounds–those who want to be Christians
and worldlings, too!

4. And the children of Israel also wept, again, and said, Who shall
give us flesh to eat? Even the true people of God caught the infection
of the scum that was mixed with them and they fell a-weeping and said–

5. We remember the fish which we did freely eat in Egypt; the
cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the
garlic. Fine stuff to remember! "Why," you say, "you have read
something before very much like that." I am reading another record, but
there is no originality in grumbling–it is always the same old thing
over again. You might well suppose that I was reading in the Book of
Exodus, but I am not–there are many years in between. He who sits down
with a discontented hand to paint a picture will paint the same picture
that he painted before. There is no originality in the murmuring,
although they put in a few new touches. Before, it was the flesh pots
that they remembered–now, in addition to the flesh, there are these
savory vegetables–"the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and
the onions, and the garlic."

6. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all beside this
manna before our eyes. Here they pour contempt upon the bread of
angels, upon the Food of Heaven, upon the benison of God! Oh, what will
men not complain of?

7. And the manna was as coriander seed, and the color thereof as the
color of bdellium. A fine white color, like a pearl.

8. And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills,
or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and
the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. At first they thought it
was like wafers made with honey. Getting more used to it, they,
perhaps, described it quite as accurately, but not quite so
sweetly–they said it was like fresh oil, and there is no better taste
than that. Oil, by the time it comes to us, has usually a rank and
rancid taste, but in the oil countries it is delicious, and he who has
bread and a drop or two of oil will find himself not ill supplied with
a dinner–

"The taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil."

9. And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell
upon it. God took care to preserve His precious gift, encasing each
single particle of it within a drop of dew, which gave it freshness.
And when the Grace of God comes to us encased in the dew of the Spirit,
how sweet is its taste! May it be so to us whenever we feed on Christ!

10. Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every
man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled
greatly; Moses also was displeased. And no wonder! Meek man as he was,
they vexed his gracious spirit by their perpetual murmuring. As we read
this sad story, let us, as in a glass, see ourselves–and let us deeply
repent of our murmuring and complaining, and henceforth sing–

"I will praise You every day! Now Your anger's turned away." Perhaps
our next hymn (Number 697) will help us that way.